Ericandblueboy

Did anyone else watch the Philly Cheesesteak episode? It was Pat's vs. Tony Luke's. I was waiting for the superfans to choke on their words because I honestly don't think there's much difference between Pat's and other joints that use the same meat and cheese whiz. Lo and behold, they didn't have super fans and 3 judges. Instead, it was just 2 judges and they weren't even blind folded. WTF!!!!!!!! LAME!!!! Pat's won - not my favorite but the reason why I like Jim's is because they're on South St and they serve beer! I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to tell the difference btwn Pat's, Geno's, Jim's, Chink's, or Chubby's blindfolded (haven't had Tony Luke's).

Corduroy is definitely in that league in terms of both pricing and quality but it ain't new. As for a new place on my list to check out, I'd have to say Estadio. The benefit of being on DR is that you can PM the owner and get his personal recs.

Does that distinct taste include a bitter aftertaste (the only comparison I can think of is to a thousand year old egg - pi dan)? It actually smells kind of foul to me although the taste isn't as bad as it smells. The chicken kebab and tandoori chicken are okay flavor-wise but not particularly tender. The rice is fluffy but lacks flavor. With a surfeit of Persian restaurants around (Rose, Shamshiry, Moby Dick, ranked in order of preference), unfortunately we are crossing this place off the list. Note: nothing was objectively terrible, it's just that we prefer other places

OMG, this new season that just started may be the most dramatic and eventful season ever! You have Sabrina - the teenage "bitch." You have someone collapsing on the very 1st episode. You have the delusional fat karate kid Raj. You even have a new maitre d' - where is Jean Pierre?

Maybe you should get a Redskins McNabb jersey

On the reunion show last night, Amanda said she saw Alex make the pea puree. Tiffany's basically said - I don't believe you - implying that she thinks that Alex and Amanda are both liars. As for next season, I think it should be called "All Mediawhores." Ed basically blamed his loss on Ilan. I don't really understand why they can't just give the contestants enough time to do everything by themselves.

In the typical scenario, the restaurant donates a portion of sales. Let's say it sells a piece of steak for $30, which cost it $10. Its taxable profit is $20. Let's say the restaurant then donates $10 to charity - this reduces its taxable profit to $10. The customer gets no tax benefit by eating out. Alternatively, the restaurant can reduce the price of steak to $20, but the customer has to write a check to the charity for $10 and hand that over to the restaurant. Again, the restaurant's taxable profit is $10 (revenue of $20 - $10 cost) but now the customer has a charitable contribution deduction of $10, which can generate tax benefits of up to $4. Just a thought. Query: would any restaurant owner take that deal?

Questions. Are reservations required at Manolo and what time do they open? I know the Panamanians usually eat late so if I go when they open, I probably won't need a reservation but since I'm going on a weekend I better check. Also, any idea whether they're open on Sundays?

Something didn't sit right with me in the finale. I finally thought it through. In each prior challenge, they were told to go to a city and sell anywhere they can. In the finale, they were told to go to NYC but then required to work all 5 boroughs instead of just 1. The finale took away one of Nom Nom's strong-points, which is to scout locations in advance because they weren't told of the locations in advance.

Looked up Manolo on Fodor's and they actually recommend another restaurant: I would have to hit one or the other, maybe both. Thanks!

FWIW, Fodor's recommends to spend 1 day checking out the canal and casco Viejo and 1 day checking out a nearby rainforest for birds. Fodor also recommends staying in downtown P.C. (El Congrejo) and has a long list of restaurants that are good in the area (including Beirut, La Posta, Ten Bistro, Eurasia, Madame Chang but does not include La Mar - which may be too new). I'm thinking about staying at the Veneto Wyndham (they got me at Vegas styled casino).

Thinking about going somewhere for a long weekend (Columbus Day) and I found direct flights to Panama City for a little over $400 roundtrip (compared to $600 to Montreal or Las Vegas). The flight time is about 5 hours. I would depart Friday morning and return Monday late evening and stay in Panama City the entire time and take day trips on Sat & Sun. Has anyone been? Where would you eat? What would you see? Where would you stay? I picked up Fodor's yesterday and it's pretty informative but I'm hoping for opinions from people with more food oriented mindsets. ETA: Oct. is rainy season, which is probably why everything is cheap.

