ned
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Posts posted by ned
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Ned:
I really enjoyed the sweetbreads here. I'm not sure I can add any more than what's already in the pic's caption. The presentation varies. On another night the strips were chopped up a bit. Either way, it always ends up looking a bit like grilled chicken, which I find amusing... but most importantly, I really like the texture and flavor. I like it, I think, more than the "popcorn sweetbreads" at the original Momofuku.
I like the char, the salt, the spiciness... in stark contrast to the stuff I tried recently at Landmarc.
I'll probably be there again this week and what with all this talk of sweetbreads, I'll most likely order them again. I'd be curious to hear your opinion should you try them.
Better late than never.
I found them weak. They looked awful on the plate and the--I'm going to call it--thai seasoning package felt like an add-on rather than as integrel to the dish. They were cooked ok but not great. In general, compared to many of the other items on the menu which are very considered, the sweetbreads seemed to me a bit underthunk.
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Menton1 -- those apples most likely *were* grown by the seller and then stored in cold storage (apples store very well, and certain varieties better than others) by the seller over the winter. I don't see why this is "too bad" at all!
Somehow, "storage apples" sold at a Farmer's Market just doesn't cut it for me. I want homegrown, as-close-to-picked as possible. Isn't that the theory of a Farmers Market?
Agreed. This apple business has always rubbed me the wrong way. Someone (a farmer) once told me that the apples are sometimes THREE YEARS OLD. I can't pass by them without thinking about that.
Union Square Market is, I think, NYC's biggest and best farmer's market. For that reason, its praises are sung over and over and over. It's a good thing to be skeptical of what the press tells us.
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Nice tripe at Casa Mono
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There's a healthy population of Chinese immigrants in Jamaica, I think from several generations back. Because of their influence, soy sauce has become a pretty common ingredient in Jamaican cooking. So as far as authenticity goes, well I'd say that soy is plenty authentic. I haven't seen it used in jerk myself but I also know that most jerkers are pretty secretive about their recipes.
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There may have been no butter on the burger. . . but there sure could be butter in the burger. That's the way I do mine at home. And it is so good it will knock you on your arse.
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Oops. None at Fatty Crab. I was looking through your pics of momo samm and posted wrongly.
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its only burgers, hot-dogs and custard.
there's nothing for them difficult to slip on.
the waits and buzz became insane because they offer three things otherwise unobtainable in NY:
custard, Chicago-style dogs and butter burgers (although they don't advertise them as such).
There's butter in those burgers!!!? Damn you Meyer.
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There's a store that sells only baking supplies in the low twenties around sixth avenue. Can't remember the name or address but EVERYTHING baking can be found there. I also thought of Di Palo's
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How'd you like the sweetbreads?
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I wonder if Professor Kim has any idea what percentage of reviews are of the risky press release variety versus how many are of stalwarts or restaurants which might be considered to be in their stride?
I also object to the notion of the Times reviews being considered as newsworthy rather than as defining. For better or worse (the jury is still out as far as I'm concerned) there isn't a more credible assement of a NYC restaurant than from the NYT. In their role as restaurant critic, I think they might well transcend the job of covering that which is newsworthy. The collective of their reviews represents an authoritative position on restaurants' status within the hierarchy of NYC dining institutions. There's plenty of room for an argument about whether this should be the case but what I am asserting is that as far as the populous goes it is the case.
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5$ 10$ even 15$ a cup who cares? This stuff is frozen pseudo but still real dairy GOLD. I can't believe that anybody gives two shits about how much it costs when you can get sour frozen yogurt with captain crunch and brunoised mango I mean c'mon people, is anybody listening?
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I think Sam (and with his background he's well positioned to do so) does an excellent job of differentiating the contexts in which different endeavors may be critiqued.
It's appropriate to review different things in different ways.Plays, for example, are usually extensively workshopped and previewed. So, by the time they open, they should be largely worked out. It is, of course, possible to rehearse and refine a piece of staged theater without the need of having customers (aka, an audience). Therefore, it's more appropriate to review the opening night performance of a play.
In practice, whether a play's opening night is the reviewed performance will depend on the length of the run. If it's a scheduled run of 40 performances of Macbeth with Liev Schreiber at Shakespeare in the Park, the reviewers may choose to wait a while and may not review the opening performance. If, on the other hand, it's a scheduled run of 6 performances of Verdi's Macbeth at the Met, the opening performance will be reviewed. If the opening performance weren't reviewed, the run might be almost over by the time the review found its way into print.
