Eighty One’s Off-the-Bone Osso Buco Requires Grits to Clean It UpChef Ed Brown’s new restaurant, Eighty One, hasn’t been open long, but, along with the recently opened Dovetail and South Gate, it’s helping to lead a mini-renaissance of ambitious fine-dining restaurants in New York. One of the most popular dishes on the opening menu, according to Brown, is a “homey and rustic dish, brought up to the restaurant level”: deboned osso buco for one. As always, mouse over the different parts of the dish to hear them described in the chef’s own words.
The Gobbler
How to Eat in Tokyo, Michelin Capital of the World
When it comes to New York restaurants, the Gobbler’s views on the addled Mandarins at the Michelin Guides are well known. But when news came, the other day, that the first-ever Michelin Guide to restaurants in Tokyo had awarded our distant sister city a mind-boggling total of 191 stars (compared to 65 in Paris and 54 in New York), the Gobbler had to admit that those crazy fools might be on to something. Not long ago, we spent a week rampaging through Tokyo in a kind of epicurean daze. The Gobbler still isn’t sure exactly what he consumed (fugu sperm sacks, possibly; grilled chicken uterus, definitely; a very nice chocolate éclair flavored with bamboo), but one thing’s for sure. It was all pretty damn good. Here are a few rules for eating yourself silly in that great restaurant mecca, Tokyo, Japan.
Back of the House
Batali, Bastianich Dip From the Same Cookie Jar for Different CandidatesAfter Nino Selimaj was ordered to take down his photo of Chelsea Clinton at Osso Buco (it’s still hanging), we got to wondering where other restaurateurs fall on the political spectrum. All we had to do was run some names through the Huffington Post’s FundRace 2008 search engine to find out, for starters, that Mario Batali gave $1,000 to John Edwards while his business partner Joe Bastianich gave $2,300 to Rudy Giuliani (this could get ugly). So who are other restaurant honchos like Drew Nieporent, Danny Meyer, Siro Maccioni, et al backing?