creepygirl

Thanks, all. Lots of choices to try out. I can add one data point, which is that Old Mill 7 Grain bread is too dry for sandwiches, but makes excellent toast.

Thanks to everyone who responded. We'll probably go with Epicurean Edge to save the postage, since the results were close. Looking forward to chopping food without a struggle!

Is it possible that it is not the pure MSG that causes headaches, but an impurity or byproduct in the MSG products that are used as food additives? I don't have any reaction to MSG that I'm aware of, so I don't have a dog in this hunt, so to speak.

Looking for a nice whole wheat or multigrain bread for sandwiches, not the artisanal stuff. What I like is something that's not too sweet and fluffy, but not cardboard-y, either. Any suggestions?

Have some knives that are starting to lose their edge. Where's a good place to get them sharpened?

Udupi Palace in Bellevue Crossroads (which is NOT the food court place, which I think is called Bite of India) serves dosas as well.

But sometimes the customer doesn't know that a question needs to be asked. To use an extreme example, a few years ago, I ordered "Grilled Pineapple Cake" at a restaurant. It turned out to be basically a pineapple muffin that had been deep-fried. It never in a million years would have occurred to me to ask my server, "By the way, is the pineapple cake deep-fried?" A heads up from my server would have been appreciated; I would have ordered something else. I've had a dining acquaintance get upset that the albacore sandwich he ordered at an upscale restaurant was a big slab of fish on bread; it never occurred to him that a tuna sandwich would be anything but canned tuna mixed with mayo. What seems obvious to eGulleteers may be less so to other diners. I think the most frustrating situation for me in Seattle and elsewhere is getting "You don't want that," from a server, and not being able to get an explanation why, due to language barriers. If it's because that item isn't really fresh, I appreciate the intervention. If it's just because it's spicy or some other culinary reason, I'm much less appreciative. Unfortunately, when I'm unable to ascertain the reason for "you don't want that," it's really hard to decide whether I'm being given fair warning of something I really won't like or just an obstruction to something delicious.

I like the place a lot, but don't think it's worth a trip to Phoenix on its own. Honestly, I enjoy the antipasto plate more than the pizzas. I'm a little saddened by Steingarten's proclamation. People already have HUGE expectations for the pizza because of the wait time for the restaurant and the hype it received prior to Steingarten's article. It makes it all that much harder for people to enjoy the place on its own merits, rather than in comparison with high expectations.

I think the problem is that some "forms of building a good rapport with interpersonal communications" that work for some people are genuinely annoying for others. The touching thing, for example. I know lots of people like touching, and I am not doubting that it works on lots of people. However, I find it unpleasant to be touched, other than say, a handshake, by people I don't know well. I will endure it in social relationships to avoid hurt feelings. Getting it from someone who is trying to sell me something is grounds is incredibly annoying. It not only fails to put me at ease, but it makes me uncomfortable. Fortunately, it hasn't been much of a problem for me lately, perhaps I've gotten good at avoiding restaurants that insist that their servers engage in this kind of behavior, or I'm getting better at giving off "Touch me without permission and you will earn my enmity for a lifetime" vibe to servers.

I have the same distaste for drinking alcoholic beverages. I love cooking with them, though. It's embarrassing because it's a huge category (while I have other dislikes, they're generally fairly specific.) Plus I know that lots of restaurants make their money off alcohol, so I feel like a cheapskate when I go out to restaurants. Also, when a restaurants have special wine-pairing dinners, often the food sounds great, but the wine would just be wasted on me. -cg

Boyfriend and I went to Zoe for the first time last night with some friends. Loved the ambience and the music there. Had a nice little amuse of bruschetta with Moroccan-flavored chickpeas. My grilled octopus appetizer was terrific, perfectly tender and seasoned. Halibut entree was also very good. Had a few bites of the goat cheese tart and the sea scallops, which boyfriend ordered, and was pleased that the scallops were cooked through without being overdone. The goat cheese tart in particular made me sorry I wasn't living here in May when Zoe had its cheese 5-course dinner. The only disappointment for me was dessert. I think I'm giving up on ordering chocolate cake in restaurants, because I keep getting disappointed by them. The flourless chocolate cake was like a brownie in chocolate flavor. Boyfriend heroically traded desserts with me; his ice cream sandwich with mocha ice cream was delicious, if unwieldly. The freebie chocolate truffles were much closer to the chocolate intensity I wanted in the cake. We both liked this place a lot, and will be glad to return.