I would only get coupons for places that I would go anyway - that way, I'm more likely to actually use the coupon. For example, I think Kinkead's is a good restaurant but I haven't been in years and it's not on my list of places to go so why bother? A nice dinner for 2 usually costs $200 so spending $175 in order to save $25 doesn't make a lot of sense unless it's a place you really want to go to anyway.

The nom nom woman that can actually cook said they were going to use pork to give the burger an Asian flavor. I don't understand what happened to the nom nom team at the end - did they move their truck to a new location to get more sales or did they get lost on the way to the Flatiron building?

That makes no sense. Dean's right, you don't tip on the 2 bottles to take home but you do tip on the comped bottle. What the restaurant has to report to the IRS in terms of sales has nothing to do with the server's actual service. If the server is required to report income based on $200 of sales but didn't get shit for tip, that's his problem, not anyone else's. The opposite is true, if the server served $200 of food but the restaurant comped some food for whatever reason, the server shouldn't be punished.

Had dinner there last night. Let's start with the minor complaints. They have two parking lots but both were full (but not with patrons - so the parking situation is just weird). They do a tasting menu of 5 dishes but the precise items were not disclosed - even though we asked. The good - service was friendly, knowledgeable and never tardy. The food was precisely cooked and seasoned. The first course was the chef's interpretation of Greek salad - grilled eggplants and vacuum sealed cucumber. The second dish was mussels, shrimp and ciabatta bread in a yellow sauce (saffron, curry? I forget, it wasn't particularly pungent). The third was slow cooked chicken rolled in pasta, thus it was called cannelloni. The fourth dish was a steak (cooked on the bone to medium rare) with potato pancake and grilled romaine. While I enjoyed the food, I probably wouldn't have ordered a steak at Trummer's (I rarely eat steak, and never at a fine dining restaurant that isn't a steakhouse). I also would've likely avoided the shellfish because I'm trying to reduce my cholesterol. My wife simply doesn't like mussels so she left those on her plate. Some restaurants have printed tasting menus while others don't - I prefer knowing them in advance especially if the tasting consists only of 5 to 7 dishes. There was a pre-dessert and a dessert, both were sorbets.

My wife is from the city of Green, which is in between Akron and Canton. I've had the opportunity to visit and the one place that I tried which turned out to be edible is Fedeli

Usually it's not the server but the host/hostess that's responsible for take-outs (at least that's my experience). Do you tip 10% on take-out? I do but not because they're not being paid at least the minimum wage. I just do it because I thought it's customary. Maybe I should stiff them in the future?

Seems like Ed went out of his way to fuck with Angelo and he just isn't very gracious about anything. Okay Ed, you have a learning disability and you have a big chip on your shoulder, but that doesn't give you the right to be a douchebag to other people. In the end, karma bit you in the ass cause you got Ilan as your sous chef and you can't making a dessert to win Top Chef. I'm glad this awful season is over and congrats to Kevin for winning although I have no desire to eat any of the 3 finalists' food. Sadly I'm not looking forward to the "all douchebag" season.

That's basically it. They haven't been able to cook anything other than their sandwiches. Kinda like the Grill Press folks keep saying they just make sandwiches.

Parking in front of the tent is $12...no other option is available if you arrive 15 minutes before the show starts - yesterday it took about 15 minutes to park the car and hustle our butts in to see Ovo. I suggest going early, park somewhere else and take their free shuttle if there is such a thing. Oh, Ovo is long, 2 hrs. and 40 minutes with a 30 minute intermission. Plan accordingly if you're gonna eat afterwards and not screw up your babysitter's date.

I don't think those nom noms know how to cook but they sure know how to run a business. For sure I thought a small town in TN would lead to a win by Grill 'em All and jeopardize the noms and the frenchies but it really just shows you how inept the burger flippers are. Even with the advantage of having the exclusive right to sell to their kindreds, the unwashed grease purveyers got crushed by a couple of cute women and their melt-down prone manager. Although the frenchies lost, it was by less than $40.

Preview seems to show that someone fell ill before the finale.

I have a discount coupon so I'm checking out their menu. $18 for 6 oysters? That's how much they cost at DBGB in NYC, Lyon Hall in Arlington only charges $12. A dozen at Againn is $32, the same is $20 at Lyon Hall. DBGB charges $35 for a small seafood platter while Againn charges $60 (there's more variety of seafood at DBGB). Oceanaire also doesn't charge $3 per oyster. $12 for pate? I'm surprised none of the negative reviews lately focused on value vs. quality of food.

No but I suspect they were given some guidance....it's otherwise too consistent in terms of what they made.