Nathan

I'll note that the New York "Alto" still uses speck and the like...so it hasn't entirely banished the regional influence from the menu. here is the current dinner menu: http://www.altorestaurant.com/?page_id=4&menu=dinner

there were more bars in NYC after Prohibition began than before it started... (maybe this was the beginning of B&T weekend traffic? )

"I wouldn't presume that either New York City or its upper echelon restaurants are immune to enforcement of the law, precisely because of the high-profile status of its restaurants. A zealot with an agenda could get a lot of airplay in the rest of the country for bringing down a chic restaurant or two in this town." you mean the way Chicago was made a mockery of? nobody would give it airplay...huh? it would take a lot more than one violation to shut down Per Se. the first time a fine dining establishment was cited would be the last time they didn't all start carding. it simply wouldn't be news outside of NY. I find that sometimes NY'ers have a vastly enlarged sense of their importance to the rest of the country.

considering that 25% of Manhattan households make six figures or higher....and they make up a much larger proportion of the people who actually read the papers and are involved politically..... I can't prove the above stat per se -- I was once involved in a discussion about Manhattan incomes...I pulled the U.S. census stats by zipcode and was able to come up with that figure as being roughly accurate.... put differently, there is a fantastically large number of people spending 150-250 on dinner any given night in the city.

"The argument would be that the law applies to the rich as to the poor. I'm not sure that someone making that kind of populist (or faux-populist) argument would be forced to resign." considering the waste of tax-payer resources to go after a fine-dining establishment that probably has at most one under-age wine-drinker a week while we have 18 year old Jersey girls getting hammered at Chelsea clubs and then murdered....yeah, it would look like questionable priorities.

just cause they spot someone who looks like they might be underage (we're not talking about 14 year olds here) doesn't mean that the restaurant gets cited: either a. the police would have to organize a sting (I simply can't conceive of this being likely) or b. officers would have to be summoned on the spot -- to ID the kid -- in front of his/her parents -- and then arrest the kid and the bartender. and considering the possibility that they were wrong and the kid turns out to be 21 -- causing massive embarassment and considering the possiblity that the kid's parents could be influential themselves, that's a big risk to take. this is where the class issue really does come into play. there's a reason why this scenario hasn't happened.

"But, were I the proprietor of (for example) some college-type joint and I knew that the laws were never enforced in upscale places, and that it was assumed by the Platimum Card Crowd that their kids didn't have to play by the rules, I'd be plenty pissed. And I'd call someone." in NY, their kids would be hanging out in your joint anyway. no point in rocking the boat.

I am a lawyer, but I do not practice in criminal or liquor license or restaurant-related law of any sort. I do, however, live in NY (which is more germane than the foregoing). a couple quick notes on comments that were made earlier in the thread: a. the age of emancipation/majority, varies from state to state. in some it is 18, in others it is 21. there is no national standard. b. underage drinking statutes and licensing issues vary dramatically from state to state (I think this has become clear in the thread). c. in many states, there are statutes specifically protecting bars and restaurants from liability if someone gets drunk and kills or injures someone later. but not every state. d. if a high-end restaurant in NY were to be given a citation for serving an under-age customer, it would be all over the press. e. this, however, would never happen. yes, like it or not, it is partially a class issue, but it's also a simple one of location and logic. WD-50 is at a similar price point to EMP. but it is on the LES...thus I wouldn't be surprised if WD-50 were more circumspect on this issue than others... Trader Joes cards me when I buy wine, my neighborhood WV liquor store most certainly doesn't. put differently, liquor license enforcement (which has extensive press coverage here) in NY is very much nuisance-dictated. its entirely a matter of location and customer demographic. to take my neighborhood as an example...the only bar which even has someone carding at the door is Automatic Slim's (which has a young UES clientele)...the others don't even bother. on second thoughts, maybe I should rephrase my class comment above, it's more complex than that...since plenty of people hitting the LES or Morimoto have plenty of cash. its a combination of average age, class and rowdiness that attracts police attention in NY. None of these apply to EMP. (indeed, I imagine that it would be harder to apply constructive knowledge to EMP as a result -- but like I said, I do not practice in the area)

"I think the best way to go dancing in NY is to decide on the music and go from there." unfortunately, the DJ's I want to hear seem to always play at Avalon...and that's just really tough to stomach...

certainly, I'm not in my mid-20's anymore...but they're all dancing in Brooklyn -- as I noted above. the big bottle service clubs in Manhattan do draw a somewhat older crowd--people who can afford it. and these clubs are much smaller and much less elaborate than their Miami or Paris or Berlin equivalents. and that's a simple fact. like I said, the club chains open here eventually, but open smaller and less costly venues due to the rent costs. if your dance experience is primarily NY or the tourist clubs elsewhere...you're not going to realize this. the size of NY clubs is the killer....our biggest ones are still pretty damn small...and that affects the entire experience

actually, Rome has a worse nightclub scene. don't get me wrong, I love NY nightlife, but the only time to dance is during the week, and that's not happening with my schedule. and Brooklyn's too much of a pain for a late night. as for the clubs, nah. go to Plumm and then compare it with Snatch in Miami. the Cain in the city is even worse than the one in the Hamptons. as someone who frequented the original Crobar in Chicago ten years ago (it was 4 times the size of the NY one) and the Crobar in Miami in its heyday (5-6 years ago)....the NY one is nowhere near comparable. NY does get decent DJ's but then you have to handle the weekend scene. the clubs here are all small in comparison and much less expense is put into them than elsewhere. we're not in the same league as L.A., Miami, S.F., Berlin, Munich or Paris. don't know about London. remember that Pacha, Crobar and B.E.D. are all chain clubs that have larger, more elaborate and older locations elsewhere. its exactly the opposite of restaurants

