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He says he spent several years luring them here, so that doesn't seem quite fair.

I'm willing to take the bet that they won't.

There's a lot that comes out of Chang's mouth that's plainly unbelievable. The latest was the comment after the price increase: "In a month it could go back down again." Yes, and in a month I could be King of England.

I might be perceived to have a conflict-of-interest in this. That said, my perception is that photos of the food have had a significant role in building Chang's reputation. If indeed this is the new standing policy at the restaurant, it sounds like he's kicking down one of the ladders by which he has risen. I can confirm that they don't have that rule any more.

Me too. As I noted on the blog, Bruni has been criticized for giving two stars to places that were traditionally one or unrated, such as Sripraphai. But at least he made the case for them as passionately as it could be made. This week, he didn't even try.I also agree that critics shouldn't be telling us how tough it is to be one of their dining companions.

There's a clear distinction between restaurants that ask you not to use the flash, and restaurants that ask you not to use the camera at all.

It's clearly not a negative, but the advantage of mixed coursing is that a couple who share can, in effect, have a 14-course meal. That was the number of distinct items my girlfriend and I were served when we visited.

← If you look at the prices, it doesn't appear that JGV thinks times are lean.

It shows how things have changed in the blog era. A few years ago, FloFab's story today would have been the first that most of us had heard about it. But now, she's just confirming what had already been widely known.

A number of us tried it in the early days, and were underwhelmed. Anita Lo is a class act, and it's certainly possible that she has improved the ratio of hits to clunkers. Bruni's review suggested as much.But when the clearly superior Annisa also has two stars — a judgment Bruini has shown no signs of remedying — today's review seems rather absurd.

The question we're debating is exemplified by this passage in Bruni's infamous review of Alain Ducasse at the Essex House: Is it wrong that the first sommelier's performance played a part—though it was only a part—in determining the restaurant's demotion from four stars to three?

Indeed, Bruni said that he would not have mentioned the spill, had the restaurant did something at least remotely reasonable in response.

At the margins, a fast connection between your computer and the Information Superhighway could mean the difference between your "click" reaching the server first, or someone else's. Hasn't happened yet, but I've very little doubt that it will. You could certainly make the argument for elegance, but not for buggyness.

The trouble is, I understand what you're against, but I don't see what you're for.Do you envision the Times saying one day, "From now on, we no longer report on service, because we've decided we can't." Or do you envision the Times deliberately sending Bruni out to be feted as if he were the King of England, then writing reviews that disingenuously suggest that every customer can expect a similar experience? Or do you envision a series of reviews like Craig Claiborne's famous $4,000 dinner, which no one claimed could be reproduced by the ordinary consumer, but which he reviewed mainly for the readers' entertainment?

They never actually said that OpenTable was too expensive; that's our surmise. When you consider server costs, operating costs, and development costs, I'm not so sure that's true. I have always assumed that Chang wanted to do it "his way," which would only be possible with a system he controlled.The telephone operator is a tougher problem. Let's say they're taking 20 reservations a night—each reservation being for 1, 2, or 4 people. It means you would be paying someone to say "yes" 20 times a day, and "no, nothing available" about 2,000 times. If there's just a single reservationist, and s/he spends 2 minutes on the phone with each successful caller, that means everyone trying to get in is held up for 40 minutes until the final slot is taken. Under the current system, you give it a whirl at 10:00, and by 10:01 you have your answer. I would add that if you don't want customers to face nearly continuous busy signals, you need a lot of extra equipment and more than just one phone line, so the costs do add up. For an idea of what that would be like, just try Babbo at 10:00 a.m.

I agree that The Times has largely failed at this. Bruni simply doesn't have the background—and it appears he never will—to appreciate current trends in any kind of historical context. (By the way, I don't think I have the background either; then again, I don't sell my reviews as a professional product.) That might be going a bit too far. I'm not sure there are enough restaurants on the "art" end of the spectrum to fill 52 reviews a year. But you've been saying for a long time that the Times needs a critic for the "middle" of the spectrum (something between fine dining and $25&U), and I agree. I'm not so sure we've "established" that. For a critic that's (supposedly) recognized up to 80% of the time, he's pretty good at sussing out service issues and inconsistency in the kitchen. It's actually not surprising that he often gets this right, since it's the main part of the job, as he sees it.

One of the lessons is that software development is hard. When you unveil a brand new system for the most hotly anticipated new restaurant in years, you're going to make mistakes.Team Chang could have met most of their objectives by just signing up for OpenTable. They would have sacrificed the ability to customize the system precisely to their needs, but in return, they would have gained an already-working system that has been out there a few years.

