glenn

Very appropos to recent discussions is this article in today's paper.

lambretta, I agree 100%. The mexican imports have exactly those qualities I'm looking for --- they're great, not loaded with chemicals and, very importantly, have that ever so elusive snob appeal. :)) For some stupid reason, I'm having a problem finding a disributor, not that I've looked very hard. No major distributor is gonna touch this and risk the wrath of the major bottlers. I need to learn Spanish - I did find a distributor but I don't speak the lingo.

Agree. Except my recent experience (and my only experience) with the take out was not exactly laudable. I called from jersey city to order and got caught in traffic driving over. Took almost an hour. And I had to wait 10 minutes when I got there. They told me on the phone that it would take 20 minutes. The last time we ate there, they asked if I wanted "to keep" the red wine chilled. But alas, as long as they keep churning out those melt in your mouth baby ribs, I'm still going.

Well, their site has left me more confused. It seems that they're more of a resource for the public than the industry.

Your best resource is a restaurant. Call a few. Many have someone come in regularly for that purpose. The list below is from superpages. I believe a restaurant I worked at used Edge, but I don't know anything about them. Cutters Edge 30 Years of Excellent & Reliable Service in Maintaining, Servicing, and Sales of all Blades, Saws, Knives, and Accessories. Sharpening Service 345 Lakeview Av, Clifton, NJ 07011 (973) 772-6887 Delsea Cutlery Service 115 South Main Street, Williamstown, NJ 08094 (856) 875-5100 http://www.justknives101.com Edge Grinding Shop 388 Fairview Ave, Fairview, NJ 07022 (201) 943-4109 Just Knives 115 South Main Street, Williamstown, NJ 08094 (856) 875-5100 http://www.justknives101.com

Nothing compares to the mass, um, misappropriations that go in the back of the house. However, the person who stole a 25 pound plus pumpkin that was on display near the hostess stand a few Halloweens ago comes close. It was on a busy Saturday night and everyone was too busy to notice until the manager noted that "something" seemed awry.

Rosie's post about the NJRA's dinner and "spectacular cocktail reception," reminded me - I've tried calling them three times in the past 4 or 5 months. All I get is an answering machine (during regular business hours) and no one has returned any of my 3 messages. Is there any reason to become a member? I'm familiar with the NYRA - they were good for getting quick answers to technical and legal questions as well as discounted workers comp. However, I know nothing atout the NJRA. Are any restaurateurs here members?

Using a French press coffee maker, the water temperature and exposure to coffee grounds is manually controlled, resulting in a perfect, rich cup of coffee. Many other coffee makers over extract coffee, under extract coffee, or utilize water which is not at an optimal temperature. Paper filters prevent coffee’s flavorful oils from reaching your mouth and can add off-flavors from the filter itself. French presses are wonderful machines because you manually control the water temperature and exposure time, resulting in a rich, perfect cup of coffee.

