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If Joel Can Make it There …

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He’ll Make it Anywhere, Right? The Oak Room Takes a Bit of a Beating From Bruni

After opening three months ago, the newly refurbished and grandiose dining room at the Oak Room in NYC has been reviewed by the New York Times.

Times critic Frank Bruni gives chef Joel Antunes homage in terms of training and skill, but mostly pans his efforts in the grand restaurant’s kitchen, giving the Oak Room one star, with lots of verbal battering: “There were letdowns, huge and many. Thanks to overcooked pasta, a lasagna appetizer with a sunchoke purée degenerated into mush — and pricey mush at that. It was $58, reflecting a bevy of black truffles. But the truffles in this dish, and in many others, had little taste.”

Joel’s salmon with mustard ice cream, the Atlanta version a favorite at his eponymous restaurant in Buckhead, falls flat with Bruni: “The salmon in another appetizer was frigid and hard, and the fish’s flavor was lost among a literal blizzard of effects, including mustard ice cream.”

Meanwhile, breakfast is what it’s all about in the BIg A, and I’m not taking New York: Esquire Magazine has has named its first-ever guide to America’s best breakfast in its March issue, and Atlanta’s own Ria’s Bluebird and Thumbs Up Diner have made the list. Where’s your favorite breakfast in Atlanta?

Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Dining

Comments

By FOC

February 6, 2009 9:33 AM | Link to this

Meridith

I thought food critics actually ate at restaurants and reported an opinion. Is this a new form of journalism by which you simply report on what another critic thinks. Perhaps you should eat at the Oak Room… Oh yeah, It almost slipped my mind. You would not go there and have him think you missed him, “least of which is me”. Perhaps it would be better to go back to being a critic rather than a reporter. Or maybe you could just paraphrase Frank on everything.

FOC

By Meridith Ford

February 6, 2009 12:15 PM | Link to this

FOC: Perhaps you’ve missed the last five years of my reviewing restaurants in Atlanta for the AJC …

By Rodney

February 6, 2009 1:53 PM | Link to this

I think the whole point that FOC missed is this - we’re in a BLOG. This is not the resto-review section. It’s a food blog.

Sheesh -

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