jogoode

They certainly count. I loved the crispy sweetbreads I was served at GT, but I'd like to see them grilled more often. Chestnut, Smith Street in Brooklyn, does a great grilled sweetbread dish. I was intrigued by the tendon in sweet bean sauce, but I tried it in chili sauce the other day and it was truly awesome.

I want pictures, Jason!

Figure apps=~$12, mains=~$23-7, sides=$7-12 So for an app, main and two sides, you're at ~$55, plus wine and dessert, if you like that kind of stuff. I had such great oysters at Craft.

Definitely counts! How is the blood sausage? I have never eaten good blood sausage in NYC...

As a relative eating novice, i enjoy a place where I can eat unembellish high-quality product, to see what a good steak or well-roasted top-shelf mushrooms taste like. Then I can notice this quality from restaurants whose dishes have many components and sauces. I would go again, but I agree about the price -- I couldn't stop thinking that I had spent more for lunch at Craft than I would have for lunch at any 4-star.

Near the end of this Casa Mono thread, we seem to have concluded that, whether or not Marian Burros is a good reviewer, her reviews do not speak to those of us who like roast guts, cockscomb, or a nice tripe sandwich. So what to do? Make a list where edible offal is served best in NYC. You get one point for a good one-offal dish. Two for a good two-offal dish. Like Scattergories. Whoever wins gets to go to Casa Mono with Ms. Burros and has to get her to try the tripe. I'll start. -Ox tongue and tripe -- Grand Sichuan = 2 points -Tongue two-ways salad, roasted and cured -- last year's restaurant week at Cafe Boulud = 2 points?

I take back the comment that there's anything admirable about a reviewer whose tastes aren't all encompassing, or at least can't convincingly withhold that information from the public. I discussed this point with a professional who said he wouldn't be surprised if restauranteurs wouldn't tailor their menus to the taste of influential reviewers. It well advertised, the taste of whoever the New York Times picks as a reviewer may have considerable influence on what we eat, or at least on what's offered to us at a new restaurant. Very intersting, Bux. But I don't understand why that would cause you to retract your statement suggesting that a good reviwer should try to step back from his/her basic preferences and comment on a dish's execution. I enjoy eggs, but I don't love some dishes that feature eggs, no matter how well they are prepared -- i.e. omelets. If I were a capable reviewer I could easily, however, report that the omelet topped with beluga that I ate at, say, ADNY was or wasn't well prepared. And even that it was a fine dish. (I just wouldn't choose to eat it if the money for it were coming out of my thin wallet.) I do think it's admirable, from an ethical standpoint, for Burros to point out to the reader that she does not like everything, rather than concealing or omitting the fact. Otherwise, accuracy suffers. To be sure, I think the Times should've appointed someone else as interim critic, but we don't know what their contraints were. And it seems Burros be the first to say that she doesn't make an ideal reviewer.

I was more impressed with the carrots I had there than my chanterelles.

Seriously, Monica. I'm so happy you chose to bring such a beautiful piece to TDG!

Here's the link. Scroll down for the Casa Mono thing. Thanks, bpearis. I should emphasize that Ms. Greene should not necessarily take the blame for this.

In her review, Burros wrote: "chipirones (squid)"

Nice reporting, kathe! kinsey, Please note that I might not survive my eating the braised beef in red oil. When you said "in red oil" you meant that the beef and cabbage are in a bath of red oil. I didn't expect that and now I won't be eating for a few days. Very good dish, though, especially the cabbage.

In the newest Restaurant Insider, the email preview of New York Magazine's food section (no link available), Gael Greene reports that she enjoyed the "cuttle-fish with white beans". On the menu, the dish with white beans is listed as "chipirones with white beans." Chipirones are baby squid, I believe, not cuttlefish. Sepia is the word for cuttlefish. Very picky of me, yes, but if I'm right, that's lazy fact checking.

You're right. If I hadn't tried them already, I would have been clueless thanks to her review.

