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mongo_jones

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Everything posted by mongo_jones

  1. http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=31855 scroll down to post of jan 15
  2. If I guess correctly, you are wondering why a server would offer a taste of a wine brought in by a guest. No, it can't be returned (obviously), but it IS proper to offer a taste to assure that it is not corked. One would never assume that even a BYO bottle is perfect and it would need to be tasted. Am I on the right track? i didn't realize that i'd asked such a complicated question--but since i seem to have confused more than one person i must have. yes, you're on the right track. and i get it: it makes sense to get a taste from even a bottle you've carried in yourself. what do you do if the expensive bottle you brought in is corked? go back and throw it through the shop window of the place you bought it from? mongo "classy" jones
  3. we buy frozen pomfret from a large korean store (komart) in aurora (a suburb of denver). it is usually excellent stuff. if you like i can post a recipe for a sweet and tangy pomfret preparation.
  4. in this voluminous thread on the california forum i saw a mention of a taste of a wine that had been carried into the restaurant by the diners being offered to them upon uncorking. is this merely a formal extension of the protocol followed when you purchase from the restaurant's own wine-list? i mean, if you brought the wine yourself you can't really have them take it back can you?
  5. we ate at full moon grill last fall and thought the meal was great--i think i might have mentioned it here earlier--especially at the price. our dessert--one of those kitchen needs early warning chocolate souffles--was to die for. i've also visited carelli's once. that was with a large group and with all the conversation the food suffered a little. in any event i got a special then (gnocchi in a tomato sauce) and remember it being unremarkable (but see above). i did like the feel of the room though. we haven't eaten italian out in a while (having just returned from a month in india) and i'm trying to pick between them. while everything at full moon grill was very good perhaps i should give carelli's another chance, and this time try something from the menu. and focus a little more on the food too.
  6. i usually cook my shorshe ilish by feel--so i'll write down the steps the next time i make it. which, of course, won't be with ilish since you don't get it here in boulder, co. however, if you live in los angeles or anywhere where there is a large bangladeshi/bengali population you should be able to track down a store that sells frozen ilish, and they'll even cut it up for you. alladin, on vermont between 1st and 2nd, in los angeles has excellent frozen ilish (as well as every other bengali/bangal fish). in the meantime i'll try to hunt down my sister's microwave "bhapa" recipe--which, as i said on the pictures page, is really quite good. as for fishes more readily found in the u.s: for the shorshe preparation i'd probably go with cod or something like that. definitely not with a firm, meaty fish. i also like making bengali fish dishes with mackerel (available easily and cheaply in korean and chinese groceries, and loaded with omega-3's) and sometimes catfish and tilapia. as for the picture updates promised last night, they're coming.
  7. but what are people who live in areas where there are no sikhs to do?
  8. see subtitle of original post. boulder, colorado.
  9. what is your opinion of carelli's in the williams village complex as opposed to the full moon grill (or is it half?)?
  10. oh, i'm open to having my mind changed--i'm just not convinced yet.
  11. romesh gunesekeera's haunting "reef" uses food extensively as a metaphor for sri lankan identity. salman rushdie in "midnight's children" likewise employs indian pickles.
  12. of course as the aggrieved party here my position on this is somewhat contaminated. that being said i don't know if the food being delivered per se constitutes delivery of service. in the context of our event the food being delivered AFTER lunch had finished in a sense meant the food was of no use to us. in retrospect we should have at some point in the phone tag told him to forget about it or possibly we should not have accepted the food when it arrived--but a) no one in the early conversations expected that they would continue to be lost b) at the end of the last phone conversation it wasn't clear that they were still coming and c) when they did arrive with the food and plonk it down in the tin-foil containers (this still steams me) it seemed to me to be too much of a scene to ask them to pick it all up and bugger off --this was a small outdoor reception and everything was visible to all the guests. once we had the food it was better to give it to people than to throw it away. but the fact that it was received and (eventually) consumed doesn't mean that the service we had agreed to pay for was delivered. remember: it had been of svmbolic importance to us to have both indian and korean food at our wedding reception; with the exception of a few greedy guts who managed to eat again this was denied to us. once again, given that the restaurant didn't pursue the matter very long--though we left l.a the cell-phone number that they had for me remained active for another 2 months--i suspect they too felt that the advance was probably adequate compensation. (grammar edit)
  13. yes, timelines and details were agreed to in writing. the directions were printed, faxed and receipt of them acknowledged. i think i might have been more inclined to give them more money if a) the food had not arrived after everyone had finished eating and b) their attitude had been better both on the day of and in the weeks following. i should say we didn't at any point make a decision not to pay them--our goal was to make them wait just as they'd made us wait and see how it went. but then they stopped calling. and given that they did stop calling after a point i don't think they really expected to get paid either.
