Andrew Fenton

In a couple of days, we'll be driving from Philadelphia to Maine. We take I-84 through Connecticut, and depending on when we leave, dinner tends to fall when we hit the region of Danbury. So I'm looking for some good, quick eats in that region. In the past we've gone to the Goulash Place, which ranges from the excellent (stuffed cabbage! Transylvanian pork goulash!) to the bizarre (beef stroganoff... with a Kraft Single melted on top!) This time around, we're looking for something different. I've read about Carminuccio's in Newtown: worth a stop? Anyplace else I should know about?

Every butcher or fishmonger I've ever been to has weighed the meat or fish on top of a piece of paper. That's not to cheat the customer; it's for hygiene. In that case the tare is set for the paper. It weighs 0 with that paper on it. Otherwise you are being cheated. Exactly. The weight of the paper is zeroed out; that's why it's so strange and paranoid to suppose that a butcher would try to cheat his customer through the magic of heavy, heavy paper...

All I can say is holy crap! Is that a smoothie or a wading pool?

And from the Mild Coincidences desk over at the Onion comes this report: Click here for the full story...

Every butcher or fishmonger I've ever been to has weighed the meat or fish on top of a piece of paper. That's not to cheat the customer; it's for hygiene.

Really? I didn't get that at all. Rather, quotes like the below make me think that the good stuff is hidden in plain sight... ... in English. Awkwardly spelled English, but English.

Good point. The same source elsewhere mentions the famous Roman delicacy, wolf nipple chips ("get 'em when they're hot!")

They didn't have vomitoria? Then what about all those long bone things exhibited in museums as devices to draw vomit? Purely curative? I don't know about the bone things; I've never seen one. But "vomitorium" meaning "a place to vomit" is a joke. A vomitorium was a passageway that spectators used to leave a theater (the term's still used sometimes). 19th century schoolboys intentionally misinterpreted the term, because, hey, vomit.

I strongly suspect that the role of larks' tongues in the Roman diet is an example of culinary fakelore (like the myth of the vomitorium). Probably it's a conflation of a couple of phenomena. On the one hand, Romans definitely loved to chow down on songbirds: for example, there's a large section of book 3 of Varro's De Re Rustica ("All About Farming") that discusses how to build an aviary, what kind of birds to raise and how much money you can make, and Petronius' Satyricon has a famous scene where a roast pig is cut open, releasing songbirds that are caught and cooked. On the other hand, there's the Vitellius anecdote you mention; it's from Suetonius' Life of Vitellius (chapter 13), which describes the short-ruling emperor's diet (you can read a translation here. And you should read it; it's awesome.) But even if it's true, it's clearly written as an example of Vitellius' crazy luxury; that is, it's not the sort of thing that Romans, even wealthy Romans, would eat. So I have my doubts about the larks' tongues... (And yes, the "recipe" is a joke; it's written by Henry Beard, I think. Whoever typed it into that source doesn't know Latin very well, either. Sniff.)

AAAAAGHH!!! You don't get the FROZEN ones at the Copa!!!Yeah, I've had the margaritas on the rocks too: my verdict? Melted Slurpee. Seriously, for the last year or two I've just been going to the Italian Market, buying 30 limes for like $3, and making my own margaritas. Way better than anything I've had at any bar or restaurant (even Lolita, and y'all know how much I like Lolita).

Dude, no way has a fresh lime ever gone anywhere near a Copa margarita. They're okay, in an alcoholic-Slurpee kind of way, but nothing all that special. edit to add: I suspect Katie's assessment is right on. Maybe if I'd been around back in the day, I'd have warm fuzzy feelings for Copa, but as it is, they rate a loud "meh".

What's funny about Le Anh is that there are at least three Le Anhs. On opposite sides of Spruce St there are the "Real Le Anh" and the "Original Le Anh" (I'd always go to the one on the north side: "original"? can't remember) and yeah, they were always super-nice and super-cheap. Then there's also a third Le Anh at like 36th and Market. I never ate there, though, just glimpsed it, as if it were a rare bird, from afar...

nope. Hooray! A vegetarian? For a few years? Dude, the very foundations of my world are being rocked here...

