Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I was in fourth grade, and we were visiting Walt Disney World's then-newish Epcot Center. I was young and a sucker and really did believe in the animitronic magic of the place. Epcot center had an international gallery of plazas pretending to be other countries--Germany, England, China, etc. One night we ate dinner in a fake Aztec temple in fake Mexico, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. The following night my parents made a dinner reservation for the restaurant in fake Morocco. The restaurant was brand-new, nearly empty, and totally screwed up. We waited two hours for food I was not interested in at all in the first place. I fell asleep with my head in my mother's lap, more out of boredom than fatigue. I awoke to a dry, bland mess of couscous. It was midnight by the time we got out of there. The only redeeming quality of fake Morocco was the belly dancer.

I fear I will sound like a ninny saying this, but I'm fond of Brooklyn Bagel Company in Astoria on Broadway. Why is it called Brooklyn Bagel Company when the place is in Queens? Are there more Brooklyn Bagel Companies in Brooklyn? I don't know. But I like their bagels a lot.

Mini bagels are the size that regular bagles used to be. Mini bagels are the way to go, because you get a bigger ratio of chewy exterior to bready interior. Having just moved from California, most any New York bagel is better than what I'm used to.

Casa del Pan (probalby one of a thousand similarly named Casa del Pans in the NY metro area) in Astoria on Broadway and 38th Street has these great beef empanadas for $1.25. It's a rich, rich beef filling encased in a substantial yet flaky dough. Casa del Pan is open 24 hours, and these savory little beef empanadas have sated my drunken hunger on a few late nights. I had one for lunch today, in fact (my first sober daylight empanada) and it was surprisingly filling. I paired it with their passion fruit drink for a vaguely Papaya King-esque taste sensation.

Dinosaur best in the city? It's good, but please tell me there's something better. The sauce is way too sweet, cloyingly so.

As a poor person, I usually offer to make birthday cakes for friends. Everyone wins--I don't have to run all over town searching for a meaningful gift, and the friend gets a homemade cake. Chocolate with 7-minute icing or yellow cake with chocolate buttercream are always big hits, but a dense Queen of Sheba torte is actually easier to make, and it serves hundereds of people because it's so rich. But really, who has time to make a cake?

I grew up in the midwest, which has no Carvel. Now we live about a block away from a Carvel, and while I'm underwhelmed with their ice cream, I'm curious about this Fudgie the Whale cake. Is it any good if you're not a little kid or an adult with Carvel nostalgia?

*Thin crust--a no-brainer.

*Wings. Much more fun (messy) to eat, and so savory with all of that gelatin.

*Um, I like Pringles. Sick. Those are more like potato crisps than chips.

*A good hot dog bun should awlays be toasted. Or at least warmed in some manner.

*I wish there were a Mounds-Almond Joy hybrid, with almonds and dark chocolate. It could be called Almond Joy Dark.

Hmm. I disagree with the sentiment that "most humans can't afford to sustain life on a vegan diet." No, I'm not a vegan, but we eat our share of meatless meals, and it's pretty cheap to center your meals around legumes, grains, and vegetables--way cheaper than buying meat every day. What are not cheap are those many vegan specialty products, cookies and soy ice cream treats and frozen fake chicken nuggets and such. Those can get expensive, but a nice bowl of black beans and rice with a side of grilled veggies is both inexpense and much tastier than your average tofu hot dog--or even a boneless, skinless chicken breast. I think they key is to be a good planner and to have good ingredients on hand. And when we eat meat, we eat good meat.

Oh, that Whole Foods lobster-liberation business? What a bunch of hooey!