The Pete Wells Thread

[Sneakeater]

 

A guy who never reserves under the same name twice and claims to change the way he combs his hair and his glasses on serial visits?

Did that MO work for Ruth Reichl?

 

 

I honestly don't remember. But I assume that, since you appear to be asking that rhetorically, it didn't.

 

(I mean, we KNOW it did at Le Cirque. But that one was an extreme makeover.)

[Sneakeater]

Anyway, Orik wins.

[Evelyn]

Just a reminder...Chang is getting ready to open in LV soon...take that however you want 😉

[Sneakeater]

 

 

A guy who never reserves under the same name twice and claims to change the way he combs his hair and his glasses on serial visits?

Did that MO work for Ruth Reichl?

 

 

I honestly don't remember. But I assume that, since you appear to be asking that rhetorically, it didn't.

 

(I mean, we KNOW it did at Le Cirque. But that one was an extreme makeover.)

 

 

But anyway, that assumes you're really looking.

 

Oakapple wasn't talking about seeing through disguises. He was talking about noticing repeat visitors who aren't trying to hide themselves.

[taion]

Wait, since when did this board support emoji?

[Sneakeater]

Since the last update a couple of years ago.

[taion]

Huh, only in Evelyn's post somehow. Like, if I quote it, the emoji doesn't show up. This is separate from the emoticons on the board.

 

Maybe it only works on mobile? 🙃

 

Bizarre. Unicode emoji work, but only on mobile.

[Orik]

That is weird. Something to do with the post editor I guess.

[Evelyn]

It's just my special witchy powers 😈

[Lex]

It's just my special witchy powers

That explains Alabama's run.

[Wilfrid]

 

 

Yes. Not a crybaby without a cause. And he has well over half a million social media followers so he's got his image working fine for him.

The Pooh of Chang.

 

My gut feeling is it's getting a bit old, but then I'm usually too early on that. I'm sure Chang will shift the image gradually if social media metric worsen. (and impressed he still magically shows up when needed)

 

Of course there's the risk he's been method acting for too long.

Oh yeah, totally, but it worked. And now he's Larry Forgione and doesn't have to invent fish on a plank any more (but more so). He made it. He can go do TV.

[GerryOlds]

Two vague stars for Madam Zhu's Kitchen, the same as La Chine: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/14/dining/hao-noodle-and-tea-by-madam-zhus-kitchen-review.html

 

Never went to La Chine so can't compare.

 

I didn't like this place. A few very good dishes (smoked sole and spicy fish stew) but mostly boring and service wasn't great. Spicy & Tasty blows them away.

[Lex]

Wells reviews Günter Seeger NY (2 stars) and makes a point of telling us that Seeger does things his own way.

It’s complicated to praise someone whose confidence already seems to be reinforced with steel and clad in granite. It’s even more complicated in the case of Günter Seeger, whose confidence is the source of both his success in the kitchen and his occasional capacity for sabotaging himself in the dining room.

Even the believers in Mr. Seeger’s lyrical cooking, and I became one the first time I ate at his new restaurant in the West Village, have noted that his insistence on following his vision does not always work to his advantage.

 

 

The review is mostly positive but the real treat was in the comments section.

 

[Wilfrid]

Gunther Seeger's but not Juni.

 

Makes no sense.

[Sneakeater]

It does now that Wells confirmed in that New Yorker piece what many of us suspected.

 

He didn't like Juni right off the bat -- and also didn't think he had anything interesting to say about it. Here, he liked his first two visits to GS very much, apparently. It was only a disappointing third visit that brought the rating down and made this less than a rave. He probably felt that gave him something to write about.

 

I guess your point is that the reviewer shouldn't have such broad discretion as to what he reviews.