We stayed two weeks on Borgo Santa Croce last year, and are doing it again later this month. Great location!

We called a cab for the airport, but the rest of the time we walked or took buses. There are two bus stops within a block. Google maps on iPhone or Android will tell you how to get between any two points in Florence by bus. You can buy bus tickets at most newsstands and tobacco shops, or for a 10% premium you can pay for a bus ride by sending a text message.

I second that memory of getting sandwiches from Manganaro's on drives out of town and stopping somewhere by the road in NJ or upstate NY to eat it. Good stuff, good memories.

Sometimes the shtick gets so offensive that you end up self-deporting. We did.

I know that the CH opinion of Zagat isn't high, but now that it's Google they don't talk to anyone, so I thought I'd ask here anyway.

Google killed the Zagat iPhone app, and tells you to use Google Local on the iPhone to get Zagat ratings. You can also still go to Zagat.com and login with your Google+ ID. However, many restaurants (e.g. Swizz in NYC) are "user added, no rating" on Zagat.com, but have a numerical rating (24) if you search them in Google Local.

How can you have a brand like "Zagat.com" owned by a data driven company like Google, and have apparently two unrelated and disconnected rating systems both called "Zagat"?

Surely if their intent was to kill the zagat.com site, they know where the switch is? Leaving it out there with completely different data seems kind of dumb - if you buy a brand, you must value it, right?

We're still exceedingly happy there, and pre-theater is perfect because it's quiet - they usually fill up by 7 or 7:30PM. You should be sure to reserve.

At Keste I like the Padrino (as a veggie, I skip the meat). I really like that Ragusano cheese.

At Pizza Roma, I like the Gogonzola and cipolle a whole lot.

The space was fine, comfortable and friendly service. Big bar at the front might get noisy, but we sat toward the rear and smiled at the chef in the somewhat open kitchen.

We've been there twice, and liked it a lot. Very well made and tasty Italian food. Not red sauce. And no squirts of balsamic glaze.

I've consistently eaten much better at Babbo than Marea. Marea seems more about ambience and complexity than about Italian food.

Horn & Hardart Rice Pudding was the best. Some days after school I would go to the Horn & Hardart retail shop on Broadway around 78th Street and buy a container of the rice pudding and a box of four of the flat top cone shaped chocolate glazed cupcakes and I think I consumed it all.

Also really liked their cucumber salad, which had plenty of onion in it.

I'm a picky eater vegetarian, Babbo has plenty of good pastas for me (get the buvette with cardoons if they have it - super simple and super tasty). I haven't tried the pasta tasting but I'm sure they'd do a veggie version (they do require everyone at the table to take part in a tasting, my wife never wants that much food).

Where they fall down for me is sometimes in the appetizers, as a picky eater I'm not a fan of mushrooms and usually only have a few other choices. The parmigiana flan is very good if they have it, the autumn vegetable appetizer is fine, but doesn't wow me. In summer I like their caprese with heirloom tomatoes. Some of the contorni like brussels sprouts are normally cooked with pancetta, but they will make them veggie if asked.

We really liked Picholine once, and then didn't like it on two more visits. In the end, the dishes are too complicated for me, I like simple italian better than complex french.

Do you use any sort of paper or potato flour thin (like a piece of paper) wafer base, or do you just cook your dough directly on a cookie sheet?

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I was looking for the paper (potato flour?) discs on which to bake homemade dough. I was not looking for finished cookies, just the white base that my German friend thinks is essential.

To me, artichokes stuffed with Tallegio SHOULD NOT HAVE PESTO IN THEM. This is not any kind of traditional Italian dish, this is an awful mess. (Also, when you serve baby artichokes, the outer leaves should not be tough and chewy and basically inedible roughage, and when you serve stuffed artichokes, the center should not be cold.).

That said, the salad and pastas that we had were excellent and a good value. I don't think I'd go out of my way to dine here, but if I was at Chelsea Market and looking for lunch this would be the place.

Where can I buy these in the flatiron district? NY Cake & Baking Supply is closed this week (although I couldn't find on their web site).

And for extra credit, why do these cookies need this paper base when no other cookies do? Is there something about the dough for these?

The balsamic glaze squirted on the pasta at Osteria Morini made me think I was in Olive Garden, not Italy!

If you are going for the food, Babbo. Get the simple stuff. Sit upstairs for the comfort and noise level.

If you are going for a fancy experience and want overly complicated very messed with food and service, Marea is your best choice, with Ai Fiori a close second.

I Sodi
Bar Pitti
Inoteca
Pizza Roma
Babbo

The eggplant (or melanze if you prefer) parmigiana at Rafele is excellent, regardless of what words or language you use to describe it. It's very similar to the preparation at the late lamented Bellavitae, except perhaps the cheese was not as well carmelized. I think it's eggplant, cheese and tomato sauce, more or less fitting my seven ingredient or less Italian fixation. Try it! The cauliflower is also excellent.

if you want "balsamic glaze" squirted on your food, Morini. If you just want good food, Locanda Verde.

Drought conditions for good bagels in the village. I go to Corner Cafe at 6th Ave and 24th St for the best chewy bagels.

I loved the Chile Rellenos at Manana filled with Cream cheese. I've never seen them made that way elsewhere.

We're very happy with Boca Chica at First and First.

The best Tortelloni I had in Bologna was at Trattoria Anna Maria. The friggione (stewed onions) were also delicious.

If you want a squeeze of "balsamic glaze" on your dish just like Olive Garden, go with Morini.

