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Happy New Year, everyone! I hope some of you have made a resolution to treat the recappers in your life with more respect.

"The meal felt like a form of torture," writes Corby Kummer in the February issue of Vanity Fair. But he's not referring to Guy Fieri's Times Square restaurant; he's recounting his meal at the French Laundry. In “Tyranny — It’s What’s for Dinner,”, Kummer argues that the world's most celebrated restaurants are becoming increasingly rigid in how they treat customers, and Graydon Carter agrees. To these two, it's almost criminal that Per Se and Alinea serve multiple courses, cost hundreds of dollars, take hours to finish, and don't allow diners to ask for substitutions. (Carter’s restaurants, on the other hand, are so relaxed that you usually need a special phone number and at least a B-list celebrity on your arm to score a table — but hey, at least you can get your salad dressing on the side!) Kummer believes that Chicago's now-closed Charlie Trotter's is the root of the problem that's making a generation of young chefs "no longer willing to take orders" from the one percent.

Usually we stroll over to Hei Lei Moon for dim sum, which is OK but not quite as fresh as at menu-only Winsor Dim Sum down the block. However, a lazy holiday-break perusal of their lunchtime menu revealed Beef with Tomato on Rice, for a mere $6.25. Feeling cost-conscious and adventurous, we decided to forgo dumplings and tuck into tomato-drenched beef instead.