My New York Times debut...sort of.

My phone rang early this morning, while I was still in the shower. The excited voice mail, from my friend Hall, declared that he had seen a "huge" picture of me in the Times, and that I was to check on it immediately.

I opened my computer, started up Firefox, and clicked through to the Dining and Wine section. There, alongside Frank Bruni's Critic's Notebook piece on the trend of fat, fat, fat everywhere (pork belly, chicken livers, etc.), was a picture of me, along with a few other foodblogger/eGullet types, drooling over Momofuku Ssam's Bo Ssam (giant, slow-cooked pork butt).

The photo was taken back in February, when I went out to dinner with a group of foodies during my second eGullet foodblog.

It's not a flattering picture, and they don't mention my name, but, hey - I'm in the Times!

The Chodorow Strikes Back

Oh, the drama!

For those of you who read Gawker or follow the New York forum over on eGullet, this post will hardly come as a surprise.

Come to think of it, for anyone who follows New York dining in any way whatsoever, you'll probably think what follows was the inevitable product of the Times' recent decline into Style Section Central and the accompanying ire for Frank Bruni's flowery, two-star heavy reviewing style.

Today's Dining section featured a full-page ad from Jeffrey Chodorow aimed squarely at Mr. Bruni's judgment of Chodorow's latest venture. Chodorow is the restaurateur behind, among other spots, Rocco's on 22nd - documented in soapy detail on that reality show The Restaurant, and he dates the critic's ire to that venture's implosion.

The problem is, the letter come across like something written by a petulant child. He veers between legitimate complaints about Bruni's food cred (something that's been chatted about for years) and oddly hysterical defenses about Kobe Club, his new restaurant, which received a 0-star rating from Bruni in last week's review.

That said, it's certainly spawned some fun times in New York blogosphere, with coverage on eGullet, Eater, Gawker...you name it. Even better - Chodorow vows, at the letter's close, that he will be tailing Bruni and his NY Magazine counterpart, Adam Platt, as they move from restaurant to restaurant - he will, in effect, be reviewing their reviews. His new blog to that effect can be found at http://www.chinagrillmgt.com/blog/ and is titled "Chod-o-blog."

Let the games begin?