Tobey

Whatever the criteria, some of my favorite cheapies are: * 'ino, which is no breaking news to anyone, I'm sure (cheap, unless you get some fancy wine) * Queen of Sheba (yum Ethiopian place at 46th/10th--dinner for two including beer was about $45-50) * Great Jones Cafe (Great Jones St. at Lafayette; Louisiana-style food, most entrees under $16)

Thanks for all your suggestions. Well, I haven't done much research on the cooking-sweetbreads-at-home idea. There's a little bit of info in J. Child, re: having to soak them for hours and having to be very careful about the membrane, etc. removal and how to separate the various parts. And I have called Lobel's and they say "yeah, of course, we sell them" but require 24 hours' notice. But that's as far as I've gotten. Now this Fedex situation, Ned, sounds like a fair deal to me! I'll try to make them sooner or later, but feel like I should try more good expressions of what they can and should be before I go through all the trouble.... Thanks, all. I look forward to hearing other good restaurant/preparation ideas...

Hooray! I get to write about my new favorite food obsession for my first-ever egullet post. I had the ones at Babbo--they were pretty good, but after having them at Aquavit, and at a few places in New Orleans the week before (they seem obsessed with the darned things down there!?), the Babbo versions didn't really rock my world. Also, the entree portion only had three little, uh, gland-pieces. (Is there a technical name for "chunks of thymus glands"? I wonder what a typical serving size is...) Anyway, I'd highly recommend the sweetbread, lobster, sausage entree at Aquavit. It's not all tossed together like a salad--rather, the mulitple sausage, gland and lobster bits are presented rather nicely and simply on their own, scattered on the plate. And the portion was surprisingly large. The real question is (and I'll pose it some day, once I get used to how message boards work and where the question should go and all that), how to prepare sweetbreads at home? I'm determined. Maybe a NY sweetbreads potluck?