I lied. Part 3 Did I mention I’m obsessive? This trait has characterized my life. My earliest obsessive-compulsive memory is of staring out of my fifth floor Queens window on Saturdays beginning at 8 AM to see if any of my friends were outside. I’d pace back and forth waiting for someone, anyone, to make an appearance. As soon as I saw someone, I was down the stairs like a shot, brand new Spalding rubber ball or Pensie Pinkie in hand. I was seven years old. Sort of harmless. Skipping ahead ten or so years, drugs became an obsession that brought me to my knees. Now it’s Melt. I research everything until I drive myself and everyone around me crazy. And this I consider my good obsession. Good vs. evil, my life is black or white. Take coffee for instance. My initial thought was to serve espresso and coffee. Not just any ol’ stuff, but, of course, the best. Only the best. However, I had no fucking clue what was involved. I figured coffee was coffee and any ol’ Bunn would do. I’d buy gourmet beans from the bodega and I’d be in business. As for espresso, I had inkling it might be a little more complex, but I figured Illy Caffe would suffice. I could combine a quality shot with the ease of an automated machine and pods so I wouldn’t have to measure or get involved with any messy stuff. I called my old contact at Illy’s, got the prices and the lowdown. Sold. Almost. Like an idiot, I had to pursue it further. I couldn’t let well enough alone. I posed a question on the coffee and teas forum on eglutton and I found there was a bit more to it than met my blind eye. Fucking Owen. Next thing I knew I was ready to travel to Seattle and become a barista --- I swear, I thought you had to become a lawyer to become an expert in espresso. And I was ready to plunk down $6,000 on the best machine money could buy, the rolls royce of espresso machines, La Marzocco. Not to mention untold thousands on grinders. What the fuck was I thinking? I’m selling grilled cheese sandwiches, not trying to lose money on, of all things, a fucking latte. But my brain doesn’t work like everyone else’s. I asked questions everywhere, eglutton, coffeegeeks.com and poor Owen. I think it took a visit to a REAL coffee shop in Princeton to make me realize I was getting in miles over my head. I took a look at the equipment and watched the adept barista handle 2 or 3 customers at a time seemingly with three hands and came to the conclusion that I was completely out of my mind. I’m sure you came to that conclusion two installments ago. End of espresso idea. Time to obsess on coffee. And obsess I did – and still am. Fetco, Bunn, Fetco, Bunn – endless research on coffee machines. And choosing a coffee roaster - choosing a college was easier. I got samples from Gimme Coffee, Small World, Freedom of Expression, Terroir and Empire. I dutifully wrapped each bag in an airtight baggie as soon as they were delivered. And the bread was thrown out of the freezer and replaced by 25 bags of coffee. It’s a good thing my wife has no need for such worldly things as refrigerators or freezers. Do you have any idea what’s involved with coffee tasting, er, CUPPING?? Did you ever go to a wine tasting? Then you’ll get an inkling. But at least with wine you just pour it in a glass, give it a swirl, then a swirl in your mouth, and voila, too acidic, or whatever. But with coffee, you gotta go buy a $2,989 digital scale to weigh the coffee and the water to make sure you’re comparing roasts properly. After all, you don’t wanna give one coffee an unfair advantage over another by using an extra half gram. And you have to have on hand umpteen coffee makers to make a bunch of cups at once so you can compare. In my case, I plunked down $25 and bought four one-cup melittas. This was more time consuming than making grilled cheese sandwiches! And then you gotta learn about single varietals and blends and all sorts of other terms that would send shivers up a wine connoisseur’s spine. And water purifiers and softeners and filters and grinders. My God, it’s only fucking coffee! At least that’s what my subconscious kept telling me as I kept delving in deeper and deeper with the end goal of serving the best café in Jersey City. And by God, I will, with the grace of God and the blessing of my insane obsessiveness. Even though I know only a step above nothing now. Back to the grilled cheese condiments. Chutney absolutely and unequivocally rules. Forget bacon, ham or tomatoes. Kim and I must’ve spent over two hours at Kalustyan’s. God knows how many times I ran out to my car to feed the 15 minute meter. This place should be on all tourists’ sightseeing lists right up there with the Statue of Liberty. We were in pig’s heaven. If you never heard of this emporium of Indian spices, check them out at www.kalustyans.com. Without exaggeration, they must have close to 1000 chutneys. At one point, I had about 5% of them in our cart, but it’s a good thing I brought Kim. 4% were returned. We reluctantly dragged ourselves out and went to Dowel, a similar type place in the east village, but thankfully smaller. Some more chutneys and pestos. Then Murray’s Cheese Shop where the nice salesperson tried to poison us by giving us a taste of far too many cheeses. Who can decide? Each one tasted better than the last. I showed restraint and only got about 10 cheeses. These cheeses were for the so-called “special of the week” sandwiches. And then on to Meyers of Keswick, the very proper and stately English store in the West Village. What great mustards! And pickles! All my life I thought there were only two kinds of pickles. The kosher ones from Jewish delis and the goyish pickles from everywhere else. A whole new world was opened. And then it was off to the Chocolate Bar where the goal was to come up with ideas for a hot chocolate shake. They should hang my sign in all chocolate shops with the heading: DO NOT FEED THIS PERSON, HE IS………. OBSESSIVE. Despite my munching on everything in sight, I found what I wanted, but it’s a secret. Shhhhh. And the next day, it was time for yet another grilled cheese experiment. This time with toppings.

Katie, who is PLCB? Personally, I like aquariums. I like a big glass so I can swirl my red wine to my heart's content :)). It's a byo, so the only thing that matters is that the customer is happy with the glass. Their expectations are certainly not going to be high. Accordingly, I'm not going to go with white and red glasses -- it's really not that kind of place. People will probably be impressed that I even have wine glasses as opposed to paper cups.

