Fat Guy

With sympathy and great sadness, we announce the death of long-time eGullet Society volunteer and member Linda LaRose, known as fifi in eG Forums. Most members knew Linda as a woman with an expansive knowledge of food, a broad commitment to others' learning about cooking, and a fully developed sense of humor for all occasions. Our volunteers also knew Linda as a tireless supporter of the Society and its various projects, on which she toiled with remarkable candor and collegiality. We've all lost a true friend. We invite you to honor Linda's participation in eG Forums, and to share your remembrances of her love and appreciation for food, cooking, and eating. Please click here.

Three recent strawberry incidents: 1 - Had Tristar strawberries -- called such on the menu -- at Momofuku Ssam bar in NYC, as part of a strawberry shortcake. So delicious that it was a shame to serve them with cake, though the cream was nice. 2 - The grocery where I shop (Fairway) had "local strawberries" in cardboard tubs -- maybe 4X the size of a pint container -- for $4.99. Quite good. 3 - Bought some Earthbound Organic strawberries. These were just as bad as Driscoll's or any of the other non-organic brands.

If the price of every bottle of wine includes a 20% service charge, it's the same as adding 20% to the bill. If not, not. What eje is probably referring to is that, when Per Se opened, it had a five-course menu option, with choices for each course. It phased that out, I believe last year, and now requires everybody to have the long menu.

If one restaurant includes a 20% service charge on a $200 menu and writes it on the menu as $240 including service, and another restaurant has a $200 menu and adds 20% service on the bill for a total of $240, then they are both charging $200 for food and $40 for service.

As there appears to be no real difference, both.

What's the difference between an X% service charge added to the bill and an X% service charge added to every item ordered?

No, it was a two-course meal.

For breakfast I had Munchos and Ciao Bella mint chocolate chip gelato. It was the greatest meal of my life at a non-Ducasse restaurant.

At the size you're talking about, you can make a mean lobster bisque with tons of lobster meat in it. Here's how I'd do it: Instead of eating a whole lobster with your friends, just eat a couple of tails. Tails are the best eating when you're having lobster straight up as whole pieces with butter. When it's getting near time for your lobster-tail meal, take the whole lobsters, raw, and remove the tails and claws. Clean out the bodies of all the guts. If you get any roe, set it aside. Boil the tails and claws until the tails are cooked the way you want for eating, and the claws are undercooked (this will take the same amount of time). Set the claws aside in a bowl of ice. Then, have your lobster-tail dinner. Save the shells when dinner is over. After the feast, remove the meat from the claws and knuckles (a kitchen shears can be helpful here, though if the shells are really hard you'll need a lobster cracker). Refrigerate the meat in a covered bowl. Then take all those shells -- the bodies, the claw shells, the tail shells -- and roast them in the oven for about half an hour. Then make a stock with the shells, a standard mirepoix (onions, carrots, celery) and some fennel. Cook this for a long time, like a meat stock, several hours, not like a fish stock. Strain it and refrigerate it. If you had some roe, wrap it in foil and put it in the toaster oven at a low temperature for a long time -- until it totally dries out. Then let it cool and mash it with cold butter to make a lobster-roe compound butter. Refrigerate that. The next day, when it's time to make the meal, heat up your lobster stock. Add a bunch of cream. Season with salt and white pepper. Add the chopped up claw and knuckle meat. Let the meat heat through. At the end, stir in a bunch of that lobster roe butter. Serve with crusty bread. If it's not the best thing you've ever eaten, let me know.

I stumbled across a website yesterday: http://www.menupix.com/ -- I like it because it reproduces the actual menus, as opposed to an OCR version like on http://www.menupages.com/ What other menu websites have you all been using, and what do you think are the pros and cons?

