slkinsey

In my opinion, yes. I think the rotary style ones produce a lot more pulp, and I don't think the flavor of the juice is as pure as a result. Besides, the large lever-style juicers are easier to use and clean.

I bought a mid-size commercial orange-x lever-style juicer and never looked back. Way better juice than you can get from a rotary juicer, and none of the durability and bitterness problems of hand-presses.

Do they employ any security measures to prevent people from creating web bots to make reservations? If not, I'm surprised no one has done it yet: just program the bot and let it hit the site a zillion times starting at 9:59.

If you're worried about thickness, get the strained whole milk Kesso, not the 2% yogurt which is not strained. Here's an article about Kesso: http://www.yogurtplacenyc.com/sections/about.htm

FWIW, it's Giuseppe ("i" before the "u"). Not a big deal, but since this is a somewhat common (and perplexing) mispelling of this name and we're likely to mention his work in this thread, I thought I'd mention it now.

More Clover Club pictures from last night. Please excuse my crappy photographical skills and Play Skool-quality camera. I'm posting them because of the intense interest and numerous requests. Here is a flash picture of the main bar. This is an ambient light picture of the main bar. Look at the wood detailing on the top! I'm sure you can't see from these pictures, but the tops of the bar are adorned with fire-breathing dragons, complete with gigantic naked breasts. Julie told me some interesting history about the bar, but I'm afraid I don't recall in sufficient detail to relate that history now. I'll see if I can get the info a little later on. Both this bar and the bar at Flatiron Lounge are historical bars that were "saved," refinished, relocated and refurbished for her NYC bars. A view of the main bar room. There is a whole section of tables behind me (which leads to the front door). A closer, albeit sadly out-of-focus look at the pressed tin ceiling. Ambient picture of the back bar room. Note the fireplace, etc. Flash picture of the back bar room. This area is more "club-like" with Victorian-era furniture and a marble fireplace. It's going to be a special area that features a much wider range of cocktails, including all those Julie, her crews and friends have developed over the years, special glassware, guest bartenders, parties, lectures/classes/demonstrations, reservations area, etc. It's a great feature, not dissimilar to the "two restaurants in one" concept familiar from many of Danny Meyer's restaurants. Here is the supremely talented Giuseppe Gonzalez, who many of you may know from Flatiron Lounge. He's going to be behind the stick at Clover Club now. As it so happens, he was making us an... Improved Whiskey Cocktail. And they're serving them old school, on the rock. That's right, I said "rock" -- singular. Another nice thing they're doing there is using cylindrical pieces of ice for some of their drinks on ice. The cylinder of ice fits neatly inside their glassware with just enough room for the booze. You can see it lurking just under the surface in that picture. Here's a piece of that ice, after melting out in my drink for around 10 minutes. Nice size. Eater has beautiful, professional pictures that more accurately reflect what the place really looks like here. More later...

210 Smith Street (between Baltic and Butler) in Brooklyn. It's convenient to the Bergen stop on the F & G trains, and a little further away from the Hoyt-Schermerhorn stop on the A & C trains.

As far as I know, the front bar (and often the back one as well) is going to be open to the public without a reservation, just like it is at Flatiron, Pegu, etc. It's not a small space -- substantially larger than PDT or D&C. I'm sure it will be quite busy Thursday - Saturday, just like they all are. But I imagine you should be able to get a table or a spot at the bar Sunday - Wednesday with relative ease.

Clover Club should be open as of this evening. I stopped by for a pre-opening friends and family yesterday evening, and can report that it is one of the very most beautiful and comfortable cocktail bars you are likely to see. For those few not already in the know, Clover Club is the new Brooklyn bar of Julie Reiner and her group, which brought the pioneering cocktail bar, Flatiron Lounge, to Manhattan. Flatiron Lounge, along with Pegu Club and Milk & Honey, has been one of the major sites for developing and nurturing cocktailian bartenders in the City, so it's no surprise that Clover Club is packed with talent. There are some familiar faces, and some talented up-and-comers behind the bar. I'll have more later, but here are a few pictures: The space is absolutely amazing. Exposed brick, an antique bar and pressed tin ceiling in the front room; then go down some stairs to the separate back bar, which has an antiqued mirrored ceiling and a fireplace. It's quite convenient to the F train. (Fixed formatting)

Not to mention that, as with this recent example of a customer's perhaps mistaken reaction to a waiter's perceived "attitude," we have to wonder whether this was truly the sommelier's "fault" or a reaction more founded in Bruni's attitude than the sommelier's. Of course, Bruni gets to write the story...

