robyn

Will you be driving on your swing to Atlanta/Charleston/Miami? If so - your on the road time would probably be best for good deals. If you think you'll be in the Jacksonville area (which you probably would be if you're driving) - give a holler and I'll try to come up with some good ideas (Jacksonville hasn't found a buffet concept it doesn't like - there are dozens and dozens of them - and some are pretty good). Robyn

Robyn...Affordable, good food doesn't have to be fattening. Lots of working class folks (like cops) can't afford going to places that are $50 and up per person. There are a great many small places with excellent and inexpensive food that are NOTHING like Golden Corral. Not to mention that Golden Corral hardly qualifies as "off the beaten path." I guess I don't understand the point of your post. Would you rather Chris' show focus on delicious, out-of-the-way, little-known, four-star, expensive restaurants with our-of-the-way, little-known celebrity chefs? ← *I* am not sure what the point of my post was - I have just spent 2 *very* long days recovering from a hard drive crash - I'm not sure what people who don't keep backups do. But - basically - from the perspective of the south - I don't think there are a whole lot of inexpensive (or expensive for that matter) out-of-the-way little known restaurants that are worth stopping your car for - much less a detour (after many too many disgusting meals - I've pretty much stopped trying to find them). That's just a fact of life given the proliferation of chains. And the chains - particularly those with buffets with lots of southern veggies - can be really good (fresh and simple). Just look at the parking lots. If they're crowded with locals - they're generally good. And - at such places - you can - more often than not - choose what you eat in terms of fattening/non-fattening (I wasn't kidding about Golden Corral - although it's not my favorite - it usually has a huge selection of veggies in all forms - and is certainly better than most of the sorry places that try to pass as "meat and threes" these days). By the way - I don't eat pizza - and I only eat a burger perhaps once every month or two at home. I guess if that's what people are looking for - they're pretty easy to find everywhere (although I think it's a waste of a trip to eat that stuff when you're on the road - especially in a place like the south which has distinctive regional cuisines). Robyn

Why don't you just go to Golden Corral? All you can eat - and the food is decent (especially southern veggies in the south). I go there when I'm on a veggie kick - although I avoid the fried stuff. You can get BBQ (all you can eat ribs for whatever numbers of dollars) in Charleston - and the rest of the south for that matter - but - since Charleston is a top food city in the south - and the US - it would be a shame to portray the city in that light. I'm not sure what the point of this show is. How to get fat on $10/day or less? When you get to the south - you'll see from the number of double and triple wides - especially among people of lesser means - that we don't need any more help in that department. I would respectfully suggest concentrating on quality as opposed to quantity. Robyn

Are there any dairy restaurants left in Manhattan these days? Robyn

Agreed. The one thing almost all of these places have in common is you don't have to change planes to get to them if you're traveling from a major metro area. Florida is a huge state population wise these days - but the only place mentioned is Miami. I suppose if someone who's never eaten Cuban food before eats at a hole in the wall Cuban place - they can say it's "off the beaten path". In the meantime - the "important" restaurants basically fail - because all that so-called foodies are interested in when they come to Miami are Cuban sandwiches and the like. To me - off the beaten path - in terms of metro areas - are places like Detroit - Minneapolis - San Jose - etc. And - obviously - there is lots of stuff that is really off the beaten path (but you have to get out of metro areas to get to them). Robyn

Grub - Thanks for your insights. We were only in Norway once - for a couple of weeks - but we enjoyed the country a lot. Robyn

Where did you hear/see that? I can't find any news of what you say anywhere. Robyn

I've never had fugu - and perhaps it is pretty good - but I suspect people make too much of a fetish about it. There is plenty of great Japanese food without fugu. So I wouldn't plan a trip around the "fugu season". We had some excellent unagi in Japan (particularly in Kyoto) - but I don't have the slightest idea whether or not it was wild. Different kinds of people like/can tolerate different climates. On my part - I can have unbearably hot humid weather staying at home in the summer. And I don't like northern winters. So spring and fall are the seasons I most like to travel in places like New York/Chicago/Tokyo/most of Europe/etc.. Your mileage may vary. Robyn P.S. Late summer is also hurricane season at home - and typhoon season in Japan. Don't want to travel too far at that time - and wind up worrying about storms at home - and storms in the places I'm visiting. Double whammy I'd rather avoid.

