Sneakeater

They're very famous for using what appear to be "scare quotes" in situations where they make no sense. So nobody really knows why things in that menu are put in quotation marks. It's very confusing.

Same recipes or not, it's very unlikely to be the same without Chef de la Vega.

You only ask if that's rude cuz they're not from New York. If they were FROM New York, you'd feel free to ask them not only how much their dinner cost, but how much they paid for their apartment.

I think opinion pieces are different from news articles.

I know you all REALLY care about this, but what I finally decided to do is forget the distance limitation and go to Anthos (someplace I am REALLY eager to try). And since my date HATES walking (she once compared walking from Pegu to Milk & Honey to being forced to walk to New Jersey) (she got the direction wrong, though: she should have said Brooklyn), the extra blocks will add some spice to our evening.

Going there on a night with terrible weather, after Death & Co. . . . Our experiences are eerily identical.

I'm not gonna make any remarks about "cutting through the fat". Jesus. The people I eat with sometimes.

Other people who've eaten here have told me that I simply ordered wrong. I guess I'll have to give it another shot. Given my previous good experiences with Chef Nawab, it seems like a good idea.

Those islands are like something out of Borges. It's just amazing how the real world can live up to fantasy. What a great trip!

But yet there are people on THIS VERY BOARD who, before they go to a restaurant for the first time, ask for all kinds of detailed information about which dishes to order, etc.

Varietal isn't failing because of Bruni. Varietal is failing because it's an incoherent concept, and because half of the menu doesn't really make it.

They actually serve Tournedos Rossini in the restaurant inside Avery Fischer Hall. (Or at least they used to.) Not that I would actually eat there or anything.

FWIW, actually, I agree with you on all that.

I don't know if it's considered appropriate to post things like this, but that was one of the best posts I've read.

That's so funny. The lamb dish and the gnocchi were two of the three things I had last night.

Everybody seems bored with this entirely admirable but unexciting restaurant. But I want to alert you to the Charcroute Garnie they are serving until the end of March. All the sausages are house-made. I've never been to Alcase, but with that obvious disqualification I say that this is the best rendition of this favorite dish I have ever had. At $32, it costs much more than the various charcroutes Les Halles was offering last month. But it's incomparably better. Made Les Halles's charcroute seem like it was made of rubber.

I ate at The Bar Room last night (thanks to Daisy17 for reminding me to do so). Without going into the details of the dishes (I didn't have anything I hadn't tried before -- I don't think there's anything left there that I haven't tried yet), I didn't notice any of the diminution in quality that FG says he's heard reports of, post-NYT review. Either (a) those reports were based on expectations raised inoridnately by the Times's three-star rating, (b) The Bar Room was overwhelmed by a landrush for a while after the review but no longer is (it was fairly crowded, but not scary crowded), or © (most likely) I have a completely undiscerning palate and will like anything put in front of me that has fat and some seasonings.

Discussion here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=100374

Thinking it over, what's disappointing about EU is that, here, Chef Nawab is preparing what is essentially comfort food, whereas at Craftbar he was much more inventive. It's surprising, because I thought that originally EU was supposed to be more a Craftbar type of place in terms of inventiveness of cuisine.

Awesome is not the word. (Make sure it's clear that Abbe is the girlfriend of the owner of Gusto.)

This is more baseless inexcusable internet speculation, but if the departure is Chef Kahn's decision, I would take it more as his taking leave of a ship that may be sinking (no pejorative intended) than his overreacting to criticism directed at him.

Just to say it clearly (although Fat Guy alread did): The point isn't just playing "gotcha" becuase Bruni apparently didn't know what this term meant. The point is that, even acting as a reporter rather than a critic, Bruni should have researched the term's currency and usage before ridiculing Varietal for employing it.

Just wanted to highlight this rather key point FG made.

I mean, this purported approach of, "let's take someone who knows less about a subject than most people who care about it, and have him write reviews of it," is really pretty offensive.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but if any arts critic at the Times took that approach, the Times would lose all credibility in the arts world and its influence would dwindle to nothingness. I was going to say, if he's really a reporter rather than a critic, they should say so. But I guess they did.