In November, Chodorow told Doree, Maxim Steak was "an intelligent steakhouse for intelligent people," which means to him that "a very female-friendly steakhouse, with a sexy environment." That does sound intelligent but also kinda familiar! In fact, it sounds just like that shitshow of a place STK which is literally steps away from the Gansevoort.

Chodorow meanwhile swears he'll resurrect Ono in "another location." Though Fabricant doesn't explicitly say it (c'mon, that lady is pure class) we're betting it'll go into that restaurant deathtrap that Chodorow's ill-fated Wild Salmon so recently occupied. That, as noted, passed quietly into oblivion as the clock struck midnight on December 31st. Bronzed spermatazoic salmon should be flooding the market any minute now.

Correction: Dudes, don't wig out. Fatty Crab is replacing the Zen Palate on 77th and Broadway. My bad. Blaze away!

Mr. Chodorow is also planning on opening China Grills in Denver, Fort Lauderdale, Hawaii, Dubai and Moscow, as well a Kobe Club in Miami sometime next year. In Los Angeles, Mr. Chodorow is bringing the Citronelle chef Michel Richard from Washington, D.C., to help open a new incarnation of Mr. Richard's old L.A. restaurant, Citrus, which closed in 1998. He also has two restaurants opening in hotels in the Dominican Republic, and what he calls a "big Italian project" in New York.

Chodorow comes across as defensive and a little bumbling, but generally likable and definitely sane. But his publicist Karine Bakhoum (wife of Primetime Tables reservation pimp Pascal Riffaud), is even more nutso than previously thought.

A curated selection of Karine Bakhoum's wisdom:

• "'Let's not talk about the past,' she cooed. 'It's just not interesting.'"
  
• "'Oh, you're so sweet!' said Ms. Bakhoum. 'He's a mushy-mushy.' She said this in the cadence normally reserved for babies and poodles."
  
• "'Jeffrey's very misunderstood. That's the problem. ... When you're bigger than life, people love to jump to conclusions.'"
  
• "'I think Kobe Club may be my favorite restaurant in America,' said Ms. Bakhoum, who has represented Mr. Chodorow for several years. 'It's that decadently beautiful and delicious. The creamed corn with the truffles? I want to lay down and die.'"

  Chodorow Eats New York [NYO]

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From Eater:

Regarding the convo, wrong again: the Chodorow was eating with his lovely wife and was on the phone with his designers. Here's the thing: there is an issue with the stingray bar top currently installed at the restaurant. Just didn't hold up. "When you experiment with new materials, sometimes the solutions aren't that easy," says El Chod. Now on order is not the cheap stuff, but this stuff (click "stingray parquet"), which promises to be more durable. While repairs are being made, there is a temporary covering on the bar. So, that's that.

Dear Frank, The penguin has returned to the South Pole where it belongs. I'm contributing the money I would have spent on a larger ad to the fight against global warming. Really glad you loved the wild salmon at Wild Salmon. It is like no other salmon I've ever tasted. Regards, Jeff. P.s. Loved "your" cameo in Ratatouille."

On the first front, after some scrambling, they came back with an organization called Conservation International which, we guess, combats global warming. What are the chances some PR flak thought, "Doh, they're actually calling us out. Quick, somebody Google 'conservation'!"

But in response to how much dough Chodorow is throwing away, we got "We are not disclosing the amount at this time." This either means somewhere around $20K (the approximate difference between a full pager and a 2 column ad), or maybe nothing. A better formulation would have been "I'm contributing the money I'm going to lose at my business due to my continuing obsessive craziness to the fight against global warming." That way the environmentalists would be trillions of dollars richer!

[Scan: Eater]

The space itself, as semi-gratuitously noted the New York Times today, is kitted out to look old. "The floors, walls and ceiling of the main dining room are covered with wood salvaged from piers, mushroom barns and factories." And in the back there's a pool table, probably one of the nicest in the area, surrounded by weird pulleys and other farming equipment.

As for the food, whether you'll like it or not depends on how you feel about shmaltz, buttermilk and fried shit, of which there is a lot on the menu. Also on the menu is the trademark Chodorow logorrhea. The salad isn't just mixed greens and duck but "honey locust farmhouse greens, east corner wonton roasted duck, poached rhubarb, fennel, grilled spring onions, citrus dressing." Dude. It's a salad, chill.

Borough felt a little "meh." It's comfort food in a comfortable environment. If you don't mind paying fairly stiffly for such, well, at least you're still in Manhattan.

