Doug, I ate at Craft last Friday night (we could only get a 9:30) and it was good but I didn't like it near as much as Gramercy Tavern.

I think the bill for the four of us with tip was around $600.

While I haven't been there, I've heard great things about Lidia's (the older woman on TV with the close cropped hairstyle) Becco. They have a lunch special where you get unlimited pasta cooked three different styles and it's not expensive (for NYC standards).

Becco is fine and a good deal but no where on par with the above.

The special is the chef's three pasta special. It is $21.95 and includes salad or anti pasta and as much of the three pastas of the day as you can eat.

ttt

I have always found that "celebrity restaurants" are as hit and miss as any other place. The only difference is expectations are higher, as are the prices. I have had major disappointments. Not just in the food, but sometimes the service has been terrible. A couple times I wondered if I should toss a wine glass at a waiter to get his attention. (Not all experiences were bad, but they were probaly the same percent was non-celeb places.)


NY has so many good places, unless you really want to say a name, I avoid them.

We ended up going to DB Bistro Moderne for a lunch as the only Celeb restaurant of the vacation. It was a great success. No problem with getting a reservation the same day, probably due to the city being moderately depopulated by vacations.

I had a country pate appetizer and coq au vin with fancy mushrooms, bacon lardons and spaetzle. Mrs. Peabody had lemon sole with tiny vegetables anda dessert of all chocolate clafouti (which was more like a flourless chocolate cake, but with about 5 kinds of chocolate). We were both delighted with our choices.

Of note: The prices for entrees and appetizers are fair, but wines and sides etc. were at least 50% out of line on the high side. The bread basket is full of amazingly good breads. I skipped the (in)famous $32 hamburger stuffed with short ribs and foie gras as I saw it going only to obvious tourists who wanted to contend with a "sandwich" rhat was twice as tall as it was wide. The fries looked good, though.

ooops. I think I was just called a tourist and it was meant as an insult? But I'm not insulted at all, because the hamburger with short ribs and foie gras at DB Bistro Moderne was one of the best dishes I've had anywhere. And there seemed to be a number of local businessmen eating them too, unless those were tourists dressed like businessmen. And you're right -- those french fries were the best I've ever had in the US, and even topped most of the frites I've had in Paris as well.

If you say it was that good, Patrick, then I will have to make time to go back and have eat that ultimate burger. And I would never call you a tourist; You're a traveler!

Heck no. I'm a tourist too. And proud of it.

That hamburger (it's a sin to call it that) was magnificent.