Two stars certainly won't harm the place! And I suspect it's been packed every night since it's been open. Though Batali's restaurants would be particulary resilient in the face of an unexpected one- or no-star review.

She did, despite her VIP status, have plenty of negative things to say about the food. The lamb was overdone for me and VIP Burros.

Students at my college killed two birds with one stone: here.

I was with you as soon as you mentioned that pasta with crab and urchin!

I'd agree that Babbo features more "luxury ingedients" than Lupa -- like truffles in season and the goose liver rav -- but really the genius of Babbo is that it can charge so much for pig's feet, tripe, and calf brains, because it is one of the only restaurants serving these dishes. In the New Yorker article about Batali several years ago, he was described creating a nightly special, a soup of leftovers that he essentially made up on the spot, for which he charged $30. A good part of the menu is labor-intensive, as someone said before, like pasta and salumi, but the cost of the ingredients used in those two is quite low. I'd imagine the restaurant makes a killing. Most of the dishes, in fact, use mostly non-luxury ingredients and feature the addition of fennel pollen or "budding chives". What you're eating seems luxurious, not because of its price but because of its relative rarity in NYC. Absolutely nothing wrong with this, of course. Also of note is the Batali price mantra, which seems to be: "Keep prices of items in like categories as close to one another as possible." Bond Girl pointed this out to me once before. And the online menu has the lobster spaghetti selling fore two bucks more than the Bucatini all'Amatriciana! A one-pound lobster versus an ounce of two of guanciale that he makes himself. I know it's not that simple but it's worth taking a look at.

Roast pork at John's. Followed by a cheesesteak.

Between Ladner, Nusser and Pasternak -- and with his and Bastianich's overseeing -- it seems like his restaurants are in good hands.

Thanks FG and jb. So, of Batali's restaurants, which has the lowest food cost? Or would it be simply Esca, Babbo, Lupa, Otto/Casa Mono?

FG, Is Blue Hill's food cost really that much lower than Sparks? Sparks pays a lot for their beef, I'm sure. But doesn't Blue Hill's reliance on small farm veggies and meat help their food cost catch up to Sparks, with their probably frozen spinach and baked potatoes? Or is the beef cost and portion size that great at Sparks?

Burros' review of Casa Mono is by far the strangest I've ever read. In some ways, her being forthcoming was welcome -- she addressed the fact that she had a relationship with the owners and was easily recognized, emphasizing though that little can be done to change the food served. But I've never come across a review in which the critic is so willing to say that: Admitting that some dishes were prepared well, despite her aversion to them in general, is admirable, and has relevance to our discussion of Mix in New York reviews. Nevertheless, I find it hard to relate to a reviewer who doesn't even want to try the three or four dishes I was dying to eat -- the tripe, cockscombs, and cap i pota fria. (I know she's the nutrition and food safety writer but I'm not scared of a little calf's head.) She criticized the lamb chops, saying they were oversalted every time she had them. On my visit, the lamb chops -- though one of the three was over done, they still seem not to have sorted this out -- were excellent, perfectly seasoned. And she warned that you could certainly run up a substantial bill with enough small plates, which is true but ignores the great value I think this restaurant represents. Although I could easily sit at the place all night, and get through at least three fourths of the menu, when you compress you meal at Casa Mono into an hour and a half or two hours, four or five plates for each person is perfect and, chosen wisely, won't cost you all that much for a two-star.

The sour green beans are my favorite dish at Grand Sichuan as well. I have tried it many times, attempted to copy it at home and am completely stumped about how the sour is achieved. Know it is not vinegar. Any food detectives out there have the answer? I could've sworn those beans tasted pickled. How do you know it's not vinegar? The Times mentioned that Sichuan cooking utilized black vinegar, and rice wine. And my pickled cabbage wasn't pickled in black vinegar. Hmmmm. Did you like the dish as soon as you tried it? Amuse Bouche, who recommended the dish to me (thanks!), said earlier on this thread that she/he (sorry ) thinks the dish is strange while she/he is eating it, but then can't stop thinking about it when it's gone.