i can't help procrastinating...

on my take-home exam for 11.201: gateway - planning action. so i'd like to insert a short bit here. i just voted for some of my favorite restaurants in boston, for the zagat survey, with pigalle topping the list. but for those of us on more of a budget, i would say that my favorite restaurant ever is cyclops in seattle. it's just a neighborhood-type place, with an upscale-in-an-artsy-way diner decor. but it has the best restaurant MO. i went there with rob at the beginning of the summer and had this great chicken (since then trumped by the chicken at craigie street bistrot, simply because of the quality of the chicken), and rob had a really good risotto. we also had the first chocolat pot de creme either of us had ever had. man, that was good. that ranks among the best desserts i've ever had both for taste (chocolate and grand marnier doing something quite indecent) and for presentation (a small porcelain teacup with a twist of crystallized orange peel on top). mmm. but when i took my sister there when she visited, the menu had changed completely! i was sad for the chocolate pot de creme, which i have not been able to replicate, but the menu was still extravagantly stellar. it went from a french/mod cuisine to spanish/mexican/latin cuisine. i had this great chicken with olives, peppers, and rice. nora and i also had ceviche, me for the first time, which was excellent. she had the fish tacos, which were also pretty good. the berry cobbler that we decided to get even though we were stuffed, was absolutely enormous. that thing would be a four-person dessert at any other restaurant in boston. it was, as rob would say, "as big as my head."

anyway, i'm sure that the menu has changed a million times since i left seattle. but instead of perpetually opening new stores, i wish modern restaurateurs would take a page out of cyclops' book and open a neighborhood restaurant that has a flexible menu. if you're going somewhere for dinner, it's a special event (at least if you're an mit student) and you should eat accordingly by not choosing the same thing every time. cyclops' MO just helps diners along with a good idea. that way, both diner and chef get to experiment at will. if you are in seattle, cyclops is in belltown.