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I'm not really sure who would go to Café Boulud expecting an experience similar to Daniel. Are you saying that Café Boulud is a poor restaurant on its own terms? Or, are you just saying that diners expecting a second Daniel will be disappointed?

The supplements are still shown on the Gilt website, although they may not be updating regularly. (Some restaurant websites show menus that are months old.) Arguably, the Times has considerably less power than it formerly did, because there are now so many more information sources—including the one you're reading right now. But such things do happen occasionally. Alain Ducasse fired Christian Delouvrier after a three-star smackdown from Mr. Bruni.

I thought that the standard was five glasses to a bottle. Let's generously suppose that that is the case, which would make the markup 567%, which is still obscene. In Rich's scenario, the markup is 700%, not 800%. To calculate markup, you subtract original cost; hence, ($120-$15)/$15 = 700%.

"Two-star kiss" is just a term I coined, because of the motley assortment of restaurants to which he has given that rating. By and large, his strangest reviews are at two stars. In contrast, I think that the vast majority of his one, three, and four-star ratings have been more clearly defensible, if not entirely free of controversy. Not that I doubt you, but did you do a study of this, or is it just an impression? It is apparent that the critics in fact do this. The stars cannot be explained any other way; indeed, once you understand this, most of the ratings over the years make pretty good sense.

Del Posto's menu is a la carte (though there are tasting menus, too). It isn't a "prix fixe" with supplements, which was the source of the complaint. I didn't see a problem with it. Frank Bruni is the Times's restaurant critic; his job is to offer opinions on restaurants. This was an opinion about a restaurant. I don't see who benefits by a "radio silence before the full review appears" policy. That is, of course, true. But part of Bruni's job is to impart information, as well as to form an opinion about it. Perhaps consumers will have the same objection that he had; and perhaps they will not. He has, at times, been prescient, but like any critic, he is fallible. I think his legitimate concern is that people come in with the impression that the menu is $92 prix fixe. Only when they arrive do they find out that, in fact, a significant part of the menu is not available at that price. This is really a plea for the New York Times to devote more space to these types of articles. We on eGullet, who are more obsessed with food than most, would probably welcome that. But the sports nuts would like to see more on sports, the opera nuts more on opera, and so forth.

As I understand it, those canapes and amuses bouches go to all diners, so they should be embedded in the base cost of the prix fixe. Bruni's complaint is that so many of the dishes carry supplements, and at a certain point the "prix fixe" label becomes a joke. Based on a quick sample of available online menus, there are a couple of other offenders (Daniel, La Grenouille), but perhaps Gilt has pressed the point too far. I think he was also offended at the lack of reasonable wines by the glass. Mind you, there are a number of restaurants in New York where the food is as expensive as Gilt's, or more so. Indeed, Gilt's $92 prix fixe may even be a bargain for cuisine on this level. But I can see merit in a complaint about a "fixed price" menu that isn't fixed.

Today, once again, we have Bruni's two-star kiss — what has become his default rating for restaurants that are better than average, but not always "very good" (the purported meaning of two stars). Today's beneficiary is Al di Là, where: Thus, Al di Là joins other wide-ranging recipients of the two-star kiss, such as: Sripraphai, The Red Cat, Café Gray, The Modern, Alto, and Spigolo.

There's a middle ground, where you're paying more than you planned, but it's not so much that you're prepared to make do with water.

I suspect that it was only temporary. As recently as December 21st, Florence Fabricant reported in the Times that Bouchon Bakery is scheduled to open in March. That opening has been long delayed, but I'm sure it's still on. It would be pretty big news (as food news goes in this town) if Bouchon is canceled.

