It 's been a rare mix of bad luck for Gael Greene. First, our Insatiable Critic is misled by her Craigslist date into thinking that she has a legit reservation at Ko; then she gets read the riot act at the end of the meal by the famously prickly David Chang (“If the confusion was our fault, please accept our apologies. If you tried to sneak your way into Ko, we don't want your money”). And then, not realizing that the tiny restaurant is essentially an Eater satellite office, she has to sit and watch as the whole thing is broadcast to the world. Now it turns out that the Craigslist guy was lying to her about having turned down Frank Bruni, too, clearly in an attempt to fluff the ego. The critic writes us to say, “I'm not doubting that weird guy told Gael what he told her, but he didn't turn me/us down. That's so not true! I have e-mails to prove it.” Welcome to the world of Craigslist dating, Gael. It's even worse than you thought.

Earlier: Gael Greene Goes on a Craigslist Date at Ko, Stirs Controversy

The community-board wars in Tribeca and the Lower East Side have nothing on Carroll Gardens when it comes to ill tempers. At least that’s how it sounds from the cacophony of vitriol emanating from the comments on a Carroll Gardens blog post today about Jim Mamary’s proposed bar on Hoyt Street. The original post is staunchly anti-bar, but it’s the comments that really take the argument to another level in the pathology department. Our favorite:

Scott Gold’s The Shameless Carnivore, which we wrote about last fall, no longer has the edible-animal-manifesto field to itself: Despite a long and positive review in T magazine last Sunday, competition is on its way in the form of The Compassionate Carnivore, a considerably less genial creed than Gold’s that's coming out on April 21. Where the latter is a lightly self-assured journey though the joys of eating everything on four legs, the latter, by the felicitously named Catherine Friend, looks to be far more ethically rigorous (and less fun): “Catherine Friend tackles the carnivore’s dilemma, exploring the contradictions, nuances, and questions surrounding the bewildering choices facing today’s more conscious meat-eaters,” says the book’s promotional copy. Now that sounds like fun! Of course, the whole pleasure of eating animals is in forgetting what they used to be on the way to becoming that glistening, bronzed pork chop or plump, unctuous sausage. But that view seems to be a minority one nowadays.

Battle of the Beefy Books: Shameless vs. Compassionate Carnivore [Epi-Log/Epicurious]
Related: Greenpoint Man Eats Everything on Four Legs

Robert Sietsema had some hard words about the Restaurant Girl yesterday. It’s rare to see a critic calling out another one so publicly, which probably made the post that much more enjoyable for readers hungering for gore. Sietsema tells Metromix, “Her writing has been improving, but still she seems to take an a priori, frivolous attitude towards the material. And the fact that she did choose to be recognized is, to me, like, really horrible.” Horrible, Bob? Really? That sounds like a cheap shot to us. Freeman was already publicly known as a blogger when she got the Daily News gig, and, in fact, all the major critics are familiar to chefs and restaurateurs, as everybody in the business knows. (Sietsema’s Senegalese soup kitchens wouldn’t know him if he was on the cover of Newsweek, but that’s just his own good fortune.) As for his other charge (“I presume that part of her being non-anonymous is that she goes into a restaurant under her own name, flashes her cleavage, and they just bring her free food”), it’s ugly and ungallant, and someone his age should know better than to say it unless he knows it's true. As far as we know, it isn't.

Q&A: Robert Sietsema [Metromix NY]

Alan Richman’s review of Brasserie Les Halles yesterday on his GQ blog seemed a not especially subtle slam of Tony Bourdain. “When I phoned the restaurant to ask [Bourdain’s] role there,” the critic wrote, “I was told he acts as a ‘consultant,’ although it’s hard to know what a place that specializes in the hoariest of French dishes would need from an American who wasn’t much of a chef back in the days when he worked at being one.” Meow! Given how long Les Halles has been around and how universally understood its mediocrity is, there could be no other reason to review it than to lay the hurt on Tony Bourdain. Bourdain, though, is unfazed by the attack: He tells Grub Street, “It was like being mauled by Gumby. Afterwards, you’re not sure it even happened.”

Kitchen Inconsequential [GQ]

Food blogs tend to give the issue of race a wide berth, but Michael Y. Park over at Epicurious has a sobering post about tipping and ethnicity that’s a must-read. Park doesn’t take any position on the question itself, but he reminds us what a charged topic it really is: Aside from relevant links to vitriolic waiter blogs, there’s a mesmerizing video of a woman who had a run-in with a waiter after leaving an $8 tip on a $164 check. We won’t say how the video ends, but it’s not so safe for work.

Tipping Stereotypes [Epicurious]

Fiamma got a fair amount of heat last week, from Grub Street and other food sites, about a reduced menu. But B.R. Guest — which did not respond to Grub Street’s requests for comments on the menu until yesterday — vehemently disagrees. “No one had updated the Website,” says owner Steve Hanson. “They just got lazy.” We’d hate to be in their shoes now! Fiamma chef Fabio Trabocchi, meanwhile, explains that the confusion also lay in the fact that the Website wasn’t showing his daily specials or updating the tasting menu. “If you came in and ordered here, it’s the same amount of selections; you can choose from any part of the menu. It’s the same amount of dishes, just listed in a different way,” Trabocchi says. And those luxe ingredients we thought were missing from the menu? Not so, says Trabocchi. “We are using foie gras, truffles, Wagyu beef, ossabaw pig, and Grimaud Farm duck.” (The langoustines, which we also mentioned as having gone missing, are out of season, Trabocchi explains.) Unfortunately for Fiamma, even a full menu can't sate complaining diners like Nick Paumgarten of The New Yorker.

Earlier: Fiamma’s Menu a Fraction of Its Former Self

The New Yorker’s “Tables for Two” reviews have generally been mordant little affairs, short on criticism and long on wry descriptions of restaurant culture. Not this week. Nick Paumgarten comes down hard on Fiamma, describing “FEMA-like” service, cold food, a martini made without vermouth, and, in general, the very picture of a major ripoff operation, subsisting on “a strong euro and the proximity of the Soho Grand hotel.” It’s a wild departure from the usual “Tables for Two” mold, and though it may or may not be reflective of Fiamma (practically all of the reviews have been very positive, including Adam Platt’s two-star job), it’s certainly a lot more fun to read. Something tells us Paumgarten had a lot of fun writing it.

Tables for Two: Fiamma [NYer]

We’re always leery of the strange, strange world of Abbe Diaz and her online forum, PX This, but a media alert titled “Blogger Tossed From Jean Georges” was difficult to resist. As you might expect, Diaz — a former maître d’ at Jean Georges who wrote a dishy book about her experiences in the business — was in fact the blogger tossed, a cringe-inducing event publicized by the pilloried herself. (All of Diaz’s entries on PX This read like interminable text messages tapped out by the jittery, manicured thumbnails of an ex-model at Rose Bar at 4 a.m.) We include it here entirely for purposes of education: Remember, if you dog someone you worked for in a book, don’t go to his restaurant unless you know he won’t be around.

"Abbe, Maybe You Should Think About…" [PXThis]
Related: Is Abbe Diaz Behind "Sympathy for the Restaurant Industry?"

The FDA is expected to declare meat and milk from cloned livestock safe to eat next week. So far, media coverage has been hilarious. Whole Foods has already issued a statement that includes our favorite new phrase: “Whole Foods Market is committed to providing consumers with clone-free products.” And the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news, penned this gem: “The meat industry is more bullish on cloned products than the dairy industry.”