Sneakeater

A friend who lives at Broome & Mott just called to ask what I want to do Thursday night. I'm psyched!

All that said, I actually AGREE with your reading of how stars could/should operate. That was MY understanding of the stars before I was educated by this site a couple of years ago. The problem is, as Fat Guy has explained, you can't have an ongoing system that works like that. Over time, as the critics become less substantial as individuals (Craig Claiborne --> Mimi Sheraton --> Bryan Miller --> William Grimes --> Frank Bruni = Man --> Ape), the stars have to mean something more than "one critic's taste" in order to be intelligible. The only problem is, as I see it, that the "something more" also renders them unintelligable (at least without a great deal of thought and experience). As a roughly connected tangent, I have to add that I don't find Mimi Sheraton's award of two stars to Sammy's Roumanian to be all that shocking. When Ms. Sheraton was the Times's restaurant critic, the stars pretty much did mean "one critic's take," and anyone familiar with Ms. Sheraton's preferences and background can understand why she'd be so enamored of Sammy's. (Since I have similar preferences and background, I find Ms. Sheraton to be the single food critic with whom I most frequently agree.) It only seems shocking now, when we've taught ourselves to understand the star system in a different way. From reading her Q&As on this board, I'm sure Ms. Sheraton was nowhere near as "schocked" as the denizens of this board by the award of two stars to Sripraphai.

But that's a (the) problem with stars. They kind of take over. Like when there's a Diner's Journal pre-review, and people here scrutinize it like Kremlinologists for signs of how many stars the restaurant will be given. And in a way, stars are more important than words. Cuz a year later, no one can remember the words in the review. So all you have is the fact that such-and-such is a "two star" restaurant. Then, Alto and Sripraphai and Al Di La begin to look very similar in their ratings.

I was going to say that, too. We've already seen his take on Spanish fusion, and it wasn't all that impressive. OTOH, this appears to be a much more serious restaurant than Suba, and Urena (or his new handlers) are probably giving him(self) a much freer hand than the owners of Suba did.

For whatever it's worth, I too think the Sazerac 6-year-old is quite good.

Then again, Prune doesn't have prunes on the menu.

Oddly, they really don't.

I have low tastes. db Bistro is my favorite Daniel Boulud restaurant (or at least it was under its original chef). And I think that Blaue Gans, Kurt Gutenbrunner's new "neighborhood" spot in the old Le Zinc space on Duane Street, is now my favorite Kurt Gutenbrunner restaurant. Blaue Gans serves homey, basic Austrian food. Not the fancy kind he serves at Wallsee. Rather, the kind of food one imagines Austrians eat every day. Well, very lucky Austrians. This is soul food. I started with a beef consomme with calves' liver dumplings. As my dining companion said, it "reeked of cow." She had a red cabbage salad whose appeal was only slightly diminished by an out-of-place squiggle of pesto at the top of the plate. As she noted, we weren't out for Genovese-Austrian fusion last night. On to the pork belly for me. Served over some kind of root vegetable puree. Crispy topping of fat covering an unctuous block of underlying fat with a little strip of meat running through it. OK, I give up: how do you make a dish like this sound as good as it tastes? Sitting here a day later, I want more. I also want more of the beef goulash (with an absolutely delicious creamed [or cheesed] spatzle) that I shamelessly lifted off my companion's plate. Deep paprika flavor here. No one is going to be surprised to know that desserts were beyond fabulous. Quark dumplings with bits of orange? I'd eat them every day if I weren't concerned that I'd eventually be unable to fit through my apartment door. The special dessert of pancakes with white raisin, whose name translates as something like "the emperor's mix-up," was only slighlty less fabulous. And here's news. The wine we had was BY FAR the best Austrian red I've ever drunk. Considering the low quality of most Austrian reds I've had, that could be faint praise. Most Austrian reds, in my experience, have been thin and/or overly light, and one-dimensional. But this wine was special. It was a St. Laurent (which, along with Blauenfrankisch, is one of the parent grapes of Zweigelt). Thing is, though, I've never had a Blauenfrankisch or Zweigelt with anything approaching the depth of this St. Laurent. Slightly smokey start, then a nice hit of fruit . . . just delicious. I'd have tried to remember the maker, but I don't know where I'd be able to buy a few bottles for home. I'd be eager to return to Blaue Gans just to try that wine again. Service did not, shall we say, attain the highest levels of professionalism. But the staff could not possibly have been friendlier or more enthusiastic. (One waitress let my companion and me search her iPod for a song they played on the sound system whose provenance my companion couldn't remember.) The closest local comparison to this restaurant is Tomas Biesel, across the street from BAM. I like that place a lot. But let me tell you, Blaue Gans is better in every way. The quality of the preparation, the quality of the ingredients . . . and all at (relatively) modest prices (after all, this is Tribeca). If I had a restaurant like this in my neighborhood, I'd be there most nights. As it is, I can't wait to go back -- even if it's in somebody else's neighborhood.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The pre-7:30 $25 pre fixe dinner at Uovo is possibly the most astonishing bargain on the current New York dining scene. Uovo comes out of Prune, and it shows. But in important respects, I prefer Uovo. More particularly, whereas Gabrielle Hamilton at Prune has more consistently interesting ideas, the technical cooking of Matthew Hamilton at Uovo is consistently better. I think of Gabrielle Hamilton as sort of a punk rock chef -- plently of ideas, but difficient technique. In pop music, that can be revelatory, since the lack of smooth technical finesse can focus you on the ideas, permitting you to view cliches in a new and different perspective and to consider what the performer is trying to express without being distracted by the fineness of the means of expression. Food, however, must be eaten. The food at Uovo isn't the best in town. But on the other hand, I have never had a non-dessert dish there that wasn't good -- indeed, very good. (To be fair, both times I ate there I had the same entree: the heavenly brisket. I can think of no good reason not to keep ordering it.) It's my favored type of simple, hearty food, creatively thought out and freshly presented. That brisket, in a coffee-based barbecue sauce, is a good example. The fatty brisket could not be better cooked, and the coffee sauce is an appropriate foil (the coffee's acidity cutting the meat's unctuousness) that is new at least to me. The appetizer I had last time -- deep-fried sweetbread "poppers" -- is another good example of what they're up to here. We've all had fried sweetbreads; well, here's a good new variation. This time's appetizer -- a venison sausage -- was merely good. Desserts are unmemorable. The wine list is just what you'd hope for at a place like this. A carefully selected group of unusual wines in a moderate price range. Now, back to that pre fixe. The pre-7:30 menu is a slightly abridged version of the full menu. Not every dish from the full menu is available on it, but most are -- and, unlike other such menus, the exclusions don't seem to encompass almost all the really interesting dishes. Also, some dishes are stripped of some of their more elaborate or expensive accompaniments. Nevertheless, I defy you to find a better non-Asian $25 dinnner in Manhattan. It's on Avenue B at (I think) 11th St.

