Dave H

The largest surprises are probably those omitted entirely--by my count, that includes Alto, Aquavit, Atelier, Blue Hill, Chanterelle, Four Seasons, Karumazushi, Sugiyama, Sushi Yasuda and Tabla as a first cut. That, and the bizarre inclusions like Vong, La Goulue and Spotted Pig (the last of which I personally like a great deal, but come on). Daniel rating a category below Jean-Georges and Le Bernardin is unexpected, as may be Danube's inclusion with the 2-stars. Mario was clearly unhappy that Babbo didn't make ** (see the NYT article), but it doesn't really hang with the restaurants in that category, Danube included. Obviously the 1-star category encompasses a wide range, but to say that Babbo or GT or Cafe Boulud is in the same category with Danube or Bouley doesn't follow.

Tavern Room at Gramercy Tavern is all walk-ins, and the obvious suggestion. 20th between Park and Broadway. For cocktails, Flatiron Lounge (19th between 5th and 6th); for wine, you're fine staying at Casa Mono.

If it's still on the menu, you must must MUST get the chilled sweet corn soup with pickled mushrooms I had a couple weeks ago. It would be impossible for me to convey how ridiculously good this dish was, and I would just end up sounding like an idiot if I tried. Just trust me. Had it paired with a glass of a crisp bright extraordinarily tropical-fruity Australian sauvignon blanc (IIRC)--not normally my thing but a perfect match. Also had a tomato salad with watermelon sorbet, which was predictably great--delicious heirlooms and cherry tomatoes and about six or seven differentiable forms of mint--but suffered somewhat in comparison with that soup. (IMO; I see vivin is putting them on a more equal footing.) As for mains, the salmon was particularly incredible, probably the best I've ever had--which made it particularly humorous to read Dan Barber pronouncing it "pretty much passé" the next day in Slate. (Of course given that the author identified Blue Hill as "the chic Greenwich Village restaurant," one gets the idea he was more interested in finding support for his thesis than figuring out what Dan Barber actually feels about salmon.)

Went for lunch today, and for the first time in months and months of trying, my previously ignored requests for rare burgers (what kept me going? pride? self-righteousness? masochism?) were finally answered with a fantastically juicy but still on the well side of medium burger that nearly approximated the divine, slightly pink inside burgers they were serving the first couple weeks after the grand opening last summer. You give up some of the crispy sear for the pleasure, but man is it worth it. Beef this good should not be overcooked! Also in evidence were some fantastic looking skinny french fries, which I sadly failed to try because I thought the krinkle-cut had been brought back. Please please please let these be a permanent change--they looked delicious!

I'll second the rec for Bedford Cheese. Laid-back, friendly place. Tremendously useful and often hilarious descriptions labelling each cheese in the display case. And they turned me on to Abbaye de Belloc, a real crowd-pleaser (incidentally not available at Murray's ). While I'm on the subject of bitching about Murray's, last weekend I went in and out of their new location empty-handed for the second time since it opened. This time I was actually after something specific: a block of grana padana and maybe something nice on the side. But the pre-cut slabs of grana were all so huge and unwieldy I turned around and walked out. What the hell am I going to do with a pound and a half of grating cheese? How much pasta do these people think I eat?! I've also been pretty impressed with the cheese counter at Dean & Deluca. Perhaps if I were more knowledgeable I'd find it overpriced (or perhaps not, I dunno), but it meets my needs nicely. None of this is to say that Murray's isn't also a great spot--and it has the considerable virtue of being right next to Faicco's--but nothing to deserve its reputation as somehow in a class above the others.

Ha. I believe the dessert comments on the first page of this thread are worth reprising: As for myself, I've only been to Devi once, but the 'trio of creams' (chai panna cotta, banana flan, and shrikhand (mascarpone, crème fraiche and yogurt with candied grapefruit))--challenging, balanced, and delicious--was perhaps the most memorable part of an exceptional meal. I've long been a holdout in continuing to accord Bruni the benefit of the doubt, but this dessert comment zeroed out his remaining credibility with me.

