Gastro888
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Posts posted by Gastro888
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Doddie, what a great blog! Thanks for sharing your week with us.
Maybe you should make a pasta carbonara with those lovely eggs! I made some last night with some eggs I bought at the local greenmarket. The shells were much thicker and tougher than what you find in the conventional markets. But the taste of the egg yolks were fantastic!
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I think Quality Meats is underappreciated in the real world. I've had some really fantastic meals there lately. The steak is as good as anywhere in Manhattan and some of the sides are fantastic (marrow bones, potatoes). QM is certainly underappreciated by the NY Times. Why hasn't it been reviewed yet?
Marrow bones? Could you go into a bit more detail on how they're prepared, please? I love good marrow bones. I've had them at Cafe D'alsace and they were excellent but I'm curious to see how other places do it.
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Aren't most restaurants in NYC somewhat depedent on foot traffic? Considering most people use mass transit? Just curious.
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And back to Flushing...
Speaking of shopping, if you're interesting in Chinese style jewlery, you'll find better prices there.
Sago Cafe is the main bubble tea shop on Main Street. It's a funky little Taiwanese style teahouse. I feel that Saint Alps' has better atmosphere, though. Sago Cafe offers more variety on their menu (ramen, rice dishes, sandwiches) than most bubbletea houses but it's so loud in there - even when it's 1/3 full! - that you can barely hear yourself think.
And my people not known for being soft spoken.
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I like Shake Shack more than In N Out. It's a preference thing. Shake Shack pack beefier flavor in a similarly small burger.
Ditto. IAO burger isn't as great as the hype. SS burger with a side of crinkle cuts - that hits the spot for me.
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Seriously, it's not possible to eat a bowl of noodle soup quietly. Unless you're gonna eat it strand by strand and take an hour eating it, it's just not possible.
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I think Nathan said it best when he said, "That was a bad location for that specific restaurant". It's not that bad location is often used as an excuse for bad execution. Sometimes location can be the key factor in the death of a restaurant. It all depends and unless we've an inside view we can speculate all we want but we'll never really know.
(Hell for all I know his fung shui might've been off.)
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These are just my opinions - I think it wasn't a great location. Look at Tisserie. (not a restaurant but still) They are in a prime location and even with poor service and and an inconsistent menu they are doing well.
I said the service wasn't bad but the service wasn't stellar. Saying that something wasn't bad doesn't automatically mean it was great.
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That's sad to hear. LD was definitely in a poor location. The concept was a bit difficult to translate in NYC's scene. His steaks were decent as were his shrimp. Not breathtakingly stellar but solid. The service wasn't bad.
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So how would you pronouce xifan? I have no idea!
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Ditto on Palena's jacket and tie requirement. You can get away with a nice button down and slacks. I've seen it.
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Thanks for all the info Gastro! I speak Cantonese fluently and can get by on my Mandarin, so I should be okay. Sharing tables and having others hawk yours while you eat is like eating dim sum in Hong Kong. I can get pissy like the rest of them but it can get annoying when you have to get aggressive about being fed.
Gum Fung, New Ti Yung and Gala Manor have Cantonese speakers. We're the minority in Flushing so I'm always surprised when I hear Cantonese. It's frustrating when people ask you if you speak Chinese and my response is yes, I do. I speak Cantonese. Then I'm asked again, no, I meant Chinese. Do you speak Chinese?
I try to control my chopsticks of fury at that point.
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Oh there's a new restaurant called Corner 28 that just opened near the 7 train station in Flushing. It's a casual dining/BBQ/rice box restaurant where you can order noodle soups, rice boxes (3 or 4 choices of entree over rice plus a plain soup) or BBQ meats. You find your table after ordering and everything's self-service. It's two levels and quite big. Their special for now is a $0.75 Peking duck bun that they sell by the dozen out the front window. I haven't tried it and I'm not too keen on trying it as my preference is for the pancake and not the bun to eat with my Peking duck.
Bakeries in Flushing are nice as well. Tai Pan and Fai Da have multiple branches in Flushing. There are some Vietnamese places as well but I've not tried them. Of course there are Korean restaurants in Flushing and you have the hybrid Korean-Chinese restaurants which are very interesting.
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Yes! For sure the Ping's in Queens is much better than the one in Manhattan. It's much bigger too and their seafood is very good.
Unfortunately, Flushing does offer more variety and (usually) better quality compared to Manhattan. Personally, I prefer Cantonese food over the non-Cantonese food but am slowly trying the other types of cuisines. Apparently there's this fantastic "ja montau" (fried montau - montau being the plain steamed white bun) that is in Flushing that comes with condensed milk on the side to dip in. Having had the bastardized verison (prepacked maontau that are deep fried), I'm eager to try the real thing that's handmade.
