chefboy24

uhh no. bottom line? If they don't pay you, they can fuck off. Extern somewhere you get paid (Hell at least $8/hr, preferably with overtime). Graduate quickly and then get a 4 star restaurant job, if you really think it fits your style, with pay (and not good pay). Or of course you could switch to the front of house where you will get paid double.

hey man - cia grad here myself. definitely recommend felidia as i am a sommelier here. fortunato is a brilliant chef and his food is out of this world - he ran a 2 michelin starred restaurant in piedmont years ago and has been at the helm of felidia for 9 years. you would learn a lot. i have never heard of a double extern? does cia even allow that? and also, don't you want to go back to be with your original group? also - the quicker you graduate, the quicker you get to be a line cook with a regular line cook pay. there is no other city or restaurant in this country that will teach you as much as a 3 star restaurant in new york (maybe san fran). all your pics are great except po (a little rustic and really small), and borgo antico. message me if you have any other questions. good luck

false

i would never say that bruni doesn't think people want fine dining!! he never implied that at all! he has only said that the last year of restaurants, 2007, has been primarily low budget homey small scale places, and these places have had the most interesting food over the last year. as opposed to 2004/2005/2006 where there were some major large scale $10 million restaurants that opened (craftsteak, del posto, morimoto, nobu 57, megu, budakhan, per se, yada yada yada)

The crowd dynamics at PDT swing wildly from night to night. Typically on Sunday - Wednesday the crowd makeup is typically 50-60% of the people ordering off the menu, 10-20% of people ordering some form of classic cocktail (manhattan, margarita, sidecar, sazerac, etc) and the remainder ordering wine/beer or a vodka & soda. I make the differentiation of the vodka & soda mainly because that is something we make a lot of. Now compare these statistics to a Friday or Saturday and you probaly have 30-40% / 10-20% and 40-50% split. The crowd dynamics skew way towards beer and vodka on Friday and Saturday. One could assume that the people drinking in the later category at PDT or D&C or Pegu aren't there necessarily for the quality of their beer or how well they make a vodka and soda (and for the record, I make a killer vodka and soda) they are there for the experience, mainly because any one of the city's 1000 bars can do the same thing, and cheaper. We charge the same price for a sazerac as we do for a Chopin and soda. As far as Tailor, they can be under the restaurants with bar programs, but I think they should almost be residing in both categories. The lounge at tailor is one of the best rooms in the city for having a drink and is definitely cocktail centric. I have a warm spot in my heart for them, mainly because we are doing some similar kinds of drinks -- the fat washing and infusions. ← i can't believe you let people order vodka and soda! just say no. although i smile, grin, and bare it when people ask for ketel up with a twist (and continue to drink this for the duration of their meal), when they could try any of over 1500 bottles of italian wine on my list. also - side note - sazerac is $20.50 wholesale, and ketel/chopin/goose are definitely more. sazerac is obv way more delicious. but after all, chopin did win #1 vodka in some slate.com tasting.....but you sure as hell won't find me drinking vodka anytime soon.

ssssssssh this is a major idea for my small business that i'm going to launch in 2009. hush!

first of all, you should name this restaurant. why protect their privacy? second of all, i'm guessing it was daniel. third of all, i'm guessing these people you were dining with, its sound like your complaints are not valid, that you're just being difficult. if a fish or meat is overcooked, send it back. these things happen. it should come back cooked to a proper temperature. i'm having a really hard time believing you, to be honest. you aren't specific at all. i think you or the diners you were with wanted to be difficult or came in with a chip on your shoulder. if i was at daniel, jean georges, or le bernardin, and i got a plate of food that was luke warm, i would send it back IMMEDIATELY. i'm sure they would shower you with love and affection afterwards even more. if something was overcooked? SEND IT BACK. did you send anything back? did you let anyone know that there was a problem? its diners like you who write letters and bitch and complain after the meal is totally over who really piss us off. LET THE RESTAURANT KNOW THAT THINGS ARE WRONG and you want them corrected immediately, don't post it on a blog or a forum a few days later. just being honest.

Who cares about the Bruni, Platt, Eater, or otherwise. How bout an official EGULLET most memorable food & wine moments of 2007. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a top 10 or top 100 as magazines and the papers like to do, this is simply *your* favorite foodie stuffs of '07 that you would recommend to the rest of us? (not neccesarily new, but certainly peaking and/or fabulous in '07) Here's my list: the sushi at soto an omakase at 15 east lunch at perry street lunch at jean georges the gourmand menu at emp for dinner the memorable dishes of ssam bar jamon iberico! the desserts at varietal (i don't care, i liked them!) the desserts at p*ong tasting at wd*50(they've still got it!) brunch at wallse the coffees at la colombe 3 star michelin lunch at le callandre in padua, veneto (best meal of my life) late nights at spotted pig macroons, macaroons, macaroons! chambers street wines getting in some amazing stuff with age 05 burgundies PDT, Death & Co, Flatiron Lounge, and Pegu Club! thats all i can think of for now. yours?

i'd agree with that, i don't live in the ev, would never, and would never dine at any of those restaurants.