Ditto Landmarc for overrated, at least by eGulleters. (Everyone else seemed to get it right, and even I'd say one star in the Times is a tad rough.) I was bitterly disappointed by the taste-free marrow bones after the same dish at Prune had totally rocked my world. In general, Landmarc's only distinction seems to be selling huge portions at reasonable prices. Pay $9 for a nice-drinking Rioja and get a half bottle instead of a glass. Buy $12 worth of otherwise standard fois gras and get a giant hunk instead of a little slice. 20 bucks for sweetbreads in an uninspired sauce buys twelve instead of maybe seven or eight. I mean, that's nice, as far as it goes, but I don't see where all the hoopla came from. Another way to put it: basically a gussied-up Cheesecake Factory. Now, having said all that on the basis of one visit to Landmarc, I'm going to put on my hypocrisy hat and join the chorus urging snausages to give Lupa another shot. My first time there I found it fine, but quite disappointing. My second visit--whether due to better ordering, more realistic expectations, I dunno what--was incredible. The best Italian meal I've ever had. (I spent four months in Italy, albeit on the cheap.) Finally, I'm not sure if anyone's overrating it, but Estiatorio Milos deserves some sort of trophy for most overpriced. Since no one's asking, I'll just call that overrated.

Interesting. Was just browsing the list of explanations (also handed out with the menus when eating in) and noticed that it is indeed supposed to be "one of the most spicy and famous Sichuanese dishes"; what I got was not even close. My only guess is the they gave me braised beef with brown sauce instead--in fact, there was definitely celery in there so that must be what happened. Moreover, when I finally ate at the restaurant last week--which was tremendous, incidentally; better even than either of my two meals at the 9th Av. location--the Chong Qing chicken was just about the spiciest thing I've ever put in my mouth. (What, you mean I wasn't supposed to eat all those whole chili peppers? But the chilis were actually less spicy than the chicken!! ) And the ox tongue and tripe and the cured pork in a little hot wok were both of at least the requisite spiciness. So they're certainly not toning down the spice as a general rule.

Since bpearis's much appreciated announcement that GS EV was (finally!) open for business, I've ordered delivery from them twice: Order #1: Red Cooking Pork w/ Chestnuts; House Spicy Bean Curd Order #2: Braised Sliced Beef w/ Chili Sauce; Eggplant with Garlic Sauce Everything was generally delicious. Not quite as good as the meals I've eaten at the 9th av. and 50th location (although I've never had any of the above dishes there, so it's hard to say for certain); but close enough that the difference could easily be due entirely to the fact that it was delivery. Certainly it was significantly better than the delivery I've had from the Murray Hill GS. The lack of serious spiciness in the Braised Sliced Beef w/ Chili Sauce seems to be inherent in the dish itself; the House Spicy Bean Curd, for instance, was plenty spicy, although I could believe it being perhaps a half-step less so than the version on 9th and 50th. One final note: when I asked about the fresh chicken menu, the woman taking my order said that while they didn't have it they were planning on adding it soon.

Grilled Cheese NYC, on Ludlow between Houston and Stanton. Cute little place, sort of a coffeehouse type feel. Um...good grilled cheese. Wide selection of fillings to choose from... They also serve soups and salads, so another technical disqualification. (And if the arepas place referred to above is meant to be Caracas Arepa Bar on 7th St., they have several non-arepa items on their menu as well.)

