Sneakeater

Just a mushroom.

THANKS!

Where upper midlevel ends, of course.

As someone who's been to Robuchon: not grand enough for a "special" meal.

WAIT! SORRY! I MEANT MY POST WAS USELESS! WHICH WAS WHY I TRIED TO ATONE FOR IT BY ACTUALLY TRYING TO MAKE A USEFUL SUGGESTION AT THE END. I'M REALLY SORRY. I TOTALLY SEE HOW I WAS PRACTICALLY BEGGING TO BE MISREAD. I SHOULD HAVE BEEN MUCH CLEARER. SORRY AGAIN!

I personally have a problem with planning on a "once in a lifetime" meal. To me, it puts too much pressure on it. One likely response is that you almost have to be disappointed. Happily, though, the other likely response is that it's so important to you that it be of the highest possible excellence that you'll convince yourself that it is, no matter what. What a useless post. Sorry. All I can add in an attempt to be useful is that I don't think the food is "once in a lifetime" by any stretch, but if what you want is a party, go to Daniel.

Yeah, but I thought the key passage from Platt's review was the following: "The kind of showy, even effete, cooking Mr. Humm practices isn’t for ­everyone, of course. The comforting beef ­haunches and pig’s knuckles once on the menu have been banished, replaced by precious-sounding constructions . . . ." I actually share Platt's basic preference (or do I mean prejudice) myself. But clearly what Daniel Humm is doing isn't the kind of thing Platt is going to get most excited about.

Bing as in . . . http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=51389&hl=bing

They're completely different. Hippos taste like chicken. Rhinos taste more like rabbit.

You know, I'm thinking back on all the times I've eaten in the Popover Cafe, and I'm pretty sure that every single one was a time when I tried to go to Barney Greengrass but it was closed. I wonder if they do any other kind of business.

Leonard Kim will have to tell us, but I have the impression that Bruni does review more neighborhood places than his predecessors, and that he tends to rate such places higher. Giving The Red Cat and Al Di La two stars isn't comparable, to me, to giving Honmura On or Molyvos three stars. Neither of those places is an unassuming neighborhood place. It just seems to me to be a different style of overrating.

And just so you can see that I'm not being snobby as a North American, a couple of nights ago I went out to dinner at a new restaurant here in New York, where I live. The prices on the a la carte menu were so high that I couldn't afford them. I had to order a special "tasting" menu. But the people sitting next to me were from the EU, and since they were spending exchanged Euros rather than dollars, they were able to order whatever they wanted. I would never dream of complaining to them that the a la carte menu was too expensive. If you were paying in Euros, like they were (and I wasn't), it wasn't that expensive at all.

You can do that. But wherever you go will be almost completely empty. And the few people there will be fellow tourists. PS -- Just for the record, I wasn't arguing that Cabana Las Lilas was necessarily the top choice. I'm sure there are places that serve better steak in BA (and I'd love to find out about them -- like La Cabrera and La Brigada). But Saltshaker wasn't saying the other places he was recommending had better steaks. In fact, he admitted they had worse steaks. He was only saying that Cabana Las Lilas was too expensive.

I never thought of it that way, but I think Oakapple has that exactly right.

I'm sure the waiters, most of whom are seemingly a generation or so older than Mr. Hoy, threw their junior colleague a very nice party.

Before the owners had their son, he was NEVER not in the front and she was NEVER not in the kitchen. The nerve.

Word.

1. Hey my favorite dish at Bread Bar is the same as Ellen's! 2. God PJ is so cute. It's a good thing he can't read yet, or else he'd get a big head. (I mean, he can't, right?)

(FWIW, though, I would say that right now, today, I would eat in EMP over Le Bernadin. FWIW.)

Saltshaker, I'm going to try to say this in a way that isn't offensive, but it's hard. Please understand that I don't mean any offense, though. What you have to understand is that if you're from the United States (as it looks like RRainey probably is), given the current exchange rate (and stupidly high U.S. domestic restaurant prices), Cabana Las Lilas doesn't do anything to your wallet. I know it sounds harsh, but it's just the truth. I know it doesn't seem that way if you live down there, but I can tell you from experience that it seems that way to us. Touristy experience, can't disagree with you about that. But if you want the best steak, irrespective of the money, it's got to be in consideration.

If all you're interested in is four-star restaurants, and you're eliminating Per Se, you hardly have to ask. It's not like there are more than four others. Interesting, though, since you asked, that you then say you're considering a place that NOBODY recommended. I'm not trying to be antagonistic. I'm just saying.

On the topic of these "chains", of course I'm against them on principle, just like Vadouvan. But putting my prejudices aside, it really depends on how you staff each of your branches. Clearly, whoever's running the kitchen here at Atelier NY is very very very good. Just like -- at least according to Fat Guy -- the apparent nonentity Alain Ducasse currently has running his NYC branch is in actuality a highly skilled executant with a near-perfect understanding of the Ducasse esthetic. Sure, the more places you open, the less likely you are to be paying attention to any one of them. But it isn't like there aren't any number of highly-skilled people available to run your branch kitchens for you. So if you do pay attention, the branches can be, if not as good as the original, at least highly creditable.

I really have to agree with you on that. With all the ridiculousness on the a la carte menu, it's amazing to find a bargain. (Don't anybody tell them.)

Looking around at the people in my immediate vicinity at the counter, I saw almost no Americans (paying for their meals with unexchanged dollars) ordering anything but the tasting menu. All the Europeans (paying for their meals with dollars bought with Euros) were ordering extensively a la carte.

I'm sorry, but I knew I wasn't ordering a bottle and I just didn't look. I simply forgot my reportorial obligations to the eGullet community.