herbacidal

word.

yea, i neva heard of tommy's in cherry hill either. i know the dinic family has a branch on either black horse pike, i think in audubon or bellmawr or barrington. passed by it enough times, can't remember what township it's in.

yea, this may be the exception. i met with the owner, got a look at the menu, and checked out the facilities. this is the first restaurant on a ship/shore that i've seen that might actually be worth taking seriously as a dining establishment. not saying definitively since i haven't eaten there myself, but it's at least plausible that it might be pretty good, which is far more than any other restaurant on a boat/with a view of the water that i can think of. i'd actually consider eating there if i could afford it.

boulud stepped back from day to day at daniel officially? how long as bruel been at exec?

yea, the taggee is supposed to object. the rest of us like it all the better if so. if you check the first few posts on my blog, you'll see me sulking royally. it was okay though. i didn't die from the experience. yet.

wonder if it's better than BB's up in West Village? haven't tried BB's, but that's the only other round one I've heard of. Wait, as I recall, they don't bill it as a Philly cheesesteak. I forget what they call it. Donkey's is right around the corner from me. I'll give it a shot one of these days. that's $5.50?

ah yes, so i see. given that the emoticon was an angry one, i wasn't sure what to make of it.

my point is that the restaurant is being grateful and appreciative. their decision not to tell you they are fully booked, committed, etc. is proof of that. restaurants are businesses. while they appreciate that you would choose their place for a special occasion, they have to watch the bottom line. if they don't make money, they will not be in business. more importantly, things always just spring up out of the blue that need a few hundred thousand dollars thrown at them (HVAC repairs, water damage, re-carpeting, re-upholstering) on top of the many normal operating costs. they are out to make as much money as reasonably possible, as are the service staff. in part, it's building reserve, because unprofitable times can be just as easily on the horizon. i think they were being quite courteous in not expressing their disappointment. were they making it particularly obvious as to their displeasure, or was it more like uneasiness? can't say whether or not they're hurting for business. i'm guessing they usually fully booked friday and saturday. at least reasonably good business on thursday and sunday. anyone know about monday thru wednesday?

it's not because japanese invented sushi that japanese sushi preferences may be superior. it's because japanese have made better attempts at the various nuances associated with making and serving sushi. and obviously, i'm generalizing.

ah yes, didn't notice you mentioned dumplings in particular. as jo-mel said, do some fried things as well. the wok is very good for that. especially if you're not using it for its limited steaming capacity.

interesting contrast. i've never known anyone doing chinese food to take either end off bean sprouts. however, we always take the ends off string beans and snow peas.

you're saying that your pot is 8 inches in diameter, and you're planning on steaming everything in it, probably in steamer baskets stacked within it? first, 8 inches seems to be too small a diameter. haven't really measured, but you probably would want something at least twice that diameter. second, if you have a wok, you can steam in that as well. as far as removing the bottom one and adding the top one, you're assuming they all take the same amount of time to cook. assuming you've made them all the same size AND they have similar densities, you've got a chance at that. anytime you have a lot of hot items at a party, you're always serving them in a staggered fashion. although in your case, you may have created a bottleneck at the steampot, making it more difficult. bottom line, get something else to steam in. use that steampot and at least 1 other pot. it probably would be best if the dimsum party spotlighted dimsum, and not was restricted to it.

most successful restaurants do not want a large party on prime time on Saturday night because they bring in more money with the multiple small tables during the same time frame. i'm slightly suprised they're being as hospitable about it and accepting the large party anyway. if you really want them to be okay with it, prepaying is good. it would be nice if the per person price was above the average for the restaurant. and maybe there are a decent number of drinks and bottles of wine ordered. that'll help smooth things over.

really. what is that exactly? i've never seen that specimen.

so why exactly is he a pork dog?

yup. talk about stickin to your guns and not taking the easy way out.

according to this sitewith a history of the canal, construction started in 1882 or so and ended in 1914. there were many obstacles and problems during the building process. not sure exactly when during that period the chinese started leaving china to work on it. i had briefly forgotten about the chinese coming for the gold rush and transcontinental railroad.

ask katieloeb what we had with our pizza at tacconelli's for pizza club on sunday. it may well have been a barbera.

had forgotten that i wanted to respond to this. as my father recalls, the pearl didn't flood annually. (I'm only ABC myself, he was born in 1939 outside of Xinhui.) according to him, the yellow river is the only chinese river that floods annually. and i think i've heard of parts of the yangtze flooding randomly in the past. i didn't know it had ever flooded until that recent PBS series on Chinese immigration to America (superb, enjoyed it immensely). from what i recall from that, the flooding that year, (somewhere in the 1800s in my memory, although that may be in error) was the reason Cantonese from within the affected areas left in droves for wherever they could eke out a life. i know that many Chinese came in droves to build the Panama Canal, and jumped from there to various points in the Carribean when the canal was done to work there, accounting for the Chinese populations in Panama, Jamaica, and elsewhere. Have not researched this, this was told to me in an email. Don't know if the flood and the canal building are related or if the canal building was after the flood.

Chongqing will be the de facto terminus of the huge reservoir created when the Three Gorges Dam is fully operational and is well on its way to being the next, great trade center in China. yes, i know. so i take that to be an affirmative?

hey, infused 2 more vodkas. 800 ml each of grape jolly rancher and crystallized ginger the latter is gonna be interesting. it was crystallized ginger that i bought at a flea market because i love ginger candy (chinese kind). but the kind i bought had sugar all over it, and was quite sweet. before i put the ginger in the jar, i soaked it in water to lose what sugar i could, then dried them in a toaster oven. also put a lot more than i did of other ingredients because i didn't notice a particularly large amount of flavor. we'll see how it goes.

i agree. on both counts.

it's definitely plausible. it's a solid reason for the difference. but there's 2 separate things there that didn't go together well: the price gap, the non-telling. about the price gap, prices for the special item will definitely be higher because there's a lesser quantity/different supplier/etc. but you compensate for that by maybe using less expensive other ingredients/less of the ingredient/less of other ingredients/remove steps from the plating process/etc. and if that all doesn't work, and there's still a $4-5 difference, as an owner/manager, you'd better be damm sure the waiter doesn't forget to tell the customer. or that the customer will be okay with it after the fact. which may be the case more often. the servers not telling prices for specials is an oft-repeated gripe, though. the price gap adds fuel to the fire in a related, but different manner.

if you do that, I wanna be your agent/marketing person. seriously. that'll sell.

yea, i know i did, too. i suspect every blog victim/winner increased the time they spent on egullet during their week. also true about the ranting too.