Sneakeater

This isn't what you're looking for, and it's so obvious that it hardly bears saying (I mean, I know you know about it), but if you don't go to Arzak you'll regret it for the rest of your life.

Fat Guy wants to make sure that none of us can get into Momofuku Ssam ever again.

You should go to Robert's.

Dave H should have gone somewhere in Brooklyn.

Ya know, I tried to start a thread to remedy that once . . . .

I LOVE the food at Cafe Gray. Wouldn't say a bad thing about it. (Except that it's SO expensive!) I was talking only about the decor.

If your husband is snotty about glitz, he will probably have zero tolerance for Cafe Gray. (I should note, though, that Cafe Gray isn't really "New York-style" glitz. I'd say it's more Akron-style glitz.) River Cafe is surprsingly good but, at least at this point, not particularly inventive.

So I guess what you're saying is that the balance at Degustation doesn't tilt enough toward haute? Cuz we all agree that one of the things that makes Bouley Upstairs and Momo-Ssam "New Paradigm" is the mix of haute and bas. Whereas the thinking seems to be that places like The Bar Room at The Modern and Degustation don't quite make it cuz they don't tilt haute enough. Maybe the point is that Bouley Upstairs and Momo-Ssam really mix high and low, whereas Degustation and The Bar Room are more mixtures of high and middle-brow? And with the emphasis more on the middle-brow than on the high?

Reading through tupac's review of Desgustation in that restaurant's dedicated thread made me think of one other thing. I agree with him and Fat Guy and everybody else that Degustation does not attain the level of quality that Momo-Ssam or Room 4 Dessert or Bouley Upstairs do. But, other issues aside, it can't be a criterion for inclusion in the "New Paradigm" that a restaurant be great. If the "New Paradigm" has any validity as a category, it has to allow inclusion of places that aren't as good as others.

Reading through tupac's review of Desgustation in that restaurant's dedicated thread made me think of one other thing. I agree with him and Fat Guy and everybody else that Degustation does not attain the level of quality that Momo-Ssam or Room 4 Dessert or Bouley Upstairs do. But, other issues notwithstanding, it can't be a criterion for inclusion in the "New Paradigm" that a restaurant be great. If the "New Paradigm" has any validity as a category, it has to allow inclusion of places that aren't as good as others.

Yes, but the difference isn't a food difference. The idea is that you can get Jean Georges-quality food without a reservation, at 9pm, for $17. ← Again, I'm asking if there's another element. I sort of thought there was. Maybe there isn't.

Yeah. And the Italian menu has remained unchanged for nearly a year. And you can get a personalized tasting menu at lots of "normal" places.

And I'll add that it's no answer to say that Jean Georges's tasting menu rarely changes. The point of this is that these restaurants are different from someplace like Jean Georges.

True. But I want to emphasize that I'm NOT talking about seasonality. I'm talking about a menu that hasn't changed at all in three quarters of a year. I'm raising the issue whether constant culinary experimentation (again, not in the molecular sense) is a part of the "New Paradigm".

One thing that, to me, keeps Bouley Upstairs from being definitive "New Paradigm" is that the menu doesn't change. I went a few days ago, and it was the same as the first time I went last June. This is especially disturbing because some of the dishes have ingredients that we'd now consider seasonal, like the corn with the halibut. But they're serving it in the dead of winter. But the issue I'm trying to raise here isn't seasonality. It's what I referred to above -- no doubt inaptly -- as the "improvistory" nature of the cooking that I believe is part of the "New Paradigm". When you go to Momo-Ssam, you never know what they're going to have recently come up with. Room4Dessert's menu changes periodically. As I said just above, you get the feeling that these places view their kitchens as labs. Or, to put it another way, that they're always coming up with new stuff for the joy of it. Bouley Upstairs seems like a place that should be that way. But it isn't. Does anyone else agree that this is an aspect of the "New Paradigm"? Does anyone disagree?

There's a bar and bar area, but it's small.

I think he means foot traffic as in walk-ins.

fendi, I'm not from the South and have never had "real" barbecue, but go to Biscuit one night and Smoke Joint the next and then tell me Smoke Joint isn't better. H. -- the sauces are kept in bottles along the walls (or used to be). You get (or got) them yourself.

My experience with Momo-Ssam is that they really add new dishes all the time. The kitchen seems to be kind of like a lab there. (Not in the molecular sense.)

I might as well jump on the bandwagon of people who thought this place was much better than its print reviews.

I'm not taking sides here. But people have always blamed Urena's location for at least some of their problems, and that's on the same kind of block.

Aren't you that gay guy who recently reviewed the steakhouse in a strip club?

Not that I obsessively read your posts or anything, but: Russian Tea Room Klee

You're doing fine so far.

I think it's boring. Most people love it. They've got to agree it's too dark, though.