In today's critic's notebook, Frank Bruni talks about the subtle ways that restaurants pad the final bill. He makes a point about THOR that had struck me when I dined there: I am not sure what Gutenbrunner could be thinking. If "to start" and "in the middle" do not mean starter and middle courses, then what do they mean? A comment from Gutenbrunner at the top of THOR's menu says that the idea is to encourage patrons to construct their own tasting menu, clearly implying a meal of more than just the traditional three courses of appetizer, entrée, and dessert. The chef tells Bruni, "When people are going out, they know exactly how much they're going to spend the minute they walk out the door, and they're not going to spend more. And if you somehow make them, you've lost a long-term customer." That is a dubious proposition. I don't know exactly how much I'll be spending for dinner when I walk out the door. Obviously I have a general range in mind, but people impulse-buy all the time, and clever restaurants find ways to increase the likelihood that those impulses will be exercised. Having said that, I don't necessarily blame the restaurant, as long as they aren't obnoxious or pushy about it. If prices are clearly disclosed—as they are at THOR—it's my own fault if I get caught in the heat of the moment, and spend more than I'd budgeted.

Frank Bruni's Critic's Notebook column today is about restaurants that find nefarious ways to drive up the final bill. Several restaurants are mentioned, but Bruni has the hooks out for Gilt: ...and... By the way, as a comparison, the three-course prix fixe at Daniel is $96. There are 10 appetizer courses, two of which have supplements ($14 for lobster or $68 for tuna tartar with caviar). There are nine entréees, two of which have supplements ($12 for dover sole, $12 for duo of dry-aged beef). I am not counting the caviar that is offered as a stand-alone appetizer, which is $380 or $650. Lastly: Bruini's review could be weeks or even months away, but unless he is transported (and it sounds like the Dover Sole didn't do it for him), expect three stars.

Citysearch is running a "featurette" (here) on "all-you-can-eat" restaurants, a category that's a broader than just buffets. The restaurants listed: English is Italian Churrascaria Plataforma Co Co Sushi Charles' Southern Style Kitchen Utsav Festive India Yuka Restaurant

I agree, but the connection between the stores and the restaurants was always tenuous, and it would have remained so even if the stores were more exclusive. None of those restaurants were places where you'd just pop in for a bite after shopping. Having said all that, three of the TWC's four restaurants are apparently successful, and that's not bad, considering the overall failure rate for such places.

I can't, as it's not a cuisine I have much experience with. I did get a sense that some of his dishes (e.g., the shortribs) might be riffs on Malaysian cuisine, and not entirely authentic.

It is remarkable, when you consider that steakhouses are generally among the most expensive restaurants. A whole bunch of new ones have opened in the last year, and there's still no sign of market saturation. It makes the failure of V Steakhouse all the more surprising. The guy running the TWC has pretty much admitted that they miscalculated. The original idea was to open five restaurants that would all be high-end dining destinations. Per Se and Masa seem to have worked; V Steakhouse failed, and Charlie Trotter backed out. Café Gray appears to be a success at dinner, but a recent article mentioned that the lunch menu will be retooled to offer more casual fare. A mall shopper who wants a quick bite isn't going to order Gray Kunz's braised shortribs or mushroom risotto. Mind you, Michael Lomonoco's steakhouse is probably not going to be a budget dining experience. I strongly suspect that the fifth restaurant will be noticeably more casual and inexpensive.

Just to be clear, the restaurant itself agreed to that rent increase in a lease signed many years ago. The landlord was actually willing to reduce the rate of increase, but not enough to satisfy the deli. It seems to me the landlord was pretty reasonable in this case.

Fatty Crab (643 Hudson St, btwn Gansevoort and Horatio Sts) is chef Zak Pelaccio's casual Malaysian spinoff. His other restaurant, the more upscale and expensive 5 Ninth, is just steps away, in the center of the Meatpacking District. Indeed, Fatty Crab is about as casual as it gets. The restaurant is tiny, and reservations aren't accepted. The bar serves beer and wine only. However, it has the foodie buzz, and if you get there much later than 6:30pm, you can expect to wait. A Fatty Crab meal isn't an epic-length event, and the tables seem to turn rapidly. The restaurant follows the irritating contemporary trend of turning out plates as they're ready, regardless of whether you are ready for them. This can work well if you're intending to share (as my friend and I were), but I find it presumptuous when I am informed that this is what the kitchen means to do, like it or not. Isn't dining out meant to suit our convenience, rather than the restaurant's? The menu comes as several printed sheets held together with a clip board. It offers the following categories: snacks ($4-8), salads ($7-13), noodles/soups ($10-12), vegetables ($7), rice bowls ($1-3), and specialities ($6-28). All of those specialties are $17 or less, except for the restaurant's signature dish, the chilli crab, which is $28. It was unavailable last night (worldwide shortage of dungeoness crab, we're told). A salad of watermelon pickle and crispy pork ($7) was wonderful, offering a sharp contrast between the cool watermelon and the warm crunchy pork. I would have liked a bit more of the pork, but I shouldn't complain at that price. A sweet and sour fish broth with rice noodles ($10) was plenty of fun, but awfully difficult to eat. The dish of the evening was Short Rib Rendang ($17), which is braised with kaffir lime, coconut, and chili: tender, succulent, and flavorful. A dish called Chicken Claypot ($10) offered tender cubes of meat that had all of the flavor cooked out of them. I suspect that Fatty Crab's menu will reward further exploration. At its wallet-friendly price, the trip will probably be well worth it.

