Today's Dining section of the Times stars food critic Frank Bruni's review of room service during a week spent in hotels. There are questions, and there are answers. There are answers that look like questions. There are also significant references to Bruni-hating chef Jeffrey Chodorow, which remind us that the chef is implicated in the McNally-Gansevoort Meatpacking wars. We retreated into the warm confusion of a group IM chat to get to the bottom of it all.

Rhymes with Story HELLO?
Rhymes with Memily YES
Rhymes with Story SEXTACULAR! Where's BALK.
Rhymes with MemilyHe is late to the party AS USU
[BALK BTW has joined this chat.]
Rhymes with Memily Oh hey, we were just talking about you!
BALK BTW What'd I miss?
Rhymes with Memily We talked about your body hair.
Rhymes with Story Oddly true.
BALK BTW It is lush and plentiful.
Rhymes with Memily You're clearly overcompensating for something. But is Frank Bruni?
BALK BTW (Nice transition, Em!)
Rhymes with Memily I could like host a chat show!
Rhymes with Story You sort of do, with your boyfriend Greg Gutfeld!
Rhymes with Memily YOUR GAY BOYFRIEND you mean.
BALK BTW You guys lemme know when you're ready to work.
Rhymes with Story OMG I wish. I love them stumpy and aggressive. Fucking Balk. Sorry.
Rhymes with Memily Speaking of stumpy! TRANSITIONING!
BALK BTW Yes. Bruni. You've got to love a guy who can get a week's worth of high-end hotels in his hometown paid for by Sulzberger. He's like a gay young Johnny Apple!
Rhymes with Story No one got more out of the Sulzbergers than Mr. Apple, God bless him.
Rhymes with Memily Young? Well, compared to Johnny Apple.
Rhymes with Story But I was going to ask a dull question followed by a less dull one: Is Bruni trying to destroy the New York Times or save it? Or is he just fucking with all of us at this point?
Rhymes with Memily I am going with c.
Rhymes with Story Okay, because most importantly, he drops that paragraph in. Which is PURE FUCKING-WITH: "The restaurant Ono, owned by Jeffrey Chodorow, supervises in-room dining for the Hotel Gansevoort in the meatpacking district." Stop, paragraph break, moving on!
Rhymes with Memily I would like to thank him for connecting those dots.
BALK BTW Maybe he's reaching out, trying to affect a rapprochement. I mean, Chodorow hasn't blogged in ages. Maybe they've patched things up!
Rhymes with Story Do you think they're steaking it up together?
BALK BTW Swordplay.
Rhymes with Memily GAH.
Rhymes with Story HEY NOW.
Rhymes with Memily I don't know what I've stumbled into here! I thought we would be discussing, like, why he made such a huge deal of determining whether everyone had eggs benedict on the menu and then said you should never order it! That was crazy.
Rhymes with Story Right? How does that help ME, the reader, who is also the sort of person who so frequently ends up in hotel rooms on bleary mornings?
BALK BTW It's a weird blend of servicey-meets-Frank's patented single-entrendre review: "But the stranger in my room at the London NYC hotel on a recent night had my full attention, because he was doing something I wasn't at all accustomed to. He was crawling across the floor and under the coffee table." I mean, COME ON.
Rhymes with Memily Yes. Fucking With Us.
Rhymes with Story That's half an entendre.
Rhymes with Memily I feel like the whole dining section has been fucking with us lately! Like that Caffe Falai shout out.
Rhymes with Story THAT was too close to home. Or at least, too close to our office.
BALK BTW Well, Lockhart has a contract to be mentioned either explicitly or obliquely in at least one NYT section every month.
Rhymes with Memily It's flattering but a little creepy, like getting fan mail from midwestern strangers who are like "I saw yall on Fox News and you sure are purty, don't tell my wife!"
BALK BTW But that's neither here nor there. There's one of these in almost every paragraph: "The food will arrive at the most inopportune moment, e.g., when you've just decided to try on the odd leopard-print robe hanging in the bathroom at the Muse Hotel in Midtown."
Rhymes with Memily YES YES.
Rhymes with Story I would like to hear the rest of the "e.g."s. This is a randy version of Metro Diary meets maybe Penthouse. Gay-house?
Rhymes with Story When he dresses up as his socialite alternate personality.
Rhymes with Memily Let's talk about the next Murphy's Law though. I have a question about it and the question is: What? "The breakfast card will demonstrate a chameleon's ability to blend into its backdrop."
Rhymes with Story That confused me a bit too. Bruni could take some advice from Nick Denton, like the thing that just arrived in our inboxes! I quote in full: "readers like lists, short intros — duh"
BALK BTW Why can't Frank make lists?