I've only lived in New York a year, and besides am too young to have paid much attention during Miller's tenure or even much of Reichl's. Going by the Salon interview, it's very likely true that my dining priorities are much more in line with hers than his. Still I think it's wrong to underestimate the mockery some of her ratings made of the star system. For example, some months ago I found myself pressed by the bonds of friendship and various exigencies of timing and poor planning into a meal at Ruby Foo's in the UWS. (The highlight: our waitress's unsteady pronouncement that the wines on offer were "esoteric" and then, on being asked how so, all but admitting that she didn't know what the word meant. The lowlight: my duck.) On the way out, I happened to catch the New York Times review proudly hanging in the window. Ruth Reichl, two stars. :blink: Or, a few weeks ago when I had a very tasty pot of orzo with lamb at Molyvos. Pleasant meal. Three stars, as Ruth's review hanging in the vestibule had it? Give me a break. The latter mistake, if you happen to look it up on nytimes.com, has been since corrected by a two star review penned by Eric Asimov. (A star too high in my opnion, but perhaps defensible.) The Ruby Foo's rating apparently still stands--presumably because they couldn't get a reviewer to go there since. But even when the record is officially corrected, it only gets seen by food geeks like us who read the reviews every week and know off the top of our heads what ratings many places carry. The restaurant still gets to display the original review out front for pedestrians to be mislead by. Asimov's rereview does not hang at Molyvos. [side note: out front of Ruby Foo's, after my jaw hit the sidewalk and I started stumbling around, wailing and muttering what a travesty had been visited upon the world (ok, it wasn't quite that dramatic), some of my dining companions debated amongst themselves whether that meant I thought the rating was too high or too low. The verdict: I must have thought it was too low. The lesson, of course, is that the average person with no knowledge of the Times' star system innately assumes it's to the same scale as, say, movie reviews--where two stars means "below average" and the perfect hot dog could indeed merit four stars.]

I haven't yet been to Per Se, although of course I've eagerly followed it here and elsewhere. I certainly did not in any way mean to denigrate the place by noting that it is a reasonably direct copy of what's by pretty common acclaim the best and most important American fine-dining restaurant of the past decade. (No, I haven't been there yet either.) My point about the menu was not that the resources of the kitchen are anything other than extraordinary, but that the orders coming in should be unusually predictable ahead of time. This should mean plenty of visibility when purchasing ingredients, and even extends back to forming the business plan. Moreso, I maintain, than with most other restaurants. The willingness and ability to serve two substantially different 9-course menus for a table of four is obviously impressive, but presumably many of the substituted items were in the kitchen because they appear on tomorrow night's tasting menu; and in any case the kitchen reserves the right to decline the request, and has in some cases related on the Per Se thread. Similarly with Jaybert's duck story--it's very nice, but the kitchen was under no obligation to produce that duck. And I'm sure the duck had a reason to be in the kitchen--just because duck wasn't on the menu the night you went doesn't mean it wasn't planned for tomorrow. Or maybe they had a few ducks in back to play with in planning a new dish. I rather doubt they keep extra ducks around just in case someone comes in and asks for it. While there's no doubt that Per Se has proven itself exceptionally willing to send out extra goodies or accomodate requests or substitutions, the fact is that a very large portion of their customers (going by the discussion on egullet, a majority) order the straight nine course tasting menu exactly as they have it set out on that day's menu. And I think that makes their ingredient costs more predictable ahead of time than if their menu was structured differently. Thomas Keller is by all accounts an almost obsessive perfectionist, and a chef who takes the planning and sourcing and cost control parts of the profession as seriously as the cooking--a look through The French Laundry Cookbook or The Soul of a Chef will tell you that. The only thing he can't control is whether the seats are filled, and as we all know they are and will be for years to come. If Per Se is indeed still generating negative cash flow, then presumably that is according to plan.

