ghostrider

Last night we dined at a relatively new Peruvian restaurant in NYC, called Taste Of Lima. Ran a search of eG to see if anyone else had mentioned it & turned up this thread. Great food. We'll be back.

We have a "vintage" Kenmore gas range with a genuine pull-out broiler drawer. It's still darned annoying. I almost never use it because spatter goes all over & it's just a complete bore to crawl around on your knees trying to clean the thing. Even though it has an adjustable-height broiling pan, I find it impossible to get the pan far enough away from the flame to be useful. My few attempts at broling with this contraption have resulted either in a nicely seared exterior and undercooked interior, or a dismally charred exterior that overwhelms the properly cooked interior. The design just doesn't offer enough control, is my conclusion. If your oven is like mine, it will take at least a minute before the oven/broiler burner lights from the pilot once you switch it on. After that you will need some time for pre-heating, depending on ambient temperatures. (This is less important for the broiler than it is for the oven, of course.)

I mentioned this in a local NJ thread but maybe it's germane here: all season, my local Whole Foods has been using Jersey Fresh corn as an apparent loss leader, consistently undercutting the farmers' market prices by anywhere from 10 cents to 35 cents per ear. They are also selling Jersey Fresh peaches at 50 cents a pound less than the farmers' market. ("Jersey Fresh" is a designation meaning grown in-state - perhaps that's self-explanatory.) I suppose I could use these numbers as ammunition for haggling but I don't. The goods still look more freshly picked, and the peaches riper, at the farmers' market. I think that's worth the price differential.

Just back from Richfield. Lots of field tomatoes, no heirlooms. They have had all white corn this week, which has been very good, but not quite as exquisite as the bicolor variety that they had last week. No more green beans at either Richfield or the R'ford market today. I fear that the season is beginning to wane. But there are still plenty of fine peaches and tomatoes around, and they will be savored.

I have dim memories of having a variety of corn called Golden Bantam on the Cape during family vacations some five decades ago. (I'm almost certain that it was the Cape but I may be confusing my East Coast vacation locations.) It was such a thing at that time that it was actually listed by that name on some restaurant menus. If you have any Golden Bantam sightings this week, please post!

I agree. I've had it in amatriciana preparations at a couple of restaurants, and one of them, to my taste, used way too much of the stuff; the richness of the dish came close to making me ill and I had to stop eating it. A shame to have that happen with what is normally one of my favorite dishes. I'd thought that I should like the guanciale, but it's too rich for me. I prefer the pancetta.

I don't think that the laws of economics have broken down. The farmer will maintain his price if he sells enough $3 tomatoes, or eventually lower it if no customers bite. And if the lower price doesn't cover his costs in raising those particular tomatoes, you probably won't see them next year. A # of farmers at markets & stands in my area have posted quantity discount prices. I think the net effect of that is to discourage haggling. I'm wondering whether haggling for farm goods is less common in the northeast than in other areas of the US.

They do have tomatoes but I've gone right past them, been buying them at the R'ford market. I'll try to look more closely next time I'm out at Richfield. Interestingly, Whole Foods seems to be using Jersey Fresh corn as a loss leader this season, with prices vaccillating between 25 and 40 cents an ear. I haven't tried it.

Montclair has its own Turkish place, Lalezar. There's a thread somewhere. Varrelman's is still going strong, but closed for vacation till, I believe, 8/28, so don't hurry over. Odd and annoying - I'd give anything for a decent Indian restaurant! There isn't even a lousy one within striking distance.

I would argue that it was meaningful. It tells us something of who this chef is: someone who will use a trite profanity in a feeble attempt to beef up an even more trite phrase, and who would probably be better advised to shut the f--- up and get back to cooking.

Was there any analysis of why sales dropped? (For that matter, any statement of just how much? I'm curious as to how significant the drop was.) I would expect that you'd get 3 distinct groups of people contributing to the sales loss: - those who are actually counting calories, or looking at other nutritional factors, & simply order less when they patronize an RT - those who find having nutritional info on a menu annoying & decide not to return - those who suspect that the chain may have done something wrong & is being forced to atone by printing nutritional info, & decide not to return due to the perceived taint. An interesting phenomenon. Most nights dining out, I would be irritated to find nutritional info on my menu; but if I'm on the road & have to eat at a fast food place, I would wish for the info at that point.

I forgot about Richfield Farms! Thanks! ← I can say that, based on eating mass quantities of both, this week the corn at Richfield is (a) better than that at the Farmers' Mkt and (b) unquestionably the best we've had this year. Get it while you can.

