jo-mel
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Trader Joe? There are several in N.NJ -- Florham Park, Wayne, Westwood. I've never been to one ---yet ---- but they are big with the South Beach, good carb people.
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Finally got to Joy Luck Pavilion! Big place!!
I had lunch with a friend and had Shredded Beef with Pickled Cabbage Soup. It is a weakness of mine, and it was refreshing and good. We also ordered Grouper Cubes with Bean Thread in Casserole. What we actually received was Grouper with Bean Curd Skin, and it was soooo good that I forgot it didn't have bean thread in it. It does have lots of thin slices of ginger and it is really good. I was served in its casserole and placed on a sterno burner -- which kept the dish nice and hot.
It was almost exactly the same as the dish I've had at China Pavilion. (minus the sterno) I believe others in this thread have mentioned this.
The other dish we had was also exactly the same as at China Pavillion --- Sizzling Oysters with Black Pepper Sauce, a real favorite of mine. Very good.
We ordered off the Chinese menu --which is very extensive, and has a fried rice dish I've never seen before --- Raisin & Bacon Fried Rice! Lots of Black Pepper Sauce dishes, Salt Baked Dishes. Seems to be mostly Hong Kong/Cantonese.
There weren't many in the restaurant, so I had a chance to talk with 2 of the waiters who are from Fujian. I mentioned that I noticed the round tables were all set up with chopsticks and the square tables set with fork and spoon. I joked about it and they laughed! The waiter who took our order wrote it in English. I mentioned it, as I usually see it written in characters. He said it was so the customer can see exactly what they ordered, but when he was in a rush, he scribbled in Chinese.
Since it was quiet, we had a chance to talk with the ??owner/manager?? His name was Hank and was quite nice. He said they have vegetables, in season, that are not on the menu, such as chives, garlic sprouts, and asparagus root. Just ask for them, he said.
The restaurant is not far from me, and I'll go back. I do want to try their Dim Sum. But I am presently in love with China 46, so they will get my business for quite a while.
The take-out menu has a section written only in Chinese - no English. I'm going to see if I can tranlsate it.
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probably a stupid question but I think this is a good place to ask it instead of starting a new thread. I've been meaning to try one of the ribs recipes from In the Wei Chuan "Chinese Cuisine" book. However, in the ingredient lists they always ask for "pork back ribs" no matter what the preparation is. So, should I just buy spare ribs or do they mean baby back ribs??
Elie
Recently at a Chinese restaurant, they had Deep-Fried Salt & Pepper Spare Ribs on the menu. I love these things, so I ordered it. Turned out not to be spare ribs, but a thin porkchop with a small bone. Not what I expected, but it was just as good as the usual ribs. Both pork -- both good.
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I wish I could remember which author it was, but one of the familiar authors of Chinese cookbooks, was just finishing the rounds after her latest book had come out. She was interviewed all over the country, being wined and dined, and she was asked what was the first dish she was going to make for herself when she finally got home.
Her answer? A plain bowl of congee. Nothing fancy --- just comfort food.
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I've only been to Montreal's Chinatown 4 or 5 times, but I love it there! Small or not, it has the feeling and smells that I love. I collect Chinatowns and Montreal is one of my favs.
Can't remember what I ate or where, but one of my most memorable purchases from ANYWHERE was in Montreal. My sister and I were walking along, and I looked in the doorway of a small store and on the floor were huge ceramic vats. They had been used for shipping 1000 yr. old eggs. They were bare clay inside (with some straw left over from the shipping) and brown glazed outside with a raised relief Dragon with a shiny eye. They also had thick ropes around them to protect them from nearby vats that would shift in shipping. These are big thingys - 18 inches high and 18 inches across the top. I am not able to get my arms around the middle.
The cost? $35 Canadian!! Of course, that was a long time ago, (30 years?) but even then the price was low at the time. They were heavy as h***, but the store man helped us get them in my car. When my husband saw mine, (we were vacationing in VT on Lake Champlain) he asked me what in the world I wanted it for!!!! (MEN!)
I have it in my living room with a big plant in it. I get lots of comments on it.
BTW - I loved your pictures, and the Tofu/veg/oyster dish looks so good I could smell it!
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Jason -- Thanks for the pictures and the report.
I think maybe next Sunday----------
I assume they open about 11, but I'll check their web site.
What were some of the items in the pictures?
A crowd? Or is it too new for the the word to be out?
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I never gave a thought that it would have been a time-saver. I just thought it was an assumption. I'll have to re-think it and examine the situation next time it happens.
I don't like to be manipulated, but if the wait/ress/er is saving steps, then I guess it is OK. Sometimes I do put the tip on the tray with the bill, but most of all I leave it right on the table.
How long has this practice been in place. I think I first became aware of it a year or two ago.
