Laksa

Errr... interesting choice of words, Brewer. yunnermeier, do you know the reason why only local fruits are offered? I am not absolutely certain, but I seem to remember seeing apples and oranges as altar food. (Could've been mandarin oranges). First time I've seen durian , but I like it. It must take a lot of willpower to open a durian and not eat it right away.

I've never tried using dessicated coconut to make santan so I can't vouch for the taste. My opinion of canned coconut milk has deflated lately. It falls far too short of the fresh stuff in fragrance and flavor. The Indian grocer near my work stocks frozen grated coconut. If that can be had in Poughkeepsie, it surely must be available in NYC. Why don't you give that a try?

After reading through reams of a very interesting discussion, I begin to wonder how often members find themselves veering from their usual tip amount. That is, if you tip 15% for adequate service, how often do you find yourself tipping more because you received better service or less for a poorer one? In my experience, the quality of service at standard neighbourhood and casual dining restaurants is fairly uniform. It's exceedingly rare to encounter service that stood out for being exceptionally good or egregiously bad. I cannot remember the last time I had wanted to change my usual percentage amount. However, I find that the servers at fine dining restaurants are a class apart. They project genuine concern for my dining experience. There's some kind of inscrutable magic that they do that makes me feel comfortable and very happy to be eating at their restaurant. Maybe they've attended the better acting schools, I don't know. So I leave them a bigger tip (but one which, again, doesn't vary much from one fine dining establishment to another).

Thanks for the suggestions. My father would happily eat plain congee three meals a day. Actually, when they land, it will be breakfast time in the timezone that the plane departed from.

While it is true that dollar amount diners are required to pay ends up being the same, whether the 20% is added to the price of every item on the menu, or to the total of every bill, it is probably more obvious to the customers that, in the latter case, payment for services has been accounted for, and that anything they add on top is purely at their discretion and not a requirement. I prefer the mandatory service charge and don't really mind if it's a separate line item or figured into the prices on the menu.

I have a question that's very similar to what the OP asked. My parents are flying into EWR around 8pm on a Thursday night after a 22 hour international flight. I would like to take them to eat some congee. Are there any restaurants between EWR and the on-ramp of I-87 (heading to Poughkeepsie, eventually), where one could get some congee? Does any of the Chinese restaurants that Rachel posted serve congee? Failing that, some soupy noodles would do just as nicely. Their preferences lean towards simple and non-greasy Chinese comfort food. Your advice much appreciated.

The salted fish was included in the standard package, not an optional extra, in the nasi lemak bungkus we got from the back of a station wagon that went door to door around Sibu in the 80's. (The station wagon was an upgrade from the push bike that did the same rounds in the mid to late 70s) What I remember getting in the bungkus was a generous piece of salted fish of unknown species, that most likely came from the Rejang or one of its tributaries, a dollop of sambal that will curl your eyelashes it's so hot, and a coupla slices of cucumber. There were also a peanut or two, ikan bilis, and a postage stamp square of fried egg. The salted fish and sambal were the star attractions for me, together with the rice.

It's that good huh? I can't imagine what it'll be like when you get around to eating it.

That's the same mistake I made! You don't realize that you've been spoilt until you've moved away. Are those Jalapenos in the green curry shot? Are they commonly available in Edinburgh? If you're gonna eat haggis in mourning, how will you celebrate, food-wise, if Australia wins the second test?

Informative discussion instead of fruitless bickering? Someone better do something about that! Ok, let me launch the first volley... I like the ikan bilis (anchovies) crispy and separate from the sambal. Soggy ikan bilis lovers, do you consider yourselves true nasi lemak aficionados or just pretenders? How important is it that all the different components not touch each other on the plate? Exceptions are made, of course, for bungkus. Do they still wrap the package in a banana leaf? Do they serve crispy deep fried salted fish with nasi lemak in the peninsula or is that strictly East Malaysian? And why did the nasi lemak that a fellow student brought to sell at my primary school taste so much better than the stuff at the school canteen? And why did the pedantic killjoy of a headmaster stop him from selling them?

In competitive eating, size does matter -- the skinny people have an advantage. Their stomach capacities are not confined by the "belt of fat" that handicaps the larger eaters. In a documentary I saw on training regimens, Kobayashi went to a restaurant and ate a ton of food, enough to feed a family for days. And he ate the desserts before the mains. Eating sugary food causes the body to think that it's had enough sustenance/energy, and results in a diminished appetite. Successful competitive eaters are able to overcome this psychological hurdle and continue to eat long after the appetite is gone. Other techniques he pioneered include the "Kobayashi Shake", which is a little dance he does to "settle" the food in the stomach in order to make room for more.

I gotta admit, the belacan taste wasn't entirely obvious. I suspect belacan because I didn't think the mere presence of few prawns in the dish was enough to impart the depth of shrimpy flavor in the noodle itself. Of course, one should never rule out MSG either. I really cannot remember which CKT stall it was now... let's see...I tried 3 different stalls along Jalan Alor, once in Puchong at a hawker center where they have a very big tv screen that showed the English premier league at night, and 3 times at the Royale Bintang coffee shop. Can you tell that I like CKT? (I was in KL for less than a week).

