jesteinf

That's too bad. I really wanted to go back and give Butter another shot. I had a very disappointing meal there shortly after they opened, but things had obviously improved since then.

First of all, Ron...great list. Anytime someone is coming in from out of town, that should be the Bible. My 2006 favorites in all categories and in no particular order: Alinea - NYE dinner, post midnight. Also a great anniversary dinner in March. A shame that I didn't get to go more this year. Avenues - Foie gras tasting menu at the chef's bar. Great meal, great company. Quartino - If only for the duck prosciutto Schwa - Quail egg ravioli, prosciutto consume, you name it. I'm just glad I was able to go a few times before the masses caught on. Carlos' - Why can't more restaurants be as flexible as Carlos' when creating tasting menus? Also, Carlos and Debbie are about the nicest people you'll ever meet. Custom House - Quail appetizer is one of the best in town. Fortunately I was able to get to Custom House several times this year and explore the menu a bit. They had a rabbit main course on in December that completely blew me away. Loin wrapped in housemade pancetta with a stew from the rest of the meat. Frasca - Finally, pizza in Chicago I like. Avec - Fried oyster salad, braised pork shoulder. Hard to pick a favorite here. Blackbird - Two words: pork belly Tsuki - Other than the fact that I got engaged here this year, the sashimi is consistently excellent. They also had a wonderful New Year's Eve menu that far too few people took advantage of. Sweets and Savories - Kobe beer and foie gras burgers. Even better one night with shaved black truffles (see, "How to turn a $10 burger into a $50 burger") ronnie_suburban's homemade pastrami - Dangerous, dangerous stuff "Little" Three Happiness - Crispy skin chicken. I wasn't nuts about it at first, but it grew on me more and more with every bite. Now I crave it. I think that about covers it. 2006 was another very good year.

In chronological order... January - Carlos' Restaurant, Chicago January - Sea Saw, Scottsdale February - Schwa, Chicago March - Alinea, Chicago May - Blue Crabs eaten in a friend's backyard in Southern Maryland September - L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, Las Vegas October - Guy Savoy, Las Vegas November - Per Se, New York

It certainly smelled truffle-ee, but not as strong as when the truffle is shaved right in front of you. I know there's a certain element of theatricality to the whole thing, but I like that. And no, there is no extra zero on the price of the staircase.

The fiancee and I recently came into quite a few LEYE gift cards so we decided to blow them all at once at Tru. With all the talk of Tramonto and Gand no longer spending much time in the kitchen, I figured this would be a good opportunity to investigate if things had fallen off (with little no financial risk on my part). Well, if Tru was a four star restaurant the last time I was there (about three and a half years ago) I would put it at about 3.5 stars now. When Michelin arrives, I can't see them getting 3 stars. The service was as stellar as I remember. Very formal, but approachable. I would describe it as highly professional. The servers here are not robots, but they're not really trying to be your best friend either (which I like at this level of dining). The food itself was quite good, but there were a few missteps that came across as a lack of attention to detail more than anything else. I had a lamb dish that probably should have had a bit more fat trimmed off of it than it actually did. Also, one course (a chestnut pasta in a broth...sorry I don't have the menu in front of me), was probably served at the wrong temperature (it arrived cold when I'm pretty sure it was meant to be room temperature). One weird thing...There is a white truffle collection on the menu right now and both of us wanted to add a course from that collection to the tasting menus we had ordered. Not a problem. The kitchen added the housemade tagliatelle with brown butter sauce a shaved white truffles. When the dishes arrived the truffles had already been shaved on top. Now, I don't go around eating white truffles everywhere I go but I can't say I've ever seen this type of dish presented like this. I thought the truffles were always shaved at the table. Anyone have any thoughts on this? ETA - There was no supplement for the white truffle dish on our check, which to me makes the whole thing even more odd. Finally, a heads up. The caviar staircase is no longer being served as part of any of the tasting menus. It is now only available a la carte at the low low price of $200.

