Daniel

Besides Mario Batalli's ability to be at the forefront of the culinary world, is it possible those airated orange clogs that he is synonymous with are about to be New Yorks next Ugg? I am sitting at my desk today in a pair of the more comfortable shoes i own.. Actually, they are second only to the other pair of the same brand shoes, except these are black and those are bright orange.. I am talking about my Crocs , A foamy airy all purpose shoe, that looks rather space agey. I have recently started seeing them all over Manhattan and have said to myself, these things are ugly enough to be trendy.. After looking at the price tag of 20 bucks, I couldnt resist so i bought two pair. Today is my first day wearing these things and my feet could not be happier. Thank you Mario!

Essa bagel is good.. Its my favorite bagel place. I lived a half a block away from one for a couple of years. Had terrific over sized crispy and chewy bagels always hot, excellent creamy white fish salad.. Certainly pass on the pickled lox.. Believe it or not the soy cream with a whole wheat bagel was a great combo.

R.I.P Gino's... How i loved thee as a child.. Werent they hooked up with KFC or had the same logo somehow.. I still think i have a gino paper hat from me being like 5..

I would say that the Hospital cafeteria at Temple makes better cheesesteaks than either Geno's or Pat's. ← Now you are just being ridiculous..

White castle also had something really cool.. I dont know if this carried true for all of them ,but on Bell Blvd in Queens New York there was a White Castle Radio Station.. You could set your radio to an AM setting and you could here white castle propaganda.. It was a really novel idea.

Its interesting to see the different ways they have invented to serve us without us having to do any sort of moving.. From people delivering food on skates, drive-thrus, delivering to the home, to the grand finale of a timed delivery.. Fast food wont be happy until they have police like substations positioned throughout residential neighborhoods... I think the next possible step would be for McDonalds to have food trucks driving around and parking on your drive way or outside your office.. That might be the next idea... I also love Taco Bells commercials where they brag about how full they get you on a dollar.. The last Taco Bell i went to was to watch three of my stoned friends have a hundred taco eating contest 12 years ago.. Just the thought of being really really full from something they made, is really gross to me..

I would tell you to go to Barney's Greengrass.. Its a great place to try a Deli Fish Breakfast, Appetizing... I would get a sturgeon platter with bagels and salmon Heads and Wings broiled with onions with a couple everything bagels.. Awesome!

This list has lost all credibility by putting Spice Market on their list.. I wouldnt even say its one of the top 30 restaurants in New York..

I have been to Neo twice.. My thoughts on Neo are.. Extremely cramped and uncomfortable seating and dinning. Forgetfull food, memorable prices.

All i know is.. Not only does this man hold the answer to pizza, but life as well... And thanks to watching him pull his pizzas out of the oven bare handed, obstatrician like, my fingertips will never be the same... A peel is for putting pizzas into an oven..Recognize

I have never been there.. My girl lives around the corner so I go there to shop... It seems unbelievable to me that they cant pull together a quality meal with all the options they have so readily available... But i take everyones suggestions to heart... Its so wierd that they wouldnt make this place a model of all the "possibilites" Fairway can offer and bang out the butters... Its plain stoopid.

ok.. The stars are comming together.. We have Mr. Perlow setting the standard.. We have alton brown devoting a show to the gyro in the next couple of days... We might have to make this a cook off event..

Made a gorgeous candied field green salad.. With obvious infusion of tight strands of safrron.. "Sauce on Side "It went extremely well with the leg of lamb..

Sorry no pics this time.. Made the truffles last weekend The sichuan and the dark on dark.. They came out great. I didnt have sichuan pepper corns, so i used thai chili peppers.. They came out really great! Were very spicy.

Just went back to Portugal BBQ. Its located on 207 Clak PL. Elizabeth NJ.. I must tell you.. They have the best chicken sandwich i have ever had.. It churrasqueira style. You get a huge portugese subroll with load with chicken lettuce tomato and french fries for 5 bucks..

A customer of mine just gave me a case of kiwis..I really dont like to eat fruit, was hoping there was something i could cook or bake with it..

So last nights plan was, start at Mesa Grill for appetizers and head to Bar Americain for dinner.. Our Bobby Flay Crawl started because we were both in the area of Mesa Grill early and were only able to get a 9 o'clock at Bar AmericainI. We showed up at Mesa Grill and had a couple of the Pear Margiratas.. They were really unimpressive.. The tasted nothing like Pear and they were two dollars more then there regular Margarita, which happens to be fantastic.. After looking over all the appetizer options, all of which looked really good, we went for the duck pancakes, the goat cheese queso fundido, and the oysters. The duck pancakes were ok.. It was shredded duck served in a rich thick ancho or some type of chile sauce. It was certainly prepared well and was tastey, however it was predictable and boring. The queso fundido was really good.. It was served with four goat cheese buttons. So at like 2.25 a button retail, i could see some of the cost that went into this 14-15 dollar dish. But again, there werent any surprises.. I could have been wowed with some chorizo or more peppers or something else.. . Then we had the oysters.. This was the most attractive dish.. Served on a long plate where the oysters were fried and then placed back in the shell resting on top of a mango salsa. The salsa was boring. It wasnt spicy, it wasnt sweet. Oysters were fried perfectly. And we got six oysters, justifying the cost around 14-15 bucks. Overall, i was really unimpressed. The place was expensive. Not to the point of it being a rip-off because the ingrediants appeared to be expensive. But it seemed that the only reason the place was good was due to the ingrediants. I mean if someone serves four buttons of goat cheese with some chips, is it going to be bad? Is this what you expect from one of the "best chefs in new york", no way. !I wouldnt say there is really any "magic" happening there.. If i want mexican food like this would i go to Zarella's first.. Most definately. Again, i only ordered apps and it looks like the dinners are rather exciting.. I wanted to try the rabbit, or the venison. So, i might go back, but i am in no hurry. In terms of Bar Americain, we ended up doing a bar crawl instead of our Flay Crawl.. EDIT: GEEZE, SORRY FOR THE CONFUSION.. DIDNT MEAN TO POST THIS HERE..

Is there a menu for Bar Americain?

I too was there for lunch today.. Didnt read the post about the liquor license however, they let us drink what we brought. The backyard looks like its comming along.. Looking forward to it..

on top of being a great place for dinner, it was a really easy place to just run into for lunch...

smoked duck on a baguette with wine jelly and cheese... Oh i miss that place too..

pouring lighting mixing

Celeste is an amazing place.. It prooves how good it is in situations like last night.. I was with a four year old, she ordered a simple dish of rigatoni with MOZZ and tomato sauce; perfection! Gorgeous al dente pasta, a sauce of fresh tomato teaming with basil leaves and mozz. Most other places would completely overlook this dish, or rush it through knowing it was for a little girl.. It is emblematic of the simplistic beauty behind Italian Cooking and Celeste.

Ok, I grew up in Baltimore, and I'm wondering what "maryland style" is? (I would've guessed w/ Old Bay, but that's no Old Bay) Yesterday dinner was tomato and cream cheese sandwiches. Today was (very springy) asparagus gratins with egg and parmesan, accompanied by toast. Blueberry pound cake for dessert. ← obrycki's seasoning.. we were there two weeks ago and have been using there spice.. There are 5 shrimp to a pound.. We steam them and them chill them... sooo good with a couple of beers.

Steamed shimp maryland style.