By now you might be almost as sick of hearing about Gael Greene's and Tom Dobrowski's Ko reservation debacle as you are of, say, trying to get a reservation at the place (thanks to the guy who e-mailed us today offering us his time slot, but we’ll pass) — but we thought we'd post Dobrowski's latest e-mail to us by way of a coda. Let the record show that one of his co-workers may have canceled his reservation after he forwarded it around, and an IT guy at Momofuku may have leaked the log of his reservation activity to Eater despite assurances that he wouldn’t.
"I thought I was losing my mind."
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Three kinds of caviar on top.Photo: Wikipedia
Yesterday’s news of a
$1,000 sushi roll really touched a nerve in one reader. When we saw an e-mail with the subject “Suffolk Kitchen introduces $12,000 Knish,” we, of course, assumed it was for real. As we read the “press release,” however, it became obvious that the pitch was full of it — though arguably no more so than the one about the sushi roll.
Pay 48 hours in advance. In cash.
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Sparks, where romance never happens.Photo: Jennifer MacFarlane
Dear Grub Street,
Where should I go for an anti–Valentines Day dinner? My girlfriend of four years just broke up with me, and I want to eat somewhere where I won't see any couples, or think of couples, or anything connected with couples. I want to eat out somewhere that is a million miles from Valentines Day.
Signed,
Cupid’s Sworn Enemy
We have just the place: dead trees and unadorned steak.
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The taco of the first part pertains to…Photo: iStockphoto
Dear Grub Street,
I'm curious if you've heard goings-on about chefs selling their recipes to the restaurants where they work. I'm in the industry and coming across a situation where this could come up. Does this happen? Or are there chefs that walk away from recipes they've created and just leave them with the restaurants where they worked? Your inside knowledge is much appreciated.
A Creator
Steer clear of the dotted line!
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That was no prostitute at the bar at Maze! Was it?Photo: Corbis
We make no judgments on Grub Street. We got this e-mail earlier today and read it with raised eyebrows and no great credulousness:
My husband and I were at the New York restaurant, Maze @ the London Hotel tonight 12-18-07. We were so upset. He had four clients he was taking out. At one point one of the clients noticed that there were two prostitutes at the bar, trying to pick up men. When my husband's guest complained to the staff, they became hostile and asked us to leave. When we talked to the hotel staff, they informed us that, "This happens all the time, You need to talk to the management of Gordon Ramsey." We were very upset — how could they let that go on? It's almost like they were getting a cut of their action. We will never dine at a Gordon Ramsey Rest. We spend $800, and had to watch a common prostitute pick up her johns. It was very ugly, shame on Gordon Ramsey and Shame on the London.
Shame indeed! But we have no idea if it was even true. We can never tell prostitutes in hotel bars even when we’re talking to them, let alone from at a table faraway. So we asked the restaurant’s PR agency, who got back to us with this response.
The other side of the story.
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He makes the Hamburglar look innocent.Photo Illustration: Everett Bogue;
Photos: Hulton Archive/Getty Images (robber), iStockphoto.com (hat)
When we Googled the name of
Ralph Landi, the “Christian chef” who was accused of stealing a laptop and writing checks to himself at a soon-to-open midtown restaurant, we saw he had bounced around country and became immediately suspicious, as we always are of chefs who seek work outside of our fine city (especially in Vegas!). Sure enough, a former employer writes in with a bizarre tale about Landi that is best read in the voice of John Walsh.
"...seven checks with numbers out of sequence for a total of almost $9,000."
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The holy grail.Photo: Daniel Maurer
Last week not-exactly-starving comedian Aziz Ansari
waxed poetic about chicken and waffles, to the delight of a commenter who wrote:
Sweet. A famous person who actually eats!
Also, we ARE talking waffles and dinges right? How long do you have to hunt for this thing? I mean I know they put the vicinity it is in on their website, but somehow I imagine hunting for it to be on part with a stoner-type cross between Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and the hunt for Excalibur.
Who said anything about dinges?
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