I'm not sure that I believe that so many of the mistakes at Ago wouldn't have been made if they had known it was Bruni. Yes, they wouldn't have been late with his reservation, they would have kissed ass after the wine spill ("spills happen," as Bruni said himself) and he would have been seated at better table the one meal he was seated at a bad table. Do these things represent overall horrible service at Ago? Maybe. Maybe not. It's really not possible to tell, because it's based on one occurrence. As for Bruni's other complaints, which I believe (hope?) formed the basis for his "poor" rating (mediocre food, poor reservations, staff not on the same page, etc.) -- I don't believe these are things that could have been gamed to the extent that would have made the review any better. Any restaurant that is operating at such a low level won't be able to get its act together to game a critic into an undeservedly good review (certainly not without getting nailed -- it's not like he's not going to notice that his waiter is only serving his table, or that the chef is personally delivering each dish). Rather, the wine spilling incident is employed simply to illustrate and reinforce his negative impression of the restaurant. I have no doubt that, even if that incident had gone as poorly as it did, if the rest of his experiences had been positive on balance, it wouldn't have found its way into print. And, indeed, it very well may be the case that Ago's service isn't as bad as Bruni's review makes it seem by leading with the wine spill story.

There is some truth to that. But the other assumption is that the 4-star place, will have a very low failure rate while trying to execute 4-star service, whereas it is acceptable for the 1-star place to have a higher rate of failure. The margin of failure is also significantly narrower with the 4-star place. If you wait 15 minutes for someone to refill your water glass at Jean Georges, that's a pretty big deal. If you wait 15 minutes at Landmarc, not so much.

The trouble is, I understand what you're against, but I don't see what you're for. Do you envision the Times saying one day, "From now on, we no longer report on service, because we've decided we can't." Or do you envision the Times deliberately sending Bruni out to be feted as if he were the King of England, then writing reviews that disingenuously suggest that every customer can expect a similar experience? Or do you envision a series of reviews like Craig Claiborne's famous $4,000 dinner, which no one claimed could be reproduced by the ordinary consumer, but which he reviewed mainly for the readers' entertainment? I'm certainly "for" abandoning the argument that "it exposes bad service for non-VIPs" as a justification for presumed anonymity of restaurant reviewers. Because I don't think it does, in any meaningful way.

Nathan, that makes no difference. All it says is that there is a low percent chance that he'll experience a screwup event when he sits down. That defines his experience, but doesn't allow us to extend his experience to the restaurant at large, because the sample size is way too small (never mind the fact that we all understand that even a restaurant with great service will still occasionally give sub-par service to a valued customer or recognized critic).

I'm no statistician but my limited knowledge of the subject says you're wrong about that. Happy to hear from someone who knows more. Let's assume that a Screw Up Rate ("SUR") of 1% represents outstanding service. I'm basing this on Steven's postulated 50 out of 5000 tables screwed up per month. We have no idea whether this is accurate, but it's a useful jumping-off point. This means that every time Bruni sits down in a given restaurant, he would have a 1% chance of experiencing an evening of "unpreventable" poor service. This, as Nathan points out, is a low rate. But it is not zero. It also suggests that, for every 100 times Bruni sits down in a restaurant with a 1% SUR, he can as a general rule of thumb expect one evening of "unpreventable" poor service. However, just as it is possible for a simple coin flip to come up heads 100 times in a row, it's also possible for Bruni to hit either the jackpot or snake-eyes any number of times in a row. With a sample size of 4, it's entirely possible for Bruni to experience a SUR of 50% at a restaurant where the overall SUR is 1%. Indeed, given the number of restaurant meals consumed by Bruni, this is almost certain to happen.

"Quite a bit more data"? He has an arguably useless random sampling that, empirically, hasn't made his reviews any better than when he's recognized every time. "I wonder about Adour" hardly establishes anything to the contrary. To be clear... What makes this a "useless random sampling" is that it's possible, for example, let's say that the critic is reviewing a restaurant with excellent service. But let's suppose that the restaurant's FOH staff has one of those rare "every so often" bad nights on the critic's first visit. Let's further say that they are back to their usual level of excellence for the critic's subsequent three visits, which also happen to be post-recognition visits. What is the quasi-anonymous critic to deduce from this? If he writes that the restaurant gives crappy service to non-VIPs, he is making an assumption based on his "useless random sampling" and writing something in his review that is not correct. There are any number of extremely plausible scenarios one could envision in which the quasi-anonymous critic's "quite a bit more data" based upon a (presumed) anonymous visit could lead to an erroneous review.

Among regular reviewers in this town, Restaurant Girl and Andrea Strong are the ones making the case for non-anonymous reviewers, and I don't know anyone who thinks we need more reviews like theirs.That's a bit of a cheap shot. I could easily say, "among regular reviewers in this town, Frank Bruni and Adam Platt are the ones making the case for non-anonymous reviewers, and I don't know anyone who thinks we need more reviews like theirs." Whose reviews would you find more valuable: Frank Bruni or David Rosengarten? (Dave: Rosengarten used to be the restaurant critic for "Gourmet.")

You'll have to excuse me if I don't exactly take innuendo from Page Six and Gawker as accepted fact.