Y'know, I really think I'm the only person in the world who can't stand the Magic Carpet. I don't know why. Their soups, and an occasional special, are okay. But the various fake meat/TVP dishes are bland (and all taste exactly the same), and their Middle Eastern/Greek products are just awful. But obviously I'm in the minority, as the long lines outside the cart indicate. (I will, however, grant them massive credit for their soft drink selection. Lots of good stuff in there.)

Welcome, Hillary! I'm really bad at recommending breakfast places, because I never go out to breakfast. That said, do your kids like Mexican food? If so, I'll recommend the brunch place I always recommend: La Lupe. There's huevos a-plenty for the grownups, and there's also a small American-style menu (pancakes, etc.) Sabrina's is good, of course, and I've seen kids in the restaurant without there being a problem. If you get there early, you won't have to wait long.

Well, we tried Szechuan Tasty House on Friday, and yep, it's not only Szechuan, and tasty, but also a house! Well, sort of. Anyway, it's yet further proof that when you head to Chinatown, it's worthwhile to go armed with a plan. Without PAD's recommendation, I'd probably never had thought to try this place. If I had, I'd probably have been put off by the menu: it's not huge (maybe four pages) but is filled with lots of the boring ol' Chinatown dishes: beef with broccoli, et cetera. So it's worthwhile to seek out the treasures within. Golden coins were juicy inside and crisp outside, the best fried Chinese dish I've had in ages. Ginger/scallion shredded duck was another highlight. Dumplings, I thought, were only so-so (for one thing, they're served in a way that maked them hard to eat), but I really liked the double-named dishes: dang dang! ban ban! zap! pow! boom! ... er, especially the ban ban chicken. Dang dang noodles were also kind of hard to eat: the sauce was sort of soupy. It's really a one-person dish, not so good for sharing. Anyway, I'll second the recommendation: it's totally worth a visit.

Surely this principle applies to pregnant women also: first law of thermodynamics, "eating for two", and all that. ← Not sure what you're getting at here... that pregnant women shouldn't gain weight? That if they do they are ingesting more calories than they need? Of course I'm not saying that. Rather, I'm pointing out that a pregnant woman needs more calories than a non-pregnant woman. Unless there are metabolic changes that occur during pregnancy that allow more efficient digestion of food (which I might be possible, though I've never heard of that), she'll need extra calories in order to grow a healthy baby. That energy has to come from somewhere: as I said, first law of thermodynamics.

Yeah, that's an excellent dish, beloved by everybody other than your arteries. Try the La Lupe special sandwich sometime: it's basically the same thing, only on a bun, and with avocado thrown in. As obscenely filling as it is ridiculously delicious.

This is so true; I'm incredibly impressed by the variety of the Temple food trucks. The Korean one you mention is rockin' good; there are also a couple of Vietnamese trucks I like a lot. There's also a Korean truck at 12th and Berks Mall that, in addition to some forgettable Japanese-style dishes and so-so kalbi, has every day a Korean lunchbox special. It ranges from the sublime (a beautiful piece of fried fish, seaweed salad, miso soup, vegetables and kimchi) to downright weird (bizarre thick noodles with a sort of ground pork and chili sauce). What I like about it is that it's defiantly full-on Korean: if it's not up your alley (and it's often not up mine), tough.

Surely this principle applies to pregnant women also: first law of thermodynamics, "eating for two", and all that.

My problem is that the name "Crunchwrap" does nothing for me. I refuse to eat it until they further wrap it in a pseudo-Spanish name, e.g. "Crunchito", "Wrapichanga", "El Crunchador", or so forth.

I haven't tried the SK dumplings, so I'm not sure. I was hoping I had a Pagoda menu around to find a description-- same ownership as SK, I believe-- but I don't. But it's something like "juicy dumplings", a name that provides me no end of amusement.

A search on "soup dumplings" reveals lamentation for New Joe Shanghai, as well as a couple of other recommendations: Sang Kee (so-so, according to Diann) and Chinatown Cafe in Langhorne. Anybody tried this place?

The late New Joe Shanghai used to turn out respectable soup dumplings. They've gone bye-bye, alas. But Pagoda (on 2nd, by the Ritz) has soup dumplings which, though not first-rate (they're a little small, and not too soupy) are still pretty good. ( In the way that any soup dumpling is better than no soup dumpling.) Nonsense. Everybody knows that it's elves who put the soup in there. Elves working black, black soupy magic.

Black fig. It just didn't pack much flavor. A generous person would have described it as "subtle", but I'm not generous: it was boring.