rstarobi

Here's my quickie New Rochelle report: Chinese: Don't bother coming here for it Bagels: I don't think there's anyplace for them other than the local Dunkin' Donuts Jewish delis: None worth speaking of The one thing that New Ro has going for it culinarily is a very large Mexican community; perhaps not one to compare with some of the outer boroughs, but certainly more outstanding food-wise than Manhattan. Try Las Cazuelas on North Ave., El Michoacan on Main St., or The Mexican Corner Restaurant on Main St. (in that order). Edited for grammar

how do the servers try to get more money out of the customer? through those wine prices (which seem very reasonable as i recall)? Excessively pushing bottled water, pouring wine as fast as you can take a sip from your glass, gushing over the special extra appetizers, begging you to order dessert- hows that? What kind of group were you with when the servers did this? The two times I've gone, I've had desert pushed, and the usual "mineral or tap" question asked, but nothing that seemed excessive. Once I was alone, the second time with a group of five.

You think the pastas were tough? To my taste buds they were some of the most perfectly Al Dente pastas I've ever had. I thought they were a little over salted, but my taste buds react strongly to salt, so that's more a matter of personal taste.

McDonald's is still ridiculously successful with kids, teens and early 20-somethings. All of those people can drag their parents along too.

prosciutto and melon mozzarella and tomato tomato and basil hazelnut and chocolate

As a pedestrian, I love sidewalk cafes. There's something really wonderful about walking through the city, and past all these (sometimes) wonderful meals out on the streets. The smells get into the air and counteract the daily dose of air pollution, and the noises are not much worse than standard city chatter. If I were a resident living above one of these places though, I can see that the noise might get truly annoying after a short time.

Milk and cookies Clotted cream, jam and scones Heineken and sharp cheddar

For exercise, I've gone back and started fencing again. I did about 1/2 an hour of saber last afternoon, and then walked four miles. I had one pretty high calorie meal (burger and fries), but other than that, I was very low-cal for the rest of the day.

I've eaten at La Pizza Fresca, which is one of the places that Naples has OK'd - the pizza was very good, but the place is never very full, so as a sales proposition it might need some work.

"McDonald's - Why not? You're used to it." "McDonald's - It can't get much worse."

I wasn't crazy about the burger the one time I had it there, but I've enjoyed everything else I've had. Love the root beer and the beer list, though.

I'd be happy to help out as well.

The trick with fine dining restaurants, and other high-caloric foods is to take them in moderation, IE - go to wherever, but just don't order the entire menu, and once you've had your fill, don't keep eating. Then there's other little tricks and tips, like limiting the amount of dressing you have with salad by dipping your fork in the dressing and then spearing some salad, rather than just pouring the dressing over the salad.

Monica, your book (spice is right) is actually really useful to me for WW purposes, since it has all the nutrional information right there with every recipe.

Lets see - I think the first component of the Egullet diet is that flavor cannot be sacrificed. Perhaps an emphasis on quality ingredients would offset a loss of quantity? One aspect of extended dieting is that it decreases the amount of food you need to be 'full'. A graduated decrease in the amount of food you are allowed to have that is related to your weight is one of the nicer features of the WW system.

Is McDonald's getting desperate for a reason, or is this just desperation for its own sake?

I'm intrigued as to why there are 7 issues per year. This seems different from the norm. Is there 1 special issue? You're forgetting the annual Cooks Illustrated Swimsuit issue..

Although I'll chime in for Suvir and say that Foods of India next door is just as good, if not better in a lot of areas.

I do my Mexican grocery shopping at Viva Ranch in New Rochelle, NY; ridiculously cheap prices, and fair-excellent produce. They've got a good selection of general produce, with a great selection of chiles (and a pretty good butcher in the back).

Is there an ETA for the Time-Warner building? How soon after the building opens can we start to expect FL East and maybe Trotter's to open up/expect them to not be showing up in NY?

Inventolux, you might want to consider putting a "skip intro" button onto your site. People tend to get frustrated with flash intros that they can't get past, and will click away rather than wait to get to the meat of the site. You can't put a skip button when there is nothing to skip to... Good point - I suppose I got too frustrated with the flash intro to see that it was the whole of the site.

Inventolux, you might want to consider putting a "skip intro" button onto your site. People tend to get frustrated with flash intros that they can't get past, and will click away rather than wait to get to the meat of the site.

I'm not sure if they belong in any discussion of "the best", but I really enjoyed the wings at Molly's (23rd and 3rd).

I'm partial to hot dogs myself - but then again, if it's the world series, I might splurge and get a pretzel too. But seriously folks, I've seen these in my local salvation army thrift store before; they aren't incredibly rare as far as I can tell; I'd have bought them, except my girlfriend already has the full set.

Second trip to Otto over the weekend: I went with a friend and split two pizzas - the Romana (anchovies, capers, tomato sauce, mozzarella, chilis) and the Lardo (lard and olive oil). This was my first visit since the restaurant's opening week, so I was curious to taste the changes that people had been talking about. I went on Sunday during a somewhat offpeak hour (around 2:30, maybe). The restaurant was busy, but we were seated immediately - I seem to have very good luck with seating, probably due to my lack of conformity to "normal" lunch and dinner hours. Otto continues to stint on its beer selection to enable its wine habit. The original two beers served remain the only two beers served - a brooklyn lager and brooklyn pilsner. The lager was good with the pizza, but the not so subtle message was, "drink wine, yutz." A sampling of three cheese was excellent - ricotta, taleggio and gorgonzola served with truffled honey, reconstituted apricots in a white wine sauce and brandied cherries. The taleggio was the big standout. The pizzas were good, but not as flavorful as I had remembered. The crust was softer, more like a pita than it had been before. While most of the ingredients were top notch, the lardo didn't really add much flavor, so it ended up tasting like a heavily oiled pita, and the tomato sauce lacked the brightness of my first visit. I was told upon ordering dessert that the restaurant had no more hot chocolate, which was a big disappointment, but ordered three gelati to console myself - pistacchio, hazelnut stracciatela and vanilla. The pistacchio was lacking in some pistacchio-ness, but the other two were wonderful. All in all, a good meal, but not as exciting as my first visit several months ago.