Todd36

It's not a bad place. It's not a question of how much I have in the way of funds, its more how I chose to spend my funds. Tonight, it was on a fund raiser. I do admit that I work at a bank.

You mean Marzipan fruits and the like? probably too late. by try Bruno Bakery, 506 LaGuardia Place, NYC Phone:212.982.5854 Fax: 212.477.2289 I'm also fairly sure Balducci's and Citerilla have it as well.

Walk into a Japanese grocery store like JASMart and notice the rather large bags of MSG they sell (often from Ajinomoto, who invented the modern manufacturing process). Please repeat with Chinese and Korean grocery stores, you'll also see rather large bags of MSG. Please repeat with your standard US grocery store, say Food Emporium for those of us in NYC. See any big bags of pure MSG for sale? I don't think so. Only a little bottle of Accent. Asian cuisine as made at home or in a restaurant often has pure MSG added by the cook, that's not something regulary done in any "western" cuisine that I know of, in "western" cusine if pure MSG is added, it's done in a factory setting.

If the ingredents include soy sauce, the dish has MSG. If the dish includes anything made from cooked soy products or hydrolyzed proteins (i.e. cooked), the dish has MSG. There is plenty of natural MSG in soy based cooking....

So obviously it wasn't the first. I'm not sure when Takezushi closed or what year it opened. ← From a 1981 NYT Article: "According to Ryudaburo Kawada, the owner of the Takezushi and Kurumazushi restaurants, all mackerel is salted and then marinated in strong vinegar and squid is purchased frozen, a process that kills the parasite. Mr. Kawada also said that all bonito is infected and so is rarely ordered by non-Japanese and the susceptible yellowtail is also purch ased frozen. "

They are run as two entirely seperate organizations. ← Yup, I can confirm that as well. ← You probably have correct and accurate inside information. Still, I would expect that they share certain things in common, like design and favored construction contracters. I would also assume that TC's has some influence over how the kitchen is run in both Craft and GT, which is rather important when considering health code violations. Bottom is that I work rather close to Shake Shack and have eaten there a number of times. It's not bad, but not that good either. Not worth the hype or the line, which I think are the produce of a good marketing group and an unusual location. Try NY burger on Park Avenue South, it's pretty decent with less of a line and looks cleaner, at least to me. Don't know what the health department thinks. And I don't like the way Shake Shack gets its deliveries....

very sorry to veer off topic but just my two cents... when i think of gramercy tavern, i don't think of colicchio as being involved at all. that's like praising/blaming bourdain because you loved/hated your steak at les halles. ← From GT's website: "Chef/Owner Tom Colicchio and Executive Chef John Schaefer cook from the heart with a memorable blend of bold flavors and elegant refinement" Well, perhaps he never shows up, but they sure as heck credit him on the web site.

Had dinner there tonight. Amuse was a corn and butter soup, quite good. Heirloom tomato salad was excellent, soft shell crab was very good. Lobster poached in butter was very good, much more memorable than the Per Se version last year---not cheap at $45. Fillet of beef was very good. Cherry/pistacho dessert was very good. Poached Apricots were good---tasted like the ones I made at home using fruit from Red Jacket and sure enough, turns out they got them from Red Jacket, I asked. Overall, it's probably a low three star in my book.

I don't know what they use for flavoring, but on Friday they were dragging ordinary commerical pre-pack Vanilla custard mix to the shake---forgot the brand. The hot dogs appear to be Old Vienna, which makes sense given the Chicago theme.

Shake Shack still doesn't strike me as a carefully run shop---I've seen the food dragged one too many times from a rental truck parked on Madison Avenue, remember, I work very close. With respet to Craft and USHG, Tom Colicchio is in both and I have difficulity believing they are run as two entirely seperate organizations.

I didn't define average, the NYC deptment of health does, its 12 points, according to their web site Craftsteak is 12 Craftbar is 15 Craft is 21 GramercyTavern 19 Eleven Madison Park 18 Tabla 7 Union Square Cafe 12 Jean Georges 16 Jo Jo 5 Mercer Kitchen 21 Gotham Bar and Grill 8 Daniel 12 Danube 25 Bouley 6 Per Se 14 Chanterelle 13 Blue Hill 15 The very large corporate cafertera where I work gets 4, and it cooks plenty from scratch---it's a bank..... If Bouley gets a 6 (gotta wonder about danube), I don't buy the rel cooking can't do well argument. Also, Shake Shack and at least one of Meyer's other places got points for plumbing that didn't meet code---that's a giveaway in my opinion for weak management.....

I didn't mean to claim that the Japanse places mentioned in 1898 were sushi places, King doesn't provide that kind of detail. He was clearly about town through, he also mentioned the Nippon Club, which still exists. I am not sure what you mean by dedicated sushi restaurants, as far as I know Kuruma is unique in NY in that the only hot food they serve is sushi. Nippon I belive dates back to the 1950's and I have read Beef Negimaki was invented there in the early 1960's, following a suggestion to the owner by none other than Claiborne. Since in 1968 Nippon had a sushi bar, I would feel comfortable saying that they were a sushi restaurant in 1968.

Sushi has been around in NYC longer than you think---Craig Claiborne mentions in his 1968 NY Guidebook that the restaurant Nippon has a sushi bar---and he assumes that the reader knows what one is. My 1898 King's Guide to NYC mentions the exisitence of Japanese restaurants, and speaks well of them.