This didn't turn out as I expected.
pre-bagged "2 lb." bag of lemons at Gourmet garage, $4.99
no particular weight bag of lemons at Gristedes, $3.99

actual cost per pound:

Gourmet garage, 1 lb. 12 oz actual weight, $2.28 per lb.
Gristedes, 2 lb. 7 oz actual weight, $1.64 per lb.
Your mileage may vary. Next time I weigh in the store. My scale is not legal for commerce. The more expensive ones might possibly have thinner skins and produce more juice per pound, I doubt it.

Additional data point: Illy whole beans medium roast, labeled $15.39 in Gristedes.
Bought Illy whole beans medium roast labeled $14.99 at GG, scanned at $15.99, corrected when I spoke up.

We go regularly, it's excellent straightforward italian. Almost fits my "seven ingredients or less" concept of Italian cooking. Sometimes no red sauce at all, sometimes one pasta. We're mostly vegetarian and like all the pastas that meet that limitation, but our guests have always been very pleased with their meat and fish dishes. Ravioli is a standout. Can get noisy after 8pm or so.

Buvette
Bar Pitti
La Camelia
I Sodi
Pizza Roma
Porsena

Went to ZEB for lunch, didn't really feel like a dinner place.

Also forgot to mention a nice lunch buffet a block away at Osteria Antica Mescita San Niccolò. Not the same level as ZEB, but solid good food. Particularly liked the braised (?) belgian endive.

Florence food report

We just spent two weeks in Florence. I'm a liberal vegetarian and didn't try any meat dishes. My wife eats some seafood.
Some of our favorite places were:

Cibreo complex. We had lunch twice at the Cibreo Cafe, drinks once, dinner at Trattoria Cibreo once, and dinner and a show at Teatro del Sale. I would say they've still got it. The food and values were excellent. The service was particularly sweet and enjoyable at the Cafe. The trattoria is served by the main restaurant kitchen, but as a background task, and service was extremely slow and careless. (They gave us a freebie of their excellent calamari(?), while we were waiting nearly an hour for our entrees - which included two orders of the same calamari. Our local friends who had ordered it had no trouble polishing off all three orders.) The lunch salad with tuna and mozzarella at the Cafe was the best salad we had on the trip. Every ingredient was excellent. (In general the worst salad we had on this trip was about as good as the best salads in NY). The spinach flan at the trattoria was delicious. Also had an interesting side dish of a more or less thick grass that tasted like spinach. Their pappa is a totally smooth puree, which is not to my style (tasted good, but lacked texture). The side of stewed onions was also excellent. We didn't care for the polenta with olive oil and parmesan (which was exactly as advertised). My biggest disappointment (as a vegetarian) was to watch them cook their amazingly tasty and crunchy roast potatoes at Teatro del Sale, and then the one moment when I turned my back they stirred them all up with chicken and sausage. But I was already stuffed at that point so it was not a tragedy. Good wines (except the boxed plonk at Teatro).

Buca Dell Orafa - loved their cheese ravioli, their fried zucchini and zucchini flowers, their spinach sformata. It's rare for zucchini flowers to be so flavorful, and the sformata was so good. My wife didn't care for the curried shrimp. And the alpine strawberries for desert were embarrassingly tired and dry. The 16 Euro house wine was pretty good.

Tre Soldi - one of my favorite meals of the trip. Outside the centro storico but right next to a bus stop. Lovely home made pastas, surprising side of "erbette" which looked more or less like spinach or bietole but was unusually sweet. Excellent deserts. Their house wine was a little weak.

ZEB (Zuppa e Bolito). Vegetable antipasti simple and good. Ricotta Tortellaci with Pear sauce was outstanding and very memorable. Strangely, we ended up not going back for fear our beautiful memory would be eroded. But will absolutely return on next trip. Excellent wine.

Casa del Vino - best caprese sandwich I've ever had. They had them ready made with anchovy, but were kind enough to make me one without. Focaccia, perfect cherry tomatoes (halved), excellent fresh mozzarella, wonderful Pantelleria capers, oil, salt. Wow. Also good wine by the glass. My wife said her tuna sandwich was like any tuna sandwich.

Others - had a good pizza at Pizzaiulo, although the salad was only okay (especially compared to Cafe Cibreo across the street).

Aqua al 2 (with branches in San Diego and Washington DC) was way better than it should have been. They do "assagios" or tastings - three salads, five pastas, etc. We had four different salads (the one with fennel was a real winner). We each ordered a single pasta - I had a nice one with red peppers, my wife had Riso ai Carciofi (they didn't call it risotto) with artichokes where the rice was amazingly perfect (the artichokes added great flavor but were tough bits and pieces that were too chewy to bother with). Desert was poor.

Osteria Da Benci - simple trattoria that seemed a bit more touristy than others, but my wife loved their "heretic" pasta, and a special of orechiette surprised me - some of the most perfect fresh orechiette I've had anywhere.

Osteria da Fagioli - slow food choice, my favorite very oniony pappa al pomodoro of the trip, but didn't care for the ribollita. Asparagus sadly overcooked.

Osteria Chingiale Bianco - our favorite restaurant in Florence on our first trip in 1985, sadly downhill. Pasta with white truffles (and large doses of mediocre truffle oil) in June? Yes, only 15 or 18 Euro, but you get what you pay for.

Frescobaldi - upscale winery restaurant on Piazza Signoria. Perfect tagliatelle with black summer truffles (no truffle oil). 20 Euro. Nice flight of wines. Nothing else we tried was particularly good.

Christine's kitchen - dinner at a friend's house. Excellent farro, great roast asparagus, and tasty Sicilan style tomatoes, but the apricot desert was amazing. Must go to the green market and pray for apricots like those.