Closed Table: The Art of Making Ko Reservations

I'm keeping tabs on the Momofuku Ko reservation success: casualty rate. So far it's 2:1 of my friends. My co-workers KatAttack and MellowYellow have both succeeded, while TheDude failed on his first attempt. Better luck next time, Dude!

I have yet to eat at Momofuku Ko (momofuku is Japanese for lucky peach). I don't know much about it except that there are 12 tables, you can only reserve a table online and that David Chang (its founder) has banned photos from being taken inside. If somebody invited me to go with them, I wouldn't turn them down, but I just haven't been all that excited about it. Mostly because I know Chang's success stemmed from his Noodle Bar and I am not a fan of ramen.

Until now.

Upon doing some research on Chang, I've developed a virtual chef crush. If you haven't read this profile piece in The New Yorker, read it now. The guy says "dude" more than Swimster (maybe it's a Korean-American thing), he is roughly 30 years old, he's won as many awards as Michael Phelps has medals, when asked about naming a restaurant David Chang's he said he'd "rather f**ing off himself" and he cried after his dinner at Per Se. He sounds like someone I'd be really good friends with.

After hearing relentless chatter from my co-workers about it -- off the hook IMs about their every waking moment on the Web site -- I asked for a write-up about the game of Ko.


MellowYellow reports:

David Chang's Ko (of Momofuku Noodle Bar and Ssam fame) is probably one of the most sought out reservations for NYC foodies (even BruniBaby struggled to get in). Having heard the buzz from friends and co-workers, I decided to give it a try.

The first time I tried making Ko reservations was the morning of July 5. I was hanging out with a buddy and we entertained the idea of getting reservations for that weekend. We figured most people would be out of town.

We sat in front of the computer at 9:55 a.m., where we proceeded to hit the refresh button for five minutes. 9:59:59 came around and we luckily clicked our way through to the actual page where you pick what time you want. We smiled as we saw a couple of green checks still available. We clicked on a random time that had a green check, but we were already too late. The reservations to our surprise and dismay filled up in less than a minute.

After coming so close to getting the reservations, I decided I would designate 9:55 to 10:00 a.m. everyday until I got the reservations. This desire to get reservations to a small 12-seat restaurant became an obsession of mine and nothing would come in my way of getting that reservation, not even waking up hungover with four hours of sleep would stop me. (That's my boy, MellowYellow!)

After weeks of trying both from home on weekends and from the office on weekdays, I realized the weekends were the best time for me to get a reservation since our network at the office was way too slow to get me in on time. After working every possible variation I could think of, I realized that the key was to cut down on the number of clicks you make with your keyboard and mouse, which in turn meant more time in the actual reservation page.

Finally last Saturday I tried out my new technique and to my surprise I got reservations.

With my reservations locked and set I decided I would push my luck and try to get reservations the following morning and have two consecutive days at Ko. I scored reservations again. Landing two consecutive nights at one of the most coveted and talked about restaurants in the city gave me a sense of cockiness. I decided I would push my luck even further and see how many days I could pull off.

Monday rolled around and as usual I set out the five minutes before 10 to prep for my reservation. I didn't get it. Surely it was the failed network at the office that stopped me from gaining elite status as being one of the only people to eat at Ko three days in a row.

On Tuesday again I get into my routine, but this time I was greeted with a nice surprise. In lower case red lettering on the bottom of my page was the image you see at the top of this post. I have officially been blacklisted from Ko for seven days! I guess I pissed off the Ko machine.

I'm not sure what did it -- it was either canceling one of my reservations or trying to go for more than two in one week that got me a little slap on the wrist from my friends at Ko.

I tried again on Wednesday to double check if I was making this up. I realized every new day you try to get a reservation after you have been temporarily blacklisted you reset the counter and start another seven days.

We will see if all my work pays off this weekend when I finally get to taste the food. If all goes well, and I am allowed by Ko to get out of my timeout corner, I will go for the gold and aim for the super 4-top reservation.

I've enjoyed MellowYellow's Ko-thusiasm. I look forward to hearing how his dinner is, and then maybe I too will be duking it out with him at 9:55 a.m. for reservations. Stay tuned.