Sifton and Beyond

[Sneakeater]

But Le Barnardin and per se aren't "Vegas."

If anything, most would complain that they aren't flashy enough.

I think that there IS a New York esthetic. That's why so many people have been turned off by the dining room at SHO -- for not being consistent with it.

[oakapple]

I think that there IS a New York esthetic. That's why so many people have been turned off by the dining room at SHO -- for not being consistent with it.

Oh, I agree that there is a New York esthetic, but restaurants that emulate it are frequently derided as derivative.

[checkplease]

But the "NYC aesthetic," such as it is (and I agree that it exists in some sense) encompasses a range, not just one style. For instance: a small, dimly lit, brick-walled place (like Dell'Anima, Little Owl, and many many others). Or a starker, edgier, but still warm space (Ssam Bar). What they have in common is that they're relaxing and casual, but they take food seriously. Neither hole-in-the-wall nor Vegas.

[oakapple]

But the "NYC aesthetic," such as it is (and I agree that it exists in some sense) encompasses a range, not just one style. For instance: a small, dimly lit, brick-walled place (like Dell'Anima, Little Owl, and many many others). Or a starker, edgier, but still warm space (Ssam Bar). What they have in common is that they're relaxing and casual, but they take food seriously.

Are you suggesting that relaxing and casual places satisfy the NYC aesthetic, but that formal places do not? And for that matter, are you suggesting that "relaxing and casual" places that take food seriously are a New York invention?

[Chris Amirault]

More fodder for the NYC aesthetic debate here, with the iconic Chodorow getting lots of attention. Another great Sifton one-liner: "Mr. Chodorow isn’t in this racket to spill soup."

I'm really enjoying Sifton's writing. Paragraphs like this pack a ton of descriptive information into a tight space with skill and wit:

[Tanuki Tavern] is young and exciting, with food from the same larder as Ono’s: respectable, perfectly good quasi-Asian fare. Also like Ono, it is pretty in design and execution: Japanese cabinetry and piped-in ’80s rock, LED candles, paper lanterns and two floors of tables full of men and women in clothing inappropriate to the weather. Tanuki is a fine place to drink sake, eat chicken wings and visit a simulacrum of South Beach, Sunset Boulevard, the timeless thump-thump-thump of Saturday night on the Vegas strip. It provides direct transport, in other words, to Chodorowland.

[sandiasingh]

Here's Sam Sifton's year-end review in today's NYT. I enjoy reading his column--very down to earth, funny and real.

http://events.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/dining/reviews/30year.html

[Bricktop]

A brilliant line..

They may surprise those who make it their business mostly to eat at the city’s newest kitchens, people with a genetic predisposition to this year’s model, people with cats named Umami and Speck.

[weinoo]

I don't know if I like it more due to the Costello reference or the cat reference.

[Chris Amirault]

I grew up reading Lester Bangs, Greil Marcus, Roger Ebert, and a few other critics who rose to the occasion when they had less-than-praiseworthy things to share with their readers. I always find myself happy each Wednesday to check out what Sifton's got to say, but I just realized that I've been secretly longing for his droll, astute ear-boxings. Here's his take on Choptank:

The restaurant evokes the Chesapeake region in the way that dorm rooms at Johns Hopkins do: Duck Head khakis in the dresser and lacrosse sticks leaning against the desk, postcards from Rehoboth Beach tacked to the wall along with the covering board from grandfather’s sloop, a thrift-store oil painting, sconces from mom.

So there ain’t no pit beef here, hon. Too low-class. No steamed crabs on paper tablecloths, either. (Though they say come summer.) You can’t buy a can of Natty Boh beer. (The company doesn’t distribute up north.) There is a fine Ostrowski’s Polish sausage sitting with its pretzel brother on a plate, garlicky as a Pigtown housewife, but there is no John Waters to Choptank, much less Avon Barksdale or Stringer Bell. The restaurant’s vibe is suburban, as safe as Cal Ripken.

