Miami Danny

Chef Kris Wessel's goal here was to do the improbable-turn out a full menu of ambitiously sourced and prepared food, night after night, from a tiny kitchen with barely any prep space. Of course it has turned out to be impossible, for now, and Wessel has had to be content with sending out a limited menu of modern American cuisine, with some flourishes like sous vide, or vacuum-packed slow cooking, mixed in with more traditional items like burgers and BBQ shrimp. The menu may list just one soup, like the conch-rich chowder, one salad, and maybe seven or eight main dishes, most of which are served in small and large portions. Some items are phenomenal, like the fried baby conch ($8/15)-man's got a way with conch-while some mystify, like the slow-cooked ribs that mange to be dense yet flavorless. The menu's items rotate, although two of them-Wessel's signature-worthy BBQ Shrimp ($10/18), done New Orleans-style, which means they are not barbecued at all, but floating in a tangy Worcestershire-based sauce; as well as another trendy rendition of eggs as a main course for dinner- a 'pan roast' of organic eggs, applewood bacon, morbier cheese, and tomato toast ($9/17)-are always available. There's usually a 'local catch of the day', served in one of chef Wessel's fruit-forward sauces. I especially liked the 'Spiny Lobster', served with leeks, orange confit, red bliss potatoes, and little neck clams ($12-half portion), a dish that is cooked sous vide-the ingredients (at least the lobster and one or two other ingredients) are cooked in a vacuum pouch in a thermal circulator (which keeps water at a constant temperature) at low temperature, 110 degrees, for twenty minutes, . For serving, the pouch is opened table side, and poured over the other ingredients. I've never eaten 'spiny lobster' that tasted quite like this, although I will say that this dish is both fascinating and frustrating at the same time. And perhaps that is my only real beef with Red Light. If the chef is going to introduce new cooking methods to the table, perhaps they should be accompanied by better service. Dumping a bag of food on the plate is inelegant at best, especially when the cooking method is described by the server as "like papillote" (cooking in parchment), which is nothing at all like sous vide. Or when a bottle of wine is brought to the table and the server asks if we'd "like to taste it first, or should I just pour it?" That is simply a question that should not be asked. Of course, all neighborhood joints are granted special exemptions to work out some of the kinks, and, in the end, I'm hoping the allure of Kris Wessel's innovative cooking, as well as the 'banks of the Little River' location, will outshine any early missteps.

Bruce and Lucia Brill, owners of Asia Bay Bistro in Bal Harbour, have re-energized the old Cafe Le Glacier, now called Le Cafe, which is located in a small strip a few blocks north of Michy's, at Biscayne and 73rd St. (305-754-6551). The idea for a French place came from the fact that their sushi bar is located next to a French bakery, and, almost by osmosis, the aromas of fresh-baked goods began to permeate their thoughts. The result is a low-key spot with mustard-colored walls, framed French posters, lazily turning overhead wooden fans, and a small bakery in the back turning out fresh baguettes and croissants every day. Every neighborhood needs at least one or two good bakeries to be taken seriously, and the Upper Eastside finally has its first. The whole-wheat loaves are crusty outside and fluffy within, and are great plain or with a little butter alongside the Segafreddo coffees they serve. The croissants are crusty without being too much so, and their healthy aroma is mostly of butter. The chocolate croissants, however, are beautifully over the top, with the filling oozing out-no need to take a few bites to locate a measly bit of filling-it's everywhere. Bread and chocolate as only the French do it. And although Bruce hails from Holland, and Lucia is from Colombia, their chef is from France. All of the soups and quiches are made from scratch, and the 'lorraine', loaded with ham, has a nice custardy zing to it, with a light crust holding it together. The 'vegetarian' is mostly spinach, which is a healthy but substantial alternative. I wasn't too fond of the lackluster seafood quiche, as I'm not a big fan of 'surimi', or imitation crab, and it would probably taste better at room temperature, rather than reheated, in any event. But something as pedestrian as chicken salad really tasted refined tucked into a slim, fresh, baguette. The entrees are not too bold, with Messrs. Salmon and Snapper leading the way. But for $14, I'm sure there are a lot of folks in the neighborhood who would rather have someone else do the cooking, while they sit out on Le Cafe's little patio, enjoying their $25 bottle of 'Vivir, Vivir', and snacking on some Escargots in Garlic Butter Sauce.