Thanks for the suggestions. I realized I might as well combine purchasing glasses for my home and cafe, which will be opening soon. I like the Riedel restaurant line and the price is certainly right. Btw Katie, if you look at Reide's restaurant collection, and click on any glass, Reidel has this caveat: "Only available to the Restaurant Trade - not available in stores." Here in NJ it's available from Lauber importers, the wine purveyor. Now I can use suggestions for my cafe. It's a small very casual BYO and I honestly doubt that I'll be getting a lot of people who wanna drink wine. Again, I wanna stick with one all purpose glass. I'm thinking either the 446/0 Cabernet/Merlot or 446/7 Pinor Noir/Nebbiolo (sell link above.) They're each about $64 for the first case of 12 and the price decreases as you buy more. Whattaya think?

Owen, that's your homework. Thanks for volunteering. And wouldn't the syrup be a given, U-Bet, though God knows what they put in that.

Thanks for the sympathy. I'm gonna be afraid to walk barefoot for the next century. Yep, they're cheaper than Wine Enthusiast. I'm gonna go ahead and buy 2 sets of these unless someone has a better option. Thanks.

As long as we're throwing names around, someone in the biz, the ice cream biz that is, told me that Magnifico's in East Brunswick makes the best shake in NJ. Yeah? And what makes a shake great other than a lot of premium/super premium ice cream?

Tragedy struck! Well, it could have been worse. I opened the dining room cabinet and every single wine glass fell to the floor, sink and everywhere and broke. What a mess! The hinge had fallen off the shelf. I recently bought them too, about $400 worth or so. I know, a pittance to many of you, but they worked fine for me. I don't look forward to spending that much to replace them. Actually, I'd like to spend half that. Can I get some suggestions? I don't know if this is wine heresy, but I prefer the big bordeaux glass to use with everything. I got a set of these which I really liked - but I see the price has gone way up. I paid $80 for a set of 4. I need a total of about 10. Doesn't need to be overly fancy. Thanks.

Every single restaurant I've worked at (6) save for the last one had its FOH vs. BOH animosities/battles/wars - to varying degrees. Mostly for different reasons, but the one common denominator seemed to be the conflicting duties of managers and chefs. Both groups seem to be very territorial. Mind you, this is my experience and I don't mean to imply this is universal. One restaurant was particularly bad in this regard mostly because the owner clearly fostered the animostity. She'd regularly refer to the kitchen employees as the FKP's, the filthy kitchen people. It was so ludicrous it was a riot. Someone should have written a book :)) One time the manager led a rebellion among the FOH staff and, instead of eating the staff meal which they called dog food, they all ordered off the menu with the owner's blessing and paid employee price. Ah, the good ol' days. :)

Very timely topic as I continue my endless and futile quest for a decent wholesaler. I came across an interesting article, Old Newark Memories, - and contacted most of the stores mentioned, all to no avail. It's really a fascinating article (Jason, did you point it out?) Has anyone ever tried the bagel stores mentioned in the article? -- Elmora Bagels in Elizabeth, Sonny's Bagels in S. Orange, Wigler Bakery in the Millburn Mall or any of the Bagels-4-U stores? In my pursuits, I ended up speaking to one of the Amsters and he mentioned a quality bagel store that he thought might wholesale in Harrison. Like a jerk, I lost the piece of paper with the name and phone number. Anyone know such a place?

Okay, WAY up the road. A nice hike on a crisp fall day. For some reason that deli sticks in my mind as having great knishes, but it's been 10 years since I was there. Back to tongue tacos....

Rachel, I guess you need to change your Mexican dining habit from Saturday to Thursday night. I should probably start a new thread, but a quick unrelated question. I used to work at Foster Village a zillion years ago (at the dead and bankrupt Fellowship S&L) just up the road. I noticed the kosher deli I used to frequent is still there. Is it still the same owners and is the food still great?

Thanks for the comments. While I honestly appreciate helpful advice, the point or intent of this thread was decidedly not to to solicit any such help. With all due respect, no one can draw any meaningful conclusions from the writings as presented. If you wanna criticize my writing, go for it. I welcome that. Much of the writing is tongue-in-cheek, and if I have to say that, I guess it sucks. Therefore, I'm putting an end to posting this krud here.