"The review is quite consistent with any number of occasions that he has awarded two stars." no, it reads more negatively than the majority of his two-star reviews. and it reads a lot like his one-star reviews. I threw in the number of negative dishes because it is unusual for Bruni to mention that many in a two-star review (except when smacking a restaurant with four star aspirations -- are you asserting that the Mai House review should be compared to the Gilt and Modern reviews?)

so long as more than half of the restaurants with two stars (from any Times critic) are worse restaurants than Little Owl, it deserves two stars. if your argument is that too many restaurants have two stars -- I agree...but that problem long predates Bruni. (and for any Times reviewer to counter the actual norm today would do a massive disservice to restauranteurs)

for example, the Fraise Sauvage is basically a gin French 75 with a muddled strawberry...which is why it works. and, the strawberry adds more color than flavor...

there's an excellent discussion of this in Art of the Bar. re: the elderflower vesper cocktail, to me combining vodka and gin is just wrong. the vast majority of the mixologists I've read agree that a new cocktail works best when it is composed of: a base spirit: (gin, brandy, tequila, whiskey, rum....or, if you must, vodka)....and that rarely or never should base spirits be combined... a flavoring component (either a spirit or something else) a third component for nuance. fourth and fifth components...can work...but with a lot of care... of course, since virtually every cocktail is a riff on another cocktail...I think most mixologists use another drink as a model when composing a new one. after all, a margarita is a tequila sidecar with lime juice and a cosmopolitan is a vodka margarita with a splash of cranberry for color. etc.

" I am only pointing out that your method of analysis—counting the number of negative comments and trying to relate them formulaically to the rating—isn't the way it works." I have never made that my methodology. It only comes up because of the beyond bizarre fixation that some people had in reading the RTR review where one stray line "not a few" is obviated by the rest of the review. Some people persisted in asserting that RTR would have gotten only a star for the food, even with perfect service. Thus noting that many two star restaurants (let alone one star!) have far more negative dishes commented on is a tangible, albeit crude way of belying this argument. as for Little Owl, its better than more than half of the restaurants with two stars -- from any Times critic. (and praised highly by virtually every professional critic -- if they're all completely wrong, at some point I might wonder why they're getting paid and I'm not). actually, it's damn good.

I'd be surprised if the price for most of the drinks wasn't anything other than the standard $12.... I'm always gratified to see another cocktail spot open....but that location is very risky for that sort of operation. Blue Owl doesn't seem to get a lot of business and that is the previous attempt in the area. Yeah, Angel's Share does a thriving first date business but the quality control isn't very high...and they have a lot of crappy, if more popular, drinks.

they make a strawberries and gin cocktail at Employees Only that is tolerable enough -- if not especially to my taste: the Fraise Sauvage: gin, strawberries, vanilla, lemon juice and champagne.. ah, here's the recipe: http://www.starchefs.com/features/summer_d..._j_kosmas.shtml

I received the Art of the Bar for Christmas. It is beautifully laid out if a little precious. But, the section on cocktail creation is well worth checking out. So are some of their original drinks. They've already turned me on to Velvet Falernum. Agreed that they use a lot of syrups but the pages on syrup creation are pretty straightforward... I'll probably sit down one day and spend an hour making four or five of them....

is it just me or does the Mai House review read like a one-star review. there are dishes that Bruni liked very much but plenty (double the number at RTR) that he didn't like at all. or compare it to the Little Owl review here: http://events.nytimes.com/2006/07/26/dinin...ews/26rest.html

for what it's worth, I would imagine that the liquor board would need actual citations for underage drinking to do anything. so, yeah, it kind of would take a raid or sting operation...I think.

a couple years ago the police sent a couple very-young-looking plainclothes cops into Cafe Habana and then arrested the bartender when they were served alcohol. of course, it was actually just a pretext to pressure the restaurant owner into doing more to stop the purse-stealing which was a regular occurrence there. after the owner received his scare, they dropped the charges. I don't see anyone trying that sting at EMP (nor do I find it likely that EMP has a purse-stealing issue) my point is that of course the police and liquor authorities practice discretion in how they pursue this.

yup. I find it highly unlikely, just looking at the relevant text above, that a restaurant could avoid liability in the manner Rich mentions. at the same time, however, I agree that the unofficial and unwritten policy in fine dining establishments is one of "don't ask, don't tell" since the odds of a true fine dining establishment being raided is nonexistent. edit: as for bars -- ones that are "college" bars seem to card everyone...others most certainly do not. others card only on the weekends when the customer, um, demographic, changes.

in the past they literally did close between 10 and 10:30 Momofuku proper does that as well at some point in the afternoon.

if the fish shack on the water in Sag Harbor is open in the winter, its worth stopping into for a very casual meal. quality, fresh seafood