The great scenes from Taxi Driver with DeNiro and Peter Boyle were filmed in, and on the sidewalk outside of, the Belmore. And weinoo, you're thinking of Kay's. Lenny was the grill man (I think). Lot of Lennie's back then.

As I said, best meal in Miami. That I've ever eaten. In a restaurant/eating establishment (it's hard to call T. Road a 'restaurant'). Perhaps others would choose something else?

I have kept it to myself too long, and for that I make amends. Every Tuesday night, you can get a $10.99 Lobster Dinner at TR-comes with garlic mash and slaw-who cares it is a freakin lobster for 11 dollars! Peroni and Bud be $3.50, Photosfor photos of Senior Pinchy, and what I did to him for breakfast the next day. I also compared him to another lobster dish I had eaten recently at Vita, and found the $28 Vita Lobster Salad more than lacking Lobster Cage Match If anyone knows of a better meal in Miami, please, please, post it here. And remember, CALL AHEAD!!!!

← And he accepted. He is an artist. He took part in Documenta for that reason, flying individuals to his restaurant every day of the 100 day festival. If that's not art, I don't know what is. He loves to be coy about it, which I find charming, if a little silly. Like technoemotional. No one should be defensive about being called an artist.There are also points that Santi raises about snobbery that may ring true with a lot of people. Although he did not do himself any favors by trashing a fellow Spanish chef (see the Charlie Trotter/Rick Tramonto fiasco-which I'm pretty sure has blown over by now). I think this controversy will be good for MG, and for traditional chefs as well, as more light is shed on different cooking methods.

First, the entire NY Times piece, which is a lot more comprehensive, can be read here...Sunday NY Times Piece I submit that it is a more well-rounded discussion of the chef's complaints, which did not solely focus on additives, etc. Second, sorry, but you are certainly asserting cause and effect. It's okay that it may have happened, just odd that it comes up now when you happen to disagree with the chef's statements. If you have posted elsewhere about attributing illness to a meal at Can Fabes, then I apologize. Otherwise, it's the same kind of slander. Additionally, what got lost here, is the following... He is "accusing them of producing pretentious food they would not eat themselves." And also that " he accused them of cooking for snobs." This is not a new kind attack on cuisine of any kind, but there certainly may be a ring of truth to it. Just because Ferran Adria calls himself on artist, doesn't mean his food creations are above criticsim. Quite the opposite, and even moreso. Just ask Jackson Pollack, whose later work was vilified. Perhaps he raises a good point when he asks, "How can we, the defenders of natural, local products, include unnatural products in our cooking?” Although he doesn't state what he means by "unnatural", methylcellulose is certainly not 'natural' in any sense of the word, although of course it is not toxic. It is just the main ingredient in a popular laxative. That actually might save one some time before bed, so how can anyone complain?

Of course you may be too young to remember it, my young friend, but 'Brasserie' on E.53rd, hard by the Waldorf, most definitely preceded Stars. It opened in 1959.

red light has a 'special' 'green' menu for Earth Day, and Chef Kris Wessel has come up with some nice salads, including organic tomatoes; sapodilla milkshakes; a shrimp pan roast; and an organic grilled veg sandwich with optional organic chicken. I tried the spiny lobster sous vide, and the US Kobe burger, which is hereby nominated for best burger in Miami-you heard it here first. Also, the three cheese plate for $6, had a good amount of very good Loxahatchee goat, a smelly French triple cream, and a sharp Cheddar, that was served with what tasted like guava jerky. A fine meal, with a decent $32 Cotes du Rhone. To watch a video of the sous vide spiny lobster being served, please check out 'red light' goes GREEN... We sat outside, on Biscayne, and it was a nice city-type dinner, with cars and some skells (just one or two, actually) rolling by. You can smoke out here, which is a good option for you smokers... Full menu coming in a week or two; although when I asked the chef when he would start serving the full menu, he replied, "Do I have to?" I guess it's nice not to have to worry about 35 dishes, just 8 or 10.

"Up thread - I was told we shouldn't have expected a great dinner on Monday - since *the* chef wasn't in the kitchen on Mondays." I'd like to set the record straight-I was responding to your post that it was "extraordinarily crowded with a lot of tourists" on a Monday. Locals know the food can be just as good with the chef not in the kitchen, as at many other restaurants; but as Mr. Schwartz lends a lot of personal energy to the room, locals like to see him there, and not even necessarily cooking. He's just so effin adorable. My exact post was "I have to disagree with the comment that prices have gone up. As a local, I have eaten at Michael's since its inception. It is, in fact, still filled with locals, who know not to go on Monday because that is 'chef's night off', like everywhere else. Why anyone would want to try the best restaurant in town when the Chef isn't cooking is something only tourists do (some, of course, have no choice), so you are probably correct in assuming there were a lot of tourists there. " If you'll notice, I never said anything about the quality of the cooking. Please try not to misquote me again for your own purposes.