Patchouli, good to see another Malaysian posting here, and one based in the U.S. at that. I have many friends from Ipoh. If nobody has said it yet... Welcome to eGullet! I'm a little surprised that belacan hasn't been mentioned more often in the context of CKT. I'm fairly sure I tasted more than a hint of belacan in a lot of the CKT I sampled during my last trip to KL. As in stir-fried with the KT, not just served on the side.

Debating whether it's right or wrong to shop at Wal-mart would be great for a rainy afternoon, when we both have time to kill and a bottle or two of brandy in the liquor cabinet. The purpose of my post was to give an example of how the question of morality has been insinuated into the choices we make when buying food, in response to your post stating that you're unaware of such a thing happening. That's all. I agree with Julie Powell that morality has no place in these discussions, for the reasons already given by her in her article and by posters in this thread.

The propaganda of the organic movement do just that. On the "Breaking the Chains" page of the Organic Consumers Association website, www.organicconsumers.org, there's a link to an article titled "Is Shopping at Wal-Mart Moral". (No prize for guessing what their answer is). Throughout the site, they use phrases like "ethically responsible" and "ethically conscious" to describe themselves. The OCA crusade reeks of moral superiority. Buying local and organic is a worthy goal. We can all do without the moral rhetoric.

When you're working two jobs to stay above the poverty line, the furthest thing from your mind at the grocery store is which tomato or which chicken tastes better. You're sweatin' on getting enough food to the table with what little you have to spend. To base a purchasing decision on taste, ethics or in support of a cause is the purview of the privileged class. I think all Julie is saying is... those of you who are privileged, don't poo-poo the poor. Don't feel you're better than they are because they don't share your values. Sometimes, they just can't afford to.

No raisins, but something just as bad - ketchup. I was going to spare you the unsavory details, but since you've twisted my arm.... CKT served by Foochows in Sibu, Bintulu and points beyond -- wherever the Foochows have set up coffee shop stalls -- comes in two versions: wet and dry. The closest relative to the wet CKT is whad dan hor, minus the egg. So it's a melange of shrimp, squid, pork and some leafy greens stir-fried in a soupy gravy, poured over dark-soy-fried kway teow noodles. You can think of the dry version as Penang CKT's less sophisticated cousin. You won't find chillies, jue yau char, rarely ever any cockles or shrimp. You will ofen find some rubbery fish balls or slices of fish cake, and ketchup. Like the country bumpkin relative we all have, the no-frills Foochow CKT has the best of intentions, doesn't aspire to become anything more than what it is, and is well accepted by those who grew up with it.

Having just found an article on Xiamen snacks, I'm guessing Ha-Moon == Xiamen/Amoy, a city in Fujian province.

Googling for 炒馃条 resulted in a few hits to a website that's all about Xiamen, a city in Fujian. So that answers my own question. This article from that webiste discusses Xiamen food, in Chinese only, I'm afraid. http://xiamen.yiyou.com/html/2/100.html Anyone care to translate?

Is the term "Char Kuay Teow" specific to the Hokkien Malaysian way of stir-frying rice noodles? If I go to visit Fujian (may be Fuzhou), does anybody know if I will be able to find "Char Kuay Teow" over there (and made in a similar way?). ← I hereby nominate hzrt8w to travel to Fujian on our behalf and report on his findings. It'll also be interesting to find out if referring to flat rice noodles as kway teow (馃条) is uniquely SE Asian. BTW, the (Foochow) Sarawakians have their own ideas of what constitutes Char Kway Teow. It's rare to encounter the Penang-style over there. If you've tasted both versions like I have, you'll probably agree that a discussion of Foochow CKT will be a waste of everyone's time.

For girls... and guys who feel very secure about their masculinity. Or guys who simply don't care.

hzrt8w: Dude, I'm with you on this one. Those tapioca pearls are fairly tasteless...and don't forget they come with calories. And unlike Teepee, my suction skills are so poor that I often end up staring in dismay at a glass half-filled with tapioca pearls but no tea because I've drunk it all. Nothing's worse than having to eat leftover pearls without any tea. On the other hand, I quite like those Asian canned drinks with "solids" like grass jelly, water chestnut and the fake bird's nest drink.

Teepee, great looking XLBs! It's lunchtime here and your photo is making me hungry and my mouth water. I can actually smell your XLBs... or maybe a colleague down the hall just came back with some takeout. What are these? They look like jelly rolls to me, but I'm pretty sure that's not what they are … ← They look like pretty butterflies to me. Teepee, how could you!?!? You're so cruel...

An unscientific test is enough to expose the bottled water industry as bogus? If only everything in life were so easy.

All that proves is that the group of patrons were very poor at discerning differences, or lack of it in the water they were tasting. A better test would be to offer the patrons a sufficiently large number of two-drink-comparison tests, and in half of the tests the two glasses are filled with the same type of water, and in the other half, different, e.g. tap water and bottled water. Ask the tasters to indicate if the two drinks are the same or different. But I could see how that's not really Penn and Teller's gig. Edited to add: And that's not likely to sell too many DVDs.