jhlurie

Your wife will probably kill you for posting that photo, Perlow. Mmm, peaches. And why does Dave always look like he's got some evil plan that's going particularly well? Are you sure that was Mint Syrup?

At least on a map (and in my memory) it makes a lot of sense that the Quarter is relatively intact. It's furthest from the levees. Still, there are (were?) great restaurants all over New Orleans. The loss is still going to be huge even if the Quarter is intact. And those lovely restaurants in the Quarter could be prime targets for looters. Imagine a New Orleans with a tourist section and no place for locals to live. I shudder at the thought.

Many of you probably recall the poor unfortunate River Gorge Cafe, a restaurant located at the bottom of Gorge Road in Edgewater--whose business was severely disrupted due to several years of road building, construction, and then finally being made fairly innaccessible by having a large building built right in front of it. Over the course of several years the place got shabbier and shabbier, until at some point (after the construction was done, ironically) it just went belly up and dissapeared. I noticed the other day that the ugly while building has been repainted a cheery yellow and a new business has opened. The sign says "Sangria Tapas". I haven't had a chance to visit, but I'm wondering if anyone else here has?

I totally second that. Most folks either expect Korea to be a Japan part II (which it totally isn't) or a land of dog eaters. It would be cool for people to learn to appreciate Korea for what it is, and for what it has to offer rather than all of the stereotypes. ← To me the difference between the Northern and Southern foods is pretty interesting, but then again the North Korean food I've had has been right here in the U.S. Might be a bit harder to get in South Korea. Also, there are some good segments to be had on making (and drinking) Soju. Tony would get his chance to use the phrase "rocket fuel" in earnest again.

My ideas for No Res locations: -- Korea. When Tony was in NJ it was obvious he was largely unfamiliar with Korean food. It's one of the most underrated cusines, and Korea is a fascinating place, so it might make a great show. -- Hawaii. Not tourist Hawaii, but the real local stuff that tourists don't see. The folks on our local Hawaii board could provide a lot of material. -- New Zealand.

It's like bread that never goes bad.

A soda with a roman numeral? Wow.

Minado, a chain of Japanese buffets, is one of the only dinnertime buffets I frequent. http://www.minado.com/locationsnj.htm Occasionally someone will talk me into some other place, like Bon Buffet in Maywood, but I usually wind up regretting it. There's a good chinese buffet WAY up Rte 17. around Ramsey, but I don't recall more exact details. It occurs to me that restaurants in hotels are usually good places to find buffets, although it seems to me that those are often Breakfast buffets. Lunchtime buffets are a whole different matter. Plenty of those around--even in reputable restaurants.

I've been there several times. Basically its expected that you are ordering at the counter. If the tables aren't clean I think you are supposed to mention that to them and then they dispatch someone to clean up. No, it ain't perfect. In fact, it's really just fast food, although good fast food.

Okay. Now I have to try this.

So what's the consensus on which foods best travel unrefrigerated? Can we come up with a definitive list? Figure the average brown bagger might be carrying it around for as long as 6 or 7 hours (figure if someone leaves home by 7am and might not eat lunch until 2pm).

It's possible they might have sold out. At the moment of this posting Amazon.com Sales Rank for the book is #988 in Books--up from it being somewhere around #6500 yesterday morning. Don't make any assumptions though. For the moment, at least, it's still labeled "Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours." You can always cancel or back out of an order if they don't really ship it. The book is kind of a neat size and shape, by the way. It's kind of tall and skinny.

We've merged a whole bunch of brown bagging and lunchbox topics together into one. While it would have made sense to keep parts of these discussions seperate (brown bagging for adults bring lunches to work and lunchbox discussion covering preparation of lunches for kids), a review showed that people were mixing discussion of these two circumstances anyway. So let's handle all of this here. Be descriptive, of course, and identify any differences between your adult and child lunch selections and preparations.

I wonder if the remaining boxes of the old school JBz will go on deep discount in my area warehouse stores. Yeah, that's the thing. M&Ms really only have one flavor, no matter what the shell color. Really, what's the point? Why aren't they all just brown or something? Yes, I know. Marketing.

