Sneakeater

Also better than "not any great shakes."

Of course, Bond Girl is known for being uncritical.

And as for this: I just want to say that the only reason I write so much about CB is that I so wanted it to be like that. And it (or at least the main menu) isn't.

And the problem is, you eat a dish and conclude that the "better" ingredients haven't made it taste much or any better, and then you're asked, "why didn't you notice the vidalia onions?" Maybe I didn't notice the vidalia onions, not because I'm shallow, but because they didn't have much or any effect on my appreciation of the dish. The problem I have with Ed's very erudite post is that it seems to me to fail to address the fundamental criticism that people have made of the main menu (NOT the dim sum menu) at CB, but instead advances an ad hominem attack on the detractors.

I had the same type of experience there a couple of years ago. I was shocked.

Just to be clear, what I'm saying is, I don't think the proposition that today's Bruni review stands for is that JGV has "jumped the shark," but rather that, if even JGV can't maintain uniformly high standards throughout a very widespread culinary empire, then it's questionable whether any celebrity chef-restauranteur can.

Slkinsey has bumped up the "Has Jean-Georges Vongerichten Jumped the Shark?" thread. If you read the first two pages, there's a lot of discussion of Vong and 66 that seems pertinent here.

Although, I should add this about Perry Street: Our server made a very big deal about how "the chef" changes the menu seasonally to account for availability of ingredients and is always concocting "new" dishes to keep the menu fresh. So it came as something of a surprise when I opened the menu and it mostly was identical to what they were serving last summer.

I read that review a bit differently. To me, "jumping the shark" means that JGV has lost it: that he's spread so thin that he can't develop good new places or maintain quality at any of his places. I think the thrust of the review is a little bit different. I think the review is saying that secondary parts of these culinary empires predictably (but regrettably) tend to get ignored by management, so that the quality at those places slips seriously. In other words, I think that Bruni is saying that you regrettably can't assume the JGV label is a guaranty of quality as to these older, secondary places that have been allowed to grow tired. But as Bruni himself notes, that doesn't mean that the flagship restaurant, or newer entries still getting management's attention, are of lesser quality. If JGV opens a new restaurant, you can still go with some expectation of quality. I had dinner at Perry Street Monday night. That dinner was not the work of an executive chef who has "jumped the shark." It was interesting, vibrant, and, on the whole (in its determinately modest way), remarkable. Ten years from now, who knows.

Good point.

See, you're just being shallow.

I think that a re-review of the older secondary JGV places was a good idea. When places connected with such a celebrated chef-restauranteur slip so seriously (and I can personally attest that the "Satisfactory" rating for Mercer Kitchen is richly deserved), that has some news value. Especially when the Times food section has historically been characterized as a JGV booster. And it's not just newsworthy re JGV. I think Bruni's lede put the issue right. Everybody wonders whether celebrity chef-restauranteurs can keep up the quality of their widespread empires. If JGV, the cream of the crop, can't, it makes you doubt it.

Not so sure about the "cheap," though.

As I recall (I invite anyone who knows to correct me), they really hardly have anything that someone who isn't fairly hardcore will eat. Sorry. (OTOH, they have a truly fantastic wine list, so maybe your husband won't be noticing what he's eating by the time the food comes.)

You could use organic vodka to make a sauce.

For your splurge, consider Checchino dal 1887, Via Monte Testaccio, 30, 574-3816, certainly one of the great offal restaurants in the world. Be prepared for a lot of rain at that time.

There's a style of mescal served and sold in Oaxaca that's filtered through raw chicken flesh. The locals swear by it, but I couldn't bring myself to try it.

(At the end of last night, I myself was in a state where I couldn't find my key.)

Drink-addled?

I think Matthew Kenney spends most of his time these days at his plant in DUMBO in Brooklyn. It's at 25 Jay Street. It may be called "Blue/Green", or it may simply be called "The Plant". I'm not sure.

Thinking about it, here's part of my problem (and I apologize in advance if this sounds cruel; what I'm aiming for is "pungent"): Take a restaurant like Little Owl. Their basic idea seems to be, "What can we do to take expensive restaurant food and make it as cheap and simple as possible, without losing the basic qualities that make it special?" CB's basic idea seems to be, "What can we do to take a familiar cuisine widely available at low prices, and make it expensive, without making any fundamental changes or doing anything that would scare off a mass audience?"