Restaurants, on the other hand, aren't set up to have a limited run. They also don't have the luxury of 3 months of workshopping, previews and a "pre-run" in Toronto. They also are not working within a known, extensively interpreted repertoire and tradition like opera performers. They also work in a milieu in which having an audience changes everything, and they have a limited opportunity to work with a "practice audience" (3 days of F&F doesn't cut it). This makes it more appropriate, IMO, to wait a while before reviewing a restaurant. Give them a chance to rehearse. Reviewing a restaurant on opening night (or very early on) is like going to see a performance of a newly-composed opera that's only had one rehearsal. The perormers are going to settle in and get better, the composer might make some changes (Madama Butterfly was extensively revised three times after its premiere), and so on. So, to review the opera, the performers, etc. on the second rehearsal isn't meaninfgul. One could say the same thing about reviewing a restaurant in the first month.
My interest isn't in fairness. It's in accurately representing and critiquing the topic a critic sets out to cover. If, as is common for the NYT, a large bulk of reviews cover a restaurant in its nascency--and I strongly assert that a three month old restaurant no matter who's at the helm is in its nascency--then they fail to accurately represent the state of affairs whether they be good or bad. It's a blinding obsession with the new that irks me. Reviews like the one of the four seasons are all too infrequent. I'm headed to WD-50 tonight for the first time in a couple of years. I've been to a lot of newer restaurants that I shouldn't have been to in the interum. I'm certain that a review of WD-50 now would find it a much more nuanced, cohesive organsim than it was when it Grimes saw fit to critique its interior design shortly after its opening. Now is a great time to devote some serious focus to WD-50. And there are many other restaurants about which one could make the same case.
I recognize that to some extent what I am advocating would be a policy change. The convention of the three month review is kind of like a high-risk press release for those restauranteurs whose reputations demand it (the review of Jean George's steak house comes to mind but there are many many such examples.) I'd rather that the NYT was blind to the PR/corpomaniacal bltizkrieg that we all suffer when certain types of restaurants are opened. Why bother with Morandi for example. It's doing fine. It will be mediocre or better than that or great and if it becomes an institution like Balthazar did then maybe consider it down the road.
That's enough for now.
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A restaurant is not a play.
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Frank Bruni is usually the last of the major critics to weigh in — normally after around three months, but don't count on it. Gordon Ramsay at The London opened on November 16, and Frank Bruni panned it on January 31st, eleven weeks later. One must assume that at least some of his five or six visits were paid during the opening month, when the restaurant was just finding its legs.
Anyone who thinks critics are going to wait a year is kidding themselves. If they get three months, they're still getting a much more generous cushion than is granted Broadway plays — a medium for which, I believe, the print medium is far more influential than it is for restaurants.
I'd like a good restaurant to succeed. If there is criticism, I'd like it to be of the food when the restaurant is in its stride. Three months is cutting it close. There are so many restaurants in NYC many of which warrant re-reviewing, many of which are years old and haven't been reviewed. Given, as is often pointed out here, that the NYT has only 52 slots a year, it seems wasteful and even a touch malevolent to devote a review to an effort in its infancy.
I agree that it's not likely that the critics will wait as long as a year before reviewing. Doesn't stop me from wanting them to.
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I think its a little rude of RG to review a restaurant on its first night. Personally, I think there should be a moritorium on reviewing any new restaurant for at least 3 weeks after they open.
Three weeks, phooey. Three months or better yet a year.
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I offer the following:
Everyone who loves dutch babies must love yorkshire pudding
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I offer the following:
Everyone who loves yorkshire pudding must love dutch babies.
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To add a note to the note, Chickalicious and R4D also owe their concept to an earlier Spanish cousin: Barcelona's Espai Sucre. T
Funny that you mention this as the first ones to point out this debt are Don and Chika.
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How do you store tofu once you've opened the container? How do you know when tofu has gone bad?
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Why does he always eat by himself? Seems like there's not enough networking.
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I stopped by Grumpy on 20th street today. Instead of another belligerant statement about crema like the one I made upthread, I'll pose statement #2 as a question:
Should crema be black?
Lurking behind the acidity and black crema, I tasted some nice flavors. It was a little distracting however, listening to the barista in the vintage cycling jersey guilelessly pontificate about how drinking their three dollar ethiopian coffees helps ethiopian people lead better lives.
Momofuku Ssäm Bar (2006–2007)
in New York: Dining
Posted
I've said it before and I'll say it again. I like those burritos. I don't think they're a bad idea and I hope he keeps making them.