Monday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: November 5, 2018

My time: 4:36.

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Roland Huget was hungry for success when he made this puzzle, which makes a pun out of SOUND BITES.  Instead of "broadcast news snippets," it refers to onomatopoeia from food items: TOOTSIE POP (misleadingly clued as "chocolaty candy on a stick"), CAP'N CRUNCH, and GINGER SNAP.  It's only missing a crackle to be a noisy cereal theme!

I was not happy with the answer for "guard at an entrance."  I immediately put *BOUNCER.  When it became clear that wasn't going to work, I switched to *DOORMAN, thinking, that's reasonable enough.  But it's... GATEMAN?  That's not anything.  Boo.  Bad answer.  My time would have been much shorter if it hadn't been for this nonsense.

I do like the answers ON THE D.L., GASBAG, and ROADMAP clued as "plan going forward, as for peace."

IN SITU was an answer on January 20, when it was clued as "untouched."  Today, it's reasonably clued with its more demotic definition, "as originally placed."

We dealt with AMINO acid as a protein builder on October 22.

The pigmented layer of the eye, the UVEA, was last seen on September 16.

Clever clue: "slice from a book?" is PAPER CUT.

That's it for the notable answers on my end.  This was a decent attempt at a puzzle.  Easy Monday, with that one LAME answer above.  Did I hate the puzzle?  NOPE.  But I didn't ADORE it either.