Nathan

I wonder if we could start selling futures on meals at Per Se. I'm offering to sell a meal in 2009 for $350.

well, a clone is literally indistinguishable from an identical twin (slight caveat about the mitochondrial dna..since it borrows that of the oocyte...but that's too technical to matter). put differently, an identical twin is a perfect clone. literally.

it actually does pretty good business during the day on the weekend -- don't know about during the week

"If it wasn't for the Falernum, then it would just be a fancy vodka and orange juice. " with the Falernum its kind of analogous to a monkey gland. vodka, oj and falernum instead of gin, oj and grenadine (although the absinthe or benedictine, depending upon whether you're English or American, makes that a far more complex and robust drink)

yeah. I think it should have a savory component...maybe something on a carbonara type principle? (incorporate egg whites and bacon flecks?) I could easily see tequila working with bacon. hmm...anyone want to experiment?

"No restaurant can survive for long as a "trendy" establishment--it may be a trendiness that launches a restaurant, generating a certain level of PR and thus desirability. In the end any restaurant, especially one with pretensions of being a high end place must establish itself beyond a trend. It must draw regulars and satisfy those regulars night after night." except for Balthazar. (don't get me wrong, Balthazar has its regulars -- I lived in the neighborhood for years and was one of them....but it doesn't need them.) but then, Balthazar is an absolutely unique entity. actually, there are plenty of midtown restaurants that survive without regulars as well. you know, the cookie cutter Italian and French places right by the hotels. but then, those are aimed directly at tourist traffic alone.

lunch at Perry Street is light years ahead of USC. and there's a heck of a lot better shopping around PS (after lunch just walk straight east on Perry to Hudson and Bleecker...all the boutiques are there) must-haves at PS? one of you has to order the beef tenderloin. highly recommend the bass...any shrimp dish that is on the menu. surprisingly enough -- the chicken is superb. sounds boring...but it's prepared three ways...each succulent and thrilling. by the way, the menu changes pretty often -- I have no clue which menu you've seen...but the menu changed in the last month. PS is one place, though, where the menu descriptions really don't tell you what the dish is about (which is fine with me ... I ate once at a relatively upscale midwestern restaurant that only had one or two-word titles for its dishes..."veal", "duck", "beef", "chicken", "red snapper", "potates" etc. (what they didn't tell you was that those potates came with foie gras)....I liked the concept)

I developed this the other week -- a riff on the White Lady: "Woman in White" TM 1.75 parts gin .75 part cointreau .5 part lime juice .5 part Parfait Amour or Creme De Violette 1 egg white 2 dashes orange bitters shake twice as long of course. despite the presence of the Amour or Violette, this will appear white under anything besides very bright light.

amusing thread to dig up....its clear that the serious drinkers weren't around Egullet yet in 2003. the drink looks like it would be fine, if it wasn't for the vodka part. (out of close to 100 bottles in my home bar -- not one is vodka). I also tend to wonder if the Taylor velvet falernum was probably already available in the U.S....the bar at Absinthe in San Francisco appears to have been using it for years...

"The Art of the Bar" -- a beautifully photographed and written book by the bartenders at Absinthe in San Francisco (it has a wonderful section on the principles involved in cocktail creation) -- has numerous recipes for cocktails involving velvet falernum -- it is replete throughout their house recipes.

M&H is extremely conducive to what I define as a good date. It is not really a normal hangout spot (not with the Pegu Club an option) sidenote to the post above -- see my suggestion of Cielo -- sure there are certain clubs that are more Eurotrash (and their groupies) than B&T (i.e. they're the entire Frederick's, Da Silvano, Barolo and French Tuesday crowd)...but even that's more true during the week...but exception duly noted.

of course it'll change again now that ___________ published it the other week... edited to omit the site

when did it actually open? I thought the review read a little hastily put together (not surprising considering its the end of the year).

it might be difficult to get a large group admitted in either of those places?...

in his review, Bruni lauds TEN dishes plus a general homage to the desserts. He uses descriptions such as: "terrific", "out of this world", "kraut to end all krauts" etc. he then has negative things to say about TWO dishes and a portion of the caviar service (does anyone get good caviar these days?) and notes inconsistency with the blini. He didn't say anything about the halibut. Now on what planet were we reading the same review? What we have here is a classic case of projection.

"Read my review post about the place, those bones in the halibut, and it wasn't very good excluding the bones. Perry Street has pretensions, the build out is fairly nice actually, and there is a high staff to customer ratio, it has also things like nice dinnerware. You can argue what Perry Street is, but it doesn't feel downscale to me. RTR feels like something that belongs in the Grand Hyatt at Grand Central.....it does not feel right. " in other words, you're confusing your review with Bruni's. and that's my point. I'm not advocating that RTR is a good restaurant...but it is 100% clear that Bruni liked (even loved) most of what he ate. That's the point. We're talking about Bruni's review, not about RTR. You seem to be talking about the latter. and "more than a few" doesn't mean much since he only gives two examples.

there are thousands of gin cocktails of which a hundred or so are actually good. best to go with something tried and proven. how knowledgeable is your friend? what else do you have on hand? if you really want to do something new, just try altering a classic a little. for example, I don't find the White Lady very interesting...but my "Woman in White" simply substitutes lime juice (in a somewhat reduced proportion) for the lemon juice and Parfait Amour for the simple syrup (also in a reduced proportion) and adds orange bitters -- except in very bright light the drink still looks perfectly white....and it tastes much much better.

these days Buddakan will be much more fun than Spice Market

the menu is on menupages, that's all I know.

this probably isn't a bad way to go. it does indeed change there very frequently (i.e. every couple months)...to the point that since I moved away from NoLIta to the WV a couple months ago I have lost all familiarity with the scene (cause most of these places weren't even open then....I didn't especially care for Belly or the Slipper Room)

I'd second Flatiron Lounge -- most of the crowd there has no interest in the cocktails but they still make excellent drinks.

"(May I also note that "critical mass" is a bit of a malapropism in this context?)" absolutely true, but we were following the colloquial usage. you're right that reservations are more difficult to get in NY than anywhere else. even at Alinea it is possible to get a table less than a month in advance...(and I'm not talking about cancellations). and bar dining is almost always an option (except for Alinea which doesn't have a bar)...as nowhere else in the U.S. has NY's bar dining culture. (more than once I've bypassed a two hour wait (literally) at Frontera Grill merely by eating at the bar.) while in NY, even the bar is not always an option (see Babbo)

flocks of women always seem to have a good time at Stanton Social. it's a genuinely mixed crowd (some B&T but mainly not these days as it's been open over two years now). no dancing though.

by definition, bottle service attracts a B&T crowd. your options open up if you're willing to forgo the dancing part (NY has a tough "cabaret license" regime which limits the number of places where dancing is allowed)

Eatmywords: huh? I've heard you use the term plenty of times. you know exactly the gum-chewing while wine-drinking demographic that I describe. who do you think composed half of our Hamptons house? everyone should see slkinsey's post and link on the nightclub thread. like I said, its not controversial to anyone in the industry.