Rachel Perlow

White (that's "White" in case you can't see the white print) Glico Mousse Pocky White - Thick coating, OK cocoa butter flavor Meiji Fran White - Thickest coating, barely OK, artificial aftertaste *Color Magic - Unidentifiable Korean brand, pink box labeled "For Boy" Thin coating of white fudge with multicolor sugar sprinkles. Sweet cracker, surprisingly good. After the strawberry Hello Kitty, we expected all the ones marketed to kids to be awful, but these were great. Tasted like vanilla sugar cookies (even though no vanilla listed in translated ingredients). The Color Magic also had the simplest and shortest ingredient list (8 ingredients vs. 13 for Fran and 19 for Glico Mousse).

Strawberry from left to right: *Glico Mousse Pocky Strawberry - Mild strawberry flavor, creamy from the cocoa butter, good aftertaste, thick coating with tiny specks of dried strawberry Meiji Fran Strawberry - Thickest coating, crunchier/airier cookie, tasted artificially flavored *Glico Pocky Strawberry - Thin coating with larger bits of dried strawberry, tarter flavor, most visually impressive, biscuit was less sweet, good flavor Glico Pocky Strawberry (for kids) - Very thin coating, OK flavor Kabaya Hello Kitty Strawberry Pretzel - Very thin coating, very sweet, waxy feeling, not good

As previously mentioned, click here, we purchased every variety of Pocky and Pocky-like products available at two of the largest Asian supermarkets in the NYC area: - Mitsuwa, 595 River Rd, Edgewater, NJ, (201) 941-9113, Japanese - Han Ah Reum, 321 Broad Ave, Ridgefield, NJ, (201) 943-9600, Korean Click for full album on Imagestation Over the next several days we (myself, Jason and sometimes Jon (jhlurie)) will be tasting them and giving you our opinions. We determined the best way to evaluate them is to taste "flights" of the various flavors. To save our tummies, we cut up one stick of each flavor so as not to have to eat a whole one of each. *Our recommended varieties are marked with an asterisk. Hope you enjoy our efforts!

We went nuts at Mitsuwa in Edgewater NJ and at Han Ah Reum in Ridgefield NJ over the last week and bought 33 varieties of Pocky and Pocky-like products. Look for our tasting notes in a new thread soon. We ran into one of Jason's co-workers (he works at a large Japanese corporation) at Mitsuwa and he thought we were crazy when he saw all the Pocky we were buying, "that's the most Pocky I have ever seen anyone buy in my entire life!" Jason's boss loves cookies of all kinds, and is known by the HR dept as the Cookie Monster (he goes there looking for cookies everyday). When he heard Jason had bought all this Pocky his eyes lit up, like a little boy, as if lifes pressures on this powerful Japanese executive were gone for but a fleeting moment. I'm sure he's hoping Jason'll bring some in to the office soon. *These are relatively large downloads, if you don't have a high-speed internet connection and want smaller versions, go to the website: http://pocky.ne.jp, click the CM link and there are all the versions of the Pocky commercials.

Mussels - one of each (hot & mild)? Satay - I like pork best, but everything else is pork or shellfish. Does anyone have anything against pork? If so, go with chicken.

Dippin' Dots The Ice Cream of the Future! It's ice cream flash frozen into these little BBs. It is stored & served so cold that it sticks to your tongue for a second before it begins to melt. They aren't available in too many places so I don't have them often, but I just can't resist getting some when I see those cool vending machines.

Jason and I hadn't been to Bennies for at least 6 weeks, so we were looking forward to our return visit tonight. They seemed to have finally finished the decoration after the remodeling. The long wall with the banquettes is now accented by an artistically broken fresco depicting the Lebanese seaside and ancient ruins. The food and service, as always, were excellent. But for a Friday night they were pretty empty. Go eat there and tell Adi, Bennie and Fadia we said Hi!

Peach Sangria? Recipe please! Maybe you could post it in the Cooking or liquor forum? (and here)

Meanwhile I use both my tea infuser and my nutcracker picks!

It didn't have foie gras on it when I ordered it a la carte. I think it was an extra Omakase embellishment.

I always hated Garlic Presses before I got the Oxo Good Grips one. I use it for when I need pulverized garlic, like for a salad dressing. Or, if I forget to add sliced garlic to the begining of a saute or stir-fry, I'll push a clove through the press towards the end cause it cooks quicker. Another benefit of using a good garlic press is that you don't have to peel the clove before pressing it. Yup, just put it through, the skin stays behind!

