Jason Perlow

This is tragic, horrible news.

Yes. Mario started out in life as a pizza guy in NJ. Seriously. Batali partially underwrote his education at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., by working at Stuff Yer Face, a local pizza restaurant.

Ultimately I thought the show worked conceptually, and I enjoyed it. But seriously, Mario could use a visit from Carson and Kyan. God I would pay money to see that episode. I can just see it now... Carson: Oh my God, these orange clogs have to go now... this boy needs some Bruno Maglias.... time for some new coutoure, my great big man... Kyan: See Mario? This is called a razor, here...

I rather thought this item on the edinburghnews.com site was funny as well: http://www.edinburghnews.com/uk.cfm?id=1087852003

Randall -- thanks for joining us. Although I've never sampled any of your wines, I most definitely will soon. What do you love and hate about the American and Californian wine industry? What demons keep you up late at night thinking about them? Related question: What do you feel about the prodigious use of oak in California wines?

Here's the car Randall drives. A true classic luxury sedan, in every sense of the word.

word. German cuisine IS sausages. Everything else is a condiment.

Jeez menton, how do you notice this stuff? I'm so distracted by the cheese and the salumi and everything else, who stops to notice the tiles and the paint?

i disagree. thai iced tea is better than vietnamese coffee, iced or not. Clearly, you're not a coffee guy.

We had this topic a while back. We had to put that person to death .

Thats because you've never had decent Chinese food in England. Ask Andy Lynes about it, he never had it either until he came to the states and I showed him what it is SUPPOSED to taste like. But even here you have to know where to go and you have to live in New York or San Francisco or Toronto. Naturally some of the best chinese seafood dishes in the world are to be found in Hong Kong or Singapore. I've never been, but from what I've seen on TV and from personal accounts from others, it has to be amazing. Go do a stage there sometime.

He's got at least a dozen kinds of proseccos, many which I have never seen elsewhere. He has probably a dozen kinds of barolos and barbarescos. Lots of amarone. His prices on some wines are very good, some just so-so. If you're gonna make the trip up to Jerry's I'd hit Total Wine as well in River Edge because they have a good italian wine section and the prices they have are good.

Wow mamster, thats a first for you in the clueless department Aside from many shared ingredients I think its really unfair to compare thai food to vietnamese. Thai its all about the chiles and the very strong flavors, vietnamese its all about the subtlety of flavors and freshness of the ingredients. They are yin and yang, matter and antimatter Southeast Asian food wise. Romulans and Vulcans. Parallel universes if you will. You can -almost- get by with sub-par ingredients with thai food by having enough spices and good technique, but you cant make good vietnamese food without pristine ingredients and good produce. And thais may have perfected hot and sour, and they kick ass with curries, and they do cool stuff with roasted chicken and pork, but the vietnamese blow them away on noodle soups, broth and most appetizers. Plus you got the whole French influence thing you have to factor in which makes it unique. And while thai iced coffee and iced tea is good, Vietnamese iced coffee is better.

http://www.news12.com/NJ/topstories/article?id=91349 Shit. That sucks. I really, really liked that restaurant.

Oh my. I hope not. Pho Van Tuan is good and its cheap, but its not as good as Little Saigon.

It has to do with the chemical properties of aniseed, which Arak, Ouzo and Raki is flavoried with.

Here's another Arak punch recipe: http://www.thatsthespirit.com/recipe.asp?r...?recipe_id=1424 And here's some information about how Raki/Arak and Ouzo is consumed with food: http://www.anatolia.com/anatolia/Food_and_...Beverages/Raki/ And another interesting page http://www.sfakia-crete.com/sfakia-crete/raki.html

Arak is basically the same stuff as Ouzo or Sambuca. Any recipe that calls for those you can use Arak as well. In turkey Ouzo/Arak is called Raki. Cook up a leg of lamb, invite over a few swarthy friends, slice off some meat, make some shwarma sandwiches, have some babaghanoush and hummus and some pita bread, and get shitfaced. Now thats a party. Arak/Ouzo/Raki can be done straight in shots or mixed with some cold water to cause it to louche (get cloudy). Have fun. You can also flame up some sausages in the Arak, it imparts a nice flavor to it. Find yourself some greek loukanikou or something similar like a spanish chorizo and flambe' that sucker. Serve with some rice pilaf. I'd also use it in substitute for rum for a rum cake recipe. Make a couple of heavily soaked ones and give them away to some buddies. Or get some fruitcakes during the holiday season and preserve them in arak for a week or two (or three, or four) to get those fruits nice and macerated and the cake all soaked up with it.

Too FEW nuts in the pecan pie? Really?

Yep. Same stuff.

Yeah, I like both the diet and the regular of that flavor a lot. I also like their Tru Root Beer and their clear creme soda flavor, but I havent them around in a while. In fact, I'm not sure they make their clear natural flavored sodas at all anymore. Here's a list of their Retired Flavors

Mark, don't feel bad. At least your restaurant doesn't have anything negative on its Alexa Review Page. You should see some of the obsessive juvenile crap on ours. When they start comparing your restaurant to Nazi Germany then I might worry a little bit.

Probably not. The food is totally different and attracts a different crowd. Saigon is more casual than Kratiem and has a really loyal following. Also while I think the food at Kratiem is very good, not all of their dishes are home runs. I really liked the Thai dishes at Kratiem but I am less inclined to think their "fusion" dishes are as successful. Saigon has a much smaller menu and pretty much everything is outstanding. Saigon also only has one chef which has to do everything, whereas Kratiem has more than 1 chef and thus Saigon's output is a lot slower and the tables don't turn as fast. Its also a much smaller restaurant, they can maybe acccomodate 1/4 of the people tops (probably not even) and Joe already told me they are sending their overflow to check out Kratiem because they are still packed at night.

BTW I spoke to the chef, Alex, and apparently he was the guy who did all the asian-fusion dishes at Baumgarts. He's currently helping out at Kratiem but he's going to be the executive chef at Thai Chef when it opens in 2 weeks or so.

I'm not of the batter fried school. I'm of the breadcrumb school, but I'd like to add that onion rings should be deep fried, well done to the point of almost getting burned. Theres like a 15 second window where you either achieve perfection or cremate everything.