Don't get me wrong - Manhattan's Chinatown still has *so* much to offer! It's a fantastic place! When I'm in the city, I still gravitate towards Chinatown. I can't find a place in Flushing that does roast prok buns like Mei Lai Way or shrimp rolls like New South Wind. The old school Cantonese is still rocking in Chinatown. Definitely don't sell it short!
re: Chicken feet. To me they don't taste like cod liver oil but then again, I don't know what cod liver oil tastes like. I love chicken feet and it's great to be able to eat them when they're properly cooked.
re: Being aggressive and pissy at "traditional dim sum houses". *sighs* I hate that sometimes you need to do this in order to be serviced and fed. Believe me, I don't want to argue with someone for my table. Unfortunately, you need to adapt to the environment around you in order to survive. Or else some elbow poking, back shoving, step over you, mannerless person(s) is gonna get at the good food before you. Ai, it sucks but I didn't make the rules. I'd change them for sure!
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So I could make the gima smoothie and then thicken it to taste? How long does this stuff last?
I could make gima butter! It would be like tahini, no? Thanks, Dejah Jeh!
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Seriously, keep your good kitchenware to yourself. Don't let it get stolen, banged up, dented, scratched, or burnt in the hands of a roommate. Especially one who's not clean or careful.
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I like grape jelly on my breakfast sausage at a diner. And I like grape jelly in my Cajun rice from Popeye's. It cuts on the saltiness and spiciness of it all and makes for this great sweet-spicy-salty-processed meat-n-rice yumminess.
Oh and on chicken fingers, too. From a diner.
(Ok, the only reason why that combination ever came about was because I had grape jelly with the toast/biscuit and some got into the savory foods.)
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...It was also said that you shouldn't eat gima wu too often as it will turn your skin black.
...Too late. I eat spicy food, like soy sauce and go out in the sun so I'm screwed. Although, I did finish all my rice growing up so that should count for something, no?
So could I do this with a food processor? Could I grind the gima? Or am I gonna end up with gima paste?
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Ai ya, I meant the traditional way. Not the super fast way.
Shoe shine. Hey, that's what I heard somewhere - that it helps keep your hair black. You know, for those of us that still do have hair? (Only teasing Ah Leung Goh!)
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AI YA!
You're supposed to make Chinese donuts with that! Fried Chinese donuts beat out many inspid Western donuts. Unless it's a Krispy Kreme fresh off the line. I saw somewhere on a random food blog that the author used the Pilsbury biscuits as the dough for pan fried dumplings. Needless to say, the author was *not* Asian.
Jook rules. Hell, I might make some today since it's so cold out! I think my fu yee should be much better this week.
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When I was in cooking school, I had great fun pushing my classmates' buttons in just that very way. We were debating the merits of organ meats one day, during a break (me in favour, everyone else opposed), when I got onto the subject of liver.
"Best part of most animals, when it's cooked properly," I pontificated, "take seal, for example...the old-timers are all about the flipper pie, but I'll take a big plate of seal liver anytime."
This, as I knew it would, provoked a mighty burst of outrage from my classmates, especially the younger female ones (y'know they're thinking about baby whitecoats, not big adults which are essentially 400-lb Rottweilers with short legs). Eventually one of the braver souls piped up and asked me what seal tasted like.
"Darker and gamier than moose," I told them (accurately), "but not as dark as whale."
Pandemonium from them, evil-bastard amusement for me...
Love it!!!!
Our housekeeper in Hong Kong regularly brought food back with her from her country after her trips home. Once one of the dishes main ingredients was dogmeat. The kids weren't too happy at my barking every time they opened the fridge
but I did explain that in some places people are so poor that this is one of the few cheap sources of protein they have access to, as indeed was the case with our housekeeper's family, and it is, after all, just meat. I tried it and it tasted like veal, quite nice actually. But a lot of people did go eeewwww when I told them.You don't eat dog in Asian countries because of economics - it's because it's supposed to be very energy boosting and very "warming" for the winter months. It's good if you're a guy and if she brought it back to share with your family, she must've really liked you guys!
trust me, Gastro888, the dog eating was definitely an economic decision. Deep in Benguet province in the Philippines and the village is an Igarot one (Filipino aboriginal people) and is extremely poor. I later took the kids there and we stayed for 5 days and we all ate the dog adobo as that was pretty well all the protein they had except for manok (chicken) the pork(baboy) was saved for very special occasions. Basically we ate mountains of rice with veg and mung beans and very small amounts of meat. But we did laugh a lot and enjoy amazing hospitality.
......not like the markets I've been to in China where yellow dog is prized for other reasons as you say, as I believe it is also in Korea
Oh interesting! This is the first I've ever heard of dog being consumed for economic reasons. That's a new one.
I jokingly threaten to eat my parents' neighbor's dog when it's barking at 6am on a Sunday morning for no reason...
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But how do you make gima wu? (And does it really keep your hair black? I've heard stories...)
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My mom has never referred to oatmeal as mak pei jook. To me that means oatmeal WITH jook. ICKY!
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Xie xie ni looks like Pinyin for "Thank you" in Mandarin. I could be wrong but it looks really similar!
That's Disgusting!
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted
Kinda. It's just very "nourishing" and the heating effects refers to the yin or yang quality of the ingredient in particular. My knowledge of this is limited so maybe one of the more experiences Chinese cooks on this forum might be able to answer your question.