Laksa

Am I the only one here who likes Englishmen as a potato topping? Put a few Clives on me spuds, guvner! chop! chop!

My wife and I had dinner at Peter Luger Steakhouse last Friday. I wrote a long review which I don't want to overwhelm (read bore) everyone here with. But you can read about our experiences here Let me be totally vain and quote a small snippet:

I think the ice is as fine as the ice shaving machine makes it, no finer and no coarser I think a little on the grainy side. As long as the sugary liquids are evenly distributed, meaning every morsel of ice has caught enough sauce to be tasty, I will eat the ice before it melts. I usually excavate a hole into the side of the mountain to get to the goodies at the bottom. A bit of bean with a bit of ice together. What I dislike most is getting a mouthful of flavourless ice. Might as well be sucking on an ice cube.

My absolute favorite dessert, that's usually served with only a small amount of shaved ice, not the mountain heap you see in ais kacang, is "go bi teng" or "wu wei tang". This dessert comprises red dates, barley, agar-agar, some clear squishy jelly-like thing that's also found in ais kacang, and a very sweet, chewy thing that tastes like dried, sugared fruit, in a sweet clear soup, served ice-cold. Totally refreshing when the weather is hot. I don't know the names of the last two ingredients, can anyone help? The first one is usually round, like a very small hole-less donut, usually clear, very mild in flavour, and has a very pleasant squishy texture. The second tastes a lot like dried mango or dried pineapple, but is completely white in colour. Very sweet. I also like nata de coco, served in a cold soup with tropical fruits. I tried to google for a go bi teng recipe but no luck. Does anyone here know the recipe?

Ok, let me guess.... they keep the coconut milk in a secret mini-fridge that's nuclear powered? It's not anything disgusting, is it? Will it put me off eating cendol from a hawker? Well, thinking a little more about it, it's not difficult to keep the milk cold next to the ice blocks, right?

Since you won't say it, I will have to guess. So do they usually appear as "dua biji", and some biji are bigger than others? Tell me what the myth is, I'm curious to know...

Pan, you got me there. Apart from the "kacang hazel" example that kew gave, which I suspect might be a translation done more with expedience than accuracy in mind, every 'kacang' I know belongs in the same family that includes peanuts, peas and beans. Would you be satisfied with kacang-kacang, a mangrove shrub?

it doesn't translate to bean ice? where are the nuts? Kacang is used to mean both bean and nut in the Malay language, with the appropriately paired descriptor/qualifier. For example, red bean="kacang merah", peanut="kacang tanah". Curiously enough, in Chinese, generally speaking, the same word, "dou", is also used, with the approrpiate qualifier, to mean a variety of nuts and beans.

tryska, I believe the stinky beans that spaghetttti refers to are "pete" or what Malaysians call "petai". You can see them in the picture, they're the green colour stuff, partly obscured. These beans are delicious, but make your pee smell like it came straight from hell. Similar to the effect you achieve by eating asparagus.

The hawker must have a hell of a time handling the change

The history of ais kachang is.... once you place a bowl of it before me, it's history!

After watching Tampopo for the first time this past weekend, I am developing a serious yearning to eat some ramen. Does anyone know where in NYC or surrounds can I get a good bowl of authentic Japanese ramen? I want one with everything in it, shinachiku, nori, yakibuta, the works! I'm flexible on the "authenticity" requirement. I'm basically willing to try anything that doesn't resemble instant ramen.

Sorry, but I have to disagree. I think I have to second kew here. I believe the success of Milo in Malaysia is due primarily to incredibly savvy marketing that was probably ahead of its time. Large trucks going around the country dispensing free ice cold Milo to kids? Ingenious! Add to that sponsorships of sports and promoting itself as a health food drink and you've got a winner. And it doesn't hurt that the product tastes pretty good too. It was served more often with condensed milk (or just sugar) rather than milk powder or UHT milk anyway. Although I have no clue what went into those big trucks. Might be some enhanced version of Milo you could never reproduce at home, for all I know.