Before I respond to Ed S. (at what I fear will be excrutiating length), I'd like to say a few things that I hope will establish the spirit of my comments. I've long admired Ed and his work. I've learned a lot from it (although not, we'd both agree, enough). My respect for Ed is simply tremendous. I would never pretend to be able to address him as an equal, or anything like it. On a more personal (and perhaps inappropriate) note, Ed was a particular favorite writer of my late wife's. She'd look forward to his publications, read them eagerly, and discuss them enthusiastically. She'd often raise Ed as an authority. So I hope it's clear that I have not only tremendous respect for Ed, but the best will in the world. I also want to make clear that I have no pretentions toward being any kind of expert on Chinese food (or on any kind of food, for that matter). I write only as a consumer who knows how to type. I do, however, think there's value in that viewpoint, however ignorant I admit it is. As I noted above in response to similar writings from other posters, I think Ed's long paean to Joe Ng sort of knocks down a straw man. I haven't seen a single complaint anywhere about the quality or the price of Chef Ng's work at Chinatown Brasserie. That seems to be something that everyone, even the harshest critics, agrees on. (Actually, I don't remember what Siestima said, but I think we can all agree that his views on CB can be disregarded since it's not the kind of place he could ever understand.) So I think Chef Ng and his dim sum menu can be taken off the table in any discussion of disagreements concerning, or failures to appreciate, CB. Ed then discusses some of the main-menu dishes he thinks have been underappreciated. He implies that people have failed to note the differences between these dishes and what is generally available at cheaper places. I don't think that's so. Most of these differences have to do with the use of "better" (and more expensive) or more European ingredients (the squab, the saffron, the flat iron steak, etc.). I don't think people have necessarily failed to notice these differences so much as they haven't noticed any substantial qualitative difference they make. Maybe I have an iron palate, but my problem with the main courses I've had at CB isn't that I've prejudged Chinese food as being "cheap but tasty", but rather that, to me, the fancier ingredients haven't in fact made it any tastier. Or at least not commensurately tastier with the price differential. And Ed is right -- I wouldn't comment on a layer of fried vidalia onions (or whatever) if they didn't enhance my enjoyment of a dish. They aren't ends in themselves. If they don't make the dish seem materially better to me, their being there isn't going to matter to me very much. This isn't an exact analogy, but at some point reliance on these fancier ingredients can make it seem like you're selling kobe beefburgers. I don't know many people who have been foolish enough to buy them, but I haven't heard of anyone who thought they were worth it (or even thought they were better than chuck/sirloin beefburgers). Ed will probably disagree, but I would say that the improvements in the dishes offered on the main menu at CB are subtle. Now "subtle" can mean two things: either that the improvement is too small or unforthright to be readily appreciated, or that the consumer is unequipped to appreciate the difference. I'll fully acknowledge the strong possibility of the latter. But since I'm paying for the product -- and since I think that most potential consumers are just as ill-equipped as I am -- I can only insist on my own perception of the product, even if it's limited by a lack of special knowledge. This is, after all, a mass-market operation. Ed seems to imply that people who miss goose intestines/tripe/duck's webs/etc. from the menu are novelty hounds who are seeking to impose their shallow preferences on what is trying to be a successful mainstream enterprise. The thing is, though, that I don't think that Chinese cuisine makes any distinction between those ingredients and any others. They're all part of the cuisine. Their exclusion might make sense from a marketing perspective, but I don't see any compelling culinary reason to do it. Let me put it this way. I grew up (for better or for worse) eating Eastern European Jewish cooking. If someone were to open up an expensive Eastern European Jewish restaurant that excluded such items as stuffed derma, stuffed chicken neck, calf's tongue in raisin sauce, and unborn chicken eggs, I wouldn't understand the restaurant. It would seem like a whimsically incomplete representation of the cuisine to me. Not because I like those excluded items because they're "exotic", but precisely because, to me, they're not "exotic". They're foods just like anything else. It wouldn't make sense to me to serve, say, brisket with potato pancakes, but not kishka. So the problem isn't necessarily the people are missing "exotic" ingredients, as that they're missing parts of the cuisine they've learned they enjoy (and the opportunity for further exploration). Please understand that none of this is meant hostilely. And I, too, regret some of the overreaction against CB, which doesn't deserve it. I offer this in order to keep the discussion going -- and also, I hope, to clarify at least one "detractor's" views.

It's not an oxymoron. If you take an organic vegan, hang them for a while to tenderize them and increase the flavor, and then brine them for further tenderizing (and also to remove any purities), they can be quite delicious, even if cooked simply.

Again, to be clear, the main menu at CB isn't "Ruby Foo-ish junk". It's much better than that. The food is generally extremely well-prepared (which you can't say about Ruby Foo), and it isn't stupidly cute (which you also can't say about Ruby Foo). Unlike Ruby Foo, this is serious cooking. As I see it, the problem with the main menu at CB isn't that it's not good. It's that it's not better.

I ambled into Little Owl at about 10 p.m. Sunday, after (I'm saddened to say) a long day of work. The place was completely full. But they made a place for me at the side of the bar. It wasn't particularly comfortable. But at least I had dinner. This place lives up to its notices. I'd say it's a strong one-star rather than a two-star, but we all know what two stars from the Times currently means. (I take that back: actually, the problem is, we don't know.) Anyway, except for the fact that you can't get into it, I strongly recommend Little Owl to everyone. I started with a special, gnocchi with chanterelles. Sort of a can't-miss dish, if it's competently prepared, and the competence of the kitchen here is beyond question. (Even though it was a Sunday night in August, Chef Joey was in the house.) Of course I had the famous pork chop. If I hadn't been prepared by Nathan's and Eatmywords' comments, I'd have laughed when they put it in front of me. Where'd they get the recipe from, Fred Flintstone? Was this a chop from a Porkasaurus? Doesn't matter. It's as delicious as everybody says (and, in my case, it sort of was cooked medium rare, the very middle even verging on redness -- and, as previous comments have noted, it wasn't dry in the least bit). I don't remember the details. Are these chops brined? It sort of tasted like it. In any event, one of the must-try dishes of the summer. Little Owl is not an exceptional restaurant. What it is, is an exceptionally good restaurant of modest ambitions, which nails them. The level of cooking here -- just the sheer quality of technique and ingredients -- is much higher than you have any right to expect at a place like this. The prices aren't laughably low or anything (go to Deborah if you want to see a really cheap but overperforming restaurant), but they're more than fair for the quality (and quantity) of the food. The general style seems to be straightforward, fully-flavored cooking, simple with an occassional twist. Just what I like, really (at least for everyday dining). You look at the menu, and have a hard time choosing (except that, on first visit, you've got to have the pork chop). It hardly needs accolades from me, but I'll bestow them anyway: go.