tommy

Artisanal - 3 Babbo - 3 Balthazar - 1 Blue Water Grill - 10 Eleven Madison Park - 2 Gramercy Tavern - 2/3 Le Bernardin - 1 March - 1 RM - 1 Tabla - 5 Union Pacific - 8 yikes. it's been a slow year.

i hate quizzes. on average, i eat at restaurants about 5-10 times a week. mostly 1/2 star type places. i'll visit "3 star" (my definition might not agree with the NYT) restaurants perhaps 15 or 20 times per year, and 2 or 3 four star. my choice of restaurants is usually based on convenience and desire: if i'm going out in the east village, i'll pick somewhere down there, etc. however, some of the better restaurants fall under the "destination" category (most trips outside of the NYC area are based on/around restaurants). i'm a "regular" at just a few restaurants. perhaps 10 know me by face. although i may frequent other places very often, just not in a way that would make me a "regular" (i don't go out of my way to engage servers/chefs/reservationists/etc at some places). i have no other answers. may i be excused?

what cut of meat? this dish is very larb-like. i like that.

those tasty granola bars. i also keep a pepper mill, dried oregano, and kosher salt at my desk.

thereuare, if the fixed price dinner is 22 bucks, and they have a bunch of wines at 18 bucks, i really can't see much more of a bargain in manhattan. that's pretty incredible.

I think Syrah/Shiraz often smells (and slightly tastes) like a big pile of raw ground meat. Definitely an accurate descriptor for that. Was that what you were tasting, Tommy? could have been syrah i suppose. not sure though. i've had a hundred syrahs, and never had this intense flavor come through. i'll try to remember the winery and wine.

that seemed inappropriately nasty.

"chardonnay flavored"? does that mean it's treated with oak chips?

ridgewood is selling its last liquor license for about 400k. that will be the 8th and final (based on population). ridgewood still has plenty of room for a restaurant. considering that a huge parking garage is going up downtown, i have to think that there's a bit of room left. that 60 number is suspect. if it includes pizza places and chinese places, it's largely deceiving.

i don't think i could eat more than about $35 worth of lobster. are the sides included?

i love the first line: "Start off slowly, don't try to be a hero."

those are pretty impressive numbers. 95 is well over the average household income of americans. do you know if the numbers were in any way augmented to take into account the non-reported income?

we gettin paid?

i used "it tastes like *meat*" once at a winery in CA. the woman pouring was very pleased that i'd say such a thing.

i do, in fact, recall my first experience with NZ SB. i was at Vong, in NYC. i ordered a NZ SB, out of shear ignorance (and probably because of the price point). i sampled the bottle, and jokingly said "this smell like cat piss" to my friend as the waiter was walking away. he stopped, and turned to us and said "it's supposed to". i figgered he was kidding, but soon realized that he wasn't. i do like that descriptor, and use it as often as possible, especially for the uninitiated, assuming they'll appreciate it as much as i did.

grrrrrr. i was eating buffalo wings and drinking light beer.

but coffee takes a least a *little* time to make, and keep fresh. a bottle of wine, or tequila, or water for that matter, takes nothing more than the purchase and the resale. it's simply a product. (yes, i appreciate the cost of cellars and whatnot, but if we're talking wines by the glass, in my experience, they are young and flying off the shelf).

you don't really want to do that, do you?

good idea guajolote, at the very least, i'll mince the chicken (yeah, chicken) the day before. i cook it with lime juice, so i'll probably just wait til the next day to dress it. or, i can cook it with just stock, and dress it the next day. either way, i'll have to leave out the cilantro, red pepper, and scallion until the last minute, as i don't want them to go limp. i'm going to go ahead and do this. i'll report back. yours, in larb, tommy

all this talk of wine markups at 300-400%. what's the markup on a shot of tequila? somewhere around 1000%? what's a shot, 1.5 ounces give or take? assuming that, there about 16 shots in a 750 ml bottle of tequila. the shot costs 10 and the bottle costs 30. so that's a 500% markup. or something like that. somebody check that math. i got lost on the 2nd step.

eck. remember, when i say "BBQ" i mean "the thing were people come over and we put food stuff on the gas grill and have salads and beer and stuff." think of it as a dinner party, but outside. larb fits, i think, but i'm wondering if it's doable. i'm considering serving it in endive leaves a la those nice folks up in the pacific northwest. however, i'm thinking it has to be prepared and served almost immediately. i don't want the lime juice to toughen the meat. i'd like nothing more than to do this well ahead of time, however.

how do we feel about making larb for a cookout, serving it at room temp. room temp being whatever the temp outside happens to be. i can't see why not, but for some reason i'm hesitant to serve larb at a BBQ. and ideas on how to actually serve it, short of having a big tin of it with some lettuce on the side? thoughts?

sometimes. a quite a few people i know do as well. i don't think this is an odd thing in the NYC area. i mean, it's odd that people do it, but it's not odd to come across. i'm trying to break myself of the "habit", not because i'm afraid some might think i'm gauche, but rather because it's inefficient and often awkward. i simply have more control with my right hand for fork and knife maneuvers.

they are opening a South City Grill in Jersey City apparently. i don't recall reading that here, so i'm just throwing it out there.

Tommy, I think the sarcasm was hardly necessary. i wasn't being sarcastic. you said unless you weren't serious, i assumed you were appealing to peoples' sense of sympathy. i don't think sympathy has a place in wine pricing.