Could it be just a picayune birthday celebration among friends? Maybe. But what to make of it that Bakhoum is taking out the owner of a number of restaurants like Monkey Bar, Michael Jordan's Steakhouse and the Striphouse that are repped by rival firm Bullfrog and Baum? What does it tell us that she is out with Gael Greene, one of the few critics who had anything nice to say about Kobe Club and/or Wild Salmon, two of Chodorow's most recent openings? Perhaps the most telling take-away is that when Karine is hankering for meat, she would rather shell out the dough for a rack of ribs at a rival restaurant than get a surely comped meal at Chodorow's bedeviled Kobe Club.

A subjective look at Chodorow's restaurants reveal what can only be termed a cohesive plan to be able to execute any diner at any time. The 5-pound fish looming menacingly at Wild Salmon; the swords (SWORDS!) at Kobe Club. These are less design elements and more assassination mechanisms. But perhaps the most compelling argument has to do less with what is at his restaurants and more about who is at his restaurants.

It was at Choad's remarkably infernal Kobe Club that a union of the most unholy kind transpired. As we mentioned earlier, under impending impalement, this was where Ron Burkle, Bill Clinton and Oxycontin-posterboy Rush Limbaugh canoodled this week. More appropriately, a close reading of the interaction reveals that Clinton was actually cock-blocking Limbaugh as he tried to throw it in some lady. Of course, Kobe Club is where Limbaugh would take a date!

I was with the woman who poked me at dinner last Thursday night in Palm Beach...She was treating me like a wife, and we're not even married. I just met her that day....That's when she poked me. I liked her poking me even though we're not married, because we're not married and she couldn't do anything about it.

I'm looking at this woman, talking to her. She's looking at me, not aware of anything else going on in the restaurant, and all of a sudden I become aware of a looming presence at the table. ..This looming presence, I look up, and, golly, if it isn't former President Bill Clinton....The lady I was with had to excuse herself to go to the restroom, and at that point four or five people in the restaurant came over and wanted pictures and autographs and this sort of stuff. When my guest came back those other people then stopped coming over...There is no "rest of the story." What kind of rest of the story do you think there would be? There is no rest of the story. No, no, no, no, no.

I have no way of knowing whether a review I've written hastens the death of any restaurant," Mr. Bruni told The Observer, "but I can assure you it's not my goal in writing a negative review to put a restaurant out of business. I'm just writing what I honestly think about the restaurant, with my principal consideration being readers and consumers."

It's Brundle's job to catalog abominations as they emerge from the kitchen. Sure, that he does so with acerbic, populist cattiness is unusual—but essentially he is merely helping dying restaurants die and vital ones prosper. Think of him as a hospice-helper. The real Bruni Effect, perhaps, can be seen less in a city strewn with the carcasses of mediocre restaurants and more in the pages of The Observer, whose unmemorable restaurant critic pops up twice a month whether one likes it or not. —Josh

Feel the Bruni Effect, New York!

The menu, typically Chodorowian, is a 12"x17" sheet of heavy parchment. The Rosetta Stone is only slightly larger. As expected, salmon comes in all its variants: Alaskan King, Coho, Sockeye, Smoked, grilled, cedar planked, bronze seared, poached or en papillote. Throw in some Wagyu for $85, creamed corn and about a hundred other things and you get the idea. There were some hits (a delicious black cod, a surprisingly strong short rib entree) and some misses (smoked scallops, unhappily salty salmon).

When we went, the room was filled with food journalists and bloggers, happy for the cocktails, the pandering and the free dinner—you can bet the day-to-day clientele will be much better dressed, richer and more appreciative. Be that as it may, there's plenty to roll one eyes about. Though the ingredients are fresh and expertly prepared, they feel asphyxiated by pretension in presentation. The plates are massive white slabs on which the entrees hunch all cowed. And on the flip side, the Dungeness crab would be better had it not been crammed into tiny shot glasses. The menu has more trios, duets, and quintets than a Balanchine ballet. One gets the feeling the Seattle chef is determined to out New York New York.

Then there's the elephant in the room, looming larger than the salmon and weighing heavy on the mind of both Chef Ramsmeyer and Capo Chodorow: Bruni Brundle v. Choad, one of the more epic battles in the catty world of chef v. critic. Times critic Frank Bruni already seems to dislike Chodorow's moremoremore aesthetic. (Higher prices, more decor, bigger menus!) It's like Mondo Restaurant. And Chodorow, well, he hates being disliked. So what of Wild Salmon? As we mapped out previously there are three essential possibilites. Bruni loves, hates, or ignores.

