Caesar Salad

WHEN MEMBERS of the Chain Gang drove through New England a few weeks ago, it seemed like we passed 99 Restaurants about 99 times. Finding out the chain had migrated down to Philadelphia, we decided we had to check it out. Not being familiar with 99, the Gang found it to be similar to Applebees - big drinks, big All-American menu, big desserts, not too big a bill. At the location on Roosevelt Boulevard, we also found the service to be exceedingly friendly even when it was slow or forgetful.

It's salad season. And while salads are now so popular that they're gobbled up year round, the light and cool food combos are best savored in the heat of summer and in the height of harvests. Chopped salads are high on the list of new menu offerings, in part because they provide the best blend of flavors. With more ingredients in each mouthful, you get the full impact, and a more complex taste. Vincent Finari, executive chef at The Plough, has added a decidedly non-Irish chunky chopped salad of avocado, corn and tomatoes served with grilled tuna, lemon-basil dressing, and a calamari garnish to his summer menu, which starts this week.

This is about food, and fat, and fear. His whole life, Shawn Andrews has struggled with food. Pancakes drowned in syrup. Cheesesteaks. Baked macaroni. Pizza. After the Eagles' season ended in January, Andrews gained 10 pounds, pushing perilously close to a weight that began with the number four. He made a decision. Enough was enough. He had to stop. In April, weeks into a diet that was showing results, Andrews went to a park near his Arkansas home with a childhood buddy named Willie.

What we like about it: Authentic Mexican cooking with wonderful hand-rolled fresh tortillas and a mix of tradition and innovation throughout the menu, from the little panuchos - small fresh tortillas topped with pulled pork in a savory sauce - to the amazing, creamy carrot sopa that was the soup of the day. At a recent lunch, we chose huaraches (sandals), a thick corn dough rolled to form a shallow dish for the chicken, black bean and salsa filling. Topped with lettuce, tomato, onion and fresco cheese, it is a delicate mingling of traditional flavors.

'A DISH OF leafy green vegetables dressed with various seasonings, sauces, and other vegetables or fruits. " That's how "The Dictionary of American Food and Drink" defines salad, the greens on our plate that can be sweet or savory, dressed to the nines or nakedly unadorned. Although subject to trends and regional zeitgeist, salads never go out of style. Whether molded or organic, chopped or wedged, salads are here to stay, and in the warmer months, main dish salads keep us out of the hot kitchen and feeling righteous enough to indulge in dessert.

Cutillo's Restaurant & Lounge in Sanatoga has a name that typifies many old landmarks. The massive Victorian structure is family owned, it's multipurpose in its dining scene (complete with takeout), and it sits hard by the road, its rooftop sign easily seen from nearby Route 422. This might be the era of "small" plates and fashionable comfort food, but there's still room for the Cutillos of the world. I must concede that I chose to dine at Cutillo's partly because it has been open since 1948.

On the wall of Merrill Reese's office, where he is the general manager and vice president of radio station WBCB-AM (1490) in Levittown, hangs a photograph of Randall Cunningham. The former Eagles quarterback is soaring through the air during a game against the New York Giants, horizontal to the playing field, limbs stretched out as if he were Superman. Those are the types of captivating plays the "Voice of the Eagles" has been describing to radio listeners for 28 seasons. Reese, 62, a Philadelphia native who graduated from Overbrook High and Temple University, calls games with Mike Quick on WYSP-FM (94.1)

It is too late to save the Caesar salad, but with your help we may be able to rescue the Cobb. A hallmark of this country is that we take things - food is included here - and run with them. We abandon rules, and these innovations often are improvements. Too often, though, we dumb down what is a decent concept. Reality television and Caesar salad have this in common. What has happened to both can make a liberal feel like a conservative. I knew Caesar salad was on the road to becoming stupid when, in 1986, I was traveling across the country and stopped at a restaurant somewhere in the Midwest.

When Bruce Braverman arrived at his office yesterday, he looked at the clock and then the calendar. And then, the panic set in. "I totally forgot," Braverman, a Thorndale dentist, said. "I realized what day it was, and that I had nothing in line. " It was Valentine's Eve. The day when reservationless boyfriends and husbands freeze with anxiety. The day florists are flooded and the maitre d'hotel becomes every man's best friend. The day that consistently reminds that romance can endure almost anything - especially a little male delinquency.

Had Michael Granato been around to offer some amenities to Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher when they lost their way in McDougal's Cave, the subterranean adventure might have turned out quite differently. No, Granato is not a Mark Twain character, he's the man behind Bistro Romano, a dining dream-come-true for spelunkers with a taste for Italian food and seclusion. The Bistro, on Lombard Street in Society Hill, features a handsome underground dining room with high, wooden booths offering the utmost privacy.