Dave H

Someone seems to have had the same thought as you. momofukuko.com was registered today by some dude on the UWS. I'm almost positive this is not where the reservation system is going. koreservations.com, on the other hand, is still not registered. I'm with Fat Guy--they'll put in another option on momofuku.com. ← But if you look at the ip's where momofuku and momofukuko.com are registered, it is within the same "class b" address space. momofukuko.com is 74.208.88.51 momofuku.com is 74.208.86.109 It also is throwing very similar 404 pages example: momofuku 404 page momofukuko.com 404 page The odds of someone registering a domain and hosting it at the same hosting provider as momofuku.com is pretty slim. I think it is probably legit. ← Oh, that's interesting...

Someone seems to have had the same thought as you. momofukuko.com was registered today by some dude on the UWS. I'm almost positive this is not where the reservation system is going. koreservations.com, on the other hand, is still not registered. I'm with Fat Guy--they'll put in another option on momofuku.com.

The original idea, per the Grub Street post announcing the late-night menu at Ssam Bar, seems to have been to do a single-seating, 4-person chef's table at SB. And you thought Ko reservations are going to be difficult! (The point is the idea has been kicking around for at least as long as Ssam Bar's been open; it's the success of the former-late-night menu that wasn't part of the original plan.)

When your opening concept is a failure and, later on, you retool and have great success, you deserve to be celebrated. But you don't deserve to be called the best new restaurant of a year during which you didn't open. That's what the "Impressive Transformations" list is for. ← I mean, there's a fair argument to make for that point of view. But the lists as the Times published them were based on when the initial review was published, and I think there's a lot to recommend that approach. Of the seven places noted for "Impressive Transformations", I believe six had been reviewed in previous years, five of them as starred reviews. And, again, six of them had been open since at least 2005, most of them much earlier. So Ssam Bar, which was not and would not have been granted a starred review in its initial guise, doesn't really fit in with that group. The one exception is Sfoglia, and, yes, its profile is pretty close to Ssam Bar's: opened in mid-2006, reviewed in Spring 2007, due to it becoming (according to Frank) much better as time went on. Perhaps Frank's excuse is that Ssam Bar completely changed form in 2007 (late 2006 for us midnight eaters), whereas Sfoglia merely overcame some initial inconsistency. In reality it's a pretty tenuous distinction and was presumably made because Frank wanted to highlight Ssam Bar as the best of 2007, and that doesn't happen if it's stuck in the "Impressive Transformations" sidebar.

There's almost nothing on the menu at Itzocan Cafe like anything anyone else is serving in the EV. But it's still absolutely a quintessential East Village neighborhood restaurant. Because it's tiny, cheap, and bad.

The late-night menu was first served Sep. 18, 2006. It wasn't available before 10:30pm (i.e. at dinner time) until January, 2007. Just because we had been there 10 times before the end of the year doesn't mean anyone else had, or could reasonably be expected to have had. Put it this way: obviously Ssam Bar deserves to be awarded Best New Restaurant of some year. It's pretty difficult to make the case that the Times should have awarded it in December, 2006, when the food they were serving during actual meal times was mediocre, and there was no indication they would ever serve the good food at a time normal people eat. (Yes, it seems obvious in hindsight, but the official line at the time was that they really liked the "upscale Chipotle" concept and were sticking to it.)

Franny's

Oh, absolutely, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. My point is just that those factors are affecting a fine dining culture in Paris that started at a very different place than fine dining in NY. Hence what seems a bizarre combination of informal and formal in the context of NY fine dining was actually a coherent move toward informality in the context of Paris fine dining. Robuchon may have conceived of Atelier as a global restaurant, as Ducasse obviously did with Spoon/Mix, but that's a perfect example (as well as a significant source) of the tone-deafness you refer to. Who the hell wants to blow a $400 dinner on a restaurant that proclaims its indifference to local factors like seasonality, local ingredients and local tastes and history? (Parisians, evidently. This is an interesting comment on French anxiety over their place in the current culinary world.) Also I didn't mean to imply that Atelier isn't exceptionally good. (I've never been, but it seems clear that it is.) When I said people go because it's Robuchon, I didn't mean he was trading on name recognition but that people go to experience the food of the greatest chef of his generation. The point is that very few other chefs could get away with a place like Atelier.

I'm not sure L'Atelier is a good basis for discussion because it's not a New York restaurant, but a Paris restaurant with copies stamped out across the world. L'Atelier as renegade for informality actually makes sense in the context of Paris, a city with 1/4 the population and one or two dozen restaurants whose price and formality levels are matched in NY only by Per Se if at all. Whereas in the context of NY, L'Atelier is a weird mishmash that makes no sense whatsoever, but people still go because it's Robuchon and after all it isn't like there aren't tons of New Yorkers who can afford it. Of course a similar argument could be applied to all of Ducasse's NY ventures, past and future.

Any idea if the SLA website is fully up-to-date? Also, weren't they serving cocktails for friends & family?

Nope, I stopped by at 9. No dice. Planning on trying again tonight but someone on eater who claimed to have walked in and talked to management (maybe they locked the door behind him?) says it's not open until Sat...

