Nathan

easy answer...Minado was simply replaced by an identical Korean chain restaurant in the same location (with the same setup and same dishes). the salads and hot dishes are actually decent enough...and there's copious amounts of the same sushi and sashimi as Minado. edit: I think it's called Todai or something like that. I was there last week (not a lot of lunch options around Penn Station).

oh gosh...whatever for!? this drink only works with equal parts.

I'll obviously have more to say after I eat at Tailor...but in terms of the ambition reflected in the menu descriptions...it appears to be every bit as ambitious as WD-50...which is certainly as ambitious (food-wise) as a number of four-star restaurants or restaurants with four-star pretensions.

you don't think that Tailor or Ko will be serving "ambitious food"? (well, Tailor already is. if Ssam Bar has two (I think it should be three), it's not hard to speculate that Ko might be in the running for three certainly it does appear that no restaurants with four-star aspirations are opening this fall (the unknown Liebrandt restaurant is purportedly aimed at a four-star level...but I'd surmise that spring/summer is the earliest it'll open)

I am, of course, not oblivious to those clues, despite being a straight guy. But when I look around the room at Momofuku Ssam Bar, I don't seen the same uniform, homogenous, trivially-identifiable crowd you profess to see. Yeah, the guy with flagrantly dyed hair, tattoos on their arms, boots with long stockings, retro rocker hair, etc., is statistically somewhat more likely to be going to certain places than others. But they don't all go there, and not everyone going there looks like that, and most Ssam Bar patrons don't look like that.FG's example put it well. Chelsea is a more gay neighborhood than average, but not every Chelsea resident (or even a majority) is gay, and not all gays live in Chelsea. ← we largely agree. and I completely agree that Ssam Bar isn't filled with Bushwick types...but people at Ssam Bar are certainly far more likely to be wearing Imitation of Christ than Elizabeth St. John.

The age differences are not all that significant. Age distribution for Manhattan Community District 8 Under 5 years 9,853 - 4.5% 5 to 9 years 7,126 - 3.3% 10 to 14 years 6,017 - 2.8% 15 to 19 years 5,131 - 2.4% 20 to 24 years 12,403 - 5.7% 25 to 44 years 89,609 - 41.3% 45 to 64 years 56,030 - 25.8% 65 years and over 30,894 - 14.2% Age distribution for Manhattan Community District 3 Under 5 years 6,975 - 4.2% 5 to 9 years 7,497 - 4.6% 10 to 14 years 8,446 - 5.1% 15 to 19 years 9,975 - 6.1% 20 to 24 years 15,109 - 9.2% 25 to 44 years 59,637 - 36.3% 45 to 64 years 34,667 - 21.1% 65 years and over 22,101 - 13.4% District 8 is Yorkville and the Upper East Side, and District 3 is the East Village, Lower East Side and Chinatown. If anything, I'd have to guess Chinatown pulls the District 3 ages down a bit, such that if you exclude Chinatown you may get very similar distributions. Needless to say, if you believe every neighborhood is a predictable monolith, it's kind of hard to argue that a neighborhood can be the older neighborhood but also the starter neighborhood. Yet, since neighborhoods are diverse, it really is possible to be both, and indeed all the established neighborhoods have pockets of both types of people. If the Upper East Side is only a starter neighborhood, and if nobody is moving there from other neighborhoods, who's buying all the multi-million-dollar apartments on the Upper East Side? Recent immigrants from China's Fujian province? I doubt it. Again, this sort of generalization doesn't reflect the diversity of preferences in New York City. I know lots of people who now live on the Upper West and Upper East Sides, who had their first apartments in the East Village. While there are pockets of starter apartments -- Normandy Court, etc. -- on the Upper East Side, it absolutely is not a "starter neighborhood." Come on. It's the most established, establishmentarian neighborhood in New York, with the greatest concentration of schools, wealth, etc. Fifth and Park Avenue prewar coops are some of the most expensive real estate anywhere. TriBeCa now has some of the most expensive individual buildings, but the luxury neighborhoods of the Upper East Side overall are still some of the most desirable addresses. I'm sure the data are compiled somewhere, and maybe I'll check the actual numbers, but I can say that my observation today just by walking around was that it's pretty obvious that the people walking on Madison Avenue in the 90s this morning were more likely to have been born in New York City than the people walking on Astor Place. ← sorry, I corrected #1 but apparently not in time. obviously the WV west of Hudson is older than the UES east of Lex...etc. yes, the UES (along with the very similar Murray Hill) is a "starter neighborhood)...yes, the UES contains some of the most expensive real estate in the city...but overall it (along with the far East Village and the LES) is the cheapest real estate in Manhattan south of 96th. I completely agree that people on Madison in the 90's were more likely to be born here...but that's not most of the UES. http://www.tregny.com/manhattan-apt-rental-report.jsp http://www.citi-habitats.com/media/pdf/rentals2002_2006.pdf (UES, in the aggregate, is the cheapest neighborhood in Manhattan below 96th. fact. (two bedrooms are cheaper in the EV however)) and it's not just rentals. http://www.citi-habitats.com/media/pdf/bw2006.pdf but, 75% of the housing in Manhattan is rental. so, yeah, rent actually does matter the most. with that said: the most expensive zip code in NY is in Tribeca, 10013: http://www.forbes.com/2006/04/17/06zip_new...thisSpeed=20000 here's a NY Times article on the subject. in a nutshell, your dollar goes 20-25% further on the UES and it's the "cheap" neighborhood to buy in...they go on to describe how this is a shock to those who have lived here for a while. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/realesta...nyt&emc=rss the median price per square foot for the WV is now $1,304. source: http://localism.com/article/31063/Manhatta...eenwich-Village from the times article: ""But it's also a comparative bargain, and that singular fact, aided by more plentiful inventory, is luring those who would prefer to live elsewhere. It's an odd concept to those who have lived in New York for more than a minute. Less than a generation ago, the Upper East Side was anything but a backup choice." "Like many other brokers and buyers interviewed for this article, Ms. Kunen estimated that a dollar goes 20 to 25 percent further there than downtown or on the Upper West Side. In some cases, that may be an understatement, according to numbers provided by Miller Samuel, a Manhattan real estate appraiser. As of June 30, the median price of a two-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side was $1.13 million, compared with $1.34 million on the Upper West Side, $1.41 million in Greenwich Village, and $1.975 million in the SoHo and TriBeCa area." "But value-savvy buyers aren't necessarily alighting with a bounce in their step."I really didn't want to live up there," said Lori K. Schwartz, 36, a consumer products marketer who wanted to remain near Gramercy Park, where she rented a studio. "I tend to go out more downtown, and honestly it wasn't that hip of a neighborhood.""