I agree that the best crabs are served at the Chinatown places, however there are some people for whom the crab craving won't be properly addressed by anything but an American-style crab experience. The best place we have in Manhattan for that -- which isn't to say it's fantastic -- is City Crab (Sidewalkers, which closed long ago, was the only truly good crab shack in Manhattan). They have Maryland blue crabs, Florida stone crabs, Alaskan king crab legs and Dungeness crab. They're all fine -- the place does high volume, and prices are good for New York restaurant prices ($25-$30 per pound depending on the exact product). http://www.citycrabnyc.com/ There are also the places on City Island. Crab Shanty seems to be popular, and I've had okay food there. They have a lot of crabs. Last time I went, the "S" on the sign was broken, so it said "Crab hanty." City Island is kind of a pain to access by public transportation, but it can be done. http://www.originalcrabshanty.com/

Good stuff, thanks.

I've read this, but there are a few issues: 1- If you're supposed to eat it with your rice, why do they serve the panchan long before they serve any rice? 2- I see everybody -- even tables that are populated entirely by Korean-speaking Koreans -- diving into the panchan before the rice arrives. And 3- You can always ask for more!

Okay, this is where I'm at with the panchan guide. I'm doing about a dozen mini-guides like this throughout the book, for everything from sushi to dim sum. The idea isn't to be comprehensive/encyclopedic. It's to give the consumer, in a casual format, the basic information needed to navigate a given aspect of a cuisine. How am I doing at striking that balance? +++ PANCHAN GUIDE The thing I enjoy most about dining at Korean restaurants is the selection of “panchan.” At the typical Korean restaurant in North America, you’ll automatically be served several of these small side dishes as appetizers. Their interesting flavors and textures build anticipation for the meal, and they’re free! The first time you see an array of panchan, it’s likely to be an overwhelming cognitive experience – like trying to read a foreign alphabet without a Rosetta Stone or any kind of guide. Over time, however, as you learn the names and flavors of the dishes, you’ll slowly become fluent in panchan. If you don’t know what something is, ask your server for both the Korean word and a description of the ingredients (then go home and look it up online for confirmation and suggested spelling). Eventually, when the little dishes of panchan hit the table, you’ll be able to rattle them off like a pro. The following are some of the panchan items you’re most likely to see on the table, though there are hundreds of other possibilities. All these panchan selections are likely to be served at room temperature, even the fried ones. Hint: if you finish a given panchan item, you can always ask for a refill – most such requests are happily accommodated. If you don’t know what it’s called, be sure to leave a tiny piece in the bowl so you can show your server: “More of this, please!” Kimchi (sometimes written “kimchee”) – If there is a national dish of Korea, kimchi is it. If you just say “kimchi” you’ll be understood to mean spicy, fermented cabbage. However, there are a variety of other kimchi preparations, usually indicated by hyphenated descriptions. For example, manul kimchi is green onion (scallion) kimchi, oh-e kimchi is made with cucumbers, and kaktugi kimchi is made with radish cubes. There are many other kinds of kimchi, some of which are barely recognizable as such, but cabbage, scallion, cucumber and radish are the ones you’re most likely to see in a restaurant’s panchan assortment. Odeng – A type of fish cake, usually served in long, thin slices. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of odeng, and I’ve found that most Americans (including a lot of Korean-Americans) aren’t either. Still, it’s worth a taste. It reminds me a little of the Jewish specialty of gefilte fish, which I don’t love either. K'ong namul – Seasoned bean sprouts. Shigeumchi – Seasoned spinach. Doo-boo chorim – Seasoned fried tofu. Yeunkeun jorim – Seasoned lotus root. Lotus root is easy to recognize: it’s served as thin round slices with almost a wagon-wheel pattern of holes in them. Hobak jeon – Seasoned fried zucchini. Gamja jorim – Tiny potatoes simmered with sweetened soy sauce. Gamja saladu – Korea’s answer to potato salad, usually made with long thin shreds of potato. +++

How does doo-boo chorim get its golden color? Is it deep fried? Sheena, while you're over on that cool page of photos, do you see any other core panchan items to add to the list? By core I mean frequently appearing in Korean restaurant panchan selections in North America.

