MumonA

Chambers Street Wine is holding a moving sale from Aug. 1 through Aug. 9, offering 20% off of most still wines. Their prices tend to run higher than places like Garnet and Astor for the same product, but they also stock many wines unavailable elsewhere. From their newsletter: 160 Chambers Street New York, NY 10007 Phone: 212-227-1434 (Closest subways: 1,2,3 though the A,C and the City Hall stop are manageable as well.) Web site

Top hit on google shows: 38 8th Avenue New York, NY 10014 212.366.6633 Web site

Can't speak for others, but I'm with you on this one. Previously addressed here in the Momofuku Noodle thread.

A lot of ramen places have introduced oversized renge (the flat-bottomed Chinese spoon, either plastic or ceramic) in the past decade. A portion of noodles is placed on the renge, along with some toppings. The noodles are then eaten from the renge with the chopsticks, pretty much eliminating any slurping. A workable compromise for those who do not wish to have lard-laden splatters on their shirt/blouse -- salarymen on lunch break or fashionable young women -- but this method of consumption also mutes the visceral experience of eating ramen. Personally, I find the the practice somewhat pretentious. Is slurping losing favor? Probably depends on the demographic. I'm fairly certain my Japanese grandmother was never a ramen slurper, while my 60-year-old baby boomer aunt certainly slurps. As a mid-30s Japanese guy who grew up in the U.S., I slurp in Japan when alone. But with company in Japan or eating in the U.S., I try to go with the flow. The younger generation in Japan seems to be anti-slurping right now, but others may have a better sense regarding the overall trend.

According to the Fishs Eddyweb site, the Broadway@19 St. flagship is the only store remaining. I was there a couple weeks ago, and as emsny notes, nearly all of their products are now vintage-like. I could have sworn that I dropped by a branch about a 10-minute walk from the ferry terminal on Staten Island. That was three years ago, at which point the store was stocked with dinnerware and flatware from defunct and operating airlines, as well as various other businesses.

NY Magazine's Grub Street blog mentioned Flying Pigs Farm's chicken-liver pate a couple weeks ago. Second entry from the bottom: http://nymag.com/daily/food/2006/10/the_si..._pc_pat_an.html

Unfortunately, the Flushing Food Court at 36-58 Main St. closed last fall. It's now a Chinese bookstore. The food court in the Flushing Mall at 133-31 39th Ave. always looks busy, although the retail businesses seem to be struggling.

This entry ponders the derivation of the term, though in Japanese. The box's back panel says the curry incorporates a health regimen of apples and honey that originated in Vermont. The site's commentary adds that House's president at the time supposedly heard of such a tonic promoted by a Vermont doctor... A google search comes up with a Dr. Jarvis from Vermont that touted the benefits of honey and apple cider vinegar. By the way, House is also known for their Java curry brand.

I am fairly certain that Pura Vida Fisheries was at the Union Square greenmarket today. The friendly vendor said they ran day boats in Hampton Bays, as mentioned above, and that Friday would be their only day at USQ. I bought the sea scallops ($11/lb.) for ceviche, as well as pan-searing, and look forward to trying some of their other offerings. JosephB, were the whole fish on display or stored separately? I did not see any, but then again, I didn't get a good look at all of the bins.

The restaurant is between the 74th St./Jackson Heights (R/V/G/E/F/7) and 69th St. (7) stations, just off the BQE underpass -- not exactly sure what the superpages.com link is referencing. It's on the south side of Roosevelt with a green awning, can't miss it. Happy eating, Mumon

I tried the beef hand-pulled noodles for lunch today. The bowl came with a nice mix of beef -- including meat, tendon and connective tissue -- sliced baby bok choy, and a touch of pickled vegetable (maybe mustard green?) Chopped cilantro and a diced-pepper hot sauce were available at the counterfront. While the noodles were pulled to order as described in the NYT piece, they lacked any toothsomeness. Not overcooked, just no gluten chew. Maybe this is the authentic style for the region, but it was not to my liking nonetheless. The soup was quite basic, neither good nor bad. The menu is fairly simple. Hand-pulled (fresh) and regular (dried) noodles on the left side, with thin and rice noodles on the right. The following is my best guess for the eight entries under the hand-pulled section, top to bottom: Beef- $4 Mixed (probably organ) beef- $4 Ox tail- $4.50 Spareribs (pork?)- $4 (Some kind of) lamb- $5 Duck- $5 Vegetable- $3 (Pickled?) Vegetable- $3 Each of the other three sections has one less option and the order is changed in some cases. The above information should be sufficient to figure out the permutations. The back of the menu has fish balls and other assorted items. The hand-written list on the wall also had two or three items not on the takeout menu, but I didn't bother writing them down. Is there anywhere in Chinatown or the rest of Manhattan that serves freshly pulled and chewy (in a good way) noodles? Good soup would be a bonus. A couple places in Elmhurst and Flushing were promising, but I'm not sure that they're still around. Maybe this would need to go into a new thread. Happy eating, Mumon Eastern Noodles 27 Eldridge St. (just south of Canal) New York, NY 10002 646-613-1023 9am-8:30pm The Grand St. (B/D) stop is probably closest.