In the old days people would come to Miami and ask, “Where's the best deli?” Today they mostly ask where to eat Cuban food. But with the closing of Rascal House up in Sunny Isles Beach, there was a lot of hand-wringing about the disappearance of a culture. The last time I ate at Rascal House, Thanksgiving 2007, there was a birthday party behind us, and the young lady was celebrating her 91st birthday. I can also say with certainty that she was not the youngest person at the table. The alta-cocker culture may be drifting away, as are the people who once inhabited it, but there are still signs of vibrant Jewish culture here in Miami, along with some pretty decent food to match. I started with The Old, Old, Restaurant Row, 41st Street on Miami Beach, AKA Arthur Godfrey Road. For those of you who don't know, Arthur Godfrey was kind of the Harry Reems of his day. Huge porn star. Not really sure why they named a street after him; but of course that was back in the fifties when porn was the most respectable industry in Miami (pre-cocaine, in other words). Jackie Gleason, for whom the Gleason Theater was named, was also an amazing lush, although, unlike Godfrey, he actually had talent, and his tag line, about beating the sh*t out of his wife, was hilarious. Vanishing Jewish Deli Culture? But back to Rascal House. My constant companion, as it was Thanksgiving, demanded, and got, the full works-turkey with all the trimmings, as they say. The food was okay, not much better than steam table fare, and the whole boat including matzoh ball soup and a glass of wine was $22.95 (tip not included, as our waitress informed us several times-guess she'd been burned more than once by those Canadian/Russian tourists). I got the flanken, or short ribs, which was done up old-school-Jewish style, i.e., boiled to death. It was the boiled dinner, after all, and the carrots, potato, beans, etc., all seemed to have been put through the same de-flavorizing machine (apologies to the Woodman). There was some taste, some taste-memory, in fact, that no amount of overcooking could kill. This piece of meat was not savory, but it was substantial, which, where I come from, takes precedence. The matzoh ball soup was a little thin, but the ball itself was light and eggy. The gratis accoutrements, the half-sour, and sour pickles, the pickled tomatoes and peppers, the thick cabbage slaw, and the four or five bread items (dark onion-y bialy's, etc.), were fresh, and were the biggest hits of the afternoon. The service was delightful, and our waitress satisfied our curiosity (which we didn't know we had) about every customer by informing us of their habits, both good and bad, in minute detail (“hates bread”, “only eats bread”, “they take the leftover bread home with them”-yeah-it was mostly about the bread, in retrospect). The picture of Gleason on the wall was priceless, as he's one of my all-time heroes, and the characters at the horseshoe counter were alternately calling for their waitress to either turn up or turn down the volume on the game on the TV (she never moved). There are good things and bad about losing this place. Maybe restaurants past their prime, no matter the sentimental value, should be allowed to die a (semi-) dignified death, and go off into the night with fondness, as it were. Especially in a world where many deserving restaurants struggle, suffer, and die an ignominious death, remembered by no one. The last time I was at Wolfie's, on South Beach, several years ago, the front windows were grimy, and the place smelled like old grease and rotting flesh. At least Rascal House kept its nose clean, and kept on sending out those simulacra of good Jewish Deli food, right up until the bitter end. Of course, without anything to compare it to, it may be remembered as a lot better than it was. But like a good museum, where every single piece of art doesn't have to speak to every patron, the same goes for this old place. Just enough items to smell and taste good, to remember, and maybe not for everyone's taste, but comfortable as an Alexander Calder mobile, or a nice bowl of hot chicken soup. For some before and after photos see The Last Jew In Miami...