Have you been to 15 east and soto? Just went to Soto last night again, for the 5th time, still my favorite sushi spot in this country. Both of these spots are CLEARLY done under a strict budget. Soto is super minimal and a very tiny room and on 6th avenue next to nothing! 15 east is all marco moreira and his wife, the definition of Mom & Pop, also a very very tiny room and a rennovation on a budget of the old toqueville. And I would argue they are the best sushi in town, along with kuruma and yasuda. Anthos? Being that I used to work for Donatella and Michael.... let me tell you, they crunch numbers and are down to the penny. Cheapy cheapy. I thought it was a lovely dining room, but somehow it got slammed for being ugly by the mainstream press? Who cares? Not me, and neither did Michelin, Michael's food is awesome. Ssam Bar? Cheap. Resto? Done by Christian, ex service manager at Otto? Cheap cheap. Haven't been to Allen & Delancy but I'm guessing by the neighborhood and the decor from photos that it was cheap. Pamlpona? Looks pretty cheap to me. So yes, I would say that Bruni is absolutely correct - the best restaurants in 2007 were not multimillion dollar dining rooms with huge Architecture firms doing the design and millions of dollars to burn- they are honest, labor of loves from very talented chefs.

french.

i would love to host a foodie nye, but alas, i'm working. definitely explore your options with a great meal. your friends are more the bud light kind and not 7 course tasting kind i presume? PDT would be fun and i need to pick somewhere after i get off work, however, the thought of waiting to get into pdt on nye with no guarantee is off putting. then again i guess they take reservations right? for 6 or more?

had a fantastic brunch at perry street sunday. honestly, 2 courses, plus amuse bouche, plus dessert for $24? Unbeatable. Best lunch in the city for the price. Definitely take your parents there. I recommend the tomato soup and crab salad. Jean Georges for lunch is great too, similar deal but $28 for 2 plates with amuse and petits fours but no dessert included.

best macaroons in the city, hands down, and i am a macaroon fanatic! but financier's macaroons are almost as good and half the price! ($1.50 vs $3 or something crazy like that)

got a quarter pound from dean and deluca on saturday up front they actually had a sign that said "jamon iberico"......but then they had another leg in the back still in plastic wrap that said "bellota." so i asked and the guy who was cutting about the sign that said bellota and he told me it was a mistake and threw out that shelf-talker. long story short, he had bone in and boneless. i got a 1/4 pound sliced pretty damn close to the bone, although his hand slicing was a little bit sloppy. basically, this ham is freaking delicious. i paired it with some tocai friulano, but my white wasn't nearly big enough to match. it's got a finish. a long one. and it took me and my boyfriend a while to finish the 1/4 pound. you don't gobble it up. its hanging out on your tongue like 2 minutes later, even if you're drinking wine. well worth it. i mean its 2.5x the price of good jamon serrano or proscuitto di parma/san danielle. is it 2.5x better? Of course not, but it is better. Definitely recommend that you all try it.

i would definitely live between union square and washington square, somewhere between 5th and 8th avenues (preferably a brownstone on west 11th) union square greenmarket - vegies galore, blue moon fish citarella - fish lobster place - fish florence - meat ottomanelli & sons - meat murrays cheese- cheese murrays bagels - bagels amy's bread - bread whole foods union square trader joes union square italian wine merchants le du wines gramercy tavern union square cafe craft gotham wallse mary's fish camp pearl little owl perry street po las ramblas babbo annisa blue hill why live anywhere else?

WAAAAAAAAAAAAT on my way, now

just did a 5 course dessert there last week and it was definitely yummy.

I've been riding the subways all my life and the notion that "at 3 in the morning you never wait more than 5 minutes on the 6 line" is simply ludicrous. ← have you ridden the 4/6 at 3 a.m. in the last few years? (5 minutes might be an exaggeration but I doubt I've ever waited as much as 10) ← i agree with you on the annoyance of travelling to jersey however i get off work frequently at 1:30 am and take the train from 59th to wall street every day i say 15 minutes for a train (either 4 or 6) at that hour.

i would surmise that a restaurant has an idea for its "signature" item when it opens, but guests simply prefer other items on the menu and order them time and again. good call on otto with the pizza, although i've heard that the tempura at barfry was great - but i definitely need to go, soon. i read this article in gq just yesterday and i can't help but wonder why people are still talking about david chang

Are you suggesting that Cipriani could serve better food than they served to Bruni? Aren't you the one that always argues that there's not much a restaurant can do to change what they do for a critic? ← seriously? a restaurant can change everything when we spot bruni. from the best protein cuts (newest, thickest, center of the fillet), to larger portions, to fresher mise en place, the biggest mushrooms, to better flatware, stemware, china, to the best captain in the dining room.........to stopping all of service and fucking every other table in the restaurant to make sure bruni's table goes flawlessly, to EVEN seating friends of the restaurant in tables around bruni so he sees that those around him are having a great time. i just interviewed at park avenue autumn and the gm told me they spotted bruni 5 times and every time it went flawlessly. which is why their review, albeit 2 star, was very positive (it sort of read like a 3 star) http://events.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/dinin...ews/10rest.html a restaurant can prevent inconsistancies but it really never rise above its class. not every restaurant concept is to be a 4 star or a 3 star after all.

i love it.

here we go: 4 star list Daniel Le bernardin Masa Jean georges Per se 3 star list Alto Aquavit Atelier de joel robuchon A voce Babbo Bolo Bouley Blt fish Bar room at the modern Blue hill Café boulud Chanterelle Craft Cru Country Danube Del posto Esca Eleven Madison park Felidia Fiamma Gotham Gramercy Jo jo Kuruma La grenouille Perry street Nobu 57 Nobu/next door nobu Oceana Park bistro Picholine Spice market Sugiyama Tabla Town Union square café Veritas Yasuda

i love how the bar room has 3 and the dining room has 2 - but i totally see why after eating there.

it's funny that us manhattanites never have to justify manhattan. it's the people outside of manhattan who make excuses and the "but we have a ..."