Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I've eaten at both more than once; he'd have been better off to have closed the "main room", which is pretentious, overpriced and a little oppressive in tone, and whose food isn't outstanding enough to justify the attitude. The Enoteca had excellent, inventive food at reasonable prices, served by friendly people who didn't take themselves (and you) so seriously that you spent more time worrying whether your tie was on straight (the main room is that kind of place, even if you are not wearing a tie!) than enjoying the food.

While I enjoy local food, especially when I can find sources that taste better than what's available from afar, there is a romantic quality to this whole "movement" that is a bit precious. I think it unlikely that we could feed 20 million people in the New York metropolitan area for 12 months of the year on locally grown food and, even within quantity limits, confining themselves to food seasonally available is unattractive to most people. Beyond that, it is not clear that fruits and vegetables carried in small quantities in trucks or cars (when picked up at a farmer's market or farm) have a smaller environmental "footprint" than large quantities of food packed in containers and distributed in full trucks to supermarkets.

The availability of decent and decently priced food in low-income neighborhoods is a completely different problem better attacked by finding ways to attract larger stores (even supermarkets!) selling mass-produced food at manageable prices.

Having said all that, those of us who can afford it should encourage artisanal food for the same reasons we prefer and should encourage artisanal production of wines, cheeses, jewelry and clothes. The individuality provides variety and makes an important statement about individuality in a mass-production world -- but only for those who can afford it and without the expectation that we are going to return to eighteenth century production methods and levels of consumption.

An important philosophical question: How big does a meatball have to be to become a burger?

Great survey and very informative, but I don't understand the value calculations. Momofuku gives you 1 bird for $50 and gets a high value score. Brooklyn Bowl gives you a half bird for $18 and gets a poor value score. Momofuku isn't a bowling alley, but it's not exactly Le Bernardin either. I won't bore you with other comparisons. Maybe you needed a separate "atmosphere" score.

I should add that the pastrami and egg omelet was excellent.

I share your passion for Fresca, but age has its advantages, at least for those who can enjoy their memories, true or not. As I remember it, Fresca was even better in its original formulation, which included cyclamate. Cyclamate was ultimately banned from the market because a rat eating its weight in cyclamate might get cancer -- there was a law, the so-called Delaney Amendment, that banned from food any additive that caused cancer when ingested in any amount. Since that was almost everything but exempted substances historically added like saccharine, it had the ironic effect of forcing the substitution of something that tasted worse but caused more cancer. Coca-Cola pulled Fresca from the market until aspartame was approved, then reformulated it, and the new stuff is great, but at least in golden memory the old stuff was even better. I bought a large quantity when they announced it was being pulled, but it had a limited shelf life and then there was no more. It's a little like the sugar/corn syrup story, I guess, except this substitution was prompted by a berserk regulation;

This is a swamp from which no one returns alive: Should the co-op also ban: figs from Turkey? (killing Kurds, Armenian Holocaust Denial), spices, grains and chocolate from various African countries ? (assorted dictatorships and slaughters of innocents), wines and agricultural products from Australia? (mistreatment of Aborigines), dates from Egypt (repression of democracy), anything from Pakistan? (supporting terror against innocent civilians), spices and fruits from India? (Kashmir); anything from Iran? (where do I start?), Saudi Arabia? (repression of religious freedom and women's rights, exporting religious fundamentalist terror and repression), Serbia? (slaughter of Bosnian Muslims and Albanians), Croatia? (slaughter of Muslims and ethnic cleansing of Serbs), Basque Spain? (terrorism against civilians); China? (civil rights and religious freedom, Tibet), Russia? (Chechnya, Georgia). I could go on, but you get the idea. We would have no difficulty finding something fairly awful in the recent histories of most of the countries of the world, including our own. Let each consumer make up her own mind. If nobody wants to buy something, the stores (and co-ops) won't stock it. But don't take moral autonomy away from individuals who may not agree and may not want to speak up.

Two things can be true at once: It's possible that most Chinese wine is currently bad or counterfeit or both (and that none of it is worth $60) and that in 50 years (maybe more, depending on how the economic slump affects the Chinese) some of it will be really good and there will be a lot of it. I don't know what "the leading producer in the world" means, except for quantity, and (again depending on economic growth) it's not inconceivable that a home market of a billion and a half people will be the largest in the world. Berry Brothers and Rudd is a serious firm and not given to wild statements. I doubt that they mean that China will surpass (perhaps not even equal) France, Italy, the U.S., Australia, and Germany in the quality of its best wines. But that it might be the largest producer in the world with some very good wines seems perfectly plausible to me. California was producing some superb wines within 50 years after the end of prohibition (1983), as is New Zealand, which started essentially from scratch 35 years ago.

You may not like the journalistic style, but people deserve to know that some vendors have "disgusting habits" and they even deserve to know which ones. Perhaps a "list of shame" or some other way of distinguishing the many clean ones from the dirty ones would help us use the clean ones with confidence. Bashing "Inside Edition" doesn't make the problem go away, and if you are an ill patron of one of the disgusting few, you won't feel better knowing that many are clean.

Under Barbecue, I agree with Ed that particular places are best for particular items. I would put RUB's burnt ends in the same category as his other "bests".

Please post the cross streets with the addresses, so we can find these places without wearing out our mouses (mice?) on Google Maps.

It's worse than akiono luna thinks: not only is corn subsidized, but sugar is protected from imports, so it sells in the U.S. for a multiple of the world market price. That's why it pays to substitute corn syrup here, but not in the rest of the world. It's also why we are making biofuel ethanol from corn, when the Brazilians can make it from sugar much cheaper (and get a much better CO2 result in the process).

At the risk of being thrown off by the processed-food police, I note that Quaker Oats makes a baked rice snack that comes in a variety of flavors (I like sour cream and yogurt), is very crispy/crunchy and has only 70 calories for 10 pieces.

The others on the thread are right -- get over sweetening your yogurt. If you must, use a little honey, but that's a dessert.

Texas Ruby Red grapefruit from a good producer (I use Reed Lang Farms in Rio Hondo, TX) is the best grapefruit out there. Their Rio Star variety is deeper red in color but not as complex in taste. It's not a bad second choice.