SaltySnack

Tides is a tiny, tiny restaurant on the Lower East Side that serves great seafood and is probably the most affordable non-oyster bar seafood type place. and then you could go for dessert at WD- 50. That's a great plan as suggested above because Tides does not have good desserts and WD-50 is not very far from Tides. and while I would take my mom to Tides and to WD-50, I am not sure I would take her to momofuku ssam. It's just a little bit too out there. They play loud music, the seats have no backs, it's in the east village. You have to be a little bit adventurous and it would just push my mom a little too far, but then yours might go for it.

I think when people go to "celebrity" restaurants in New York City they go to "see" celebrities not because they want to go eat at a celebrity chef's restaurant. They want to see someone famous. I think there's a distinction in this in New York. They go to Da Silvano because they've heard lots of celebrities hang out there, and they might get to see someone if they go eat there. Maybe that's what a celebrity restaurant is in New York City. I know it doesn't fit the question originally asked, but maybe that's why. and if you were to ask this question for another city, would you get the same answer? what celebrity chef's are there in LA? Chicago? San Francisco? Does Wolfgang Puck have a good restaurant anymore besides the really bad ones that bear his name in airports? or does he just do Oscar night specials?

How about Jacques Torres? He's had a tv show. I can't remember if it was on food network or on PBS. People might recognize his name.

How close are you to Pomfret? or Woodstock? I have friends who live in Woodstock and will try and visit the next time I am in the area if you are nearby. There are a lot of boarding schools in the area. I know it would be infrequent business but could you spread the word of mouth through the parents of of kids in those schools. and maybe part of your problem is that your website says you are only open on Friday and Saturday nights. Not Thursday and Sunday nights. The most important thing for someone visiting a restaurant website to know immediately upon viewing is when exactly a restaurant is open, and I really had to search to find out your hours. But the place looks gorgeous and the food divine.

IMO none of these places are very good. Tartine is mostly known for being BYO. The food is not anything special at all (nor is it cheap for what it is). Westville is comfort food that is not that expensive, but you mostly get what you pay for. ← Sometimes, you just don't want to spend lots and lots of money on food. New York can be very expensive as we all know. Yes there are better places to eat in the village, but all of these are relatively inexpensive suggestions. I still think Westville is great for lunch, the burgers are very good and the salad if you get the regular dressing instead of the dill dressing is good. Haven't been to tartine in a long time and the bus stop is fine if you want a quick breakfast. don't know when you are going but le pain quotodien is also opening up in the area which is also good for breakfast.

I need help! I finally have had the time to try this recipe and am in a place where I can do it. I think I've made 4 batches this week or maybe even 5. The bread just isn't coming out fully cooked. What do I do to fix this problem? the crust is great, but the inside is dougy. 1. Use less water, I tried this the last time I made the bread, still the same extremely doughy texture after baking 2. different baking equipment - not going to happen, I am not going to buy a $150 le crueset pot just to experiment with making bread a few times, i'll stick to the pyrex dish 3. heat the pot longer? 4. cook the bread covered longer? 5. am i letting it sit too long before baking? 6. different oven temperature What do I do differently? Has anyone else had ths problem? Why has this bread been so easy for so many other people and just keeps turning out wrong for me. The flavor is there, the crust is there, just the insides aren't quite up to par. Is it because I am in rainy Louisiana and it is so humid? What is the problem???

Westville on West 10th between West 4th and Bleecker for casual lunch, Tartine on West 11th. Bus Stop Cafe on Hudson for a diner. And the very famous White Horse Tavern on Hudson and West 11th for food (I think) and drinks.

Tony's Cajun Seasoning! http://www.tonychachere.com/

I have a counter depth side-by-side refrigerator in my house. At least I think I do. I am not there right now. The only thing I regret about it is that it is next to a wall and I cannot open the freezer door completely so it makes it hard to open things completely. Side-by-side was pretty much a necessity because of the layout. I like that everything is on shelves. There's none of this digging between things adn underneath things to find something. I can put a dinner plate in it; however, i cannot put a sheet pan in it. Something I can do in a top mounted freezer. I don't like the top mounted freezer in the place I am staying in now because everything is piled on top of each other. Something to think about. Just how much is your mother going to be freezing? Is she really going to be keeping the family Thanksgiving turkey. Your in the business, is that your job every year? or your sisters? and she's never going to have do that? So it doesn't really matter that she doesn't need the space for that? If she's just keeping some ground meat, some ice cream, some tupperware freezer containers of food that you've made her for some quick and easy meals, does she really need a lot of space? Or is she one of those depression era generation and buys lots of meat on sale? I keep virtually nothing in my freezer. And so do not regret the lack of space for larger items, but you will always fine plenty of frozen containers of soup in there.