Okay, I've got my potatoes straight now. Phew.

I can't believe how much misinformation I've been given by Korean waiters over the years!

Like, check out the photo in the center of this page. That's what we're all talking about, isn't it?

thats stir fried julienned potato with minimal seasoning, salt, oil, and sesame seeds. sorry for all the posts, I want to make sure the fat guy gets all of his info right! ← Is that somehow different from the gamja jorim that's on my list?

Yeah it was a little joke. Whenever I see that stuff, I think it's just like slices of gefilte fish, but even worse tasting! Thanks for the note on the squid. I've been served that as panchan, cold. Strange, maybe they had a bunch left over!

I'm writing up a little guide to panchan, the Korean side dish appetizer items that usually come out gratis at the beginning of a Korean-restaurant meal. Does anybody have any thoughts on, say, the 15-20 panchan items folks are most likely to see at a Korean restaurant in North America? So far on my list I have: Kimchi, the standard version made with cabbage, and the the various hyphenated versions: manul-kimchi (scallion), oh-e-kimchi (cucumbers) and kaktugi-kimchi (radish). I know there are about a million others, but I'm trying to list just the ones you’re most likely to see in a restaurant’s panchan assortment. Odeng – gefilte fish slices K'ong namul – seasoned bean sprouts Shigeumchi - seasoned Spinach Doo-boo chorim - seasoned Tofu Ojinguh bokum - broiled spicy squid Yeunkeun jorim - seasoned lotus root slices. Hobak jeon - seasoned fried zucchini Gamja jorim –potato salad Others? Also I'd love some input on spelling. There doesn't seem to be as much standardization in Korean transliteration as there is in Chinese and Japanese, but I'd like to communicate as clearly as possible.

I've heard dozens of items referred to interchangeably as dip or spread, including hummus, taramosalata, caponata, baba ganoush, skordalia . . . I believe smear is an Israeli description of the typical way in which hummus is eaten, and at least around here (NYC) it's a mainstream term. The big companies that have been popularizing the creamy, Israeli style of hummus (most notably Sabra) have even designed their packaging to facilitate smearing -- thus the wide tubs with raised lids. It makes sense, since if you put hummus on a plate or in a wide, shallow bowl and then go after it with small pieces of pita you're not really dipping or spreading. You're smearing.

Whether any given person specifically spreads it or dips it (though the act of picking up a puree with pita is often referred to specifically as "smearing"), it remains the case that both terms are used -- on menus, in cookbooks, in conversation -- to refer to the exact same thing, and often not in the context of its actual application.

Inspired by a comment on the picky about produce topic . . . . When supermarkets stock their shelves they do so using the FIFO system (first in, first out). That means new stuff is put at the back of the shelves and old stuff, which went in first, gets pushed to the front. In most modern supermarkets the dairy case is even stocked from behind -- the back opens right up onto a refrigerated stock room. It's amazing, though: most people just grab what's up front, even though it can easily be a week older than what's in back. Me, I always go to the way back for milk, eggs, whatever. I check the dates as well, because there can be inconsistent distribution of the old and new stuff even towards the back. Just today I was looking at milk and the sell-by date in the back was a full seven days later than the sell-by date on the cartons in the front few rows. Now I can see taking from the front over in the produce section if you happen to be in need of a ripe cantaloupe. But that's about the only thing I'll ever take from the front.

My two cents: the actual noodles at Noodle Bar are just okay. The other ingredients, however, are exceptional. I know of no other place in town that serves the quality of pork, chicken, eggs and vegetables that you get in the Noodle Bar soups. You just don't see that level of quality -- not even close -- at Menchanko-Tei and the other Midtown places. And of course the Noodle Bar offerings (kimchi stew with glutinous rice cakes and shredded Berkshire pork; pork neck ramen with braised neck meat, Shanghai noodles and a coddled egg) are pan-Asian and global rather than entirely Japanese.