mongo_jones

i could eat so well in l.a for $20 a day--probably go a month before repeating any restaurants. all you have to do is eat mexican, central american, bangladeshi and chinese.

well, i rarely try to make anything i see on iron chef either.

i like emeril--yes, he's over-exposed and all the rest but he knows his shit and i like the idea of a famous, successful chef who's neither fancy-schmancy nor wants to be. plus julia child likes him--who am i to argue? the two fat ladies ruled. still do. also moulton. and brown. ambivalent about mario (like him on the whole but still haven't gotten over that show where he went to italy and out-shticked the mayor of shtickville.) can't stand (for all the ill it does their bank accounts): flay, ray, all the wind-up monkeys (gordon elliott, all the food trivia show hosts). also cannot stand tyler florence (too much of a frat boy learns to cook vibe). my distaste for martha stewart preceded her appearance on the food network, and will likely survive it.

or the eel battles (where they nail the eels' heads to the counters before gutting them alive) or the crab battles (where they lop of their claws and feet so they can't scuttle away while the iron chef figures out what to do with them). i'm sure the american version will be much more sanitized.

perhaps they're both iron chefs? the original show had specials as well that pitted the iron chefs against each, singly and in teams.

why detective, you're assuming i'm not packing heat...or maybe i'm just excited by all this burger talk.

i am hoping against hope that they've imported the guy who plays chairman kaga and are keeping all his stuff in subtitled japanese.

i'm hoping flay stands on morimoto's cutting board at the start of the show and morimoto proceeds to flay him with his sushi knife. smelling blood batali, sakai and brown leap in with their bare hands and the theme ingredient is then announced: bobby flay!

i'm guessing the teams might be the "event" for the first episode? especially the shock pairing of morimoto and flay? anyway, i'll watch. alton brown as doc hattori sounds like genius but then again doc hattori didn't have much star wattage or particular shtick. this may turn into a mug-fest where every food network host gets a cameo. just as long as gordon elliott isn't the floor reporter and rachel ray isn't the permanent giggly judge.

You coming out here to L.A. or saving money to spend at the Apple Pan. Let me know, i can take you to some great dives! our next trip to l.a will be from may 12-26. perhaps we can get a egullet l.a event going? since we won't have our own kitchen we won't be able to contribute to a potluck--maybe dimsum or artesia. or perhaps i could drag you all kicking and screaming to one of the scary bangladeshi places on vermont. burger dives are always good too. can we do a drive-through in the helicopter?

the apple pan's hickory burger. mmmmm 2 more months...

joe's is always good. is jiraffe still around? the last time i was there was about 4 years ago and it was very good--casual, in santa monica, not crazy-expensive. chinois is, in my opinion, one of the most over-rated restaurants in los angeles--though you could walk to it from either one of those hotels.

at the more affordable and casual end of things what do people in frissy make of north beach restaurant (or is it north beach cafe?)?

not easily offended--not that it is a particularly offensive statement. and vegetarian fury is something to behold--as anyone who's seen a peta ad will testify. was that a reference to gandhi? he was a fascinating figure--not at all the caricature richard attenbore turned him into.

chungking in west l.a is o.k as anglofied chinese goes but the only chung king i give props to is the divine sichuan outpost in monterey park--at 206 s. garvey. 4 can eat till they're stuffed for $40--if only the new yorkers who rave about grand sichuan could eat at chungking or any of the other sichuan places within 1 mile of it, let alone in the rest of the san gabriel valley. truly people in l.a are spoiled. now that we have no access to decent chinese all our l.a trips (we'll be there again in may) revolve around excursions to monterey park/rosemead.

as per my wife--who has been yearning for years for the street dukbokki of her youth in seoul--the secret ingredient may well be indian chilli powder. of course, this is unlikely to be true but she claims to have made the breakthrough with her own version when she started adding some of my chilli powder to her own take on the kochujang version. would that qualify as indo-korean fusion? asks one, with tongue in cheek, who eats a "fusion" meal every day just by virtue of the fact that the panchan are brought out for most every meal whether the main dishes were cooked by me or her. as such i can only laugh at the starched-shirtness of those who sniff that kim chi doesn't go with indian food for x,y or z reason--in our home it goes with it 7-8 times a week whether the purists like it or not.

i was in los angeles for 10 years till last august. since my wife's family is all there (well her maternal side--the other side is in korea) we've gone back twice already--this is making it hard for me to let go and become a boulderite, um boulderian?

the short answer is "no". actually i don't know if they deserve a longer answer.

celery? zucchini? the naughty, naughty daikon radish?

and those who get their rocks off with produce section merchandise ("why are you looking at me?") should know that a waxed carrot will eat through a condom. we don't want any strange dr. moreau style accidents, do we?

i regret to inform you that your ass-wiping technique has failed to comply with federal standards. please report to the nearest clearing-center for re-orientation.

well there's satyajit ray's felu da stories--gripping histories of the indian sweets tradition. episure, look what you are doing to me.

perhaps some vietnamese--italian fusion: pho-geddaboutit? apologies if someone's already commited this crime--i haven't looked at the whole thread yet.

i make doi machh with it. pretty much like a mangshor-jhol (meat curry) with yogurt. don't ask me for the recipe--it changes each time i do it, depending on what's at hand and how much falls in.

bong this is identical to my default machher-jhol recipe! i like to use long wedges of potatoes (a long potato cut into 4 long wedges) and make the jhol very patla (thin). even though i can't get magur-machh in boulder it reminds me of childhood meals of patla magur-machher jhol, mushoor dal and alu-shedho (laced with shorshe-tel, onion and chilli) and rice. no peas for me though. and i always use panch-phoron.