herbacidal

not sure how far you feel like venturing from center city. give an idea of your locations, and easier to suggest. always heard that the bar in the korman suites hotel at 20th and hamilton is great for watching sports, but never been. new wave and dmitri's are a good combo, if you want a neighborhood feel, but are probably slightly farther from the hotels than you may want to travel. don't know your particulars. i also liked tequila's the one time i was there, soon after it opened. outside of that, not making further comments until hear more about where you'll be, etc.

is beth coming? more importantly, is she bringing a pie?

what meat do you think makes for the most interesting eating, with regards to both texture and flavor? Please answer both for what's available in the US, and whatever exotic meats you may have had elsewhere, if you can.

nah, we can just call her winnie.

thanks for asking. i was wondering about that too. anyone?

that's sorta what you meant, cinghiale. independence isn't actually in the reading terminal. it's across filbert st. from the back of reading terminal, in the headhouse. but in the reading terminal, there is the beer garden, towards the eastern side. but independence would be a better choice, though. if you sit in the main bar part, you will sit and scream, especially if a large party. i'd recommend the dining room, either the part next to main bar, or the section nearer the market st side. there's also the upstairs pool table area.

very appropriate questions by suzanne. for something more concrete, you have what mixmaster threw in. how's that sound?

Chabad (which, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, is a major Orthodox Jewish organization with an ambitious world outreach program directed at Jews in some pretty remote regions) doesn't have an outpost in UB, but it wouldn't be terribly surprising if it did. Chabad has a strong program in Central Asia, including in Kazakhstan (which is just to the west of Mongolia) and Uzbekistan. There are Chabad centers in Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong (one of these days maybe Ellen will tell us her unusual story about the Jewish community in Hong Kong, but not on this thread). You might also be surprised to learn that Chabad hosts the world's largest Passover seder in, of all places, Kathmandu. They even have a Chabad center in Vermont. ever been to the jewish enclave in kaifeng? forget what province offhand, but it's right near the shaolin temple.

quick note here. usually congee will thin the more you stir it. if you reach your spoon to the bottom it will also thin more. it's something i often do, unfortunately.

hee-hee.

plus, sheep eat the grass down to the roots, if i'm not mistaken. making it impossible to reuse the same patch of land for lamb-grazing next year. not sure how other countries that produce and eat more lamb per capita deal with this.

i suppose that's true, but for me, that's always something to do. i like the idea of getting used to something before knowing about it. lets them experience it without preconceived notions. then they'll like it on its merits or not based on its detractions, w/o influence from where it came from, outside factors, etc. but i'm just freaky like dat.

FOB is still used. In Hawaii, we use FOB for Fresh Off Boat (the article sounds too proper) and JOJ for Just Off Jet. [grin] ~Tad i like JOJ, that's good. must be really appropriate in parts of LA and Vancouver, too.

Don't know if it's still current slang, but the opposite number of an "ABC" used to be called an "FOB" (Fresh Off the Boat) in San Francisco Chinatown. FOB is still used.

some ABCs call it the train. if they're equidistant, i'd go with pho 75 just b/c easier to find parking. can't say a thing about 75's food though.

didja find a new kitchen, elyse?

You wouldn't enjoy it for long, when no one was buying them. yea, that's probably true. why i'm not a pastry chef.

Okay, that's fine. Useful to know, thanks. Also no suprise. There are ABC in US that barely speak any Chinese. Also not particularly suprising, although useful to know nonetheless. As far as the Mandarin goes, yea right in line with placating China. Official line, reality line. This is intriguing. Are there papers in both simplified and traditional elsewhere in Asia as well? Don't know of any in simplified elsewhere offhand.

there's yet something else called fan jew in cantonese. basically, when most of the rice has been taken out of the pot, with some left on the bottom and sides, you put some water in and put on the stove to boil for about 5 minutes. actually, somewhere between boil and simmer, let's say 3/4 strength burner. my dad eats this every time we have rice, just plain, nothing else in it.

never heard the BBC and CBC ones, but obviously they make sense. but what about Australian born Chinese?? And Argentinian born Chinese? I heard there's a decent size Chinese population there. how big an ABC+OC population is there in HK? 50,000?

most often, for me ABC does mean American Born Chinese. But for me, it also means American Born Confused. First Generation Americans with a strong sense of their native culture and a inevitably a strong American identity, and often confused about where they sit within the whole scheme. As opposed to me, with a strong sense of my Chinese identity, a strong American identity, and fully aware of my place between the two, and just really annoyed at where I am between the two! Jeez, always defending Americans to the Chinese, defending the Chinese to the Americans.

actually no i can't. haven't had enough of them. never had fukienese or taiwanese food. wouldn't mind trying the fukienese sometime though.

corrections: that one in the middle of the eastern side of 9th is no more. the one across from New Joe Shanghai is actually Fukienese.

really? my impression was that the best was at grand sichuan international in midtown, roughly 49th and 6th/7th/8th. that's from reading this board and CH. i've been there, thought it was quite good. haven't had enough of it, nor have I had that much Szechuan food in general. My sum total of Szechuan food experience: 3 days eat in Chengdu, of which I actually only remember 1 meal with the big container in the middle in which all the food is cooked, huge gas tank underneath i think. table roughly 4 feet in diameter, with the container being about 2 feet in diameter. then a meal about a month ago at Grand Sichuan International, can't remember specifically what we ate (gotta start carrying a camera around)

that's more like what i would expect. thanks for clarifying. very common reaction I would expect. Hong Kongers are like that, somewhat uppity. no different than many American attitudes towards those with heavy Southern accents. but yes, it may have been exacerbated by the American accent. how long have you been in HK? how long did you live in the US, from what age to what age? How old are you? I don't know any ABCs personally in HK, though the idea has been mentioned to me before.