Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

During my last visit to UPN I walked out. The crust of the pizza at the table next to ours was all bubbles from rim to center, pushing cheese from a good 70 percent of the surface area. The egomaniacal pizzaiollo/proprietor, who ostensibly takes great pride is his attention to purity and authenticity and is capable of producing a beautiful pizza, ought to be ashamed of himself. That pie should never have left his kitchen. And fearing that I might end up paying top dollar for a near topless pizza (other nearby pies also appeared to be bubbly), I walked out.

BLT is an abomination and insulting to the food intelligence of New Yorkers. I applaud Mr. Meehan for being rightly critical of BLT Burger, yet the praise of the New Yorker writer and others leads me to utter despair.

I was hopeful the burger efforts of so accomplished a chef as Laurent Tourondel would produce either a great success or, at worst, an intriguing and even commendable failure. But this is neither. It's too pricey, too inauthentic and too pretentious in its calculation to qualify as a burger joint, yet the small burger, poor fries, hapless onion rings and desultory accessories fall far of anything resembling a serious burger experience. Moreover, the design and execution is entirely oblivious to the New York experience. Is it possible that Tourondel has never sampled a good or merely representative New York burger or golden, twice-fried, hand-cut frites?

I urge you, Ed, and others not to accept this kind of effort. Please let Tourondel know how this much this shameful effort tarnishes two brands: "BLT" and "NYC." And don't let him comforted by the frat boys and buffoons lapping this stuff up.

Daniel Young