I'm not really nuts about North Pond, but I think I may have ordered poorly. We went for the fiance's birthday back in March. We had a great table and the service was wonderful, but I just wasn't that impressed with the food. Actually, my biggest gripe is that the way many of my dishes were composed the food was just difficult to eat. For example, I ordered a duck dish for my main course that was really more like a hearty soup. The dish had what I think were small duck egg rolls, but they got sort of gummy from sitting in the broth, which made them very difficult to cut or eat. I would like to go back and give it another try. I just wasn't as blown away as I thought I would be given the way people talk about this restaurant.

yeah. The restaurant is in las vegas. ← But that is waaaaay over the top for pricing, even in Vegas. It's hard to justify prices like that when so many others there have the same quality of ingredients, and spend millions on building and charge much less. Pricing like that, imho, is like an elitist attitude to keep out the 'rabble.' ← That's a pretty tricky argument to make with any fine dining restaurant. Some people have trouble justifying $100 (or even $50) for a dinner. To each their own is what I say. In Vegas, the high prices at these types of restaurants are a function of the money that's going through a Strip hotels and a way to impress the whales that are being comped (some of whom I would consider to be rabble anyway based on their behavior in some of these restaurants).

What a total freaking disaster last night's show was. Was that a realty show or an infomercial. I realize that product placement is a realty in today's world, but last night was over the top: "Let's all go back to the Kenmore kitchen so can cook with your Calphalon pans and cook food that might be served at TGI Fridays!" I realize they do the same thing on Runway with the Macy's accessory wall and the rest. It just seems more intrusive on Top Chef. Also..."craveable"? Ugh.

That's great news, and obviously well deserved. But Arun's? I don't know about that one.

Glad to see you liked Pastoral. We don't live far from there now, but we'll be even closer after we move at the end of next month (so dangerous). I believe Greg only hires culinary students to work in the store, which I think is a nice touch. It's also a perfect place to stock up for a picnic. Like Tammy, I eagerly await my foodblog debut on Friday!

So many questions! The wine list is extensive. So extensive it comes with its own wooden table to sit on while one reads it. My father selected the wine, and I don't think the sommelier tried to "encourage" any sort of choice based on price (we had a bottle of Puligny-Montrachet to start, and then I had a glass of red Burgundy with my duck). I can't emphasize enough how friendly and accommodating the entire was (no French necessary). I didn't see wine pairings on the menu, but I would imagine they could do it, just because they are so willing to please all of their guests. Finally, no prices were given on the champagne cart.

Trust me Russell, the pleasure was all mine! I'd be interested to hear the comparison to Robuchon at the Mansion. We originally tried to go there but couldn't get a reservation. ETA: Regarding doing the tasting menu vs. a la carte. I always prefer a tasting menu, but the others in my party always choose to order a la carte if they can. Do I regret not doing the tasting menu? Absolutely not. Would I do it if I went again and I had the choice? You bet I would.

We had a 6:30 reservation, at which point the room was about 1/4 full. By 8 the room was full and it stayed that way until we left around 10.

As promised... We had a wonderful dinner at Guy Savoy last Friday night. After we were seated, we were warmly greeted by Franck, Guy's son. Soon after, the very impressive champagne cart rolled up and I was able to enjoy a very nice glass of Pol Roger Winston Churchill. And since this was all very civilized, we were served a nice little snack of foie gras pate and toast while hearing about the champagne. As pictured above, the restaurant offers a nine course tasting, but my table opted to order a la carte. The nice thing about their a la carte option is that you can order half-portions and construct your own little tasting menu. For my first course, I went with white truffle risotto (how could I not?). The risotto was on the firmer side (which I like) and the truffle was shaved generously table-side. A dish like this is a lay up at a restaurant of this caliber, but Guy Savoy took it to another level. When I was done with what was on my plate, a waiter came out and scooped a couple more spoonfuls of the wonderful risotto onto my plate. Next, some white truffle emulsion was poured on top of the risotto. Finally, some more truffle was shaved on top of the whole thing. Without a doubt, this is the best example of this dish I have ever had. Next I moved on to the seared diver scallops. The scallops were cooked perfectly and served on top of a parsley puree. This was one of the many dishes to hit the table that really highlighted the quality of ingredients and the skill of the kitchen. Such a simple dish, but such a pleasure to eat when executed so flawlessly. For my third course I had to have the artichoke and black truffle soup. Another winner. The soup itself was bursting with artichoke flavor and slices of cheese in the soup provided a nice balance of flavor. The warm brioche with black truffle butter served with the soup was just obscenely decadent. For my main course, I had a special of white duck breast with truffles and foie gras cooked under the skin of the duck. This was served with black truffle mashed potatoes. As you could probably guess, this was pretty darn good. Finally for dessert I had "Le Peche". A roasted peach served on top of phyllo dough (I think), served with a scoop of lavender ice cream. We also enjoyed a visit from the dessert trolley. I had a chocolate lollipop, a couple of marshmallows and a couple of other pieces of chocolate which were all outstanding. This was by far the best meal I've had in Las Vegas, and probably one of my top 10 meals ever. The service was informed, polite, and pleasantly casual. We laughed quite a bit with the various servers who came by our table. One thing that was a bit over the top was the bread service. When you are seated everyone at the table is given bread. But as the meal goes on, you are visited repeatedly by the bread cart which has about 9 or 10 different types of bread to choose from. After about the third time it was probably enough already. Granted, it's pretty hard to pass up bacon bread, but we all wanted to save room for the rest of our food. Bottom line, an outstanding experience that I would highly recommend.