On a recent whirlwind tour of New York (mother, cousins, The Laurie Beechman Theater-don't ask), I had the opportunity to have lunch at Momofuku Noodle Bar, where the manager asked us to come next door to the then-unopened Momofuku Ko to take pictures for Gourmet.com, and where we ate the Fried Veal Sweetbreads, which are like 'Popcorn' Shrimp; dinner at Soba Totto, where I chatted with a slightly inebriated chef from another restaurant in their chain, got some lowdown, and ate Kobe Beef Tongue; 'solid' drinks at Tailor, where Sam Mason was politely introducing himself around (and where eGullet stars were recovering from a celebrity chef 'Offal' dinner); and another lunch at unassuming but solid Noodle Village (Fish Cake End Cut Noodle Soup). Drinkswise, PDT was a Monday night to remember, with Don starting me with a deconstucted Rum & Coke that contained no coke. Actually, much of what I remember is somewhat hazy, even the 'Chang' Dog. But the best food/drinks experience was Saturday Night, at Market Dinner. Where's that, you say? This particular night, in Brooklyn, truth be told. Nowhere Like (A Foodie Friend's) Home... I also post some video showing the preparation of the Four-Hour Braised Boneless Shortribs, as well as some photos of all the courses, at New York-Miami Foodie Craziness... If you can, start your own. I hear it's crazy out there on Saturday nights...

I have been to Paradise farms, and have written extensively about the owner, as well as photographed their growing areas. The argument that this is a 'hobby' farm is simply not worth addressing. It is an ongoing, profit-making venture. People who work here on a volunteer basis, incidentally, do so because they are, like any interns, gaining valuable knowledge and insight. (They also get free room and board). They also believe in the cause. PF products are in dozens of restaurants in S. Fla, and they do two farmers markets every week. I'm so tired of hearing these unsubstantiated guesses made by ill-informed haters, whose only form of 'research', is to stare into a flat-screen, scratching their head. This is an organic farm that grows organic food. People who actually have been here, as I have, and have researched their methods, as I have, know that it is a noble experiment that has succeeded. Hate all you want on So.Fla, it is obvious that some 'gardener' is not going to understand farming, which, as any five-year-old can plainly see, is quite different. And if your par list includes 200 items, and you don't know where one comes from, I don't see what the big deal is, when you know where the other 199 came from. Additionally, you can't complain about there not being enough local items, and then complain that you are misunderstood, that you don't really care about local items. That's disingenuous and childish. For actual information, visit A Day in Paradise...

Of course by "contemporary standards" you mean standards that went out of fashion for decades and were only revived because bartenders like DeGroff and Abou-Ganim never let them die. That's why I'm looking forward to Bar Milano. "Bar" is in the name-always a good sign...

Second Bar Milano. Tony Abou-Ganim heads up the cocktail program: The goal with Bar Milano, he told me, is to serve "great Northern Italian food with a great wine program and great cocktails. After all, a well-made libation should be part of the whole dining experience.” In other words, look forward to a damn good Negroni.

So you're saying that if the menu doesn't specifically say "local" in the description, then it's not possible that an ingredient is local? Argument doesn't hold water; as Miami Danny says on his blog, I just checked Michael's dinner menu, where a Wood Roasted Double Yolk Farm Egg is one of the small plates - it says nothing about the egg being local...yet it obviously is. So it's time to stop trying to cherry pick the menu (as it's obvious your cherry picking leads to inaccuricies)...we all now know you don't like Michael's...stay away and make it easier for those who want to go...most of whom actually have a pretty damn good time at a reasonable price. ← Fuuny you mention the double-yolk egg dish. It is presented with a nice mound of organic greens, from Paradise Farms in Homestead. Not listed on the menu. The persimmon salad has local persimmons. Also not listed on the menu. I could go on.

La Marea at the Townhouse? There's Bond Street Sushi at the Townhouse Hotel, and La Marea at the Tides Hotel - which I found to be pretty mediocre: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/469845 Danny, were you thinking of something else? ← Yes...La Marea at The Tides. Heard some good reports; haven't been myself.

