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]
