Both Restaurant Journal and Eater are predicting Bruni will award three stars to Momofuku Ko. Tomorrow, when his final word comes out after much hair-pulling, the armchair reviewing will be mute — but we were intrigued by a bit of trivia that New York Journal unearthed: Bruni hasn’t thrown down four stars in 175 weeks, meaning that he has exactly matched the Times’ longest stretch without a four-star rave (Bryan Miller upgraded Bouley to four stars in 1990, and Ruth Reichl did the same with Chanterelle in 1993). So where will that record stand after Ko — and will the handiwork of the Times’ photographer, who was in during the same night that Tom and Gael were, shed any light on that whole affair?

Update: Bruni’s review is up and it is, indeed, three stars— after noting the off-putting set-up and resy system, he concedes, “Ko in its early months serves a few dishes that merely intrigue along with others that utterly enrapture. It also falls prey to some inconsistency.” On Chang: “Deification may have come prematurely to Mr. Chang. But a low-key coronation makes sense.” And: “You’ll love it, provided you ever get access to it.” Well, yeah.

Rolling The Dice: Momofuku Ko [New York Journal]

BruniBetting: Ko [Eater]

Gael Greene finally weighs in on her date with Tom Dobrowski, the Craigslister who was accused of canceling his reservation at Momofuku Ko only to show up playing dumb. Following in the steps of The Wall Street Journal reviewer, the Insatiable Critic bemoans the dour chefs, or “Stepford cooks” as she describes them: “Too joyless, rushed, indifferent, possibly bored.” Nevertheless — with the exception of finding the desserts more interesting than delicious and downright hating the bowl of foie gras shavings, Riesling gelée, pine-nut brittle and nuggets of litchi — she admires much of their output as “provocative and delicious.” But let’s face it, it’s not the food we're dying to hear about. What was the “shocking farewell” from Chef Chang that Gael promised to tell us about?

Gael Greene’s and a Craigslister’s dinner at Ko has turned into a matter of he said, she isn’t saying yet, and now, Eater said (we weren’t kidding about Momofuku essentially being a satellite office: They’ve now produced computer records which they say show that Dobrowski canceled his resy about a half an hour after making it). Clearly a witness needs to come forward, and that one has. A diner who says he ate at Ko that fateful night has emailed us to offer his account of events.

Gael Greene still hasn’t followed up on yesterday’s post revealing that she took a Craigslister up on his offer of a seat at Momofuku Ko, and she still hasn’t refuted Eater’s speculation that the Craigslister might’ve canceled his resy only to show up at the restaurant and pretend he hadn’t. But Frank Bruni has weighed in, refuting claims that he was turned down as a dining companion, and now the Craigslister himself, Thomas Dobrowski, who doesn’t appreciate Bruni calling him a “weird guy,” writes in to tell us his side of the story.

Were it April 1, and not May 1, we’d assume that Ed Levine was kidding with his discovery of a David Chang doppelgänger. And as if it weren't enough that he looked like Chang, the doppelchanger's name is David Chan. What are the odds? (Even Bruce Lee's Bruce Li wasn’t really named Bruce Li.) But New York never runs out of surprises, and here’s one for all those people who felt that what New York needs is another David Chang. If we were Chan, we’d open Momofuko Ke and watch the lines form.

Meet David Chang's Doppleganger: David Chan [Ed Levine Eats]

The guy who posted a Craiglist ad asking for someone to pay for his dinner at Momofuku Ko actually got some takers — and some high-profile ones, at that. He told our own Gael Greene, his ultimate choice, that he turned down Frank Bruni for her (Burt Reynolds, Clint Eastwood, and Elvis certainly would’ve done the same.) In a post, Gael says she’ll tell us about the “shocking farewell” she received from David Chang in a follow-up, but, in the meantime, Eater offers juicy speculation.

If you haven’t had your fill of Adam Platt from his magazine reviews, his Gobbler posts, or his weekly post–Top Chef IM exchanges, sit back and settle in for a veritable Platt glut: Our critic sat down with the site Big Think and shot twenty videos of his immense, silhouetted head discoursing on everything from Top Chef to his review of Momofuku Ko to the ins and outs of being a restaurant critic.

Adam Platt [Big Think]

We saw this one on Craiglist over the weekend. We might not take him up on it. But you can!