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I understand what you are saying, Gary, but we can get so much more from a cookbook than recipes.
My books have been my teachers. It is not enough to enjoy just the taste of say---5 Spice powder as to appreciate it for its history and the wonders of its elements. Why the reason for uncut noodles or the difference between spring/egg rolls or even between Cantonese and Shanghai rolls. I can happily eat a Thanksgiving meal, but the history of it gives it meaning. And so on.
Yes, I want very good recipes, but I want to expand my knowledge too.
BTW - The 'loo' book is ----The Book of Totally Useless Information. LOL!
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Sorry about not posting about this place sooner.
It is quite similar, in my opinion, to China Gourmet, but I've generally preferred the dim sum here. I haven't had other meals, but the menu, particularly the "for Chinese" menu looked quite good, authentic, and interesting - perhaps a bit more so than China Gourmet (which can also be quite good if one stays away from the more Americanized dishes, unless that's what one likes). So, worth a try in my opinion.
By the way, it is also patronized by Chinese customers.
Thanks for that! I like China Gourmet, so I think I will like this place. I'll be going there soon and will give a report.
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When you find Barbara Tropp's (Bless her) "Modern Art of Chinese Cooking: -- you won't be disappointed. She takes you through procedures with great detail. Her recipes are fine, but it is her techiques for which I cherish the book.
Many cookbooks are just collections of recipes, but my favorites are those with color --- not in pictures, but in recipe background, family reminiscences, historical explanation --- you get the idea.
Of course the recipes have to be good, but the learning experience is a big plus. Dunlop's book is a good example of this. With all the Chinese cookbooks I have and with the long time I've been doing this, I eagerly sat own and read her book like a novel!! LOL!
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Sunday Dinner was always roast meat or a whole thing like a chicken, --------mashed or browned potatoes and 2 or 3 vegetables - usually root vegetables ---- and gravy. Nothing fancy --all from scratch. Something like mint, or apple or cranberry sauce on the side. (Except the bright green mint jelly was the only prepared thing) As a kid it was usually just our own family (I was one of 4 kids). The closest Grandparents were hours away.
But the whole dinner idea carried out to my own family of 4 kids. The theme repeated when we went to my in-laws for Sunday Dinner. Again a roast with all the fixings, but this time we had the mixing of cousins and other in-laws. A fun time!
It seemed that whenever I had a roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, mushrooms and onions in gravy, there was a football game on the radio. (No TV during dinner) The announcer was Marty Glickman, and my daughter associated that menu with his voice, calling it a Marty Glickman Dinner. She has carried the MGD to her own family!
Even now, with the kids gone, and when we are alone, I still have a small roast with the familiar foods. It just goes with Sunday music, the Sunday papers and especially football.
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Indeed, Ben ---- Many of my old books call for either wine, cooking wine, rice wine, gin or nothing at all.
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I was just in a Chinese grocery store, and I thought I would check out the cooking Shao Xing bottles --- and was I surprised!
Some of the bottles had the salt content, but the range was amazing. There were different brands -- A couple of different Pagodas, Yu Yee, and Harvest. Two of them had (if I remember correctly) 378 mg to a cup of the wine, one had 133 mg/cup and one of the Pagoda brands had 5.7 mg /cup/ HUH?? (misprint?) I didn't buy any of them to do a taste test.
But all in all, I found the sodium content lower that I thought. Even then, I would rather use my real stuff, as long as I have access to it, or sherry.
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I wonder how much sodium the cooking ShaoXing actually has. The bottles only say 1.5% salt to 25 ounces. (This was on 2 different brands). I could find nothing on a 'google', but in one book on 'counts', they said that the supermarket 'cooking sherry' has 70 mgs of salt to 1/4 cup. That is 17.5 mgs to 1 T. ----Not too much.
But I wonder if the quality of the wine used, is 2nd rate knowing it is just to be used for cooking. I have some of the real stuff, but it is hard to compare quality when one is salted. I always tell my classes to just use dry sherry if they don't want the salted Shao Xing, and AAMOF, until you could get ShaoXing in this country, everyone used sherry.
I know the stores that don't have a liquor license (what Chinese grocery does?) use the salted stuff, because that is the law. But one local store had an earthenware crock bottle of Shao Xing -- Golden Star brand. It has the alcohol % (17.5) on the label, but no mention of salt. The only Chinese on the label says 'registered trademark', the brand, and the contents - 'Shao Xing Rice Wine'. I never uncorked it to see if it is salted. It is a beautiful dark brown, glazed shapely bottle, with raised etching and a red ribbon laced thu crockery loops. Beautiful!!
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What would I REALLY like to do with them, when they are sitting in the pan, all warm and glossy, and aromatic?? Just pick up a fork and eat them plain --- all by themselves in their simple essence.
