If you found Gael Greene’s and Pete Wells’s reports on the $1,500 Achatz/Keller dinner a little too, well, reportorial, Gael now has a more food-focused assessment on her blog. Make no mistake, she is not a fan of the out-of-towner: “I want to like Grant Achatz’s food. Truly I do. I don’t want to seem uptight or an incurable old fogey. But perhaps I am. Making something edible out of unlikely components or something inedible out of a classic — like Achatz’s lamb with fennel and Pernod alongside a hot rock covered with coffee grounds, dried citrus peel and spices, three of them in three bowls on the table — ‘coffee-scented air’ — is no guarantee of pleasure.” Indeed, Greene didn’t take as much pleasure in the dinner as you’d think: “Was it once-in-a-lifetime? More so on paper perhaps than in the eating.”

The Truffle Economy Heats Up [Insatiable Critic]