jhlurie

Since you probably went to the same one as Fatus (he said Hackensack, right?), you should try the OTHER local one in Edgewater, NJ. I'll bet he and Eddie bought Hackensack out.

You're welcome! So back on topic. Any body find any updated info on this ban? I thought we'd concluded at one point that it was all nonsense. EDIT - Okay, mamster thinks not. I should go back and read ALL of this thread. Citrus virus. Got it. What a crock. They're freaking FLOWER BUDS, aren't they? Is the plant they are buds from a citrus plant? I don't even know... With respect to Jinmyo's noble efforts, grapeseed oil and lime zest wouldn't even come close to the sensation of Sichuan peppercorns.

Shaw, you Target shill! Actually, seriously, I might drop into Target on Monday or Tuesday and check it out. Target occasionally has wacky unexplained deals like this.

Just consumed today (one of them, not the whole box!): Surprisingly good. I was skeptical, since Nestle has tried to extend the Crunch brand before and did a horrible job (anyone remember the "White" Crunch bars? Yuck!) The caramel ribbon nicely complements the "crunch" portion of the bar.

Even more fun than a microwave is a toaster oven. A slow melting death.

See... without cheese. I knew it.

Dead or alive? eeew. I even grossed myself out.

Hmm. Not to give the BAM-meister any credit (since it was someone else's idea), but that's not bad. But why a Cheesburger? Why the cheese, I mean?

brig, the Patsy's Diablo sauce is about ten times better. Still not worth $9 though.

Klink was obviously in a FOG when he wrote this!

Subjects to NOT discuss while eating at HWANG HAE DO. 1.) North Korean Dictators 2.) George Bush 3.) Casual inquiries to the restaurant employees about when they last lived in North Korea. 4.) Bombs 5.) How much better the U.S. was when Eisenhower was president. Food sure is good there though.

Thought I'd dredge this old thread back up for fun, since I recently bought a bag of new mint-type-things I'd never seen before. Also see Son of "Confessions of a Novelty Confection Fiend", from when this topic was temporarily lost after a board crash. Spearmint Altoids At first I was seriously dissapointed with Spearmint Altoids. Later on it occured to me that the taste of Spearmint just doesn't work as well in a mint as it does in gum. No matter what do NOT bite into one of these--they are much more tolerable if you suck on them. X-It Lemon Mints with Green Tea extract A smooth silky taste which doesn't overwhelm you. Intense Peach Smint Usually I find fruit flavored mints unpleasant, but these Peach Smints are great. Not too sweet, with some real tartness to them. Dragonfire Gum It's got Malitol--which is a downside for me--but putting that aside this is the best spicy flavored gum I've ever had. A real biting cinnamon, it reminded me of an even stronger "Big Red".

Please expound! you know, cube a Hebrew National Salami, fry (saute) in some butter; add a bunch of scrambled eggs. Serve with toast points (delicately trim the crusts). Makes for good burping. Instead of cubing them before frying do you ever leave them as discs and cut them afterward (or just EAT them as discs)? For me, frying a Salami of that configuration is all about how the salami cups itself, and the variations in taste between the edges and the inside. I was a Hebrew National Salami loyalist for this purpose for many years, but have recently been using the Applegate Farms Salami--which I HATE when its not fried but LOVE when it is.

This is a topic which we've always bounced around on eGullet, in many different forms, since Day 1. Often its been portrayed as something of an either/or situation (see "If Suzanne F tried to teach Cabrales cooking, ?????"), but I'm not sure that's really accurate. First of all, its not a spectrum--there are more than two sides to this issue. For a while I thought there were three--that it was best represented as a triangle--but I've recently thought it through and seen both a fourth AND a fifth side. Geez... so its at least a Pentagon--with various spots available between all of the extreme corner positions. Corner 1: "Food is Fuel" - The people who eat simply because its better than an IV in the arm. (remember, this represents an EXTREME position) Corner 2: "Live To Eat" - Enjoys food as an end-product but doesn't particularly care how it got there. Corner 3: "Food Scholar" - The Cabrales' of the world. Enjoys discussions of technique as much as the food, but are content to be observers at most. Corner 4: "Live to Cook" - Enjoys preparation as much as eating, but one task loses meaning without the other. A lot of "home cooks" no doubt fall into this category, and certainly any number of food professionals. Corner 5: "Food as a Business" - Discussions of technique take on an even greater importance. Many food professionals probably appear in a sub-category of this, but it can also include anyone who seperates out the tasks of eating from cooking. They may fully enjoy both, but they are clearly seperate. And then there is the rest of the world... the people who fall in the middle of this pentagon somewhere. No doubt the Steven Shaws, Jon Luries, Suzanne Fs and Steve Plotnickis of the world ALL fall in very different areas. As for actual rationales as to WHY someone might fall into one of these areas... its probably very different with each corner. I find myself somewhere in the Live to Eat/Food Scholar zone--doing minimal cooking (more than Cabby, I'm sure!) and an increasing amount of restauranting as I get older. For the most part its not because I'm not interested in what goes into my food as much as the fact that its a key component of my personality that I have no patience--and a recognition that food preparation requires a great deal of patience. I have some intellectual curiousity about my food (although not nearly as much as someone like Cabrales, or even our noble founder, Jason Perlow), but its not enough to overcome other areas of interest in my life. I want to enjoy my food. My food matters to me. I'm interested in comparing food and optimizing my food experiences. But that's usually as far as things go.

