
mongo_jones
legacy participant-
Posts
2,227 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Everything posted by mongo_jones
-
we indians don't really have that excuse Sounds like a good idea for a thread. If you opened an American restaurant in India, what would you call it? how about "yankee burger kitchen"? wait, we already have tgif, mcdonald's and the rest.
-
we indians don't really have that excuse
-
for instance a special named "just for the halibut"
-
any restaurant the underlying theme of whose menu is the pun.
-
Foods that are Divisive Because of their Taste/Aftertaste
mongo_jones replied to a topic in Food Traditions & Culture
jo-mel, how did you (and other cilantro-haters) deal with indian restaurants? cilantro (or coriander as we call it in english in india) is everywhere. -
interestingly it is coffee i have digestive issues with. indeed it wouldn't be inaccurate to say that most coffees use me as a vehicle to get from the cup to the septic tank. must be genetic--coffee has this direct laxative effect on my mother as well.
-
yes, and tea and dog people are better than coffee and cat people
-
it is difficult to get good tea in a country that has a largely non-tea drinking culture. in india or australia or england you can order tea and not worry about getting a teabag or any of the other things people have raised in this thread. if i order tea in a restaurant here and it arrives with a bag already in the cup i send it back and ask for a cup of freshly boiling water and a tea-bag--so i can put it in myself and take it out at the 3 minute mark that i like my tea (depending on type). what really gets my goat as a tea-drinker is when you order tea and the precious wooden box shows up and there isn't a single bag in there that contains actual tea; just a bunch of herbal concoctions. i think it is largely a matter of education. the u.s being a coffee-centric culture everyone knows how to brew coffee but most people also assume that tea can just be made by dunking a tea-bag in water that's hot. but all of this is applicable only to brewed tea. in india you get tea made a whole bunch of other ways (what they call chai in the u.s, though chai just means tea, and if you're visiting a north indian family and they offer you chai you shouldn't expect some exotically spiced drink) to which these questions of service don't apply.
-
loose tea is a bad idea unless you have a great deal of confidence in the vendor. tea does lose flavor and aroma upon exposure to air. as a bengali i like tea with a certain combination of flavor and strength. thus for my daily use i buy packets of "green label" tea from indian stores. i do also have little packets of really nice darjeeling tea that i have friends and family send me (and which i sometimes bring back with me from india--going again in 2 weeks!): these always have "best by" dates on them--usually no more than 6 months; and that's with the assumption that you're sealing the packets up tight after every use. i've never frozen tea before though.
-
the success of threads like this one does partially explain the popularity of the non-cooking shows like top 5 etc. on the food network (i think i recall people wondering about that in another thread). Yeah - except this is entertaining and Bobby Rivers is thankfully nowhere to be seen. oh, i'm not knocking the thread: i'm the one who started it.
-
people, i probably don't need to clarify but since much confusion and mayhem has already been inadvertently caused tonight by my original post i will anyway (if only to forestall a repeat): i am not entirely serious when i say that any indian restaurant with certain markers of indian-ness in their name is always going to be bad. this is no more likely to be true than saying any 24/7 place is bad or any place with pictures of farm animals in overalls is bad or pretty much any of the criteria in any of the posts in this thread. that being said i do believe that the lack of imagination in the names of certain indian restaurants translates into their menus as well and also not coincidentally into a depressing sameness in the food available in all these restaurants. contrast the menu at any indian restaurant in the u.s with the word "tandoor" in its name with the menu at suvir saran's "amma" or at "tamarind" and so on. point laboriously made. i'm sorry i ever said anything. mongo (who still likey candy)
-
i am neutral about "delhi". partly because i am from there and partly because the use of that in the name assumes that people know where delhi is. "delhi" and "durbar" together is a different story though.
-
i'm not sure why my most recent contribution was deleted. i presume it was a mistake, so here it is again: 1. you're in a restaurant that specializes in a particular ethnic cuisine but no one of that ethnicity is eating there. 2. you order a steak and they don't ask you how you'd like it cooked.
-
mmmm vienna sausage.... growing up in india such things were exotica on the level of beluga caviar or black truffles. those were better days. skchai, my wife and i were discussing spam and korean food over dinner tonight. it has a real interesting history in korea. this might be a good topic for a more general forum--i think i might start a thread about this in the general food topics area.
-
well, we're mostly all foodies but we like to talk about trivial food related things from time to time. presumably this extends to our viewing habits as well.
-
the success of threads like this one does partially explain the popularity of the non-cooking shows like top 5 etc. on the food network (i think i recall people wondering about that in another thread).
-
well, i suppose that depends on how we define the "american" kitchen. probably a lot different than when her big book was published--both in terms of who is american and what's in their kitchen. christ, i wish i could convince my doctors that eating like her would lead to my living till the age of 91. ah my clogged up arteries...
-
what about farm animals in overalls playing poker?
-
are you sure ferran adria knows that?
-
hey now, hodori at the corner of vermont and olympic in koreatown in l.a is open 24/7 every day of the year and every single thing there is fabulous. the wait staff is comprised entirely of hard-bitten middle-aged korean ladies who glare at you but melt into smiles very easily. well, some of them do.
-
kate, i am sorry but my theory is infallible. who names these indian restaurants anyway? is it possible that their american clientele is really so infantile that they won't eat at an indian restaurant if it doesn't have a name that signifies indian-ness in 3 different ways or do the proprietors just think that? it can't just be them--are there more than 5 thai restaurants in the u.s that don't have either "thai" or "siam" in their name?
-
that doesn't bother me so much. i'm not that into complete cultural coherence. that being said i don't think anyone ever expects to hear lou reed whining his way through "venus in furs" or "heroin" while eating anything! the velvet underground isn't exactly music to eat to--well, maybe "loaded". emerson, lake and palmer is just sadistic--i can only imagine that it is prescribed in turkey as a laxative or something like that. they probably have yes blaring in the lavatories. but i wouldn't put king crimson quite in their category. though i can't imagine they would be good for the digestion either--especially adrian belew era crimson; what would king crimson be good mood music for anyway? maybe whale mating? indian restaurants with their cheap synth instrumental versions of hindi film classics infuriate me too. why are the choices only muzakky versions of great film songs or original versions of crappy contemporary film songs? why not let naushad and s.d burman and salil choudhary soothe us while we eat?
-
well, it isn't just a question of whether the music in question is bizarre or not but of the possible incongruity of it and the setting.
-
a very interesting interview. i remember reading another "catching up with julia" thingy in the l.a times food section not that long ago: in it she said she thought the two greatest cuisines (or at least the ones that interested her the most) were french and sichuan chinese. here she seems to be all-french.
-
now, that's guaranteed indigestion right there.