By East Asia, do you mean Japan and Korea? Can't speak for Siberia, but I've never known SPAM to be all that popular in Japan or Korea. Are you perhaps thinking of the popularity of SPAM in Hawaii and islands of the South Pacific, where it's considered a delicacy? I believe they serve spam in sushi and maki rolls. Don't really care for SPAM myself, but when I need to get my fix of Sodium Nitrite, Ma Ling luncheon meat does nicely. Or those Chinese produced little cans of cubed pork meat in spicy bean paste....or canned "kou rou", which are fatty slices of pork belly fried and then stewed with preserved vegetables... ohhh yummm... Canned meat SHOULD NOT taste this good! It's a clear violation of the Geneva conventions, and goes against everything my mother taught me!

What?! As a great fan (but an erstwhile drinker) of Horlicks, I am deeply offended. What could be better tasting and more nutritious than a steaming mug of rich malty goodness that is Horlicks? Drink it before bed to guarantee yourself a night of blissfull slumber and dreams of warm blankets and puppy dogs. In fact, I'm going to have one right now... Mmmmm... delici...zzzZZZZZZ

As far as I can recall, Milo (from the tin, can't say about the packet drinks) is not by itself that sweet. I don't have a tin in front of me to analyze the sugar content but from memory, condensed milk (standard milo in East Malaysian coffee shops) or sugar (milo-o, the "o" to mean "dark" milo) is often added to complete the drink. It may be true that Malaysia produces cocoa, but I don't remember from my childhood any local chocolate drink product that even came close to Milo in terms of taste. There may be some now, but I can't say... Myself, I always preferred Horlicks to Milo, and still do. But even in the North American market, I am hard pressed to find a chocolate drink product that I would rather have over Milo. Ovaltine has too much sugar, and so too all those Hershey chocolate syrups, and regular cocoa powder simply doesn't dissolve that well. As an aside, for a cocoa producing country, Malaysia made (during my childhood) some incredibly horrid chocolate products. I didn't know anyone who preferred the locally made chocolates to imports (e.g. Cadbury). I would suggest making Milo really strong, at a minimum 4 heaped teaspoons per standard coffee mug, and add hot water or hot milk, and no sweetener. That should give you a nice strong chocolate flavor, without making it too sweet. Milo is a huge sponsor of sports in Malaysia, and their marketing remains widespread. I doubt if anyone who has spent any appreciable amount of time (in the 70s and 80s) in Malaysia could possibly forget the jingle "Milo milo, anda jadi sehat and kuat!". I couldn't get that tune out of my head even if I tried. I drink it to stay "healthy and strong!"

By red durian, do you mean those typically smaller fruits with an orange or reddish pulp? The pulp tends to be dryer, and less sticky but has a very strong taste. I have seen this type of durian in Sarawak, and my aunt is the only person I know who enjoys them, besides the native people. That's very interesting. My friend Mamat bin Mat in Terengganu said that they are the best durians, and I certainly agree with him, in the sense that it was by far the best durian I ever tasted. I have to say I didn't think the one he served us was small at all compared to other durians. As I remember, the flesh was basically the same whitish color as usual (maybe just slightly reddish), but the skin had a slight red tint. Okay, then I don't think we're thinking of the same kind of durian. I've never had Durian Tembaga, and I doubt if Stop and Shop will have it any time soon.

By red durian, do you mean those typically smaller fruits with an orange or reddish pulp? The pulp tends to be dryer, and less sticky but has a very strong taste. I have seen this type of durian in Sarawak, and my aunt is the only person I know who enjoys them, besides the native people. Colloquially, we call them "native durians" or Dayak durian. The dayaks are the aborigines of Sarawak and other parts of Borneo. Kew, I think we share the same taste in durians. I love those thick, rich ones with a bitter undertone. I simply CANNOT get those here in the states. I suspect most of those sold here are Thai. Now, I wonder if DHL or FedEx will ship durians.