  14. spacing on the exact figures now but i think we'd paid about a sixth up-front. the rest was supposed to have been paid on delivery.
  15. don't want to bust in on the caterers' horror stories thread but i have one of my own as a customer to relate: my wife is korean-american and i am indian. we had a close friends and family (about 100 people total) wedding in my wife's uncle's backyard. we organized everything ourselves. for the food we decided to go with a combo indian and korean buffet. the korean food was sourced from an operation in koreatown in l.a and the indian food from one of the better north-indian restaurants in artesia (the l.a area's not-so-little-india). for the indian we'd gone over and done a tasting and interacted with the highly professional manager of the restaurant (who i should add, in an act of foreshadowing, was very fluent in english). the food was all supposed to start arriving between 1.00 and 1.30 for setup by 2 and a late lunch buffet starting at 2.15. now, as i said we'd organized the whole wedding ourselves but our plan had been that starting from the actual morning of we would no longer take an active role and i had accordingly handed everything off to a friend of mine to manage. at about 1.45 we were being photographed in extremely artificial poses while our guests were walking around our host's wonderful backyard, drinking wine and taking in a beautiful southern california summer afternoon. out of the corner of my eye i noticed my friend the coordinator gesticulating wildly while talking into my cell-phone. since we were no longer supposed to be involved i resisted the urge to ask what was going on. the photographs got done at about 2.10 and i looked around to locate my friend--i noticed she was again on the phone, looking increasingly harried. eventually her husband came over and informed us that while the korean caterers, who also supplied the servers, had arrived early and had finished setting all their stuff up by 1.30 there had been no sign of the indians till 1.45, at which point my phone had rung and a man speaking extremely broken english had managed to convey that he was the indian caterer and was lost. --at this point i should clarify that all the vendors (who'd been arriving throughout the day) had been given detailed printed directions and that all of the others had had no problem getting there (despite being mostly korean and not speaking ANY english), and that the manager of the indian restaurant had assured me that his drivers knew the area well and would have no trouble finding it-- anyway--so at 1.45 my friend had given the caterer fresh directions from where he'd called from (which hadn't seemed to be that far away), only to have him call back at 2.05 even more lost in some place even further away. none of this was helped by the fact that the guy calling didn't seem to speak much english and my friend doesn't speak any hindi. resisting the urge to jump right back into the fray i asked my friend's husband to locate one of my indian friends if the guy should call again and have him mediate. of course, my indian friends were themselves from out of town and couldn't guide the guy directly. anyway, since the indian food was only scheduled to be 30% of the buffet and since the koreans had, true to their word, brought way more food than they needed to we figured it wasn't a big deal if it arrived a little late. so everything gets going, people start eating, all is happy-happy. quite apart from the exellence of the korean food alcohol is flowing and much bad karaoke is happening. except it is now 3.15 and there is still no sign of the indian food. and the korean relatives, most of whom have never eaten indian food and have been looking forward to it are getting increasingly disappointed as they get increasingly full. on cue my phone rings. my friend picks it up, gets that look in her eye and waves one of my indian friends over. i see him getting more excitable as they attempt to have a three-way conversation with the driver. finally i can't take it anymore and walk over--my friend, who has all week warned me about trying to do any work on the big day happily shoves the phone at me. i get on the phone and tell the driver to stop where he is (once again he is not very far away) and listen carefully to me; the man, who has also been driving around for a couple of hours in a van, starts giving me some crap about being given bad directions by each person he's spoken to etc. etc. and refusing to take any more--not loosing my cool i ask him to call the manager of the restaurant and get his shit together. at this point he informs me that HE is the OWNER of the restaurant. we have some words (not altogether pleasant) and he hangs up. 10 minutes later (and about 15 minutes after everyone has been stuffed full of excellent korean food) the indian food arrives. not only is it more than 2 hours late but the silver serving dishes they were supposed to bring haven't arrived (they've brought everything in tin-foil containers!) and far from being apologetic the owner is copping an attitude with everyone he speaks to. i take him aside and tell him to put the food down and leave; he asks for his money (which was due on delivery) and complains loudly again about bad directions--i tell him we'll discuss it later and point out that if we'd done all the catering through him our wedding would have been a disaster and that as such he should alter his mindset. after some hemming and hawing he takes off. at this point we have indian food for about 40 people but very few takers. however, some people muster up room in their stomachs and dig in. the food itself is excellent but predictably only a minor dent is made in it. however, thanks to the aforementioned alcohol and bad karaoke the party's spirits have not been dampened in the least and once the mindblowingly excellent cake has been broken out we've all put this behind us. by 5 everyone but close friends (staying for the clean-up) have gone. after everything has been tidied up we have the leftover indian food (about 25 people's worth) divvied up among the cleaning crew and it is sent to good homes. despite all of this the wedding has been a huge success and we're feeling happy and good. the one thing that remains is the question of the indian caterer's remaining payment, but we decide to put it out of our minds for some time--i say to my wife words to the effect of, "if he has any shame he'll call to apologize and offer us a free dinner". well, they don't call for a couple of weeks but when they do it is the urbane manager and he sheepishly asks for payment. i tell him that given that the food arrived 2 1/2 hours late and after the eating was done, and that it had been brought to be served in extremely tacky dishes, he should be happy that he got paid the advance. he disagrees and brings up bad directions again--i point out wearily that a korean florist who didn't speak any english had found the place with no trouble; we have words; i hang up. this goes on for about a week, at the end of which we leave los angeles for colorado and the calls stop. we still haven't figured out if we really owed them any money--it sure seemed like breach of contract to us, even though the food was all finally eaten (just not when and where it was supposed to have been). so, should we have paid? should we have gotten the advance back? (edited to fix spelling etc.)
