Nathan

I agree he should have eaten there...but we'll never know for sure if he didn't (unless Bruni tells us). although I find it likely that Bruni would have been spotted....Bruni is clearly not spotted on many occasions when you would expect him to be...so it's certainly possible that a visit slipped by. (it's obviously the first visit that is most likely to get past)

Union Pacific was reviewed on 26 November 1997 and 5 August 1998 -- the second review was titled "A Short Trip From Promising to Polished." ← ten years ago. a lot fewer restaurants worthy of being reviewed. edit: as well, I'm guessing those weren't the third and fourth times that it was reviewed. if Bruni had also reviewed ADNY under Esnault it would have been the 4th review that the restaurant would have had in, what, five years? I heard complaints after that 3rd review!

those weren't Asimov's comments about mixologists....

I'll bite. 1. who? 2. sure...but I'm 32. 3. no and no. 4. as with many of my NY ilk...sartorial obsessiveness comes with the territory...so, heck no! there's a Prada sample sale starting on Monday (seriously). 5. correct. 6. dog. 7. only unintended progeny in every port.... 8. I can count...you can't. 9. neither. 10. nope, started on the high school b-ball team.

when you taste a sample of the creme yvette reproduction in progress last night and excitedly email all your friends...including mostly non-cocktail geek ones.

you obviously haven't met me

seconded.

R.U.B. is my repeater. I've enjoyed Blue Smoke but not enough for me to go to Murray Hill (no, it's not formally Murray Hill...but it's certainly functionally in Murray Hill) just to eat there...and the odds of my just being in the vicinity are pretty low. I've eaten at Hill Country once and need to repeat. Again, the location is annoying.

I agree that Ducasse under Esnault deserved a rating. the problem is, Bruni reviewed Ducasse under Delouvrier less than a year before the announcement of its closing. it'd be unheard of for a restaurant to be reviewed twice in a year....and frankly, except perhaps for the hard-core formal foodies...there'd be some wonderment and outcry over him doing so. I think ADNY needed to stay in business for another year to get that Esnault review. heck, it would have been unfair to other restaurants.

no. well..Ssam Bar is something else... but is there any reason to think Bruni cares about more 4 star restaurants?

ya think? Isn't it just "Kobe beef" or "wagyu" on menus everywhere? they've gotten a lot better in the past few months (a few were always accurate) because now that real Kobe is available they have to explain why they're selling it for $40 more an ounce than what they were selling the Wagyu they were labeling as "Kobe" before. the steakhouses all seem to get it right. heck, BLT Burger sells both an American Wagyu burger and a burger made from real Kobe (for $60..and what a waste of the meat). Alinea and Per Se and the like have always called their meat "wagyu"

a couple years ago the Times did an expose on farmed salmon being sold as wild salmon around the city (its possible to lab test for this). in a nutshell, I think only Citarella and Wild Edibles passed (I should google this)...while Whole Foods basically passed because they were able to determine the salmon they bought from Whole Foods was a farmed salmon that had escaped into the wild..... edit: here's the story. Wild Edibles failed! Citarella wasn't tested. Eli's Manhattan passed. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/dining/1...&partner=rssnyt

gotcha

I would tend to think that Southern Hospitality is as authentic as Britney Spears' restaurant was. Johnny Utah's features Blue Smoke alumni and appears to claim to use some sort of pit. the real attraction appears to be the mechanical bull (I need to visit it to just retain my championship from last year...)

isn't coquille St. Jacques a specific scallop preparation? its a classic French dish....still available on a few NY menus...albeit almost extinct. does it also just refer to scallops per se?

I think American restaurants have gotten a lot better at this. Wagyu is a breed of cattle from Japan (it may also be simply the Japanese word for beef because that was the cattle available)...Wagyu is fattier and has more marbling than other breeds. Wagyu has been successfully raised in both Australia and the U.S. (I think South America as well). for years American restaurants were serving American or Australian Wagyu and labeling it as "Kobe"....now that real Kobe (i.e. Wagyu from Kobe) beef has become available...I've noticed that most restaurants have become pretty good at labeling the difference (a few always got it right)...the price difference is, of course, extreme.

casunzei is on a lot of restaurant menus in NY.... the cepasante looks interesting...I'm unfamiliar with that dish. it's also good to see that they used the proper word for "shrimp"...unusual for Little Italy.

the demand for formal dining has definitely diminished (although Bruni did, in fact, have nice things to say about it in today's review)

I disagree. not when the blog is intended to be a professional, money-making product...which it was.

I interpreted Eater's reaction as "Wait and see," while your reaction is "I've already seen enough." I'm more in Eater's camp.Now, I don't want you to take this too personally, but as a neutral reader, my take is that her food/restaurant knowledge is about comparable to yours. That's partly because she knows more than you give her credit for, and partly because you know a little less than you imagine. On the other hand, you don't have, nor have you sought, a paid professional critic's job. In that capacity, she needs to be a lot better than the typical eGullet Society contributor—that is, a lot better than you or me. So she still has a lot to prove. ← not Eater's comments...the comments on Eater.....and....in other forums....run about 95% negative. I'm neither a food blogger nor a paid food critic...so my culinary knowledge or lack of it is simply irrelevant.

but it makes you feel like you're on vacation!!!!!

I like Peasant a lot...though it's not the most accessible restaurant. Spotted Pig isn't especially good. (the two best things on the menu are the gnudi and the burger)

and for what it's worth...based upon the comments on Eater and elsewhere....I'm hardly alone in my opinion....

for her writing...see the piece I linked too above from just a couple months ago: "an ambitious Jew from nowhere near the Lone Star state (Maryland)," ??????????????? "kicked up a notch"??? the "welcome wagon"???? this is painfully amateurish. as for the shill part....as with A.S. I simply refuse to believe that she has always had great food....except when she wasn't comped or recognized. she's a walking restaurant publicist and has been seen that way in the industry for years. edit: I know she has a large fan club....but I don't think it's for culinary reasons... edit2: seriously, "an ambitious Jew"?

of course, so long as she has an editor catching things like this: http://www.restaurantgirl.com/restaurantgi...ll_country.html it has to be an improvement!