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,808 in Books, baby! Everyone can go buy their copies tomorrow. Barnes & Noble, I was told today will, oddly enough, apparently be carrying the book in the "Professional Cookbook" section. You know. Right next to people like Rachael Ray, Thomas Keller and Dom DeLuise. Okay, maybe only Keller (I think there's a difference between "Professional Cookbooks" and "Cookbooks"). Actually BN.com is doing their own thing. They are classifying the book like so: Find Related Books • Industries • General & Miscellaneous Cooking Amazon doesn't really seem to categorize books as minutely, but they claim that "Customers who bought this book also bought": # The Perfectionist : Life and Death in Haute Cuisine by Rudolph Chelminski # Hotel Babylon by Imogen Edwards-Jones # The Sky's the Limit : Passion and Property in Manhattan by Steven Gaines # Garlic and Sapphires : The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl # Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook: Strategies, Recipes, and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking by Anthony Bourdain and that "What similar items do customers ultimately buy after viewing this item?" * 15% buy this item (Turning the Tables by Steven A. Shaw * 8% buy Fork It Over by Alan Richman * 2% buy Sirio by Sirio Maccioni, Peter J. Elliot * 1% buy A Meal Observed by Andrew Todhunter * 1% buy Don't Try This At Home by Kimberly Witherspoon (Editor), Andrew Friedman (Editor) * 1% buy Super Chef by Juliette Rossant What this all means I have no clue.

Discussing specific locations is probably fruitless, except in major cities like NYC or LA, but we all know this phenomenon on a local level. I personally know of about 20 different "cursed" locations in my area, and I've worked up unique theories for each one. One, I imagine, has a greedy landlord, but lots of suckers who he convinces to lease the place at too high a rent anyway. Another has the constant scent of a Wendy's hamburger joint wafting over everything. A third is almost definitely haunted. Five others I know simply have bad parking. Two others have constantly been restaurants, but with kitchens that are too small--people have left simply out of frustration I think. A handful of others have "County Board of Health" violations written all over them. One location I can recall has just, for no apparent reason, had a string of businesses going in with concepts that totally didn't work for the area--four successive failed pizza/Italian places across the street from a well established one, then a bagel place with inferior bagels, then a coffee place near a Starbucks. Then finally a Starbucks itself--which finally worked.

While I don't want to dwell on this whole analysis of Bourdain's personality, as opposed to the show itself, I'm still a bit mystified by the point of view that he's selling out with "No Reservations". Selling "Kitchen Confidential" and watching it become a FOX show? Maybe you could make an argument for that. But "No Reservations" is Bourdain being himself. As I opined yesterday, perhaps that self is a bit of a construct from things he's read and seen over the years, but it's still him. I'm still of two minds about the staged segments. On one hand, I think most of them are pretty entertaining. On the other hand, I think he and his producers are making a pretty big assumption that viewers will "get" the staging and be able to seperate out the "Info" from the "-tainment". Frankly... a lot of people aren't smart enough to do that. But perhaps that's the best argument of all that Tony isn't selling out. He's assuming his audience has the ability to sort out the show. In other words, he's not playing to the least common denominator.

I think the question is academic, in regards to this specific place, since frankly, it would be hearsay if we named names anyway. At best, all we can do is generalize this question and use the logic that if a place existed exactly like the one being described, what would the best course of action be? To that end, even assuming that Sam really is looking for affirmation, that doesn't mean we have to give it. It's enough to say that you wouldn't have taken the same course as he did--that you might have bit your tongue and done nothing, or complained to the manager, or left an insulting tip, or no tip, or made a public scene, or none of the above. I'm prepared to accept your statements about the place at face value, Sam, specifically because no names have been named. So I can accept, at least the premise that you perceive the owner as unapproachable. My big question would be then... why go to this place at ALL? It's cited as "a favorite ethnic place", so I assume that means the food is either good, or cheap, or both. But not paying seems like a pretty definitive statement that you aren't returning, Sam. If you meant to make that statement to them, are you prepared for the logical consequence? That you will probably be even less welcome there in the future? No condemnation here, and no impugning your motives in asking. You asked, presumably, because you wanted to hear other similar stories, or suggestions, or well... even if it was for affirmation, so what? I'm just curious what you think will happen next time you walk into that restaurant. Or better yet, to flip it around and put a positive spin on it, what do you hope will happen, ideally of course.

Maybe he could have asked when the Rat idea would be franchised.

