glenn

At the risk of sounding as stoopid as I am, what is the purpose of using different styles of glasses for different wines? What would you recommend for someone (ME), who doesn't drink much at home, but wants good quality for the ocassions I do? A general all purpose red wine glass and one for white?

I'm sure you waited until I made reservations at Nicholas before inviting me. :-)) So, what am I missing, that is, for dinner?

Among other reasons, I can think of 2 BIG reasons why restaurants cheap out. First is breakage. Wine glasses, especially large ones, are easily broken in restaurant dishwashers. And in the less sophisticated places, management is clueless on the subject.

I know it's late, but is there a list somewhere of places that are open? Anyone care to recommend a place? Just looking for a nice dinner, no horns or favors or nekkid wimmin. Last year we went to Nicholas, though I imagine they're booked already.

Casablanca, a byo Moroccan restaurarnt in JC, earned the distinction last night of having the worst of you name it, including/especially the stemware. We were given two unmatching small white wine glasses for our pinot noir. One was returned because it was dirty. And that's how the evening started. [how quickly this place went downhill... they used to be reliable for cheap decent eats.]

Look who's calling the kettle black. :-)) I know I should ask this elsewhere or in another thread, but while we're talking about stemware, I'll embarrass myself by asking a stooopid question. I need decent wine glasses for the house. We don't drink much wine at home, that's why I never bothered. But on the ocassions I do, I'd like something different. Is there such a thing as a good quality all purpose red/white wine glass?

I dunno about y'all, you fair weather foodies, you're all wimps. Restaurants were empty tonight, it was wonderful! No cars on the road, and the cracker jack crew in Jersey City actually cleared a few streets. We paid a visit to one of those restaurants I swore never again a few too many times, Pronto Cena, downtown JC. Aside from bread that was apparently left over from Thursday, everything was impeccably good, even the service for once. Of course we didn't order the fish, which was also probably from Thursday. During the week we checked out Marco & Pepe, which, despite reports of price gouging and lousy service, turned out to be wonderful experience all around. Even the normally grumpy owner came over and chatted. I've changed my mind so many times about this place, but I've finally come to the conclusion that it's definitely worth travelling a few miles or so to, as long as you avoid peak times. I doubt there's any place in Jersey that can match its casual European bistro atmosphere and food to match. And if you're a beer drinker, that's an extra bonus.

Perfect, thanks. I didn't realize they had more than 1 location.

I'd like to buy a gift certificate to a restaurant for my brother and his wife who live in Great Neck. I don't know what their preferences are as far as cuisine. I wanna spend up to $200. Thanks for any recommendations.

Yes, it's byo. Sorry, I'm out, didn't realize I have tickets to a matinee in the city.

5 PM

No, chinese rocks.

Can we come up with a best of list of mail order bean companies as well as types? [Correct me if I'm wrong - although it's been discussed here and there, I think the threads are all over the place.] [[oh, great to have this new hangout, good luck Owen!]] Anyhoo, my 2 current faves are: Graffeo -- dark Whole Latte Love - java joe's sumatra

Me too. Sort of. She asked me to call her, which I did, got her voicemail and never heard from her. I suppose I should've gotten suspicious from her recording. She promised to return all calls when she got a bathroom break.

Apparently you didn't read rule #14265B.

I mean famtastic great, and that should have been "fries", not fried. I fired my editor. But you should know me by now and take everything I say with a grain of hamburger helper. I can't remember a burger I didn't like, especially White Castle.

This is the part that made me roll over and gag. No, not because I don't have $500 in disposable income for a friggin' dinner (I don't), but the probability that enough people are gonna gladly fork over this kind of dough over something as nonessential and trivial as dinner. I wonder if that price includes tip. And with only 9 seats and a sushi bar, is this really a restaurant? I'm beginning to wonder if all the doomsayers were right about the significance of the fire and ice in California.

As Mark said, the Rivers Edge Cafe was where the Salvadoran place is and is now located on Broad near the Russian place. It was crowded when we passed by around 8 PM, but had a few empty tables. Our friends have eaten there a few times and insist that we go there on our next outing in the area. I mentioned the El Salvadoran place on another thread. It's superb.

The place has been open about a month. It’s brightly lit and sort of sterile. The big TV playing VH1 (no audio, and most of the time there a fashion show on) made it seem a bit like a Russian go-go place, not that I would know what those establishments actually look like, ahem. The 4 of us shared appetizers - 2 pierogies (beef and cabbage) and Blinchiki (ground beef, sauté onions- wrapped in pancakes with sour cream). We ordered the blinchiki because, well, we all enjoyed saying the word. Everything was ok, nothing more and nothing special. My entrée was Russian Salmon Kulebyaka (or something like that). It was pastry stuffed with salmon, mushrooms, spinach, rice and eggs, served with asparagus and red caviar sauce. I really wanted a stuffed cabbage dish, either as an appetizer or entrée, but I didn’t see it on the menu as Mark had described (golubsty). The reason I ordered the salmon was because I wanted something different and it sounded interesting. It was good, but it reminded me of stuffed cocktail franks you get at bar mitvahs and such. The pastry was a little overwhelming. The same criticism about the appetizer, the blinchiki. Someone else ordered a similar dish to the salmon, but with trout. She thought it was too fishy, as did I, but then again, trout IS fishy, no? The other dishes ordered were veal, though I don’t remember the details. Dessert was the low(est) point. We had a custard puff, brownie and chocolate cake. I don’t believe there was anything particularly Russian on the dessert menu. It was all very ordinary. Service was friendly, though uninformed. The server either wasn’t overly familiar with the dishes or wasn’t able to describe them. We had to ask for a change of glasses when we changed from white wine to red. Our water came with like 3 lemon wedges each. One is one too many for me (I sent it back). Timing was good, up until dessert. We waited at least 15 minutes to have our dishes cleared, and then some more for our order to be taken. My espresso was brought out almost 5 minutes after I finished dessert. There was a maitre’d type walking about saying hello, but that’s about all he did. I think everything was priced $xx.95, adding to the diner feel. Entrees ranged from (I think) $14.95 to $22.95. Including tax and tip, the bill was $140 for 4. The experience was very mediocre and I can’t see returning.

Thalia has great burgers. I forgot all about them. We ate there before a matinee when they were only serving bar food and the burger was top notch. Great fried too, if I recall.

Roz, it's 732-933-9848.

I booked for Sat. night. The guy who answered the phone was very friendly and described many of the dishes, sounded great.

Hi guys, remember, this is a club, one where we all argue about how many grams the burgers weigh, if they got the right amount of char and we all drool over the food and each other! Let's leave the arguing to the evaluations (and dump the evaluation forms :-)) I'm grateful to the burger bitch for starting this thing and that I was able to reap the benefits of her hard work and attend one of the get-togethers and meet some of you. I think we all are grateful and have said so in one way or another. However, it kind of made my snot harden to see these splinter luncheons starting up, and I agree that it sort of looks exclusory, like where's my invite! Nothing wrong with that, just take it private or something. Ok, back to being a curmudgeon.

It only takes a glance at the menu of Fascino, a terrific new Italian restaurant in downtown Montclair, N.J.... so sez crains's BIGTIME congrats!

When y'all have tried every place there is to try and are ready to lay down and die, the First-Way Deli in the Bronx would seem to make a fitting end.... THE MURDER BURGER [do we condone Accent seasoning?, or is that covered in rule #496?]