THOR is short for The Hotel on Rivington (107 Rivington St, between Essex & Ludlow). I don't know what possessed somebody to put a 21-story hotel at that location, although it is surprisingly easy to reach (just 2 blocks from the F train's Delancey St stop). Who could be staying there? You get no immediate idea of the hotel clientele when you visit, because the entire ground floor seems to be occupied by the vast lounge and restaurant. Indeed, you wouldn't even know that it is a hotel, except for the name. There is no check-in counter, bellhop, or concierge to give it away. The host that greets you seems oh-so-annoyed to have landed in the maelstrom of a successful restaurant. You get the sense that he'd be happiner in a far less hectic profession. Just beyond his station, a capacious lounge area awaits, filled with beautiful young bodies sipping their drinks. Loud music thumps in the background. "This is very Lower East Side," my friend remarked. The seating area is just beyond the lounge, and it is not far enough. I have not seen a serious restaurant that goes to a more sustained effort to ensure that your ears will be battered and assaulted during your meal. THOR's 21-foot ceiling offers plenty of hard surfaces for the sound to bounce off of, and the sound happily obliges. Your eardrums may need a medical checkup after the meal is over. The large tables (apparently the same ones you find at BLT Steak) offer plenty of room for the food, but to communicate you'll have to shout. If you survive the aural onslaught, you'll be treated to some of the best and most creative food in New York. Of restaurants I'm familiar with, only nearby WD-50 offers a comparable exercise in culinary experimentation on this level. Practically every dish on THOR's menu offers surprising combinations from superstar chef Kurt Gutenbrunner. I had my doubts about THOR, because Gutenbruner is now on his fourth restaurant (with Wallsé, Café Sabarsky, and Blaue Gans also in his stable). Perhaps, like many a celebrity chef, he's taken his eye off the ball. But Gutenbrunner is obviously as good a manager as he is a chef. THOR's kitchen staff turns out his creations expertly, and the service (despite the din) is nearly perfect. Gutenbrunner told Frank Bruni that "he considered Thor the culinary equivalent of a chance to move from orchestral music to rock 'n' roll." You can see what he means. At his flagship Wallsé, the Austrian cuisine is excellent, but largely traditional. At THOR, he lets his wildest urges run wild, with spectacular results. The menu is needlessly confusing. My friend, who hadn't researched the restaurant in advance (and one shouldn't have to), was initially baffled. In a preface, Gutenbrunner explains that there are plates of various sizes, allowing you to construct a tasting menu of your own design. But there is no indication of which plates are small, and which are large. Instead, the menu is in sections labeled "Cold Plates to Start," "Warm Plates in the Middle," "From the Market on the Side," "Hot Plates" (a fish list and a meat list) and "Sweet to Finish." Since when did the traditional captions — "Appetizers," "Entrées," "Side Dishes," and "Desserts" — need to be replaced? Anyhow, after all that my friend and I each ordered a "Warm Plate," a side dish, a meat course, and