Jason Perlow

Page 8. Jesus Christ, are you guys done yet?

Wow Ed, awesome.

Aside from stuff imported into Sint Maarten/Saint Martin, theres the local Guavaberry stuff that I am curious about http://www.guavaberry.com/Pages/page4_allprods_eng.htm I'm not sure if I'll like the guavaberry flavored liquor itself, but they appear to manufacture other rum liquors as well as their own brands of rum. However it looks pretty commercial and tourist-oriented. Ed? Not guavaberry flavored rum liquors: Mango Lime Passion Fruit Almond Anis (Sambuca flavor?) Spice: Bois Bande: Cariba Nativa (Jamaican shown, they have ones from St. Croix, Antigua, Guadeloupe and Barbados as well) Sheesh, are any of these worth buying?

I'm going on vacation this weekend and will be going to St Maarten for a week. Where should I be shopping for rum (Phillipsburg? Margiot?) and in particular, which agricoles and aged rum should I be looking for, in particular ones which are rare in the states? I've heard the shopping on the dutch side is cheaper, particularly in phillipsburg.

Where else but on eGullet can you acquire this type of information? NOWHERE!

At Yamaguchi in Fort Lee, Sushi is 50 percent off on Friday nights. At East Sushi in Bergenfield on Washington Street, Mondays is "tuna day". All their different tuna rolls are half price. Also, Jingle Inn, another recently opened sushi place (which was quite good when we went recently) on Grand Avenue in Ridgefield also offers sushi discounts on certain days, but I don't remember exactly when.

Theres an Appleton 15? I thought it went from VX, to Extra/12 and then to 21? Or are you saying the minimum age of the 21 is a 15?

You don't do children's books, do you?

The only safe and documented place that does superlative food is the 50th street location. Pretend the others dont exist.

just comes to show how often I go shopping in supermarkets

I agree, it was ridiculously expensive but I think the fact we consumed so many bottles of iced vodka probably added substantially to the bill. I agree with Fat Guy's assessment of the steaks... I definitely prefered the rib eye, the skirt steak marinade was a bit strange. As I didnt have the chopped liver (I hate the stuff, it makes me gag just looking at it) I'll comment on the other things I did eat: pickles: dissapointing, I was expecting the gargantuan mature half sours of Jewish mythos. As FG says they were mushy. kasha varniskes: flavorless. Rachel's and my mother in laws beat these things into the ground. mashed potato: the fried onions on top of em were good, but the addtion of schmaltz doesnt seem to really sex these up for some reason. I cant figure out why. latkes: too cakey, way too dense, and they sit in your stomach like rocks. Ugh. ground meat/garlic sausages: I liked these a lot, but then again I was also quite inebriated. stuffed cabbage: Overcooked to all hell but the stuffing wasnt bad, albeit mushy. deep fried kreplach: Just say no. rugelach: They may have been home made, but they tasted too floury/bisquicky. I've had much better commercial brands. rye bread: fresh and warm. If only everything else was as good. As FG says, the company was exceptional (thanks to Nina for putting this together) and we did get pretty drunk off our asses, which tended to balance things out. Other than that it was like having Rosh Hashanah in Purgatory with Tony Bourdain.

Our latest southern/rib favorite is Fink's Funky Chicken and Ribs in River Edge, if you havent read the voluminous threads in the Jersey Board about it already.

I say: fuck France and the French. Their hegemony on all things culinary in the Western world should be overturned. It's long overdue The froggy bastards learned everything from the Italians anyways. Lets just cut out the middleman and go right to the source!

There are certain parts of the country were water is just plain DANGEROUS to drink, like on Eastern Long Island, where there's a lot of contamination from radioactive chemicals and all sorts of other nasty compounds. Or in Tom's River NJ, one of the biggest cancer clusters in the nation. The water here in Tenafly is not bad but its got a bit of a chlorinated flavor to it. We get Poland Spring delivery and pay a pretty penny for it. When our kitchen is finished, we're going to test out the filter in our KitchenAid fridge and see how well it works -- otherwise I suppose we will just get some Culligan thing. I suppose we could use a Brita filter (we used to use a PUR hooked up to our sink in our old condo in Morristown) but we are too damn lazy to fill it up all the time. NYC and Westchester County has some of the best water in the entire country, and I'm not sure why people who live there wouldn't want to drink tap, it tastes perfectly ok to me.

He gets way too many free meals, doesnt he.

I can see this is going to be another one of those verbal diahrrea 7-14 page mindsuckers. No, really, please continue. Anyone who proposes that their taste is better than anyone else's is not a food snob. They're just arrogant assholes. Its perfectly okay to be elitist about food and to try to strive for excellent meals and tastes in one's life. That is what this site is all about. To say that someone's tastes are worse than yours is what another site is about. Its not this one.

"While the saucing was appropriate, I did not find this dish particularly impressive. The fattiness of toro was not well exhibited in the dish" Cabrales, I'd love to see you as one of the judges on Iron Chef. Would you be the cute and squeaky teenybopper Japanese actress or the crabby old fortune-teller?

Rachel and I bought some of this stuff on our last trip to Shoprite -- they were 2 59oz containers for 4 bucks on sale: Simply Orange (website) Its quite good -- almost tastes fresh squeezed, and doesnt taste as pasteurized as Tropicana does, which is our old standby next to Florida's Natural. It comes in a clear plastic bottle sorta like an old glass milk container with a large green twistoff cap.

Elizabeth: Sorry to hear about your mom and dad. I really don't know how I would cope with a similar situation. Our prayers are with you and your family. Jason

preexisting appreciation of Isaac Hayes' work as a dramatic actor (Truck Turner, Escape From New York) Dammit Tony, you just had to go and make me cough up my breakfast laughing. Now I gotta go put a set of chandeleirs on the hood of my '87 Cadillac just because you mentioned that. I'm the king of new york, Motherfucka! I'm A-NUMBA-ONE!

So you consider it to bee too authentically chinese? Actually, since I grew up eating Chinese food in the NY suburbs, I don't really know enough to say what's authentic and what's not. I just know what I like. Truthfully, I didnt start eating "real" Chinese food until maybe 8 years ago, about the time I was first dating Rachel. I too grew up on NY suburbia Szech-Jew-an Palace food. I still like it. You could probably do a whole thread on the merits of King Yum on Union Turnpike in Hollis Hills.

BTW, the last time we went to La Posada, they started to use a different supplier of Chorizo -- this time, it was the spicy, crumbly Mexican kind. Very good, and more to Jhlurie's liking.

If you dont want to make the schlep to Newark, I would check out La Posada in Teaneck, which does a very good job of approaching Newark-style Iberian (in some ways they actually surpass it) and also offers a really good Mexican menu as well. We've reviewed it in the Jersey board as well. http://forums.egullet.org/ibf/index.php?s=...39&hl=la+posada

It used to be good but we stopped going there because they started to overcook things.

Jon is right about bread in Newark -- the town is chock full of Portuguese and Italian bakeries, and its very easy for a restaurant to secure fresh bread. If the bread is stale I would say something about it, IMMEDIATELY.