Rhymes with Memily Because lists don't lend themselves to his signature florid stylee.
BALK BTW No STYLEE. STOP SAYING STYLEE.
Rhymes with Memily A spinach omelet was "like biting into an eggy lawn."
Rhymes with Story Wait did he really say that? That's kind of insane.
BALK BTW The thing about what he does is that it makes you read into EVERY SENTENCE. "Kyle, less patiently, behind a veil of smoke: 'Um, I'm searing the beef.'"
Rhymes with Memily Poor fat cherubic Kyle!
Rhymes with Story The horrors they must have put him through.
Rhymes with Memily Also, by whose standards is that a "tiny" kitchen?
BALK BTW "a human pest unwilling to accept the fact that there wasn't enough room in the kitchenette, or a convenient vantage point, for a hyper-inquisitive observer."
Rhymes with Memily Kyle is a magic little man made of dough!
BALK BTW I just picture Bruni getting in and all close and stuff, whispering those questions.
Rhymes with Memily And Kyle is all "Um!"
BALK BTW I love the look of fear on his face.
Rhymes with Memily I think J. Chodorow should be happy! His miso had a "bewitching perfume."
Rhymes with Story Kyle's job is like one step safer than Meatpacking Whore, as far as going into gay-infested hotel rooms for a living.
Rhymes with Memily Kyle could totally have faced the other way to bend over and put that pan into the oven but he was not taking any chances.
Rhymes with Story You guys are homophones or whatever they call it.
Rhymes with Story Why can't Chodorow blog? Is he trying to run a bunch of businesses or something?
BALK BTW I think he realized he's got all the publicity he's going to get out of it.
Rhymes with Story Gasp! You think this anti-Bruni campaign of his is BASE!
BALK BTW OMG, flashback! Bruni's review of ONO: "It is not uncommon to encounter obsequious service in fine Manhattan dining establishments.
But Ono, a new Japanese-ish restaurant in the Hotel Gansevoort, introduced three friends and me to something we do not typically see: a server who crawled around on her hands and knees."
Rhymes with Memily !!!!
Rhymes with Story WHOA. So Frank IS used to this. AND IS NOW LYING.
Rhymes with Memily See the boots of shiny shiny leather.
Rhymes with Story lajsdf;lasdjfals;d
BALK BTW Well, the server at Ono was a woman, so maybe...
Rhymes with Memily You're being overly generous, Alex.
Rhymes with Memily Now go make a list!
Rhymes with Story READERS LIKE LISTS! DUH!
BALK BTW "A gigantic tuna steak arrived with a pool of wasabi b rnaise that I would gladly wade into again and again." And he did!
Rhymes with Memily It reminds me of Super Sloppy Double Dare.
Rhymes with Story I guess this is all Gael Greene's fault or something.
BALK BTW Can we just post lists for the rest of the day?
Rhymes with Story I insist!
Rhymes with Story So it sounds to me that even the Bruni haters among us are sort of intrigued/aroused by the Great Hotel Stunt of 2007.
Rhymes with Memily Totally aroused.
BALK BTW It's just so long!
Rhymes with Story Everyone says everything is "so long" now. Once something hits 1100 words, everyone suddenly panics. It's the curse of our time. He had Seven Sexy Nights to cover!
Rhymes with Memily Soon we will all just communicate in little teenager abbreviations
Rhymes with Story ROTFL.
BALK BTW I was making a dick joke!
Rhymes with Memily Oh, right, long like a dick. Haha!
Rhymes with Story Ohhhhh. Confuse me with your innuendo why don't you! I'm coming over there to wade in your sauces RIGHT NOW.
Rhymes with Memily Whatever, all food writing is full of porny descriptions.
BALK BTW "With your personal chef comes your personal server, whose path from kitchenette to table is no more than eight feet and whose sole visual and aural focus is you. He's omnipresent and ineluctable, sort of like Will Ferrell."
Rhymes with Memily Top 10 Uses Of The Word Inelecutable.
BALK BTW "while Kyle's ministrations weren't easily monitored." Actually, it sounds like he was MONITORING THE FUCK out of them.
Rhymes with Story Yeah, this was poor Kyle's Room 101. Rats in the face and stuff.
BALK BTW So who is this piece for? The New Yorker who happens to wind up in many local hotel rooms with a hankering for eggs benedict?
Rhymes with Story Who hankers? The only thing I expect when I wake up in a hotel room is 20 bucks for a cab.
Rhymes with Memily Yes. But a word of warning: "Hollandaise sauce doesn't travel well, turning gluey en route."
BALK BTW Stop.
Rhymes with Story YES. THIS CONVERSATION IS OVER.

Meals by Elevator, With The Touch Of A Chef [NYT]