HungryChefs: Rice, Buttered Toast and Twix

The Gluttoness — October 26, 2009

Guy Fieri at Chelsea After Dark.

With all the panels and tasting events that have come with the new season, we’ve talked to a lot of chefs recently. So we’ve had chances to ask them questions, namely what they’re AlwaysHungry for. Here’s the latest installment of AlwaysHungryNY.com’s occasional feature, HungryChefs.

Click Here to Find Out What Chefs are AlwaysHungry For >>

Lobster Roll Wars: A Blind Taste Test

The Hungry Goat — March 25, 2009

The story should be familiar by now. Chef opens restaurant with partner. Partner leaves to open similar restaurant. Chef gets upset. Chef hires new sous-chef. Sous-chef leaves to open similar restaurant. Chef gets angry and sues.

When Chef Rebecca Charles opened Pearl Oyster Bar in 1997, the “clam shack” concept became the ultimate in casual-chic dining, and Pearl’s signature Lobster Roll became the new upscale comfort food darling. Three years later Mary’s Fish Camp, another lobster roll-serving seafood haven debuted, this one from former Pearl partner Mary Redding. Similarities between the two did not go unnoticed. Then, in 2007, déjà vu struck twice when Charles’ longtime sous-chef Ed McFarland opened Ed’s Lobster Bar, a restaurant so much like Pearl in almost every way—from the décor to the menu—it had Charles crying plagiarism. Her intellectual property lawsuit was the first of its kind in the restaurant industry (considering the striking resemblances in design between newcomer Harbour and Lure Fishbar it may not be the last) but was eventually resolved out of court.

Now, the dust has settled. And while all three lobster rolls are left standing, the question remains: whose is truly the best? We’ve heard from customers and critics, but what about an insider’s perspective? How would a chef who has worked at one of these restaurants, who has made hundreds of lobster rolls every day, rank them? AlwaysHungryNY sought out an honest answer. We found a chef who agreed to do a blind taste evaluation of each lobster roll on the condition of anonymity.

To conduct our experiment, the lobster rolls were placed on identical plates without their usual accompaniments. Fries, garnish, pickles, lemon wedges, they were all removed to eliminate any potential clues. Would our chef be able to distinguish the rolls by sight? By taste? Would the recipe, made time after time, be immediately recognizable or would the difference be so negligible that it made telling apart Pearl’s, Ed’s and Mary’s impossible?

Click here to see whose roll reigned supreme >>