I had a weird flat drawer in my kitchen that was originally used for utensils, but I turned it into a spice drawer. Spices are alphabetical, except for the things in weirdly shaped containers that get stuffed in the back.

Pepperidge farm cubes, doctored with onion, leek, celery, carrot, mushroom, chestnut. I'm trying to convince my mom to let me put oysters in it this Thanksgiving since our Rabbi isn't attending for the first time in 20 years!

How I know I'm doing well at being a food-person: these are all the places I go in my neighborhood.

I would add Bar Boulud for its good prix-fixe, and Luke's Lobster for the best roll around.

@Kenji - word! I had no idea about that case!

Losing H&H means losing one of my first NY food memories: the day I was old enough to stand in line by myself while mom went across the street to get a number at the fish counter at zabar's. "2 dozen: 6 sesame, 6 everything, 6 onion, 3 poppy, 3 pumpernickel, and the extras in cinnamon raisin, please." I was so proud. I was also maybe 8 or 9, and thought I was good at playing a cool city kid.

I'll go up to absolute more often now.

I think I've eaten over 100 brunches at Sarabeth's. I'm not even kidding. But Adam, you are so so so so wrong: the only bread to get with your eggs is the SCONE. It is the best scone in existence. I'm not even kidding, I have tried scone upon scone upon scone elsewhere and nothing ever comes close.

I knew my ex and I were not meant to be when he ordered plain scrambled eggs and a croissant at Sarabeth's. For shame.

I grew up 5 minutes from Corner Grille. OneDomino is right: it's delicious, but useless as takeout - it gets cold in about 5 minutes, and is never as good when reheated in a home kitchen!

I wish they would offer a thicker crust to showcase their ingredients. The thin crust just doesn't do it for me. Fortunately...I live in New York now so I can pretty much have my choice of pizza. My parents in Worcester bemoan the lack of good pizza there, though!

Risotto. Creamy and delicious.

Sorry, but Ted Drewes is what I dream about when I miss St. Louis. The Cardinal Sin sundae makes my life complete (vanilla custard, hot fudge, tart cherries.) It's an icon, and totally worth pimping out for some St. Louis love.

OK, here is my plan: Reading Market in the morning for breakfast and browsing and Amish-staring/buying of baked goods, Amada for a late lunch, hopefully outside, and Capogiro for deliciousness, possibly twice depending on how long I decide to work. I checked out the Amada menu and there are lots of options for a delicious pork-free meal - plus a really nice soup and salad or sandwich lunch deal. That is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.

Thank you all for your fantastic input! For what it's worth, I will have one more brunch in Philly and will go wherever my friend takes me, but I hope he knows what he is doing just as much as you guys all do!

Thanks, all. Of course, we ended up changing our plans completely and going to King's Seafood on Saturday. It wasn't bad, but I think I'm done with Manhattan dim sum. Flushing/Sunset Park just seem to have so many better places to try. (It's just hard for me to have the time to get out there as I am a law student busy with finals!)

I'll probably try Red Egg at some point, too. I just like going to the dim sum places with the carts because I can look at the dishes and order by pointing without having to speak Chinese. (Seriously, at King's this weekend we were the only non-Chinese people there, and none of the cart ladies spoke any English. We had to basically run around the restaurant with our ticket just to find the things we wanted!)

I never put noodles in matzah ball soup, and I'm always surprised when I order it at a deli and it comes with noodles. But like others have said, that is probably because I actually associate matzah ball soup with Passover, when noodles are forbidden. (Plus the K for P noodles, along with most manufactured K for P foods (especially including the fake cookies and cake mixes) are really quite awful.)