Lin gave me permission to add a few more notes on her mom's cooking while she was here in America helping with the baby. On 5-spice powder in the recipe: "There might be. Knowing my mom, she likes to experiment with anything she got from the kitchen. When she was here, she always said that we bought too many spices, and she felt she was on a mission to finish all of them before we should start buying any more. Therefore, 5-spice powder is optional." In general: "It is very hard to repeat my mom's recipe. It is dynamic. She will use whatever on hand at the moment. We used to order McDonald's a lot when we lived in the city (NYC), and collected many little Catchup bags. My mom would add one little bagful of Catchup in the soup, another one bagful in the vegetable. Sometimes the food turned up to be really delicious! It is only in this country that I find out that you can follow a recipe and cook the food to taste exactly the same every time!"

Sorry, I put my initial request for help in this diary in the General Forum. But then I realized that it's the NJ people who would actually be able to help me. Thanks to them & some other friends I have a few roof people coming tomorrow to check out the damage. Hopefully, it'll just be some repairs, like caulking around the skylight, and not a whole new roof! FYI - my whole kitchen was gutted in about 5 hours! Tomorrow they are coming to remove the plywood the old tiles were attached to, and the plumber should begin work too. Tip - if your town has an area to dump construction garbage, like the Transfer Station in my town, find out all the regulations for using it, and allowing your contractor to use it, ahead of time. I've been there several times to dump broken furniture or other large garbage items, and no one ever asked to see any proof of residency. Yesterday when I arrived with the contractor's assistants it was, "where's your decal?" And I had to run over to Borough Hall to get the proper sticker for me and temporary pass for the contractor (all about 5 minutes before the Clerk's Office was closing).

We asked Fink about the pigs when we were there. He said relatives asked how he was going to decorate his new restaurant. He said, "I'll probably just put up a few pig decorations." Next thing he knew, he got lots of piggy things as restaurant warming presents. Some customers bring stuff in and he's added some garage sale finds. Which reminds me, they also use lava lamps as decoration, and I had just given away a promotional lava lamp (Jason get all sorts of weird promotional items from computer companies). I wish I could have given it to Finks. So, if you have a lava lamp collecting dust, I bet they'd appreciate it! (Fink is now thinking, "Oh no! Now I'll be inundated with lava lamps!")

We've driven through Boston!

Exactly. I mean tartar sauce is pretty much Russian dressing with out the ketchup.

Shhh! Be vewy vewy quiet. I'm hunting wabbits! heheheh - Elmer Fudd BTW - Where are you located on the globe?

No matter how horrible this process, we've been through worse. I love you, honey!

OK guys, I need roofer referrals in the Northern NJ area. Please email me at rperlow@hotmail.com. The contractor just discovered a leak in the roof around the kitchen skylight.

Lin, what kind of flour is it? Regular all-purpose or rice flour or corn starch?

They're here! Kitchen demolition is underway. Here are a couple pictures of the deconstruction: Edit: On 7/1/02 I removed the photos and replaced with this link, I've added some photos and written captions.

I understand your dietary concerns, but please don't call that a reuben. The main thing with me is that it shouldn't be overstuffed and the bread needs to be grilled toasty. I hate it when it is served open faced with gobs of cheese and the bread isn't even toasted. A local BBQ joint serves an interesting variation on a reuben. It is called a Barbe-Reuben, here's a link to the thread. Fink's Funky Chicken & Ribs/NJ Forum. Here's a link to the restaurant's website.

We went there tonight. It is just OK. We had basic Italian American dishes. Chicken parmesean, spaghetti bolognese, a side of meatballs (cause we wanted to try them), and broccoli with garlic. Basically, all the food was OK. Not bad, but not great by any means. Major quibbles: flatware that is worthy of a high school cafeteria, overdone pasta, watery marinara, obvious slices (squares) of mozzarella on the chicken parm. Pluses: nice simple salad comes with dinner, good service, nice crusty bread. But, it just isn't worth the drive if you aren't right in Bogota; I don't know what's with the long waits? I suppose if you were going out with a large family group, people who aren't foodies, then it is a possibility. However, if that is the case, may I suggest Stancato's in Tenafly, (201) 567-3313. The food is better and the set up is more amenable to large parties.

What a lovely review. The only quibble I have was your quibble. When something is wrong with one person's food, I have never experienced the other person's food being removed as well. Is this just an old fashioned practice that you think an old fasioned place should retain? Or, do you expect this to be the case in most fine dining establishments?

This sounds like it veering towards a topic that would be better off on the Cooking or General forums. Anyone care to start the new topic? (just do it, don't reply here)