Jason Perlow

Did you sit down to a Korean meal at a Korean restaurant or were you eating Chinese food? Or Korean-Chinese food even? I think all bets are off with formal Korean dining rules if you aren't eating a formal Korean meal. The younger generation also probably eats in a more relaxed manner when not in front of their relatives as well.

Here is what I have been able to find on the 'Net in English regarding Korean table manners: http://www.lifeinkorea.com/Food/f-manners.cfm http://www.asiafood.org/koreafood.cfm http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Korean-cuisine

I think traditional Korean chopsticks, especially the long thin metal ones used in restaurants are even clumsy for Koreans, especially ones raised in this country. While I consider myself an adept chopstick user for a non-Asian, its a huge challenge for me to use the long metal kind and I will often ask for the regular plastic or wooden kind if it is avaliable if I am dining at a Korean restaurant. My Korean family eats at home entirely with Chinese and Japanese style chopsticks.

I was aware of your heritage -- I was pointing this out for the other readers in the topic, who might not be familiar with the complex nuances.

In a home environment, in especially modern Korean-American households, its considered to be okay to eat rice with chopsticks, particularly if it is a non-traditional Korean meal or if non-Korean Asian food is being eaten. It has been explained to me by my adopted Korean family that in a traditional dining situation, such as on a holiday, a special family gathering, or in a nice Korean restaurant, it is considered to be extremely low-brow to use chopsticks as opposed to the spoon. By the way, the whole eating rice with spoon/versus not eating with spoon thing is part of the long history of animosity and cultural divide between the Korean and Chinese people.

You don't HAVE to eat or finish all the various Banchan (Kimchi is a type of Banchan, but not all Banchan are Kimchi) brought to your table. You should at least try some of each, however. In our case we have to ask for second or third orders of some of the Banchan items around here, because we like them a lot. The main difference between Korean dining etiquette and that of other Asian countries is that you eat rice with a SPOON and you do not pick the bowl up. You can put various banchan on your rice bowl as condiments with the metal chopsticks, but you don't want to actually eat your rice with them.

I love Jelly Bellies but we overdosed on them a few years back.

BTW, the Teaneck market starts this thursday and the Fort Lee market started this last Sunday.

In addition to some nice pork chops, we had an 8 and 3/4 pounder with our friends last night, from Shop Rite as well. We had them steam it partially cooked for 5 minutes, and then we cut it in peices and basted all the meat with a soy/melted butter/lemon juice sauce on the grill, cooking it for an extra 10 minutes. Came out great.

Bayona 430 Dauphine Street, New Orleans 504 525 4455 http://www.bayona.com While Bayona may be nestled in a 200 year old cottage smack in the middle of the French Quarter, it might as well be right in the middle of New York City -- this is restaurant cuisine at its very best. Although Bayona's food does not necessarily represent typical New Orleans or Louisiana cuisine, which is something a lot of visitors to the city may be looking for, I would definitely return to Bayona again and again -- after a week of hardcore Creole and Cajun food, Susan Spicer's mediterranean and southwest flavors are a very welcome relief and were a great topping to a fantastic vacation in one of the best restaurant towns in the US. Seared Sea scallop with Poblano Cornbread and Tomatillo Salsa (special) A delicious bread basket of brioche, sourdough and french bread Crispy Smoked Quail Salad with Bourbon Molasses Vinaigrette Buttermilk Fried Rabbit Leg and Tenderloin with Creole Mustard Tasso Sauce and Stoneground Grits (special) Double-cut Niman Ranch Pork Chop with cheddar Spoonbread Lemon Chiffon Pie with Gingersnap Crust and Lime Gelato El Rey Chocolate Mousses with Dulce de Leche and Warm Cinnamon Churros

NOTE: This topic is part of the Eating New Orleans series. Deanies in Bucktown 1713 Lake Avenue Metairie, Louisiana 70005 Telephone: (504) 831-4141 In my opinion, a visit to New Orleans is not complete without a visit to Deanie's for some fried seafood lovin'. The busy dining room Barbecue Shrimp. As you can see, they are served with the heads on. I personally think Deanie's does one of the best renditions of this dish in the city, despite the fact that Mr. B's and Pascal's Manale get top billing. That's a big'un House salad with artichoke dressing Cup of Gumbo Salted boiled potatoes, put on the table instead of bread. Excellent for mopping barbecue shrimp sauce. Half Seafood Platter, we never had enough people with us to order a whole! They also have a location in the French Quarter at 841 Iberville Street, (504) 581-1316, if you don't have a car and are staying down there. It's a prettier dining room, but populated strictly by tourists.

