Catching Up on your Reading: Part II

The last few weeks were the holidays and all, so it's entirely understandable if you fell behind on your reading. Today on Fosco Lives! Fosco will be pointing you toward things you should have read over the holidays but might have missed.

Living on the West Coast doesn't allow Fosco to travel to New York City very frequently (at most, once a year). However, he still likes to stay in touch with the NYC restaurant scene (because, when he is in NYC, he likes to eat well). For this reason, Fosco likes to read New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni.

When he got the job in 2004, Bruni may have seemed a strange choice for the job of restaurant critic based on his background as a serious news reporter (covering both Capitol Hill and the Catholic Church). Despite this, Fosco is quite high on Bruni--and has been, ever since Bruni's hilarious review of the steakhouse at the Penthouse Executive Club. Bruni is funny and interesting and an amazingly fluid writer. So you don't want to miss this duo of Bruni pieces from over the holidays: "Wishes for a New Year" and "Same Table Next Year?"

In the "Wishes" piece, Bruni lists the developments he would like to see in the world of fine dining in 2009. Fosco is intrigued by ideas like

I’d like to see less pork belly, only because we’re well beyond some fatty saturation point now, and more lamb belly, because it’s fantastic, too.

And someone of Fosco's heroic carriage can only applaud this idea:

I’d like to see restaurateurs show a little more sense and mercy when it comes to deciding how many seats can be wedged into a given space. While I’m fine with trading away some comfort for a lower price point — that’s the inevitable and understandable name of the game — I’m increasingly noticing seating arrangements that make me gape and laugh.

If only San Francisco's Slanted Door would take this advice.

Bruni's other piece is a roundup of the best new restaurants of 2008 and his list of his favorite new dishes of the year. Some highlights:

MOMOFUKU KO’S FROZEN FOIE GRAS David Chang turned a classic torchon into flakes piled high, like an incongruously fatty and liver-y Sno-Kone, over a brittle of nuts and a sweet wine gelée.

[...]

CORTON’S CARAMEL BRIOCHE It’s a dessert (with banana and passion fruit in the mix), a cheese course (thanks to Stilton), a breakfast (in its mimicry of syrupy French toast) and altogether wonderful. [pictured above]

Fosco's mouth is watering something fierce right now. If a reader wants to ship me either of these (on dry ice) via overnight mail, just ask for my address...