That's undoubtedly true. Unfortunately, the crummy food is attached to a gathering involving family members and friends of family members who have repeatedly proved themselves incapable of responding rationally to a suggestion that a change in the menu be made, or to someone's absence from the grand event. I'm rather fond of some of them, so I've pretty much decided that Thanksgiving is just another day for me, I will put up with mediocre food and some lousy company, since it clearly means a lot more to other people than it does to me. I can eat well any other day of the year without hurting someone's feelings. Perhaps my moving 1600 miles away this year will be sufficient excuse from attending the event, and I'll be able to do things that please myself, instead. I'm gathering up ideas for the day. Jalapeno stuffing sounds great.

This may cause dieticians and others to detest me, but I managed to lose 60 pounds by counting calories strictly 6 days a week, and having one day a week where I ate whatever I wanted to, plus a couple days each month of visiting my boyfriend in Seattle and eating whatever I wanted to there. I exercised a lot, too. Being able to indulge periodically kept me sane, so I don't really care whether some dietician thinks I shouldn't do it, or that I would have lost the weight faster without indulging. I think the major issue for me is eating mindfully, and savoring my food. When I do that I don't stuff myself. When I get stressed out and eat reflexively is when the relapses occur. As for special occasions, I may be the only person who doesn't count Thanksgiving as a special occasion to eat a lot. The food just isn't worth it, IMO. Turkey is a bland meat, the people who cook the vegetables at the meal don't cook them very well, the stuffing is from a mix, I think pumpkin pie, even when done well, is just barely edible; I'd rather indulge in food that gives me more enjoyment than that. Fortunately, the Thanksgiving I go to has a lot of people and no one will give me grief about eating small portions of the food.

I think it's up to the individual to decide whether it's worth eating something that doesn't taste good to him/her 99 times on the chance that the 100th time will be the one that works. Especially since life is short, and there may be many, many other good things to eat. For example, I don't care for foie gras. I don't like the flavor and I find the richness cloying. I've had it 6 times or so, with different preparation methods, and I haven't come close to liking it. I am not going to order it 94 more times just to see if someone manages to make it suit my palate. What's the point when there are numerous choices of foods (many of which are less expensive and less fattening than foie gras) that I have not found uniformly unpleasant 6 times in a row? I've been pleasantly surprised on some occasions by excellent preparations of foods that I tend to dislike, so I try to keep an open mind (especially when the food preparer is one who has earned my trust), but I see no virtue in repeatedly butting my head up against some of my food dislikes. If I end up missing out on some great food by my cost benefit analysis, well, that's my problem, not the cook's/chef's.

Thanks for all the great ideas. Though it seems hard for me to process at the moment, I'll be able to try some of them in less than two weeks.

My mother is helping me tremendously as I prepare to move this month, including driving up with me. I am trying to think of something special to buy her in Seattle, something that would be hard to get elsewhere. One problem is that she's on a moderately low-fat diet (not as austere as Ornish, thank goodness), so while she loves chocolates as much as I do, a huge box of locally-made truffles would probably not be the most thoughtful choice. She and my father have tons of smoked salmon, so that wouldn't be a good idea. Any thoughts?

If there aren't any price or caloric limits, the Sunday brunch at the Terrace Dining Room at The Phoenician was pretty lavish and amazing when I went a couple years ago. This is the sort of place that will have prime rib, lamb, seafood, and all sorts of breakfast stations, as well as a whole room devoted to desserts. I was quite pleased with my recent visit to Barrio Cafe a few days ago. The cuisine could best be described as "idiosyncratic Mexican." They're open for lunch, but don't take reservations. Pizzeria Bianco is a terrific place if you can get there early (like before it opens at 5 p.m.) or if you have the patience to wait 45 to 90 minutes for a table (another no reservations place, unless you have a party of 6 or more). The pizza gets most of the raves, but the spiedini appetizer and the antipasto plate are the things I crave the most. Fanatical attention to locally-grown, fresh ingredients are the hallmark of this place. They don't serve lunch, but have a small, very limited (3 sandwiches on the menu, plus one special) sister restaurant called Pane Bianco. A couple of places that I love, which may not be "destination restaurants" but simply produce lots of tasty food consistently are Havana Cafe in Phoenix and Cafe Istanbul in Tempe. Both of these are places where you can order anything off the menu and know that it will be good, which is more than can be said about a lot of high-end places. Havana Cafe is Cuban, Cafe Istanbul Lebanese. Both places open for lunch, and both places have generous portions. For local dives, one that I've just discovered thanks to some other food lovers is El Tlacoyo. Service is leisurely (bordering on nonexistent), but their tortas are terrific. On Saturdays and Sundays they serve lamb, which is very very good. I've eaten there alone and felt perfectly comfortable. I don't know anything about antiquing--hopefully someone else can help you with that. Hope you have a lovely trip, and be sure to let us know the culinary highlights.

