scrumdiddlyumptious

I love OpenTable. I use it two ways. 1) When I have a specific restaurant in mind for a specific day, I check OpenTable and if the restaurant/time is there, I make a reservation. If it shows booked, and I still really want that restaurant/day/time, I'd call to see if there are tables available, but if I wasn't totally sold on that place, I'd go to... 2) When I have a specific day/time but don't know where I want to go, I browse through OpenTable to remind me which restaurants are out there that I've been wanting to try. Sometimes I see a new place, and click over to see the menu. When I'm doing this, if a restaurant shows unavailable, I don't usually consider it. I know I've read that they often hold tables back and there might be tables available if I call, but when I'm there, ready to make a reservation, I just want to do it, I don't want to have to call. Also, I figure if all their OpenTable tables are booked, they are probably pretty full that night and since I don't like to dine in crowded restaurants, I'd rather choose a restaurant with more open slots, which seems to me less crowding.

I tried to find nutritional info for this thing on KFC's website but if it's there, it's cleverly concealed.

Mine's not quite ready to pick yet, so it could just be that it's a bit too early in the season for prices to be reasonable. Give it a few weeks!

Thanks for the responses... lots of great stuff to pass along to him. Stovetop, was that info from a webpage? I couldn't find webpages for either Toro or Starfish.

My brother is heading to Toronto, and asked me to see what I could find out about these places. He loves seafood (both raw and cooked) and a good wine selection is really important to him. He prefers to confer with a sommelier, or if there's no sommelier, someone on the staff who really knows the menu, and wines, and how well they go together. He'll be in town for a week, so can go to both if they both meet that criteria. And of course, any other places you can recommend that I can point him towards would be great!

Too bad it's left Cambridge; I love that smell when driving on Mass Ave, too! I'm also addicted to the chalky little wafers themselves, much to my wife's astonishment.... ← I've been to the new location in Revere- it's over by the airport. It has no soul, none of the funky feel (and smell) of the Cambridge store. Still has big boxes of Skybars, though, so it's worth the stop if I'm in the ares, to keep my dad in stock with his favorite candy.

So really, seriously, the majority of the people posting here would rather see the tons of cups and materials needlessly go into a landfill (not to mention all the replacement cups, banners etc. that would need to be reproduced for the newly named drink), just to avoid possibly offending a few people's PC sensibilities? That's nuts to me- you're trading one definite negative affect on the environment for the possible PC benefits of seeming sensitive to the concerns of a small group of people, most of whom don't even see the perceived slight until it's pointed out to them. *Shrug* we all have our own priorities, I guess, but if I worked in DQ marketing I know what choice I'd be advocating- lay low and let the PC storm blow over.

The end of this month (July 2004) is when the Democratic National Convention will be in town. Roads, public transportation etc. will be closed left and right. I expect some restaurants will be thronged, others will be under-staffed (because nobody can get into town from the suburbs.) It won't be an optimal Boston experience, so just plan to be very very flexible. Stay away from the Fleet Center and you should be more or less fine.

Amen to this, and for some reason it seems that restaurant sites utilize pointless Flash designs at a much higher rate than the avergae sites I visit out there. Case in point, tonight I visited the site for therestaurant at which I had reservatios for tonight. All I wanted was the street address but I had to sit through a dopey animation which served no purpose except to tell me they spent money on a web designer. Big whoop.

Any suggestions for the best restaurants for barbecue? specifically, burnt ends, pulled pork or pork ribs?

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but where does the smoke go? I'm stumped how there can be an indoor smoker!

Cheese glorious cheese. Triple creme, cheddar, swiss, runny, stinky, moldy, even weirdo gjetost, I love 'em all. If I had to pick only one food to eat it would definitely be cheese. With chocolate a close second. But not together. Although my friend tells me I really should try her homemade chocolate mozzerella.

Whoo-eee! I could sure ask you that same question. I'm not sure why you're so defensive about this. You commented that you introduce everyone at the table in response to the server saying "Hi, my name is..." in order to show the server how ridiculous it is for her to introduce herself to you. I pointed out that your practice may not be having the intended result (although you haven't clarified, so I'm not quite sure what your intention is.) I suggested some other more likely outcomes of your practice. I'm speaking from experience waiting tables and in other service industry jobs. Frankly, any person who comes along to an employee in any service job and mocks the way they do their job (whether the way they do their job is by their choice or by management's choice) is not going to come off as a friendly easygoing customer. If you're secure in thinking that the servers you encounter are receiving your efforts in a non-offensive way, then why are you getting so riled up by my comments? I'm not sure what you mean by asking what my intentions are. I certainly didn't wake up this morning and say "Hey, I'm gonna go piss in elyse's Cheerios". But if you reasess your practice of mocking your server as a result of my comments, I'll consider this a good thing.

i haven't assumed anything. in fact, i just said that there are many ways of doing it. the only thing i assumed was that scrumdiddly assumed that the tactic you outlined might be upsetting servers, and i attempted to explain that as you asked "what's your point?" Then this was a question for scrumdiddly to answer, wasn't it? Scrumdiddly was tied up with her kid yesterday whch is why I didn't answer. You said you want to show the server how ridiculous it is. My point was that the server probably already knows how ridiculous it is, but has no choice. She must do it anyway, so your comment doesn't do anything positive. It was not clear to me what your intended outcome is- if you think that introducing everyone in your party is going to make the server reflect on how silly it is to introduce herself and stop doing it, I don't think that result is going to be achieved. As tommy pointed out, possible outcomes that you may not have intended are a) the server thinks you're a difficult customer; or b) the server is reminded once again of how much she hates having to introduce herself because it's such a stupid comment but her manager makes her do it, and the only thing worse than having to do it is having a customer who reminds her how stupid it is and how stupid she looks doing it.

I don't think you are showing the server anything she doesn't already know. She is told to introduce herself by managers/corporate. She probably thinks it's as stupid as you do. She hates having to do it. And your practice of introducing everyone at the table is probably not an eye-opener or funny, or a sly wink you share with the server about how ridiculous the whole thing is, it's just plain annoying. And she still has to do it.

Pim's Orange cookies are pretty much identical (I think, has been a while) to Jaffa Cakes. Give those a try the next time you're around a British import shop. No pear flavor though.

There was a place around here called "Pudding it First", which served.... you got it, all pudding, all the time. Not sure of it closed because of the cutesy name or because there is NO WAY a pudding restaurant is ever going to succeed.

Nope, all gone now. Almost that whole block is being turned into a hotel.

Oh! And brownies from the back of the can of Ghirardelli hot cocoa. Seriously the best brownies I've made.

Oatmeal Butterscotchies from the back of the bag of butterscotch chips.

Mushroom Leek Loaf from Moosewood Cookbook. Labor intensive but very worth the effort.

Agreed, they add a great, sweet flavor to veggie soup.

First grilled dinner of the season! Marinated chicken breasts Asparagus Rice Pilaf

I'd do Marcella Hazan's "Essentials of Italian Cooking"

Oh I know exactly what you mean. I can't tolerate bell peppers. I'm not allergic to them, but eating them makes me very unhappy. So I carefully read menu descriptions to see if menu items include peppers. If the descriptions are sparse, I almost always ask. When I forget, I know it's my own fault. But when the descriptions list a bunch of ingredients, I get lulled into a false sense of security and choose one that doesn't list peppers (even though other menu items do list peppers.) So when it comes out with peppers, I get pissy. Chefs are pepper happy so I am getting better about always remembering to ask.