Part 2 I bought a fancy schmantzy home panini grill so I could start experimenting. I couldn’t wait. This was to be the fun part. Well, it was, if you like to eat cheese by the pound. I called various purveyors to check cheese prices. I was astounded. I knew I was gonna have to listen to my mentor and find a way to cut back on cheese expense. After all, you can’t differentiate good cheese from mediocre after you melt it. Or so I rationalized. To my palette, a cheddar from Murray’s Cheese Shop tastes the same as the A&P pre-wrapped slices once you stick it on the grill. The price list from Cheese Works, one of New York’s premier commercial cheese dealers, made my head spin. It was clear that I would have to cheap out on the basic sandwiches, i.e., Cheddar, American, Swiss, Munster, Provolone, etc., if I were to achieve my budgeted food cost. And I would go for broke with the fancy specials that I plan to regularly have. Sigh, compromises so early in the game. So it was off to Restaurant Depot, supermarket of very ordinary food for very ordinary commercial places like diners. It reminded me of BJ’s or Sam’s Club. Everything comes in ridiculous sizes. However, the prices were right – they keep their prices low by not delivering and selling it in sizes that you need a palette to put it on instead of a shopping cart. I must have ended up with 150 pounds of cheddar and the like. Unfortunately, the thought didn’t occur to me at the time that I had to carry the cheese up to my 4 floor walkup, then throw out Anabelle’s poison in the fridge to make room. So now the freezer was filled to capacity with bread and the fridge was filled with cheese. But wait! I still needed to buy toppings! Toppings are what’s going to really differentiate my sandwiches from the four other places in the world that specialize in grilled cheese sandwiches. I had some ideas thanks to a wonderful cookbook by Marlena Spieler and a whole bunch of tips from the maniacs on a food forum, eglutton. And, I had a whole list of stores in Manhattan that I wanted to visit. But then I sat down and worked the logistics. Testing fifteen plus cheeses and combinations thereof and testing different breads with different thicknesses could go on and on, ad nauseum. Throw in the toppings, and even a Cray’s computer wouldn’t be up to task for the complexity of the assignment. So, the toppings would have to wait. Did I mention that I have no culinary experience? After all, I’m just a fucking accountant. Like, I couldn’t get past what oil I should be using to spread on the bread. Or should I use butter? Salted? Do I spread it on both sides of the bread? Okay, time to call for help. Fortunately Kim, a pastry chef I worked with long ago in another lifetime, was available to lead the blind. Thank you thank you Kim – she was a savior. First I got lots of advice over the phone [use butter you schmuck!…but what kind?…it doesn’t fucking matter!] and later on we would spend some time together, shopping and cooking. Do you have any idea how much time is involved in making sandwiches using a one-sandwich home panini grill? And the prep work? Slicing cheese takes muscle! And keeping track of the cheeses and the breads and carefully (well, that was the intent) making notes of every combo? Hah! And that was the easy part! The ball buster was sampling a couple of dozen sandwiches. Do you have any idea how filling a grilled cheese sandwich is? Taking two bites from each sandwich added up to like eating six sandwiches! Needless to say, my diet was temporarily on hold. And this part of the “testing” went on for several days until I was satisfied with the type and thickness of the bread, how much cheese to use per sandwich and getting an inkling of what cheeses work well as combos. My God, I cannot for the life of me imagine being a chef. This is complicated stuff! Take me back to the safe world of abacuses and spreadsheets. The simplicity concept was beginning to look like an abstraction. And I still hadn’t begun part two of the tasting: throw in toppings as another variable. Yikes! But I’ll come back to that. Let’s focus on the seemingly simple task of a soda vendor. For all you people from Mars, that’s soda POP. Part of the concept of Melt, yes, that’s the name, is retro comfort food. [though the decor will be decidedly 21st century industrial chic, whatever the fuck that means.] So the soda had to be nostalgic. Another underlying concept of Melt, one that is not presented to anyone except my deepest inner self in rare moments, is having snob appeal. This follows a lifelong pattern of some underlying psychosis, but I think I covered that (in too much detail) in another writing. So, not only does the soda POP have to be nostalgic, but I have to be the only one on the block to carry it. Boylan’s is among the best in the retro category, but for chrissakes, they bottle the stuff in NJ and every other store carries it. I’m not like everybody else [tm, Dave Davies.] You have no idea what lengths I went to in order to find soda POP that fit these criteria. I spent hours on realsoda.com, bevnet.com as well as other internet sites. And go check the eglutton message board’s soft drinks section for all of my insane questions. I think I have the name and origin of most every soda POP memorized. I even went to a Mexican restaurant a zillion miles from home to check out their Mexican coke and other Mexican sodas. By the way, you really haven’t tasted coke until you’ve tried this stuff. Obsessiveness has its benefits. I called manufacturers all over the country as well as soda distributors. I was leaving no bottle cap unturned. Unfortunately, I wasn’t coming up with much. I came to the conclusion that there basically is no distribution network for cool nostalgic soda on the east coast. The west coast has more than its share, bastids. So, I’m basically stuck with Boylan, Jones and Whooppee. The latter makes an incredible cocoa cream soda – they were nice enough to ship me some samples, and small enough to have that ever so elusive snob appeal. But too small to carry enough flavors. Or if that fucktard distributor in Delaware comes through, I could end up with private label sodas, which supposedly surpass the best of them. I drool over the thought of having “Have a belt of strawberry cream Melt” on the label. But I’m waiting three weeks for my samples. The final solution [tm, pere ubu], the one that will prove my insanity to any non-believers, is to have a palette shipped from realsoda.com in Arizona. I could get a mix of Henry Weinhard root beer, Hansen’s sarsaparilla, Hank's black cherry, Henry Weinhard orange cream, orange nehi, strawberry crush and a choice of dozens and dozens of others. So what if I’d have to charge $2. There’s plenty of other, um, enthusiasts like me, right? Or if I can find an interpreter to talk to the Mexican coke smuggler, I can sell those under the counter. No deposit required.