(Also posted on another forum) I entertained an out of town guest (my boyfriend) for a long weekend last week, and this is where and what we ate: Thursday night we hit Barrio Cafe. I'd been wanting to go for ages, but the no-reservations policy and reports of the place being crowded scared me off, as I'm usually dining alone or with very impatient dining companions. We got there shortly after it opened, and were relieved that there were plenty of tables. I may just go back there by myself after work sometime. We shared a queso fundido appetizer (gooey and addictive). Boyfriend had the cochinita pibil, which was very tender. I had the tamarind-chipotle duck, and the combination of the succulent meat and the spicy/slightly sweet sauce was so good, I ate twice as much as I needed to. We finished up with crepes with cajeta, goat milk caramel, ice cream, a few berries, and some amazingly-flavored candied cinnamon-y nuts. This was the best dessert either of us has had in a while. The candied nuts alone had more of a flavor punch than a lot of restaurants have in any of their desserts. Total bill was about $55. We were very pleased with the place, and I'm kicking myself for not trying to go there earlier. Friday morning we met a friend at the Eggery in Phoenix for breakfast. This was a choice based mostly on convenience of location. I had some pancakes, the boyfriend and friend had Southwestern-y egg dishes. Honestly, I don't think I'd be all that enthused about much of anything after the dinner I'd had the night before. We just enjoyed the company. Friday afternoon I had a seminar to attend, so I stopped by Pane Bianco for a sandwich. The market sandwich (dried beef) didn't appeal, so I got the tuna and arugula sandwich, which had a nice tang to it. Friday night, the boyfriend had a boys night out, and I had leftover cochinita pibil for dinner. Not quite as good as the night before, but still plenty tasty. Saturday was my birthday. We had an early lunch at Cyclo. We started off with salt and pepper shrimp on toast (tasty, but a bit soggy with tons of sauce), and the tamarind and basil pork short ribs, which were terrific. Loved the licoricey-flavor contrast with the fatty goodness of the ribs. We got Hanoi beef (beef with Vietnamese pickes and rice noodles, some assembly required) and mixed grill, which included a nicely flavored pork chop on broken rice. This was way too much food for us, but oh so delicious. Then I insisted on going to Angel Sweet for gelato. I had the straciatella (love the contrast between the neutral, unsweetened base and the chocolate) and the hazelnut. Boyfriend had peanut butter, and a strongly-flavored panna cotta, which he said overwhelmed the flavor of the peanut butter. I really love the smoothness of the ice cream--much better than other, snootier gelato places I've been. After quite a few hours' recovery time, we went to Gregory's with my parents for the farewell tour. We started off sharing escargot and mushrooms in phyllo packages with a pesto sauce. This was my first taste of escargot, and I really couldn't tell what I thought of them--the phyllo and the mushrooms and the pesto were so good, just about anything would taste good with them. We all got salads of some sort. I had a green salad with duck prosciutto, which was tender and flavorful. Boyfriend had fresh mozzarella and tomatoes, and the mozzarella was fabulous. For entrees, I got flatiron steak with sort of Asian-y seasonings and a tempura-fried nori-wrapped rice thingy. Boyfriend got a Middle-Eastern flavored chicken and couscous entree. We switched plates halfway through. The steak was terrific, but the tempura-rice thingy was disappointing. I've been spoiled by the sushi places in Seattle doing wonderfully inventive and decadent things with tempura rolls, so nori wrapped around ball of rice with carrots and bell peppers is not that exciting, flavor-wise. The chicken was a bit bland, but the couscous were great. We thought if you put the steak together with the couscous, you'd have a pretty fine plate. My parents both had lamb dishes, which they enjoyed. For dessert I got the pot-de-creme/creme brulee combination dessert, which wasn't quite as stunning the second time around, but was still very, very good. Boyfriend had a bread pudding that he liked, and Mom had a lemon tart that she said was very good. Dad poached off everyone else's plate. I'm sad that the restaurant couldn't make it (especially when places with far inferior food are inexplicably wildly popular), but I hope that Gregory gets to do what he wants at T. Cook's, and brings some new energy to that place. On Sunday we met a few friends for lunch at Efes Turkish Cuisine in Tempe. We sat in the pillowed area with little tables, which is a lot nicer than the area with ordinary tables and chairs. I was disappointed to find that the bread, which was freshly made on my first visit (and terrific), was now clearly purchased-and-reheated pita bread. Aside from that disappointment, the food was good. I got some spicy ground lamb dish (not kefta), which was nicely spiced and not dried out. Boyfriend and I decided to go to Marble Slab for ice cream afterwards. We both got ice cream with peanut butter mixed in, which is a pretty decadent experience. I think I prefer the lighter ice cream at Angel Sweet, but this is pretty good, too. After that, our long hedonistic eating weekend came to an end. It was fun while it lasted.