Although I love Clinton Street Baking Company for lunch it takes no reservation so at most times even during the week, there's a wait. So unless you have the time, skip it. For someplace good near Carnegie Hall for brunch try Whym. Their biscuits and gravy were excellent. 9th Avenue and 57th Street. I much prefer the Bar Room at the Modern over 11 Madison Park in fact I really disliked 11 Madison Park. And I would still put Gotham Bar and Grill high up on any list. Oh and you can get Il Lababorio de Gelato at the new Whole Foods at 1st and 1st on the Lower East Side. But the new place everyone is talking about is Grom on the UWS. Haven't tried it and am not sure exactly where it is.

I saw rhubarb at one of the stalls when I walked through late Saturday afternoon.

I agree that this is a good decision. We went last month for my birthday and I am allergic to both chocolate and fresh citrus and every single dessert had them both. It didn't help that I had given up ice cream for lent. So I ordered some bland almond cake that was supposed to come with white chocolate (i know technically not chocolate but i don't take chances) but they left it off. It was dry and worthless. Who wants to celebrate their birthday without dessert? But in other news, I still have one of the sour cherry brioches from the restaurant on my table and it still look tasty. I think it is time it went in the trash.

There's a blogging contest out there called Hey, Hey It's Donna Day! Where the previous winner of the last contest hosts the current challenge and each person has to make a specific Donna Hay recipe. Check out winos and foodies blog for the info. She's the one who started the whole idea. I may have my info a little wrong, but there's definitely a whole group out there who are into Donna Hay. And if you have a blog, you can join in too! (note, I have no blog, and have never cooked anything by Donna Hay)

I went to Death & Co last night with my boyfriend. I can't tell you exactly what we had to drink. I know he had the daiquiri which neither of us liked. It had an unpleasant smoky aftertaste. I had some type of tequila drink with muddled strawberries that was probably the best drink of the night. Then we had some type of gin drink for him and a rum drink with raspberries for me. Okay but not outstanding. And then as just a test, a margarita with silver tequila. Good but not as good as the margarita we had recently at the Bar room at the Modern or the tarmaind margaritas at the Bread Bar at Table. Anyway, what was fantastic about our visit to Death & Co was the food. We ordered the filet Mignon and the mac and cheese. It was all finger food, sort of continental tapas to expand the term. They need to be promoting their food more. It was too bad that it was so late and that I had already eaten dinner, or we would have sampled more.

So what you all are telling me is that I need to go find my mother's turqoise mixmaster that she got as a wedding present in1960 and borrow it permanently even though it isn't in good working condition. The beaters don't stay up and every few minutes, you have to shove them back up into the mixer. My mother also has a waffle iron that was probably a wedding present where the cord is fraying. We took is over to my sister-in-law's house last christmas to make waffles. My mother guarded it to make sure my clean freak sister-in-law didn't throw it away because it looks so beat up. But the waffles are fantastic. Note to self: claim the waffle iron as well. I like my mother's mixmaster much much better than the Kitchenaid mixer I was given the mid 1990s.

Do Not go to 11 Madison Park. Way too long of a meal with kids who won't appreciate it. I went this week and was not bowled over by dishes with foam and a meal that could have ended hours earlier. I second the idea of Landmarc. It's great. You do realize that most of the recommendations for restaurants you have been given are downtown. However, your plans are taking you to the Bronx for a Yankees game, to the UES side for the Guggenheim and to midtown to the MOMA. In other words, maybe you need some ideas for restaurants around those places because unless you are doing a food tour, you may be scrounging to look for a place to eat because it is noon and you've just finished your visit to the Guggenheim and the kids are hungry, and it's not exactly convenient to get from the UES to Chinatown for lunch if you have to find a place NOW.

What about Korean barbeque like http://www.gyu-kaku.com/ It's at Astor Place and Cooper Square in the east village. The kids will get to cook their own food over an open grill which is super cool. My 12 year old niece loved it. It's ethnic and adventurous without being too out there. And if you don't do Union Square Cafe, consider Gotham Bar and Grill still one of my favorites.

Ditch Plains has grits on their menu. They aren't bad, the few times, I've orderd them, they've been a little lumpy but pretty good. Clinton Street Baking Company has grits. As does Wichcraft. I find the few places in New York serve grits fully seasoned unlike in the south where if you order grits you get them plain and you dress them yourself adding the amount of butter and salt or other things you want yourself. Thus most of the times I've had grits in NYC, they've been too salty for me, but still manage to satisfy if I've been craving grits.

