Sneakeater

Why don't they go to Arthur Avenue?

II

I honestly haven't seen it get that response. Everybody I know considers Pastis a tourist/B&T shitshow that they'd never go near. And I think that for tourist/B&T shitshow, it's food is remarkably good.

If the prices were 50% higher, it might not be that crowded. Really, weinoo, have you ever heard anyone call Schiller's great, as opposed to great for the price, or great for what it is?

I've been to Benito's. It's not that good.

FWIW, I agree with this. In fact, Pastis would be at the head of my list of "Restaurants That Don't Need To Be Good But Nevertheless Are." I think it speaks volumes for Keith McNally's integrity that he maintains the quality he does at a restaurant that would be a cash cow even if it served nothing but steaming plates of pigeon shit.

It's definitely between 6th & 7th.

Seasonal is DEFINITELY undervalued. It's ridiculous how little notice it's gotten compared to its quality.

I think Cookshop does. "Overvalued" as it's being used here has nothing to do with price, as I understand. It just means overrated. I think Cookshop is an entirely ordinary restaurant that somehow has a pretty good reputation. (I think people would have an easier time understanding this thread and the "Undervalued" thread if the threads were entitled "Overrated" and "Underrated" rather than "Overvalued" and "Undervalued". The use of "value" has some people thinking that price/quality ratio has something to do with it, when FG, who started it all, has explicitly denied that's the case.)

Totally agree with LP re Mas.

I was going to list Allegretti. Completely agree. Ironically, I was thinking of listing Kuma Inn in the "overvalued" thread. Takes all kinds.

I think Degustation is undervalued, too. Which is ironic, because I nevertheless have trouble getting in. PS -- I don't think that by "undervalued" FG meant not priced as expensively as the quality of the food and service would justify. I think he meant not held in sufficient esteem by the kind of people who read these boards:

I think what oakapple means is that if I say that I think that Oceana is "undervalued," ellenost's single bad service experience, which may be atypical, doesn't counter my opinion the way, say, a whole series of posts by lots of people complaining of bad service might. To be really verbose, here's something I wrote in repsonse but decided not to post (but now will): If I went somewhere where I thought the food was good but there was a service glitch, I don't think I'd tell someone else simply, "don't go there." I think I'd say "the food was good but there was a service glitch." The reason for that is that across-the-board bad food is pretty irreparable (unless you change chefs), and so that would be a ground for a simple directive to avoid. But service glitches can be one-offs, and so I don't think can properly be the basis of such a directive on the basis of only one bad experience. The fact that service glitches can be one-offs is, in fact, evidenced by my opinion that Oceana is undervalued. Does ellenost think I'd say that if I had bad service there? Obviously, I wouldn't. What happened to her is terrible, but we'd need more data points to hold that against the restaurant as a general matter. (Same thing if an otherwise good place has a bad feature that might bother some people more than others. Say a place is very noisy. If I thought the food was good, I'd say something like, "the food was good, but I thought it was too noisy." I wouldn't just say, "don't go," or "I can't understand why anyone goes there." Some people don't mind noise.)

1. Whatever the name of the restaurant in the Bowery Hotel is. 2. Tao. 3. The place that begins with "O" on 57th & Lex.

OK. I'm sorry. Really. I shouldn't have said that.

I think Veritas is undervalued, inasmuch as the switch to the current chef, Gregory Pugin, received almost no critical attention. No one seems to know that it is now one of the best classic French restaurants in the City. I think Oceana is undervalued. I think Benoit under it's new chef, Pierre Schaedelin, is undervalued.

No offense to anyone's parents, but I don't think defrauding a business is particularly admirable.

I went to Felidia once with someone known to the restaurant, and although they paid a lot of attention to us, the experience wasn't that great. The special food turned out to be not so special, the special wine pairings verged from the bizarre to the mediocre to the quite good . . . I'd have rather been eating incongito. I'll bet my host would have, too. Also, you frequently hear how nice Suvir et al. at Devi (admittedly not a NYT three-star restaurant) are to people they know, but similarly, my one meal there with a known person was no better, and in some ways was worse, than my normal meals there. I don't know if this is a reflection on those kitchens (and I should emphasize that Devi, at least, is a restaurant I have only the highest regard for). I think that even more it's that sometimes being fussed over actually lessens rather than heightens the experience -- at least if the restaurant isn't capable of attaining the stratospheric levels (and perhaps more importantly, the seamless service) of a per se.

FG hardly needs my endorsement on this point, but it's SO true. I've also gotten good results going out with a concierge at a major hotel. Then, you get PXed even when you come back without her.

That certainly has been my recent experience. It's already been mentioned, but it should be emphasized: Ssam Bar.

It's so different that if you liked it that much then you might not like it now. Now, it's pretty much classic French.

Do you care how nice a cook is? No, you care how skilled and precise he is. What separates a Serious Bar from a hangout is that the 'tenders care as much or more about carefully mixing quality drinks as they do about cozying up to the customers.

I was at a Serious Cocktail Bar last night. (I know, I know . . . don't go on weekends.) This is one that everybody agrees is Serious, although it's somewhat out of the normal circuit of places we all think about. Anyway, when it started getting crowded, I noticed that the bartender in front of me was measuring all the vodka sodas he was making (which constituted the vast majority of drinks people were ordering, despite the fact that this place's house cocktail menu is both fantastic and unique). I was very admiring of this, since it couldn't have been more obvious from the way they were acting that the people ordering the vodka sodas didn't give two shits about how they tasted (except insofar as they would have preferred that they didn't have a taste). This guy was measuring those drinks because he cared. Once he got in the weeds, though, the bartender stopped measuring the vodka sodas, only measuring "real" cocktails (not that many were ordered). I can't blame him.

Daniel is the obvious answer. (Just thought I'd get it out of the way, so that the interesting discussion could begin.)

By one of the country's best bartenders, from a thread here called "The Rusty Knot" (the name of a New York City bar he helped open, where all drinks, initially, were free-poured): This thread isn't the place for it, but if you search around the Cocktail board, you'll see several discussions of the merits and demerits of free-pouring.