A lot of the things you describe are quite typical at higher end sushi restaurants in Japan (at least the ones we ate at). Sitting at the bar (the places we went to only had bars with very few seats - < 15). The quiet intensity of the chefs - and the patrons. The lack of desserts. The abrupt ending of the meal. This wasn't my favorite kind of eating in Japan - but it is very good - and very interesting. A food art as opposed to a social experience. I suggest that if someone is seriously interested in this kind of food - and has some time - that they take a trip to Japan. The food isn't cheap - but it is cheaper than in the US (I assume that a place like Masa is importing its fish from Japan - and - if it's like other places we've been to in the US/Canada that are importing fish from Japan - a large % of the cost of the product is probably transportation). In addition - Masa is probably paying big bucks for its location - and other things. The high end sushi restaurants we went to in Japan weren't paying top end rent (based on their size - they all had excellent locations) - and I don't think any paid anything for flowers . What you were buying was fish - and the skills of the chef. I assume that the quality of what we ate in Japan was the same or better than what's available in the US (even though you can get air transport of food from just about anywhere to the US in a very short period of time - you can eat fish that's bought in the market at 5 am at noon in Japan - and I don't think you can do that in the US). Also - we ate various things (fish and other seafood) that I've simply never seen anywhere in the US and probably would never see here (most likely because it doesn't travel well). One thing that I'm curious about. Do patrons at Masa use soy sauce - or wasabi? It is simply not done at high end sushi places in Japan. You eat the fish the way the chef serves it. Robyn

This is part of something I wrote elsewhere about our eating in Osaka. I wrote it in response to a question about dining in Osaka if one doesn't speak any Japanese. Of course - if you speak Japanese - eating anywhere won't be a problem. "We had 4 different dinner experiences in Osaka. First was street food at the cherry blossom festival. I recommend it for people who are in town then. Then we ate one night at the tempura restaurant at the hotel (Ritz Carlton). It's an intimate place (maybe 10 seats) and we were the only people dining there that evening (most of the hotel guests preferred the Japanese steak restaurant). It was excellent - but if you're not a hotel guest - you might want to try tempura elsewhere. No English spoken. No menu in English. We communicated with our limited Japanese and by means of a big English food dictionary the chef had (he used it to explain dishes to us). Another night we ate at a kushi-katsu (which is basically fried things) place - Mogami. It was a Friday night - and the place was wall-to-wall with office workers celebrating the end of the week. The interesting thing about this restaurant is that there's a fixed order of courses (total of 36 in all). Everything from prawn to asparagus to mushrooms to eel to pork to tofu. You name it - they fry it . And you can stop whenever you want. The more you eat - the more you pay. The menu is in English and Japanese - and there is a written restaurant description in English too. So - although I don't think that anyone at the restaurant spoke more than a word or two of English - and I didn't see any non-Japanese people the night we dined - this is an informal place where it is very easy to eat without speaking Japanese. It is also about as close to a "tourist restaurant" as we got. If you're not Japanese - they put a little flag from your country of origin at your table setting (we were the only people with flags ). Last - we went to a fairly new "French" kaiseki restaurant – Kawazoe. The chef/owner worked at a more famous restaurant – Kahala – where we were unable to get a reservation – so the concierge thought we would like this. And we did (although the only French thing about the meal was a lonely piece of French bread). There is a set menu – and it has been translated into English on a piece of paper. But that English is about all you're likely to find here unless – like us – you wind up seated next to a Japanese person who was educated at Oxford! Note that we did wind up in a few "non-English" restaurants where other patrons spoke various amounts of English - and the other patrons were always friendly and willing to help us. Again – this is a small place – perhaps 12 seats. By the way - if you go to the Osaka Aquarium (which we liked a lot) - there is a food market next door. And a section of that food market has a "street" which recreates parts of Osaka a while back (you have to look for the "street" behind restaurants like KFC). There are perhaps 6 nice inexpensive "plastic food" restaurants there. Poke around and I'm sure you'll have a good lunch (we did - Chinese dumplings)." The Osaka metro area has a population of about 8 million - about the population of New York. There is lots to eat and do - and 4 days hardly does it justice. August wouldn't be my first choice in terms of times to go there - but I'm sure if you go there then - you'll be able to eat well and find ways to get out of the heat. Only thing to keep in mind is that Osaka is more of a business city than a tourist city. We found there was little in the way of English spoken outside the hotel concierge desk. On the other hand - my husband's year of learning Japanese went a long way (because the people are extremely friendly and polite and willing to communicate in non-verbal ways). So I guess the issue is whether you want to do a big city - or a smaller city - or the countryside - or a bit of each. Robyn

