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LoCo is dead on.

I am also in total agreement with @chiff. If they're gonna flog stuff, it should at least be really, really good stuff. Putting one's name to Applebee's makes you dead to me. At least Welch's grape juice is actual juice, but dude, why not Penzy's? Yeah, they don't have a spokesperson, but I'll bet good money that had AB approached them, they'd have genuflected on the spot.

And I say, Bring Back Sara Moulton. I really miss her...

LoCo summed it up nicely. I'm on the fence with endorsements. They are tv personalities and that's how tv personalities make money, endorsing things and putting on tv shows.

I think the difference comes in protecting their "brand". Alton came close, but he was selective (I cringe every time I see the add tho). Tyler and Applebee's? Made me think less of his cred as a chef. When I see Guy pushing TGIF's it reinforces the idea that I wouldn't ever want to eat there anyway and Ray Ray will shill anything from flatwear to Triskets and dogfood, do we really care what she has to tell us when she's telling us she can be bought by anybody for anything? With any industry, when the brand isn't protected it loses its strength, and I think so will Rachel and Guy and all the others who don't make selective choices.

Much to my surprise, I did notice the other day in a much older Good Eats that AB was in a supermarket and picked up a can of Welch's Grape and rather conspicuously waved it around while talking, so that relationship may have been there for a long time.

Well said LoCo.

@Fins - 1997 was definitely the heyday of TVFN. They were (I believe) still showing the old repeats of Julia Child shows, along with a whole host of really great Food TV.

As far as celeb endorsements, I find the whole thing cheesy. If AB were to pimp, say, King Arthur Flour, something cooks generally view as a superior product, the viewing public could believe he actually uses it. Credibility intact. Grape Juice? Maybe he actually likes it...Maybe not. Swanson Stock? No, thank you. Applebee's??? This will not strike anyone as very obscene unless, of course, you've eaten at an Applebee's. They make Olive Garden look good. Credibility - down the toilet keeping the Tidy Bowl Man company.

@chiff ahh 1997... back when TVFN was interesting. I learned much back then as Emeril and David Rosengarten (sp?) were my faves. That's when I first took a real interest in cooking. Kids were old enough to start enjoying things and DH was tired of eating off the kiddie menu.

@chiff Don't diss Emeril! He invented garlic :D

ccweb, good question, and to clarify: Do you think the public's interest will shift more to food (be it local food, cuisine, etc.--essentially, what's actually on the plate) than personality?

Hope this helps, because I'd love to know what you (as in you, specifically) think.

Thanks!

so i went. first of all, if you are short do not sit at the communal table. my back is still sore from straining my body to comfortably sit in the chairs. seriously, the need something more comfortable. we ordered edamame and seaweed salad to start - a little boring, i know, but the seaweed salad was really excellent. edamame was good and had a nice little kick to it. we wound up going with 2 sobas and an order of the pork belly. pork belly was delicious - very fatty, but in a good way. got different sobas than what i had planned on getting - two hot ones - one with duck and scallion, the other with tamago. skip the tamago - boring boring dish. it lacked a depth of flavor, and i just didn't enjoy the taste of soggy egg. the duck and scallion on the other hand was much better.

downside (besides the chairs) was the service. it was truly awful. they were obviously training their staff, so i wanted to give them some slack, but they were totally inexperienced. waitstaff hovered constantly - interrupting the meal frequently to fill water glasses after 2 sips had been taken, then again to wipe up the water they spilled (you had to move your body for them to fill the water, so it was really inconvenient and annoying). one asked our neighbor to use the hot hand towel. and he said "you're telling me to use it this second?" "yes". can you believe that? it was just because he wanted to bus it right away. one waitstaff guy stood directly across from me and kept locking eyes as if to see if i would tell him to do something - it was incredibly unnerving and made me not want to eat. finally one of the more experienced people told him to back off. many more examples of bad service - but it was enough that i will not be going back.

Really excellent and helpful post that clears up the three main myths of this place.

I can't help wondering whether Matsugen's various anomalies might not work against it, though. I'll have to see for myself. But thinking out loud here, as one might given the details of the restaurant:

- If most of the menu looks like a regular neighborhood Japanese restaurant yet the neighborhood restaurant warhorses (veg. tempura, eel+cuc, toro+scallion, and cold soba) are done poorly;

- If JVG is executive producing this familiar sort of movie (see above) but not involved in directing the movie/the kitchen;

- If it is, in fact, not a noodle bar and offers only one good kind of soba (the inaka or 'rustic' or 'country') out of others, although the Matsugen
chain is known for their soba; and if the hot soba, which is much more difficult to pull off in terms of noodle-texture since the noodles are still basically cooking (ask any good ramen cook), is only tasty for the duck broth (which, can be had at Soba-ya as Emily_Koh mentioned)...

...then what, exactly, are people going to flock there for? I'm still going to try it out and there's plenty to try. But it would really only be by overlooking the curious facts above and knowing that a few random dishes are good: the rustic soba, the sea urchin and yuzu, and the grapefruit gelee. Again, just thinking out loud but I think still think there are various problems at the very core of Matsugen, which are at the level of conception.

hdthoreau, it wasn't packed. You do have to make a reservation, but there is a great communal table where I happily dined with Serious Eats' Erin Zimmer.
You absolutely don't have to look for it on tablexchange. Even if they tell you they only have 6:30 and 9:30 when you call, just go and eat at the communal table.

I'm fascinated by the sea urchin with yuzu jelly. I can't wrap my mind around how a citrus jelly plays off the ocean essence of sea urchin roe.

Love their spin on the ubiquitous orange slices for dessert.

How come there is no pic of Soba noodle?? This is a soba noodle place, not shabu shabu.

I really love how the dessert plays off the orange slices you always get at the end of the meal in alot of Japanese restaurants. I'll have to add that uni to my list of sea urchin dishes I need to try...