I have an extremely difficult time believing that Per Se could be losing money. Its finances should be very predictable. On the revenue side, they fill every seat every night with a prix fixe at a narrow price point range (except for those few who know the magic words to order the VIP 2x4). On the cost side, the expenses referred to above (e.g. high per-diner rent and staff costs) were entirely known in advance, and their ingredient costs should be unusually easy to predict given the comparatively low amount of choice involved with the menu. The only significant variables I can see are the success of the lounge (which I rather doubt was intended to be a primary revenue source) and the fire (the direct costs of which, at least, were covered by insurance, and which is in the past in any case). More to the point, Thomas Keller did not return to New York in order to turn out fabulous food at a failing restaurant. He already did that once, and by all accounts it is not an experience he would want to repeat, or that he will let himself risk repeating. As the restaurant is clearly firing on all cylinders, the only way it could be losing money is if the financial plan was unsound to begin with. But why would he gamble on an unsound business model to serve food that, at least so far, is basically just French Laundry East? Sorry, I just don't buy it.

Walking to work last week (this takes place on a quiet side street in NY's East Village), when a middle aged woman walking the opposite way down the sidewalk announced the following in my general direction: Unfortunately was too taken aback to inquire how cutting meat from my diet was going to make me live to be 250. (Or to opine that it wouldn't hardly be worth it.) As for improving my sex life, as far as I can tell from a google search it's supposed to flow directly from the fact that circulatory problems are a major cause of male impotence, and themselves are quite commonly the result of arteriosclerosis and diabetes and so forth, which in turn are related to eating meat as part of a balanced diet how exactly? Unclear. Perhaps PETA and their ilk would do better publicizing the fact that strict adherence to a raw food diet causes extreme levels of pre-menopausal amenorrhea. 100% all-natural birth control! And besides, less time on the rag means more time for sex, right? Right??

Had a great dinner here with my roommate a few months ago. Tasty, cheap food, and really extraordinary service: the waitress not only offered very helpful suggestions and explanations about the food, she even comped us a free desert! I also found the arepas notably superior to the ones a couple blocks away at Flor's. Thanks for bumping this thread and reminding me I need to get back here soon!

The Place Next Door = Il Posto Accanto Originally they shared ownership as well as an awning; I thought I'd heard that was no longer the case, although when I was there a week ago the screen saver on the POS behind the bar said "Il Bagatto", so who knows? Unfortunately I have a terrible memory for the names of the wines I drink, so I can't tell you if that's the same one. I just remember very clearly thinking that the $17 or $18 we spent on a full carafe would have been put to much better service as part of the cost of one of the several decent bottles they have in the mid-$20s range. Of course a lot of the house wines you get in Italy are bad too, but at least they have the virtue of only putting you out ~3 Euro. Ok, so that hasn't changed. (Isn't there also a fish there too?) Too bad: the stracetti con rucola on the take-out menu is a great dish. I assume if one ordered it in the restaurant they would make it. (Hopefully without a $3 surcharge for offending their precious menu... ) Go and give the scialatielli a shot: big bowl of wide, flat fresh pasta, nice fresh tomato sauce with some halved cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, and a bit of grated cheese. Piping hot, simple, delicious. And the broth in the mussels and clams with crostini will put you in bread-sopping heaven. Cheese plate from Di Palo's; mozzarella flown over from Caserta. I mean, any place where you walk in and there's a prosciutto queued up in a meat slicer behind the bar can't be all bad, right?

Sorry about your lame dinner, Juuceman. For what it's worth, you forgot to mention that the house red (unless they've changed it) sucks. Which is a goddamned shame as I've often felt that offering house wines would be a clever and friendly way for all the East Village trattorie to increase their Italian-ness. Living on the block, I've always been a bit puzzled why Il Bagatto gets all the attention it does. The on-the-menu pastas I've always found competent but uninspiring; the secondi I think are much better but unless they've expanded the menu since I've eaten in (they may have--the take-out menu is longer), too short a list to support many repeat visits. It does have its strengths, certainly: the food is a touch better than Supper (although I find the menu much more limited), and also Max (although more expensive). But anything that's going to have me putting up with the standard 40-minute wait after my reservation instead of walking the four blocks to Bianca? Not hardly. Of course, now that they've started pushing their take-out I'm there all the time: the stracetti or saltimbocca are just too tempting when I'm feeling a little lazy about cooking. But while I haven't had an experience quite as negative as Juuceman's, what does it say that I'd rather eat the same food out of a cardboard container on my couch than in the restaurant? For what it's worth, I've always had much better luck at the place next door. Yes, I've finally cottoned on to the fact that the wine list is overpriced (although with so many great wines available by the glass, 1/4 and 1/2 carafes I find the pricing forgiveable). But the food is inexpensive and delicious, and the service couldn't possibly be more friendly. Not a destination restaurant, but an awesome place to have across the street.

