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I love the New Amsterdam Market! I've been to most of them, and they improve every time. I'm one of those Lower Manhattanites who walks over with a shopping bag and a list, and I definitely stock up. I'm very much looking forward to supplementing my Thanksgiving feast with booty from this weekend's market.

Martini and bacon is absolutely the right way to go!

Those are very good recommendations for the area. Kind of slim pickings down here, unfortunately. I'd add Les Halles on John Street, as well. Good French bistro food, and quite casual. If you walk over to the waterfront at Battery Park City you could go to PJ Clarke's. It's casual, and it has decent, if not great, food. The big plus with PJ Clarke's is now that the weather is getting nicer you might be able to sit outside at the marina, which makes it very nice indeed.

Show: South Pacific
Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art (obvious, but still great)

Shopsin's is a good place for an authentic NYC experience. Pizza, maybe DiFara or Grimaldi's(the walk over the Brooklyn Bridge makes Grimaldi's an especially good time). The dim sum place in the mall under the Manhattan Bridge on East Broadway keeps it real and inexpensive. Chinatown in general is great for the bakeries and dumpling places and great Chinese grocery stores.

The Jean-Georges sodas are always great. I love the lemon thyme, and the ginger lime.

Yeah, I hate the hype, too, but I really do love eating at Ssam. I think the food has gotten even better over the last couple of months and, being the type of person I am, the relaxed service and the music make me very happy.

I've taken some out of town friends who demanded it, and I tried to be surly about it, but I left well fed and pleased. Sometimes a good restaurant is just a good restaurant, hype be damned.

I've made this recipe before, it comes out very well.

We got a reservation at Eleven Madison. I've never been, and the prix fixe looks great. The setting is more elegant than homey, but that's ok.

Very cool! I would have chosen the same place. I'm glad the Master Chef got to see a little of the old soul of New York.

The egg cream is disturbing, though. Where do you go for a consistently good egg cream nowadays?

Nice one, Ed. Despana has been my favorite sandwich place for a couple of years now, but I sometimes worry they are a little "off the beaten path" in terms of customer traffic.

I'm glad to see this thread, since my wife and I made pasta for the first time last night, after buying a traditional roller atlas pasta machine. We went to Babbo for the first time on Friday night and it inspired us. The results were great and well worth the effort, and the machine itself is much smaller than I thought it would be and is easy to store in a small space. Maybe you more experienced pasta-makers can help me with a couple of questions I have:

I know you can freeze the finished products that you make, but can you freeze or refrigerate the dough itself for any length of time and have the results still be good?

If i were to freeze it, what should I do to defrost it? Should I leave it out at room temp, or should it be more gently defrosted in the fridge?

Lots and lots of things give me heartburn, but I can generally deal with the effects with mild medication. The only thing that really kills me is liquor. I love to mix drinks, I love straight-up tequila and various whiskies, but the older I get, the more impossible it becomes for me to enjoy these things without instant discomfort. I can survive most mixed drinks, and wine and beer aren't much of a problem, but my days of enjoying a straight-up liquor are coming to an end. -sigh-

The sad thing is that I almost never drink to excess, either, even the tiniest amount is a problem.

Sure, New York will take any kind of restaurants it can get, as long as the quality's there. If the place is good, it should be welcomed. I love restaurants that make me comfortable while I enjoy great food(the places you mentioned are favorites of mine), but sometimes I like to go to someplace that is trying to elevate the experience. If there's room in NYC for every ethnic food under the sun, every goofy gimmick, and every restaurant that one large orange-clogged, red-headed Italian man and his apostles can dream up, I see no reason why we shouldn't welcome something more elegant and theatrical. Even as a casual New Yorker I don't think that the Rolling Stones are an appropriate soundtrack for every meal.