We've had variations on this discussion before, I think. I was a picky eater, but there were a variety of reasons for it. 1.) Parental tastes and influences: My parents raised me as firmly middle class, and had themselves both grown up as well educated but poor. This somewhat limits your food horizons--especially the variety of foods which were made available to me. Even worse, we lived in a somewhat rural area. 2.) Bad examples: For years I hated mustard. Eventually I figured out that I hated mustard because the only examples around my house were French's and Gulden's. No doubt this pattern was repeated with many of the other things I disliked--which simply weren't available in an isolated area. 3.) Preparation: My mother was a competent cook--at the things which HER mother had taught her. At least in my younger years she didn't experiment much. This not only affected the KINDS of food I got to try, but the methods of preparation. And it wasn't just the obvious things... for example, my mother knew that I didn't like cooked spinach. But I'm fairly certain that I never got to taste RAW spinach (which I love)--prepared like lettuce in a salad--until I was an adult. It's little things like that which slip through the cracks. 4.) Ethnicity: We were non-religious Jews living in rural mid-state New York. As mentioned earlier, my mother's main "menu" was derived from HER mother--a non-religious Jew from Queens, New York. So a certain portion of our menu WAS ethnic, but not as much as most Jews. My grandmother and mother's staples included a variety of things like kugel, beef brisket and chicken soup, but most of it was as unspecific as beef stew, lasagna and breaded chicken cutlets. But we weren't really exposed to French or continental cooking--our background, our rural existance and our economic bracket simply didn't allow it. Also, conversely, we weren't really exposed to a lot of the "white bread" things that a lot of our midwest members talk about occasionally--we never used Mayonaise, and I never even SAW a bottle of Miracle Whip until I was in my late teens. Shellfish is an interesting collary to this: my parents had no religious convictions on this and ate it. I never liked it, and it had nothing to do with religion or ethnicity. We grew our own vegetables--so on that count I was well exposed. This is an additional area where many eGulleteers may have been limited though. Another policy which hurt me was the "finish what's on your plate" philosophy. My mother gave up on that in later years, but I'm sure it hurt my enthusiasm for food in my earliest years. The "anything slimy" ban from Schielke has got to be close to universal for American kids, and its one I never quite outgrew. Texture, rather than taste, is still my big bugaboo.

Pineapple.

Ah, eGullet strikes again. Welcome Rene. As always, points will be awarded for having the guts to back up your words in print with your reactions here. I'm not sure how or where those points can be redeemed, but we ARE tallying them! I think most of us can accept that idea that restaurant reviews are based on opinion. Still, you've picked a tough field because someone will always disagree with you, and someone will always take it personally. There's something of an ongoing debate here about what qualifies someone to be a restaurant reviewer. Me, I'm easy--I think simply doing it over a period of time can sometimes be enough to qualify someone. Others may be of the opinion that it requires a bit more... some kind of formal education in culinary arts. Personally, I've always seen some potential problems with that approach. 1.) someone with a formal "food" education who isn't actually doing it for a living may be a frustrated chef and have an axe to grind 2.) the compensation: if someone has a formal culinary education and HAS been successful as a chef, how could a local or regional newspaper possibly afford to compensate them fairly? What other reasons might they have to be a food reviewer besides money? If you come back and read us again and see this, do you have anything to contribute to this debate?

If that's a dare, don't think we won't do it!

I haven't the words...

That's because you are always drunk while eating it! So... have we broken down yet and tried the $41 burger at Old Homestead yet?

Was it drunk at that time?

I've been to the East Hanover, NJ location many times. Here's hoping your location proves to be as non-watered down as that one... Did you try anything with tofu? I always remember my local location having especially excellent tofu dishes. Also, other highlights at mine are the Beef Rendang and the Mango Chicken. Now I had NO idea that they had a GEORGIA location! Where the heck is Chamblee?

Trendy? Eeek! Hope not! Of the vegetarian offerings, I liked the Sweet Onion antipasti as well. Yes. Very expensive, relatively, but it was well worth it. I was racking my brain trying to figure out where I'd tasted salami like that before, and "nowhere" seems to answer that question. This was hands down the best pizza in my judgement as well--although the pepperoni was really close. The prosciutto pizza was fairly impressive too. I was somewhat underwhelmed by the bacon pizza as well. It was kind of dry. One service complaint I had was that we literally had to beg for bread at the table, and at first they brought an obscenely small amount for the size party I was with. Later, we begged for Olive Oil, and again they brought a miniscule amount, but at least that I kind of understood since it tasted like it was VERY expensive (and very good) oil. As for the gelato, I had what had to be the most bizarre gelato I've ever heard of--Olive Oil Gelato with fresh Blood Orange slices. I'm not sure I can describe the taste, except to say that it was NOT what I expected. I'm not sure if it was the same Olive Oil we got with the bread, but it was very fruity, very rich and wonderfully smooth as ice cream. There may have been something else in the mix as well, because there was also a slightly spicy aftertaste.

And you need to know the secret handshake too.

Dunno. Looked complete though. All the paint looked dry and stuff.