  16. that will work. look for p.m soon. also this has inspired me to do another *cough* daily update of my trip pictures (been 5 days since the last update). any hour now.
  17. i will accept monetary compensation from all lovers of cumin for this incredibly simple north indian dish featuring it: 1 lb potatoes, peeled and diced 2 tblspns cumin seeds salt to taste 1/2 tspn turmeric 1/4 tspn red chilli powder heat oil in a pan and add all the cumin seeds. fry till seeds become fragrant and begin to pop. add all the potatoes. stir to coat potatoes with seeds. add spices and salt. stir some more. reduce heat to low and cook, covered till potatoes are done. eat hot (as a side-dish) with rice or chapatis or cold as a snack. optional: before removing from heat sprinkle some chaat masala (go to an indian store). (edited for anal retentive reasons--nothing to do with the digestion thread)
  18. I don't see why. The gallbladder stores bile, which breaks down fats. since i didn't bring gall-bladders up (now, that's a painful image) i won't get into the nitty gritty of what they do and don't do and how people with or without gall bladders might respond to fatty foods. i'll just restate my original point a little more succinctly: a lot of indian food (contrary to the experiences most have had with it in american restaurants) emphasizes the importance of good digestion as an important evaluative component.
  19. i'll pass on the feedback to the concerned parties. now, where's my cut? most bengali vegetable dishes are prepared in this simple manner--minimal spicing, let the vegetables do the work. after our trip my wife insists i start cutting down on the spicing in my cooking as well (i cook bengali food with a marked delhi accent).
  20. how'd this work out bhasin? if you did end up doing it, that is.
  21. well, yes. but those people would probably have trouble with more than just extremely fatty food. my point, however, is that a meal with no fat might cause indigestion and a meal with fat might not. a lot of indians swear by pure desi ghee; others claim that the ways in which things are cooked, and the other ingredients, have the most impact.
  22. well it depends. indian is an awfully big word and covers a very wide range of cultural (and culinary) diversity. even so the average cardiac conscious indian (like me, for good reason) probably uses no more fat than the average cardiac conscious american. my mother, on the other hand, uses fat like it is going out of style--and you should see the havoc she causes when she visits us and uses the same amount of fat on our non-stick pans. however, my point is that ayurvedic indian cooking (regardless of fat) and those food practices it has influenced in india strives to optimize digestion and other invisible aspects of food consumption. certain ingredients are emphasized for these reasons and properties. also: fat doesn't equate indigestion. my father, for example, will say that a meal at his airforce club in delhi--including their butter chicken--will ease its way down even your digestive system without causing problems. he actually boasts about the food there to calcutta relatives by saying "you can eat till you're full and you won't even have one burp". as to whether this is scientifically possible i don't know but my two experiences eating there bear this out.
  23. yes, i consumed dangerous quantities of nolen gurer shondesh on my trip. mmmmm....
  24. pan, i think you might consider that the average indian restaurant in the u.s (including many expensive and well-reviewed ones) merely follow a formula which usually has no connection to the kind of thing i am talking about. good indian restaurants and homes in india are a different story. my wife and i just returned from a month in india. it was her first time visiting: she hadn't taken any shots or anything but didn't get a single unfortunate digestive episode (which is a fancy way of saying "the runs"). i'm also suspicious (okay, so i'm generally suspicious) of applying the ancient-early modern-modern narrative of development described above too generally. are people who still emphasize balancing of "humors" or digestion not modern?
  25. thanks for the warnings. if i still lived in l.a i'd give it a couple of whirls but since i now live in boulder and will only be in l.a for a couple of days i can't afford to have a disappointing dimsum experience (dimsum in denver, not to put too fine a point on it, sucks, and we are in withdrawal)--888 seafood in rosemead it is!
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