Rachel Perlow

Jason had some tacos for lunch at El Paso II yesterday and when I got home from work he mentioned that they have paletas (Mexican fruit popsicles). I've loved paletas since becoming obsessed with them as made at Loco Pops in Durham NC. The ones at El Paso are made by El Paleton and come in many flavors. They charge $1.25 for the juice based ones and $1.50 for the milky ones. So refreshing on a hot summer day.

Have a great vacation, Christine. Doing anything interesting, or just sleeping? lol

Our big tomatoes are finally starting to ripen. I noticed one just starting to get attacked last week. Even though it was only starting to get a first blush of red, I picked it and let it ripen on the kitchen table. It fully ripened and we ate it last night, the taste was very good, about 90% of fully vine ripened. So, I picked a few more that were about half-ripe. I figure 90% as good is better than nothing, because if they're left on the vine too long they get eaten by birds, rabbits, or squirrels.

All this talk about Lotus Cafe propelled us to return the other night. We had the three cup chicken again, of course, but tried a few new to us items as well. So, for your future ordering pleasure: Beef and Tofu Chowder - excellent. Slightly egg thickened broth with little pieces of braised beef (not ground/chopped), carrots, peas, diced tofu, there is a strong cilantro and sesame oil flavor Dumplings - we got boiled seafood and pan-fried pork. Their dumpling skin is kind of medium thick. I prefer thin skinned dumplings, and these were thicker than I like, but not as thick as horribly thick skinned dumplings you get at a lot of take out places. The boiled ones were poorly executed. The skins were torn on a few of them and overcooked, the seafood filling bland. The pork on the other hand were nicely cooked and the filling was excellent. So get the pan-fried over the boiled. Next time we'll see if the seafood is better in the pan-fried version. (See we don't necessarily love everything we order here either!) Vegetables wrapped in tofu skin appetizer - This is similar to a dim sum item we've had at Silver Pond. The tofu skin is crispy fried. It's good, but not a must order, a nice alternative to an egg roll for a vegetarian. Happy Monks Feast - We usually order a vegetarian dish. This one was very good, it seems a different variation on the ubiquitous "Budda's Delight," with an ordinary brown sauce. But the vegetables were nicely cooked, and a good combination. It also included strips of tofu skin, so it might be a good option for someone looking for a noodle dish but doesn't want actual noodles (Atkins, wheat intolerance). We find that Lotus Cafe has a lot of nice vegetable dishes, one of our favorites is the sauteed mushroom combination. Lotus Delight - I'm not 100% sure about the name here, it's about halfway down the Chef's specialties page of the menu. It is similar to mu shu in concept, you eat it wrapped in thin pancakes with hoisin. But the dish has cellophane noodles, strips of firm tofu in addition to pork and vegetables and is topped with an egg omelet. It makes for an impressive presentation, and is delicious to boot. Well, I hope that gives you all some more ordering options. We took at least half of everything home, btw, what we do for you people. One final note, the place was packed on a Tuesday night, we had to wait a couple of minutes for a table. Oh, and Alan is an excellent waiter, ask for him by name.

Ahh, I see. Good idea - makes for a nice presentation, that's for sure! ← Just to be clear, you add the line of filling then roll up the zucchini. In rereading, it sounded like I piped the filling in a spiral after rolling the zucchini, which would be a PITA.

There's actually very little filling in the roll itself, just a quick line from the piping baggie down the center, then roll them up. But then I had some leftover, so I added a dollop on top of each one, the better to brown under the broiler.

Tammy - I made your zucchini roulades the other day. I didn't have any sun dried tomatoes, so I added a dollop of jarred sofrito, and of course, I scaled it down for 10 roulades from 2 smallish zukes. Excellent easy recipe. I recommend using a baggie with a corner snipped to spread the filling, too messy to use your fingers. How thinly do you slice your zucchini? I used the 1/4 inch setting on my mandoline, but it seemed a little thick when rolling. Jason's post from the Sofrito thread, with pics:

Has anyone eaten at the new restaurant yet?

Ed, I'm humbled by your arguments. Although I did not mention many of these specifics with regard to the chicken chow mein, I did post that it was the best version I have ever had. It's haunted me since our first visit and I regret not ordering it when we returned for dim sum this past Sunday. It was not on the lunch menu, I should have asked for it anyway. And, next time, I'm definitely going to get one of those fish entrees, you make the branzano sound like a must try.

It worked out to $45 per person, including tax & tip. I think one glass of wine was orderd, a beer, and a couple pots of tea ($6 for one of those cute squat tea pots, they will refill with more water). Count me among those that feel the food is excellent, but at these prices, I wouldn't go to it as my regular dim sum joint. Regarding the excellent food, I loved those shrimp & snow pea steamed dumplings, and the way they made them look like little froggies. The shrimp stuffed eggplant was given a new spin with the Malaysian saucing. I even loved the turnip cake, and generally I don't like turnip cake. Excellent fried oysters. The egg roll shell seemed standard (in a good crispy but not greasy way), but the filling was just different enough to make it outstanding, with lots of mushrooms, mmm. You just have to decide if the superior quality of the offerings is worth at least 2x (nice places) or 3x (dives) what you'd pay elsewhere, and that's a personal decision between your palate and your pocketbook. BTW, we were a table of 6. As you can see from the pictures, items come 2, 3, 4, or 5 to a plate. But even the largest plates didn't come with 6 items. We wanted to sample a wide variety, so for the most part we didn't double up on items, instead we'd cut some dumplings in half and share. My point is, you might want to ask the server how many pieces of each thing you order come on the plate, so if you aren't into sharing bites of food, you might want to double some orders if you are at a large table.

Oh, and not refrigerated during fermentation. You're supposed to keep it in a cool dark place, but I just put the crock in the cabinet over the fridge. When it's warmer, it just ferments faster, so you have to be careful not to let them over sour, when you want half-sours. When they are done (or nearly done, better to opt short on the sourness), I take out the cukes to clean containers then just pour in the strained brine. But I don't boil it or anything. We eat and give away a lot of them. They don't last forever like canned/jarred pickles, but they do last a few months. They just get softer and more sour the longer they sit.

KOBI - keep you eye out for Table Hopping with Rosie updates, here on the NJ forum. She keeps track of restaurant openings and closings and chefs' comings and going, as well as food events.

← I sent some pictures to a bunch of mycologists I found online, and the best guess of the two who've replied so far is that it is Meripilus giganteus – The Black-Staining Polypore. It's edible, but better when young.

Be sure to take pictures and let us know how it went.

Just to be clear, Picklelicious and Dr. Pickle are not the same vendor. It would be good if someone who is a Dr. Pickle fan could start a new thread about them, perhaps including store information or if they don't have a store front, a list of where they sell?