I think it's a natural human impulse to say that we know where "the best" can be found and that we've been there. It makes us feel that we haven't missed out on something special in this life, that we've experienced something of profound quality and it doesn't matter how well heeled or well travelled we are, we still managed to get that bit right. Personally, being smarter than your average bear , and knowing full well that there may be something better around the next bend, I'm try always to qualify my pronouncements with "the best so far."

"You see, Watson, but you do not observe." Montclar - my error, the Moroccan place has had its colorful awning up for a couple of weeks now, & its name is Marrakech. Rutherford - place has a sign up now, Enginar, which seems to be Turkish for arrtichoke. Nice touch there.

Montclair - there is a Moroccan place being installed in the space that used to house Taste Of Asia, on Bloomfield Ave. opposite Whole Foods/Starbucks. Rutherford - a Turkish place is being installed on Park Ave. a couple doors south of Varrelmans Bakery. Neither of these restaurants-to-be have actual names up yet.

I have yet to see any organic milk in the supermarkets in my corner of Jersey. Either there's a huge market here waiting to be tapped, or the organic mega-merchants have already done focus groups, concluded that there are too many brain-damaged shoppers from years of exposure to Jersey toxins, and written us off as impervious to organic marketing. Time will tell, I suppose.

← That line just jumped out & smacked me in the face. Who writes this stuff? But since the impact is more sociological than it is food-related, I'll say no more.

Made another Caprese last night. My gosh but the tomatoes are good right now.

If I ever found produce at my local farmers' market that's as variously underripe, old, limp and/or tasteless as it is at my local supermarket, then I would haggle if there were a markup over supermarket prices. I can't haggle with the cashier at the supermarket. Why would I expect to do a deal with the farmer who is selling a superior product at a reasonable price?

I just read that House Of Wong was cited for Best Chinese in St Louis in "Sauce," the local weekly food newspaper. (Not clear if this is a readers' poll or critics' choice.) They're also right there in Clayton, across the street from Il Vicino. We never really looked at them because we eat so much Chinese food here in Jersey.

Is Maggiano's Little Italy yet another chain? I drove past one on a highway outside St. Louis last week & wondered what the heck it was, I thought something about it looked too stylized for it to be a local establishment.

Lovely post there on Mr. Bourillot. I have quoted these two comments in particular because they remind me of a meal we recently had in a bar in St. Louis. Just a typical bar meal, but I really enjoyed the experience of eating there as well as the food. I realized afterwards that it was because the very young (to me, rapidly approaching 60) staff, while they may have dressed in cutoff jeans & T-shiirts, as one might expect in a St. Louis bar in August, seemed to know both of these points instinctively. That kind of hospitality, of course, is good business practice too. Next time I'm in that area and I need a quick late-night meal, I'll go back to Barristers rather than searching for someplace else.

I'm coming on this thread way too late for the originator, but, having just returned from StL, I will add another plug for Clayton, where we have stayed at least half a dozen times in recent years. You won't find the absolute best of anyything there, with the possible exception of tapas at BARcelona, which is always mobbed, but you will find that "walkable 'hood" you're after, with a # of good restaurants and bars in a small area. India's Rasoi (for Indian) and Il Vicino (pizza from a wood-fired oven) are our favorites. Barrister's offers solid value if you want some good basic bar food. (I love their wilted spinach.) Clayton is also just a very short drive from Forest Park, which has The Boathouse (average food, great views & ambience), and the Delmar Loop, which has more good food (Thai Country Cafe, Blueberry Hill for burgers, a Lebanese place whose name escapes me), as well as a solid candidate for that elusive best bookstore (Subterranean Books). I don't believe that the Delmar Loop offers any lodging; I think there are some decent options in the Central West End, from what I recall of my last Net search for such. Clayton is a better option for us, though, for non-food-related reasons, so we've stuck with it and enjoyed what we've found there.

If you're referring to the blueberries that were on sale, I assumed that the annoying discount card (which was required for the 99-cent blueberry sale at S&S) restricted that. I figured the computer system would remember my card and not allow me more than two discounts that week. Maybe I'm wrong. ← I've lost track of which chain we're discussing, but at ShopRite, for one, the computer system doesn't do that. There is the per-transaction limit, but you can go back as often as you want while a sale is on & get the discount every time. I haven't tried it twice in one day, but I've often done it several times during a week-long sale.

All I know is that the above-mentioned LP Steamers seems like more of a "pure" crab place. Here's their website. Doesn't seem far from Inner Harbor. But I'm just an out-of-towner, haven't been to either place yet, think they both sound intriguing.