Silverbrow on Food

Empire building - 21st century stylee

There are more Starbucks in London than in New York. Who knew?

Cometh the deli - the 2nd Avenue Deli

A great article on the history and rebirth of the 2nd Avenue Deli. I no longer need an excuse to go to NY.

Chodorow kicks out Ducasse

Alain Ducasse's restaurant Spoon+ is closing at The Sanderson Hotel in London.  This is big news on several fronts.  First, Ducasse restaurants rarely close (Essex House in New York is one such rarity) and second it is being replaced by a restaurant fronted by Jeffrey Chodorow.  He's relatively unheard of in the UK despite being the man behind Asia de Cuba and, er, Spoon+.  Ducasse's name is on the door, but Chodorow is the Svengali behind the operations.  Although he has a couple of places in London, he is largely unheard of over here whereas he is big news in the States.

He came to national prominence thanks to the car-crash TV programme: The Restaurant.  Chodorow and chef Rocco di Spirito were opening a restaurant and thought it would be great to do a reality TV show about it.  Unfortunately, it all fell apart, with the enmity growing between the two partners as the cameras rolled.  It was compulsive viewing that resulted in high ratings, the restaurant shutting and Rocco shuffling off into some obscurity.  Chodorow emerged seemingly unscathed.

Chodorow clearly loves a bit of controversy because he is now at the centre of another storm.  One I'm guessing his UK PR team are less than delighted about, because they are hawking him around British food writers, ahead of the new opening at The Sanderson.  This latest bust up is with New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni.

The Times is widely revered and the incumbent restaurant critic holds significant sway.  Before his current hallowed position, Bruni was the paper's Rome correspondent, so like many critics, he doesn't have a professional background in food.  He gave Chodorow's newest opening, Kobe Club an awful review a couple of weeks ago, with zero stars.  In what has been dubbed The Chodorow Smackdown, the restaurateur has taken his revenge with a full page ad in this week's New York Times Food & Dining section, criticising Bruni.  In an open letter to the section's editor, Chodorow takes Bruni to task for his personal attacks and points out, not unreasonably

...how does a review in which the main player, Kobe beef, is acknowledged by Mr. Bruni to be perfectly prepared, warrant zero stars?

I'm not saying that Chodorow is entirely in the right.  It would be reasonable to argue that this letter was written lubricated by a healthy dose of sour grapes.  I also question just what he expects of a reviewer, especially when he argues

...you should have critics on your staff that celebrate and support the efforts of people who work in New York

Hold on a moment, a reviewer is there to review, not to heap unquestioning fawning praise.

So, do the UK reviewers have a lot to fear?  Possibly.  I have read a description of Chodorow's restaurants as like TGI Friday's for rich people.  Clearly not meant as a compliment, it seems very possible that if he opens such an establishment at The Sanderson, Marina, Fay, Jay and the rest of them will not be too positive in their reviews.  It will be interesting to see whether we'll have a Chodorow Smackdown UK Edition.

Where is the originality?

Frank Bruni, the New York Times restaurant critic has given Gordon Ramsay at The London two-stars.  In NY Times review lingo, that equates to Very Good.  When you read the review, it is clear that very good is not that good.  The meal was well cooked, with good ingredients but was uninspiring, the room was too clinical and there were some serious duff points in the meal.

However, what really interested me was Bruni's take on the homogeneity of restaurants across the globe:

...while looking forward to the seemingly inevitable day when your top-tier restaurant choices in a major destination on one continent are much the same as those in a major destination on another.

Ramsay? Ducasse? Vongerichten? Perhaps you just go with the restaurant of your countryman, supporting the home team. That’s the route suggested by the makeup of the dining room at the new Ramsay, where British visitors were abundant. It’s comforting to know that Americans aren’t the only tourists who travel far from home and then stay and sup in reminders of it.

The world's best chefs are keen to spread their brand as far as possible.  Alain Ducasse is a fine example.  He is a fantastic chef, but where is he chef of?  He has two restaurants that in theory he cooks in, Plaza Athénée in Paris and Louis XV in Monaco.  However, in his group there are a further twenty restaurants crisscrossing the globe: Tokyo, Las Vegas, the Basque region and various places in between.

Despite spreading himself so thin, he has not come in for any criticism.  True, no-one suggests he cooks at any of these places other than Plaza Athénée and Louis XV, but he is developing a global footprint.