MOMOFUKU KO DINNER - Weds

Reply to: pers-658615295@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-04-27, 7:06PM

I recently achieved what most have found impossible. I have a resi for two (2) at Ko this Weds at 9:15pm. I am offering my one extra seat to anyone who wants to treat me to this most coveted dining celebration. You pay for the food, if we have fun I will pick up the tab for the booze.

Just tell me why this will work for us and the seat is yours.
Best,
tom

Momofuku Ko Dinner - Weds. [Craigslist]

John Mayer’s short-lived career as a food blogger was clearly a joke, but Martha Stewart seems pretty for real about her blog. Among posts that begin with “Yesterday happened to be donkey-washing day at the farm,” there are a few in which Martha clues us in to her favorite restaurants — for instance, La Grenouille, as well as a hidden gem called Momofuku Noodle Bar, “one of my favorite places to stop for what I like to think of as fast food.”

David who? The Momofuku Man may be the center of attention here in the New York, but Wolfgang Puck has his own gastro-empire to contend with. When the Observer asked about Chang at yesterday's New York Women in Communications Matrix Awards, the king of California played coy: “Who? No, I don’t know him; I have never been to his restaurant.” Not to worry, Wolfie! Few of us have.

Wolfgang Puck Doesn't Know David Chang [NYO]

When Frank Bruni posted on Diner’s Journal on Thursday about the difficulties of getting a reservation at Momofuku Ko, angry foodies complained about the glitchy system. But when Ko defended its online-reservation site in a subsequent DJ post, the programmers chimed in. The geek debate, which grows more and more acrimonious, is no longer about David Chang or his food, but about whether the deficiencies of Ko’s reservations system are the fault of the restaurant or the Internet itself. Comments range from the maddeningly dismissive (“This is a very simple system, and it works perfectly. The gentleman in question did not click on a reservation fast enough”; “The KO answer is correct that IS how the Internet works. Think about it people”) to the abstruse (“This is a multi-user concurrency problem that all sites with limited inventory and a high demand… have to deal with”). At last view, tempers were running high (“This is nothing more than a yank job and at best a lottery”), but no resolution was in sight. (A recent post began, unpromisingly, “This is not a mind-numbing explanation of this system”). For his part, Bruni thinks deeply upon the whole matter, which he says shows “how ready many food lovers are to jump through whatever hoops they must in the hunt for what may be the next great eating experience, or at least for bragging rights.”

More Fun With Ko! — Comments
Ko-da [Diner’s Journal/NYT]

A colleague who has been stalking Momofuku Ko’s reservation site tells us that even when free tables seem to be open, he can’t break through to a confirmation screen when he clicks on them. If he were playing an old-school Nintendo game, we’d tell him to take the cartridge out and blow on it, but apparently no such tricks will make Ko’s system work for him. Now Frank Bruni comes forward to confess that he, too, is losing faith that the system works properly. Nearly a month after Ko opened, he still hasn't been able to book a seat — and he’s not happy about it.

On the off, off, off chance that you have a reservation at Ko on Sunday night, someone on Craigslist wants to swap his Saturday slot. This has to be a violation of resy rules, so hit them up now before they’re busted by the CIA (Chang Intelligence Agency).

Ko Reservations (East Village) [Craigslist]

The latest Urban Daddy newsletter is hitting in-boxes right about now, and today's edition features an interview with noted psychic Judi Hoffman. Amidst her predictions about the fate of Eliot Spitzer, Steve Jobs's next invention, and the direction of the real-estate market, she also takes a moment to play Gastrodamus:

UD: What about the [forecast for the] LES?
JH: It's way too oversaturated, and the unlabeled restaurants thing is going to be over, the kind where you need the phone number or a psychic to find the place. Everything I say about restaurants, though, doesn't apply to Momofuku. I love Momofuku. After the atomic bomb, all that will be left will be cockroaches and Momofuku.

And even then, you still won't get a reservation at Ko.

After an extremely dicey launch yesterday, the Momofuku Ko reservation system seems to be functioning more or less like a normal Website today. As the site notes, reservations book one week in advance; booking for each new day begins at 10 A.M. So we leisurely logged on at 10:20 a.m. to check out the situation and were greeted with the ugly image at right. In under twenty minutes, and after 24 hours of some serious bugs, Chang's keg for the week is already tapped. If you're serious about scoring a table in the first month, best to get an intern on 9:55 a.m. duty.

