Short version - “Sergio” is a metaphor. It means the head chef was in the house.
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I got to know him well while working down there .Sergio Penuelas .Thanks to Westsidegal .
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Bless your heart! I - yes, I, was embarrassed to ask.
But honestly if one even notices such a thing - meaning the quality of the meal - doesn’t that tell you something?
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Yes. Thus the phrase “call first to make sure Sergio is cooking”
Nah. My point is pretty opposite. If the absence of Sergio causes a decline in the quality of the food then there’s a problem with the restaurant. Shouldn’t it be the same?
Shouldn’t what be the same? The food?
The food and the service. IMO one shouldn’t know that “Sergio” isn’t there.
All fine in theory, but it doesn’t always seem to work that way in practice.
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Forgive my ignorance. I’m not much of a chef chaser. Occasionally I get excited about a particular chef opening a place. But mostly I don’t know the who, why or where of a place. That’s what I have you folks for. 
Anyway, I thought Momofoku is supposed to be the yummiest restaurant of Chang’s to go to in NYC? But I’m looking at his restaurant list and the only one is in Vegas. Was there ever just a stand alone Momofuku in NYC or was it always Momofuku Noodle Bar, etc, etc.?
In NYC, there’s Momofuku Ko, Momofuku Ssam Bar, Momofuku Noodle Bar, Ma Peche…I could be forgetting one or two…and Momofuku Milk Bar is part of the empire.
A few years ago, we hit up Ssam Bar for snacks and drinks and that was fun, but we had dinner elsewhere. I’m thinking it was fun because we were out with my chef cousin and he knew the folks there.
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Think of Momofuku as a brand name/Maker of a car like Honda. There are different models within a brand so you have the Civic (Noodle Bar), Acord (Ssam Bar), NSX (Ko), etc…
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Before going to Majordomo I had never tasted David Chang’s food - other than downloading a couple of Momofuku recipes that caught my eye. I loved Lucky Peach magazine. 
One of my pet peeves is chefs from other cities who look down on L.A. but are now catching a whiff of the success and wanting in. A lot of them don’t seem to bring much more than their superiority with them. They don’t do the research or immerse themselves in L.A. food culture or I don’t know what. But they crash and burn. Chef Chang said at one time - an L.A. chef’s idea of creativity is just to “put a fig on it”. That’s fine. He can say that all he wants, because when he came here he nailed it. He obviously explored, researched, immersed himself in the culture and seems to have genuine affection for the city. Or he’s just a genius. I don’t know about that part. But he’s extremely talented and imo he out L.A.’d L.A.
I 
Majordomo!
Okay, got it. These conglomerates and multi-concept spaces sometimes confuse me. Trying to decipher what everyone was talking about on The Manufactory thread was giving me a headache.
Good one.
Yup. In Sergio’s case - Sergio Penuelas - he has a number of skills and techniques that are at a high level; the collection of which typically isn’t found in one individual.
Like many food cultures throughout the world, specialists are the standard. Mexican cuisine is no exception. I wish @westsidegal would explain as she is the one who probably know Sergio better than most and from which the “Sergio” qualifier sincerely originated.
Setting aside the Sergio v. Coni issue, seafood is no easy area of food to master. The temperamental, fickle and delicate nature of seafood allows for a smaller margin of error. Mastering various aspects is a combination of tireless effort, prowess, mastery of ingredients and techniques, and knowledge passed on from generations of evolution. Specialists ply their craft by choosing specific dishes and categories like ceviches, camerons ,planchas, etc. Being competent in one or two of these categories or even specific dishes is not uncommon. Developing a reputation for excelling in a dish or even category is more rare. Mastering a broad number of dishes is very uncommon. I am sure Mexico is blessed with a generous sprinkling of those who have mastered a broad number of dishes, most likely defined by their region. Still, specialists are the rule. So for SoCal to be blessed with a chef who can offer a fair amount of a region’s seafood gamut at a high level is rare. Think baseball. If a team has a player that can pitch, hit and field all at a professional level, this is very rare. Sr. Penuelas is one of those rarities.
So yeah, one can wag fingers in a theoretical discussion. But the reality is, without understanding the complexities that can influence real outcomes beyond something truly simple in nature (with the “Sergio effect” being one small example), the truth evades those who think most issues to be so simple.
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Really true.
Had these Habanero Beef Potato Chips on the train today. They were actually 
!
Complemented my sandwich quite well.
Gratuitous shot of Mt Fuji from the “dining car”. 
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What town?