Sneakeater

WE ARE NORMAL AND WE WANT OUR FREEDOM!

While I said I could understand why they'd do it, other than Babbo (and now EMP), I don't know any NYC restaurants that will allow you to order off the restaurant's main menu at the bar but NOT allow you to order a tasting menu. Can anybody identify any others?

While I'm surprised when any restaurant, especially high-end restaurants, offers the tasting at the bar, I'm curious why you think so? ← Say you have a bar that you want to function as an actual bar. One where people come in, have some drinks, hang out, leave. Also serves as a waiting pen for tables. Lots of energy and bustle. Maybe you wouldn't want the bar to be full of dinners settled in for extended nine-course meals. Maybe you'd want to encourage more turnover than that. Maybe you'd think that people sitting there eating long meals sinks the energy level. Look: I'M usually the guy sitting there eating the long meal. I'm not happy if they stop letting me do it. I'm just saying I can see what they're thinking.

You're right!

This sucks. I'm going to miss being able to plop down there and get the tasting menu whenever the mood struck. Just trying to pull something out of this: is it possible that they meant only at the actual bar, and not at the tables in the bar area? (BTW, I have to say that, unfortunately, it's easy for me to see why they'd decide to do this.)

It's lucky you never see me on dates.

It's funny you should say that. When advising the bartender at Picholine of my decision not to order anything off the price-inflated, dumbed-down Valentine's menu, I was on the verge of saying, "You know as well as I do that I'm not someone who goes out to eat only once or twice a year, and there's no way in the world I'm going to pay a premium for a more boring version of your normal menu." But my relations with that bartender are nothing but cordial, and I figured there was no reason to be argumentative.

I went, alone, to see Jenufa at the Met last night. Now, as much it might seem like some kind of purposive anti-Valentine's Day gesture to go see this depressing story of unwed infanticide (in Czech, no less), it wasn't like that at all. It was the only performance in this current run I was free for. I hadn't thought much about problems with dinner beforehand. I mean, I realized it might be hard to get into places, but I usually dine alone at the bar before performances, and I didn't think the Valentine's Day throngs would have any effect on that. What I didn't think of was the dread problem of Valentine's Day menus. I plopped down at the bar at my usual pre-opera haunt, Picholine -- no problem getting a bar seat -- only to be told (after they let me order a cocktail, I must say) that all they were serving was their Valentine's Day menu. No bar menu, and not the normal main menu. The Valentine's Day menu seemed to have been specially designed to cherry-pick the most boring items off their normal menu (and to serve boring, simplified versions of those, as well). (I guess it was really the easiest items to prepare -- the bartender explained to me that with the usual influx of customers on Valentine's Day a limited menu was all the kitchen could handle.) And the premium charged was, of course, ridiculous. They told me I could order dishes off the menu a la carte if I wanted, but I was just too disgusted. I left. I then endured the familiar ritual of wandering around the Lincoln Center area looking for a place -- anyplace -- to buy something to eat, however bad. No seats at O'Neal's. No seats at the antipasto bar at Fiorella's. No seats at Josephina's. No seats at Rosa Mexicana. I looked wistfully at the future home of Bar Boulud, opening this Spring. I reflected that by 2010 I might even be able to get in there one night. Finally, I decided to bite the bullet and walk over to Cafe Gray. Plenty of bar seats. They, too, had a special (overpriced) Valentine's Day menu -- but Gray Kunz couldn't cook boringly if you put a gun to his head. I ordered two items off it -- a turbot en papillote and veal and mushrooms -- and they were both absolutely delicious. No fall-off in execution, as is often reported on "special" nights like Valentine's and New Year's -- although the weather kept the place from being as mobbed as might otherwise be. I'm mildly pissed off that there were no mignardaises with my coffee, though.

Whatever seems good to you. Not meaning to be argumentative, but isn't the point of going to a really good restaurant that you can order what seems appealing with confidence? (The reason many of us have problems saying Babbo is truly top-rate is that you really CAN'T do that there. But that's why I don't make it a practice of recommending it -- certainly not as a "Top 3".)