I guess I should follow up on the "shenanigans" bit. . . My feeling is that a good, ethical reviewer is able to mitigate any potential sources of influence to the greatest extent possible and still produce a reasonably unbiased report. In some ways, I think it's easier for a comped and non-anonymous author to do this, because he already assumes that he's getting special treatment, whereas the supposedly anonymous writer dining out on the company dime may not. But, really, the proof is in the pudding: If a writer is unduly influenced by being comped and other "shenanigans" then this will come out in his writing, which won't reflect a fair and accurate assessment of the restaurant, and therefore won't be very high in quality. And so that's not a writer whose work I will value very highly. I don't doubt you when you say that a free meal in Miami is a ticket to a glowing blog entry. You're certainly in a better position to know than I about Miami. And it may be true to a certain extent in New York as well. We all know that there are certain bloggers or freelancer/bloggers who always seem to give a positive review. Probably these writers are unduly influenced by being comped, not to mention any number of other things. This, to me, says that they're not very skilled at their jobs. I don't care about their work, because it is not shedding any useful and meaningful-to-me light on the restaurants those writers review. Of course, its also the case that I can say the same thing about several reimbursed writers working for newspapers in this town. So, if I consider the fact that the acceptance or non-acceptance of comps doesn't seem to have a meaningful impact on the usefulness, accuracy and overall quality of restaurant reviews in New York City (else the quality of the reimbursed-meal work would stand head and shoulders above the comped-meal work), and in further consideration of the fact that some of the best, most useful, informative and critical work around NYC of which I am aware has been turned in by writers to accept the occasional comp, what am I to conclude? Are comps ruining the craft of food reviewing? Not as far as I can tell. If all these writers were to follow Holly's model or your model, I guess we'd have three or four reimbursed restaurant reviewers in NYC turning out mostly mediocre work, and then either lots of reviews of hot dogs, pizza and cubano sandwiches or a glut of non-restaurant food writing. Meanwhile, no one would (except enthusiasts with deep pockets) be getting any experience in either dining at or writing critically about restaurants in the middlebrow and higher category. ← You know, I agree with you on a certain level, especially when it comes to more expensive meals. No one reimburses me, and my natural tendency is to write more about less expensive places anyway, so that is what most of my work consists of (although I have written several fine-dining reviews-at places I was planning on eating at anyway, for the most part). And I also realized that I have been to many wine tastings where the wines were provided by wineries or distributors. Some wines were great, some were not so great. Some events were open to the public, but some were trade/press only. As a bar owner, I always voted with my ordering pen, and didn't feel the need to criticize the lesser wines. You knew what I liked, because they were on my list. But now, as a writer, I try to include the good and the bad. But it's hard to arrange a tasting of 100 wines from Montalcino without the help of the wineries or distributors. "How much do I owe you for that tasting?" just doesn't seem right. So perhaps you have a point.

C'mon. Show us a little love. You're staying at the Four Seasons and you're hating on little Michael's? Acqua Shmacqua. It's dead for a reason, just why Michael's is packed for a reason. Your point, as I take it, is that you don't have any respect for Miami restuarants or the people who live in Miami, or other tourists who are staying at the Four Seasons, who don't want to dine at the dreary hotel restaurant. I can understand that. But MGFD is not 'trendy' because of the celebrity factor, because there isn't one. It's just damn good.

So now we finally get to the REAL heart of your argument, SK. Perhaps it is not comped meal vs. paid meal that matters to you, really; or having ethical doubts (or not) about receiving comped meals, etc.....But non-paid writer versus "salaried" writer. You seem to be saying that anyone with a computer is as reliable as anyone else with a computer. That is a completely different argument my friend. And I don't know about NYC, but here in Miami, a free meal is a ticket to a glowing write-up in the 'new-media' (by which I assume you mean bloggers). I'm guessing that probably happens more often than you'd care to believe, even (or perhaps especially), in New York. Sorry, but that strawman's all your own. I was merely making the dichotomy between freelancers, many of whom could not work without comps -- although some publications do reimburse (albeit often stingily) -- and non-freelancers. Although, now that you mention it, there are plenty of food writers for the web (either avocationally on blogs, professionally on blogs, professionally on "web publications" or professionally for web sites associated with either print or television entities) that I think are a lot better than the usual newspaper and magazine food writers. Ultimately what I care about is reading something that demonstrates that the writer knows what he's talking about and that sheds some kind of useful and meaningful-to-me light on the restaurant(s) being written about. ← If, as you say, "Ultimately what I care about is reading something that demonstrates that the writer knows what he's talking about and that sheds some kind of useful and meaningful-to-me light on the restaurant(s) being written about...", and you don't care what sort of shenanigans went on to bring you to that point, that is certainly your prerogative, and ends the discussion. Additionally, I'm not sure who you are specifically referring to, of course, but I can tell you that I don't accept free meals. I write for a magazine, a print weekly, and a pretty huge website Miami.com , as well as my own blog. That's new AND old. And no one pays for my meals, not even a single taco. When the sh*t hits the fan, no one can impugn my integrity.

