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im always satisfied at bonefish. nothing wonderful but its a nice busy atmosphere and the food is decent enough.
we did lunch on sunday at birravino. it was pretty empty. i enjoyed all the space we had. my daughter got pasta with red sauce that was awesome, i kept dipping my bread in it. the menu was kind of limited and i chose something i shouldnt have. then i got the nutella cheesecake for dessert and it wasnt good. i liked it there but the food wasnt anything special. no real need to go back.
i used to go to piazza italia as the "local chicken francese place." now its palumbo right across 35. very casual and standard southern italian items that are good. palumbo gives those garlic knot things that are yummy. lots of local old people eating there which works out good with the 7 month old. she is good most of the time but if you ignore her too much she will get pissed.
these days, i tend to prioritize convenience over great food. the best place ive been to lately was copper canyon in atlantic highlands. i think i hear the belford bistory is very good, maybe ill get there next time.
i didnt get out to tysons much. i had one friend that would go out to places like that but it was a metro & bus ride if you didnt have a car. the mall id go to most was pentagon city.
This Mall was not Tysons. It was right in the middle of Georgetown. Right on M Street. It didn't look like a mall from the outside. It blended in with all the shops on M. But then once you were in the front door, it went on and on. This Mall has been in a few movies as well.
im always satisfied at bonefish. nothing wonderful but its a nice busy atmosphere and the food is decent enough.
we did lunch on sunday at birravino. it was pretty empty. i enjoyed all the space we had. my daughter got pasta with red sauce that was awesome, i kept dipping my bread in it. the menu was kind of limited and i chose something i shouldnt have. then i got the nutella cheesecake for dessert and it wasnt good. i liked it there but the food wasnt anything special. no real need to go back.
i used to go to piazza italia as the "local chicken francese place." now its palumbo right across 35. very casual and standard southern italian items that are good. palumbo gives those garlic knot things that are yummy. lots of local old people eating there which works out good with the 7 month old. she is good most of the time but if you ignore her too much she will get pissed.
these days, i tend to prioritize convenience over great food. the best place ive been to lately was copper canyon in atlantic highlands. i think i hear the belford bistory is very good, maybe ill get there next time.
i didnt get out to tysons much. i had one friend that would go out to places like that but it was a metro & bus ride if you didnt have a car. the mall id go to most was pentagon city.
Ahhh Pentagon City- yup it was a stop on the Metro (after several trasnfers) so that's where we would go too- we would walk around for hours and then think we were big time eating at cheesecake factory.....Tysons was for when someone had a car on campus or a if I had a sorority semiformal to get a new tie for ....
Have you tried Tre Colore pizza- over by applebees in Middletown- supposed to have awesome food- including making thier own bar-b-q.....brikset is supposed to be a must try...
Belford Bistro is on my list- heard it is very good....so are Christines in Atlantic Highlands and Fresh in Highlands- alas those are for when we're w/o the sprout- which is almost never...steak at CC is supposed to be money....
I see when people, specifically parents are choosing where to live, school choice is foremost. People are seemingly willing to spend perhaps $200K+ on a similar house to move to a place with a good school district.
I attended high school in NJ and it is a Top 20 school (which I think is a joke, but that is for another thread) and over the roughly 2 decades since then, I have met several people who graduated from several different high schools.
Anyway, having the benefit of hindsight and having seen what people accomplish in life coming from where, my 2 cents is that the importance of school district is vastly, VASTLY overrated.
OK. If you finish as valedictorian of Piscataway High school (ranked somewhere in the middle) and the valedictorian of Millburn high school, it makes a difference. You probably have your choice of schools if you are valedictorian of Millburn, Piscataway less so. How much of a difference does that make in life? I would argue little, but it's still there.
Still, the vast majority of people will not have a kid who is valedictorian at Millburn, and for those people, wherever they send their kid to school, a good work ethic can get them into an Ivy League school, such as a Columbia, UPenn, or Hopkins. Whether that kid attends Morris Hills, Piscataway High school, even Union, it is possible.
Now, there is a difference between the poorer schools, such as the Camdens and etc. I am not talking about that. But generally, any school system in a nice, suburban safe town will do. Anything above that will generally not make any difference in what your child accomplishes in life. The cream will rise to the top. This has been my observation and experience.
you can have 1000 justifications why the property price is overvalued in good school districts, or being in a "good" school district is overrated, and some/all of it may be true.
but it means diddly squat because the market has spoke and good school districts are everything for property value. It's the first thing most people look for when buying a house - majority of the family buying a house have kids - majority of the family want the best for their kids - so it will always remain that way.
a 1BR condo? school district doesnt mean as much because you have a lot of singles/couple without kids. A house? school is everything for property value, followed by commute to nyc.
Anyone who goes against will be stuck in their value trap for a long time, worst thing you can do is buy a 700k house in a bad/average school district because it's new/nice etc.. doesnt matter... good luck when it's time to sell.
This Mall was not Tysons. It was right in the middle of Georgetown. Right on M Street. It didn't look like a mall from the outside. It blended in with all the shops on M. But then once you were in the front door, it went on and on. This Mall has been in a few movies as well.
yeah, I know the one you are talking about. I think it was in true lies. I went there a bunch of times, I think Tysons only once or twice. I didn't have access to a car most of the time I was in dc.
Ahhh Pentagon City- yup it was a stop on the Metro (after several trasnfers) so that's where we would go too- we would walk around for hours and then think we were big time eating at cheesecake factory.....Tysons was for when someone had a car on campus or a if I had a sorority semiformal to get a new tie for ....
Have you tried Tre Colore pizza- over by applebees in Middletown- supposed to have awesome food- including making thier own bar-b-q.....brikset is supposed to be a must try...
Belford Bistro is on my list- heard it is very good....so are Christines in Atlantic Highlands and Fresh in Highlands- alas those are for when we're w/o the sprout- which is almost never...steak at CC is supposed to be money....
wasn't cheesecake factory Tysons? that one friend used to go with a group of girls to the cheesecake factory now and then. I had no clue what it was, I thought it was actually some kind of cheesecake factory that they were going to. which school did you go to?
I haven't been to tre colore but it meets the convenience requirement, so ill check it out next time we are thinking "local chicken francese" place. ill try to bbq, the wife can stick with the Italian. that's in that shopping center with the empty former pathmark? that place is sad.
what is CC? ive been looking for a local steak place but there doesn't seem to be one. im good for either a fancy one or a "big greasy" Delmonico type steak place. im not really interested in something that's trendy. how old is your kid? my 5 year old can go anywhere but the 7 month old isn't there yet.
To me it seems like the OP went to a good school, and since doors didn't magically open up for him, he is putting the "system" down. It is what you make of it. A kid that wants to work hard in a good school will learn more than a kid that wants to work hard in a bad school. Just not as many opportunities. I went to a really bad HS in NJ, and it has held me back. Limited the colleges I could go to, which limited my grad schools, which affected my first job, which affected my 2nd, ...
I was advanced in math and finished the entire year's work in the first few months. I overheard my teacher talking to someone from the "main office" about getting me work. Heard the man say "We do not have anything advanced to give you", and the teacher responding "I am not asking for that, I just want busy work for him"
There are people like us who did not go to school in America. Immigrant parents are basically just going by the school district rating and word of mouth when trying to buy a house. For us education is basically one of the biggest thing we want to provide to our children. usually for immigrant families there is not much to fall back upon, and giving them the best possible education is the biggest security we can provide to our children. I do understand that it all boils down to parents and how they manage their kids at home. But we also depend a LOT on the schools to give us that much needed direction.
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