Jason Perlow

What I -really- want is a toaster oven that's the size of a microwave.

I will now return to the topic at hand rather than trying to make light of a topic with a rather obvious answer -- I own two cleavers, both of the Chinese type. I rarely use them, mainly because there's very few things you can do with a cleaver than you can't do with a large, wide chef's knife with a heavy tang. Plus they seem to accumulate a lot of oxidation for some weird reason. But yeah, for coconuts and making the eleven o'clock news, they are awesome.

Chris, when you say coconuts, is that a euphamism for the human skull, or do you really mean a coconut. Because I think I am reading something else from across the ether here. I'm not sure if its an Ivy League coconut whacking tradition steeped in mystery or something more psychotic.

If you are a crazed Chinese chef in a 1960's era Kung Fu movie (or if you are Steven Seagal) you can also throw it at people with deadly force.

You can smash the hell out of garlic with it.

Dispatching live lobsters, like on Iron Chef.

I would definitely dismiss him as a diet doctor.

Wow, where did you get that? It looks mighty tasty.

Yeah, doubles and triples are your best bet.

This is honestly your best bet in my opinion. A second fryer takes up space. You have a trailer to work with, not a full service restaurant. Mcdonalds got into trouble not because they fried their fries in beef tallow (which they havent done for over 20 years) but because the frozen fries they use are seasoned with beef flavoring and this really ticked off their Hindu customers in the U.S, and a number of lawsuits followed because Mcdonalds did not disclose this up front. This caused further outrage in India, where Mcdonalds has a number of stores. It should be noted that in India, McDonalds doesnt serve ANY beef products and the fries are totally Vegan.

They had them at other stalls at the festival, and you can get them all over Newark.

I dont think a Piroshki and a Pierogi are the same thing, though. Piroshki are baked or fried with a pastry crust, and are larger, whereas Pierogies are usually boiled and then perhaps sauteed with onions in butter, and are more like potstickers. Piroshki are Russian, whereas Pierogi and Kolachy are Polish.

Is there a fundamental difference between a Kolachy and a Piroshki (alt: pirozhki) ?

Chef Austin Leslie has passed away: Austin Leslie (New Orleans Times Picayune)

They have a comprehensive wine list by the bottle, but not by the glass -- 3 reds and 3 whites. If they had a different list in the bar than they do in the dining room, I was not made aware of it. EDIT: Indeed, the dining room appears to have more wines to drink by the glass, but there was only 6 at the bar. This however seems quite strange, unless on that particular day they didn't have all the wines by the glass on the listed on the web site, which is entirely possible -- the site could very well be wrong and they may really only have the six. I wasn't even advised of the prosecco or the champagne. Even with that proportedly expanded list however, I'm not particularly impressed by the selections. A White Zin, two Pinot Grigios and Three Chardonnays? A Merlot, a Chianti and two Cabs? Pathetic. Its not like those wines are anything special either.

