tommy

sure, aside from, say, every one of your posts in your sig line.

Sorry gal, the place wasn't even opened 9 months ago. INEDIBLE!!! One of the best pork chops I've ever had. ← they opened in may/05. 8 months ago according to my calculations. the menu on their website describes the pork chop as "Rubber". so perhaps they were successful in executing that particular dish during rosie's visit. consistency does certainly not seem a strong suit of this place.

2 stars in NJ Monthly and "Excellent" from tomorrow's NY Times.

nice job on the links rlibkind. eric, matt, and staff: congrats on the exposure, and on an excellent hot dog(s).

bring a bottle of prosecco and a bottle of red. for red a simple fruit-forward italian would suffice to my mind. Tosca Toscana (not the chianti) would probably pair well with what you might order. 9 dollars or so. anonymouze's suggestion of Dr. L's riesling is spot on as far as i'm concerned. 3 bottles in a bag is always a good thing. open all 3, make sure to request that the corks be left on the table (for recorking), and take home what you don't finish. and ask for 3 glasses for each person (the tables here are plenty big to handle it). that way, you'll have the chance to pair 3 wines with whatever you order. the dishes tend to be complicated here, with lots of flavors, and they lean on the sweet and fried sides of the spectrum. bubbles, riesling, and fruit-forward are where i usually end up. stop at bottle king in glen rock on your way (i *think* it's on your way). they have cold prosecco and the others i mention at the best prices in the area.

he said sounds like, among other things, he thought the (canned) pineapple could have been "fresher". perhaps it sat out a bit too long to his mind.

yup. but it's pointless to even put a cost on that much beer. it was just plain bad business. and stupid. not to mention rude. i sampled 2 of their beers. the lager and the ale i think. one of them didn't do much for me at all, though i don't have a very developed taste for beer. from what i can tell, given the opinions of people whose opinions i trust and my own singular experience, the place is a colossal failure, that just happens to make money hand-over-fist. unfortunately for NJ that's the rule rather than the exception.

i'm at the point where if i *don't* get a fatty piece of pork that's probably the equivalent of bacon in some other culture then i'm offended and want to call the cops.

i've been known to bounce around essex as well. i'm no stranger to clifton, nutley, belleville, bloomfield, and, montclair i suppose is in essex. your advice would definitely help. i've heard the servers at egan's are decent and friendly. so i think i'll give the dining room proper a try next time. but on this night, the bartenders had their heads up their butts or something. not that they weren't nice (though i can't say there was any give-and-take), it's just that the place didn't have their stuff together. although, i will say that the one manager-looking dude was completely obnoxious, going as far as dismissing a request to sample one of the beers on tap. i would normally attribute the situation to a communication breakdown, but even giving him the benefit of the doubt, he rubbed me the wrong way. and there're about a million ways to rub me the right way.

i managed to get my beer (i was there only for a beer). but it was just an uncomfortable cluster-eff. enough to make me not bother trying them again. i'm a simple man, in search of a burger, a beer, maybe some chicken wings. i've read so many negative reviews of the burger that i can't imagine it's very good. most burgers are horrible, and most people think they're good. if this many people have said their burger isn't good well then i just can't imagine how bad it is. if i return it might be for fish and chips.

as i sat at the (mostly empty) bar without any drinks in front of me i was left wondering who i had to screw to get a beer around here. is the service always horrible? i mean i'd love to try the place for a proper meal and drinks, but what i saw (or didn't see) from the waitstaff bordered on the absurd. some people on baristanet.com seem to agree.

looks great, chef. if the burnt pears are the same pears that i had on my visit i'd like to add that the celery leaf is a touch of brilliance.

do Jews represent a large portion of the clientele at Baumgart's in englewood? i have to admit, i don't even notice those things. but i'd definitely find that interesting if that's the case, and if the percentage of jewish clientele is that out of whack with the community, and if the restaurant is actually "catering" to jewish people. as an aside, and perhaps even in the way of an explanation of the way this discussion has played out, i've noticed that when posters use another poster's name in their response in a certain way, Jason, it suggests of some sort of passive-aggressive behavior, even if that's not the intention. just an observation (one that i noticed early on in the discussion - personally i don't take offense, but i am aware of the implication and thought i'd bring it up).

it seems like menton isn't taking exception with the food or the restaurant at this point. to dismiss the discussion seems, well, par for the course really.

oddly, it doesn't take much time at all to do a blast in a restroom. women go to the restroom together all the time, regardless of their taste for coke (though i suppose not as much when it's small and they're actually relieving themselves). and they often spend a lot of time fluffing and reapplying. those things considered, i'm not sure what his point was. edit: i guess he meant that he had to wait for a while to use the restroom and that it can get interesting if you have to wait.

here are my thoughts on the ridgewood branch: "decent" and "not bad" are not descriptions i'd necessarily use. i certainly wouldn't send anyone there, for fear of losing my status as someone who cares about what he eats. i guess that type of food appeals to a lot of people though.

gotcha. restaurants should get their bread from Sullivan Street or Balthazar. short of that Calandra's. no more messing around. that's what I say. seriously though, when i sit down at the Jefferson in hoboken, for example, and they bring a couple slices of bread from sullivan street with some olive oil and salt, i'm just in heaven. at most other restaurants the bread basket just takes up space on my table. to me, great bread is an easy way to make a great impression.

"gotten greasy" is at least a specific observation. "Quality wasn't there" is vague. ← yup. a first-hand observation.

No, but I think its safe to say that Americans only represent a very small portion of their clientele. ← i've noticed a fairly even distribution. "very small portion"? The few times I have been there (always on Sunday for brunch) we've been the only, or one of the only, tables of Americans in the place. (Last time, New Year's Day, we definitely were the only ones - I made a point to notice.) ← i'm not surprised to see a lot of big tables of asians for dim sum. my observations come from 4 years of visits, on weekdays, weekends, lunch, dinner, and sunday brunch. regardless, if non-chinese stopped going to c46, they'd likely have to close the doors. using the observation that a very small portion of their customers are americans to rationalize the rice issue misses the point to my mind. edited because i'm not entirely comfortable using the term "americans" to describe people who aren't of chinese decent in the context of this discussion. though non-chinese doesn't sound right either.

you're just not going to do much better than the franklin steakhouse. i enjoy Pal's burger. somewhat close to you, maybe, is michael's roscommon house in belleville. it's a pub with a dining room attached, and the lady in the kitchen makes one helluva burger. shhhh. it's our secret.

No, but I think its safe to say that Americans only represent a very small portion of their clientele. ← i've noticed a fairly even distribution. "very small portion"? not charging a repeat/regular/good customer for brown rice (even if it isn't true to the roots of the cuisine) is just good business. however, it's not an obligation. Can you clarify that? How was the quality not there? That sounds like a serious generalization. perhaps she too has friends whose opinions on chinese and asian cuisine she trusts implicitly who told her the food has gotten greasy.

while i agree that there's no excuse for crappy bread, i don't think that bread should be warm. bread should be warm shortly after it comes out of the oven. but i don't think restaurants are baking their own bread (though some do). when bread is warm it means that it was heated up which does nothing to my mind other than accelerate the drying-out/staling process. i can't think of many top restaurants that heat up their bread. thankfully.

good. i confused Marika with the chef.

any reports since the chef left?

you gotta get yerself photoshop, kid.