Fat Guy, I entirely understand your math. I think Bruni understands it too. I am just asking why you think service is any different than food. All restaurants, even four-star restuarants, have off-nights in the kitchen, and they botch some plates even on their better nights. If, by dumb luck, some of those plates are headed for Bruni's table, it's liable to to be mentioned in the review. Bruni often signals that he realizes the sample is unscientific. He'll say, "The pork chop was dry both times I had it," or "Fish consistently came out over-seasoned." He seems to mention service glitches only when there's a pattern that he feels is something beyond random chance.

"Quite a bit more data"? He has an arguably useless random sampling that, empirically, hasn't made his reviews any better than when he's recognized every time. "I wonder about Adour" hardly establishes anything to the contrary. To be clear... What makes this a "useless random sampling" is that it's possible, for example, let's say that the critic is reviewing a restaurant with excellent service. But let's suppose that the restaurant's FOH staff has one of those rare "every so often" bad nights on the critic's first visit. ← How is that sample any more useless than his sampling of the food? Suppose he pays one of his visits on the night that there's a substitute line cook manning the fish station, and all of the fish comes out tasting gummy? One bad night like that could be the difference between two stars and three.

I certainly agree that it's the most shocking of the omissions, but it seems every critic or guidebook commits a few howlers. The only one that doesn't is the one you've written yourself.

If that is the reason why we have Frank Bruni and Adam Platt, then I would become a buyer of at least part of FG's argument: that is too steep a price to pay.But there are plenty of extremely knowledgeable people following some version of the "Bruni rule," i.e., they don't adopt weird disguises, but they don't go out of their way to call attention to themselves. That still seems like the best system to me, for the reasons Nathan gave, a post or two upthread.

Among regular reviewers in this town, Restaurant Girl and Andrea Strong are the ones making the case for non-anonymous reviewers, and I don't know anyone who thinks we need more reviews like theirs.That's a bit of a cheap shot. I could easily say, "among regular reviewers in this town, Frank Bruni and Adam Platt are the ones making the case for non-anonymous reviewers, and I don't know anyone who thinks we need more reviews like theirs." I guess I am struggling to clarify your position. You said: This, in essence, is what Bruni and Platt do—as I understand it. If you don't think it's necessary that they they reserve in their own name or announce themselves, then what do they have to do, to "give up the [alleged] myth"? The next step is to post their mugs on their reviews, and then you're entering StrongBuzz/Restaurant Girl territory. I don't think Frank's reviews would improve by shedding what is left of his anonymity.

What, exactly, do you think this demonstrates? It demonstrates that one non-anonymous reviewer (Bruni) gave Kobe Club a poor review whereas, according to Chodorow, three other equally non-anonymous reviewers (Greene, Lape, Mariani) "loved it." It's also possible that at least Green and Lape were "anonymous" when they dined there. I don't know about Lape, but Greene claims to observe Bruni's brand of anonymity—i.e., she doesn't call attention to herself, but realizes (and regularly acknowledges) that she's likely to be recognized. Given the sloppiness I've experienced at those restaurants, I could quite imagine that Bruni has paid them unrecognized visits, though certainly not a whole string of them. Part of the problem with your question is that practically all of the front-line reviewers in this town practice some version of the Bruni system. Actually, I can't think of a notable exception.The only thing we can say is that one regularly reads accounts of critic meals in which something-or-other occurred that is unlikely to have occurred if the critic were recognized. It's rare that one reads a whole review full of them, as we did with Ago, simply because most restaurants don't suck that badly while being prominent enough to merit a review. I think Bruni's limitations are his limitations, whether he dines anonymously or not. Among regular reviewers in this town, Restaurant Girl and Andrea Strong are the ones making the case for non-anonymous reviewers, and I don't know anyone who thinks we need more reviews like theirs.

What you've just described is what Bruni does: he reserves under pseudonyms and doesn't announce himself. That's pretty much how Bruni's brand of anonynimity works—whether mythical or otherwise. As far as we know, he has never donned disguises (à la Reichl or Craig LaBan). If they happen to figure out who he is, then so be it, but he does nothing to accelerate or hasten the process.

A couple of these points are strawmen: "destructive game"? "toxic myth"? "living a contradiction"? Strong words, those. "Destructive" implies "destruction", and I don't see any. Since all critics acknowledge that they're frequently recognized, there really isn't any myth.Many restaurants, I'm afraid, are out to cheat their customers in little ways, or at least they achieve that effect by passive neglect or inattention. When the server encourages you to order a side of mashed potatoes, and neglects to mention that your entrée comes with fries, what would you call it? When the server encourages you to over-order, what would you call it? When the server whisks away a cocktail glass that isn't yet empty, and then asks if you'd like another, what would you call it? When a restaurant routinely over-books, ensuring that most diners won't be seated on time, what would you call it? Restaurants that get all of those things wrong are rare. Restaurants that get some of them wrong are commonplace.