By frozen durian, I assume you mean the durian pulp wrapped in cling wrap/polystyrene or in plastic containers? Or do you mean the fruit that is frozen whole, shell and all, and then thawed for sale? I've had frozen durian (both ways), as well as fresh ones, but not canned durians. I think frozen durians are a very good way to enjoy the fruit. They are fairly consistent in quality. Frozen durians tend to lack that strong characteristic durian smell, or it may be there but muted, which may be a good thing, depending on how you look at it.

Believe it or not, I found some durians at a local Stop and Shop (large North East grocery store chain, like Albertsons or Safeway) here in Poughkeepsie, NY. First time I've seen durian sold in a supermarket chain, outside of Asia. The durians were cracked and didn't look particularly attractive. On the stem, there was a label attached with a website address, presumably of the distributor, which I cannot now remember. I'm guessing the durian is imported from Thailand, because it has almost no aroma (yes, I call it that) at all. Being born and having spent my childhood in Malaysia myself, I am used to durians with intense aromas and flavor. Much of the Thai fruit I've encountered have not matched the native Malaysian varieties in the intensity of flavor. Not to say there aren't any good Thai durians, but I've not eaten any myself. Because of the lack of the characteristic durian smell, and because of the cracks in the shell, which expose the pulpy fruit inside to bacteria among other things, I didn't make the purchase. When I placed my nose against them, I could smell a combination of "green" and mineral smells that I find uncharacteristic and to my nose, unpleasant. I've bought durians from NYC chinatown that were similarly muted in aroma, but tasted pretty decent. I wonder if there's some genetic engineering or modification happening in the durian world to make the fruit less "smelly" to those unaccustomed to it? Incidentally, when I worked in Malaysia a number of years ago in a Dutch company, a group of us, including a dutchman, went out to a durian "feast". In the small town we were in, a popular way to enjoy durian was to "dine" at the night markets where rows of stalls (nothing more than a makeshift tent cover with a large pile of durian in one corner) sold the fruit, some from the back of a lorry or truck. So after we selected a stall, pulled up some wooden crates to sit on, we were ready to eat some fruit. Note that picking out a good durian is a vitally important task, something that requires a great deal of skill and knowledge, and an equal amount of supernatural abilities, or very good luck. It is not something you entrust to just anyone. So with this in mind, we engaged the services of the durian "sommelier", who also happened to be the hawker, and asked him to make the selections. He will "uncork" the durian for you too, which can sometimes prove difficult to the uninitiated. It's not easy to contend with all those thorns to get to the fruit. So for hours we sat on wooden crates taking fat chunks of the sweet creamy pulp from split-open sections of durians on the ground, and stuffing our faces with them. I can't think of a better way to enjoy the fruit. The dutchman, eating durian for the first time, could not get enough of it. To paraphrase his words, "It smells really bad at first, but after you start eating it, you can no longer smell it. When I got back to my house though, my wife wouldn't let me in the door." From the recent reports about the abundance of durians in Malaysia, I sure wish I were there now.

I took my wife to Bouley to celebrate her birthday recently. I chose the restaurant in part due to the reviews I've read on this forum. I have to say some of the reviews I find here are fantastic and extraordinarily detailed, and I'm glad I found this site. I too have tried to record our experience there in a report. You can read a rookie's attempt at a review of our Bouley dinner here.

I believe the dining experience will depend very much on what you order. That may sound staggeringly obvious, but I say it because the three most memorable dishes/taste sensations I have from my recent dinner there were the three that I didn't order, the amuse bouche, and the two dessert teasers. Check out my review of the restaurant here.

What's the definition of business casual? Dockers and a shirt? I think they probably won't turn you away, but my feeling is you'll most probably feel less out of place in a blazer or sportsjacket, which you can put on or take off as you like. I noticed that some diners took off the jacket when seated. It is a formal-ish restaurant. A lot of the wait staff are in suits. In case you were wondering, I took so much notice of the how diners were dressed because I had to buy a new blazer for dinner there. So I wanted to feel that it wasn't for nothing :-)

We dined there two weeks ago. The restaurant says, 'No jeans or sneakers. Jacket preferred.' Most men wore a suit and tie, or blazer/sportsjacket. There was one guy in a Hawaiian shirt.