It's a new opening, in Montclair. From what I've heard the names of the Chefs are Michael Clampffer and Marika Villik. Clamffer used to work at the Stage House Inn. The owner is Demetri Malki, who used to have a place called Dmetris. I haven't been there, but I've had a good report on it from someone who went to their opening party. The paint is apparently still drying on the walls there, so to speak, so I'd keep that in mind if you go anytime soon.

I've finally seen the first couple of these myself. I have to say, that after doing so I can understand some of the criticism here a bit better. I'm not sure I fully agree with them, but I can understand them. There's a lot of self-indulgence in the program. But perhaps it's a function of watching far too many self-indulgent French films in college that I don't much mind that. If something is both entertaining AND self-indulgent, than I've always considered the first negating the second. There's the fact that the show isn't exactly pretending to be authoritative or comprehensive. Frankly I'm a bit relieved. I'm sure you could pack a lot of facts into a 45-minute program, but it would be a bit boring. Could I do with a few less minutes of Absinthe visions? Sure. Am I terribly upset about them? Not really. This is Bourdain deciding that it's better to be his own sarcastic, occasionally annoying, essentially honest self instead of a talking head. So if he thinks that Icelandic food mostly kind of sucks, well... maybe the Tourist board will never ask him back again, but at least he didn't pretend. And it's not like he's pretending to be anything other than his skinny pseudo-hipster self. Sure, that person is a bit of a construct--at least as much as any person who read Jack Kerouc, or Hunter S. Thompson, or saw Rebel Without A Cause, or listened to alternative music when all his friends were into Madonna, or who adds the suffixes "a-rific" or "o-matic" to the ends of things. But that doesn't make it any less real. It's entertaining, in part, because no matter how he got that way, it's him, and weren't you just thinking yourself that the boring Mariott-event-room looking convention of staid old folks in the Iceland episode looked like a Dental convention? You KNOW you were. Admit it. The show, in general, is well paced. The disparate elements are sewn together decently, with narration and clever transitions. The people who appear can be either co-conspirators OR the butt of Bourdain's wit, and frankly that's appropriate. Bourdain occasionally looks a bit silly, but he's okay with that--it shows that his self-indulgence isn't about ego as much as experimentation. The show's got room to grow, but it's also got room to sink. As I said before, I think the biggest danger here is people getting the idea that Tony is trying to be comprehensive. He can't really afford to spend time explaining that he's not, but if he doesn't he may wind up with a lot of complaints about what he missed, or what he over-generalized or simplified. It's an unavoidable problem, I'm afraid.

Strong words! As I said earlier there was/is no Management presence in the place @ lunch. The trio of food preparers/servers-all young white females just out of high school-were being slowly submerged under more and more customers and I wasn't capable of communicating that my meal was slowly disintegrating without growling.(I growl quite well too-much too well sometimes ) Since I've been going to the place for years I also know that the check was just torn up and the food tossed. It's not a high class joint where every penny is watched and garbage cans are searched for evidence of staff malfeasance. ← Strong words indeed. And bordering on inappropriate. Let's try to keep this discussion on keel, and civilized, at least among ourselves. It's okay to disagree with each other, but there are better ways to make a criticism. Personally, while I've never walked on a check, I HAVE been in a situation where I felt I needed to send a deliberate message. I once had a situation where I paid the check, but left a single shiny penny--prominently and obviously displayed--as the tip. I felt it made far more of a statement than no tip at all. I'm sure this qualifies me as a weasel in some eyes, but it felt good at the time, and I felt made clear the fact that while I felt obliged to pay my debt, that they'd also lost a customer (and more actually, since I warned many people away from the place).

Hey, he made the Brad Pitt comment all by himself. Then again, he could have been making comments like that throughout his time on the show and they might have just been edited out.

Spotted this week (but not purchased) "Mega M&Ms". M&M Minis were already kind of rip-off so I didn't indulge. But one of you lovely folks in welcome to go nuts and let us know if they taste any different. I also noticed that there are approximately 9,251 different varieties of Hershey's kisses now. It's hard to even FIND a bag of the original. EDIT - Duh. Natasha already spotted the Megas. Oh well. We eagerly await a report and if she can manage a shot of the packaging. Toliver, personally I'm getting desperate for Dark Choco M&Ms. I'm having to go further and futher afield to even find them. My guess is that we might be treated to a return of them at some point, but they are waiting for another movie to tie them into somehow.

Ah. But only if they have a huge billboard with Gordo's face for Michael to stare lovingly up at every time he's cutting vegetables.