There is a strange disconnect with this trend and the growing popularity of eating locally sourced and inspired food.  This tends to be a home cooking phenomenon, but there are a lot of chefs who have taken the concept to heart and make a virtue about the local nature of their restaurant.  The flip side, and rarely voiced side of fine-dining, is that most restaurant's could not survive without having large quantities of their food flown in from around the globe.  In complete contrast to the local evangelists, restaurants like Kuruma Zushi make a virtue that some of their fish is flown in from Japan on a daily basis.

So while at home we want to eat food grown within sight of our front door, when we eat out we seem to be pursuing an internationalists dream.  When Joël Robuchon opened his Atelier in London there was a lot of excitement, as there has been around Ducasse coming to The Dorchester.  Which is odd because in this age of cheap travel, lots of people have access to their cooking in Paris or New York, or even Tokyo.  And given the dining habits of most Londoners, they are as likely to hop on easyJet to Paris, as they are to pop into The Dorchester for a morsel of Ducasse.

So why do we care so much and see it so positively that these new restaurants will be on our doorstep?  I can only conclude it comes down to us buying into the chefs brand.  I do not mean to denigrate the quality of food or service at these restaurants, but the brand is all important.  Which means it is a very commercial enterprise.  Again, no problem with that, chefs have to make a living.  Nonetheless I feel a certain unease, expressed by Bruni above, that there is a growing homogeneity of fine-dining restaurants.  Is there any difference knowing I can get the same fantastic mashed potatoes at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon in London and Paris, as knowing I can get the same McDonald's chips in both those location?  Aren't they just as regimented as each other?

Maybe this is the future of fine-dining restaurants, if it is I find it a bit depressing.  I like the idea that when I go overseas I am going to have new experiences not the same mash/chips I can have at home.

The Reindeer

It is questionable whether a write-up about a restaurant that has now shut its doors for good, or at least for a year, is a timely one.  I suppose at best it is useful for posterity.

It is also questionable whether a write-up based on a meal on the last night of a now closed restaurant is useful at all.  It is generally considered bad form to review a restaurant in its first couple of weeks because they are only just getting into their stride (viz St Alban's soft soft opening compared to its soft opening) and should be ironing out some cracks.

So where does that leave me writing about my meal at The Reindeer on its last night of operation?  Again, there might be some value in it for posterity and my own vanity.  I can say, "I was there" if it turns out that is important.  Silverbrowess and our friends the Newlyweds, are also able to make that claim.

The Reindeer received a lot of interest recently for two reasons: it is hip and like all things hip, it is fleeting.  It was opened by the team behind Bistrotheque, and was only open for the month of December.  And even that was truncated: 1 December - 23 December.  I understand that they might repeat the experiment next year in New York and so on around the world.  If they do, I am not sure whether I will bother becoming a Reindeer groupie, other than for the benefit of saying "I was there."  I am unsure where Silverbrowess and the Bythennotsonewlyweds will stand on the matter.

The food was very good, especially given the high risk that the theatre of the restaurant risked overshadowing what was put on the plate.  I have not eaten at Bistrotheque but clearly from the respective menus (The Reindeer, Bistrotheque) the food is of a type.  However, we were told that none of the staff, either front of house or in the kitchen are the same.  The owners were explicit they wanted separate ventures.

Rather disappointingly for this write-up, the breadth of dishes around the table was limited.  Me and Mrs Newlywed both started with a very tasty celeriac and black truffle soup.  White truffles are usually the superior model (and nearing the end of their season) but the soup was excellent.  It was rich, with distinctive nutty, earthy flavours.  I don't think that truffle oil was added, but if it was, it was decent stuff, not the over chemicalised slick too often glugged by chefs trying to impress.  Silverbrowess opted for a roquefort, walnut, pousse and orange salad, which she said was good, Mr Newlywed had a similar verdict on his smoked salmon.  For those wondering, pousse is a type of spinach.

For mains, me and Mrs Newlywed both had the veggie option of a pithivier of roast veg with sprout tops, camembert and chestnuts.  This was an exceptional dish.  I fall into the lazy school of sprout haters, but combined with pungent camembert and sweet chestnuts, the almost sweet sprout tops (tasting not too different from turnip tops) were the highlight of the night.  Chestnuts and sprouts are a fairly traditional Christmas dish, adding Camembert to it, lifted it above the normal dross doled out on December 25th.