Except I'm not sure the concept of "neighborhood" applies here in the way you're using it. Manhattan is an incredibly compact place. (Or really we're not talking about Manhattan proper, but rather the "restaurant area" of the city, which without too much overgeneralization is Manhattan from the southern fringes of Harlem down, plus certain gentrified and/or longstanding-ethnic neighborhoods in the Long Island Boroughs, i.e. Park Slope, Williamsburg, Astoria, Flushing, Jackson Heights, etc.) Now, if someone asked I'd say my neighborhood is the East Village--and even the East Village is made up of probably four or five quite distinct restaurant neighborhoods. But the radius of "middlebrow" or "$40 and under" or "Platonic ideal of a one-star" places I draw on--for purposes of argument let's put that as any place I might conceivably walk to on a nice weekend evening--encompasses the EV, West Village, Union Square area, Flatiron, LES, SoHo, NoLIta, Chinatown, and stretching a tad, Tribeca, Meatpacking, and maybe even Williamsburg or Koreatown. That's maybe half of Restaurant City, and probably responsible for a bit more than half of the places I'm most interested in. If you throw the subway system in (all the major restaurant areas in Brooklyn and Queens--at least the ones I know about--are not-so-coincidentally right on the subway), I can be anywhere in Restaurant City within half an hour, except maybe the UWS and I'm not sure that really counts. Given that most of these sorts of places are liable to have hour long waits most weekend nights; given that I have friends to meet and places to go many of those neighborhoods; and given how fabulous it is to walk in New York, it's hugely helpful to me to have a working knowledge of as many one-star caliber places in that radius as I can. And I suspect I'm far from alone. What?? How is the neighborhood supposed to know them?? Menupages lists 311 restaurants in the East Village. Granted only one in five of them is worth having an opinion about, but that's 60 restaurants, and even then how are you supposed to know which 60 those are? Not to mention the way even quite good restaurants in Manhattan will pop in and out of existence in the span of a year or two. Of course the NYT isn't going to be able to cover more than a fraction of these places; that's what egullet, Chowhound, New York/newyorkmetro, and even Zagat's is for. But by the same token, I can't go to all of them either. If the Times can highlight a few of the more notable ones, and provide a more discriminatory and in-depth review than many of the other outlets, they've done a significant service. Of course they already do that with the $25 and Under column, but more depth, more writeups and slightly higher brow places wouldn't hurt.

They're open 'til 8pm.

Really? I got the distinct sense that the only reason Ici showed up on Frank Bruni's radar is that it's owned by Laurent from The Restaurant. Despite this gimmicky hook (luckily downplayed in the actual writeup), it was indeed a delightful review and particularly welcome when the $25 And Under was the in-my-experience underwhelming Maia.

Right; I ordered hot fudge-banana specifically because that's my classic Ted Drewes order. A good point, which I hadn't considered. The little bits of banana left throughout are always totally thawed, but as you point out that's likely due to the heat produced by vigorous blending. And now that you mention it, I believe that on the few occassions I've recieved a less than completely blended concrete at Ted Drewes the larger banana chunks were still frozen in the center...

