Part 4 (1/2)

Rooney: Andfish

Valenza: You had the fresh filet of sole filled with a mousse of salmon with a crayfish sauce And then we had a little sherbet to cleanse the palate Then, the main course, I believe you had the

Rooney: The rack of lamb

Valenza: Rack of lamb that was roasted with fresh aromatic herbs and naturel au jus And for dessert, a little chocolate truffle It's ice cream mixed with pastry cream It's dipped in a very rich chocolate with little nuts and then we put it in the freezer

Rooney: Do you get people in here ever who are surprised at the cost?

Valenza: Once in a while Saturday night a lady came by and asked the price and I told her and she said, ”I'et a rich boyfriend to take me in” They caentleman opened the menu and there was the price and he juht this was just an aftertheater snack” And we said, ”Thank you, maybe another day” And the lady winked at ain”

Rooney (to caood it is The food is excellent As a matter of fact, I plan to co the kids

Two of the best lunches I ever had, I ate standing upand within an hour of each other Both places serve the sa, oysters Felix's is on Iberville Street in New Orleans and the Acht across fros and if you don't knohat it is, it's easy to look duo in a place

Rooney: What is the difference between the ones that are three dollars a dozen and the ones that are two-seventy-five?

Man (cutting oysters open):table

Rooney: Oh, the table If I eat them at the table, they're more? Are some of them harder to open than others?

Man: Some of them are hard, some of them's easy

Rooney: But they're alive until you open theht?

Man: Yes, sir

Rooney: You mean I just ate a dozen live oysters?

It's always hard to find a good place to eat when you're driving in an unfamiliar part of the country, particularly if there are three or four people in the car who don't agree where you're going to eat You get to one place and it looks fair but you decide to pass it up You drive ten miles and you wish you'd stopped there, usually

The trouble withwith so

The food in most country inns now co a place to eat is a matter of experienceprejudice acquired over years of eating out Deciding which restaurant not not to go to is io to is is you look for

I have asclear of certain places Just for example:I am very suspicious of a restaurant that says it is Polynesian and has fla torches outside

If a Chinese restaurant serves chop suey and chow oodor very Chinese

Cute naest that the owners aren't very serious about their food Watch out for places named after a new ” don't interest , I'll eat at hon in thesaying ”open” Restaurants with open signs usually leave them there even when they're closed

I'm not attracted to an establishment that puts more emphasis on liquor than on food

Usually I avoid a restaurant located in a shopping center

And if a restaurant is connected with a bowling alley, it isn't where I' to spend my money for food

I don't eat where there's reat by themselves are ruined when mixed Food and entertainet waited on in a restaurant that thinks it has enough help without going to one with a sign in theadvertising for waiters

And when I stay in a hotel or a motel, I never eat in the restaurant attached to it unless it's snowing

There are just as s that attractthe first nao in

I'm attracted to a restaurant that has a menu written with chalk on a slate

And to n of class is a restaurant that refuses to accept credit cards

If you've always thought of a menu as just a list of the food a restaurant serves, you're wrong Menus are a big business by the theirs look good

We went down to a studio one day when they were fil a new cover for a Howard Johnson menu The food was fixed in a kitchen near the studio They try to be honest about itbut nothing ever looks smaller sh the ht, but then they barely cook it so it doesn't shrink in the picture on the ht, but then they barely cook it so it doesn't shrink

In the course of doing this report, we've looked through and collected several hundred menus You can tell a lot about a restaurant from a quick look at its menueven from the outside of it For instance, if there's a tassel on the menu, you can add a couple of dollars per person

Here's the Captain's Seafood Platter The trouble with a restaurant called the Captain's Seafood Platter in Kansas City is that all the fish comes frozen, and by the time it's cooked in hot fat, you can't tell the oysters from the French fries

The Lion's Paw”Homemade Cheesecake” You alonder whose home they mean it was uess This is the kind of a menu that's so cute you can hardly tell what they have to eat ”Rhapsody of Beef ”Roast Top Sirloin ”Symphony of the Deep”Baked Lake Superior Whitefish ”Taste Buds in Concert”Breast of Chicken Almondine

Here's a place called the Bali Hai, a Polynesian restaurant The ”PuPu Platter,” they have ”Shrio” I never know about the drinks in a place like this Here's one called ”Scorpion Bowl” I hate drinking froirl on it

This is a Spanish restaurant, La Corrida Picture of a bullfight They've just killed the bull, I guess

I' re, too, but there are a few things I'm narrow-minded about Rabbit I don't eat, tripe, calves' brains, snails I know I', but I just don't eat them

Karson's Inn in Historic Canton This is one of those menus that tell you more about a town than you want to know ”Welcooes on and tells you all about how interesting Canton is

Here's one froio's in New Castle, Pennsylvania This one tells you about how interesting New Castle is

This is the Lahter, a family restaurant It's one of those where they tell you about the fa the finest food to nice people like you” They like me

This is another one: the Presuttis' Mama and Poppa Presutti are on the cover there And, yep, they tell you about the Presuttis here ”In 1933, Mr and Mrs S Presutti converted their hooes on You know, fine, but what have they got to eat?

This is so called the Shalako It's one of those ure if I wanted to read, I'd go to a library It says, ”The Shalako is the ious cereoes on for three pages You can i there while you read this history of the Zuni Indians

Here's a place called the Parlour I wonder where this is? Oh, there is no doubt where this is: ”It is dusk in St Paul Sunset's fading light reflects a red ribbon on the ainst the blue-gray haze”

A menu

We had a not particularly reliable surveyto the count we made, the most used words on menus were these, in order of frequency: 1”Freshly”

2 ”Tender”