Ha, it must be buried in the old terminal. Even the Antique Bakery told me to start living in the 21st century :))

For the past five or six months, I’ve been painstakingly researching the absolute best products to sell in my one of these days to be open café. Grilled cheese sandwiches will be the mainstay. The whole concept is simple – that is, keep things simple by only selling a few things and only sell the best. I checked out two stores with a similar concept and it looked so easy. Time to move to the limelight from my back of the house job where I watched clueless restaurant owners destroy their businesses one after the other. I figure that with my background, I can be a lot more efficient, hopefully not in going out of business in record time. Who cares that I have no culinary experience? Well, I did take a course in gourmet Chinese cooking in 1980. That should be sufficient. Besides, I can throw a few slices of cheese in between a couple of slices of bread and throw it on a panini grill as well as anyone. Anyone with a brain and with a life probably would have given up the dream immediately after the first (of many) MAJOR setbacks. Bread. Everyone told me this is THE most important ingredient of the sandwich. Okay, seems simple enough, just call up several of the many New York purveyors and get samples. WRONG! In order to make THE BEST, one needs a thick white bread. But the key is THICKLY SLICED. Who would’ve thunk that nobody, well, practically none of NY’s commercial bakeries offer nothing but the standard slice, or perhaps one other size? After about the fourth unsuccessful call, I asked the owner what gives? I started thinking I’d have to add Wusthof knives to my budget. But this can’t be. I remember in ancient times going to the bakery for mom and asking for a sliced rye, no seeds, THICKLY SLICED. The purveyor broke the news kindly to me. They don’t make those adjustable slicers any more. They’re a relic just like I am. A call to Eli’s Bread gave me some hope, but it was quickly dashed. They indeed did have one of those ancient slicers. But they had no customers for thick bread and it sat there gathering cobwebs. And no, they weren’t going to brush off the cobwebs for one lousy customer. Nor would they sell me the machine for less than my entire payroll budget. I was ready to settle and use NY Bakery’s very thickly sliced bread, one inch. They modified a slicer and took out blades so it would slice to that size. But that was too thick. And I also heard what was to become a theme: we don’t deliver to NJ. They didn’t go for my story (true!) that Jersey City is closer to most of the places they deliver to in NY. People just don’t like New Jersey. I can’t imagine why. For some insane reason, it took Rachel P to ask if I checked with Balthazar Bakery. Why should I? Their bakery is only a 20-minute ride up the turnpike in beloved NJ. It was too obvious. And lo and behold, not only did they have one of those relic slicers, but also they were more than happy to accommodate whatever thickness I wanted. I had to make 3 trips to my car to load all the samples. Nice folks. So now I had to figure out what thickness – thickness is measured on a 1 to 10 scale. Normal thickness is 4. So I started with 9. And there began the start of the first of many great experiments.

How do you know if people aren't tipping on hot water?

Tim, is this a hypothetical or does it really happen? I can't imagine anyone having the balls to do that. And if it does happen, what do they say when you ask why they took more than a bite or 2? Just to put some closure on my original post. Shortly after posting, I stopped going to that particular restaurant -- yet another one added to my shitlist. No, not because they never offered a comp, I'm not THAT petty, but I was offended over something else a little more personal. That was weeks ago. And lo and behold, today I got an email from the manager offering a dinner for 2 on the house. Which I politely refused.