I have only been to Norway once for a couple of weeks. And it has been a while. But the impression I got about food is that Norwegian thinking about food was very much defined by WWII. In WWII - as a result of blockades and the like - food was very scarce. And Norwegians decided they would never be dependent on food imports again - they would be self-sufficient. So they favor their local food producers through taxes and tariffs and the like - even though it is very expensive to produce most food in Norway (lack of agricultural land, short growing seasons, etc.). Of course - if the local food is expensive - the imported food is even more expensive. I cannot say this is an irrational national policy. At a minimum - it means that there are very few Norwegians who are overweight - who can afford enough food to get fat! By the way - we thought perhaps that food was only expensive at restaurants - but we went to supermarkets - and food was really expensive there too - one chicken breast for $4). And the only thing that is more expensive than food in Norway is "sin stuff" (alcohol - cigarettes - and the like). Perhaps someone who understands Norway better than I do - someone who lives there? - will correct me if my impressions are incorrect. Robyn

We spent 4 days in Osaka on our trip (in April) and loved it. Lots of things to see - and excellent food. That said - I took a look at the climate information in August - and it pretty much looks like our temperatures in Florida (average highs in the 90's)! So I am not sure how pleasant the city would be that time of year. Robyn

Here are the details of the Ritz Carlton Cooking Classic scheduled in August of this year. Robyn

One way to improve your sense of geography is to use the subway map in terms of orienting yourself. Most guidebooks will give you the closest subway stops to attractions/restaurants/etc. The better guides will tell you exactly which exit to use at a particular station. For what it's worth - I thought the subway system was fantastic - and we used it for most of our transportation in Tokyo. Robyn

A general (and possibly ignorant) question about tonkatsu. We didn't get to try it until we got to Kyoto - and there - we had it take-out from the Isetan food basement. It was very tasty - but aren't you basically talking about fried pieces of pork - where the difference between the best and the worst isn't huge (assuming you're starting with a decent piece of pork and dealing with places that know how to fry things)? For what it's worth - in the Isetan food basement - they made the stuff from "scratch" while we waited - and the hotel room was 5 minutes from Isetan - so we got to eat it hot and fresh. And just as a general comment to jhirshon - as a matter of personal preference - I always like to leave room on a trip to explore and discover things (even if I'm not the first to discover them - they will be a first for me). Perhaps not high end dinners in large cities where reservations are useful and frequently essential. But something. I think that a huge city like Tokyo very much lends itself to poking around. A large % of what exists there hasn't appeared in English language guides. So I think that if I were planning a trip - I wouldn't script everything (including every meal). Give yourself some room to find something new - "to slow down and smell the flowers" . Robyn

I was reading your message and I thought that you seemed to know a lot about restaurants before you went to them. Then I realized that you were simply copying restaurant reviews - like this one from The Economist: "Any argument over which restaurant in Tokyo serves the best tonkatsu—Japan’s beloved plate of deep-fried pork cutlet, rice and cabbage—should end with Maisen. The restaurant has made an obsession of perfecting a dish that is usually cooked quickly as standard daily grub. The secret to Maisen’s success is that cutlets can be doused in one of three tangy sauces brewed on the premises. Our favourite is a fruity concoction served with the house special, a delicious cutlet made from kurobuta, a black hog from Kagoshima. This large, crowded restaurant is tucked away in a converted old bath-house off the main Omotesando drag. Be prepared to wait at least 20 minutes for a table and expect to sit on the floor. If you hit the weekend rush and the queue seems too daunting, buy one of the superb tonkatsu sandwiches from the Maisen stand outside the restaurant." I'd like to know what *you* think of the restaurants you eat at after you eat at them - not what restaurant reviews written by third parties say. Robyn

It is difficult to find fresh local seafood everywhere in Florida - including Miami. Not only at markets but in restaurants too. Last summer I got so desparate I tried to catch my own pompano at the local pier. Other people got pompano - but all I got was a hammerhead shark . The only consolation here in northeast Florida is we have a local shrimp fleet out of Mayport - so fresh local shrimp are plentiful, good and relatively inexpensive in season. Robyn

