BryanZ

Based on what the NYT article said this week, I'm surprised people haven't been talking about this restaurant more. The Ferran Adria/Alinea/wd-50 vibe seems to be hot these days, but I had no idea a place like this existed in New Jersey. Yes, the combinations seem somewhat contrived but if they work, that's all the more suprising. I'm certainly adding this place to my list.

To the best of my recollection, the squab livers are used in the sauce with the beef cheek ravioli dish and not in filling. If one cannot find squab or chicken livers, it's pretty easy to recreate the filling and then just toss the ravioli in some kind of infused brown butter sauce,

I wouldn't say Asian cuisines don't combine citrus with seafood. For example, Japanese cuisine employs yuzu, a bitter vibrant citrus, with many types of fish. Edit to add: Thai uses lots of lime and tamarind, which is kind of citrusy with seafood dishes.

I have no idea why a pastry chef in Debra Racicot's position would do something like this. I cringed as I read this, multiple times.

It's interesting to note that Jean Georges (the flagship restaurant) is also serving the celery root soup as an amuse. Having recently seen the fall menu at the flagship, the overlaps between these two restaurants seem well constructed. Perry Street's Jean Georges "lite" vibe that others have alluded to seems to be establishing itself quite well.

This made my day. But somehow, I'm a straight dude and I hate Giada but love Tyler. Oh man.

It is my understanding that the menu is constantly evolving to include new dishes.

Am I the only one to have found the writing in Burros' piece very dry? Perhaps Bruni writes like a flowery high-school girl, but this review did not have any flow nor did it pull the reader in at all.

I would imagine that finding cherry pits in the tart would constitute a surprise! I just hope that the lights were not turned down too low. Maybe Chef Bouley considers pits to be nuts. This makes our chef sound a little like Frank Lloyd Wright: what a magnificent building, if only the roof didn't leak! ← In a restaurant that billed itself as a true high-end dining destination, I would find this type of mistake nearly unforgivable. By this point in my meal at Upstairs, however, I was already so overwhelmed with the quality of the dishes that the two pits almost endearingly reminded me that I was dining in a room not much larger than my bedroom. And besides, at a place like this, who wants to make mountains out of mole hills?

On night two of the Columbus Day weekend I had the humbling and educating pleasure of dining in front of Yasuda-san. Previous posters have noted that Yasuda makes sushi his own way and only cares about providing his customers with a high-quality product. I cannot agree with this statmement more. Initially we tried to order omakase but he said that he didn't like serving omakase to first-time patrons. He explained that the whole point of omakase is to cater the meal to the diner's desires and, since he did not know anything about us, he pretty much insisted that we guide our own meal. We started off by sharing some pieces off the "matsu" list, a prix-fixe option that includes 12 pieces of sushi. After this initial tasting of six pieces each, we ventured into into new territory, occasionally turning to Yasuda for guidance. Yasuda's personality reminded me of myself in the kitchen. He knows that he knows his stuff and made it his goal to educate my dining partner and I as much as possible in the time we were sitting before him. I could see how some people might find this attitutde slightly off-putting but many of his anectodes and ideas are funny and entertaining when taken with a grain of salt. One particularly telling example of this was when I asked him to describe the differences between anago and unagi, and the differences between his various types of yellowtail. He succintly answered, "It's totally different fish. It's like saying you want a dog. There are so many types of dog. They are as different as German Shepherd and British Bulldog!" Through our little tasting of sushi we sampled a few types of yellowtail, two types of salmon, two types of tuna, and various other staples. Stand out pieces of the night were the blue fin toro, the uni (we went for seconds with these), the amazing eel (also went for seconds here), and the scallop with a hefty dose of sea salt. All the other pieces were excellent, as well. In total I spent $145 for a pretty decent amount of food for the two of us. I had expected much, much worse damage. On the whole, Yasuda compares very favorably to high-end sushi in New York. He does not follow convention, and perhaps I would've preferred his sushi with a higher fish to rice ratio, but he makes no apologies when serving his top-notch fish and strong beliefs. I've had better quality fish at Tsukiji Market and other well-known ryokans near Tokyo, but Yasuda is certainly among the top in New York.

