jayandstacey

I think I figured out the appeal. This is the "green" Cheesecake Factory- where they are appealing to the conscience without disappointing the tummy in taste or volume. Quite brillant actually - most places have focused on the health of the diners, where this is focused on (general) support of (generally) local suppliers. It isn't kale and seaweed - it is hearty food prepared decently; you can meet the needs of virtually any crowd here and they found a unique spot amongst a crowded competitive landscape. A couple of observations. I believe people like the following and I can't think of many restaurants that offer this particular combination of features: - Large places filled with people. Most don't like to leave their house to dine in solitude. - Decent, consistent service. Each time I've been there, the staff seems pretty well trained and "on point". - A story behind the restaurant, a raison d'être, and the accompanying themes (decor, menu, etc.) - Leaving the diners to feel like they did something good without actually sacrificing. This restaurant is like a $25 gift card...it gives the gift but didn't require hardly any effort or cost. There are some other elements, I'm sure. It seems like someone's graduate thesis and seems to be doing exceedingly well, like a Clyde's with an environmental drumbeat consistently behind it. Fascinating.

From the Wiki page Don links above: "The machine uses RFID chips to detect its supplies and to radio resupplying needs to other units." They're taking to each other? Can a freestyle uprising be too far behind? BTW, I mentioned bags above - I really thought I saw bags behind the maze of tubes but I guess they were cartridges. Or maybe the box/bags I saw hold the sweetner, Maybe the cartridges have bag linings and I was seeing some of the insides. Dunno. All I know is that one of the great things about this design is that the interface simply doesn't have to display an option if it is sold out. I don't drink soda anymore but it used to suck to see (for instance) Fresca on the taps only to have none available. If this machine is out of Fresca it 'knows' and won't ever show it. That's a big help I'd think in the soda-machine-satisfaction world.

If they added wheels to it, making it like a Ferrari that dispenses 100 soda flavors...THAT would be the second coming.

They're at every Noodles & Company I've been to. They are a nicer complement to the Iced Tea I drink from the old-style containers right next to them. BTW, if you've ever seen the inside of them, they are truly epic. They have a maze of plastic tubes and then plastic pouches for the various drink syrups. By doing this, they can have various sizes - for instance, a very small pouch for the Diet Pomegranate Fanta while a much larger one for Diet Coke. The preponderance of tubes makes me wonder about cleaning down the road. Maybe the tubes are disposable and cleaning is actually easier in the long run. Dunno. But seeing one open was a bit like seeing Darth Vader's helmet being removed

Another thumbs up for a place that's been getting thumbs up for years. Funny story...This week I was in Raliegh NC on business and was dining at a Brazilian Steak House - the "meat on a stick" kind, with 14 rounds of various meats served over 2 hours. As I'm dining, my wife and kids text me a picture from their meal at Yuan Fu, as they'd decided to "go vegetarian" from that day on. So my meal in Raleigh turned out to be my bachelor party as I left the meat-filled life before coming home to my newly vegetarian family. They had to bring me to Yuan Fu this weekend. Szechuan String Beans - these were the best serving of green beans I've ever had. The sauce was bright but not overwhelming and really complemented the green beans, vs many that seem very separate from the green beans. The beans were cooked just right IMHO - a bit of snap but far from raw. Stuffed Curry Dumplings - these are deep fried to make them crisp - which means you'll get a little spray of curry insides if you try to use a fork to split them. Good, but I generally like a ratio of more insides to outsides. Moo-Shi Vegetable - these were fabulous. I'm a sucker for hoisin sauce but these had a very nice mix of vegetables cooked a bit like the insides of an egg roll. Spread some sauce on the pancake, drop in some veggies, roll, eat. Delish! Sesame Chicken - before we went and without having read this thread, I asked my wife if this place was exclusively "fake meat" or did some vegetables. She assured me they did vegetables, but that our son would be getting the sesame chicken. OK, sure, I'll try it. It was really quite good. The sauce wasn't overly sweet and the 'chicken' was a bit softer than real chicken - but was not a detriment in any way. The flavors were nicely balanced and overall a very good dish. The staff was nice and efficient. The room was crowded on a gray January Saturday. I'm looking forward to a return trip.

I've been a few times to the Rockville location over the last year and my thoughts are in line with the rest of this thread. FF is a little different from other places and the food is OK - neither awesome or bad - with some highlights and lowlights. Yesterday I was downtown and stopped in having never been to that location. 2pm on a Saturday and it was PACKED. The sidewalk was quiet as were (generally) all the other businesses around it. So my question to the group - what is going on? What is the appeal? My guess is that they're doing for sitdown meals what Chipotle does for fast foods and Whole Foods does for groceries: present a green/local/healthy option (while not being precise), are consistent in quality and are convenient and easily understood. Are they positioning themselves to become the size of Chipotle/Whole Foods? To be a green TGI Fridays or Cheesecake Factory?

