Fat Guy

Absolutely not! I would be willing to bet that if you took a survey of Italian-American restaurants in America, or even on the Northeastern Seaboard, at least 75% of them are either incorporating grating cheese into the dish or offering grating cheese at the table to go with the dish. I'm not saying that "cheese with seafood" reflects my own preferences and practices, or that it reflects those of more recent Italian immigrant culture. But I do think it reflects the reality of most mainstream assimilated Italian-American cooking. ← I agree that cheese is often used, and also I've tasted white clam sauces that seemed to be thickened and given a richer color with things like heavy cream, butter, eggs and even what was probably canned clam chowder. These sauces can actually be pretty good if made with mild proportions of such ingredients.

The Barbone version also has pancetta. I'd classify it as upscale-contemporary (though not expensive), which is to say it's good but it's not what John is thinking of when he thinks of linguine with clams from his childhood in Brooklyn. The Italian-American version is one of those dishes that has evolved its own worthy identity.

It's certainly possible that any given restaurant is violating the labor laws, however one should not always just take such accusations at face value. For one thing, disgruntled staff will often make accusations to the media that can't be substantiated in actual investigation, as a form of retaliation for a perceived slight or even just because they're resentful that an under-performing restaurant isn't providing them with enough tip income. So we'll have to wait and see what turns out to have happened. For another thing, most high-end restaurants use pooling arrangements. It's not as though servers keep 100% of their tips at any restaurant. They have to share with hosts, bartenders, bussers and others. The complication arises when the tips are shared with managers. Under the labor laws, only employees who are customarily tipped can share in the tip pool. Therefore, it would be illegal to include the restaurant's owner, or a sous chef, in the tip pool. At the same time, there are some "managers" who occupy a gray area, for example hosts and sommeliers can be thought of as managers, but in a non-union shop, it's not necessarily a bright-line division between labor and management. Based on the story, we have no idea of the appropriateness of the sharing arrangement.

The only restaurant example of linguine with white clam sauce that I've had in the past few years that lived up to the standards of 1970s-1980s Brooklyn-Queens Italian-American restaurants was at Don Peppe in Queens (135-58 Lefferts Blvd., Jamaica, NY, 718.845.7587). I just don't think most restaurants bother to do the dish well anymore. There are some upscale contemporary places that do nice versions, but that's not the same.

It's Atlanta-speak for "Inside the Perimeter."

Possible methods of enforcement range from honor system to death penalty.

Tony's exceeded expectations and provided an entirely pleasant meal and dining experience. Not that expectations were high, and not that it was a fabulous meal, but Tony's does a good job with family-style Italian-American fare. The veal saltimbocca was a really good example, and most of the other stuff was quite good for what it was. The linguine with clams dish was probably my least favorite. While it was topped with lots of fresh clams and was an amazingly generous portion, there was little in the way of an actual coherent clam sauce, and the seasoning was weak.

You know, it might be interesting to do an improved version of Eater's Bruni Betting feature. Rather than guess how many start Bruni will give to a restaurant, we could do more of a blind tasting. In other words, strip the review of its star rating, send it to a few people, and have them try to intuit how many stars the restaurant actually got.

That's another one that had escaped my notice.

There's a 1991 New York Times story that mentions "the Ben-Mohas, a father-and-son team that runs three Crystal Gourmet fast-food restaurants in Manhattan. They came to New York from Montreal, where they operate delicatessens under the name Ben-Ash." Another story, in 1996, refers to "Jake's Steakhouse, 1155 Third Avenue (67th Street), owned by Sam Ben Moha, who owns Ben Ash Delicatessen on Seventh Avenue and 54th Street."

I think the high turnover theory is valid at all these places, but there's one caveat: there's a certain point at which they start pushing too hard to cook as many dumplings as possible, so you get dumplings that are kind of limp and that don't fully develop their flavor. So it's more of a bell curve than a rising line of quality. There's some point of high, but not too high, turnover that's ideal for fried dumplings. I don't think I was aware of Prosperity Dumpling. I'll have to check it out. Tasty Dumpling was pretty tasty when I tried it early one evening while waiting around to meet some people, but that was my only sample.