I was there this past Sunday with a group of five. I generally avoid sate/satays, but we tried the chicken and beef versions. The peanut sauce was more nutty than sweet, which I enjoyed. I would have preferred thigh meat to the breast for the chicken, but that's a quibble. We also had something described as potato pancake, which looked a lot like the perkedel pictured above. They were more like Japanese potato croquettes without the panko coating, if that makes any sense. Never having had gado-gado, I'm not sure what I expected, but I found the flavors to be muddled. An overly generous coating of another nutty sauce masked the characteristics of the assortment of vegetables. The varied textures were a treat though. For main dishes, we tried the beef rendang, grilled chicken, lamb curry and jackfruit curry. The paste accompanying the rendang was nearly black and loaded with ginger and other fragrant spices. I would have been very happy just slathering the paste on rice. The beef itself was curiously hard. Not tough, but physically hard. The chicken (half white, half dark) was marinated in a lighter sauce prior to being grilled/baked. The chicken was juicy, not hard. Both curries contained coconut milk and a fair amount of heat. The jackfruit did not taste of particularly anything and had the toothfeel somewhat like that of young bamboo shoots. The lamb was served in hacked pieces with bone. The restaurant is half way between the 74th/Roosevelt (R/V/G/E/F/7) and Elmhurst (R/V/G) stops, less than a 10 minute walk from either. Upi Jaya 76-04 Woodside Ave. Elmhurst, Queens 718-458-1807 Happy eating, Mumon

It's called naruto, a fish cake made from processed cod, haddock, pollack or other similar mild-fleshed variety. The pink is just food coloring and I'd even say that the main purpose of naruto is the visual effect. Thanks for the review. Were the noodles egg-based or the more typical plain flour version? And was the broth pork-chicken or something else? That sneaking saltiness is never a good sign though.

I'm just back from a second day of sampling. Yesterday, I arrived just before 1pm. After waiting in a disorganized line for about 30 minutes, I made my way to a serving of the Mitchell's whole hog pulled pork. The smokiness and piggy-ness of the meat were both secondary to its sweentness. This was some of the sweetest pig I've had in a long while. The underlying pepperiness worked well as a background seasoning. The shards of near-mohogany skin were wonderfully chewy and packed with flavor. I also enjoyed the intermingled small globs of fat, not piggy at all. As mentioned by others, the mixture was completely "room" temperature. I don't know how the dish is usually served, but I imagine a warm scoop of pulled and chopped pig would be even nicer. And is pulled pork always chopped so fine? I would not have minded a coarser mix. I also enjoyed the bun (potato?) and the mildly tart coleslaw. Didn't try the sauce, so I can't comment. I had planned to hit a second stand, but the lines had grown to unwieldy proportions by that time (just past 2pm). I returned this morning at 11:30am and queued (yes, I know, the pun) in the Memphis Championship line. As mentioned by juuceman, the ribs were on the dry side. The meat and smoke flavor were very good, but the texture and temperature of the ribs suggested that they had been off the heat for hours. My portion originally only had three ribs and one of the kind women from Murphysboro added two meaty extras, a nice bonus. The beans, as noted, were very good. The line at Memphis Championship started moving at 11:45am, so I was able to finish the ribs at a civil pace and still get in line for KC Baron's beef brisket by 12:10pm. As Fat Guy mentioned, their setup is nice because you can see the prep process as you wait in line. Each time they trimmed the fat, I suppressed a yelp. Luckily my serving came with nice bits of fat still attached to the brisket. I have little experience with barbequed brisket, but what I tasted was very good. I thought the smokiness was more prominent compared to the above two. The fact that this serving had residual warmth, unlike the other two, also helped to bring out the flavors, I imagine. Did not try the sauce here either. I swung by the Shake Shack, only to see a sign saying they would open at 2pm. Against my better judgment, I bought six more cue-pons to try the pig snoot from Smoki O's. When I asked them how many snouts it took to make a snoot sandwich, they laughed, but didn't have an answer. The fuscia snootology flyer also did not provide an answer. The thoroughly deep-fried snout was a disappointment for me. I guess I was expecting cracklings, only better. I can't get enough of my own fresh duck cracklings after a rendering, so I imagined that a professional version could only be better. First, the snout did not taste freshly fried. It wasn't stale by any means, but it tasted as though it had been fried more than 24 hours ago. I wouldn't be surprised if they were fried in St. Louis on Friday morning and flown in that day. Second, the snout had no discernable seasoning on its own. Given prior reports of sauce-soaked snout and seeing the oversauced messes being served in front of me, I asked for the sauce on the side. I tried the snout with and without sauce, neither really hit the spot. More a novelty than anything else. Finally, I found the texture unappealing. Maybe this is an unfair comment since I don't know the culinary limitations/possibilities of snout, but I was hoping for somthing more than overfried animal protein. The fattiness was largely rendered out of the "nose chips" I was eating, as was any unique textures (cartilage-y crunchiness maybe?) I'm not particularly glad that I tried the dish, but I suppose I can now say that I have. I returned to the park at 2pm in the hopes of having a frozen custard or two, and sticking around for the 3pm gathering. But when I found out that no custard was to be had (broken custard freezing machine, I was told) I decided to call it a day. Looking forward to hearing the comments of others and any reports on the Big Bob Gibson, Blue Smoke, and Salt Lick offerings. Happy Eating, Mumon