Sneakeater

Pera is a new upscale Turkish restaurant -- it is denominated a "Medditeranean brasserie", a combination of buzzwords that in the context of this restaurant is virtually meaningless -- that newly opened on Madison Avenue between 41st and 42nd. It's worth popping into, if not travelling to. Pera lacks the madcap edge of the Turkish restaurants run by Orhan Yegen, New York's mad prince of Turkish cuisine. So on the one hand, the place doesn't seem as if it's about to careen out of control; but on the other, you never get the feeling you might be about to taste anything startlingly good, either. What you get instead is a very consistently high level of accomplishment. You can also get a startlingly good value. That's the tasting menu (called, I think, the "Pera Tradition Menu") where, for $46 a person, you get a fairly big selection of mezze, a delicious topped flatbread, and a whole host of grilled meats. (I think this may be an especially good deal for solo diners, because I got the feeling they haven't figured out how to portion the tasting menu for one, and so pretty much gave me what they'd normally give two people. Of course, to appreciate this bargain, you have to be someone -- like me -- who will pretty much consume any amount of food that is put in front of him.) When you eat the cunningly seasoned, and beautifully prepared, hummus at the start, you begin to see that this is going to be Turkish at a level of preparation you don't ordinarily see. The various brochettes nail it. The meat is perfectly tender: not at all chewy. Well butchered: no gristle. Cooked -- and spiced -- to a turn. No blatant seasonings, just enough to bring out what's best in the meat. Served with superlative housemade bread. In other words, just what you want this food to be like. I can't speak for the rest of the menu, but what the "Tradition" menu isn't, is haute Turkish. This isn't a place that's showing you new aspects of Turkish cuisine that you've never imagined before. (That's more Orhan Yegen's thing.) Rather, this (again, at least on the "Tradition" menu) is a place that's doing the old standbies better than you've probably ever had them. Well worth a try. PS -- I'm always ready to support a place that has Mussar by the glass.

I have to say "DITTO" or some such to this only because rich and I have to support each other on this quixotic quest.

You have to admit that giving three stars to The Bar Room at The Modern but only two stars to The Modern raises some flags. It seems self-evident to me that Bruni is a tough grader for "haute" restaurants and an easy grader for casual restaurants. In that context, it seems easy to read the language under discussion in the Ssam review as an attack (of some sort) on fine dining. It doesn't bother me as much as others.

By coincidence, Marian Burros posted the following in the Times's "Diner's Journal" blog today: http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/200...f-the-familiar/ I ate at the old downtown Quatorze a lot. I've eaten at Quatorze Bis maybe twice (I'm not up there very frequently). This is another place where, while it certainly doesn't scale the heights, I've never had a bad meal. As Ms. Burros says, the fries are superb, and the tarte tatin (at least as of several years ago) remained nearly definitive. I'm pleased to hear it's still good.

It's a market-based menu that changes constantly.

You need to give your name to the bartender after you get cleared by the bald guy.

I'd add that I much prefer the bar (or "brasserie", as they call it) at Cafe Gray to the dining room. There's a new bar menu. But you can also order off the main menu at the bar there.

You get used to MdO and you can't go back. Cachaca Dave was just right about that. That's all there is to it.

(Well that proves I'M not part of that generation.) (Hope I get old before I die.)

They're just tryin' to be friendly So come and watch them sing and play Cuz they're the young generation And they've got something to say.

Re: the "Star System". I'm not sure there was ever really a time when the Star System "worked" in New York. Remember, when the system was first being formulated under Claiborne and Sheraton, the critics felt free to bestow idiosyncratic ratings on places that now would be considered outside the system's purview. Fat Guy has said that this was proper back in the days when Giants Walked The Earth, but that, in order to last, the system had to be institutionalized, so that it could be applied credibly by people whose authority derives from their position on the Times (rather than the position's deriving its authority from its inhabitant, as in the days of Claiborne and Sheraton). Bryan Miller is the prime example of the institutionalization of the system; in many ways, he seemed to view the maintenance of the Star System as one of his primary responsibilities (and he certainly seemed to continue to feel that way even after his departure, if his famous letter about Ruth Reichl is any evidence). The point here is that it is the "institutionalized" Star System that is almost necessarily "out of touch" with the reality of New York dining. It's a construct. It's artificial. It's based on distinctions that are more important to the maintenance of internal consistency than they are to any sense of how people actually eat. But the "institutionalized" Star System didn't always exist. Indeed, the earlier pre-"institutionalized" Star System will feel familiar to anyone who's thought about the "new" so-called "post-star" era. You like Sammy's Romanian? Three stars. Chock Full o'Nuts? Give it a star review. You get the feeling, from those early Claiborne/Sheraton days, of some very knowledgeable, passionate, engaged people looking at the New York dining scene, top-to-bottom, and writing about whatever caught their attention. Considering it all worthy. I don't think they would have had a problem with giving a star review to the taco counter in the back of the deli on 10th Ave. near 47th St. As Fat Guy has said, this kind of non-system system only works if the writers have their own inherent authority. I'm not really trying to call for its return. I'm just trying to (a) explain why the "institutionalized" Star System is, to me, doomed from the start as an artificial construct, and (b) counter the suggestion that there was a time when the "institutionalized" Star System did accurately reflect New York dining. Because at the time when you would think that most likely be true, there was no institutionalized Star System. There was a much more free-wheeling system, which feels absolutely "contemporary" to me.

