tommy

for sloppy joe's?

in the sidebar he does make note of the service. paraphrasing: "professional and attentive, and amatuerish and eager." or something like that. i feel for restaurants. it's got to be hard to get good servers; i've got 50 bucks burning a hole in my pocket that would go to any kid willing to shovel my sidewalk, but there're nowhere to be found. and something tells me they're not practicing the pronunciation of 'foie gras'.

that place was so wildly successful from day one that i can't imagine why they didn't re-open after the fire. unless the owners decided to just buy an island somewhere and retire. in all my life, i've never seen so many people wait in lines so long for food. except for maybe the pancake house in point beach.

i wolfganged down yet another steak at wolfgang's tonight. all things considered, and from my perspective, sparks is a non-player in manhattan. wolfgang's serves the best steaks, to my liking. there's no culinary reason, in my mind, to return to sparks, and very little reason to return to the Palm (for lunch, they've started serving what appears to be scraps), S&W (which continues to excel at mediocrity), and the various other manhattan steakhouses which have yet to make an impression on me vis-a-vis a nice minerally dry-aged piece of tender lovin'. then again, maybe it's the butter.

Then I suppose you'd really be upset if I had my laundry and dry cleaning picked up and dropped off with my doorman, my groceries delivered by Fresh Direct, and my drug store purchases delivered as well. I wouldn't ever have to get out of my pajamas!!! Ok. I don't do this but it is available. ← One of the joys of Manhattan living is that when it gets miserably cold, assuming you work from home, there's absolutely no need to leave the apartment. Everything -- food, groceries, etc is delivered right to your door. I'll gladly tip the delivery guy if it means I don't have to go out in 15F weather. ← absolutely. not even factoring the 6th floor walk-up, which most people can't even fathom. furthering the mission.

they do make a mess. a bunch of litter sometimes, and a public service other times. i never came up with an happy medium. furthing the mission.

point well-taken hitmanoo. i've been to Amanda's in hoboken on VD proper, and it was decent enough. not as good as usual, but i suppose you might consider a top-notch restaurant if any at all. on the other side of the spectrum, take suzannef's advice, grab a bottle of champagne that you normally wouldn't buy, and go to Little Saigon in Montclair for a feast of a lifetime. on the other other side is to get yourself into NYC and do something like One if by Land. or someplace similar that you'd likely never go to except for on such an occasion. i've done that as well and had a memorable evening. best of luck. and make ressies fast.! (and i bet lreda can get you into an american grilll and give you a night you won't forget)

this type of thing scares me. i know that it probably has nothing to do with the food or the service or the love, but i just don't get it. i have plenty of friends in the industry who barely got out of high school (and weren't paying attention for those 5 years), and who didn't put a lot of effort into learning certain skills. like grammar. but, i have to worry even more about people who don't recognize their limitations and, when creating what is perhaps the biggest PR vehicle their business will ever see (website), make mistakes that a 4th grade student would make. i mean i really have to worry. and where are their friends pointing out the spelling errors/typos/etc?!?!?!?!?!?!! husdon restaurant week got a mention in today's "dining in" section of the new york times.

please don't go out on valentine's day. please go out just about any other night of the year. restaurants need you, but i'm thinking they don't need you that particular night. trust me...i'm tommy.

agreed. cafeteria food, at best. agree about Village Gourmet as well. the success of and accolades for these two restaurants proves to me that most people spending money at restaurants in this area don't really have taste like mine. i'll let the reader judge if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

i don't think it's silly at all (although i don't think that anyone here knows the actual impact). i think there's a real correlation between how much time people spend at a restaurant/bar and how much money they spend at that restaurant/bar. i also think there's a real correlation between how much time people spend at a restaurant/bar and how comfortable they are being there. and i also think there's a real correlation between how comfortable smokers are and their freedom to smoke at a restaurant/bar. i think those points are pretty strong...although i'm no business expert like radio personality and consumer advocate http://clarkhoward.com.

comparing those two suggests that you might prefer the white manna style over a standard hamburger. they are two different animals, imo. but i agree that the gaffer's burger is overrated. the best burgers to be found are at my house. i'm convinced that no one in NJ tops my burger. and i can't for the life of me figure out why restaurants can't make a completely kick-ass burger.

