Ireland's food..

I'm half Irish, but I wouldn't eat the muttin.

Potatos? A ok.

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I've always hated taxes on food...

...but a ban on salt in New York City being proposed (*and fines for using it*) is desperate and ridiculous.. Common sense MUST prevail! Food freedom in '10!

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FRESH SQUEEZED MILK

Chef in New York City using his wife's breast milk to make cheese.. ..

Chef Daniel Angerer told the New York POST: "It tastes like cow's-milk cheese, kind of sweet"..

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...avoid arena beef sandwiches

Went to a Celtic/Sixers game last night.. my team won. But my stomach didn't. I had a roast beef sandwich with horseradish sauce.. Some of the worst, most expensive food I ever ate. The beer was cold but near $10 .. Why did I do it? Why..

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On the menu with the fries and burger: A health charge!?

No joke.. the Chicago TRIBUNE reporting that a new bill is popping up, and is sure to spread throughout the nation. The TRIBUNE reports,

The rationale for this one is to cover the employers' mandatory contribution to the City's "Healthy San Francisco" health-coverage system. The charge actually is levied on employers, but at least some restaurants are adding a few dollars or percentage points to each customer's bill to cover this charge.

The restaurants' excuse for assessing this charge separately is to let customers know how much they're paying for employees' health coverage. That's the same excuse hotels use when they add "resort" or "housekeeping" fees to unsuspecting guests' room bills. It's the same excuse airlines would use to exclude fuel surcharges from their advertised fares if the Department of Transportation would allow them. And it's sheer nonsense. Employees' health insurance is no less of a cost of doing business than rent, property taxes, food costs, security services and all the other inputs businesses require to operate. To single out health care for a separate surcharge is unwarranted.

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...the only hitch this weekend..

...was a frozen water line and a coffee machine not working. A trip to the dollar store, and a cheap coffee pot later (and 25 minutes to brew a single pot) and we were in business...

Oh the joys of what the customer does not see.

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Romantic dinners...

Some people think the lights being so low is downright funny.. other tables right next to them are happy and find the romance.. and finally the older couples have a conversation about how many bladder surgeries they made it through in life, making the youngest couple squirm like the shrimp they're eating..

But, ok.. I have to admit it, even with my mocking and scorning attempts to deride mass produced holidays like Mother's Day or Valentine's Day: There is something romantic and special about seeing couples of all ages and creeds come out to dine .. spend a night together and eat lobster and steak.. and look at each other and get a little fire back in their eyes again.

Sure, plenty of men are doing it because they have no other ideas.. they are in a cold panic that they forget flowers, chocolate, and diamonds. Why not, then, take someone for a $100 dinner.

And the server's role is magical in this instance.. the server has to know when too much friendly banter is too much, has to be knowledgeable about the dinner selection.. and then get out of the way of the couple who just seemingly want to share a little time either away from the kids, or just away from life.

Alright, that's the only bit of sentimental thought you're going to get about Valentine's Day. Back to the nonsense: Prime rib and seafood buffet today .. this should be outright painful..

Good luck restaurant world..

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Hold that table! The (first) dreaded holiday of the year...

AND ..this time it's on a weekend. A full flavor of events for Valentine's Day 2010 ..

Perhaps it's worth telling your table, as you serve them, that the original Valentine's Day involved young men would stripping naked and using whips to spank the buttocks of young women in order to improve their fertility.. Maybe it worked.. we're here today. Perhaps the pagans were on to something. Or maybe past popes were on to something by saying Saint Valentine did great things.. or maybe Hallmark and others for marketing the holiday with skill.

Either way, lobsters are about to be boiled, steaks are about to be seared, and men are about to look at bills with eyes wide.

It's Valentine's Day weekend..

If you're so inclined, or just want to plug yourself or you own website, send me a few thoughts, stories, or tales of battle scars from the weekend service.. In the mean time good luck. Look for some thoughts this weekend on the events..

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In case the sky bar is too far...a tootsie is closer than you think

A friend of a friend tells me that I can find one near home. At least within the United States..

If you're a regular reader of the Soup on my Fly blog, and I hope you are, you'll know I wrote a few weeks back about my interest and ogling of the Bangkok skybar in Thailand..

But now, if I want to find a bar similar (minus the sky) closer to home, at a VIP room of a adult club in Miama Florida at a place called Tootsie's (Not safe for work link)

While the Tootsies that features this interest room of character doesn't star Estelle Getty, God rest her soul, it does have the appearance of the Bangkok skybar of my dining desires..

I doubt an Estelle Getty character at Tootsie's.. Other types of characters, sordid and sultry, would only appear.

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How much Should it Cost

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