On bagels - Not exactly one of this town's strong suits. On pizza - I can't stand the pizza out here. Gino's, Malnatti's, doesn't matter. It's probably because I grew up in NJ, raised on NY style pizza. Happily, this style (or things close to it) are starting to creep into the city. I'm rooting for the trend to continue. Oh, and even if you don't like raisins, definitely get to Pastoral. Their olive bread is also fantastic. Also this time of year they get in some great apple cider from Michigan. Looking forward to the rest of the blog!

Just got back from an outstanding dinner at Guy Savoy. I'll post a full report later, but this was definitely one of my favorite meals of the year.

Great stuff Ron. I was pretty unimpressed with my first visit to Butter. It may be time for a return.

Thanks, Ron. Now I just have to work on making sure we have decent food at the wedding! On the subject of rising prices, I can't stand when new restaurants do this. I understand why it happens, but it still gets to me. Quartino is probably the worst offender right now. I've been there twice in the last 6 weeks and the prices had gone up both times.

We went to Sola last night and had a wonderful meal. We arrived for our 8:30 reservation to an absolutely packed house, but were seated immediately. For my appetizer I started with the artichoke fritters. I thought the fritters themselves were a bit on the bland side, but the two dipping sauces (white truffle-honey and soy-lime) really elevated the dish. The girlfriend (who, since Friday night will now be referred to as the fiance ) has the trio of tartares. I enjoyed that appetizer more than the fritters. The trio included cured salmon, a sesame crusted tuna, and a fennel crusted tuna. All were wonderful. For mains, I had the "duck, duck, goose". Five spice crusted breast cooked to a perfect medium-rare, with confit filled ravioli, and gooseberries. This was a great dish, but the portion was maybe just a hair to big. The fiance had the ginger-glazed salmon, which was also wonderful. It was served with tempura green beans, which were crunchy and delicious. Dessert was banana bread pudding with banana ice cream, which was a great way to end the meal. Although the food at Sola is quite good, what makes the restaurant even more attractive is the value proposition. The wine list is exceptionally reasonably priced, with most selections ranging between $30-$45. Our check for two of us after tax but before tip which included a nice bottle of Chablis, two appetizers, two mains and one dessert was $125. A tremendous value given the skill of the kitchen and the quality of ingredients being used. We will definitely go back.

Awesome stuff. Congrats to the whole team. Extraordinarily well deserved!

Rather than derride the list, I'd like to congratulate the team at Alinea. Even if it is politics, consider it a make up from not winning the Beard award (which certainly aren't political).

If you're just looking for menus, they're both on menupages.com, which has quickly become one of my favorite tools.

I love it. Hopefully the madness will end soon. Maybe the Council will repeal the ban if a different MASH star will speak out in favor of the repeal. Does anyone know if Alan Alda is available?

It is an interesting issue. The tasting menu at the NYC branch is essentially the same price as the Tour at Alinea (Alinea is $10 more). So the question is, what would a rather have for my $165-$175? My answer: While I really enjoyed L'Atelier, Alinea is still tops in my book. But, for $45 less per person, I was perfectly happy with L'Atelier.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it is. In fact, I think most of the menu is identical. I mentioned this to my girlfriend and we both had a good chuckle over the fact that we were actually getting a "bargain" in Las Vegas. In NY, do they have $70 seared tuna belly? That was the only thing that jumped off the menu as laughable.