a dessert. And we were transported. To start, my friend ordered the "Grilled shrimp skewers with green tomatoes, peppers and quark powder" ($14), and I the "Ravioli with farmers cheese, mint and hazelnut butter" ($13). My dish came with three ravioli, and they were wonderful; the ingredients worked marvelously together. The side dishes are all $7. Many of them are traditional vegetable sides, but a terrific mushroom risotto is offered, which my friend and I both ordered. This is one of THOR's better bargains, given the intensive labor required to make a risotto. It could have been an appetizer in itself, but it came out with the main courses. I hardly ever order calves liver; indeed, I can remember ordering it only once before in my life. It wasn't a bad experience, but calves liver is simply one of those dishes that you don't want every day. "Glazed calves liver with apples and scallions" ($24) seemed too intriguing to pass up, and my willingness to take a chance paid off. If all calves liver dishes were this good, nobody would be ordering foie gras. My friend had "Roasted rack of lamb with broccoli puree and 14K golden nugget potatoes" ($28), which offered two hefty chops, which she said were spectacular. For dessert, I tried the pumpkin cheesecake with maple syrup ice cream ($9), which Frank Bruni had described as "a happy nose dive into the heart of autumn." My friend ordered the petits-fours ($5), which come with what looks like a tube of toothpaste, but it actually contains hazelnut chocolate, which you squeeze into a small basin in the center of each cookie. WD-50's Wylie Dufresne and Sam Mason would be kicking themselves, and wondering, "Why didn't we think of that?" The wine list is organized by region, but there is also a section labeled "Sommelier's Discoveries," featuring growers and/or regions that don't get a lot of publicity. The friendly sommelier came over unbidden and made a wonderful suggestion from that section. It was a 2003 Blaufrankisch by Feiler-Artinger, from Burgenland, a region of eastern Austria. Better yet, I had requested a wine between $35-45, and it was $39. Sommeliers who don't try to gouge every last dollar earn my everlasting respect. The restaurant uses stemless wine glasses from the Austrian firm Riedel. Somehow, you feel strange drinking wine from a stemless glass, although the Riedel catalog is in fact highly regarded, and pricey. The individual dishes on the menu are all reasonably priced, but if you heed Gutenbrunner's advice to construct a "tasting menu," the bill can mount in a hurry. Our meal of an appetizer, side dish, main course, and dessert apiece, plus wine, was $192.56 (including tax and gratuity). Had we ordered more tasting plates or a different wine, it could easily have been a lot more. For cooking this good, we considered it money well spent. THOR is full of contradictions. Kurt Gutenbrunner's serious cuisine finds itself in a clubland setting designed for twenty-somethings who probably don't realize how special it is. Many of those who would appreciate it are no doubt put off by the location, the clientele, or the noise. (We are in our forties, and seemed to be among the oldest people there.) But if you can put up with the racket, you'll find that THOR is serving some of the finest food in the city.