But how do you even know that? Do you pick a statistically significant random sample—better yet, a sample chosen by someone else, to eliminate selection bias—make a note of your guess, and then approach the person to find out if you're correct? I would be very surprised if you do. It appears you're simply assuming you have this skill that most of us are skeptical that you, or indeed anyone, would have. ← all that's being demonstrated here is that most straight men are indeed oblivious to fashion cues. of course you can do a taxonomy of NY...just like any other city (ask someone from SF to explain a "Marina girl"). and I picked the L train because it's one of the most blatant examples in the city. (the kids with flagrantly dyed hair, tattoos on their arms, boots with long stalkings, retro rocker hair etc. are going east....the people wearing Marni are going west....) if you really wanted to do a test...it'd be easy. we don't have to ask them anything...just watch which train they get on.

I don't agree with those statements at all. But I suppose there's no way to document the claims factually one way or the other. Still, to me, at a more fundamental level, the whole notion of a "downtowner" is suspect. If you examine a few randomly selected people who live downtown, you'll most likely find that 1- some of them work in Midtown and have a child in school on the Upper East Side, therefore giving them three neighborhoods in which they operate with frequency, 2- some of them have lived in several locations around the city, 3- most of them are not from New York City originally, 4- their ages range from 0 to 120 just like anywhere else in the city, 5- some of them are artsy types who conform to the hip, downtown stereotype and some of them are white-collar professionals who live in multi-million-dollar condos and maybe even vote Republican, 6- they all have MetroCards and travel around the city to do stuff. 1. individual neighborhoods have different median ages. 2. sure. that's why, for example, the UES is seen as a "starter neighborhood"...but there are far more cases of people moving downtown when they can afford it than moving uptown from downtown. 3. that's true of Manhattan in general. most people here are transplants. 4. considering the cost of downtown real estate...of course. but even there there are variances. one bedrooms in my building rent for $3,900 (as of last month). even if I didn't know my neighbors, that datum alone is enough to conclude that most people in my building are "white collar professionals". (the truly "hip" people live in Brooklyn.) but, do white collar professionals who live in the WV or Chelsea dress differently than white collar professionals who live on 84th and 2nd? somewhat when it comes to work clothes. Brooks Brothers v. Paul Smith. Ann Taylor v. Bei. when it comes to non-work clothes....the differences are vast. there's a reason that you can always spot many young men from the UES/Murray Hill in downtown bars and restaurants. they're the ones wearing non-fitted button-down shirts tucked into khakis. oh, trust me, we know they do they're going out downtown. in NoLIta Bar Martignetti or Vig Bar are good examples of UES bars. in the WV Tortilla Flats, the White Horse and Automatic Slims are examples of UES bars (heck, so is Chumley's believe it or not). I completely agree with this. but it doesn't contradict me at all.

well, it makes sense only on one level....the food is actually really really good. unfortunately, it's not $190 tasting menu good.

