Restaurant reviewers hear the same thing, again and again and again. Spotting our name in a supermarket checkout, a disturbed (and frankly accusing) reader will accost us, and demand to know why s/he had a very different experience at Restaurant Shmo than the one represented in our review. In fact—and here’s where their eyes narrow -- this reader’s experience was so (pick one, great/ghastly), that Restaurant Shmo seemed like an entirely different establishment from the one discussed in the article. “Why”, demands the reader, as s/he presses into our personal space, “Why? Why? Why?” And we, defensively clutching a jumbo pack of toilet paper, will have to figure out the problem. It usually turns out that the reader visited the...

Oh, it’s been happening for awhile. In order to fully capitalize on their carefully-built brands, prominent restaurants have been sheering off lower-priced baby restaurants, the kind of places where you can dress more casually, spend less money, and escape within an hour of no-fuss time. High/low restaurant duos have become an international phenomenon, with Tom Colicchio running both Craft and Craftbar, Danny Meyer overseeing both Tabla and Tabla Bread Bar, and even Thomas Keller operating both Per Se and Bouchon Bakery. In London, guts and glory Chef Fergus Henderson fronts St. John and less expensive St John Breadbar, and we even caught those oh so haut French at it. Esteemed Michel Guérard gave the pricy restaurant at Eugenie les Bains his name, but also runs the much...

Jennifer 8. Lee, Chinese-American city correspondent for the NY Times, recently published The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food—a great piece of culinary anthropology that researches the diaspora of Chinese food across the world. In the book, the numerically-named Lee samples all the oddball iterations of Chinese food (Africa, Europe—she even goes to the Mid-West), and she unearths evidence proving that much of what we know in the US as Chinese food isn’t really Chinese at all (what a shocker). General Tso’s Chicken? Nope. Beef with Broccoli? Nope. Sesame chicken, roast...

In case you don’t know it, August is Eat Local Month, and the boomiest of boom times to enjoy the bounty of our local farms.

Why—you may ask yourself—should I bother eating locally raised food, when the corner Stop and Shop is open 24/7, and offers cheap, plum-sized strawberries all year round? Because locally raised food tastes better, is better for you, and – because local food requires less transportation—uses less fossil fuel and creates less pollution. Plus, nobility aside, as Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and this very effective Posted at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments: 0

Well, we were surprised to hear from Scott Faupel, owner of White Plains Sunset Grille, that his Gedney Way restaurant shut its doors on Sunday August 3. According to Scott, “Sunset Grille will be moving to a new location in the area. I can't disclose the location at the moment, as I have not finalized the contracts yet, but I will let you know where it is – it’ll be a bigger space with a patio.”

 You had us at margaritas and masa on the patio, Scott.

Here’s our own polemic on the health code violations that we see all the time, and don’t really mind. In fact, these are violations that we ourselves have committed—willingly, and in full knowledge of the law. In the eyes of the lawmen (i.e., those beady-eyed, clipboard-wielding sanitarians), these are heinous acts, but ones that, when I see others committing them, I understand and eat the food anyway -- if only in solidarity with cooks.

 We suspect that the statue of limitations has expired on our crimes, so, basically—tough darts if you don’t like what we’re about to say. Bring it. Here goes:

 ■ Drinking at work stations

One thing civilians can’t believe when they enter an...

First of all, they’re not actually making cheese. According to Jonathan White, cheese maker and owner of Bobolink Dairy (whose aged, raw milk cheeses you’ll find at the Pleasantville farmer’s market and www.cowsoutside.com), local gourmet stores and delis are getting a big hand up with industrial mozzarella curds from large companies—primarily Polly-o. Cheesemakers who work with live cultures must hold government-issued licenses before they can legally sell their goods, whereas any professional kitchen can process manufactured curds.

Fresh mozzarella is made with the pasta filata process, where curds are dropped into hot water and then stretched and kneaded to reach the desired...

Well—in taking a look at some of the responses to our post about frequent Health Code violations, we’re worried that we might have encouraged food phobia. This, as enthusiastic eaters of nearly anything, was never our intention. Look, folks—we love raw oysters; raw beef; unpasteurized cheese; slightly warm, gooey egg yolks; barely stable, room temperature butter and pink pork. Some of our favorite meals have never seen refrigeration, and we even love those slightly spooky, leaf-wrapped dumplings at Kam Sen. In the face of our numerous (and, sadly, multiplying) food phobic friends, we’ve always maintained that while there are some overhyped risks to dining out, you’re much more likely to be killed by driving your car than by eating an oyster. We feel...

We regularly use this space to give an expanded version of an article currently appearing in Westchester Magazine. Why? Because, like Francis Ford Coppola, we hate to see our work cut. It physically hurts us to see our precious words drift to the editing room floor, sacrificed in the interest of—oh, let’s say—the reality of selling a magazine. Consider this Directors Cut as our personal five-hour version of Apocalypse Now.

Here’s our theory about diner/waiter signals: we think everyone should learn the language of dining out. In fact, we’ll go even further. We feel that all the high school and college-aged sons and daughters of Westchester should get summer jobs in restaurants—even if they have no interest in future restaurant...

So we were sitting in a very expensive Westchester restaurant recently, admiring, as we do, the butter bowls. These were some nice butter bowls. They were of the French burrier design, whose most salient feature is that the crock can be inverted in a cup of water to keep its contents fresh without refrigeration. We’ve always wanted a burrier, since we prefer spreadable, room temperature butter, but we’ve never bought one ourselves. Why not? We know our slobby nature. We know that after a few weeks of not changing the water, our quaint little burrier will morph into a toxic, butter-themed death bomb.

While this restaurant’s burriers...