Hmm. Well, the cheeseburger was very good. Otherwise..... ...well, much of what was otherwise can be ascribed to opening day snafus. Most of the kinks will probably be worked through with time, experience, and simple adjustments. But they have a long way to go before Shake Shack is anything like a smoothly running establishment. First, the lines, which have been alluded to. Taking a page from my Barbeque Block Party experience, I showed up right at noon, when the line was only about 15 or 20 people. But with only two registers and unfamiliarity on the part of both customers and order takers, that translated to over ten minutes in line. The bigger issue was the "line" to get your food. There's really no reason to be standing around waiting for your name to get called, but since no one expects it will take as long as it does and since they have no good way of announcing orders over long distances, everyone ends up crowding the pickup window and a line forms behind them. They essentially lost my order for a few minutes, so I got a good hunk of time at the pickup window to observe what the trouble was. The problem was not a matter of potential throughput--at least not on the burgers and dogs. There was plenty of open griddle space available. Rather it was a matter of anticipating orders to keep a steady stream of food coming. Instead, they'd grill up a batch of burgers--which wouldn't be quite enough to fill the orders already waiting, and only then once those got handed out get started on a new batch for the orders that came in the meantime. If they had burgers ready, they didn't have fries, or vise-versa. Meantime my order ticket (held up for lack of fries) happened to be in the hand of the expediter when she was called away for something, and then absentmindedly forgot about it. I didn't mind--it's the sort of thing I would do--but it was indicative of the poor coordination in there this afternoon. Next, the menu. It's very nice looking and evokes the upscale twist on the greasy spoon feel that Danny Meyer is going for. But it's chock full of cutesy names for things with not a single word in the way of description. I probably heard the question "what the hell is a Shack Burger?" four or five times in my two times through the line. I asked it myself (more politely) when I got to the register. Of course questions like this only make the ordering line move more slowly, and the Shack Burger is far from the only culprit. What's the difference between a Chicago Dog and a Taxi Dog? What's the difference between a Concreation and a Concrete Jungle? What the hell is in a Shackapalooza to make it worth 10 dollars? No answers posted anywhere, on the menu or otherwise. How much wine do you get for your $13-24? The answer to that question (a half bottle) is only posted by the pickup window, when it's too late to order wine anyways. And then, in a category by itself in both its physical placement on the menu and its, um, uncertain etymology, stands an item described only as a Poochini. I mean, come on. I'm sorry. Poochini???!? I'm at a loss. Is this supposed to be some sort of homage to Beavis & Butthead?? ("You will give me crapuccino! Crapuccino for my bunghole!!") No one in line around me was asking about the Poochini, probably because they were too embarrassed to say the word out loud. So the food? Well my cheeseburger was great. Nice sear on the patty, wonderful meaty taste from the sirloin/brisket mix, perfect melty gooeyness from the American cheese and soft potato bun. Very tasty without losing juiciness; just the right amount of grease. As usual, Fat Guy puts it perfectly. "Totally outstanding for its type" is exactly right. That type is not Steak 'n Shake, by the way, although there are similarities. The Shake Shack burger is considerably thicker; thick enough that it would make sense to ask for one medium-rare, although with things as disorganized as they were today I wouldn't be confident of recieving it that way. (The idea of a medium-rare burger at Steak 'n Shake is more a matter for abstract philosphy, sort of like contemplating the sound of one hand clapping.) This burger is seared on either side with plenty of meat in between, whereas a Steak 'n Shake burger is essentially all sear. And the edges here are not nearly as irregular. From what I remember (it's been a while since I was on that coast), the style is much closer to In-N-Out. And I'd be tempted to say the Shake Shack pulls it off better, although I'll have to defer to tasters with more In-N-Out experience than me. The fries were merely just fine. Very standard crinkle-cut french fries, really nothing special about them. Also nothing wrong: the oil was fresh; they weren't overdone; and they were plentiful and cheap by Shake Shack standards. They make a nice companion to the burger, but wouldn't stand up on their own IMO. By the time I'd waited for and eaten my burger and fries, the line had about doubled. But I had come there to try a hot fudge-banana concrete, and try it I would. So I get to the window after fifteen minutes or so, and order: me: "One hot fudge-banana concrete, please." server: "What?" me: "A hot fudge and banana concrete?" server: "Oh! A concrete?" me: "Yep." server: "Ok, one Concrete Jungle." me: "What? Oh. Um, so is a Concrete Jungle, like, supposed to be a concrete with stuff mixed in?" Like there's any other kind. server: "Uhhuh. Vanilla or chocolate?" me: "Wha...um..." I realized she meant I could choose to have chocolate frozen custard as the base for the concrete. This was not an auspicious sign. "Uh, vanilla." server: "One vanilla concrete jungle with hot fudge." me: ... server: ... me: "...uh, and banana." server: "And hot fudge and banana?" me: "Hot fudge and banana." server: "Seven dollars and eleven cents." First I should emphasize that the problem here wasn't that it was hard to hear, or that I have some sort of speech impediment or something. We were just speaking different languages. And second, $7.11 (or whatever it was; it was something like that) is a lot of money for ice cream. I know this is New York, but still, we're talking literally almost exactly double the price of a medium two-flavor concrete at Ted Drewes. (This was slightly smaller than a medium, which is a good size.) I took a nice stroll around the park before I headed over to the pickup window to find a soupy milkshake-consistency contraption being poured into an open cup. That it's sitting there without a lid on it means it's supposed to be a concrete. I realize that after a pretty long while by this point of hanging around the pickup window and also watching people around the Shack, mine is the first concrete I've seen all day. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if I was the first person to order a concrete period. The person making it clearly knows whatever she came up with isn't right. So does the manager type who comes over to throw it out and make a new one. What she comes up with, though, isn't so much better. For one thing, the consistency is all wrong. Much much too soupy to deserve anything like the name concrete. If you turned it upside down, it would not even plop; it would pour. Much of the problem is due to temperature. Ted Drewes gets this way after about ten minutes outside on a hot summer night. The concrete I was served was barely cold; in fact, it was warmer than the bottle of water I'd bought. At Ted Drewes they package every to-go order with dry ice. This is why. Next, it was very incompletely blended. You could see darker and lighter patches from the start, which is not a good sign. Some bites the chocolate and banana tastes blended together pretty well, but some bites you'd get a clear this-tastes-like-hot-fudge taste, which should never happen, and overall both the fudge and in particular the banana seemed in short supply. I found out why later: probably half of the banana they used was sitting in three huge chunks at the bottom of the cup. Very very definite no-no. The final problem was the custard itself. For one thing, it's so creamy and smooth that even at a suitable temperature I doubt it could really make for proper concrete consistency. For another, it was the eggy custard that dominated the aftertaste, overpowering the mix-ins that are supposed to blend smoothly and characterize the flavor throughout. Yes, this may have been partially due to half the banana not getting mixed in, but I think the problem is more fundamental than that. While the blending issue should be simple to fix, the temperature problem might require an infrastrucure upgrade. Or, worse, the custard might be kept at that temperature on purpose for the floats, shakes and cones. I'm sure they make the custard that smooth and eggy because they think it's more ideal for other items. So while I'll try contacting the appropriate people with my concerns, I'm not holding out much hope that my dream of a perfect concrete at every lunch break will come true. Indeed, the specimen I was served today wasn't even as good as the second-rate Ted Drewes imitators around St. Louis. (Although I have no doubt it will improve.) But burgers that good year-round is definitely a reason to celebrate! (And beer! )