I'm always a bit distraught on my far too infrequent visits to Franny's to get in with under a half hour wait. Yes it would be a pain were that not the case, but given how much better it is than its competitors it should be mobbed. My guess is it still won't be, although hopefully they will get a notable bump. (Not that they need it, but maybe people would take it a touch more seriously if they had to wait a while longer for a table.) As for Bruni, no, he is still not a good critic of fine dining, but neither is any other reviewer for a mainstream publication. At least he recognizes and rewards the difference between decent casual food and extraordinary casual food (e.g. Franny's, Ssam Bar, etc.), which sadly puts him ahead of the pack. Informed criticism of fine dining is solely the province of blogs and discussion boards.

A well deserved two stars from Bruni today for perhaps the most underappreciated restaurant in New York. I'd hope this will help convince people that despite his lackluster food writing skills he really does have pretty good taste and is actually the best reviewer in New York today (admittedly not much of an achievement). But I won't hold my breath.

Not because it's free. But I have eaten in a few truly abysmal places that I went to because I cared deeply for or respected greatly the person or people who wanted to go there. ← Yeah, you make an excellent point, phaelon56. I bet that Dave H went to that law school prom MANY YEARS AGO for exactly that reason and not for the food (which I bet he didn't even eat). ← No, I went because I was tricked. Edit: I have been requested to clarify that we ate ahead of time and the only reason I even tried those horrible things was my own morbid curiosity.

I once accepted an invitation to accompany someone to her "law school prom" before she revealed that it was being held at Tavern on the Green. (She bought the tickets.) I tried to back out, but she begged, and pleaded, and threatened, and cried, and blackmailed, and... ...I went. HUGE mistake.

That's probably the one, although I can't be sure because as I said it wasn't the wine listed on the menu and I didn't get a great look at it (it was 5 putt., though).

I don't think they claim to be oenophiles. I would ask them. ← My understanding is that they discuss the planned menu in detail with someone from Moore Brothers, who selects wines to match. Having been twice, the pairings tend to be quite well done and an extraordinary value compared to wine service in a restaurant. Given that the person selecting the wines has never actually tasted the food, the quality of the pairings is pretty remarkable; while the six wines poured with dinner last night (there was also a Champagne aperitif) ranged, on their own, from just alright to very good, every single one of them enhanced the dish it was paired with and many significantly so. On the other hand, the only truly extraordinary wine I've been poured at Bite Club was a Tokaji with dessert on my first visit that was not originally on the menu and I'm pretty sure was not purchased at Moore Bros. with the rest of the wine. (Perhaps one of the other guests brought it? I should have asked.) I mean, $100 for a 7 course tasting menu plus wine pairings can only go so far. Overall the Bite Club wine pairings tend to come in very similar to the ~$75 wine pairing you might order with a tasting menu at a restaurant--the wines are interesting and well-chosen, but they're not necessarily going to be profound (or carry a high retail price). If you think you can source from your cellar better than Moore Bros. can source from its <$20 bottles, talk to Daniel and get his thoughts on BYO.

I somehow neglected to check this thread for a few days (difficult as that is to comprehend), and I come back to find that apparently none of you has opened a Zagat in the past five years. To refresh your memories, some selected food ratings from the current (2007) guide: Union Square Cafe - 27 Gramercy Tavern - 28 Chanterelle - 27 Aureole - 27 La Grenouille - 27 Tasting Room - 27 The Grocery - 27 Tomoe Sushi - 27 There are four or five other bizarre 27s, but perhaps things settle down a bit once we move outside of the 30 restaurants voted to have the very best food in New York City. Ah, here's a perennial audience favorite: wd-50 - 22 Ok, so the food at wd-50 may not be as worthy as at Blue Water Grill (23). Or at Woo Lae Oak (23), or Gennaro (24), or Pio Pio (23, yes the take-out chicken place). Clearly Wylie's wacky food science wizardry is no match for the soy protein alchemy of fake meat Korean powerhouses Hangawi and Franchia (both 24). I mean, wd-50 is alright, but foodwise it's no DeGrezia (23) or Erminia (25) or Hasaki (24) or Vong (23) or Perbacco (24) or Royal's Downtown (24) or Ivo & Lulu (23), or Itzocan (24) or OIBLTI--no, let me write that out for you: One If By Land, Two If By Sea; foodwise wd-50 is no One If By Land, Two If By Sea (23). Obviously it's no Mr K's (24), but how can it be when Mr K's is tied for best Chinese food in all of New York City (24)? Certainly it is not anywhere near in the same league as Blue Ribbon Sushi or Caviar Russe or Four Seasons (all 26). But I think we can all agree that wd-50 about as good as Mr. Chow (22). And at least as good as "Yuka," the "Yorkville Japanese" where we are enjoined to, "'beware the buttons flying' as patrons partake of the '$18 all-you-can-eat' sushi deal" (22). And maybe even a smidge better than Carnegie Deli (21)!! I mean, just a hair. But of course this is comparing apples to oranges, something that, as we've discussed before, numerical ratings have some difficulty with. So let's look at three restaurants that share the same genre, price point, and first four letters of their names (they also happen to be on the same page in Zagat): Frank - 23 Frankies Spuntino - 23 Franny's - 23 In actual point of fact, on a scale from 1 - 30 the food quality at these establishments roughly corresponds to: Frank - 12 Frankies Spuntino - 15 Franny's - 26 (And I'm giving Zagat voters the benefit of the doubt that their experiences were different than mine.) Look, I could do this all day. Even if you grant the bizarrely top-heavy rating scheme where a scale from 1-30 is somehow compressed into a scale from 15-30, Zagat ratings are basically only accurate to +/- 5 points, and occasionally not even that. This is without even mentioning the complete absence of legitimate ethnic restaurants from the guide (at least until around the time they get a starred review in the Times), like Ushi Wakamaru (not listed, but judging by how some other sushi restaurants do it would rate about a 37), or basically anything in Flushing other than Spicy & Tasty, or anything in Jackson Heights other than Jackson Diner. Sure, these places don't get very good coverage from Michelin or Bruni, but they aren't reviewing 2000 restaurants every year. I mean, there's a place called Salute in Zagat and it's the wrong Salute! Yes, there are anomalies in the Michelin guide--at the one star level, and mainly as a result of its misguided mission to compile all the "very good restaurants for their category." Yes, Frank has made some mistakes as well...but I won't hold my breath waiting for the day he three stars Tomoe Sushi. This is all pretty far off-topic for this thread, so I'll bring it back home: Once again, if you subject any other particular source of restaurant reviews and ratings to the scrutiny we give Frank, he generally comes off looking pretty good. In the case of Zagat, very good.

