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some folks think this chef rocks......maybe will try
(from ny mag)
Shang
187 Orchard St., New York, NY 10002
Susur Lee is a household name in Toronto, where he named his restaurants Susur and Lee. At his Manhattan debut, located at the new Thompson LES boutique hotel, the theme is global Chinese, or variants of the traditional cuisine as emigrants brought it with them to other countries.
another to add to the 09 list, i hear its insane and still under the radar, but $$$$ (below is New Yorker)
Kyo Ya
94 E. 7th St. (212-982-4140)
by Leo Carey December 10, 2007
Kyo Ya specializes in kaiseki, a form of cuisine said to have originated in sixteenth-century Kyoto, initially as an accompaniment to the tea ceremony. To eat the full, ten-course meal at Kyo Ya, you have to book a day or two in advance, since esoteric ingredients are shipped from Japan. (The regular menu, however, can be ordered anytime, and abounds with similar dishes.)
The ambience is calm, the clientele largely Japanese, and the interior full of gorgeous details. A wall of rippling wood swoops near the bar; men’s and women’s toilets are marked by a fern and a flower, respectively. Plates, from thinnest glazed porcelain to chunky, asymmetric, almost volcanic stoneware, become an art form; you’re unlikely ever to see the same plate or sake cup twice. Despite the precision, there’s no anxious effort to impress, and you get the feeling that the staff would prepare food this elaborate even if they were just eating it themselves.
And it is elaborate. Pressed sushi is covered with a thin speckled film of kombu, edible kelp: it looks as if lacquer had been applied over the rice. A simple apéritif of shochu, garnished with tiny morsels of pear cut in leaf and star shapes, tastes the way you imagine dew might. Monkfish liver is presented in a vase of pebbles, abalone on a cushion of salt; you get to sear small rectangles of beef on a terrifyingly hot shiny stone. Dried mullet roe (which you grill over an open flame) looks like carrot, has the consistency of bean curd, and tastes like anchovy, only more so. Coupled with a rectangular tablet of daikon radish, it looks uncannily like a mah-jongg tile. Aigamo duck comes with a cake of mochi—a kind of rice polenta with a texture between dough and string cheese but stickier than either. (In Japan, people occasionally suffocate while eating it.) The kaiseki meal culminates in a dish that might seem plain: steamed rice. But the silvery Koshihikari rice from Uonuma is highly prized, and here it is served with condiments including twice-grilled salmon as light and brittle as a cracker and as salty and desiccated as jerky. If you can’t finish, you might be given a kaiseki doggy bag: rice balls encased in nori seaweed, and wrapped for the journey home in a bamboo leaf. (Open Tuesdays through Sundays for dinner. Dishes $9-$32; kaiseki from $120.)
via opinionatedaboutdining.com
David Chang, Chef/Owner, Momofuku, New York, NY
Meal of the Year – Corton,, New York, NY
Michael Psilakis, Chef/Owner, Anthos, New York, NY
Meal of the Year – Corton, New York, NY
Paul Liebrandt, Executive Chef, Corton
Meal of the Year – Pierre Gagniere, Seoul, Korea
Tom Collicchio, Host, Top Chef, Chef/Owner Craft & Damon Wise, Executive Chef, Craft
Meal of the Year – Soto, New York, NY “His giant squid with quail egg was the best dish I had this year"
Wylie Dufresne Chef/Owner WD-50, New York, NY
Best Meal – (Tie) Mugaritz, Errenteria, Spain, Noma, Copenhagen, Denmark
The 10 Best New Restaurants of 2008
By FRANK BRUNI
Published: December 31, 2008
1. MOMOFUKU KO David Chang’s intimate 12-seat, sushi-counter-style restaurant heads this list not only because its best dishes and moments are so memorable, but because it’s a paradigm-busting experiment that, like so much of what Mr. Chang has done, heeds and adjusts for what a new generation of discerning diners cares most about — and what fuss and frippery they can do without.
2. CORTON This blissful collaboration of the restaurateur Drew Nieporent and the chef Paul Liebrandt presents luxury of a more classic sort, at an admirably moment-reflecting price of $76 for a three-course prix fixe with a flurry of amuse-bouches and petit fours. And it finds Mr. Liebrandt at the sweet spot between runaway imagination and good sense.
3. (TIE) SCARPETTA To what heights can a simple dish of spaghetti al pomodoro rise? Scarpetta provided the answer — the sky’s the limit — and a host of other delights, its sometimes agitated setting in the meatpacking district not among them. At Scarpetta the chef Scott Conant reconnected with his early glory days at L’Impero.
3. (TIE) CONVIVIO The post-Conant L’Impero, meanwhile, became this warmer, redder, more convivial restaurant. The chef Michael White’s improved menu here pegged him as one of the city’s top pasta whizzes, and he showed a Batali-esque enthusiasm for organ meat.
5. DOVETAIL The chef John Fraser abandoned Compass but not the Upper West Side, reemerging in this somewhat plain but entirely comfortable and charming restaurant, which surpassed just about everyone’s expectations, becoming more than just a neighborhood favorite.
6. MATSUGEN In the TriBeCa space where he had tried to make a lasting success of 66, Jean-Georges Vongerichten decided to treat Japanese cooking in a more straightforward and respectful vein than 66 had treated Chinese. He left the menu and cooking to a team from Tokyo, who rewarded him with underexposed, compelling dishes and excellent soba.
7. ADOUR ALAIN DUCASSE Mr. Ducasse ratcheted down the opulence of his previous fancy Manhattan restaurant in the Essex House with this successor in the St. Regis, notable for Sandro Micheli’s exceptional desserts and for a blockbuster (and pricey) wine list. I’d rank this higher if a first-year change in executive chef and Mr. Ducasse’s distant involvement didn’t raise questions about consistency.
8. BAR BOULUD This relatively casual effort from Daniel Boulud doesn’t get everything right, but for its outstanding charcuterie, an exemplary wine list and scattered other delights, it deserves big applause.
9. ALLEGRETTI Alain Allegretti, a French chef who worked under Mr. Ducasse, struck out on his own, choosing an odd block and a risky moment for saucy cooking that was, at its best, a heady ticket straight to Provence.
10. MIA DONA The chef Michael Psilakis, perhaps more prescient about the economy than some peers, responded to the kudos for his haute Greek restaurant Anthos with this Italian restaurant of big flavors and big portions at accessible prices.
McDonald's admits 1,000 people paid to join queue for Quarter Pounder debut in Osaka
Friday 26th December, 09:21 AM JST
OSAKA —
Around 1,000 people were paid to join the queue outside the Midosuji-Suomachi branch of McDonald’s for the release of their Quarter Pounder burger in the Kansai area on Tuesday, it was learned on Thursday.
The company has admitted to the fact that around 1,000 people who lined up on Tuesday were compensated, but claims they only made a request for consumer feedback to one of their marketing companies. There are suspicions however that the people were employed to help promote the new product, serving a role known as “sakura” in Japanese.
It is estimated that as many as 2,000 people were lining up outside the McDonald’s store at its peak on Tuesday, and that around 15,000 people in total visited the store during the day, setting a new record for daily sales for one of their stores. But it was learned on Thursday that about 1,000 of the people queuing outside were paid an hourly wage of 1,000 yen and also had their purchase paid for. These people were hired by a human resources company at the request of a marketing company commissioned by McDonald’s Japan.
A McDonald’s Japan spokesman said: “We wanted to know how the service and product quality were on the first day. We didn’t know 1,000 people had been sent to the store.