I'm going to offer a dissenting view: I don't find the expression of strong opinions to be always interesting. When political discussions arise at the dinners I've gone to, it's always been the same people arguing the same issues and the same points that I've heard over and over and over again, both in real life and on the internet. It bores me. Now if the strong opinions were about something new (The political situation in Finland rather than Iraq, for example), I'd be interested. But the people who insist on rehashing the same tired arguments are louder and more persistent than the people who attempt to discuss something more interesting, so the loud arguers always dominate the dinner conversation. I wouldn't dare impose my conversational preferences on anyone else, but if a group were to mutually agree to have dinner be a politics-free zone, I'd be happy with that. YMMV.

Food: "Mexican" food that includes all of the fattening ingredients, none of the flavor. Stale chips with ketchup-like "salsa". Cheese crisp with salty fatty flavorless cheese. Rice and beans that clearly came out of a box. Chicken taco salad with iceberg lettuce, no salad dressing, only sour cream and guacamole (the quality of which matches the other ingredients). Delivered by waitstaff that clearly doesn't want to be there. Dining companions going on and on about what a lousy movie "Jersey Girl" was, how they'll never see another Ben Affleck film again because there was so much sex talk in it (I'm no fan of his, don't plan to see the movie, but think it would make much more sense to boycott the writer and director who have much more control over what goes into the movie than the actor does. Or is figuring out who they were too much work for them?) Oh, wait, that was my coworker's birthday lunch this afternoon. Hopefully this was the last trip to this particular establishment.

I'm sorry to hear that. The Phoenix contingent here is very small, so getting two or three people raving about a place is often times a majority. I will add my most recent raves about the place. Went a few weeks ago with some folks from a different forum, we ordered all of the pizzas (except the cheeseless tomato one) plus an antipasto platter and spiedini (prosciutto wrapped around fontina cheese on a skewer and baked). The Wiseguy (salami and olive) and the arugula pizza were particularly good that evening. The spiedini wasn't quite as amazing as it has been in the past (when the cheese is just melty, it's amazing) but still good. The antipasto plate was filled with wonderful perfectly-cooked veggies as usual, plus a terrific spicy broccoli gratin. Dessert was a blood orange Italian ice that was the perfect balance between sweet and tart.

For Thai, I've only been there once, but I really liked Swaddee in Scottsdale. We had a really good seafood soup there, and I had dish with basil leaves and chicken, I think, that was wonderful. Hmm . . . I was planning on trying out Song Hau for Vietnamese this weekend, but maybe a repeat visit to Swaddee is in order.

You're far from alone in disliking Schaffenberger. To me it has excessively fruity and sharp overtones. I've read lots of chocolate snobs who don't care for it either. My favorite dark chocolate is Guittard. I first tasted it when I was given a couple of boxes of Garrison Confections chocolates, which were sublime. I also like milk chocolate, but I draw the line at white chocolate--it has to have some chocolate liquor to get my interest.

It's been two and half months since skyflyer3 reported these problems with service at Noodle Boat. Has anyone been there recently to see if The Curse of the Good Review has been lifted yet? I'll be visiting Seattle in 10 days, and I'd like to check this place out, so long as they're not overwhelmed.

Love: Alton Brown. Like the technical/science discussions of food and equipment. Hate: Sandra Lee. However annoying some of the other folks can be, at least they're making real food.