But Nathan, your responses always seem to assume that you can invariably tell—just by looking at them—where people have come from, how they got there, what they do, their likes and dislikes, where else they dine, and so forth. I find that very difficult to believe. ← the following is a statistical generalization and there are, of course, plenty of exceptions: people wear uniforms. period. walk down to the L train platform at Union Square on Sunday evening: look at the people coming down the stairs...one can pick out with a pretty high rate of accuracy who is going east and who is going west....just from clothing and hair styles (female hair styles (and the quality of the cut and color) say far far more than 99% of straight men realize.....in fact, I'd say that when it comes to uniforms in general most straight men are completely clueless (how's that for a valid stereotype?))

no, they're not dressed for Mix but a lot of people who go to Ssam Bar would never go to Mix. stereotypes are simply statistical generalizations. many are valid (in a statistical sense), some are not. it's fair to say that most people at Ssam Bar are downtowners. it's fair to say that few downtowners went to Mix. it's fair to say that Mix had a lot more tourist and B&T patrons than Ssam Bar. and for the few downtowners who went to both....well a pair of $500 jeans will make you feel comfortable in a lot of different contexts.

I think, in the traditional sense of formal and semi-formal dress, no, it can't still be about that because there aren't any restaurants left that require it. So if it is about formal and semi-formal dress, formal dining no longer exists and that's the end of that. If we think formal dining does still exist -- and I think it does -- then it has to be defined some other way. I think it's more telling, by the way, to look at female behavior than at male behavior in this regard. Men are slobs, at least your average heterosexual middle class man is. Most of them will dress down to the bare minimum acceptable level if allowed to do so. Especially at the expensive restaurants, where the clientele is older and married, the men often just don't care how they look. The women, however, usually care very much about their own appearance. So even today, you can still tell a lot about the state of mind of the customers -- the perceived formality of an establishment -- by how the women are dressed. Of the fake casual restaurants of the past few years, the one I had the most experience with was Mix in New York. I went there quite a lot -- probably once a month or more for the duration of its pre-meltdown run. The notion that Mix was a casual restaurant was always absurd, and the best way to tell that was by looking at the women. For the benefit of my readers and the enterprise of restaurant criticism, I examined the female customers at Mix with great care on every visit. I also, again because I am a thorough researcher, pay close attention to the women at Momofuku Ssam Bar whenever I go there. And I can say with confidence that, when it comes time to get dressed to go out, the women at Momofuku Ssam Bar think of Momofuku Ssam Bar in an entirely different way than the women at Mix in New York thought of Mix in New York. ← I'm going to completely disagree with your last paragraph (I agree with the first two). the women who went to Mix were different women than the women who go to Ssam Bar....but the women who went to Mix viewed Mix in the same way that women who go to Ssam Bar view Ssam Bar (well, the NY'ers anyway...Mix did also have a monied B&T weekend date crowd that Ssam Bar doesn't get). I'm completely serious. the difference isn't in how they viewed the restaurants....the difference is in uptown/midtown/tourist/B&T v. downtown (and most men would be flabbergasted at how similar in cost some of the clothing would be).....very, very different fashion styles.

so...what happens if Chang consistently puts out four-star dishes at Ko? (we know it won't be that formal in terms of service and decor)

oh..there are all sorts of micro-trends to go along with the macro ones....and this period is "dressier" than some periods in the past. (example of a more formal micro-trend: in the last couple years many young men in Italy have been wearing hats (I'm not talking baseball caps). that trend hit NY over the last year or so....first among the very "hip" and now it's becoming more mainstream (expect to see lots of young dudes wearing hats this winter)...if it really takes off in NY you will see it eventually spread across the country...if it doesn't take off in NY, it won't. but this is the kind of thing that fashion industry folks keep a very close eye on...since buying decisions are made six months to a year out.

see...that's a fair and in-depth characterization of why you prefer those dishes. it's also fair to say that you've experienced a different side of Soto's character than Bruni did...what's not fair is to say that Bruni failed to mention that side if Bruni didn't experience that side. he had 3-5 visits to Soto...I'm guessing you ate there far more often?

oh...all of that's very very true.

that's simply not true if you're talking about NYC or Chicago. people regularly spending $400 on a meal in a t-shirt and jeans are hardly middle class. (what's actually happening here is young affluence....and the restaurant industry market analysts agree)...entry level salaries in law and finance are so much higher than they used to be (job security is also much less than it used to be in those fields. even accounting for inflation, a big law firm first year associate made far less in the 70's, 80's or early 90's...but they almost all made partner. today, the number making partner is much smaller but the first year salaries are much higher (as are the hours worked)

oh, I agree the trend is everywhere.

seriously: "Bruni's review was all wrong because he was only 99% right about Soto's best dish...he picked the right sub-family of dishes...he just picked the wrong one within that sub-family". sheesh, we're not talking about rocket science calculations here. that's awfully tough.

