Nathan

ditto that. as well, if you want more "active" bars (Pegu Club has the best cocktails in the city but it is also rather sedate), it is an easy walk east to the east village or the LES (tons of bars) or west to Employees Only. actually, another food suggestion in the price range would be Otto (cheaper than Lupa, fun decor and boisterous scene)

I'm curious, perusing this as an admittedly anti-vodka snob, but my understanding is that Ciroc is simply a relabeled and softened grappa -- which is why it tastes good.

if you're not willing to make the trek out to Red Hook (like me -- without decent subway access there is no way), then as suggested above, Astor Place and Warehouse Liquors are your best bet. Warehouse has the best prices in the city and an eclectic selection that varies from week to week. I scored Carpano Antica there once for like $14. Astor Place has a much better selection but higher prices (except for sales --like the one on Plymouth right now). However, the best selection in Manhattan overall is probably Sherry Lehmann uptown. It was the only place where I could find Parfait Amour....

Unfortunately, what we ended up with had no heat at all. Thai (and Laotian) cooking depends upon the perfect balancing of flavors. When you don't have spice you have too much sweetness. And we had exactly that in several dishes.

I enjoyed my meal at Zabb City (its Manhattan moniker). Alas, I'm sorry to say that we ran afoul of the classic rule that one should never ever ask an Asian restaurant with entirely Western clientele to not make things "too spicy"...this wasn't my idea to begin with as my palate can handle any spice level but the result in this case was no discernible heat whatsoever...leaving, especially the Pow Pow, us with cloying sweetness in some cases. Come on guys, I know you didn't want it at the Sriphithai level but no restaurant in Manhattan with an entirely Western clientele is going to give you a lot of heat unless you beg for it. With that said, the ingredients were fresh and good. I was grateful to see a few Eesane (or Issaan) dishes on the menu...the last time I've had anything from Eesane or Laos (the cuisines are very similar) was at Ee-sane in Milwaukee.

I guess I'll throw in my 3 cents here: The credit card issue is the one I find the least perturbing (the cutlery on the other hand...); my surmise would be that most likely they simply had a delay while they were making a phone confirmation for someone else's credit card (something which does happen in the credit card world -- especially with international travelers). I'll also note that no one is liable for more than $50 if, in fact, their credit card is stolen or fraudulently used.

It was just a dig at shows like "Next Top Model" and the like. obviously, it fell flat. I thought the content on Tocqueville was lacking (though this will always be an issue with double reviews). I thought there was enough on the Tasting Room -- a. the menu changes daily and completely every few weeks so it's not like you can recommend specific dishes (except to say that you should get anything with mushrooms -- which he did); and b. there really isn't much to say about the food.

well, I called this one. money quote: "The Tasting Room is like a vegetarian restaurant that won’t come out of the closet." that is seriously funny...and true.

hmmm...2 stars for Tocqueville. 1 for Tasting Room. unless he really decides to dock it for being drastically overpriced. (granted they did change their menu format back to the old one a couple months ago so they might have dodged a bullet there)

I don't think he could have justified expensing multiple visits to ADNY (the time not just the cost) without doing another full review. I do agree that he should have done one visit and blogged that.

Haven't eaten there. As I posted on the cocktail thread -- I can't especially recommend the drinks. And I've heard some more recent reports that weren't at all encouraging. Let's just say that apparently Mr. DeGroff was paid to put together a list and then walked away (and there's nothing wrong with that per se, but their marketing people pushed that aspect hard).

"A new chef at ADNY seemed like big enough news to me to warrant a reevaluation. I mean, Bruni at least should have gone. He could have written it up in Diner's Journal (in whatever form that column/blog was then taking) even if he did not make it the subject of a formal re-review." This I agree with. I see FG's point but like I said, I don't see how the Times would do two re-reviews of the same restaurant within a year of each other. Most readers wouldn't understand it....no matter how notable the change. Especially since most such readers (most diners at ADNY as well) could care less who the day to day chef is....it's Ducasse's name that matters. edit: in other words, I don't dispute the significance of Esnault taking over...but no restaurant can expect constant re-reviews. Ducasse got one when he went from Didier Elena to Delouvrier, that doesn't mean Esnault automatically gets one a few months later....but yeah, it could have been mentioned in the Bruniblog -- or, maybe it was a matter for Florence to cover (did she?)

oh, and it's not that ADNY is not a place that I would not go to -- but I already went to Alinea and Atelier d'Robuchon in the past six months and I'll go to Per Se and Masa before I would get around to ADNY....and those won't happen in my budget for quite some time.