So now we finally get to the REAL heart of your argument, SK. Perhaps it is not comped meal vs. paid meal that matters to you, really; or having ethical doubts (or not) about receiving comped meals, etc.....But non-paid writer versus "salaried" writer. You seem to be saying that anyone with a computer is as reliable as anyone else with a computer. That is a completely different argument my friend. And I don't know about NYC, but here in Miami, a free meal is a ticket to a glowing write-up in the 'new-media' (by which I assume you mean bloggers). I'm guessing that probably happens more often than you'd care to believe, even (or perhaps especially), in New York.

Ahem. Now you've got my attention, dear boy...

Dinner at a restaurant only happens once. Most restaurants are never reviewed by the same critic more than once, and most of the time based on only one or two visits. You are also not correct that theatrical shows or opera productions are never re-reviewed. For example, it is fairly commonplace for a newspaper to run a second review of an operatic production if there is a noteworthy change in the cast that would be of special interest (just like re-reviewing a restaurant after an especially noteworthy change of chef). It is also somewhat common to re-visit long-running musical theater shows after several years have gone by. Keep in mind that the "menu" (songs, staging, costumes, many of the same performers, etc.) at Cats never changed, so there was actually less need for a revisit compared to a restaurant's evolution after a year or more. Each meal is a separate event as well, although that's not most of my point here. My point is that a sports writer who enjoys special access to players and team officials (and the attendant career benefits) has a strong influence to not write anything negative about that team and those players. Why? Because if he does, he may find that special access cut off or given to a competing writer. This is especially true of beat writers who cover a single team or a single city's teams. If that team and its players cut you off, it's not like you can write about the team down the block. You might have to leave town and start over. In contrast, a food writer can always go on to the next restaurant down the block if he burns himself with one. It seems obvious that these are much more compelling reasons for the sports writer to be influenced to go easy on a team or a player than receiving a comp from a restaurant might influence a food writer to go easy on a restaurant. And yet, as I have pointed out, sports writers do hard-hitting and critical stories on teams and players all the time. So, here we have the evidence that sports writers, who have much more powerful reasons to compromise their ethics in favor of a team or certain players, seem nevertheless to be able to make ethically uncompromised critical comments about these same teams and players. Indeed, this is the norm in the field. And yet, you and others are arguing that food writers, based on the comp of a single meal at a single restaurant, would be unable to do the same. What conclusion are we to draw here? That food writers aren't as good, or are somehow morally and ethically weaker than sports writers? You say this as though the quality of food writing coming from "company dime" salaried writers is categorically better than the quality of food writing coming from comped freelance writers. I disagree. There is good and bad to be found in both groups. As I said before, there are any number of comped freelance food writers whose writing and judgement I value over that of most any "company dime" salaried writers. So I think you're off-base to suggest that it's comps that are reducing the value of food writing. If so, what is the explanation for the overall poor state of the writing we are getting from "company dime" salaried writers? Of course, there are comped freelance writers who may be swayed by "royal treatment," which you seem to equate with comping (I would suggest that salaried "company dime" writers are much more likely to receive special treatment than any comped freelancer -- and candid reports from restaurateurs tend to support my suggestion). But my larger point is that a critical writer or reviewer has any number of potential outside influences that may sway his writing in one direction or the other. A skilled ethical writer tries to account for these potential influences and mitigate them to the greatest extent possible; a less skilled or ethical writer may be less willing or able to do so. What I don't see is that comping necessarily equates an unmitigatable influence and ethical conflict that stands head and shoulders above all other potential influences and ethical conflicts. For every writer who is unable or unwilling to consciously consider and mitigate the potential influence and ethical conflict inherent in accepting a comp, there are any number of writers who are unable or unwilling to consider and mitigate the potential influence and ethical conflict inherent in the fact that they want to screw the head waiter, or admire the restaurateur, or want a certain kind of restaurant to succeed, or don't like pasta, or feel that the chef/restaurateur has "dissed" the town's restaurant culture, or were likely recognized by the restaurant staff, or were in a bad mood that day, or were reviewing the restaurant of a major advertiser, or didn't really understand a particular style or restaurant/cuisine, etc. ← Sportswriters are completely influenced by their treatment! Why do you think it takes years for imortant sports stories to break? And that they never seem to be broken by the sportswriters themselves (steroids and Michael Vick are the two most recent examples). Comps influence writers of ALL stripes, that is my point. It is not the freebie alone, of course, that has led us to the dismal affair we currently face; but the lowering of ethical standards until there are none at all has certainly not helped. (Are you in favor of doing away completely with ethical standards, my friend? Or are there some that, while quaint, you might prefer to hang on to?) I would also say that categorically, sportswriters (and the fans themselves, probably, as well), are some of the most knowledgable about their field. Food writers, and their cohort, for the most part, as a pithy blogger might say, 'not so much'.