But I have to say that I like the fish recipe. Monday night is fish night here, and I think I will give it a try ---- but I will save a spoonful just to have a little bit for myself!
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No fried noodles? No soy sauce on the table? Sounds good to me!!!
But I wonder why all the items you mentioned weren't there. No tea? Trying to lower the overhead?
I do get treated differently when I ask for chopsticks and order in Chinese. Sad but true. But what you order also gets attention. When I go in a place and see that the Chinese customers have pickled vegetables, I always ask for them.
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If you don't have a grinder and if they will not grind it for you ---and you are near a Chinese market, ----then you are in luck. There are usually two grades of ground pork, one with more fat than the other. They also grind to order. (At least the ones in my area do)
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I'm pulling at the bit to go to Amazon and order a couple of copies---- but how do I do it so as to give e-gullet the commission?
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1. --Potato pancakes with chunky applesauce and sour cream. (The pancakes made from grated taters --- not mashed potatoes mixed with pancake mix.)
2. --Dim Sum - with the afore-mentioned callion Pancakes.
3. --Shao Bing (warmed) with peanut butter.
I'll have another cup of coffee, please!
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Joy Luck has been open for a couple of years. There are 2 menus and 2 kitchens. Dim Sum on weekends is excellent. I have never seen the staff of the now closed Ocean King at the restaurant.
When you say 2 menus -- I assume one may be in Chinese, or for Chinese? Or a menu with specialties?
What about 2 kitchens? One just for DimSum?
Is it, in fact, a buffet style place?
It is not that far from me --- I should just go! LOL!
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I'm sure the 'real' Shaoxing must be best, but what is so terribly bad about using the cooking version? If you were drinking it -- as a wine, I could understand, but I assume you want to use it as an ingredient in a dish.
Would someone eating your dish be actually able to say ---"Hmmmm - this is cooking Shaoxing" ---- or "I see you used the real imported Shaoxing, not the cooking wine with the added salt."
Maybe it is me, and not having that acute of a palate, but I have used both and really could not tell which wine I'd used.
What do restaurants actually use?
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Gee -- I haven't been to HSF for aeons! Along with the Silver Palace, they were the only places for quite a while. Then came G. Unicorm, Mandarin Court and there was another one. HSF went thru upheaval after upheaval (gas tank explosion/family owner problems/ close down / reopening) and now the Silver Palace is gone. Things do change, don't they?
Triple Eight (or the "NEW" Triple Eight ---changes again!) has been my mainstay. I've never tried Jing Fong. Sounds like my kind of place. Loud, boistrous -- the way I like it.
Hope you give a report on where you go and what you had.
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I was talking with some people about the closing of 'Ocean King' in Livingston, to make room for some new something or other. I was sorry that the restaurant just hadn't moved to a new location.
Someone mentioned that they saw the waiters and ?manager? at this Joy Luck Pavilion in WO, on Northfield Ave., across from the Arena. I looked it up on 'google' but there was just a page giving a map. No description of the place.
Ocean King was heavy on Shanghai foods, but a friend in Livingston received a menu in the mail for Joy Luck. It seems to have every region EXCEPT Shanghai.
So my question is ---- Does anyone know anything about Joy Luck Pavilion? How new is it? Any good? Anything outstanding? Or has it not been there long enough to settle down and establish itself?
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In May of 1974, Woman's Day magazine had an article entitled "A terrific Technique For Chicken" in which a technique, from Trader Vic's then Vice-President Chan Wong, was offered -- along with recipes.
The technique was to marinate raw chicken in salt & pepper for 20 minutes, then in oil and cornstarch for 20 minutes, then egg white for 30 minutes. You then procede with the recipe. The recipes provided were not just for Asian dishes. They covered chicken strips and fillets and went from the marinade into the frying pan and cooked, in small amounts of butter or margerine (this was 1974) and 'were as tender as butter'. In one dish for, Chicken and Dumplings, the chicken was poached in the stew broth.
I have used this method for years, (with some revisions) mostly for non-Chinese dishes, but sometimes for Chinese style/flavored dishes, where the chicken was not cooked over a high almost smoking heat. I use it for thin sliced pork also.
In Ken Hom's Fragrant Harbor, he uses only 1/2 cup of oil to velvet his meat. That's no big deal to deal with.
Making Dim Sum at Home
in China: Cooking & Baking
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Where does Dim Sum stop and a 'dish serving' begin?
I would suppose the size/amount would figure in it. I've had Stuffed Eggplant, Fried Rice and Congee as Dim Sum in Dim Sum places ---- and as an ordered dish in a regular restaurant, with the rice or eggplant served in a larger amount.
If Soup Dumplings were served 4 at a time in little steamers, would they qualify as Dim Sum?
As for jiaozi -- I don't care where I get them, as long as I get them and lots of them!! LOL!