mrbigjas

too bad you can't smoke stuff over bradford pear wood. those things are splitting and falling down all over the city. bbqing over street tree wood gives your food that certain exhaust and dog pee city je ne sais quois that a more rural-based wood could never provide...

that's a damn shame. i hope they're not either; i haven't been back in a couple years. i reckon another hill country trip is in order.

hm. I stand corrected. I won't argue with mrbigjas. ← wait don't get the wrong impression -- i should clarify: i don't know much about the specifics of various bbq. i only know that at kreuz's in lockhart, they smoke brisket over oak and it's like, the best thing ev-AR.

dude! lockhart, tx! brisket dry rubbed over post oak. man oh man. that's the jawn right there.

i was at criniti's a couple weeks ago and i can't recommend the seafood dishes. i mean, it's an italian red gravy place, you'd think... i mean, mussels, right? mussels red or white, or on pasta? i mean, they're mussels, they're cheap, an italian place sells a lot and always has them fresh, right? well, not so much. these things were funkAY. stick to the gravy and meatballs and baked pasta dishes, which still rule.

i.... don't know how to read. it's my secret shame.

this part: if you're pretty much sure that you're going to win, and that if you do rick's will pay the fees, why not go ahead and blow as much as you want to make sure that you win?

haha -- no, we only had a beer each and an ouzo. don't get the wrong impression; it's certainly not the church's fault that i gorge myself every time i go. p.s. this year the lamb was better than last year.

Ditto. There's really no excuse for me not to be there all the time! there is for me: we spent like fifty bucks on thursday night between the roast lamb and the souvlaki and the pastitsio and the sides and the beers and the ouzo and like ten different pastries. i never thought i'd say this, but i can't afford the greek church too often.

For no particular reason other than "everybody panic," the feds several years ago declared lung tissue unfit for human consumption. If your kokoretsi has lungs, it's illegal, and I doubt that any restaurant would include them. I still love it, but it's less than authentic in the U.S. i haven't had it for a couple of years -- but i also never had it at a restaurant, only at big greek parties with lambs on spits and kokoretsi on skewers. i have no idea whether lungs were involved or not; I just know that traditionally they're supposed to be. when i had them it was just a bunch of grilled bits of who knows what, all delicious.

kokoretsi uses the lungs! and it tastes fantastic. here's a recipe that i can't vouch for because i've never made it, but it looks right and it's a great dish.

wow, nice job vinotas. i'm in the midst of a big home renovation too, and have made some similar stylistic decisions (natural maple slab front cabinets, dark grey/black countertops, altough mine won't be shiny). so it's great to see a finished product there.

not for the service -- i've been there plenty of times with big-ish groups, and it is usually brutally slow.

ginger beer and gin is also good. mmm gin gin tastic.

because they're 'wildcrafted' hahahahaha

the first place i saw the term was on that balinese long pepper that was all the rage a couple years ago. a link to the stuff.

if only that were true as a general rule. celeb cookbooks are notorious for having recipes printed untested. i got the blue ginger cookbook when it came out ... wow, looking at amazon, that was nearly 9 years ago. where does the time go? i haven't cooked much from it lately, but at the time i remember it having some issues with typos, and recipes just not being very accurately translated from a restaurant world to a home world -- cooking times being shorter than they'll really take you and things like that. that said, if you can adjust for that (like, reading the recipe and knowing you'll have to roast that pork loin for half an hour and not the 10 minutes the recipe suggests), everything tasted really good. i don't have his newer book, so i can't tell you about that.

i just edited my original post, prasantrin -- take a look.

lew bryson has a new blog. it rocks. ok i've been requested to edit this, to give some more context. if you drink beer and live in the area, you know who lew bryson is: beer and whiskey writer, blogger, drinker. in addition to his web page and his everyday blog, he started a new blog, linked above, about why the PLCB should be abolished. now, it seems to me you will never uproot the kajilllion dollar business that is the PLCB. but it also seems that if you want to take on this task, you have to start somewhere, and that somewhere should be with a relatively respected, high profile member of the drinking community consolidating information and people into one place. a scattershot approach has even less of a chance than the .00000001% chance that this has. anyway, i think it's an interesting read for anyone who deals with the PLCB, which is why i posted it. (and no, i don't believe that capaneus's mad skillz at gaming the PLCB system count as a reason to keep it, unless he starts posting/emailing me recommendations BEFORE he buys the entire local inventory of rockin cheap wine)

'wildcrafted' = 'we are trying to figure out a way to charge $9 a pound for dandelion greens' i mean, come on. i'm down with foraging and all, but seriously, $9 a pound for dandelions?

i think you may be reading too much into it. a media outlet does a 'best of' piece, people talk about who is ranked #2 or #3 or whatever, meanwhile, what horror, classic respected business is ranked #10! who could imagine! then more people buy the magazine/newspaper/whatever to see what other sacrelige they might have committed. meanwhile, the 'winners' on the best of list get to hang a piece of paper in their window that says BEST OF and people see it and come buy stuff. it's a win-win! i mean, philadelphia magazine has the formula so down pat that they use it for every single issue. top doctors, top schools, top beach towns, top plastic surgeons, top mechanics, top apartment buildings, top grocery stores, top vets, top shoe repair... and then after they do that for 11 issues, they put out their 'best of philly' issue. of course if you're looking at the larger issue of why people like ranked lists of things, that's further into the human psyche than i'm going here....

come on now y'all, they've had no critical violations on its last couple of health department inspections, which is more than you can say for many other places everyone likes. look here: http://welcometophilly.com/food/index.php?...s+sandwich+shop it's fine to eat at george's. they make good food.

yes. ← From the south, I always take the Walt Whitman exit, follow the signs for Oregon, make a right on Oregon and a left on Vandalla after you cross back under the 95 overpass. That street is basically the back side of Ikea and Lowe's. John's is at the corner of Vandalla and Snyder.The gmap hack pedometer shows the route. Though OT, I saw the pedometer at a MoMA exhibition last month. For all you urban walkers and joggers, it's a great tool for calculating distances. ← Regular Google Maps does not even acknowledge the existence of Vandalla Street, so I wonder if it's well-marked? It might be, but it could also be worth knowing that a left on Swanson, rather than Vandalla would get you there too. The Google directions from the airport recommend taking 95 north to the Washington Ave exit, then making a right on Columbus Blvd, then a right on Swanson, to Snyder. I can imagine that the right on Swanson might be hard to see, so it would be even simpler to go: 95 north to Washington Avenue exit. Turn right on Columbus Blvd. Turn right on Snyder (near the IKEA) . It's about a block up Snyder. ← true, and i always miss vandalla, and end up hanging a left on weccacoe.

yes.

That was my first thought too. But they're not really in Port Richmond, are they? ← that's fishtown yo.