Possibly relocating. Looking for opinions.

JerseyPete said:
Besides at your home (in NJ and Italy), where do you go for good Italian food and what do you get?
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I don't and I don't get good Italian food at home in NJ either. My wife is British. I do get the occasional package from Italy from my mom, but that good stuff is for family consumption only. Not sure if still there but I did get a good pizza in Nutley, I just couldn't bear the owner being all over us every 5 minutes trying to be 'Italian' or providing the 'Italian welcoming treatment'. When I eat I like to enjoy the food not having to entertain the restaurateur, sorry. I'm sure there are places but like I said they all need to tweak their menus to appeal the 'locals' with what they think is going to work best. I'm not much of a social guy as you can probably tell by my posting so there's not much of going to restaurants here. The multiple misspelling of Italian words in that menu is one of the things that usually shuts down my enthusiasm when looking at an Italian restaurant menu.

Unfortunately this is not really relevant to the specific thread so maybe we should close the interlude here...sorry for the diversion @Dave Taylor , I for one I'm gutted to see you go as I was hoping of one day getting those welding lessons!

Edit: I had guilty feelings about judging too fast the menu...so I went back and there's nothing that I would have seen in a restaurant in Italy or ever had even home made. I don't think any Italian in his/her right mind would waste an octopus grilling it, but I maybe wrong. Chicken meatballs homemade, WTF?!?! Tzatzicki with fried vegetables 😱. A lot of recipes in Italian restaurants are the result of long lost memories of food prepared by grandma that came from Italy as a kid hence had no idea how to cook but she just remembered there were eggplants and zucchini involved...sorry, no.

A secret tip...if they offer anything cheese on fish...run!
 
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Patrick said:
i just spent a week in san diego.
high of 80, low of 60 at night. not a drop of rain (they only get 10" per year)
there was a cloud in the sky on one of the days. Marine layer had to burn off on a couple of the days too.

airport is small but goes to most places
lots of bike infrastructure on the city roads - plenty of trails (which i didn't ride)
Plenty of work
Plenty of food - asian and latino is excellent - and sometimes fusion!
Laid back attitude
Purchase 1000' back from the water, and wait a few years to have ocean front property.

really makes me wonder why we live here.
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San Diego is great. Back in 2010 while visiting I was riding local mtb trails called tunnels with my friend who relocated there. Great experience. if I could I would move there but life is never that easy.
 
serviceguy said:
I don't and I don't get good Italian food at home in NJ either. My wife is British. I do get the occasional package from Italy from my mom, but that good stuff is for family consumption only. Not sure if still there but I did get a good pizza in Nutley, I just couldn't bear the owner being all over us every 5 minutes trying to be 'Italian' or providing the 'Italian welcoming treatment'. When I eat I like to enjoy the food not having to entertain the restaurateur, sorry. I'm sure there are places but like I said they all need to tweak their menus to appeal the 'locals' with what they think is going to work best. I'm not much of a social guy as you can probably tell by my posting so there's not much of going to restaurants here. The multiple misspelling of Italian words in that menu is one of the things that usually shuts down my enthusiasm when looking at an Italian restaurant menu.

Unfortunately this is not really relevant to the specific thread so maybe we should close the interlude here...sorry for the diversion @Dave Taylor , I for one I'm gutted to see you go as I was hoping of one day getting those welding lessons!

Edit: I had guilty feelings about judging too fast the menu...so I went back and there's nothing that I would have seen in a restaurant in Italy or ever had even home made. I don't think any Italian in his/her right mind would waste an octopus grilling it, but I maybe wrong. Chicken meatballs homemade, WTF?!?! Tzatzicki with fried vegetables 😱. A lot of recipes in Italian restaurants are the result of long lost memories of food prepared by grandma that came from Italy as a kid hence had no idea how to cook but she just remembered there were eggplants and zucchini involved...sorry, no.

A secret tip...if they offer anything cheese on fish...run!
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Is Italian food really that simple? I just assumed 90% of the Italian food we eat here is Americanized comfort food, sort of like how our Chinese food has little to do with Chinese cuisine.

The food in Italy has got to be a bit diverse, especially as it's hardly even been a united country for that long. Sicily I would think would be more on the seafood side, while more mountainous regions may be more towards the meat side.

@Dave Taylor You still 100% a welder? Do you just go with finding good welding jobs anywhere you want to go? Seems like a trade/skill that's easily transferable.
 
Santapez said:
Is Italian food really that simple? I just assumed 90% of the Italian food we eat here is Americanized comfort food, sort of like how our Chinese food has little to do with Chinese cuisine.

The food in Italy has got to be a bit diverse, especially as it's hardly even been a united country for that long. Sicily I would think would be more on the seafood side, while more mountainous regions may be more towards the meat side.