omg...this is becoming surreal...and completely absurd. langoustines (of which there are multiple varieties...the most well known being the Venetian scampi, the Scottish langoustine and the New Zealand langoustine....there's an excellent article on wikipedia if you really want to get into it)...are a part of the lobster/prawn family. Period. ok, so some people in Atlanta think that Soto's best dishes were the ones using American or Nova Scotia lobster (wherever he was sourcing from). that's nice. langoustines are far easier to source in NY than Atlanta (heck, they weren't even regularly available in NY five years ago)...Soto comes to NY...and starts using langoustines regularly. and Bruni thinks that a langoustine dish (which may very well have been a "regular lobster" dish in the past...or its something Soto dreamt up when he came here) is the best thing on the menu. maybe it is, maybe it isn't. but to say that Bruni's all wet cause Soto does regular lobsters even better than he does langoustines (oh really? how would one know that?)...is beyond asinine. think about it: "Bruni's an idiot because he almost picked perfectly the dishes that I personally think are Soto's best...but he's really a moron cause he does that dish better with regular lobster than with langoustine...even though that's the one Bruni had. Bruni's a real moron because he didn't say "I bet that when Soto was using regular lobsters in Atlanta this dish was even better"..... in reality, substitute a langoustine into most lobster dishes, and they'll be even better. 2. how the hell does one know that Soto wasn't a "cold fish" when Bruni was around. people have disagreed with Bruni over many things...but no one here has called him a liar before...especially from 1500 miles away.

well, there are regional/demographic issues that come into play once you leave the cities. I've been in places where (to put it less politely, were in the "sticks") diners would dress up to go to Red Lobster and seemed to look down at us jean and t-shirt wearing urbanites. meanwhile, in Manhattan the number of places where I would feel out of place not wearing a jacket is probably at 5 or less.

http://www.timeout.com/newyork/article/623...0/four-coursing This analogy strikes me as a good starting point for an explanation of how Momofuku differs from Atelier. There are similarities, but they come at the phenomenon from different directions: ground-up and top-down. When someone like Robuchon or Ducasse opens Atelier, Spoon, Mix, Adour, Benoit, or any of the other second brands, with multi-million-dollar budgets, backed by hotels or other major investors, and an international marketing machine, it's just not the same as when David Chang opens Momofuku with scraped-together money. The informality of Momofuku is genuine: it is a true lack of formality. The informality of Atelier and its ilk is studied: it's part of a business plan, programmed, researched, invented, artificial, imposed. Soft-core informality for people who want to pretend to be informal but who wouldn't actually want to face the Momofuku experience head on. ← that's an excellent point.

1. "Bruni's all wet. he said that the best dish was a langoustine dish. that's moronic. Soto's best dishes are his lobster dishes." please, seriously. come off it. what hell is a langoustine dish but one of Soto's "lobster dishes". that criticism was beyond weak. 2. like everyone else, what I'd heard about Soto's personality was his famous occasional feats of temper. that's what's interesting, that's color. there's nothing interesting about the times when he's a nice guy. it's not like Bruni said Soto was a jerk (he didn't). your dispute is with journalism in general (and all of us as readers)...not Bruni.

You could definitely argue that Ssam Bar and Robuchon are two peas in a pod, but as you point out, they are appealing to different clienteles, and the bills for typical meals are in very different zip codes. ← sure, but what does that have to do with formality? Alinea is very formal (by my definition: it requires jackets, has teams of servers, a very high server to patron ratio, is very quiet, tables spaced widely apart, no loud music...etc.) but no one on staff looks like they're over 30 and the clientele is very mixed in age. edit: or are you just saying that "very expensive" (which Alinea is) = "formality"? in which case, if I was willing to open a money-losing restaurant I could open one which was relatively cheap but required jackets and had elaborate platings and service (actually, I can think of a number of restaurants fitting that description in various small towns...like the one French restaurant in Tallahassee, etc.)....and I guess it would still be informal.

"Expensive dining is not growing in NYC, aside from the effects of inflation (mostly due to rents). The restaurants Fabricant listed aren't just less formal than Per Se, Del Posto, and Gordon Ramsay. They are also less expensive." well, "very expensive"...probably not. but compared to other places...there are an awful lot of restaurants now with entrees averaging in the 30's...my perception is that this isn't just inflation. the fact that we don't even think of that as "expensive" sort of proves my point. (try doing that with a straight face five years ago). the tasting menu at Robuchon is now $190, without wine and service. there are exactly two more expensive restaurants in NY (in terms of a tasting menu...and Per Se is barely so). so, in that sense, it's unique. but it's still not formal. (and people do eat there in t-shirts and jeans...something which one just doesn't do at its price-point peers) obviously I was counting alcohol. but if we just went with entrees $30 and above we'd come up with hundreds of restaurants.