I've had lunch at Vong two twice in recent months and dinner once at JoJo. Vong was OK, JoJo was good but not a good value at the price point.

If you take a look at Danny Meyer's other places on the NYC Dept of Health web site, you'll note that they generally come in around average. They are not tightly run ships at least when it comes to the health code. Shake Shack is a high volume place in a tight space---combine that with management that does an OK job with the health code in easier to manage places, and you would seem to have a problem.

Many local supermarkets carry Vietnamese summer rolls in their sushi section. You might also want to look at http://www.phohoa.com

I wasn't too imprssed by this place either---it all has the look of frozen pre-made and while it tastes OK, it isn't one of NY's better places.....

Stopped by on Friday, noted that Vanillan was the flavoring on a box of chocolates, walked right out.

It's a four star system in my 1968 NYT book......

Yes I agree with you and was a bit confused by the McDo and TGIF thing to begin with. ← When a culture starts to copy something adapted from another culture, it's a sign that something is becoming generally accepted. Like teriyakai, or crispy Chinese noodles on a McDonald's salad. Or the potstickers that were on the menu at TGIFridays's in 1986. When a food item hits large chain restaurants with limited menus, you can be pretty sure that culture's food has been adopted into the mainstream, or at least that culture's perceived flavors have been. Thai, Chinese and Japanese flavors, or pseudo-flavors, are widely present in school cafeteras and chain restaurants. Korean flavors, or at least flavors identified as Korean, are not. Society has not well accepted Korean food or flavors in a broad sense. I suspect it's becuase of the salt and perhaps strong flavors as noted by other recent posters. Korean food is the only food I can think of that serves large quantities of raw garlic..... ← Is your food culture represented by McDo and TGIF? Very interesting. ← It is, if you're trying to identify what the general population eats. Social and culinary snobbery has no place if you want to know what people really eat. Nissin Cup a Noodle outsells in dollar volume every sit down proper ramen restaurant in the US combined and probably multiplied by ten. Bud Light far outsells every micro and import combined. Do you think everyone has dinner at Bouley every night? Places like McDonalds, TGIFridays, Denny's, Taco Bell and the like consume most of people's dining dollars in this countury. When Korean food hits those places, you will know it has been accepted.

well that is probably just personal preference. The northern style of ramen from Kyushu will have a thick and oily broth. Whereas people from Tokyo prefer a lighter shoyu broth. You can't lump the Japanese as one entire group, account for regional styles. I know plenty of people that prefer a thicker/oily broth. Different strokes for different folks.... ← It actually made me sick and for what its worth, my Japanese friends thinks its just plain bad, having little to do with regional variation.

Yes I agree with you and was a bit confused by the McDo and TGIF thing to begin with. ← When a culture starts to copy something adapted from another culture, it's a sign that something is becoming generally accepted. Like teriyakai, or crispy Chinese noodles on a McDonald's salad. Or the potstickers that were on the menu at TGIFridays's in 1986. When a food item hits large chain restaurants with limited menus, you can be pretty sure that culture's food has been adopted into the mainstream, or at least that culture's perceived flavors have been. Thai, Chinese and Japanese flavors, or pseudo-flavors, are widely present in school cafeteras and chain restaurants. Korean flavors, or at least flavors identified as Korean, are not. Society has not well accepted Korean food or flavors in a broad sense. I suspect it's becuase of the salt and perhaps strong flavors as noted by other recent posters. Korean food is the only food I can think of that serves large quantities of raw garlic.....

Maybe it's the Korean food in New York? Or it's it is not to your taste no matter where you've had it? Which is quite allright too. In my neck of the woods I can point to lots of examples where it has entered the mainstream, national chains don't get more mainstream. I'm not claiming that it's to everyone's taste or will become as popular as Chinese, but it's not exactly floundering in insularity in Los Angeles. Anyway, they also do very well (thriving in fact) catering to their own. If the Koreans themselves are happy, it really doesn't matter. ← It's easy to find Korean BBQ sauce in supermarkets on the east coast, and most health food stores and some supermarkets caryy kimchee. But I don't take that as much of a sign of general popularity. They also carry pig trotters in the supermarket in my home town and I would bet serious money that less than 5% of the local population will eat them. There's all kinds of stuff sold in your typical supermarket that are really niche products. How often do you buy 50 pound bags of rice marketed towards the Spanish speaking market? How many non-Jews buy Matzoh? You can also walk into the supermarket in my home town and buy Dettol from Jamaica. have you ever bought that? It's when McDonald's or TGIFriday's puts it on the menu that you know it has become cuisine for the general population. Seen anything that claims to be Korean on the menu of any major restaurant chain?

In his 1968 New York Times Guide to Eating Out, Craig Claiborne included one Korean restaurant, Ariranh House, at 30 West 56th Street. It received two stars. He clearly liked it, although he presented it as a novelty. The same book includes 19 Japanese restaurants. Clearly, Japanese places had a head start. On the other hand, the book includes zero Thai restaurants, and given that Thai food is everywhere, it clearly came from nowhere to become very popular. Korean food has clearly not resonated with the general population the way Japanese food has, with sushi sold in supermarkets and elementry schools serving chicken teriyaki, or the way Thai has, where everm fast food hamburger joints feature "Thai" salads. I suspect it's the heavy use of salt, pickels and packaging issues, it has to be something....

Had lunch there yesterday. A mistake. Even their light broth is very heavy and oilly. My Japanese friends will not eat there.