a few times in the past few months. we're not as enamored with the newish fall/winter menu as we were with the first, perhaps more babbo-inspired, menu. but it remains an above-average and solid local choice, with some shortcomings that are excusable for an above-average and solid local place. i'd also recommend the market at rocca for sandwiches and other goodies. a great mid-afternoon stop on a saturday.

i don't think diamonds lose half their value, or much value at all, after being bought/worn. amen.

i wouldn't go to bouchon if you want to be dazzled. very good for breakfast and lunch. it's french bistro food, and not much unlike what you could get here in NYC. don't miss Lotus of Siam, though. go twice in fact. three times if schedule permits.

before you could say "mediocre burger" the old (and completely unremarkable) Brassies on paramus road was transformed into a korean place. it happened so quickly that the old guys who hang out at the bar didn't seem to notice, and they look like they didn't have to move during the transition. excellent kalbi and passable sushi (though i generally stick to japanese places for sushi). a wine list that surprisingly has a NZ sauvignon blanc and a few other palatable choices. expect to pay the usual 18-20 for BBQ (done in the kitchen...no table grills), but without the typical gruff service. i don't know of another korean place in that area, so this is a nice option. 123 Paramus Rd, just south of century rd.

i need to return to hunan cottage to see what all the hubbub is about. and Cucharamama.

i'm not sure that's the complete picture. you can buy them directly from restaurant.com, print as many copies as you'd like, and use them within the time noted on the coupon, which is a year in my experience. example of the terms: http://restaurant.com/microsite-gc.asp?rid...qty=4&nav=terms interesting point: " The issuing of restaurant credit is at the sole discretion of the merchant unless otherwise required by law."

these certificates are validated via phone (by the restaurant, who has presumably entered into an agreement with restaurant.com) with the unique numbers that are printed on the coupon. those coupons can be printed over and over again (and yeah, that's the point), but once the unique number is called in by the restaurant, they are void. any arguments that a coupon is a "copy" is just plain stupid on the restaurant's part, and a sympton of a complete lack of understanding of the technology and the idea. as an example of how a similar simple process works, on a massive level: ticketmaster, who is probably the biggest ticket provider on the planet, uses a similar approach: they email you your ticket, you print it out (as many times as you want obviously - i print out several and put them in various pockets to make sure i don't lose them) and when you go to the show, they scan the bar code (unique number), and the ticket becomes immediately unusable. (makes it hard to sell an extra ticket to random people, unfortunately, but is probably putting a huge dent in the scalping industry, which is just as well) one would think the manager would have understood the process. shame on the restaurant if they didn't understand. i'm tempted to contact them to ask exactly what they were thinking when they went into the agreement with restaurant.com. the coupons have a clear policy printed on them. print out this post and present it to the manager. have him email me if he's still confused.

phil, is the bread at all philly places the same? i have to think they're not all using the same baker. if not, is the style not easily duplicated? there's a place in NYC on, i think, 3rd ave and about 32 that does a decent philly-style cheesesteak. i'm guessing that most people who eat cheesesteaks even in philly won't be able to detect the difference in the bread. that said, piccolo's does a steak sandwich, but, as curlz suggests, they use a whole steak. a ribeye if i'm not mistaken. on hoboken-style bread, which i think is some of the best bread of its type on the planet, although not necessarily ideal for cheesesteaks. personally, if i'm having a whole steak on a roll, i'm going to Wolfgangs in NYC for a dry-aged sirloin. you can keep your whole fatty choice ribeye. but if you slice it thin like do they in philly, then all bets are off! i can only hope this place jakes is doing more of a philly-style than piccolos. different animals for sure.

looks excellent! any thoughts on brining, marlene?

any thoughts on brining a crown roast of pork? since i always brine pork, i'm thinking i should brine my crown roast, at least for a few hours. i'd then like to apply a rub and let it sit overnight. wesza's excellent process seems a bit complicated, but i'm definitely taking a few pointers away from it. slow-cooking seems to be the way to go. and bacon of course. any other thoughts?

fatcat, what ever came of that night?

again, clixes, J&H, and Goffle Grill, which are all notable and unique, are literally minutes from each other. GG and clixes are practically next to each other. it's a quick ride up from rutt's as well up 21/20.

it occurs to me that it's very likely that a very small percentage of jay's audience has any idea what pho is to begin with. the joke was probably a bigger flop than we think.