Sampler Platter: placentas, piroshkis and classic cocktails

Tons of tasty food news for today...

• Yelp will finally allow small business owners to respond to negative comments. New York Times
• Most disgusting food trend ever, placenta cuisine: "It's a good 6 pounds of meat that's just chock full of lingering blood, vitamins and hormones." Momlogic
• Changes in the kitchen at the French Laundry. SF Gate
• Canelé is named one of the top 10 brunch spots in the nation by Bon Appetit.
• The first ever Passover Seder at the White House included traditional matzo ball soup, brisket and kugel. Mrs. O
• Ritz Bites blogs about the piroshki lady of Plummer Park.
• 10 classic cocktails that have stood the test of time. Saveur
• Amelia Saltsman, author of the "Santa Monica Farmers’ Market Cookbook," reports on the best finds at Wednesday’s market. Eat LA
• Kansas legislature approves bill 2295 restricting dairy farmers from labeling their products as free of bovine growth hormones. The Pitch
• Is "big food" is the new "big tobacco?": "Both industries dismiss legitimate scientific studies as junk science; both put scientists on their payrolls to make it appear that there is a lack of scientific consensus about the bad health effects of their products; both have knowingly marketed unhealthy products to children." The Daily Bread

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Beef stroganoff, black bread, piroshki, shchi (a soup loaded with cabbage, beef and carrots) and Russian lemonade at Cafe Rus. Credit: Paul Morse / Los Angeles Times

Frank Bruni loves the Bazaar, has harsh words for Palate Food + Wine

New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni came to our fair city recently as part of an ongoing effort to discover and highlight restaurants nationwide that he considers "Outstanding Newcomers." A restaurant can be considered only if it has opened since the start of 2008.

To that end Bruni was directed via "dining scouts and news media accounts" to the Bazaar, Animal and Palate Food + Wine. The Bazaar is the first restaurant to receive Bruni's "Outstanding Newcomer" tag. He mentions "ocassionally amateurish service" but other than that he is completely taken by Andres' brand of bold and playful molecular gastronomy, loving in particular the boiled potatoes, reimagined caprese salad and the liquid olives:

"As ambitious and sprawling and even phantasmagorical as the Bazaar by José Andrés is, it can be summed up in one $10 dish: a canapé, really.

I’m talking about olives. Then again, I’m not. The way Mr. Andrés serves them at this new restaurant, which opened four months ago, they’re more than that: a glimmer of new wave gastronomy, a glance backward toward culinary tradition and a commentary on what links the two. They’re the restaurant in miniature."

At Animal, Bruni discovers that pork is everywhere and uses the delightful word "carniwhore" (which I thought was solely employed to describe a vegetarian who sleeps with meat eaters):