I happened to catch Bruni's appearance on NY1 last night where he mentioned that he'd made five visits to Wolfgang's for the review. Of course some of those were to sample the swordfish and the tuna and the ribeye and so forth; but between himself and his dining companions I'm sure he managed to taste a pretty representative sampling of the Wolfgang's porterhouses--certainly more chances than any other reviewed restaurant would have to execute on one particular dish. That he framed the review in terms of one particular visit (and one particular overdone porterhouse) might be considered misleading, but it is no different from any other review written to imply one or two visits when we all know there were five or six--which is to say most of them. And the complaint that the review is as much about Luger as about Wolfgang's completely misses the point of what Wolfgang's fundamentally is: an attempt to copy Luger without its (real and alleged) inconveniences. Trying to review Wolfgang's without comparing it at every point to Luger is like trying to review a cover band without reference to the original. It can certainly be done, but assuming most of the review audience has heard or is at least familiar with the original songs (a fair assumption in this case), it's going to make for a much less effective review. To me the real problem here is that Bruni simply doesn't discuss the food in sufficient detail. The steaks get five or so sentences--not nothing, but not enough considering they're the whole reason we're reading this. And the other dishes rate around one adjective apiece (although perhaps that's all they're worth). It has all the filler of a normal NYT review--which is fine, I suppose--but a few hundred words less substance.

