tommy

well, i ordered the least expensive bottle from the list, and i can tell you that that one is indeed on the website's list. do yourself a favor and order your steak sans thyme, which they apparently put on all of their steaks. that is, of course, unless you want all of your steaks to taste like thyme.

i found the 49 day aged strip unremarkable, whereas my companions liked it a lot. i just didn't get much minerally flavor that i'd expect from something aged that long. the grass fed strip blew me away, although my guests were not quite as convinced. it was the closest that i've ever gotten to florentine beef in the US. rich and herbal. we were all reasonably pleased with the wagyu selections, of which we tried 2: rib eye and flatiron. i guess everyone really liked the texture. i'm not convinced that wagyu is necessarily big on flavor, though. my tastes apparently lean more towards assertive beefy minerally flavors. if i go back i'm going straight for the grass-fed. you can get corn fed anywhere, so i don't see the big draw here. the tuna tartar starter and soft-shell crabs were quite tasty as well.

i'm glad they finally have a website. they should probably ramp up the descriptions of the dishes though. the fried calamari, for example, is some of the best in the area, but the menu listing of "fried calamari" doesn't do much to make me want to run down there to try it. a website is probably the single most important and cost-effective piece of marketing for a business like this. they should really take full advantage of it. the lasagna is quite good here. i'm with chef david in that it's a great place to go for some good pasta. but i'm also with others who wish there were more challenging and interesting dishes to choose from.

it's one of those things that people don't realize when they're not very active on the internet: everyone assumes mangia is related to the restaurant, so, even if he/she is just a big fan, nobody takes his/her posts seriously. it (this pattern of posting) does nothing but hurt the restaurant, ultimately. which is a shame.

actually, just using the phrase "old fuddy-duddy" makes you an old fuddy-duddy. i generally couldn't care less who else is in a place unless they're not behaving very well. that happens at sceney-hip NYC places, and local bars. and chain restaurants. and fast food places. and just about everywhere. actually, i do enjoy a "scene" every now and again. i can't believe that people can just block out celebrities and beautiful models and whatever else goes with that stuff. i can't imagine wanting too!

dude, for real on the VI burger? it doesn't seem like a place i'd necessarily eat (although the wings smelled damned good). dollar buds on thursday. c'mon.

probably not much over 1 hour from river vale.

you can do well at Rosa Mexicano. i recommend the 18th street outpost, as oppopsed to the other 2. it's colorful and fun.

sounds like this isn't an issue with the price of this fish, but rather the general pricing/value at Doris and Ed's. it's quite silly to start comparing the price of raw materials with the price of a dish at a restaurant. there are many factors going into that final cost. something seasonal and perishable, like fish, is probably the least offender. pasta, a big offender.

the laws and principles of economics no doubt kicked in. our loss, and red sauce lovers' gain.

if i'm not mistaken, Oceanos in Fair Lawn has a copper river salmon dish for about 32-35. the fish, in general, is well worth it to my mind.

i don't know if you have to, but, you certainly should.

Foy's lack of googlable website is annoying, frustrating, and just wasted 10 minutes of my life. that's 9 minutes too many for me to bother with his crappy restaurants.

i think jason perlow summed it up pretty well when he referred to TJ's as a "fancy 7-11." 7-11, for those who don't know, is a convenience store, where you might get some snacks or a loaf of bread or a burrito at 3 am. The news of the pending arrival of TJ's a few miles northwest of manhattan in NJ has generated a similar mix of enthusiasm and couldn't-care-lessness.

i don't know of very many tasting menus in NJ that are over 100 dollars. on a more helpful note, i tried to start a "tasting menu" thread a while back with questionable results. it might be worth searching for.

Fink, it's tuesday. Can one eat at the bar? Will one have a hard time getting a bar stool on a Tuesday night?

interest: piqued. what's the story with this thing? from what i see on the instranet, it's more of an organized and formal thing requiring advance tickets and consisting of sit-down classes and seminars, rather than a walk-around madhouse kinda thing that you can just take in at your leisure like i'm used to. am i wrong? thanks for the suggestions everyone. there's nothing wrong with a fresh thread. that's for sure.

i'm posting from my car as we speak.

what's the 411 on this steakhouse in maywood. the only thing that comes close that i know of is Victor's. Victor's, by the way, doesn't have a horrible burger.

i'm not sure how far you are from mo-town, but one of the best burgers ever i've had is at Copeland.

yeah, hyperbole. they should be available through the summer. i'm not sure if they're harder to get as the summer goes on though. in fact, i really have no idea at all. all i know is it's time to eat them. a bunch of them. crab is such a friggin pain the ass to eat otherwise.

the Stop and Shop near me in Bergen county has quite decent ciabatte. i don't think it would compare to mom-and-pop bakers, but there just aren't any near me, 'specially open on Sunday. not bad in a pinch a'tall.

Now I have an "oo lee" (don't know how to spell it. but that's how it's pronouced in italian ) for SS crabs. It means a " yen for" So which shall it be..Wondees or Oceanos...? Oh, decisions, decisions.. ← i may be wrong, but i always got the impression that Wondee's has soft shell crabs well beyond the actual season, which suggests to me that they are, at times, frozen. Oceanos, on the other hand, is dealing with top-notch seafood, as i ramble on about here. they're in different leagues. although, that basil and chili is quite tasty over at wondee's.

had an outstanding soft shell crab at Oceanos in Fair Lawn last night. These are some of the freshest tasting and meatiest soft shell crabs i've ever had. Here's a pretty bad pic in low light.