When Fried Dumpling on Mosco opened, New York Magazine reported:

With such divergent opinions on the shoes-off issue -- from those who find a shoes-off request barbaric to entire cultures that find wearing street shoes in a person's home to be barbaric -- it seems difficult even to approach the issue. I get the sense, however, that Americans are adopting off-shoes policies in their homes in increasing numbers (does everyone agree here?), so there really should be some generally accepted rules and expectations. I mean, nobody is offended by the request in Japan, right? One issue for me is the formality of the event. For example, if people are coming over in nice clothes for some big event, I agree with wlg that shoes are an integral part of the attire and it would be a bit much to ask for shoes off. But that sort of event -- where men are wearing coats, no less ties -- happens maybe once a year in my home. Every other time we have people over it's jeans, tee-shirts and other Gen-X-appropriate casual attire. And I just don't feel that Merrell, Timberland and New Balance are essential to "adult attire and behavior." There's also an urban issue here: people in a place like New York put hundreds of street miles on their shoes every year. It's not like in the typical suburb where people are just walking from indoor space to car to indoor space most of the time. The city is much more like jsmith's vision. And in most any modern home, we're talking about an open or accessible kitchen where the guests are going to hang out. I'm just not eager to have people tracking potentially bacteria-laden street grime through the kitchen, when there's food preparation going on in there. In a restaurant they can hose down the kitchen floor twice a day, but that's not how it works in the home.

Finally found the info on that book. It's called The $100 Hamburger: A Guide to Pilots' Favorite Fly-In Restaurants, by John F. Purner. There was a huge story about it in the Wall Street Journal a few years back. It has gone through a few editions, and the pilot community contributes frequent updates.

It's really hard to know for sure, but it sounds like your number one problem is that the meat is dried out. So what I'd probably do in your situation is stop cooking for now and refrigerate everything overnight. Then, I'd reheat everything the next day completely submerged in liquid (be it stock, sauce, whatever). This tends to moisten the meat significantly. This technique has worked for me to salvage many a dry brisket and short rib.

As far as I know, the Mosco Street place is the second branch of Fried Dumpling (the original branch of which is, I think, the one on Allen). I think it's good, but I've always preferred the one on Allen (see above for phone number). If you're at the courts, however, Mosco Street will do.

In many cases, I do discard it, for a few reasons: First, it's often unhygienic, like when the salume are just hanging around unwrapped and being handled by lots of people. It's not like fruit where you can wash it off under running water (at least I don't think you should). I'll only eat the casing if it has been wrapped or if it comes directly from the aging room and I trust the handling. Second, it often tastes bad -- lots of off and weird flavors. Fra'Mani salume casings, however, have a terrific, clean, pure flavor. They just have superior control over their production process. Third, the texture of most casings is too tough and chewy. I don't want to be eating the equivalent of plastic wrap. The Fra'Mani casings, however, don't get caught in your teeth -- they're barely noticeable except as a vehicle for the bloom.