Silverbrowess and Mr Newlywed both opted for the poached trout, wilted spinach, caper and lemon butter.  Again, both deemed it very nice.  It didn't blow my socks off but was a solid dish with strong flavours.  The trout was beautifully cooked, with the skin glistening.  The flesh yielded to the fork in dense white flakes.  Desserts were similarly well accomplished, helped by the demob happy staff who were happy to chuck comped dishes and drinks our way all night.  My favourite was the bread and butter pudding, easy to do well but so often cocked-up.

This was a very enjoyable meal, the food was good and the service was excellent.  There was a real sense of it being the end of term for the staff.  From what they were saying, Christmas would be a well deserved rest.  Our waiter told us they were notching up fifteen hour days, I heard a waitress say that in two weeks she had worked over 200 hours.  Clearly they have not heard of the Working Time Directive.  However, despite a relaxed air and shattered staff, service was excellent.  I was a bit disappointed at the number of dishes off the menu, especially the wild mushroom and champagne risotto and the four of the twenty reds all dried up.  But given the place was only open for a month and this was the last night, it could have been worse.

It is irrelevant to say whether I would go back again but I will say that if they do move to New York next year, I would strongly suggest that for some fun and decent food you go along.  It will not be an astounding meal, there is no point Frank Bruni reviewing it, but it will be a very good meal, you will enjoy your meal and more importantly, the evening.  Does anyone really want much more from a restaurant?

Masa London?

Rumour has it that Masa Takayama, chef patron of Masa in New York is scoping out sites in London. Masa is regarded as one of the best sushi restaurants in New York and is renowned for the exceptional quality of its fish. It is also one of the most expensive sushi restaurants around, charging in the region of $400 per person, plus drinks and service.

I have not eaten there but supposedly Masa should be compared with Kuruma Zushi and Urasawa. These restaurants get away with extortionate bills because the fish is exceptional. Customers understand that if they want the highest quality, they are going to have pay through the nose for it. Even Sushi Yasuda, which is closer to $150 per head for its omakase, is much more expensive than what we in the UK regard as our very best sushi restaurants.

The most well regarded British sushi places tend to be relatively low key, suburban restaurants like Sushi Say or Cafe Japan. Nobu and Zuma are exceptions, because they are expensive, but they trade on their celebrity status as much as their food. As far as I am aware, there are no examples of the 10-seat sushi bar, overseen by a sushi-master, obsessive about the quality of his fish.

Since eating at Yasuda, Kuruma and Urasawa, I have been sorely disappointed by sushi in London. The quality and therefore flavour, of the fish is incomparable this side of the pond. If he does open in London, one of the hurdles Chef Takayama will have is sourcing his fish. I assume he will have to fly it in from Japan, as he does with some of his fish in New York.

Before we get too excited about the prospect of Masa London, we need to remember that this is only a rumour. Masa might have just been here on holiday - we do get a lot of American and Japanese tourists you know. Additionally, he has made very clear that he frowns on the idea of chefs with multiple restaurants, let alone chefs with multiple restaurants on multiple continents. He shut Ginza Sushi-ko in Los Angeles, before opening in New York, because he felt it was impossible to run both to his self-imposed high standards. In Michael Ruhlman's latest book The Reach of a Chef, Masa is crystal clear that the success of the restaurant is predicated on him and his interaction with the food. So, for example, if Masa is unwell, the restaurant is closed.

This therefore begs the question whether he really would contemplate opening in the UK. It seems unlikely, it also seems unlikely he would repeat his previous trick of shutting his existing restaurant to re-open thousands of miles away. More likely is that he was on holiday or he was acting as consultant to someone looking to open up a Masa-a-like. If it was the former I hope he enjoyed himself, if it was the latter, it would be very good news. It would raise the game of UK sushi restaurants, unfortunately it would also raise prices.

Hat-tip: Snack

Kuruma Zushi

I can't be bothered to begin to guess how many restaurants there are in New York. It is fair to assume there are enough that they all need to vie for attention. The most obvious way is with a decent frontage - make it clear to the passer-by that within lies a restaurant. 7 East 47th Street is an office building. A very dull office building by New York standards. Its entrance is narrow, not much wider than its plate glass door, the hallway lit by a dull yellow bulb and manned by a grumpy security guard. This is your first impression of Kuruma Zushi.

