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Well, heck, I sure don't mind trying good ones! No... superior ones. We have moderately good of all of the above in Syracuse but not really great. Got anything in mind? Lonnie ← I concur with the Oleana and Via Matta recs. I've also heard good things about Cafe Umbra. Italian: Mare or Prezza Thai: Dok Bua or Rod Dee Elephant Walk (Cambridge location) used to be on my list, but the quality of food has gone down in recent years. I can't speak about the Boston location. Chinese: Peach Farm for seafood or Hei La Moon for dim sum (neither of these are high end). Vietnamese: The city is overrun with Pho Pasteurs, but the only decent on is in Chinatown. I'm sure there are others, but I highly recommend their hot Vietnamese coffee for takeout (if you're near the common and cold - it makes Dunks looks like bathwater (no comment )).

hehehe...i love going to chinese on christmas. it's my favorite part of having the day off from work! but in all seriousness, i'm a sucker for eggnog and i have been known to frequent the "seven fishes" dinners at local restaurants. i mean, 7 courses of fish - how could that be bad?

Seriously, that was hilarious!!! I myself don't drink so much coffee, but here are my wee-hours sustaining substances. Cheese, plenty of it. But not any sort of crumbly or too hard to cut stuff. Give me the camemberts, the morbiers, the cheddars and the gruyeres. Sadly, roquefort it too crumbly to make the cut . Peanut butter eaten with a spoon out of the container. And when I lived in Paris, Nutella eaten out of the BIG container with a spoon while sitting on the kitchen floor at 4am.

Depending on what you're looking for.... High end: I concur with the No. 9 Park suggestion. Lovely, just lovely. Clio would not be my list, but its sushi bar - Uni - might be. I also really love Craigie Street Bistrot outside of Harvard Square. Top notch in my book. "Boston-esq": I really, really don't like Durgin Park. But I've come to the conclusion that it has nothing to do with the service - I just don't like that type of food. Union Oyster house is only a go if you sit at the bar - sip some champagne and shoot some oysters. Do not, I repeat do not, sit down and try and have a meal there. There is a lapse in the space/time contium and you cannot get a fresh oyster once you have left the bar area. Some cuisines found in Boston that you might not have nearby: O'Cantino for Portugese in Cambridge Muqueca for Brazillian in Cambridge Danish Pastry house for what the name indicates in Watertown. Lala Rohk in Beacon Hill for Persian - pretty romantic too. I've tried to leave out Italian, Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese as you seem to not want to eat at those sorts of places.

Great blog Abra, I've really enjoyed reading it (I used to be a caterer, though not as fabulous as a personal chef, I still love your musings about transporting all of your gear!)! In terms of root vegetable tartes, the following three things come to mind: 1) Cornmeal crusts remind me of mascarpone and fig tartes. Too sweet for the wine you had in mind, I think. 2) A root vegetable cobbler from epicurious: Root Vegetable Cobbler with Chive Biscuit I'm little skeptical on this one though. 3) Some sort of Gratin with gruyere and creme fraiche. The combination would probably stand up to the wine, but I'm not sure about how to incorporate the cornmeal crust. How about a gratin/tarte hybred? (Gosh, this sounds awful, but I love cheese and want to put it in everything!) I think layering the creme fraiche on the cornmeal might be a good binding agent. Ok, really, I know nothing Good luck!

First time post - eeek!!! A long time ago, and I mean long, we used to go to lunch at the Bird Cage at Lord & Taylor's across from St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhatten. Perhaps Busboy has a point about the demise of the department store restaurant. In other musings, there was also McCreedy's, but that was more a restaurant to take children to - not in a Chuckie Cheese sort of way. There was a huge carosaul in the middle and we had to wear gloves. There was also Schraff's - a now non-existent chain that was a respectable place for women to go by themselves to have lunch. But above all, ladies who lunch has always meant The Bird Cage to me. Edited to add: I didn't actually answer the question though...The Zodiac Restaurant at Neiman Marcus serves a mandarin orange soufflé salad plate that seems to fit the bill. There are a few of them around (Atlanta, GA; Troy, MI). The plate comes with a bit of chicken salad, a slice of some sort of nut bread, and fruit salad. Had with a glass of something light and fruity and a ball of ice cream rolled in pecans and then served with a lava flow of chocolate sauce, it makes for a lovely afternoon lunch. (Though not as upscale as Megan's! )