I would have said much the same about Laurent Tourondel. Then again I suppose doing a series of steak and fish restaurants alieviates the boredom, but the contract mentioned above seems to preclude this. ← There's a tendency to denigrate steakhouses as boring, which isn't always fair. A serious chef might get bored at a place like Peter Luger or Sparks, where the menu hasn't changed in decades. But there are restaurants that I'd roughly classify as "steakhouses" where there is significant room for creativity, such as BLT Steak/Prime and Dylan Prime. Actually, notwithstanding its failure, V Steakhouse was such a place.

Florence Fabricant reports that Michael Lomonaco, the former executive chef of Windows on the World, will head up a new restaurant in the former V Steakhouse space. The space will have a $3 million renovation. The restaurant will still be a steakhouse, with "a variety of other main dishes, appetizers and sides in a clubby setting." The other interesting point is that Lomonaco's contract stipulates that he must not be involved in any other restaurants for the next several years.

There is a lounge, which is very elegant in its own right, but I don't believe it serves a full menu.

I had lunch at Nobu on Wednesday, probably my 4th or 5th time at the restaurant (always for lunch). As I have noted before, if you show up without a reservation at 11:45 or noon, you will invariably be seated. In the past, we've always been told that we'd have to be finished by 1:30, or so. No such guidance this week; even when we left, at 2pm, the restaurant was not full. I started with a salmon skin roll (I am not exactly sure what that means), but it was very good, if not quite offering the taste explosion of the best sushi restaurants. My colleague and I shared four of the signature dishes: yellowtail tartar with caviar and wasabe sauce; spicy rock shrimp tempura; squid "pasta", and miso black cod. I think the squid pasta has lost a bit of its lustre; when you get over the novelty, it is really nothing special. But the others are all top-notch, and it is no surprise that they bring the miso black cod last. Although imitated a hundred times over, there is still no miso black cod like Nobu's. I finished with an apple crisp with cinnamon ice cream, and while you don't think of Nobu for its desserts, this was beautifully prepared and a sensory pleasure. Service was excellent. As an unrelated aside, did you ever wonder why you can't get through to Nobu on the reservation line. At lunch time, there are five phone operators sitting at a booth near the front door. They are the reservations department. While waiting for my coat, I overheard one of them telling the others about a recent social event she'd attended. The phone rang: "Nobu, can you hold, please?" After putting the caller on hold, she finished her story about the social event.

I don't know the answer, but I'll throw out the following question: Do people remember restaurant reports ("reviews") on eGullet that don't include star ratings? ← eGullet reviews are fundamentally a different medium than newspaper and magazine reviews. Each have their strengths and drawbacks. An individual eGullet review is typically not as literate, as carefully written, as well informed, or as thorough as a New York Times or New York Magazine review. Also, most eGullet reviews are about an individual visit to a restaurant, while the professional critics will pay multiple visits and sample much more of the menu before venturing an opinion. However, the collaborative nature of eGullet makes up for this, particularly for restaurants that are frequently reviewed. While the individual posts are often inferior, collectively they offer much more insight than a single newspaper or magazine review. (This assumes you have the patience to wade through them all, which for some restaurants could require a considerable time investment — the Per Se thread is perhaps the most extreme example of this.) eGullet is also much more up-to-date, and this can be helpful for a restaurant that changed considerably after the newspaper and magazine reviews came out. On the other hand, eGullet is dependent on what the contributors want to write about. There are dozens of pages on Per Se (a restaurant that has been open less than two years), but Keens Steakhouse (a restaurant that has been open since the 19th century) never had its own thread till Frank Bruni wrote a review of it three weeks ago.

Although the Times and New York do not, there are other media outlets that use stars or their functional equivalent (letter grades, thumbs-up/down) to rate movies. Why haven't the Times and NY done that? You'd have to ask them. I can think of plausible explanations, but their actual reasons might be something else entirely.

Cuozzo didn't just dump the star system. He dumped reviews altogether. He also ignored the fact that there are quite a few restaurants that have managed to remain remarkably consistent over time. Typical of Cuozzo, he gave the most extreme examples, and then pretended as if they were the norm. Even when this does happen, there are many possible explanations: (1) the restaurant changed; (2) unluckily, the restaurant had a rare off-night when you visited; (3) you didn't order the dishes the critic praised; (4) you and the critic have different tastes; or, (5) the restaurant had never been that good to begin with. But of course, this phenomenon isn't confined to restaurants. I have sometimes loved Broadway shows that the Times critic hated, or hated shows that they loved. And just as with restaurants, there are many possible explanations for this. Having said that, I think it is rare that a three-star restaurant in February will be a one-star place in April. If you have a one-star experience in April at a place that earned three in February, there is very likely some other explanation. I would also note that even Rich—eGullet's most outspoken opponent of the star system—seems implicitly to agree that a restaurant's future performance is predictable. After all, Rich highly recommends Tasting Room. How do we know whether Tasting Room today is the same as Tasting Room the last time Rich visited? Well, it might not be, but in recommending it so passionately, it appears that Rich believes that Tasting Room has shown itself dependable, and barring some kind of culinary earthquake, it will continue to do so. Sneakeater wrote: Well, Platt pretty much had to do that, because his system was brand new. Somewhere in the deep recesses of the Times archives, there's probably a similar explanation when Craig Claiborne started awarding stars for the first time. Do people remember the text of the reviews in publications that don't award stars? I don't think so. Unless the critic left behind an unusually memorable quote, the texts of reviews just aren't long remembered—whether there are stars or not. In publications that don't award stars (The New Yorker), the reviews are just totally lost in a black hole. The flip-side is that, even when there are stars, people have to read the review anyway, or they obtain equivalent information somewhere else. How many diners are choosing restaurants knowing only the star rating?