FOOD SECTIONAL: LA gives NY service the pimp hand, NY admits it doesn't have everything and San Francisco gets its stars

It's Wednesday, a veritable onslaught of ink-stained culinary goodness. The Knife reads the big three and finds the chef from "Big Night," an article from the critic who held the seat now occupied by Restaurant Girl and the New York Times admitting that its restaurants don't do everything well. Read on!

Los Angeles Times
* Freelancer Pascale Le Draoulec scores a cover story on how New York restauranteurs migrating to LA are coming to terms with our service standards, a realization that might be summed up as, "Sweet Jesus, everyone here really does think they're special." Not a bad piece, if you don't mind yet another LAT food feature through the NYC prism. Noted: Le Draoulec is the former restaurant critic for the New York Daily News, the one who was replaced by the hot mess known as Restaurant Girl.

* Leslie Brenner as Martin Luther, responding to the corruption of restaurant service by nailing her theses on diners' rights to the front door of Fraiche (as it were). She asks: "Do we have to pull out the decibel meter, kids?" Yes, we do.

* However, Brenner really hits her stride with the takedown of Hotel Bel-Air, the same place that Zagat named best in 2007 for decor and service (and which hosted the guide's launch party last month). Representative sample: "The $62 plâteau de fruits de mer for two isn't much of a plâteau, just a small plate with two oysters, two small, flavorless overcooked shrimp with the texture of pencil erasers, some Dungeness crab that tastes as though it was cooked in dishwater, and half of a very small lobster."

Also: A Restaurant Journal dedicated entirely to who did and didn't get Michelin stars... in San Francisco; Corie Brown heads to Spain for the Menica grape; Amy Scattergood goes off on spaghetti and meatballs (and suggests making your own duck confit); S. Irene Virbilia loves her some 2005 Domaine Leflaive Mâcon-Verzé ($31).

New York Times
NYT's Horseracing-food writer Joe Drape admits that NYC doesn't know from Tex-Mex and nevertheless writes long and well about the "native foreign food" that owes no apology to Mexico and can occasionally be found outside Texas; Eric Asimov introduces cask-conditioned ales, the raw milk of beers; the Lee Bros. go to Orange County, NY (who knew?) for "the best cooking onions"; Florence Fabricant extols Canadian chocolate crackle, a bakery that doesn't do cupcakes and candymaker Papabubble; Julia Moskin profiles cookbook-editing doyenne Judith Jones; Melissa Clark observes a strange-but-truism: "If a chef dares to offer something as unappealing as, say, a raw kale salad, chances are it’s fantastic;" Minimalist Mark Bittman takes the monkfish-mashed potato combination home.

San Francisco Chronicle
The chef who made the food look so good in "Big Night" now has his own restaurant, Risibisi, in Petaluma; a big piece on Japanese pub food, which "hasn't yet captured the heart of San Francisco"  (yawn); Michael Bauer reviews PlumpJack (old hotspot now not so); the SF Michelin guide goes on sale today with 34 starred restaurants -- French Laundry is the only one to get three, while Dry Creek Kitchen in Healdsburg lost theirs; Inside Scoop notes that raw foodist and Charlie Trotter crush object Roxanne Klein is launching an enzyme-loving to-go line, starting with Whole Foods, and observes the launch of Eater SF, noting that "Restaurateurs and developers haven't taken too kindly to Eater's often snarky commentary - like calling Ghirardelli Square a "tourist cesspool" and quoting people about the urine stench emanating from the under-construction Mint Plaza. But Curbed editor Sarah Hromack says, 'We're the little boy who teases the little girl in school because we have a crush on her. Our intent is pure jest. We love San Francisco and support it.' In other words, lighten up."