Part of something's being a "New Paradigm" is that it's hard to describe or explain to someone who hasn't been there. Because it's "new" -- outside the current paradigm. That's why many perfectly reasonable responses I could imagine people having would just be wrong. Like, "what's so 'new' about good food in a casual setting? That's what Danny Meyer created with Union Square Cafe and perfected with Gramercy Tavern." But those places aren't even close to what we're talking about here. The quality is far beyond Union Square and at least the original Grammercy Tavern. And the sense of improvisational cooking at the new places -- this is where it gets hard to explain -- really is something new. You don't know what'll appear on the menu at Momofuku Ssam every time you go. And at Upstairs, the menu has the sushi section, the Bouley section, they'll add an Italian section . . . whatever. Another one is, "why criticize the service at EMP for being too informal for the food if you're going to celebrate these so-called 'new' places for minimalist service?" The answer to that is the old problem of the middlebrow. For me, you either go "high art" or "low art" -- Godard or Edgar Ulmer -- but all that stuff in the middle (you know, Oscar-winning "best pictures") is just a lot of mush. The atmosphere and service at these places is dressed-down way beyond just "casual". But on the other hand, it's very serious: you are always aware that the entire staff feels like they're part of an important shared enterprise. They're just not putting on a lot of airs about it. But again, I guess you have to go to these places to know what I mean.

Yeah, the tripe at Al Di La is damn good.

Actually, I agree with this. And (saying what Bux would have said if he were here to say it) it's the relative lack of places like this that I find most maddening about eating in New York. How can it be this way? It doesn't make sense. That said, however, I have to note that the food at Momofuku and Bouley Upstairs is lightyears beyond anything you'd expect at the kinds of places we're now talking about.

It's delightful that Yogi Berra gets quoted on eG more than any other non-food related person (though he did own a major share of Yoo Hoo at one time). In fact, he may be quoted more than any other person in general these days - and that's a very good thing. ← Of course, Yogi didn't say most of the things he said.

I think there's a mistaken assumption at play here. I think it may be because Joe G. appears not to have been to Momofuku Ssam yet and is assuming it's just like Momufuku Noodle Bar, which it isn't. The mistaken assumption is that you're rushed in and out. Let's talk about the two restaurants that I would say represent the "New Paradigm" that some are claiming here. One is Momofuku Ssam. The other is Bouley Upstairs. At both of them, you might have to wait up to an hour for a table during prime time. But at neither of them are you rushed out. Once you're seated, you eat till you're done. (Momofuku Noodle Bar is different -- but that's a "fast food" place.) To the extent there is a "New Paradigm", what it consists of is food at a level way above casual served in very dressed-down, almost minimalist settings. Sure, oakapple is right that the haute French has been perceived as embattled for decades. But not by places like this.

Dave H, I was kidding around anyway!

I do think there's a distinction between Noodle Bar and Ssam. Nobody's giving Noodle Bar two stars, or claiming it's a "new paradigm". Your description above just isn't true of Ssam. To me, the Ssam experience isn't sitting at an uncomfortable counter eating food (since to me it's a perfectly comfortable counter there). It's getting off work at 10:30 or so and going somewhere where I can walk in, sit down at the counter, and have food that is interesting, surprising, and exceedingly well-sourced and well-prepared, and not having to take forever to do it. Having said that, though, I'm glad that high-quality alternatives to heavily ceremonial dining are appearing. I don't think I'm awkward at it (and I do think I know something about wine, if not classic haute cuisine). I just don't particularly enjoy it (the "it" being heavily ceremonial dining, not classic haute cuisine). I don't agree that it should be privileged on that ground alone.

Also, truly excellent pig's trotter's with lentils at db Bistro Moderne. I also love the pig's trotters at LCB Brasserie, but some complain they're too mushy.

And also a great (and super-rich) grits with pig's trotters dish at Craft.

There's a very tasty (and surprisingly delicate, if you can believe that) gnocchi-with-pig's-feet dish at Sfoglia now.

It would be highly ironic if the Cherry Tavern gets to stay and this place has to go.

The way you win jury trials is by assuming the jury isn't a bunch of morons. Just pointing to the existence of a "Diner's Journal" article, without going into its content, doesn't prove a thing. Because anyone with a brain could realize that Bruni can write about bars as well as restaurants.* Indeed, the article itself might make clear, when you read it, that Bruni considers its subject a bar instead of a restaurant. As, in fact, this one does. So referring to an article like this would be stupid. If you mention it, you have to assume that someone might be interested enough to read it. Anyone can find it on the Times's website (it isn't even one of the articles that cost money to retrieve). And once anyone looked it up and saw what it actually said, your and your client's credibility would be shot. No one would believe you about ANYTHING anymore. ______________________________________________________ * The mere fact that a bar serves food can't be enough to turn it into a restaurant, or else they wouldn't be having this dispute.

You're absolutely right that to discuss this intelligently, we have to get a handle on the legal definition (if any). OTOH, I'm not too sure it's intelligent to be discussing this at all.

There was a place called Svennigsen's (sp?) on Fifth Ave. in the lower 30s that had just that kind of food. Exactly the kind of "nostalgic" menu you mention. Very good, too. Unfortunately, it closed a year or so ago.