The Post has a big feature today about the pitfalls of Restaurant Week, complete with shots of frowny diners and quotes from incendiary chefs David Chang and Eddie Huang. Now, we imagine any RW veteran has a negative anecdote or two: There was the time we showed up to a reputable and now-closed Italian restaurant only to be relegated to Siberia, fed gummy pasta, and rushed — but the rest of our experiences have been good or at least fine. Not the case here! Cindy Zhou, a.k.a. Chubby Chinese Girl, was indignant last Restaurant Week when Park Avenue Winter gave her a calamari-and-carrot salad that contained nothing but … calamari and carrots. And a few years ago at now-closed Japonais, her steak was really tiny.
Another diner complained to the Post that he went to Gordon Ramsay at the London during a past Restaurant Week and found it “mediocre.” Also: Sometimes you have to pay a “supplement” to get the dishes you really want, and service can be subpar. So basically it’s the same stuff people bitch about on Yelp, only in this case expectations run higher. Meanwhile, not to be left out of the bitch-fest, Steve Cuozzo rounds up three places in town that he finds perennially lousy, so-called “Scenes in Search of Cuisine.” Clubby or sceney spots where you will not find the columnist include Lavo, Hotel Griffou, and the Kenmare, which Cuozzo dubs “intolerable.”
Restaurant Week really bites! [NYP]
…And here are three restaurants to skip anytime of the week! [NYP]
Related: And So, Another Restaurant Week Is Upon Us
