Momofuku Ko: Adam Platt Responds | Big Think

Momofuku Ko: Adam Platt Responds

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After one visit, Adam Platt wrote a glowing, four-star review of David Chang’s new restaurant – and caught a lot of flak for it. Platt responds.

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Adam Platt:

Adam Platt is the Restaurant Critic for New York Magazine. He is the older brother of actor Oliver Platt.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Question: You caught a lot of flak for that review. How do respond?

Adam Platt: Well, the bloggers criticized me for reviewing the place like a blogger so that’s my answer to them is if you’re going to do that, fine, but that’s the way bloggers work anyways but generally what I would say- my answer would be what I just said, A) the place is impossible to get in to, B) it had been open for five weeks already, C) the menu’s not going to change very much, and it was the same thing-- I remember when I reviewed Masa the second time I went back it was what am I doing here? It’s fine but it’s the same food. Anyway, so that was- I made the decision; I’ll write it up right now. And it was glowing. Chang-- I’m on record as enjoying his food and again this is a highly subjective business and his last restaurant, Momofuku Ssam, I gave three stars to for what that’s worth. This food was of a higher caliber, five stars, no, sorry, four stars. There you go. So that’s my answer.

Question: Should you be held to a higher standard than the bloggers?

Adam Platt: Well, possibly, but again remember my argument is the one I just gave. I don’t think me going back-- First of all, I don’t know if I’m going to get in. Right? So if I go back two months hence I don’t know that it’s going to change very much. Now if it was-- And I said all this in the review and this is- Chang’s whole thing is that he’s- these are not- he’s doing things in an untraditional way at least for this city. These-- It’s sort of a non-restaurant restaurant and I chose to review it that way. Now if his menu’s changing all the time and he’s got millions of dishes-- The whole point of going back is to- so that you can- you don’t have the same dish again and again. The whole point of going back is to sample the entire menu. Now if you’ve gone once and you’ve sampled the menu there you have it. Now many bloggers go to large restaurants with huge menus and they have one sitting and they- friends eat some stuff and maybe they don’t eat everything and they blog away. So fine, but I think in this particular case I don’t think I needed to go back.