It would seem this is not a restaurant that feels a need to attract passing traffic. Which is lucky because it is tiny and could not handle walk-ins. Perched on the first floor (or second according to Americans) is a small sushi bar with not more than fifteen seats. There are some tables around the back, but you do not want to sit there. The sushi bar is where the action takes place. In an atmosphere that feels more like a home than a transcendental experience the customer is served course after course of sashimi.

I had dinner with Silverbrowess and a friend. I was supposed to be taking Silverbrowess to Yasuda, but was convinced by our friend that Kuruma was better. I gasped at the prospect but he was right. He should know, he is a semi-pro food critic. Unfortunately, he forgot to mention it was going to be as expensive as Urasawa. Gulp. But it was much more enjoyable. Phew.

I was told the fish is flown in from Japan. I am unsure whether this is all the fish or just some, such as the succulent fatty tuna. Either way, this flight of fishy must account for a fair proportion of the cost. Food miles fascists might be aghast at the prospect, but we need to be realistic that the best restaurants only serve the best ingredients and they are not always outside your door. Home cooks can and should shorten their horizons, but professional chefs often do not.

The fish at Kuruma was outstanding and the meal is essentially an omakase of sashimi. If you like nigiri, you can opt for that, as Silverbrowess did. Be warned, they like it if you eat your nigiri with your fingers rather than chopsticks. Silverbrowess demurred and opted to wield her sticks instead.

Throughout the meal the three of us kept saying that the fish was creamy. As a descriptor for fish I appreciate that can sound gross. It reminds me of that gunk you get on overcooked salmon (a speciality of my grandmother, along with brown asparagus). But for fish of this quality it is meant as a compliment. I think the creaminess can be attributed to the rich, fatty, silky texture of the fish. The fatty tuna made my mouth water, craving for more.

Many of the dishes I ate had a depth of flavour unrivalled by anything I have eaten before. I am not saying I have never had tastier food. I am saying that I have never experienced repeated hits of something so pure, so untainted, that tasted this good.

For this price meal (remember, up there with Urasawa) you expect everything to be spot-on. There were flaws, in particular a couple of the dishes were icy cold and I must assume their flavour was dulled. However, I should note that I was the only one of the three of us to complain of this, so maybe my gnashers were a bit sensitive.

This was a truly excellent meal. In the UK we are used to paying a lot for meals when the chef has had a large input of working magic on a group of ingredients.  With sushi, you are paying for the opposite.  The ingredients are left to work for themselves.  I suppose in both cases one could argue it is about doing what is best with the ingredients. The difference lies in the doing.

Kuruma Zushi, 7 E 47th Street, Second Floor, New York, NY, 10017, USA
Tel: +1 (212) 317 2802

Google Maps
Google Earth (download)

What others say
Gayot - The fish...[is] so fresh you'll swear it's still moving
New York Times - ...one of New York's most venerable sushi bars

Bourdain on Ramsay

Anthony Bourdain interviews Gordon Ramsay in The Times, about Ramsay's attempt to break New York, Gordon Ramsay at The London.

Bourdain doesn't give him an easy ride and over the course of the article gives the impression he is sceptical that Ramsay will be successful.  In particular, he questions whether jaded New Yorkers will be excited by Ramsay's old school French cooking.  A point made to me by Michael Ruhlman in our podcast earlier this week.

Bourdain does seem to get Ramsay quite worked up over the power of Frank Bruni, the New York Times restaurant critic.  In one exchange Gordon asks "No one knows Frank Bruni, do they?", Bourdain writes "I tell him where he might get a picture."  That's very good of Anthony, but why the conspiratorial tone?  I don't get the cult of Frank.  I enjoy his writing but why is there this mystery over his visage? Can I suggest the denizens of New York dining stop getting so wound up and start using Google or Ask.

Eleven Madison Park

My final meal of note on my brief New York visit, was at Eleven Madison Park.  The first thing that struck me was how inconspicuous the restaurant is. I had been working next door to it for a couple of days, must have walked past it the best part of a dozen times and had totally failed to notice it.

It's low key exterior is balanced by the interior: a grand dining room, with a high ceiling, reminiscent of an old banking hall. It's scale reminded me of The Wolseley in London.

I had heard stories of being forced to wait at the bar, ad infinitum at New York restaurants. No such sending to Coventry here. I was offered the bar - my guest hadn't yet arrived - but I decided to head straight to the table.

Throughout the meal, the waiter was excellent. He got the mood of the table right - a fairly relaxed business meeting. He didn't bother us unnecessarily, but was engaging to speak to and knew the food and wine list inside out.