Perhaps the main difference is that traditional kaiseki is basically vegetarian with perhaps a small amount of fish. A typical dish we had was grilled bamboo tips (unfortunately - no butter no salt). It was interesting cuisine - but I was very ready for a rich dessert when the meal was completed (and had to go elsewhere to get it!). Robyn

By the same token - one could say that eating at a traditional Japanese kaiseki restaurant wouldn't satisfy the usual western notion of a "meal". It is very ascetic food presented in a very exquisite manner - many fewer calories per dollar than you'd get in the west. But is that any reason to say it isn't a real meal? Robyn

There are sillier things than that. Scott Peacock's place as a nomination for the best place in the southeast? He isn't even in the top 5 in Atlanta. But he did take care of that nice old senile Edna Lewis (a relationship that everyone at the NYT gushed pages about - even though her relatives - and many ordinary people like me - thought the whole situation unseemly). Perhaps you know - how do the people at the Beard Foundation pick the people who pick the places that are nominees/winners? Robyn

Well of course it's a New York bias. Even when you evaluate the categories outside New York - the nominated restaurants are where people from New York go when they travel. New Orleans is "in" these days - Florida is never in (except perhaps for South Beach - where almost everyone agrees the food isn't very good - and the only other places people from New York go to are where their parents live - like Broward County - where even ok food is hard to find). That's why you almost never see a southeast best restaurant nominee/winner from Florida these days - even though we're by far the largest state in the south - and there are some very nice places once you get off the beaten New Yorker tourist path. Or - in other parts of the US outside NY - a fair number of nominees are simply 10 years out of date. It's kind of a shame - because - in my experience - there are really excellent restaurants outside NY that could use the prestige of a nomination/win to avoid losing their chefs - or going out of business (my favorite example these days is Mosaico in Miami - perhaps the best restaurant in Miami in recent years - which recently lost its excellent chef - Jordi Valles). In any event - it looks like we'll have some free time around the 4th of July (my dad is going to visit my brother) - and we're thinking of taking advantage and taking a little trip to New York. Haven't really kept up on what's happening in New York in terms of higher end dining the last couple of years. If we're looking for one really nice meal at a newer restaurant we haven't been to - are you all kind of "cool" when it comes to the Modern? If you are - what would be relatively new and more exciting? I am particularly interested in places that have a "sense" of New York (when I travel - I like to dine at restaurants that capture the essence of a place). Robyn

P.S. We are having our first big rain/thunderstorm of the season tonight. Feels great - is washing all of the spring pollen out of the air. So perhaps you won't have any problems at all. This is just kind of normal - dry spring - then the beginnings of the rainy season - then the rainy season. We had bad drought/horrible fires in 1998-1999 - but things have been pretty normal since then (dry spring - then the rains come). Robyn

Let me know a day or so before you're ready to leave Key West - and I'll let you know what things look like. Robyn

Wildfires have forced the closure of large parts of I-95 in central Florida on and off for the last several days. When will you be leaving Key West? Robyn

I moved from Miami (Coconut Grove) about 10 years ago - but I stay in touch with people there. If my information is out of date - I hope others will correct me. Our "workhorse" for a general supermarket was Publix. There is one right near Brickell - another on 27th Avenue - and many elsewhere. But I always liked the one way down south around 136th Street and Dixie Highway. Bigger - newer - cleaner. Would make a run there every 10 days or 2 weeks or so. In terms of a more gourmet market - I always liked Scotty's in Coconut Grove. It has since been bought by and is named Gardner's. Can't speak for it now. Another gourmet market is Epicure on Miami Beach. Try both and see which you like best. Both were (are?) very good for meat - sometimes fish. If you have some time to kill - some of the best fish you can get is off the charter boats when they come into the Key Biscayne marina. A special treat in Miami is Laurenzo's Italian market in North Miami Beach. Fresh pasta - sauces - other home made goodies in addition to a large selection of all manner of Italian groceries (it's a really big place). Well worth a trip every couple of weeks if you like Italian groceries. One place we liked to eat at on Brickell - and do takeout from - was Deli Lane. No big deal - but always fresh and tasty. I'm sure that more has popped up in Miami since we left (Whole Foods is there now - but the closest is currently in Aventura - an awful drive from Brickell - 2 more are supposed to open closer to you soon). Robyn