What an excellent meal. After a slightly delayed flight from North Carolina, I decided that my first meal back from school should be at Upstairs at the Bouly Market & Bakery. We waited about half an hour for our table inside the tiny restaurant, and to pass the time we claimed one of the open tables outside and ordered ordered a couple glasses of wine, including an especially good pinot noir available by the glass. Between the two of us we had: Sea eel, uni, and lobster gelee - An excellent, light starter that reveals itself as you literally dig deeper into the contents dish. House made tofu w/ truffle sauce - This dish was reminiscient of truffle infused savory custards I've tried at other restaurants. The tofu base, however, gave it a silkier mouth feel that didn't have any kind of egg-y heaviness. Squid Salad - One of the better squid salads I've had. The squid was the ideal balance between firm but still satisfyingly yielding to the tooth. The amount of squid served on the bed of Bibb lettuce was also rather generous. Mushroom Salad -A simple salad that was elevated with what I think was a light application of a very good balsamic and delicately sauteed mushrooms that matched perfectly with the salad's subtly sweet undertone. Halibut - This dish is excellent and I echo the sentiments of the above poster. The gelatinous sauce is so flavorful and nearly steals the show from the piece of fish itself. Lobster - A very interesting play on lobster served within the context of a sweet flavor palate. This dish epitomizes an early fall lobster dish with its sweet, rich, and warming nature. Pistachio-Cherry tart - Another surprise. Although there were a couple of cherry pits in the tart, the richness of the nuts worked very well with the tart cherries. An excellent end to an memorable meal. Chef Bouley was working, and it was really cool to see him in action. The restaurant is ridiculously cramped but more than makes up for it with food that is, in my opinion, unmatched at the price point. Between the two of us we spent $105 for a ton of food with tax, tip, and a glass of wine each. We jointly decided that we had paid nearly that much per person for meals that weren't as enjoyable. I'm usually bored with a la carte restaurants on the whole but a quirky place like Upstairs restores my faith in the entire genre.

The tongue taco and condiment bar at Super Taqueria are excellent. And imagine the looks I got in that place walking in with my camera and pen for notetaking. As for the link to the article, it was a showcase of local Durham taquerias. Unfortunately, they scanned in the article poorly without uploading the text separately. There's not a whole lot there, however, since it was more about locating and highlight some of the best taquerias in the area. With that said, I found Super Taqueria to be the best, by far. If anyone is at all interested, I have a couple more short pieces that are archived online www.chronicle.duke.edu. The're short reviews for Grasshopper and Loco Pops, but I will continue to write throughout the year.

Wow! What a meal.

Thanks for the help, but my little showcase came out today. I found Super Taqueria, at the corner of N Roxboro and Bon Air Rds to be the best all around. A very enjoyable, and unexpected, experience.

I think this, content-wise, was one of Bruni's better reviews. He logically discussed the food relative to a coherent theme, as opposed to obscurely trying to connect the two. Although 3-stars can certainly be argued against, as he indirectly refers to the Nobu conecpt as chain restaurant food, if he still stands by the 3-star rating for the original Nobu, then he would have to give 3-stars to this newest branch.

When I was there a few month ago, it was $115 (might've been 125 though) for each of the two tasting menus, I think.

Lupa is another Batalli venture. It's like a more casual, cheaper Babbo. I personally enjoy Babbo more and think that if one is going into NYC from an outside location, then Babbo is the better experience. Lupa is still a great restaurant, though.

Thanks for the quick link. Now if anyone can recommend any of those or anything other place as even slightly decent it would make life much easier. Thanks.

I need all types of Mexican restaurants in the Triangle, specifically Durham. I'm working on a big project on a short deadline and anything that's "South of the Border" will suffice. It's sad to say but I'm looking for as many restaurants as possible with quality being a secondary concern. So pretty please, start naming away ASAP. As much information as possible is always appreciated.

This info. on Babbo is all on the NY forum but I figured I might as well summarize it here if you aren't familiar with it. (And just to note, coming from Jersey, getting all the way over to Tudor City can be a kind of annoying. Especially with the way the streets run, on two levels and all.) Reservations: Call up one month early to the day at exactly 10:00 am and keep calling to get through for the next hour. It's what you've got to do, there's little glamour involved. If it's an anniversary ask to sit upstairs and do either of the tasting menus. I've done both, and if you're really craving pasta, do the pasta one. It's fabulous.

Bruni's forced clauses and seeming love affair with kitschy, pseudo-alliteration aside, I find the 2-star review to be rather shocking. I don't know much about Oriental Graden but he seemed to be being rather generous. I guess this is an example of how a restaurant can perhaps exceed expectations to achieve a a higher (than perhaps deserved) rating.

Oakapple is right. It's nearly impossible to compare high-end dining in Tokyo to high-end in NYC. The price difference is shocking even at the NYT 4-star level. To answer herbacidal's question, however, I would say that at a similar-esque restaurant in Tokyo you could EASILY spend $130+ per person without any difficulty. To be honest, if you know where to go in Japan the sky is the limit.

More votes for parpadelle at Babbo or L'Impero. Though I'm certainly more fond of the Babbo experience.

Aspects of Ninja, according to adamru's review, seem to be consistent with similar themed restaurants in Japan. It seems, however, that the execution and entertainment value truly aren't up to par. Based on the content of adamru's review I had a hard time believing that this place will succeed.

This pilot episode had its funny moments, though I'm not sure if it will have the staying power to remain on the air for any extended period. As a previous poster said, if it was smarter it could be like the culinary version of Scrubs. I'm curious to see how the show will progress.