I went for the gnocchi of la ratte potatoes with celery, lemon confit and cured sardines for my starter. It was delicious. The gnocchi were light, but had enough density to cope with the flavour of the confit and sardines. I can't remember the celery. I also reckon there might have been a bit of veal stock lurking in there - one more thing to repent for before Yom Kippur.

For main I couldn't decide between halibut or salmon. On the recommendation of the waiter I went with the salmon. Compared to the quartet of salmon I had at Yasuda, I didn't really enjoy it. I know you can't compare raw sushi-grade salmon with a cooked steak, but there simply wasn't the flavour in this dish.  I felt I could have been eating any protein - the salmon did not taste of much.  Thus reaffirming the prejudice I lost the night before, that 99% of salmon in restaurants is tasteless.

The one good thing I can say about the salmon was that it was cooked beautifully.  By that I mean, only just cooked through, but otherwise I can't remember too much about it.

For dessert, I let the waiter choose for me and I ended up with a dense chocolate cake with a peanut butter caramel. The salty and sweet of caramel working well with the slightly sour cake.

To drink we shared a bottle Hubert Chavy, Les Narvaux '03 for the majority of the meal and ended up with a glass of Chateau D'Yquem '88 each at the end. In my not very informed opinion I thought the wine list tended towards the expensive, but I'm guessing they're looking for a Michelin star or similar so may feel that have to head in that direction.  Overall, including the service, it was a great meal.  I put the hiccup on the salmon down to poor ordering on my part.

Eleven Madison Park, 11 Madison Avenue at 24th Street, New York, NY, 10010, USA
Tel: +1 (212) 889 0905

Google Maps
Google Earth  (download)

What others say
New York Times - I can’t cut into such impeccably roasted duck — glazed smartly, but not too sweetly, with lavender and honey — and shut up about it. That would be a dereliction of duty. It would be just plain mean.  3 stars.
Opinionated About - Humm's "Lavender and Honey Roast Muscovey Duck" [is]...worthy of becoming Humm's signature dish, and I recommend that you hurry down to your nearest train station, or hop on a plane, and book a table at Eleven Mad in order to try it.
Megnut - It was very good, to be sure, but a let down for me. Perhaps the hype raised my expectations to an unrealistic level. Or perhaps it just wasn't to my taste.

Sushi Yasuda

Although I loved Shake Shack, a more subliminal dining experience was dinner at Sushi Yasuda.  Getting from downtown to midtown wasn't that easy given that the UN was in session, and the Secret Service were having great fun screeching through the streets of New York, hanging out of SUV windows, brandishing guns.  Nonetheless I made it in time which meant I had time to book a table there for dinner when I go to NY with Silverbrowess later in the year.  I could tell, just from walking in, and knowing who had booked my table that evening, that I and she would love it.  My dining companion last week was a bit of a legend, Steve Plotnicki.  Who you may ask, is he?  Google him and find out.  But the reason I wanted to have dinner with him was because he is responsible for founding and running one of the best food forums out there, Opinionated About (registration required).  He has a blog of the same name and if you wander over there, you'll notice not only does it live up to its name, but he has a formidable track record of eating in some fantastic restaurants.  I therefore knew that when he said Yasuda was good, I was probably going to like it.  He was also one of the people who offered me sage advice on Urasawa, that I promptly ignored and paid for.

I had an opportunity to scour the menu and decide what I wanted.  Steve arrived, told me to ignore the menu, we were going for the omakase.  He nodded at chef Naomichi Yasuda behind the counter and so the adventure began.  What followed was a meal of astounding proportions, which as Steve said at the time and since, gave the impression chef was trying to kill us by overfeeding us.  The idea of omakase is that the chef serves what he believes is best.  Chef Yasuda clearly thought a hell of a lot was good that day.

Round after round of perfect nigiri, sashimi and hand-rolls, and whatever else took the chefs fancy were served on to our banana leaf, that serves as a plate.  I know the argument goes that what counts in decent sushi is the rice, but my main memory is of the fish.  For example, the four types of salmon nigiri laid to rest any niggling doubts I'd had recently that 99% of salmon served in restaurants is bland.  Similarly the otoro (fatty tuna) was meltingly beautiful.  It tasted of steak rather than fish, and was packed full of that lesser known taste, umami.  Throughout, we were drinking my new favourite, ice-cold sake.  I have no idea of its name, but it was as good as what I drank at Urasawa.