Having met The Choad for the first time last night and having eaten ostensibly the best the restaurant can offer, we're going to say it would be best if Bruni steered clear. More likely is that the critic will visit and throw the place a star. Bruni, sensibly uncaring about the "feud," will in that case have turned the other cheek and Chodorow, as Chodorow likes to do, will stridently claim he makes restaurants not for critics, but for the people. Just not for the salmon. —josh

—Josh

Rhymes with Story HELLO?
Rhymes with Memily YES
Rhymes with Story SEXTACULAR! Where's BALK.
Rhymes with MemilyHe is late to the party AS USU
[BALK BTW has joined this chat.]
Rhymes with Memily Oh hey, we were just talking about you!
BALK BTW What'd I miss?
Rhymes with Memily We talked about your body hair.
Rhymes with Story Oddly true.
BALK BTW It is lush and plentiful.
Rhymes with Memily You're clearly overcompensating for something. But is Frank Bruni?
BALK BTW (Nice transition, Em!)
Rhymes with Memily I could like host a chat show!
Rhymes with Story You sort of do, with your boyfriend Greg Gutfeld!
Rhymes with Memily YOUR GAY BOYFRIEND you mean.
BALK BTW You guys lemme know when you're ready to work.
Rhymes with Story OMG I wish. I love them stumpy and aggressive. Fucking Balk. Sorry.
Rhymes with Memily Speaking of stumpy! TRANSITIONING!
BALK BTW Yes. Bruni. You've got to love a guy who can get a week's worth of high-end hotels in his hometown paid for by Sulzberger. He's like a gay young Johnny Apple!
Rhymes with Story No one got more out of the Sulzbergers than Mr. Apple, God bless him.
Rhymes with Memily Young? Well, compared to Johnny Apple.
Rhymes with Story But I was going to ask a dull question followed by a less dull one: Is Bruni trying to destroy the New York Times or save it? Or is he just fucking with all of us at this point?
Rhymes with Memily I am going with c.
Rhymes with Story Okay, because most importantly, he drops that paragraph in. Which is PURE FUCKING-WITH: "The restaurant Ono, owned by Jeffrey Chodorow, supervises in-room dining for the Hotel Gansevoort in the meatpacking district." Stop, paragraph break, moving on!
Rhymes with Memily I would like to thank him for connecting those dots.
BALK BTW Maybe he's reaching out, trying to affect a rapprochement. I mean, Chodorow hasn't blogged in ages. Maybe they've patched things up!
Rhymes with Story Do you think they're steaking it up together?
BALK BTW Swordplay.
Rhymes with Memily GAH.
Rhymes with Story HEY NOW.
Rhymes with Memily I don't know what I've stumbled into here! I thought we would be discussing, like, why he made such a huge deal of determining whether everyone had eggs benedict on the menu and then said you should never order it! That was crazy.
Rhymes with Story Right? How does that help ME, the reader, who is also the sort of person who so frequently ends up in hotel rooms on bleary mornings?
BALK BTW It's a weird blend of servicey-meets-Frank's patented single-entrendre review: "But the stranger in my room at the London NYC hotel on a recent night had my full attention, because he was doing something I wasn't at all accustomed to. He was crawling across the floor and under the coffee table." I mean, COME ON.
Rhymes with Memily Yes. Fucking With Us.
Rhymes with Story That's half an entendre.
Rhymes with Memily I feel like the whole dining section has been fucking with us lately! Like that Caffe Falai shout out.
Rhymes with Story THAT was too close to home. Or at least, too close to our office.
BALK BTW Well, Lockhart has a contract to be mentioned either explicitly or obliquely in at least one NYT section every month.
Rhymes with Memily It's flattering but a little creepy, like getting fan mail from midwestern strangers who are like "I saw yall on Fox News and you sure are purty, don't tell my wife!"
BALK BTW But that's neither here nor there. There's one of these in almost every paragraph: "The food will arrive at the most inopportune moment, e.g., when you've just decided to try on the odd leopard-print robe hanging in the bathroom at the Muse Hotel in Midtown."
Rhymes with Memily YES YES.
Rhymes with Story I would like to hear the rest of the "e.g."s. This is a randy version of Metro Diary meets maybe Penthouse. Gay-house?
Rhymes with Story When he dresses up as his socialite alternate personality.
Rhymes with Memily Let's talk about the next Murphy's Law though. I have a question about it and the question is: What? "The breakfast card will demonstrate a chameleon's ability to blend into its backdrop."
Rhymes with Story That confused me a bit too. Bruni could take some advice from Nick Denton, like the thing that just arrived in our inboxes! I quote in full: "readers like lists, short intros — duh"