There’s been some to-do over Momofuku Ko’s resy site going up and down (the latest: Momofuku is telling Eater that it’s the result of a concentrated attack; an eGulleter speculates that David Chang dropped beer on the server, but more troubling (in the long run, anyway) is the fact that the Shameless Restaurants board has been down for at least two days. The gossip “industry workers stories” site bounced back from a similar hiatus a while back; let’s hope, for the sake of juicy reads, that it’ll do the same this time.

Shameless Restaurants [Lunar Pages]

Eater is reporting that Momofuku Ko’s reservation site is live at reservations.momofuku.com, though we got several “Service Unavailable” messages before we succeeded in breaking through, only to get the message again when we tried again, at about 10:35 a.m. Reservations will be available a week to the day, except for Tuesdays, when the restaurant takes a breather from the hysteria. An eGulleter has managed to score a resy along with a telephone number that you can call if you’re the begging type.

Update: The site is still down, and according to Eater, a Momofuku representative is claiming that someone is deliberately overloading its servers.

Ko-BOOM: Ko Resy Site Is Live (Almost!) [Eater]

While you wait with extremely bated breath for the Ko reservation Website to go live (don't go thinking the general public is going to eat in there anytime before Wednesday), a snapshot of what was going on behind the heavily armored doors, at least for a brief moment last night: Occupying some of the fourteen precious seats were New York's "sexiest chef" Johnny Iuzzini (and date), Shorty's.32 star Josh Eden (and date), and former Bloomberg critic and current GQ blogger Alan Richman with Time Out New York food editor Gabriella Gershenson (presumably not on a date). Every other minute, a curious passerby outside would stop and press his nose against the exterior's ornate metalwork and just awkwardly peer inside for 30 seconds, trying his hardest to see something through the obscured windows. It was pure shamelessness, New Yorkers gawking like tourists, but who could blame them? The place looks like a dungeon from the outside. And all that attention no doubt made the lucky few on the inside feel all the more special, like prized little angelfish in Chang's velvet aquarium. —Jessica Coen

Eater reports that Momofuku Ko's reservation system may go live as early as tonight, and seats are still available for opening night. Meanwhile eGullet’s Ko thread is turning into high drama — first “Fat Guy” Steven Shaw tantalized readers by showing them his reservation confirmation, only to have it stripped from him when it turned out the system was only in beta mode. Then another user makes it beyond the doors and live-blogs his meal from his iPhone, giving a multi-post play-by-play — “Next pairing looks like it will be a sake. It is” — and even picking a dish of the year: the “shaved foie with a Riesling gelee, lychee and something crunchy.” When another user begs him to take photos, he demurs, “Sorry. I don’t take pics in restaurants. Generally try to keep a low profile.” You want to keep a low profile? Put down the phone and eat!

Momofuku Ko, Collaborative Cooking from David Chang [eGullet]
Ko-BOOM [Eater]

Still more enticing photos have emerged from within Momofuku Ko — these depicting more of the restaurant’s interior and friends-and-family diners such as Ken Friedman and Ruth Reichl. The photo that really got us? A dummy bill that puts the prix fixe at $85 and the wine pairing at $90. Dinner for two: $281.78. Which brings us to the question: Anyone want to throw some freelance work our way?

Kathryn Yu's Momofuku Ko Photoset [Flickr via Eater]
Earlier: Ruth Reichl Pens First of Many Love Notes to Momofuku Ko
A Tantalizing First Look at Momofuku Ko

A couple of much-anticipated East Village joints are coming out of the shadows — last week the magazine published first photos of Sasha Petraske’s new coffee bar, Mercury Dime, and today on Flickr an aficionado serves up some glorious pics from deep within friends-and-family night at Momofuku Ko. Chances are this is as close as you'll get — for a while, anyway — to planting your butt in one of those fourteen seats, and luckily the snaps are primo quality: Even the house-made chicharrón looks leaps and bounds above what you’d find at a Bushwick bodega, never mind the kimchee consommé with Malpec oyster, pork belly and braised cabbage.

Don Lee’s Momofuku Slideshow [Flickr via Eater]