Now that the five-for-a-dollar dumpling phenomenon has become firmly entrenched and widely imitated in Chinatown, I thought it might be useful to consolidate our knowledge and opinions in a single, current topic. The first of these places that I ever found was Fried Dumpling on Allen Street (99 Allen Street just off Delancey Street, 212.941.9975 not that there's any point in calling). That was in 1999. We were wandering around Chinatown with a friend from out of town and Ellen spied the "Fried Dumpling" sign -- they had opened a few days beforehand. I was going to keep on walking but Ellen and our friend said we had to try it. The dumplings were terrific: hand-made on premises, rustic, sweet, meaty, fresh and laced with plenty of chives. I think, if I'm not mistaken, the dumplings were originally six for a dollar -- at least that's what Eric Asimov later reported in the Times. A few years later, maybe in 2003, Eddie Schoenfeld introduced me to Dumpling House on Eldridge (118 Eldridge Street, Between Grand and Broome Streets, 212.625.8008 not that there's any point in calling). I wouldn't necessarily say the dumplings at Dumpling House are better than those at Fried Dumpling -- indeed I think the best five-for-a-dollar dumplings may be Fried Dumpling's dumplings, when you get them right out of the pan, on a good day. Dumpling House, however, has more consistently excellent dumplings, and has thus earned more of my business lately. Dumpling House also has a somewhat more extensive set of offerings, including a wonderful cold braised beef sandwich with pickled carrots and hot sauce on a sesame-scallion bread-like pancake, for $1.50. (Fried Dumpling also has these pancakes, and they are a bit better than at Dumpling House, but they only come plain not as a beef sandwich.) There are quite a few other such places, and it would be great to get a list going, with comments. Today I stumbled across a place I'd never seen or heard of. We were going to dinner at New Green Bo but all the parking in that part of Chinatown was screwed up for some reason -- there were inscrutable white paper signs up on every lamppost, indicating that we'd get towed if we parked there. Even though a million cars were parked there in defiance of the signs, we tend to be the one car that gets towed or ticketed in such scenarios, so we drove way the heck out by the bridge to park. Anyway, on the hike back towards Bayard, we walked past Sweet Spring Restaurant at 25A Catherine Street (212.766.1777 not that there's . . .). It seemed to be a slightly more ambitious, spacious version of a five-for-a-dollar dumpling place. Actually, it seems the dumplings were $1.25 for five, but that they scaled back the price to a dollar in order to mark the trend -- you can see where it was crossed out. The menu has 47 items, and even discounting the items that are the same as the items before and after there are quite a few different things. There are several varieties of dumplings, buns, soups, and a bunch of Fuzhou stuff like "Special Fujainese Ball & Rice Noodle Soup." Also "Salted Dough Soup," whatever that is. Most items run $1 to $2.50, though there are some 50-cent things and one $4.25 splurge (the aforementioned ball soup). I checked Sweet Spring Restaurant online and didn't find much of interest, though I'm sure the place has been there for a year or more (there was no way to get information out of them). I'll go for a full menu sampling at some point. Has anybody else been?

I'll happily incorporate by reference Mr. Parsons's comments.

FFB, to me that's an outmoded distinction. I think the web has shattered whatever old rules distinguished amateur and professional writing. At this point, unless you use the old Olympics system -- "If it's for money, it's professional" -- you're not going to get very far with distinctions based on quality and accountability. There's less quality and accountability in a lot of print publications that pay money than there is at a lot of unpaid online publications. There are also plenty of "professional" blogs, where editing is minimal.

I finally got hold of a Fra’Mani Salametto, and took a few photos. This is the way it’s wrapped: I purchased this particular specimen at Fairway in New York City. It costs just under $20 a pound. The individual pieces tend to run about three quarters of a pound. It’s a luxury, but I’ll eat this a few slices at a time for well over a week. Here’s the unwrapped piece: Finally, here’s what it looks like sliced: The flavor of this product is incredible. The white bloom on the outside contributes almost a bleu-cheese-like quality to the overall taste, the texture of the meat is soft, creamy and gelatinous, and while there are distinct large chunks of fat it’s also the case that there are smaller bits of fat running throughout, giving a very even texture and taste. Most of all, the taste is pure and clean -- there are no off flavors of any kind that I could detect, a problem that, to some degree or another, affects most other salume I've had.

It also doesn't hurt, when you go to a restaurant at this level, to bring a printout of the eG Forums topic, point to Doc's photos, and say "I want a meal like this one."

Somebody actually did a restaurant guidebook targeted at private pilots, however I can't recall the title and my Google skills have failed me.

I wish!

I've never tested how many I can eat, but I typically order eight. I'm actually not sure I've ever had more or less than eight. Certainly, I could eat many more than eight. Whether I'd survive the experience is a different matter entirely.