New York City Food Fight

The current food feud between New York Times food critic Frank Bruni and restauranteur extraordinare Jeffrey Chodorow is quite, for lack of a better word.... AWESOME.
Two men with huge egos and neither one can stand the other. Mutual dislike stemming from snubs behind the scenes (private functions etc...), and just only recently surfacing to the public's attention.

lowdown -
Frank basically went to Jeffrey's brand new place in midtown, Kobe Club a few weeks ago and said very publicly, it was shit. His New York Times weekly article awarded the Kobe Club zero stars.

a quick NYTimes star rating tutorial :
* Good (i.e. Les Halles, Alfama)
** Very good (i.e. Aureole, Payard, Kai)
*** Excellent (i.e. Gotham, Aquavit, Bouley)
**** Extraordinary (i.e. Perse, Daniel, Le Bernardin)

Kobe Club is a steakhouse in Manhattan that serves all sorts of Beef. They showcase the Japanese "Wagyu" Beef as their top of the line. Now I understand a restaurant needs to sell a concept with cool themes and space design, but dangling 1000 samurai swords from the ceiling right on top of the main dining room is a little... shall we say, Retarded. It's almost culturally insulting! Why not have a giant gong ring when people enter and leave the place. And while you're at it, have all waiters dress in a karate outfit... since we all know all Asians know kung-fu. Luckily Asians (generalization), especially the Japanese, are extremely non-confrontational people and will just go about their way and just think to themselves Chodorow is an untraveled ignorant idiot. (ahheghm)

but wait, it gets even better -
The beauty of all this lies in their credentials. Frank Bruni was the Rome bureau chief for the New York Times before becoming NYC's #1 most influential food critic. Never a food columnist nor chef for that matter. Countless people have quesioned his opinions on food, and to this day, receives no respect from guys in the food industry. Foodies read Bruni's column mostly for entertainment, rather than legitimate food recommendations.
"What's he got to say this week?" is usually the attitude in our minds. It's almost Howard Stern-ish when you think about it.
Then you have Jeffrey Chodorow on the other hand.
Mr. Chodorow is a convicted felon. That's right! While attempting to resurrect a failing airline in the early 90's, Braniff. As CEO, he may have dabbled in a few illegal dealings. (cited : smoking gun)Pleaded GUILTY and spent time in jail. Now he owns something like 40 restaurants (through China Grill Management) and will probably open up more. Spreading bad food to all corners of the world.