Last night Rachel and I had dinner at Sanzari's New Bridge Inn in New Milford. While I wouldn't call the place a destination restaurant, we had a very enjoyable meal and we would definitely go back. The New Bridge Inn is semi-secluded off the main New Bridge Road drag that connects Hackensack with River Edge, Teaneck and Bergenfield -- this is an old place, but its just undergone a major renovation by Joseph Sanzari, a major construction player in Bergen County. Sanzari has also recently purchased the building in Tenafly which housed America Restaurant, and will shortly be re-opening it as a Oyster Bar and Grill type place. The restaurant is very attractive, and has valet parking. Its definitely a high end place, with a menu focusing on Italian specialities and also on steaks and chops. Atmosphere is classy old school steakhousy. Dinner for two, with two appetizers, two mains, one dessert and one glass of wine came to $90. Not cheap -- certainly getting up there towards Manhattan prices, but the quality was up there as well. As we originally wanted to go to Peter Lugers in Brooklyn that evening but were told the place was booked solid, and Rachel was running late from work, we decided to give Sanzari's a whirl. We were still in a steaky-choppy mood, so we eschewed the idea of having any of the Italian stuff and went straight for the pork chops. For appetizers, Rachel had some sort of mesclun salad with goat cheese and a raspberry dressing (I thought it was good, but nothing special) and I had the crab cakes, which turned out to have a lot of nice lump crab in it and was served with a garlic remoulade and over field greens -- I thought those were excellent and well worth the money ($14). Rachel had the double cut pork chop, served with caramelized onions, sweet potato home fries, and mixed sauteed vegetables. I had the wild boar chop, which was accompanied by a plum chutney, a mushroom risotto, and the same mixed sauteed vegetables. I'm not sure which of the chops I liked better, as both were very good, and nice and juicy. The pork chop was a nice specimen, a good sized portion, and I liked the carmelized onions. The boar chop was also a nice sized portion, the meat was more of a reddish hue and tasted a bit more like beef, and the chop had a thicker layer of fat on top of it. I liked the mushroom risotto but rachel felt it could have been creamier -- however it came in a moulded presentation which leads me to beleive the less-creamines was by design. Both chops were cooked to medium. The sauteed vegetables (squash, carrots, green beans) were nicely cooked without being overcooked. Rachel says she liked my plum chutney more than her caramelized onions. I thought it was pretty sweet but it was a good accompaniment to the pork. There were other things we could have ordered as sides but we didn't bother. There was a dessert menu and the server did tell us that most of them were made in house -- but we really weren't turned on by any of the regular choices -- creme brulee, chocolate mousse, profiteroles, ice cream bombe, Italian cheesecake, tiramisu. I'm sure they were good, but we weren't in the mood for standard Italian restaurant desserts. Fortunately, the main menu had a special dessert that evening, a warm plum tart with caramel gelato. This turned out to be an excellent choice, as it easily fed two people and had lots of juicy plums in it (I guess they were able to get a good deal on a couple of flats). I have only one nit to pick about this place, and it has to do with the beverage selection at the bar. There are no beers on tap, everything is in bottles -- which is fine, except for the fact it is all basic, domestic stuff. No micros, no interesting regional beers, just your basic Bud, Heineken, Sam Adams and Corona. For a restaurant this nice, this happens to be a major oversight, especially since as they already decided not to put in beer taps, its no skin off their back for their beverage director to get a couple of nice micros. The wine by the glass selection is also abyssmal -- a Merlot, Cabernet and a Chianti. A whole three reds (I didn't ask about the whites, but I assume its your average Chardonay and Pinot Grigio garbage). I would have liked to have seen perhaps a sangiovese or a primitivo or SOMETHING a bit more appropriate to the cuisine by the glass.

A further update -- America will not be called America. It will be a Oyster Bar and Grill of some sort.

Markk, I think you are right, it would be virtually impossible for me or Steven to have a bad meal at C46. Unfortunately, I'm not easily disguisable...

Me, I don't care for lukshen kugel so much. I'm into the potato, or the spinach.

Chirpy, like a large kosher turkey wearing fish pants.

Yeah, well, we're talking Teaneck, not Toulouse. I am far less concerned with the perfect aesthetics than what the pastries taste like. Personally, I will be very, very upset when this place eventually closes. Andre has had to be away from the shop a lot more frequently of late, because his wife has been battling cancer for a number of years. So I'm inclined to give the guy a bit of slack if one of his cakes isn't perfectly symettrical.

Knowing Steven and his actual lifestyle, I thought this was fucking hilarious.

In this I agree, although I also have not been there for dinner in a while. There is something to be said for having stuff made to order instead of getting it from a steam tray. Some of their best items are the seafood ones, which you don't get at the brunch.

Silver Pond is a solid restaurant for Dim Sum. I hadn't gone there for at least a year because I became a regular at China 46 -- having returned there recently after such a long hiatus I can say they are serving top quality Dim Sum, better than they have in the past, and I think they may have changed chefs or brought in some new talent because they have quite a number of new items. The restaurant is also consistently packed on weekends with Chinese, Japanese and Korean customers and is not longing for business. That being said, I'll probably go to C46 this weekend because I have a hankering for soup dumplings and those pan fried puffy things with the juicy pork insides, and jiaozi. Not to mention the soupy shrimp balls, although I think you have to give them advance notice for them now.

Your friends, perhaps. My friends, no. These people I trust implicity when it comes to Chinese and Asian cuisine. I certainly would like to be proven wrong on this matter, as China 46 is one of my favorite restaurants, and its one of the few on this site that I've lauded extreme praise on and staked my reputation on when reccomending it to people.