Grub Street Grub Street New York

After Alan Richman and Robert Sietsema laid into it, the latest to join in the backlash against the much-ballyhooed burger at Bill’s Bar are greasy-grub enthusiast NYC Food Guy and, perhaps more damningly, Times critic Sam Sifton. The latter says the burger is “amazingly both crusty and underdone, underseasoned; it soaks its supermarket bun into a pulpy submission. It has no flavor. It is deeply uninteresting.” Interesting. With that, we’re going to turn our minds away from special sauce and begin to contemplate … cranberry sauce! Have a lovely Thanksgiving, folks — we’ll see you Monday.

Bill’s Bar and Burger [NYT]
Bill’s Bar & Burger in Meatpacking District Overrated By Critics [NYC Food Guy]
The Early Word: Bill's Bar & (Meh) Burger [Fork in the Road/VV]
Earlier: Can Alan Richman’s Takedown Kill the Bill’s Burger?

Each week on the Food Chain, we ask a chef to describe a dish he or she recently enjoyed. The chef who prepared the dish responds and then picks his or her own memorable meal. On and on it goes. Last week, chef Mike White of New York's Marea raved about the escolar that Eric Ripert serves at Le Bernardin. What do you love, Ripert?

Who: Eric Ripert, Chef-partner of Le Bernardin, New York
What: Grilled Toro
Where: L20, Chicago
When: Spring 2009

"When I was in Chicago this year I went to eat at L20 where the chef is Laurent Gras. I ate a grilled piece of toro from blue fin tuna, which is farm-raised actually, so it’s sustainable—just in case. It was part of a tasting menu. The presentation was striking. It was between molecular cuisine and classic cuisine. The fish was basically a thick rectangle, grilled on the robatayaki, the Japanese grill with little pieces of charcoal underneath. It was very well seared. Then he served it with fresh apples, and he made an emulsion of black olive and red miso, and it looked like, how can I say? Like mini domes. He made also some mini domes of the juice from the green apple, but it had the consistency of an almost liquid gummy bear. He served it with a celery root purée and—if I don’t mistake—there was some lime juice in the sauce as well, and a few tatsoi leaves on the plate.

After the Department of Labor netted 25 Park Slope restaurants for underpaying workers, we notice that one of them, Aunt Suzie’s owner Irene Lo Re, had also spoken against a proposed bill that would require restaurants to offer their employees paid sick leave. We’ve now had a chance to talk to Lo Re, and though she says she’s “scared as hell” about the charges being leveled against her, she insists that her employees will be the ultimate victims of increased labor regulations over restaurants.

We’ve covered the great Papaya Purge with equal parts diligence and sorrow, shaking our heads ruefully as Clinton Papaya, Papaya del Barrio, and Papaya Dog of Washington Heights have shuttered. But this one is hard to swallow: Jeremiah’s Vanishing has noticed that the 14th Street outpost of the original (Papaya King) has closed, and a call to the shuttered establishment reveals it’s because the rent was too high.