Any review that ends with a quote from the Wire's resident philosopher Snoop (“Deserve got nothin’ to do with it") has me hooked, sure, but I don't think it's merely the (very) clever allusions.

"[A]s safe as Cal Ripken"? Ouch. Bangs would be proud.

[Sneakeater]

THEN

The article is titled "Now I Wanna Eat Some Sausage," which references "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" from the Ramones. Either Sifton is suggesting that Boulud's restaurant empire is like a Nazi stormtrooper assault and his food a cheap, brain-damaging high (maybe that's why she's smiling?), or the references (including the throw-away Talking Heads reference and the weird "rap precinct" line) don't add up.

They weren't nonsensical or misleading. They just didn't add up to anything useful related to restaurant review. If it had been a tweet -- "GABBA GABBA HEY! Now I wanna eat some sausage at DBGB." -- it's catchy, if obvious. As a multi-part framing device for your eagerly-awaited first NYT restaurant review, it doesn't do much.

NOW

I grew up reading Lester Bangs, Greil Marcus, Roger Ebert, and a few other critics who rose to the occasion when they had less-than-praiseworthy things to share with their readers. I always find myself happy each Wednesday to check out what Sifton's got to say, but I just realized that I've been secretly longing for his droll, astute ear-boxings. Here's his take on Choptank:

The restaurant evokes the Chesapeake region in the way that dorm rooms at Johns Hopkins do: Duck Head khakis in the dresser and lacrosse sticks leaning against the desk, postcards from Rehoboth Beach tacked to the wall along with the covering board from grandfather’s sloop, a thrift-store oil painting, sconces from mom.

So there ain’t no pit beef here, hon. Too low-class. No steamed crabs on paper tablecloths, either. (Though they say come summer.) You can’t buy a can of Natty Boh beer. (The company doesn’t distribute up north.) There is a fine Ostrowski’s Polish sausage sitting with its pretzel brother on a plate, garlicky as a Pigtown housewife, but there is no John Waters to Choptank, much less Avon Barksdale or Stringer Bell. The restaurant’s vibe is suburban, as safe as Cal Ripken.

Any review that ends with a quote from the Wire's resident philosopher Snoop (“Deserve got nothin’ to do with it") has me hooked, sure, but I don't think it's merely the (very) clever allusions.

"[A]s safe as Cal Ripken"? Ouch. Bangs would be proud.

Chris, what turned you around?

[Chris Amirault]

In the Choptank review, the allusions added up to something essential in the review and weren't nonsensical or misleading at all. The Balmer references frame Sifton's point about the sorts of faux-authentic elements the restaurant uses to build its climate and culture (JHU lax; Old Bay); that wasn't at all the case in the DBGB review, a restaurant that relates to CBGB only in name and location.

[victornet]

I consider it very early in the game to really decide whether I can actually follow Sifton's jugdement on a restaurant (leaning against at the moment), but what I really care is whether I can map where his aesthetic overlaps mine and where it does not. One could do this with Bruni, and factor in his bias towards Italian food (to oversimplify). I loved The Wire references and Sifton's tone in general, but have thus far found his reviews not very useful. I'm hoping he evolves further away from the creative feature writer he was into the author of a useful consumer guide.

[oakapple]

I consider it very early in the game to really decide whether I can actually follow Sifton's jugdement on a restaurant (leaning against at the moment), but what I really care is whether I can map where his aesthetic overlaps mine and where it does not. One could do this with Bruni, and factor in his bias towards Italian food (to oversimplify). I loved The Wire references and Sifton's tone in general, but have thus far found his reviews not very useful. I'm hoping he evolves further away from the creative feature writer he was into the author of a useful consumer guide.

At this stage in Bruni's tenure, as I recall, we were trying to "figure him out," just as we are now doing with Sifton. What is abundantly clear, leaving aside questions of style, is that Sifton has more experience in his pinkie finger than Bruni had in his entire body. I am therefore quite certain that, as we get more experience with him, we will find his judgment far more reliable than Bruni's ever could be.