As a non-food aside, Steve invited me to join him after dinner at the Mets.  I'd been to a baseball match, the Mets as it happens, once before, about ten years ago.  I don't know the first thing about the game, but that night, they were playing the Florida Marlins and were set to win the Northern League East Division.  It was one of the most enjoyable sporting events I've been to recently.  The atmosphere in the stadium was electric and the mood was pure elation for two hours.  It was also very all-American, and great for that.

Sushi Yasuda, 204 E 43rd Street, New York, NY, 10017
Tel: +1 (212) 972 1001

Google Maps
Google Earth  (download)

What others say
Gayot -  If Sushi Yasuda is a shrine to raw fish, Naomichi Yasuda is the high priest
Ulterior Epicure - I was surprised, and disappointed not to see Sushi Yasuda get any stars [from Michelin]

Shake Shack

Having just stumbled off a transatlantic flight, starving and jet lagged, it was with some delight that as I was walking to my first meeting, I realised I was going past Shake Shack.  According to numerous sources, Shake Shack serve the best burgers in New York, if not America.  Although, the national title is hotly contested with In-N-Out Burger on the West Coast.  Such arguments are irrelevant to me given that I wouldn't eat the burgers in either.  However, I could have one of SS's legendary shakes, so I did.  It took half an hour from standing in the queue through to finally getting my drink.  (If you want to try to beat the queue, keep your eye on their webcam)  It was astounding.  It was dense and creamy and tasting of good chocolate, not over sweetened rubbish.  I'm not sure what chocolate they use for the milkshakes themselves, but I did notice that one of the toppings they serve is Valrhona.

I know I'll get in trouble for this from the diet police, but it was good, very good.

Shake Shack, Southeast corner of Madison Square Park, near Madison Ave. and E.23rd St., New York, NY, 10010, USA
Tel: +1 (212) 889 6600

Google Maps
Google Earth (download)

What others think
New York Magazine - A weekly visit could cause you to rethink the necessity of having to get out of town during the summer.
Gothamist - ...even if you ate already, nothing screams dessert like a double shack burger. That or a nice thick shake.
Amateur Gourmet - When eating at Shake Shack, bring your squirrel spray.

New York Times on Gordon Ramsay

Food bloggers beware, unless you want the AA Gill treatment, do not start taking photos of your meal at Gordon Ramsay at the London.  In an interview with Michael Ruhlman in the New York Times, Ramsay says the food will be "very natural" and "very proper".  Err, what does proper means when it comes to food?  Anyway, he is explicit that "We're not going to stand there and gawk".  That's told us then.

The Ruhlman piece gives some interesting insight into Ramsay's financial backing.  I was aware of the important role played by his father-in-law Chris Hutcheson, but I was unaware of Blackstone's involvement.  It is interesting that a private equity house is involved, especially as it is the real estate arm of Blackstone.  Private equity firms have a lot of money to invest and are usually savvy managers.  But, they are always looking for a way to exit the business so they can make a large return on their investment.  Often, these sorts of companies look to hold their investments for up to five years.  I wonder what Blackstone's game-plan is for the Ramsay empire.  Maybe this is someone's toy, they're investing for the love (and free meals and kudos), but private equity firms are not known for their romanticism or their love of free lunches.  Could a stock-market flotation of Gordon Ramsay Holdings be on the cards?

The end of the 2nd Ave Deli?

One of the dictums I try to live by, is to make the most of opportunities as they present themselves, in particular with regard to food and doubly so with regard to good kosher food.  I am thus gutted to discover the 2nd Avenue Deli has shut it's doors.  Possibly only temporarily (please let it be so) but potentially, for good.

I was standing outside the restaurant last October at about 3pm, it was drizzling.  I'd only just eaten my lunch of rather good pizza and really wasn't hungry, especially for one of their enormous sandwiches.  I turned on my heels, crossed the road and sat in a trendy cafe drinking an espresso and watching the world go by.  I couldn't escape the niggling feeling I had made a bad mistake and that I was being foolish missing out on this opportunity to sample some fine food.  It would seem that I was.

There has been a lot of musing on what the end of this institution means, but I feel we have to turn to Jackie Mason, another institution, for real, entirely un-politically correct, analysis of this latest blow to the New York culinary scene.

"It's almost like wiping out Carnegie Hall...A sandwich to a Jew is just as important as a country to a Gentile."