I don't think a four-star restaurant wants to be re-reviewed. Agreed. I can't ascertain your argument. Because Grimes re-reviewed ADNY two years after its opening and Bruni reviewed it again four years after Grimes, that somehow justifies another review four months after the last? Huh? Just cause it got a substantial amount of ink doesn't necessitate it getting even more. So what are you saying? People already gripe about high-end restaurants getting too much attention from the Times. So the solution is for one of the three most expensive restaurants in the city to get reviewed twice in six months? (Surely we can agree that once it was announced that ADNY was closing/moving (rumor on Eater today is that it is closing for good) that no re-review would happen.) Sorry, there are way too many deserving restaurants in need of a review and I would like to read about some of them.

as someone who actually had chickens for three years while growing up (we lived on a hobby farm briefly in Vancouver)....I can assure you that chickens, especially hens, seem to prefer being inside, in the dark and in extremely close proximity to one another and to their own droppings. they just don't like open air. indeed, my understanding is that "free range" chickens have access to the outdoors but very few actually avail themselves of it. that classification is a joke.

The fact of the matter is that the majority of the readers of the dining section (and most NY foodies for that matter) could care less about ADNY. Frankly, I would have been appalled to see one restaurant, which I will probably never go to, get four reviews in six years or two in one year. There are too many good restaurants without a review (and yes, most restaurants would do anything for a Bruni review, even a negative one...if you don't get that you don't get NY restaurant economics). frankly, I find it to be the height of snobbery to assume that a high-end French restaurant deserves a new Times review within months of every chef change. Does that go for every other two-star and above restaurant? If that's the case, we'll need a separate re-review section of the Times every week. edit: put differently: It'd be grotesquely unfair to far too many restaurants for any one restaurant to garner that much review space. And talk about leading to charges of elitist Francophilia on the part of the Times dining column....! No way, Jose. Bruni has nothing to do with it. Grimes wouldn't have done it. No critic in the modern era (i.e. the last 10 years or so) would have done it. Wouldn't have made it past the dining editor.

I think most readers of the dining section would have seriously questioned 2 consecutive re-reviews of ADNY in the same year. There was no way that was going to happen....no matter who was the reviewer. If ADNY was still functioning in 07 there might have been a a third re-review. (ADNY has already been re-reviewed twice in a four year period and has been granted 3 reviews in six years....no way was it going to get a fourth.) edit: Indeed, it would have done a disservice to the Uovos of New York for one restaurant to get four reviews in six years, including 2 in one year.

cholesterol, etc. (the taste point wasn't surprising to me)

Admin: Split from the Dean & Deluca and Citarella thread in the New York forum. I don't get the organic poultry thing. Not only do I see it as primarily marketing (like everything "organic)...there are health concerns. http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article...irds/article.do edit: unthinkingly used the word "serious"

by definition there's a vast distinction between a "received opinion" and an "educated opinion" I can't even see how they could be confused. An "educated opinion", by definition, can be opposed to a received opinion. In other words, the substance of a "received opinion" is pre-determined, while only the process of deriving an "educated opinion" is pre-determined. It is an RO that Dosteyevsky was a better writer than Lermentov. It is conceivable, although not likely, that one could hold an EO that Lermentov was a better writer than Dosteyevsky. Furthermore, there are many aesthetic instances where there is no RO, but where an EO is certainly possible, even likely. For example, there is no RO placing either of Tolstoy or Dosteyevsky over one another. Certainly, many people have an EO on the subject. Another example: many people, who don't really read, have an RO that Shakespeare was a better writer than John Grisham. But since they only read Grisham (if that) and don't read Shakespeare, they don't actually know this. It's merely an RO. On the other hand, every person on the planet who actually reads holds an EO, to some extent anyway, that Shakespeare was a better writer than Grisham.

dinner's not the issue

which is why on this point -- I think FG is right.

considering that Virgil Thomson was a fan of Gertrude Stein, I question whether I would take him seriously on anything! but to extend the music criticism analogy a bit -- going back to FG's comments on mackerel, Sir Thomas Beecham besides being a fine conductor (and singlehandedly rescuing Delius from obscurity) was a bit of a music critic as well. He also hated the harpsichord (comparing it to the sound of cats copulating on a tin roof)...but I daresay he knew the difference between good and poor harpsichord-playing, or even composition for it. Another example of a music critic that one must take seriously, despite his numerous presuppositions and pre-ordained tastes, see Shaw's writing under the pseudonym of Cornetto di Bassetto.

Robyn: dogmatism is not a good idea in the age of google. art galleries were common in the east village in the 1950's and have moved to soho by the early 1960's. http://www.nyu.edu/greyart/information/Gre...ch_village.html OK Harris was apparently the first formal gallery on West Broadway but last time I checked there are 20 odd streets in SoHo.

fwiw, I completely agree with Leonard Kim. I just reread the ADNY review....I read it as saying this is one of the three most expensive restaurants in the city and it's too inconsistent and is thereby serving three star food. three star food at four star prices equals two stars. you can disagree with that but I don't think this is a case of Bruni simply not getting a restaurant. he's saying that they're not operating at a high enough level to justify the prices. I would hazard a guess that Bruni is more value-conscious than perhaps any prior Times critic. I'm not sure that's a bad thing. btw, are they certain he hasn't been back?