Doesn't the same hold true of the writer? Thus making it OK that the writer writes whatever (s)he wants, and it is upon us to read or not read? If the masses oppose the writing, eventually the writer is out of a job the same way the chef is. Both chef and writer must appeal to the masses and will wield some power if the masses embrace them. This writer certainly has us masses 'sitting in his restaurant' for better or worse, no? At the end of the day, this is all "hysteria on the way to the grave" as a co-worker of mine used to say. There's no real, true absolutes as this stuff doesn't really matter per se. If a chef can make a killing with a relentless tasting menu, so be it. If a writer can make a splash with a criticism of same, so be that. Both are just making their way in the world and we can choose to side with either, both or neither. Regardless, we'll be dead within our lifetimes.

Some of this is NYC-centric, most is not. "20 Things Everyone Thinks About The Food World (But Nobody Will Say)"

Yes - and I think our ideas are aligned even if my choice of single words to sum up the different types of diners isn't quite right.

Well don't let me stop you! I kind of get the "expectations" mentality. Years ago I went to a pho place and the experience was awful - there was no heat in Feb, so we wore coats and had an oscillating heater blowing on us. There was a bucket of dirty water sitting near our table. There was a really bright spotlight shining from the bar toward our table - the kind of meal you get at a place that closes the next week. That doesn't happen at Chili's/TGI Friday's/Cheesecake Factory/etc. We take the risk for occasional weirdness/unpleasantness but consider the reward worth that risk. The masses don't. In fact, I've found that in a non-foodie group, the best suggestion is usually the one that everyone recogizes, has a wide menu of standards, has a low price point, etc...bascially, the least common demoninator is rewarded with the "best choice" attaboy. Side notes: - It seems such places focus on prices and physical comfort. If they ever actually talk about the food quality, they use the word succulent. I've always kind of thought about opening such a place and calling it "Succulent's." The staff would wear flair and the music would test well in controlled studies. I'd get some viral benefit by people calling my place "sucks" for short and, well, just having to go there. - I've never been to Chef Geoff's. I've read mixed reviews.

I don't believe your positions are mutually exclusive. I agree with mtureck that the masses choose based on expectations, which I've described as "predictability" in other threads. They might ALSO be stupid, ill-informed, unsophisticed...but I'd bet that the vast majority of the time they are choosing a place because it has a high % chance of meeting that expectation...one of an enjoyable meal. For example, they don't want greatness if there's a risk they'll feel inadequately dressed or if the restaurant is small and sometimes slow. They aren't looking for anything outside the biggest part of the bell curve, the part where they don't have to think about anything in the restaurant transaction and can instead focus on their conversation, getting full and leaving with no expectations violated. In contrast, most on this site choose restaurants based on hopes - hopes that the food is great, hopes to find a diamond in the rough, hopes to experience a new dining high. It isn't precisely the opposite of seeking predictability, but it is close. As an example of not being the opposite - your own example of Cactus Cantina - when you have a child of a certain age and wish to dine out, you'll seek places based more on expecations being met (ie, you want a loud place that has a trained staff and plenty of high chairs) and you may have sacrificed the "hopes" side of the equation - but it certainly doesn't make you stupid, ill-informed or lacking in any sophistication. That day, you just had different needs when going to a restaurant; you weren't chasing any hopes.

Who could resist?

Vermont Maple Syrup - the only food I buy that requires pliers.

My 12 year old daughter watched the video and immediately commented "It looks just like the Sapphire room on the Carnival Breeze!" Not sure that was the look they're going for - but kinda funny.

BTW, Maryland Life stole my idea for a restaurant guide for smaller airports in MD. Maybe I suggested it to them...dunno. More than likely, it wasn't an original idea They did a better job than I would have, including interviews and some anecdotes and history but not trying to be exhaustive.

Yes, I see how it sucks in these other ways...but...it seems to work really well within a thread topic like this, accomplishing the limited task Don's scoped. Its a square-peg search tool for a round-hole DonRockwell.com...where threads are generally quite specific. The search tool becomes useful on a thread that is broad enough to need a search tool but obviously does no prioritization of threads in a search across multiple threads. The downside, of course, of using my suggestion is that the user then is encouraged to use a tool that fails in other settings. I guess another solution would be to make an "airports" subforum in the travel section, then have individual threads for each airport. That just seems like an administrative grind for little return, and basically makes stuff disappear in a worse way - found neither by search nor flipping pages of thread titles. Maybe we wait and see what rumored search improvements come to fruition in v.4.0.