For the record, I don't write, nor have I ever written reviews of anything. Really? That seems a little naive about these businesses. I'm not talking about the one Bruce performance out in the Meadowlands. These are all ongoing businesses. Tell that to the Metropolitan Opera and its dozen or so performances of La bohème every season (the premiere of which is reviewed every year in the NY Times). Tell that to the producers of Cats, which ran for over 6,000 performances and more than 20 years on Broadway -- that's longer than most restaurants, and the "menu" never changed! Tell that the producers of any Broadway show, all of which are designed to run 8 performances a week so long as they can continue filling the house. Tell that to the Atlanta Falcons in the wake of the Michael Vick dogfighting controversy, or the New York Knicks in the wake of yet another forgettable season. Also, consider that by and large, the restaurant critic is reviewing between one and three "performances" or "games" by the restaurant. The argument, by the way, is not that the situations are directly parallel. But rather that writers in these other fields have equally, if not more powerful reasons to be influenced -- and yet they seem to do pretty well. You think that a single comped meal at a restaurant is going to influence a food writer to go easy on a restaurant more than a season's worth of free seats to the local opera, invitations to the star-filled special events, arranged interviews with international stars appearing in company productions, etc. is going to influence a music critic to go easy on the new production of Rigoletto? Really? You're going to go with that? And yet, somehow, negative opera reviews happen all the time. What does this mean? Does it mean that professional live opera reviewers are just better and more ethical as a whole than their counterparts in the food world? Are some music critics influenced by these things? Sure, of course they are. Some food writers who dine out on the company dime may be influenced by the fact that they want to screw the good-looking celebrity chef. What's that got to do with the price of tea? There are good, ethical writers who try to do the best they can, and there are bad, unethical writers who don't. Among the food writers (both online and in print) upon whose work I rely, I'd say that those who dine (supposedly) anonymously and on the company dime are, as a whole, pretty low on my list. Perhaps. But perhaps I just don't think that the guy writing about the merits of the linguini con vongole they're serving at Luigi's, however philosophically informed, is turning out stuff in the same league with Immanuel Kant (or Stendhal, who did the odd bit of criticism). So, if I get this right: Your objection to food writers accepting comped meals is not that you think the fact of the comp would necessarily influence the writers' opinions (any more than other things might), but because you don't think it looks good? ← "Opera Premiere". Only happens once. 'Cats' was not reviewed over the course of its run, with several performances over several months being examined, but during previews or at its premiere. Each baseball game, etc., is a separate event. And reporters are not there to 'review' the game, but to report on the results, probably more than 99% of the time. They also must do interviews in the clubhouse with players and team officials. Access is essential. Who are these people who get comped meals and then write about them? The so-called blogosphere is littered with them. These are people we know, and understand that their critical judgement may, in fact, be swayed by the royal treatment. Just like in any other critical profession. Does it happen every single time? Probably not. But does it happen every now and then? Of course. To say otherwise would be ludicrous-just as in any other critical realm. But perhaps we expect so little from our restaurant critics because we understand this (as you stated above about the 'linguini'), and that is why the state of restaurant criticism today is so dreary, and we accept so much mediocrity.

Again-you were in the DD on a Monday night. I'm not saying it's Orchard St., but there is plenty of stuff going on Thursday-Saturday. Miami is like that. There were plenty of people around this evening, including some Major Domos that I saw walking around (Don't ask). I was at the restaurant tonight, and the food, a 'Wood Roasted Double Yolk Farm Egg' ($7), and the Giant Prawn ($13) were both home runs. As were the desserts, a chocolate cremoso and a key lime pie flan. Is anyone you know serving Roasted Double-Yolk Farm-Fresh Eggs for dinner? That's not hype. That's commitment to the farm, and, let's face it, courage to serve something so unusual. And, by the way, the place was packed. (Design done on the cheap? That's laughable. The place is $1 Million better than the lunch joint that preceded it. Perhaps you are remembering incorrectly, because she wasn't even open for dinner. The artwork alone has to be in the $100K's.)