What you've just described is what Bruni does: he reserves under pseudonyms and doesn't announce himself. That's pretty much how Bruni's brand of anonynimity works—whether mythical or otherwise. As far as we know, he has never donned disguises (à la Reichl or Craig LaBan). If they happen to figure out who he is, then so be it, but he does nothing to accelerate or hasten the process. Which is exactly why I have found the argument that his reviews are "anonymous" fallacious. The problem with him not "announcing" himself is that, if you believe that a reviewer can be gamed by a restaurant into giving an inappropriately good review, then this system in effect penalizes the restaurants that don't recognize him. This is one reason why, if it is going to be a one-visit review, reserving under the critic's own name serves to level the playing field. Given a system of multiple visits, wouldn't it make more sense to reserve under someone else's name for the first visit and then under the critic's own name for subsequent visits?

Dave, you propose any number of justifications for presumed, if not actual anonymity. Many of them sound quite reasonable on paper. But "on paper" isn't my bottom line. My bottom line is the question: can we say for sure that presumed anonymity leads to better, more accurate and informative reviews? I just don't see that it does. Now, part of this may be due to the fact that we haven't exactly been blessed with the greatest reviewers at the NY Times for some number of years now. But, unless we can demonstrate that the "notionally anonymous" guys are turning out better and more accurate work than the non-anonymous guys, for me the argument in favor of presumed anonymity must fail.

What, exactly, do you think this demonstrates? It demonstrates that one non-anonymous reviewer (Bruni) gave Kobe Club a poor review whereas, according to Chodorow, three other equally non-anonymous reviewers (Greene, Lape, Mariani) "loved it." It's also possible that at least Green and Lape were "anonymous" when they dined there. Surely you are not so naive to suppose that Bruni is not immediately recognized at a Chodorow restaurant?! If anything, it goes to show that, despite the no doubt extensive attempts made on behalf of Kobe Club's kitchen to game a good review out of Bruni, these attempts were ultimately unsuccessful. This mitigates against presumed anonymity, not for it.

I don't think it's necessary for a reviewer to make a reservation in his own name, nor to announce himself upon entry into the restaurant to give up the myth of anonymity. I think that David Rosengarten, as non-anonymous a reviewer as you are likely to find, has more credibility than the NY Times -- certainly under the last few reviewers.

It's a question that can answered simply and definitively with data! All you have to do is find a restaurant where the general consensus of truly anonymous "reviewers" (e.g., bloggers, eG participants, etc.) is that the restaurant is clearly not as good as the critic's review would indicate. For example: Bruni said the steaks were mindblowing, everyone else thinks they're just okay. Bruni rated the restaurant excellent, everyone else thinks it's mediocre. These may be indications that Bruni is incompetent, but they may also be evidence that he was gamed by the restaurant. In the absence of such examples, it is reasonable to conclude that he's not been successfully gamed. 1. again, I wonder about Adour. I'm sure there are other examples. Mermaid Inn or Red Cat or somesuch. 2. many bloggers and foodboard participants aren't anonymous at various restaurants too. 3. many restaurant he reviews we don't have a wealth of data on. If successful gaming of non-anonymous reviewers is as pervasive as has been claimed, these examples should be many and clear. We shouldn't have to say "I wonder" and "I'm sure there are other examples." The fact that there does not appear to be a preponderance of examples is a strong indication that gaming reviewers and receiving better-than-deserved reviews is not pervasive.

I thought that FG provided a great example in Bryan Miller's Four Seasons review. This was pre-blog, pre-eGullet days, but he mentioned that he'd frequently heard complaints about the service there, but for some odd reason, it never actually happened to him. I think that somehow Steven's example has turned into something else in your mind. Miller did not say "frequently" -- so I'm not sure where you got that idea. What he said was: "I have received complaints from customers who have been unhappy with the food or service; however, disappointments seem rare based on my six visits over the last four months." That rises to the level of "some" rather than "frequently" (and it's worthy of note that he said "disappointments seem rare" rather than "disappointments were absent"). More to the point, he later said that "a careful observer should be able to rise above his situation and watch how others are treated. On the whole, the staff appears to be professional on a fairly consistent basis." This highlights the fact that even a restaurant operating at a very high level will still have some degree of inconsistency (something Miller also points out in his review). Even the justly lauded Gramercy Tavern will sometimes have a slip-up in service.

It's a question that can answered simply and definitively with data! All you have to do is find a restaurant where the general consensus of truly anonymous "reviewers" (e.g., bloggers, eG participants, etc.) is that the restaurant is clearly not as good as the critic's review would indicate. For example: Bruni said the steaks were mindblowing, everyone else thinks they're just okay. Bruni rated the restaurant excellent, everyone else thinks it's mediocre. These may be indications that Bruni is incompetent, but they may also be evidence that he was gamed by the restaurant. In the absence of such examples, it is reasonable to conclude that he's not been successfully gamed.