Liuzzas's By The Track 1518 N. Lopez * New Orleans, LA 70119 504-943-8667 http://www.nola.com/sites/liuzzas/ Liuzza's is a fun casual bar type place right by the racetrack -- while they have a full menu, the place has made itself famous with its Barbecue Shrimp Po Boy. Of course, we had to try it. As you can see, the place gets totally packed. The BBQ shrimp Po Boy isn't as much a traditional Po Boy but a small loaf of French Bread that has been hollowed out on the inside and completely stuffed with small shrimps in a buttery, peppery sauce with Tabasco in it. It's amazing, but be extremely careful -- those shrimps are like hot lava, and the sandwich needs some time to cool down. Of course, if you are like us, you'll eat it gleefully while burning the roof of your mouth off. Oyster Rockefeller soup, another one of the Liuzzas' specialties. Its very good, but unlike the sandwich, its not something I would cross town for.

Valdeon is a Spanish blue cheese similar to Cabrales produced normally with a mix of raw cow's, goat's and sheep's milk, and aged between two and four months, although it is frequently aged for even longer periods than Cabrales. The main difference is that Valdeon is wrapped in Sycamore Maple leaves (not Grape) and is somewhat more pungent than Cabrales, at least according to my personal taste. Valdeon is a superior cheese to Cabrales in my opinion. Valdeon Cheese Article at SFGate.com

We'll definitely be back another time. They seem to be the only place that has a sitdown cafe with a nice selection of desserts in the general area, short of a place like Baumgarts. It's always nice to have a place like that -- years ago we used to go to Bertolloti a lot in Cliffside Park, back when it was run by the original owners. Miller's Bakery in Tenafly also is sit down and has pastries (and Ciao Bella has some as well) but clearly not of the quality Cafe Angelique appears to have. It seems more of a after dinner spot than a lunch place to me.

There's also a new Pepsi ONE with Splenda now. I think its a complete reformulation of Pepsi ONE as opposed to a new product. http://www.oneify.com

Rachel and I went to Cafe Angelique for lunch today at about 3:30. We waited for about 10 minutes in the dining room, and when nobody came to serve us, we walked out. They had waitstaff there working but they were more interested in kibbitzing with other customers than taking our order. To me that's an immediate strike out. It looks like they have some nice desserts and the salads look decent, from what they were bringing to other tables. The sandwiches seem extremely overpriced for the sizes they were. We'll probably go back for coffee and dessert sometime, or maybe breakfast, but I don't really see us going back for lunch. It was extremely hot weather today and the place didn't ventilate very well, which is also a big negative and it probably added a couple of points to my level of impatience with the waitstaff. Nevertheless it's a cute little place and they have done some nice work renovating the train station.

By the way, some more great pictures on Flickr here (click) and here (click) of the event. You might even recognize a few people.

Currently, the restaurant is being staffed by its Sous Chef and its line staff, who have all stayed. The menu is going to remain the same for the time being and the restaurant is stable. The owner, Vincent Chin, is looking to hire a new executive chef who has experience in Asian fusion cuisine and is also looking to open up a second location.

Apparently both Doron and James have joined The Harvest Group. Doron is now Executive Chef at East by Northeast restaurant (also known as "ENE") in Montauk, NY. That's out by the Hamptons.

I'm pretty sure that DiStefano was there only a few days a week. He's consulting at a number of other restaurants in the city.

We've just been informed that Executive Chef Doron Wong and Pastry Chef James DiStefano are no longer with the restaurant. We'll let you know more about this as it develops.

Smoki-O's cooked the snoots in St Louis, Danny Meyer's home town. One thing that should be noted about the snoots is that in their restaurant in StL, they are warm and already covered with sauce, which makes them somewhat softer. At the event they were pretty crunchy.

Yep. Thats what Rachel and I remember as well. There must be a huge variance in the way Salt Lick and Elgin cooks brisket, because they were using brisket from the same supplier at the event, Smithfield. So the fat content, moisture, etc of the briskets were identical from the start. That being said I thought Salt Lick's brisket was superior to Elgin's in just about every way. Its certainly possible since both Salt Lick and Elgin were not using their native meat suppliers this may have introduced some positive or negative variables into the mix on either side. I think also the types of rigs they used at the event also makes a difference -- Elgin used one of those big cylindrical trailered barrel rigs with static shelves, whereas Salt Lick used a tall square unit with mechanized rotating shelves like Dinosaur does. The Elgin sausage, as Fat Guy says earlier, more resembles a "barbecued" sausage than a smoked one, which Salt Lick's is. Nevertheless I enjoyed both sausages although my stylistic preference is towards the more smoky one.

BTW, here are some interesting tidbits about Smithfield, the pork and beef supplier to the event: Pork-Toids: What It Takes to Feed the 3rd Annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party (dBusinessNews) also this document of "Porktoids" Smithfield BABBP '05 Porktoids (Microsoft Word)

Jkarpf, it looks like you were there with Josh Ozersky (Mr. Cutlets) You a buddy of his? By the way, welcome to the site!