BALK BTW Why can't Frank make lists?
Rhymes with Memily Because lists don't lend themselves to his signature florid stylee.
BALK BTW No STYLEE. STOP SAYING STYLEE.
Rhymes with Memily A spinach omelet was "like biting into an eggy lawn."
Rhymes with Story Wait did he really say that? That's kind of insane.
BALK BTW The thing about what he does is that it makes you read into EVERY SENTENCE. "Kyle, less patiently, behind a veil of smoke: 'Um, I'm searing the beef.'"
Rhymes with Memily Poor fat cherubic Kyle!
Rhymes with Story The horrors they must have put him through.
Rhymes with Memily Also, by whose standards is that a "tiny" kitchen?
BALK BTW "a human pest unwilling to accept the fact that there wasn't enough room in the kitchenette, or a convenient vantage point, for a hyper-inquisitive observer."
Rhymes with Memily Kyle is a magic little man made of dough!
BALK BTW I just picture Bruni getting in and all close and stuff, whispering those questions.
Rhymes with Memily And Kyle is all "Um!"
BALK BTW I love the look of fear on his face.
Rhymes with Memily I think J. Chodorow should be happy! His miso had a "bewitching perfume."
Rhymes with Story Kyle's job is like one step safer than Meatpacking Whore, as far as going into gay-infested hotel rooms for a living.
Rhymes with Memily Kyle could totally have faced the other way to bend over and put that pan into the oven but he was not taking any chances.
Rhymes with Story You guys are homophones or whatever they call it.
Rhymes with Story Why can't Chodorow blog? Is he trying to run a bunch of businesses or something?
BALK BTW I think he realized he's got all the publicity he's going to get out of it.
Rhymes with Story Gasp! You think this anti-Bruni campaign of his is BASE!
BALK BTW OMG, flashback! Bruni's review of ONO: "It is not uncommon to encounter obsequious service in fine Manhattan dining establishments.
But Ono, a new Japanese-ish restaurant in the Hotel Gansevoort, introduced three friends and me to something we do not typically see: a server who crawled around on her hands and knees."
Rhymes with Memily !!!!
Rhymes with Story WHOA. So Frank IS used to this. AND IS NOW LYING.
Rhymes with Memily See the boots of shiny shiny leather.
Rhymes with Story lajsdf;lasdjfals;d
BALK BTW Well, the server at Ono was a woman, so maybe...
Rhymes with Memily You're being overly generous, Alex.
Rhymes with Memily Now go make a list!
Rhymes with Story READERS LIKE LISTS! DUH!
BALK BTW "A gigantic tuna steak arrived with a pool of wasabi b rnaise that I would gladly wade into again and again." And he did!
Rhymes with Memily It reminds me of Super Sloppy Double Dare.
Rhymes with Story I guess this is all Gael Greene's fault or something.
BALK BTW Can we just post lists for the rest of the day?
Rhymes with Story I insist!
Rhymes with Story So it sounds to me that even the Bruni haters among us are sort of intrigued/aroused by the Great Hotel Stunt of 2007.
Rhymes with Memily Totally aroused.
BALK BTW It's just so long!
Rhymes with Story Everyone says everything is "so long" now. Once something hits 1100 words, everyone suddenly panics. It's the curse of our time. He had Seven Sexy Nights to cover!
Rhymes with Memily Soon we will all just communicate in little teenager abbreviations
Rhymes with Story ROTFL.
BALK BTW I was making a dick joke!
Rhymes with Memily Oh, right, long like a dick. Haha!
Rhymes with Story Ohhhhh. Confuse me with your innuendo why don't you! I'm coming over there to wade in your sauces RIGHT NOW.
Rhymes with Memily Whatever, all food writing is full of porny descriptions.
BALK BTW "With your personal chef comes your personal server, whose path from kitchenette to table is no more than eight feet and whose sole visual and aural focus is you. He's omnipresent and ineluctable, sort of like Will Ferrell."
Rhymes with Memily Top 10 Uses Of The Word Inelecutable.
BALK BTW "while Kyle's ministrations weren't easily monitored." Actually, it sounds like he was MONITORING THE FUCK out of them.
Rhymes with Story Yeah, this was poor Kyle's Room 101. Rats in the face and stuff.
BALK BTW So who is this piece for? The New Yorker who happens to wind up in many local hotel rooms with a hankering for eggs benedict?
Rhymes with Story Who hankers? The only thing I expect when I wake up in a hotel room is 20 bucks for a cab.
Rhymes with Memily Yes. But a word of warning: "Hollandaise sauce doesn't travel well, turning gluey en route."
BALK BTW Stop.
Rhymes with Story YES. THIS CONVERSATION IS OVER.

Meals by Elevator, With The Touch Of A Chef [NYT]

Chod-o-blog
Earlier: Jeffrey Chodorow Declares War On Frank Bruni