The Menu: Northampton, Amherst, and the Five College Area (NAFCA)

I got hooked on The Menu series by the New Haven edition, and I must say that Goldstein and Murumba have outdone themselves again. With an easier-to-read rating system and more top 50 and other categorized lists, this book continues to make me salivate every time I read it.

Yay! I'm _so_ psyched that there's finally a restaurant guide to the 5-college area that I can rely on! This guide has funny, insightful reviews of the restaurants I've been to, and it's given me a million recommendations for restaurants that I can go to! This is the perfect gift for a college student just starting here. Kudos!

I am a 5-college student and after reading this book, my friends and I have not had ANY problems finding a great place to eat in the area. I had to buy another copy for my friend because he was constantly borrowing mine. Please, please, please buy the book, it was written for you in mind!

Woo Hoo! Anyone who's touched fork to mouth in New Haven in the last year or so will understand how exciting this is for the five-college area. Last year the Elm City got "The Menu" restaurant guide. Now Amherst, Northampton, and even the little hamlet of South Hadley can claim fame in the pages of "The Menu: NAFCA". This one is hot off the press from what I can tell, and I just got my hands on a copy. Sleeker and thicker than the New Haven edition, there's something sexy about that matte purple cover. This one is going in my car for weekend ski trips and summer drives to the Berkshires. If I had a niece or nephew, and I liked him or her, I would lend them my copy for college visits. No, I wouldn't. But I would get them one of their own."The Menu: NAFCA" is full of those relentlessly opinionated reviews that make for addictive reading, and the lists section is marked off with a grey bar at the edge of the page--genius! Judging by the text, there are some great finds to explore in the area, but also some *really* bad restaurants. If you're eating in the Pioneer Valley, I hope you don't come upon beans that are an "awful, insipid pile of mush," "a horrible escargot appetizer, dry and unpleasantly rubbery," and tuna tempura that "will make you long for the supermarket freezer." And there are the gems of advice that make "The Menu" special: "it's advisable to turn away from the checkered-dress-wearing horse dolls: such is the stuff of nightmares." Too late. There are plenty of great places to eat around the five-college area, and they're all in "The Menu," (Tusk and Rattle in Shelbourne Falls is a sleeper) but the bad reviews are just my personal favorites--I think it's a symptom of having read too many syrupy reviews of mediocre places.In short, another great book by this dynamic duo. Goldstein and Murumba are on a roll. Please, may we have another?

What makes "The Menu: NAFCA" so great is that it:1. Gives really opinionated reviews that aren't afraid to criticize restaurants for poor service, poor food, and/or exorbitant prices.2. Doesn't shy away from reviewing even mundane places like Subway, Burger King, Wendy's, and Pizza Hut. The authors seem to realize that not all of the public views fast food joints with contempt, and that some of us (including me) like eating at these places from time to time.3. Employs a highly-selective rating system (i.e. none of the restaurants they review recieve a "100" rating -- their highest) which takes into account not only the quality of a restaurant's food, but also relative intangibles like "atmosphere" and "attitude."All in all, this is why I found "The Menu: NAFCA" an extremely useful restaurant guide to the Five College Area. Even though I didn't end up agreeing with all the reviews, I greatly respect both Mr. Goldstein and Ms. Murumba for telling me what they think rather than what I want to hear.