I haven't eaten at Telepan yet, but my boyfriend and I are already disappointed. I made reservations there for later this week as a special meal to celebrate my brother's, my sister-in-law and my niece's birthday while they are in New York. My brother is very into nice wines, so I dispatched my boyfriend to check out the wine list as he is knowledgeable about wines. Turns out Telepan doesn't list their wines on their website. Instead you need to email the sommelier for the wine list. So he does that, 4 days later, still no email, so he call the restaurant gets some woman on the phone who is very rude about the whole situation when he calls to inquire about the wine list. Refers him to the website, then says she can't help him and can't do anything until the sommelier comes in at 4 p.m. Obviously no one ever passed on the message to the sommelier that 'em needs to check 'em's emails, because days have passed and my boyfriend has still not received the wine list. So guess whose reservations are getting canceled today?

I like Whym at 58th and 9th avenue. It's owned by the same people who own Eatery but i think the food is better at Whym.

Being from Shreveport, I can remember eating at Shorty Leonard's restaurant as a child and having Black Forest Cake and even now it is a staple at parties and events, and the cake does not have cherries in the version in Shreveport, LA. That is so entirely cool to me as I never knew that our Black Forest Cake was regional. As an adult, I don't eat chocolate so it would have never occured to me to wonder that our version was different. Anyway, I just wanted to attest to lukestar's recollections and knowledge. And to state that I have replied to his request on the Louisiana forum.

I'm back in Shreveport for the day and have checked my local Junior League cookbooks for you because I am bored. In both my A Cook's tour of Shreveport published in 1964 and the Revel Cookbook published in 1980 are recipes for Black Forest Cake, shreveport style. The Cook's Tour is out of print and is a highly prized collector's item. If you find one, purchase it. The cake in that cookbook is from The Shreveport Club, a local downtown club. I do not know if Shorty Leonard at one time or not worked for the Shreveport Club or not. The Revel Cookbook has been recently reissued for its 25th anniversary by the Junior League. You can purchase on the Junior League of Shreveport's website. http://www.jlsb.org/UserArea/StaticPages/T...velCookbook.asp However, I have to believe that if you had the Shorty Leonard's Black Forest cake during that time your wife may have a copy of the Revel cookbook lurking in the cabinet. I highly recommend both of these cookbooks for other items as well. If you cannot find these cookbooks or do not want to purchase the Revel online, PM me and beg and I will possibly type the recipe into the computer for you. The recipe is quite long spanning over two pages possibly three in each cookbook. However, If I don't do it now, it'll be another month before I'm back in Shreveport. If you are in Shreveport or the surrounding areas, of course you can always order one from a local bakery. The cake House or some other place, they will make a Black Forest Cake like you speak of. I hope this reply isn't too late to make your wife happy.

I went to the Strip House this past weekend for dinner with friends. They both ordered steak. one the filet and I'm not sure what the other ordered. Both steaks had a very nice crust on the outside. The filet was a little bit fatty though and had been requested rare and was served medium rare, but it stilll had a good flavor. I wasn't too hungry so I only had the lobster bisque and the bibb lettuce salad. The bisque was very good though I'm from Louisiana so it could have used some more spice for me and the salad was pretty good though not enough bacon. For sides we had mushrooms which my friends said were excellent. The spinach which was also very good and the potato in goose fat. We'd skip the potato in goose fat next time. Service was very pleasant. It was dark and the music was a bit loud in the bar where we had drinks waiting for our table. We were very early for our late reservations. Once at the table, there was adequate light and not near as loud. All in all an enjoyable night and wasn't so overly masculine or heavy as I think some steakhouses tend to be.

My mother always toasted powdered donuts and then buttered them. We used to call them something and of course now i can't remember it. But the powdered sugar would melt and turn crispy. Plus, they were little so they were just a little something extra sweet and tasty.

Actually, the Louisiana Legislature passed a law last year forbidding open containers by both the driver and the passenger in a moving vehicle. See the link to the appropriate statute. http://www.legis.state.la.us/lss/lss.asp?doc=88239 However, the statute does provide an exemption for being on a krewe float The purpose of the tape on the top of the styrofoam cup is to signify that it is a closed container. As long as the straw is taped into place, it is a closed container. However, if you should take the straw out and put it into the drink, voila an open container. Also, many stores have 2 for 1 happy hours so you can get 2 drinks for the price of one. Drive through daiquiris are one of Louisiana's gifts. I have very fond memories of skipping school and going through a drive through daiquiri store in my school uniform and buying drinks. Of course, this was back then the drinking age was 18. mmm you've now made me crave a vodka freeze.