Sneakeater

I wouldn't have thought the Schubert brothers qualified to be theater critics.

I can't agree about Pure. Any enterprise that enables me to be in the same building as Sarma can't be called annoying.

And the rest of it is annoying in the EXACT SAME WAY. (Tofu-based vegetarian restaurant. The blandness and preciousness of the food is exceeded only by the smugness of the clientele.)

I find Zen Palate EXTREMELY annoying.

See, I'm not allowed to say this here, but I thought the original Tasting Room was one of the more annoying restaurants I'd ever been to.

You have made me painfully aware of that. I just meant that, even as originally configured, Atelier Robuchon NYC clearly wasn't comparable to Upstairs.

Even the $160 tasting menu . . . .

I guess I should state for the record, now that Atelier Robuchon NYC has opened, that my comparisons of Atelier with Bouley Upstairs were way off base.

Well, maybe 11.

Nope. This will be the end of Momufuku Ssam as a place you can actually go.

The setting is exactly what it wants to be -- it's targeted at a specific, young, downtown, sophisticated audience, and they don't see it as a "no-star setting." They see it as the way they want to eat in this millennium. They'd rather be in that setting on any given night than at Per Se. David Bouley has tapped into the main artery of the downtown Gen X plus Y foodie culture. ← Speaking as a downtown Gen X'er, I'm not sure this is true. I don't know that anyone prefers the uncomfortable setting at Bouley Upstairs over Per Se. What we prefer is its price point over Per Se. Alinea would be a more appropriate comparison (it has a considerably younger demographic than Per Se, at a similar price point).....so would WD-50 to some extent. edit: To make my point clear, the price has everything to do with the popularity of Bouley Upstairs. Everything. ← I'm not a Gen X'er, but I think there's a definite preference for less fancy/less ritualistic dining experiences. Even among us Boomers. That doesn't mean anyone likes Upstairs's uncomfortable aspects. But I'll tell you what. I find Upstairs more congenial, as an experience, than Bouley. And I doubt I'm alone in that.

Ummmm yeah.

I think EMP will be easier.

Don't take this as legal advice or anything, but I think you'd have a hard time proving that the scallops caused the disease. And remember, in England (unlike the US) the losing side has to pay the winning side's legal fees.

When I first met my wife, nearly 30 years ago, we went out somewhere and I ordered a Rum and Coke. "What a juvenile, disgusting drink," she said. Now that she's no longer alive to read this, I can admit that I've come to know that she was absolutely right.

I'd recommend Pegu over Death & Co. Death & Co. is too iffy as to whether you can get in (i.e., usually you can't). Also, as I repeatedly note, I just find Pegu more "adult". Death, to me, is too much of a kid bar.

The guy who runs it wanted to move back to Japan, and they decided to close rather than replace him.

Exactly.

But the London Bar is a bar/lounge, where a lot of the seats are unreserved. So the FOH guy did what you'd expect in a no-reservations type place. The dining room at EMP is completely different -- as, for that matter, is the dining room at Ramsay. I wouldn't expect anyone at the Ramsay dining room to "bend over backward" to "accomodate me" if I wandered in without a reservation. I'd expect them to tell me they're fully booked (if they are), and to send me on my way. And this VD, the dining room was apparently the only option at EMP, because they'd decided not to serve food at the bar. I'm not saying this to be accusatory, but only as a possible explanation: I think you may have gotten so out of the loop in terms of reserved dining rooms that you've kind of forgotten the assumptions on which they operate. You just can't expect to wander in -- especially on the busiest night of the year, weather or no weather -- and expect to be seated. Or even to be greeted with anything other than a raised eyebrow. (Although you're not completely out of that loop, since even you reminded me recently that I couldn't expect to just walk into Alinea and order the Tour without a reservation.)

I believe that applies to all the McNally properties as well. ← Yeah.

Buger discussions get heated. But if you feel like a burger, even the worst burger in the burger discussions is gonna go a long way toward satisfying you. But I guess my point was more, here's a place that nobody really ever has anything bad to say about. Seems like a lot too much work to do micro-level comparisons to other places, with such a straightfoward type of food.

Maybe I'm a patsy (and maybe I don't eat in enough Danny Meyer restaurants), but I don't get restaurant staff "bending over backwards" to accomodate me too often. Either they can, in which case they do, or they can't, in which case they don't. But they don't do more than that. I'm not sure what more they can do. Most times when I walk into The Bar Room at The Modern (a Danny Meyer place), they can seat me. Sometimes -- a fair number of times -- they can't. But when they can't, there's never anybody there who'll try to get me a table at some other restaurant. They just tell me they can't seat me, and I'm on my way to find somewhere else. A few nights ago, I thought I'd try to eat at the London Bar before a Carnegie Hall concert. It was obviously full. There was a very nice FOH guy who said he'd look for a seat for me. He looked, coudn't find one, and politely asked if I wanted to have a drink and wait to see if anything opened up. I didn't want to do that, so I thanked him and left. He didn't do anything more to try to accomodate me. What more could have he done? I thought what he did was enough. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't see what you think they should have done for you at EMP. I've never had anyone, anywhere, try to get me into another related restaurant after being unable to seat me, without my specifically asking them to do so. And frankly, when restaurants tell me they're full, I just believe they're full. It never occurs to me to press them. As I said, maybe I don't expect enough. You put yourself at risk because you never like to make reservations. That's your preference. If I have a "special" meal, a meal that means a lot to me, I never ever leave it to chance. That's my preference. We're each entitled to our different preferences. But I think that having yours, you sort of forfeit the right to complain if things don't work out. Finally, it's nuts to say you couldn't eat anywhere on Wednesday other than at a Danny Meyer restaurant or a steakhouse. I found someplace very good to serve me dinner that was neither of those things. But your very statement that you thought those were your only two options is an acknowledgment that Valentine's Day is rough if you don't have reservations. I just don't understand what the magical Danny Meyer Customer Service Model is supposed to give you in those circumstances.

The last time I was here -- a couple of weeks ago -- I had the cider-braised pork hock. It was fine. It's only brasserie food. Calm down. Try it. How bad can it be?

That three-star rating is ridiculous. But Honmura An has been one of my very favorite places from the time it opened until now. There are places that close that you're kind of sorry about, and then there are places that you're REALLY REALLY REALLY going to miss. For me, this is one of the latter.

Spotted Pig is kind of bizarre in that respect. Usually, it's packed, ridiculous wait, yadda yadda yadda. But sometimes you can walk right in. And it's usually odd times, when if anything you'd expect it to be even more packed than usual. I remember the one time I had the same experience you did. It was Gay Pride Day, and the streets of the neighborhood were jammed for the parade. A friend who worked in the neighborhood and I made a last-minute plan for me to take her out to dinner, and we fought our way through the crowds over to the Spotted Pig with no real hope of being seated, just to see what would happen. Turned out we got seated right away. It's weird.