At least you know they're really fresh. Hey, you could get really fresh squab there, too . . . .

It's funny. The first time I had Reserva de la Famila was when a bartender recommended it to me in Mexico City. My immediate response was, "Cuervo? Are you sure?" "It's really good," he replied. "Maybe the best." It's a good thing I listened to him. (Did I ever tell you about the time I refused to drink Budweiser beer in Germany near then-Czechoslovakia because I ignorantly assumed it was the American beer?)

If I had my druthers I'd only go to places where going in there feels like it's still 1977. Postscript for my fellow elderly: "No Beatles no Elvis no Rolling Stones . . . ."

Agreed, I think the main issue was the emphasis on Gilt, which will be reviewed in the near future. I believe the article even criticized food (Dover Sole) at Gilt (or am I mixing up columns?). ← You're not, it did. But what's so wrong with that? As I said, that's not any different from a pre-review in Diner's Journal. (To be repetitious, to me, the main difference is a piece based on the reviewer's experience [even if he hasn't written his review yet] and a preview essentially based on press materials and interviews with the owners and staff.)

For the little it's worth, I think this article presents a different situation than the one about Del Posto. I was one of the people who disagreed with the Times's permitting their primary restaurant reviewer to write what amounted to a preview of Del Posto. I don't think reviewers should write pre-opening previews of places they're going to review. (This isn't limited to restaurants.) But I don't see similar objections to Bruni's writing what amounts to a think piece discussing an issue that arose during his pre-review testing of a new restaurant. Sure, it would have been better if the article weren't as focused on Gilt as it was. But it was a very different type of article than the Del Posto one. (Another difference, although it sort of comes down to the same thing, is that the Gilt piece is based on what Bruni experienced while dining at the restaurant after it opened. The Del Posto piece was basically a pre-opening preview based not on Bruni's experience there but on what the owners were claiming. Looked at that way, the Gilt piece really isn't more objectionable than a "Diner's Journal" pre-review.)

Are you certain about this?? It's my understanding that all Scotch starts with barley that is sprouted and then toasted/dried over peat fires or in kilns that have peat fires. ← Yeah, you're right.

