ghostrider

I know they are open seven days a week for lunch and dinner, beyond that I don't know. I had the pork platter and the baklava today. Both really, really good. Fink ← Thanks. We tend to be late diners so that's really what I was after. I'll call them. This place definitely sounds like my idea of "destination dining."

Does anyone know what hours Taste of Greece keeps? If not, I'll call when the urge for an excursion strikes.

I was lucky enough to have crossed the Atlantic on the SS France in 1969, when it was still the SS France. Memories are dim at this point, but I know it was nothing like the cruise ships of today.

Interesting responses. I like the one above the best, it embodies all of the reasons I've always felt that I SHOULD like pickles. Lord knows I've tried, many times over the years. But it just doesn't work. I like the crunch, but the acidity just annoys me. Maybe I have too many acidity receptors on my tongue. A pickle-loving friend of mine liked his oil-&-vinegar mixtures much more vinegary than I could ever tolerate - and I do love oil & vinegar, but I seem to have my own sense of what constitutes a proper balance of flavors. So it goes. At least there are more pickles for the rest of you with me in the world!

In another thread, some folks opined that they'd prefer a pickle to a salad as an accompaniment to a sandwich. Me, I just don't get it. What's a pickle good for? What does it do for you? I've tried all kinds of pickles all my life - sweet pickles, dill pickles, big pickles, little pickles, jarred pickles, barrel pickles, cheap pickles, pickles from NYC's best kosher delis, cornichons, capers (I know, technically these may not be pickles, but I consider them to be in the same family). In spite of what I've said, rather facetiously, in other threads, I don't actively hate them; I simply find them completely pointless. I don't find that they add anything to the taste experience I'm having that makes them worth the time & effort it takes to chew them. Yet they remain popular. Can any pickle lovers put into words just what it is that makes you love 'em? I know that I'm probably a hopeless case, but I'd still like to try to understand what the attraction is, at least intellectually, even if I'll never "get it" on a visceral level.

Taste-wise, I agree that's a better option. But then is it really coleslaw? I guess I have to start a new thread if I really want an answer.

How'd I miss this thread? Anyway, I would want the salad - something fresh & crunchy to contrast with the cheese. Another good choice is described below. To my taste, coleslaw would not work; I love slaw in certain contexts, but here the notion of a mayo dressing alongside the cheese verges on nauseating. (This may be an idiosyncratic reaction but that's how it strikes me.) I detest pickles so I'd hate to see a pickle replace the salad. It seems that you're fated to have a certain % of customers who simply don't want anything fresh & crunchy outside the confines of their sandwiches. I can't think of what to do with them at the moment, beyond Owen's suggestion above. Edited to add: Ooops, somehow I scrolled past this last crucial comment: Oh well, you're never gonna please everyone. Spicy is good though.

This is exactly how I learned the word some years ago, & why I never forgot it. Gotta love dictionaries. (OT I know.) I too am curious about Whole Foods, particularly since, for reasons of location, they are my fish market of choice by default.

Castleton First Flushes are my personal favorite. Usually pricey, but I've never had regrets, wherever I've bought it. I'm sure that Upton's is sterling. I forget whether I've tried theirs. In the early 1990s, before the days of Net commerce, when good tea was hard to find in these parts, I used to bring back a suitase full of the stuff (not only Castleton) from Buder's Tea Parlor in St. Moritz, Switzerland. On one trip, on re-entering the US at JFK, the customs agent who inspected my bags turned out to have been a tea taster for the American Tea Council. He was as surprised as I was to find a fellow tea fanatic in those circumstances. We had a brief but quite nice discussion of Darjeeling & Assam tea gardens. Sorry for wandering off on another tangent, but you just sparked a flood of memories with that question.

Gretchen may be lethal on the culprits - I sincerely hope that she is - but in the meantime I'm finding her a hoot to read: Gets my nomination for Tautology Of The Year. I'd love to see her give some examples of stores properly baiting their customers.

I would prefer Option A, assuming that portions are moderately sized. I like a balanced meal. If there's a sauce, I like a bit of rice, or something complementary, to sop it up. I sometimes fall victim to the eyes-bigger-than-stomach syndrome, & if I order an appetizer, often cannot finish the entree + sides if they prove to be oversized, & therefore tend to leave some of the sides. This makes me wonder if a high % of your guests who leave the sides have ordered appetizers.

These days, it's a gallon of gas. That'll take me 30 miles up the road. That's something. "Only $2" may be trivial pocket change in NYC but it has a little more significance in my present lifestyle just 8 miles across the Hudson. I'm gonna think carefully aboiut where it winds up every time. I love New York, but it runs on its own scale.

That certainly piques my interest. I guess that flavor is pretty much ubiquitous, since even Lombardi's has it, as noted above? I was going to ask for recommendations, but if it comes from the water, then I'd do well with any of the places mentioned in this thread. Carry on.