@Dave Taylor You still 100% a welder? Do you just go with finding good welding jobs anywhere you want to go? Seems like a trade/skill that's easily transferable.
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No, I really don’t weld much these days. I am shop foreman currently. That is very loose terminology as I do job site support, trucking logistics, welding, mechanics, office work etc. I want change anyways. Not really into the same, boring day to day life at the same job for the rest of my life.
 
Lived in nor
Santapez said:
I can't argue with that. My sister visited a friend in San Francisco during a heatwave and thought it always had nice weather and moved out there. Argued with my parents about the weather before moving out there. First phone call home was "I don't want to hear anything about it, but I need you to
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Santapez said:
I can't argue with that. My sister visited a friend in San Francisco during a heatwave and thought it always had nice weather and moved out there. Argued with my parents about the weather before moving out there. First phone call home was "I don't want to hear anything about it, but I need you to ship me my winter coats".
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Samuel Clemens I quote "the coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco "
I lived in CA from 89 to 2000 you couldn't go to the beach in the summer the temp induction from cold pacific water and hot summer inland but fall winter was glorious
I believe that has all changed now
 
stb222 said:
i am confused on the conversation about not being able to find good Italian. Dime a dozen in the greater Trenton area.
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I believe the argument is there's no such thing. It's all just Chef Boy-Ar-Dee with mobster music playing in the background.
 
Santapez said:
@roc

I may have never had worse food than the Mediterranean Grill.
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My wife has said the same thing, but man, their lamb is awesome.
Santapez said:
I said it jokingly because people throw it out there.


It can take an hour to get a burrito at Tito's.
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Fucking tito’s! The made me a liar, picked up food to go on the way home from work, it was supposed to be ready at 6:20, it was finally ready at 6:45! 25 min sitting there with my thumb up my ass.
 
mfennell said:
it seems like the overpaying thing eases up the farther West you go. Do you know Pat (@SmooveP)? Also, Bratteson moved out to PA recently after selling his place in Rumson. He might have some intel.
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Northwest NJ is not immune to price/inventory/tax issues. However, it's the closest thing to paradise for biking and other outdoor activities in NJ. But if you move more than a half hour away from where you live now, you might as well move out of state because no one will make the drive to visit, lol.
 
SmooveP said:
Northwest NJ is not immune to price/inventory/tax issues. However, it's the closest thing to paradise for biking and other outdoor activities in NJ. But if you move more than a half hour away from where you live now, you might as well move out of state because no one will make the drive to visit, lol.
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You need better friends
 
Santapez said:
Flagstaff on paper is a great place to live if you like Sedona. Sedona itself seems like a horrible place to live, but awesome place to visit.

Flagstaff gets you:
-Sort of temperate. You get the seasons. There's real winter. And you gotta deal with the elevation.
-Interesting downtown w/ some of the METH culture that comes with a college town.
-HUGE trail system. However it's not rideable half the year.
-45 minutes to Sedona for the cold weather riding. While I love Sedona, I'd be sick of it if it was my only option. Plus it's HOT in the summer.
-Near the Grand Canyon and driving distance to a ton of UT parks and riding.
-2 hours to Phoenix and all the winter riding down there, along with other city perks LIKE METH.

And yeah, I think people underestimate getting sick of trail systems. For instance we all go to Kingdom Trails and love it, but I know I'd get sick of the trails there quickly and then there's no easy to get to variety.
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FTFY
 
serviceguy said:
I just couldn't bear the owner being all over us every 5 minutes trying to be 'Italian'
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Opposite in Italy, they saw my last name and asked if I was Italian. I knew to say American and that Mio Nonno da(?) Piemonte, so I didn't get lectured.

Grilled Octopus is more islands - Sicily, et al. every thing from the sea, every way.
I should mention that the Sicilians I know eat everything. They'll notice a weed growing in my yard, and ask if they can take it.

@Santapez - mediterranean diet ? you know, the heart healthy one.
Somewhere along the line, someone thought serving 1lb of pasta in a bowl with a hunk of meat and cheese and sauce was a winner.
this probably came out of a time when people actually did labor, and pasta/sauce/cheese was cheap - meat added later.
As Leo points out, this doesn't happen in Italy. You get a little pasta as one of the courses - sometimes they drop a big bowl on the americans,
cause haha, and we are at dinner at 8:00, a couple hours before everyone else.

they also produce a great non-smoked, cured meat. something john taylor could never match 😉

David, stay in the US, buy a giant RV, and go where you want, when you want. Well, stay in 1 place during the school year.
 
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Patrick said:
David, stay in the US, buy a giant RV, and go where you want, when you want. Well, stay in 1 place during the school year.
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Probably the best advice. No property taxes and he can wait until homes come down. The question is, what is the cost of a good motorhome?
 
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