As a fellow former-St. Louisan of Danny Meyer's, I think I can shed a bit of light on the so-far uncommented on "concrete" listed up on the roof along with the Shake Shack's other offerings. The frozen concrete is the specialty (and I believe invention although I'm not an authority on the history) of the somewhat world-famous Ted Drewes Frozen Custard in South St. Louis. Every summer evening the extended sidewalk in front of Ted Drewes's dozen or so serving windows is packed solid spilling out into the street with people waiting in line for their delicious frozen custard sundaes and concretes. (This day shot gives an idea of the place. From maybe 9 to midnight on a nice weekend night or after a Cardinals' home game that area would be completely filled: probably a constant 150 or so people waiting for custard, plus a crowd that size hanging out eating in the parking lots on either side. Sort of like the BABBP, except the line actually moves really fast!) This isn't enrevanche's frozen custard "milkshake", which the Shake Shack is currently selling in Vanilla, Strawberry and Chocolate varieties: there's no added milk, and the consistency is quite different. The closest equivalent I can think of is a DQ Blizzard--a tall cup of the frozen confectionary base with one's choice(s) of add-ins blended thoroughly throughout--but of course there you're talking soft serve versus frozen custard. Perhaps the best way to put it is to say the name "concrete" is well chosen. At Ted Drewes they traditionally emphasize this with a bit of culinary showboating: if you're lucky your server will hold your concrete upside-down for a few seconds before passing it through the window. (Of course on my first visit to Ted Drewes my older brother modified this tradition into he had to grab me and hold my concrete upside-down over my head, and of course it was already beginning to melt by that point and... ) Comparing Shake Shack custard to Ted Drewes is a bit difficult at this point, since I've only had the plain vanilla sold at the BABBP, and only concretes and a few bites of sundaes at Ted Drewes. (Yes, you can get plain vanilla custard at Ted Drewes, but why?) My impression is that the Shake Shack version was probably "higher quality"--more pronounced natural vanilla, certainly eggier. Whether those qualities will make for a better concrete I wouldn't care to predict. Everyone in St. Louis (or at least everyone I know) has their favorite concrete to order at Ted Drewes, and with 25 flavors to choose from and 2- and 3-flavor combos common, the combinatoric possibilities cause a great deal of thoughtful flavor theorizing. As for me, after a few years of flitting around I eventually sort-of settled on hot fudge-banana. It's not, in the end, the perfect concrete--it's too sweet and turns slightly cloying by the end of a large order--but way the flavors of the fudge and banana blend so smoothly into each other is a thing of joy. I'll be taking my place in line Thursday lunchtime to see how the Shake Shack's hot fudge-banana concrete stacks up. (The full Shake Shack menu was on display Saturday before the start of the BABBP. Their concrete flavors are a bit cut down compared to Ted Drewes--I'd guess there were around 12 to 15--but I was happy to see hot fudge and banana both made the cut. ) Meantime, it's nice to see Danny finally start to show some hometown culinary pride after leaving us behind for the bright lights of the big city lo these long years ago. First Fitz's, then snoots (to the total puzzlement of, what, everyone?), and now frozen concretes! What's next: toasted ravioli at Modern?