There's more to it than just location. Different kinds of whiskeys are distilled from different grains. Scotch is made (predominantly) from barley; bourbon from corn; rye from rye. I don't know what Irish is made from; I think Candian might also be made predominantly from rye but I'm not sure. There's also the question of what's used to cook the grain. Islay scotches use peat, for example, whereas highland scotches use something else.

For whatever little it's worth, I agree completely with both paragraphs of this extremely insightful post.

Reading that, I realize that the reason I like 5 Ninth so out of proportion to any objective notion of its quality is that Zak Pellacio REALLY understands the appeal of fat as a component of taste and texture. To a fault.

Omigod, that's certainly not true in New York!

I have to say that my experience of having truly good sushi for the first time was something like my first time, years ago, eating at a really good steak house. (It was only Smith & Wollensky's -- far from the best there is -- but still, it was so much better than all the other steak I'd theretofore had in my life that I couldn't believe it; I had no idea that steak could be that good.) Similarly, the really good sushi bars provide a level of intense enjoyment (it's actually something deeper than enjoyment, but I'm not gonna spend all day trying to think of the right word) that I never came near experiencing from this type of food before.

Having been fairly well stunned by my first visit to Sushi Yasuda (which was also my first visit to a top-rank sushi bar) last week, I felt impelled to try Kuruma Zushi. My ignorance of sushi is such that my remarks may be virtually worthless. But since this is the internet, I'm not going to let that stop me. Conventional wisdom is, Kuruma for the fish, Yasuda for the rice. Conventional wisdom appears to be right . . . up to a point. Some of the fish at Kuruma seemed to be somewhat better than some of the fish at Yasuda. (The uni is a case in point -- not that uni is a fish AFAIK.) But at this extremely high level of quality, I didn't think the differences were consistent enough, or significant enough, to make that much of a difference. Nevertheless, for sashimi, I'd give Kuruma the edge. On sushi, though, the scales tip toward Yasuda, IMO. It's not just that "the rice is more important than the fish" (if in fact that's even true). It's that the total sushi preparations -- meaning, each piece of sushi not as a combination of fish, rice, and condiments, but as a gestalt -- seemed to me to be superior at Yasuda. It's hard for me to articulate this (I don't really have the vocabulary), but the sushi at Yasuda seemed to me to attain a level of exquisiteness that was beyond the sushi at Kuruma. To be sure, this perception may partly be the result of the constant self-promotion engaged in by Mr. Yasuda as he works. (The head sushi chef at Kuruma, whose name I don't remember, is much more circumspect -- which I much prefer.) But I'm convinced it's mainly there in the food. It is also not insignificant that Yasuda, while hardly a bargain outlet, appears to be much cheaper than Kuruma. It's hard to do a direct comparison, because my dinner guest at Yasuda ate very little owing to dental work undergone earlier in the day, whereas my dinner guest at Kuruma really chowed down (and we ended up drinking a lot more sake at Kuruma as well). But, getting omakase at the bar, I ran up a tab at Kuruma that was nearly twice as high as the tab I ran up at Yasuda ($750 for two, pre-tax-and-tip but including sake, at Kuruma). So Kuruma is probably something like a third more expensive than Yasuda.

Indeed, this is sadly true. . . I recently stopped into Henry's, a local restaurant-with-bar in my UWS neighborhood, for a quick drink after a concert. Since I didn't want to go around the tree about whether they used fresh citrus juices and all that (I had been thinking of a 10 Cane daiquiri) I opted for a Manhattan, which I figured wasn't too hard to screw up so long as the bartender listened to the way I wanted it made. First I asked if they had any rye, upon which the bartender rattled off a list of Canadian whiskies. Then I said I meant straight rye whiskey, whereupon he said that they didn't have any. Then, looking at the back bar, I see a bottle of Old Overholt. So, I got my rye Manhattan, but it's still ironic that the bartender didn't even seem to know what straight rye whiskey was, nor that he had a bottle of it. ← Once at the bar at Blue Hill NYC, I asked for a Manhattan made with rye. There was no rye behind the bar. The bartender had to send someone down to the basement to rattle through their backstock, where he came up with a dusty bottle of Van Winkle. It was actually very nice that the bartender went to so much trouble to comply with an unknown customer's request.

As I said in the Al Di La thread, Al Di La is probably my favorite restaurant, and even I'd give it only one star according to how I understand the star system to work.

I'm out of the business of second-guessing star ratings (OK: this is probably my very favorite restaurant, and I'd probably give it only one star, according to my understanding of how the stars work). But if anybody wants to say anything bad about Al Di La, I'm going to have to invite them to step outside.

Shit, I find that it isn't even that easy to get a Rye Manhattan in Manhattan.