I for one don't think getting an alcove seat makes much difference (those seats still loom over the room, so to me at least they don't seem any less cavernous). The noise factor is inconsequential: this is NOT a noisy restaurant. When people complain that the room is "cavernous," what they're complaining about is that it seems too big and impersonal (like the bank it once was). It isn't loud or anything. It's very sedate.

Either because Del Posto is fancier and more comfortable (in a bourgeious sort of way), or because the service at Del Posto is more elaborate, or because they're idiots.

Not a story I currently care to "eat." (No ill will meant - simply saying it's not for this trip). But, since jjb1980 asked, what is the story there? I haven't heard much movement one way or other. ← I ate at the bar there last night. The food is still great. The room still sucks. (Not the bar room -- that's kind of pleasant -- but the dining room.)

This is odd. I've never ordered a la carte there, so I have no opinion on this. But there's been substantial complaint in the EMP thread here that the a la carte courses are too small to constitute a satisfying three-course meal.

To quote Sneakeater, "Great Leaping Gonzagas" ( ) - if I could have the "Gourmande" Tasting Menu posted on the EMP website, it'd be back on my list... alas, I doubt that the menu will stay the same for that long... u.e. ← I don't want to sound like too much of a partisan for this place (or to build expectations to a point where it frankly won't live up to them), but I'd like to echo Bryan in saying that I've never had a tasting menu here that wasn't extremely appealing and well-put-together. They've been pretty consistent in that respect.

I have never been denied any kind of tasting menu at the bar there. I have, in fact, never ordered anything BUT tasting menus at the bar there.

Great leaping gozangas. I'm not recommending THAT.

I'll add, I think that at EMP the seasonal tasting menu is sort of obviously the way to go. It's beautifully constructed and usually has both some of the most attractive dishes from the main menu and some more interesting dishes that aren't otherwise available. Picholine is a harder call. But there's currently something available called the "Picholine classics" tasting menu that has a great selection of dishes, at least one of which (and one of the best of which) isn't available on the main menu (the Sea Urchin Panna Cotta). (I'm sure you'll never go here, anyway, since this is a sort of special idiosyncratic favorite of my own rather than a consensus favorite. But I think it's better than, say, Country.) (The game tasting menu -- no longer available -- was certainly one of the best dining experiences I had last year.) The tasting menu at Atelier Robuchon is obviously controversial. To me, it's almost sort of a bargain. Because -- at least when I ate there, during the soft opening -- it had one or two dishes that were outrageously expensive dishes from the a la carte menu, so that the total cost of the tasting menu was fairly significantly less than the total cost of all the items thereon would have been if ordered separately. I think that, after the initial burst of intense interest here, Atelier Robuchon has received less attention than it's due. I really think it's one of the very best dining experiences in the City right now. PS -- Babbo over Del Posto for the exact reasons Mayur stated, as well as those Daisy stated.

1. EMP 2. Atelier Robuchon 3. Pichonline Tasting at all. Cuz I'm a pig. (I'd really like to try Ramsay if I could get in. Maybe now I can.)

[wrong thread]

But I thought . . . .

The Lebanese wine there, OTOH, is excellent.

Just for the record, it's 2/5, not 2/6. (I thought the review was fair, too. Considering how little everyone respects him, I find it troubling how much I tend to agree with Adam Platt.)

I understand that Adam Platt isn't considered particularly authoritative around here, but I'd like to draw attention to the following phrase from his review of Brasserie Klee today: "trendy Alsatian-Austrian recipes"

At least we all agree on the important thing here: Kittichai by a mile.

And some of us New Yorkers are pissed AS SHIT at Prime Time Tables. And the only justification of that enterprise that I've heard that carries any weight is that it is only rationalizing a situation created in large part by the widespread practice of making multiple reservations and either not canceling the unused ones or canceling them at the last minute. I hate to sound "holier than thou", but the very existence of the odious Prime Time Tables -- which is another thing penalizing those of us who play fair, by the rules, and making it virtually impossible to get prime-time reservations when you want them -- shows that there's some kind of crisis going in the NYC reservations situation. So I think this shit should be strongly discouraged.