Comments on: THE SPOTTED PIG: A New York State of Mind, C+/B-

By: Alexander Lobrano

Alexander Lobrano — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 16:59:38 +0000

Thanks, Ted. I used to live around the corner from Elephant & Castle, loved it and went often. Glad to hear that it's still good. I also used to make a mean blue cheeseburger myself with plain old ground chuck from the now defunct Jefferson Market back in the days when they sold some of the best meat in NYC. It's really a shame that a great neighborhood institution like that went so wrong, and ultimately belly up, after they moved across Sixth Avenue. Best, Alec

By: ted siegel

ted siegel — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 14:46:49 +0000

Thanks, Alex, for the honest review of SPOTTED PIG. The NYC restaurant scene is 99% hype and hyperbole and 1% reality based analysis and criticsm. restaurants like SPOTTED PIG; PRUNE; etc. are nothing but glorified, upscale "coffee shops"….I'm not sruprised that April Bloomefield would not know how to prepare puntarelle…not only is this salad green painstakingly labor intensive to prep it requires a dressing with a high degree of pungency (as you correctly pointed out). I ate at Spotted Pig a few years back and had one of the most depressingly, mediocre burgers one could possibly have anywhere between MacDonalds and Minetta Tavern (dry ground beef with the texture of saw dust and horribly over cooked)….with shoestring fries that were soggy, greasy and limp as the dirty sponge in my mother's kitchen…but when you hook your wagon up to Mario Batali's celeb, people seem to think that you are some "culinary genius"….One of the original, so-called "gastro-pubs" (the term in and of itself is annoying….sounds like something out of Anthony Burgess's masterpiece "A CLOCK WORK ORANGE")…in NYC has been around for almost 40 years (in Greenwich Village)- Elephant and Castle that nobody ever talks about (great burgers from Pat laFreda), english farm house cheddar and Comte-Gruyere on the burgers before anybody knew the difference boiled ham and prosciutto di Parma…..I recently discovered "HUNGRY FOR PARIS" and enjoy the articles and news…..keep up the great work….a truly valuable resource !

By: Alexander Lobrano

Alexander Lobrano — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 08:14:08 +0000

I grudgingly admire Bloomfield's dictorial attitude to the burger, too, and it is very good, but the shoe string fries could have been used as packing material, and I just didn't get what all the fuss was about re this place. RE New York, I feel as though the city's in sort of a mannerist phase in gastronomic terms. I'm all for locavore eating, but the last meal I ate in NYC that really impressed me was at Aldea, an excellent New Portuguese place in the Flatiron district. And the even larger mystery to me is why the food in suburban New York is so mediocre--I can't believe that gilded Westchester and Fairfield counties can't support better restaurants than those I've been to recently.

By: Michael Booth

Michael Booth — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 07:37:02 +0000

Totally agree with you re: Spotted Pig, Alec. I simply could not see what the fuss was about. There are countless places which do this kind of contemporary jazzed-up pub food better in the south east of England and, as you mention, a whole raft of more refined, technically accomplished modern bistros in Paris too. The burger was nice (and, actually, I admire Bloomfield's blue cheese dictatorialism), but there are way better burgers to be had within a five mile radius of the West village - even Five Guys' was better, as far as I am concerned. Plus, one can really do without the 'too-cool-for-school' waiters when one is paying this kind of dollar.

Aside from Prune, I was really quite disappointed in my recent eating tour of NY.

And yes, burnt brussels sprouts at Momofuku were another puzzle...

By: Alexander Lobrano

Alexander Lobrano — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 20:13:24 +0000

Thank you for the copy editing. I briefly lived in Yorkville, and loved the Konigsberger Klopse at the Cafe Geiger, so please chalk it up to jet lag.

Best, Alec

By: wellfedfred

wellfedfred — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 19:33:08 +0000

love the article, agree, agree, agree, happy memories of the Punschtorte and the Linzertorte mit Schlag at Cafe Geiger! one little nit, it's Yorkville, not Yorktown. I forgive you.