While I've never had a "scoop Nazi" experience at il laboratorio's original storefront, by far the better store is the one inside the new Bowery Whole Foods: larger selection, much better hours, no lines, and the counter dude has on several occasions cheerfully let me and each of my companions try three or four flavors each with no eyebrows raised. Incidentally, I didn't mean to suggest that il laboratorio is life-changing either, only that I don't find Grom significantly better.

Yes, had a fantastic hotpot a couple months ago at the original GS in Chinatown. Have not had it at any other locations. (don't believe it's offered at St. Marks?) Also good for hotpot is Happy Family in Flushing, but my impression is it's a more northern Chinese style of hotpot, and most people seem to prefer their sweet white broth to their spicy red broth (you can get a hotpot with a divider down the middle). I disagreed, but I'm a bit of a spice fiend.

In fairness, Grom just opened, and in the fad-happy UWS. Give it a few months and the lines will be proportional to the quality (which is quite good but certainly not life-changing) and the (stunning) price. Personally, my one visit to Grom made me realize how good we have it with Il Laboratorio and the ice cream in our restaurants (where, if they're not using Il Laboratorio, it's because their in-house product is even better). Grom tip: if you don't want to wait for all of eternity, call in your order from the back of the line and skip to the front to pick it up. This flash of inspiration saved us maybe 45 minutes. (Brent's comment about NY's slowest cashier is well taken.)

Then don't pretend to be reading your first issue today. That is not how the NY Times star system works. Period. If the Inquirer wants to give the same rating to Tony Luke's and Le Bec Fin that's their prerogative, but it's not how it works here, and with very good reasons that have been hashed over interminably in this thread.

Precisely. The one bit that many people have not quite caught on to is that if you ignore the eponymous sections of the menus (which is not the stuff that's winning two stars and Beard awards), he is now running essentially the same menu at Noodle Bar as at Ssam Bar--none of the dishes is exactly the same (except the pork buns and the tortilla ssams), but they are almost all variations of each other, in somewhat distinct styles. With all the attention given to Ssam Bar lately, the waits there have become at least as long as Noodle Bar, and in recent visits the execution at Noodle Bar has been much stronger. Hopefully no one will notice until Noodle Bar is ready to move to its larger digs, at which point we can all turn our attention to trying to snag a seat at Ko.

He's running a business, which he's trying to expand. And, shockingly, he does not believe the best way to do that is to try to fill a 50-odd seat restaurant on 2nd Av. and 13th St. with people spending $70 on lunch. Amazingly enough, this two-starred idiot thinks a mass crowd in the East Village will only spend $10-15 at lunchtime. Imagine! Instead, he is forcing all those who want to experience his food before 5pm to walk a grueling four blocks to the 25-ish seat Noodle Bar, which all day serves from a full menu that is not only extraordinarily similar to Ssam Bar's but also, as it happens, currently better (!) than Ssam Bar's (an assertion I will back up with a long post later if I get around to it), and where you can spend your $70 and lunch on some of the best food in New York to your heart's content. Clearly this David Chang moron has no idea what he is doing, is alienating diners and losing customers left and right, and will indubitably be forced into bankruptcy and run out of town with his tail between his legs sometime in the very near future.

Damn, that is embarrassing. In my defense, it was that foodcandy.com blogger I linked to who got your name wrong; I copied it from him. Anyhow, congrats on some very strong desserts.