Sneakeater

Yes. No.

NO.

If you're really stuck on eating in the Upper West Side (which your choice of Town made me doubt), Picholine is incomparably better than Telepan.

Town isn't even on the UWS.

I know you don't want other restaurant recommendations, but as a New Yorker I have to tell you that your choices just aren't optimal. Telepan isn't that good. Town is tired. I'd recommend Eleven Madison Park. Or the Modern. I'm sure others will have other recommendations. Please consider them. Don't do yourself a disservice.

Oh absolutely. Although this thread did start as a reaction to a piece in the NEW YORK Times. (And Mr. Rogov lives in a city that doesn't want for critical mass or discretionary income either.)

Except that I -- and here in New York I'm hardly exceptional -- end up "celebrating my senses and sensuality" by having a very good restaurant cook dinner for me many nights a week. You don't HAVE to eat swill that neither you nor its preparer cares about, just because you don't feel like cooking. But that doesn't make it a "special occassion."

Not that this is particularly responsive, but I was surprised she was surprised to have been asked that question at the Palm West. That Theater District branch of the Palm is just the kind of place that isn't much frequented by locals and so would be more likely to be a "special occassion" place for its patrons, many if not most of them travelling in to the City for a night on the town. On the main theme, there are people to whom going to the opera is a special occassion. They probably don't really focus much on the performance, but rather are impressed by the "occassion" as a whole. There are also people like me who go to the opera at least once a month. To us, it's just something we do. (And obviously we're there to see the particular performance, not just to be in an opera house.) Same thing with dining out in a restaurant. (To me, cooking dinner at home is a special occassion.)

OK, seriously: 1. I like the atmosphere better at Ssam Bar. It's more lively and electric. Noodle Bar is more, I dunno, homey. No, not homey: comforting. 2. I think the food at Ssam Bar tends to be more interesting. The food at Noodle Bar tends to be more comforting. And note that Ssam Bar has virtually abandoned the eponymous ssam in favor of more ambitious fare, whereas Noodle Bar still serves (a lot of) noodles. 3. Tien is at Ssam Bar, and he's one of my favorite chefs.

Because it's better.

Ssam Bar.

Um, gee, I heard it's supposed to be someone on exchange from The Violet Hour. So you wouldn't know anything about that.

This is probably obvious to everyone already, but today's Mesa Grill review in the Times made me realize why Babbo is so hard to book. I remember one weekend in the Summer of 2006. A friend was coming into the City from the suburbs to go to a movie with me. The movie was on 12th St. Afterward, we would go to dinner. I had planned to go to the Fatty Crab, which at that time was the hot new restaurant that you never could get into. I figured it was a summer weekend, and we'd be able to get in because no one would be around. My suburban friend -- who watches a lot of Food Channel -- told me that he'd stopped into Mesa Grill on his way to the movie, hoping to get a last-minute reservation, but they were fully booked. (I hid my relief.) We were later able to walk into a fairly empty Fatty Crab. I reflected that a place like Fatty Crab, which caters almost exclusively to locals, would be empty on a summer weekend. But a place like Mesa Grill, which by now caters mainly to out-of-town Food Channel viewers visiting New York, would be packed on a summer weekend. Almost uniquely, Babbo gets both those crowds. OF COURSE you can't get a reservation.

My friends from the suburbs, who watch a lot of Food TV, get excited at the prospect of eating at Mesa Grill. Judging by how packed the place still is, there must be a lot of people like that. Many of them read the Times. I think this review definitely had a point. (To counter the inevitable "Olive Garden is packed, too" rebuttal, the difference is that the people who pack Mesa Grill do so not because it's a familiar chain, but because they've seen Bobby Flay on Food TV and thus believe that Mesa Grill must be one of the top restaurants in New York. I think that's eminently worth rebutting by the Times critic.) (Or, to put it another way, this place is different from most other NYC "tourist" restaurants because people go there for the food. Again, if the Times critic thinks it's deteriorated to the point where it's no longer very good but only good, that's worth correcting.)

As a platform for discussing the phenomenon of overstretched celebrity chefs. (Also, since the restaurant is still usually packed, it's hard to say it's completely irrelevant in real-world terms.)

BIG NEWS (not necessarily for the OP, but for NYC bar-eaters in general): Insieme has now activated its bar, AND SERVES FOOD THERE. (This is very recent.)

The menu at Belcourt has a notation saying something like, "Everything that can be made in-house, is."

Oh come on. Everybody knows Don LOVES to make Ramos Gin Fizzes. He used to get them to let him make them at the Pegu Club when he was just a customer.

See the last item in this Eater post: http://eater.com/archives/2008/01/eaterwire_am_ed_20.php PS -- Thanks for everything last night, John.

Yeah. The BAR room. What you said was: At Gramercy Tavern (and The Bar Room at The Modern, for that matter), you are limited to the bar menu at the bar. You can't order the restaurant menu. Contrast that with EMP, where you can order the full restaurant a la carte menu (although not the tasting menu) at the bar -- which includes the tables around the bar that are in fact part of the bar area. (And, to be clear, which also has a bar menu that you can also order at the bar if you want, instead of the full restaurant a la carte menu.) Or, with Cafe Gray, where the bar (like that at Gramercy Tavern) is a whole separate room, with a bar and tables -- at all of which (unlike at Gramercy Tavern) you can order from the full dinner menu or the bar menu, as you choose.

Gramercy Tavern?

I can't help but wonder whether the article about Streit's in today's Times City Section was tipped off by thread.

Go Cantonese. New York Noodletown (Bayard & Bowery)

Here's a perhaps tastelessly TMI thing to say: When my wife was dying in New York Hospital, Evergreen dim sum were about the only thing she could stand to eat. I'm not sure that's the kind of endorsement any restaurant wants. But it's an endorsement nonetheless. It certainly made my wife's last couple of months on earth more pleasant.

Gold Bar. Already happened. I guess we need more of those.