Saw it! The rehab staff loved it too! How did you get ABC to follow the segment with one of those "3 A Day - Consume More Dairy!" ads? That was an uncanny juxtaposition.

They're renovating a building for a new location around the corner, in the old Express store on Chestnut. I'm reasonably certain it'll be more than twice as large, and I wouldn't doubt 3+ times as large. ← Thanks! Making notes now for next trip to Philly. This is essential information.

Not to mention the excitement generated by some of Glenn's amazing sounding sandwiches! ← Obviously I'm going to have to be devious with the staff & not tell them about the content of the story I'm interested in! Though I expect the Pope's condition to dominate the news today. I almost hope that they postpone Glenn's segment.

It airs tomorrow (4/1) between 5pm and 6pm. They taped today (after dragging me out from hiding under the table.) From what I understand, they'll be showing portions of the interviews (with the chef, customers and me) as well as the cooking scenes throughout the broadcast and they also might be doing some live stuff. All I can say is I'm glad it's over, though Lauren was nice as pie. ← Fab. I'm usually in cardiac rehab 5-6, & they usually have the exercise room sets tuned to Ch 7. If they don't, I'll make sure they do!

Speaking of DiBruno's: Took a peek at the new Rittenhouse location taking shape a couple of nights back on my way home from the all-night CVS @ 19th and Chestnut. This place is going to be dynamite when it opens, judging from the work in progress. Who needs Dean & DeLuca? ← ??? Where's the new Rittenhouse location? We'd gotten our food at the Pronto on 19th. Are they building another in the same area?

Is that legal? Would the health department be concerned if they knew? ← Oh jeez, I've let the rabbit out of the bag. Well it's hardly a secret. Have you been to Hard Grove? The floor is covered with dirt & straw. It's a funky place to begin with.

When I commented in another thread on calculating tips pre-tax rather than post-tax, I got jumped for being a cheapskate, since the difference generally amounts to only a buck or two, unless you are doing truly fine dining. Which I rarely do. I'm not saying that to imply that anyone here who asked that question is a cheapskate. I still do the math pre-tax because I'd read some decades ago in the New York Times that that's how you do it. Old habits are hard to break. Anyway, it's rare that I leave less than 25% on the pre-tax, so I guess it all works out. You have to do something actively to tick me off to get less than that 25%. You may well get a bit more. BTW, instead of doubling various taxes to arrive at 16.5% or whatever, how hard is it to multiply the total by two & move the decimal point to get 20%? Then round up or down, add or subtract dollars, etc., according to the quality of service.

We were at the Dali Exhibition at the Phila. Museum of Art last week. In perusing the museum's pamphlet of current installations, one on "Libations: Wine & Tea in East Asia" naturally caught my eye. (Overview right here.) We had to check it out. Although there was a preponderance of wine vessels, they also had an interesting collection of teapots. Many were made from pewter, which immediately brought this thread to mind. There was a particularly interesting pewter "traveller's teapot," made in China in 1873, which came with a tapered cylindrical infuser, a nice little pewter bowl for measuring the tea leaves which would rest inside the infuser on journey, and a top to hold the assembly in place. A lovely design in its simplicity & practicality; I surely would have had one if I'd been around then. According to the installation's notes, the most prized material for teapots was Yixing Clay, which fires to a deep orange shade, because repeated use somehow seasons the clay, eventually enabling it to produce a superior-tasting infusion. They had several examples of Yixing pots, including one with a clay lining that had been clad with pewter molded with an intricate deslgn. If you're reading this thread, you'll probably find that the installation makes a nice little detour if you happen to be seeing the Dali.

Was chatting with some NYC friends earlier today, turned out they'd been to Rangoon some years ago & enjoyed it too. I'm starting to wonder if I caught them on a night when their regular cook was indisposed or something. Stuff happens.

We wound up going to Hard Grove on Grove St. in Jersey City, which seems to have good Cuban food - I'm no expert but I liked it. They had chickens & ducks & rabbits running around the place for the occasion, it was very farmlike & festive!

Those last two photos are the perfect farewell to the season. When I'm eating the frozen stuff at a county fair this summer, I'll remember these months & this thread. It's nice to know more than I did about how those guys get from the ocean to my mouth. There was a seafood vendor at the Windsor Fair last September that fried up some of the best Maine shrimp I've ever had, given that it had been frozen. I forget their name, but they'd won first prize for best food at the 2003 Fryeburg Fair & advertise that fact prominently. They're also the only place I've seen at a fair where you can watch your order go through the whole process - the flouring, the dipping, the rolling in bread crumbs & the frying - everything was set up on tables under a tent, & they had the whole method down to perfection. Hpefully another encounter with these folks lies ahead. For now, it's goodbye fresh shrimp & hello Spring.

Fell for DiBruno Pronto in a nanosecond. A selection of their salads made for a great meal on our train ride home last night. Their dishes for reheating looked terrific. One of those amenities that make every aspect of a trip to Philly rewarding.