Fair enough. I still think that in the scope of this thread, my suggestion is a viable one. Does this site's search function give any priority to key tags? So for instance, is the simple fix for the example you give to put "Fiola" in the key tag for the Fiola thread? I'm guessing not...and thus I see the point.

What makes it garbage? I searched on "cash" in this topic and up came your post, with "cash" highlighted. I searched on "time" in this topic and up came your post and many others from this thread in reverse temporal order (newest first, starting with yours) again with "time" highlighted in each. That would be exactly what I would want and expect. If I go to Google, I'll get a few things that are in some ways worse: - Results outside of DonRockwell.com, unless I'm very particular in my search. Now that this site has ads and is making money, I'd think any goal must include the notion of keeping it all in-house. - Results that are summarized with only a phrase or two. The search function on this site returns the whole post with the term highlighed - which allows me to review the full context without more clicks. - Results from other places in DonRockwell.com when I may not want them. So for instance, I might get a response for a restaurant review that is near a named airport, when in fact I'm in this thread because I want recommendations for within a named airport. How much stronger does a search feature need to be? I can't imagine people doing complicated searches too often - like "give me this airport and that airport, not not these 3 other airports." - is that the weakness in the engine here? What makes it bad?

Obviously, it's your site...but here's what I would do for such topics In the first post of the thread, have (in big letters) "To find your airport, put the airport code, or airport name, or city name in the search box on the top right of this page" Then ask people to include the code, city or airport name in their posts. If you want to do any editing, then maybe take some existing posts and add the code in, or the city or airport name. But I'd guess most have this already. A thread has two lives, both as a place to put in info and a place to take out info. If you break this into 50 different threads for each airport...then I believe people are less likely to ADD more as doing so would require first searching if there's an existing thread, then starting a new one if not. Easier to just post in the Airport thread and not worry about it. If someone randomly starts a new thread about an airport, you could merge it into this one. This holds true for other such themes, like the amusement park food thread. Yes, you can split them apart...but I doubt more people are coming here to find food options in Elysburg PA - but many of us head for Knoebel's - and in an amusement park, you're a bit of a captive audience, like in an airport. having them all in one thread (IMHO) works better than a bunch of little threads. Bottom line - find ways to use the integrate the search feature more, rather than expecting people to scroll through pages of thread titles looking for a specific airport.

Enjoy; we think the Bears are a great time. I'm curious to hear what others have to say as I've eaten at a ton of places up there but can't recall any of them being particularly recommendable.

I saw the Flock of Seagulls and I ran; I ran so far away. (sorry. couldn't resist)

I wonder if the setup will allow people to 'bar hop' between stations if you don't sit at a table proper. And if so, if you can just run a single tab while there. I could easily lose track of how much I'm spending.

Bear Creek BBQ if you don't land a good seafood suggestion. I've not enjoyed the sit-down part, but ordered take out from the front-of-the-house pit.

I came to this conclusion a few months ago but didn't post it - I guess I was trying to be nice. Scott, if you're out there, we could use a kick in the pants in Kentlands. A few weeks ago we calculated that there are at least 10 places within a mile and 1/2 of Guiseppe's where you can buy pizza. But I'd still contend that Guiseppe's would be my choice each time if it was a little more consistent. When I was last there, my slice wasn't really edible because of the cheese. I don't know if it was too much, or cooked wrong, or what...but I chewed it and chewed it, it never broke down. FInally it was like a ball of flavorless wax in my mouth that I had to spit out. And as mentioned above, the crust is sometimes not cooked all the way, or so it seems. I was a semi-regular at the old Rockville location so I know how it CAN be, and it isn't like it is impossibly far from that. And they seem to be doing OK busy-wise, so maybe I'm just hoping for greatness for my own satisfaction. Dunno.

They are kind of awesome - at least from the standpoint of...everyone I know that has beards and/or tattoos seems to be a really good person. I also sense that tattoos are accepted today in a way they would not have been 25 years ago. Like a pendulum has swung. I originally asked the question for two reasons: 1. It seems noticable to me, more so than an average profession (at least that I ever see). I don't see them much at my work or amongst my neighbors. I guess one could argue that a restaurant is the most likely place where I'd simply interact with people a bit younger than me - and thus more likely to see tattoos simply for that reason -and restaurants really are no different from anywhere else. 2. I worked with a guy with 'sleeves' and I asked him about them. They were something no one else in the office had but clearly something he was proud of. Turns out he is mostly of native american heritage and he was telling me about his family and how tattoos were a part of that. It was very interesting and he seemed glad I asked (I know I was). I didn't expect that anyone would be either offensive or defensive about it. As for it being vacuous conversation, well, maybe - a click can solve that. If nothing else, it seems that asking about it brings out some people's inner ahole.