Sneakeater

Yes, chef change.

1. Believe it or not, it is very hard to stay below $200 for two people, including wine, at the City's top or upper-second-tier restaurants. (Please recall that in New York, service is not included and the standard tip is 20%. I'm assuming your budget is inclusive of tax and tip.) 2. Babbo pretty much is as good as all that. But it's almost impossible that you could get a reservation now for next week. It usually books fully a month to the day in advance. Their url is http://www.babbonyc.com. Your best bet might be to chance an early (say between 5 and 6 PM) walk-in for a seat in the bar area (although you might not want to take such risks on your honeymoon). You might be able to stay within your price limit there, at least if you try. 3. Eleven Madison Park is excellent, and reservations might be possible a week in advance. Since the three course prix fixe there costs $88 per person, however, it's going to stretch your budget. 4. If you've got the stomach for "avant-garde" cuisine, WD-50 is a very good restaurant that's within your budget.

I don't hate it. But I find it kind of boring. As for "recession specials", it's true that the bar menus I referred to aren't dirt cheap, but they're all cheaper than the dining room menus.

Actually, there are a lot of places with special bar menus. Probably, you (like me) just tend to disregard them and go for the dinner menu, so they don't really register. Aside from Gramercy Tavern (which I count as a bar menu even if you don't), there's Picholine (whose bar menu is fantastic) and Eleven Madison Park (whose bar menu I've never tried because I love the main menu -- which I've been served at the bar -- so much). I'd consider the Bar Room at The Modern's menu a bar menu, and highly recommed it. Also, I prefer the Bread Bar at Tabla to the dining room. Telepan has a bar menu, I think -- but the food there is sort of blah. There are lots of others, but I can't think of them right now.

I think The Harrison is, currently, terrific. I think Jarnac is not. The Orchard is meh.

Just as a data point, the one time I was at Irving Mills (also under the Skeen Administration), I got there a little before ten on a Thursday, and it was totally dead.

Boring. Unfocused. Boring and unfocused. Not worth eating earlier than 2 AM.

To me, the main point is something like this: Even putting aside the fact that they don't do walk-in bar service, Corton isn't the kind of place I'd regularly walk to after work for an impromtu dinner. Ssam Bar, I do that all the time. The fact that that level of quality and invention is available to me on the fly, at prices that, while they aren't cheap, I can still spend on an unplanned everyday sort of basis . . . well, I won't be hyperbolic and say it's life-changing -- but it very nearly has been.

Apples and oranges. I'd say it is. But I'd also say I don't really think in those terms, at that level of accomplishment. I love them both, and would recommend either.

Not cheap. But cheaper than, say, Corton, for example.

Today's Feedbag quotes a Ruth Reichl interview in today's Huffington Post in which, in praising David Chang, Reichl gives a pretty good definition of the New Paradigm: "There’s David Chang who is a genius in the way he combines flavors. The thing that interests me most about him is his respect for his audience. Among all the other chefs that I’ve met, he understands that even people who don’t have a lot of money and who want to eat casually will take risks. And he’s serving really risky food. Who else would put whipped tofu, sea urchins and tapioca in one dish? It’s the kind of thing you might expect in a fancy restaurant but in a place that doesn’t take reservations, where you’re sitting at a counter, where it’s noisy, where ordinary people can afford to go? Putting those type of dishes on the menu is sort of saying, ‘I trust this audience and that they trust me.’"

There's a place called St. Andrews in the Theater District. Like, somewhere in the low 40s, between 5th and 7th. (I think it might be on the same block as Virgil's, maybe.)

Good thing they take phone reservations the way people like instead of sticking you with that horrible time-wasting three minutes on the computer like Ko.

What happened at Danube is that its original chef, Mario Lohniger, left several years ago. He was never replaced by anyone of equal stature, but only by nonentities usually from within the Bouley organization. The restaurant never recovered its luster.

Not meaning to live blog my evening's libations, but the more I'm drinking this, the more I'm liking it.

Confirmed. Genevieve can stand up to a pretty healthy splash of St. Germain, as long as it's balanced with a good dose of orange bitters. (Actually, I've taken to using Bitter Truth Lemon Bitters with St. Germain.) Christopher ← I just did a really simplistic mix of 3 parts Genevieve, 1 part St. Germain, and a good splash of fresh lemon juice. It was good (but simplistic). I'll try orange bitters next (or get some lemon bitters).

It just occurred to me that St. Germain might marry well (with friends) with one of the geneevers that we now have available to us.

JG's plates aren't tasting menu sized. I don't see why you'd want five of them for lunch.

Actually, for the record, Feed Bag is operated by Citysearch. It's edited by someone they hired away from Grub Street.

Grayz Insieme Anthos Casellula (when you want something lighter/smaller) Yakitori Totto (I know it's Asian, but it's spectacularly good)

Yeah, Bryan, that extra $2 is gonna sink you.

Not to mention that, for Bouley to have opened a restaurant four weeks after Black Friday, he'd have to be even older than rich.

Actually, now that I think of it, it was a Monday.

Bouley points out that he opened the original Bouley four weeks after Black Friday in 1987. It did alright.

I don't want to get into a pissing contest with my bud raji, but the thing about the Jean Georges lunch is that it costs the same (I think) as the Perry Street lunch, but, as much as I like Perry Street, the food at Jean Georges is some substantial multiplier better. It's amazing to me that one of the top two or three restaurants in New York has such a great lunch deal. I wouldn't miss it if I were you.