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I_call_the_duck

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Posts posted by I_call_the_duck

  1. I read that New York passed such a law a couple of years ago. I haven't heard anything about it since, so whether restaurants encourage this practice or if customers even know about it is another question.

    edited to add: oops. Sneakeater beat me to it.

  2. If you want to be really cruel, you can present the wine in this contraption.

    My sister gave one to us for Christmas the year before last. Luckily, there's a relatively inexpensive bottle of wine trapped inside (and not a favorite of ours), because it's still stuck in there. She did give us the solution, but we haven't been desparate enough yet to peek.

  3. Happy dancer here. To be fair, they're different types of chocolate so it's not that easy to make a good comparison. Like philadining said, John & Kira's had a creamy texture with suble flavors, while the Eclat chocolates were more intense with a variety of textures. I loved both chocolates, but preferred Eclat over John & Kira--but not much.

    As for Jacques Torres, I haven't had his chocolates, but I do have a friend who worked for Jacques when he was at Le Cirque. My friend sends us a box of chocolates every Christmas, and I have to say they're pretty amazing. So in order to get the real thing, I just may have to plan a detour to Jacques' store this weekend. Once we buy them the trick will be to hide them from Mr. Duck.

  4. My guess with the deal with bringing only the fried stuff out is to ensure some degree of freshness and hotness. The trouble with carts is that once they've made their rounds a couple of times, the fried stuff that hasn't been taken get cold and soggy. At Lakeside, I'm guessing that they fry (or reheat) a bunch of the fried stuff out when a new batch of people arrive. Everything else is probably sitting in the back on steamers or a big vat.

  5. The thing about the carts is that you get to see what you're getting, whereas you gotta guess with the menu, so for the uninitiated, it'd be harder to decide what to order. It's also easier to pace oneself with carts. Then again, I usually get overexcited when I sit down, and order just about everything I see, and wind up with the same problem of having too much food on the table.

    As one who ate the shrimp dumplings, they were great. Some places use a lot of bamboo shoots or water chestnuts as a filler, which ain't good. The flavor and consistency of these was just right.

    mrbigjas: tell mrsbigjas that the thing you guys were looking at on the table next to you was called Rice Roll with Crispy Dough on the menu. It's just that--the cruller (that usuallly comes with your congee) wrapped around rice noodle, then topped with a soy-based sauce.

  6. Maybe we need an Egullet bus trip to Jing Fong in New York.

    From what little I know, is Jing Fong really worth the trip?

    Now a NYC snack tour on the other hand, that'd be worthy of a bus trip.

    NO! :sad: If you're coming to NYC for dim sum, you gotta go to Flushing. Jin Fong is sub-par dim sum and Philly's got some awesome dim sum. Come to NYC, just don't bother with Jin Fong

    Gastro88, which place in Flushing do you recommend? I used to go to the now-defunct East Lake.

    eta: Never mind. I should probably just go check the NY dim sum site instead!

  7. OK, my turn.

    That crunchy thing on the right that you're referring to Katie, is a deep fried taro puff with shrimp and pork. Really tasty, and the best I've ever had. The taro in most versions I've tasted is gluey and bland, but this one was light and fluffy. We're going to have to incorporate "Daniel bites" into these photos so you call all see what's inside. :laugh:

    The chicken feet were tasty, but I think they could have been cooked just a wee bit longer.

    Yes, mrbigjas, I’m impressed.

    Everything there was great. Lakeside is the best dim sum I've had in a long time — and that includes NY.

  8. I saw an ad for Abbraccio Restaurant (820 S. 47th St.) who will be serving the Feast "Five courses from Bacala to Boullaibase" on Christmas Eve only. (sorry, Katie)

    eta: Davio's menu looks great. The lobster and shrimp slider sounds so good.

  9. Since this thread came out, I've been on a mission to find Grandma Utz.  Found her at Rite-Aid.  Wow!  Much better than Herrs, which I had yesterday.  Grandma is welcome in my house anytime.

    And if you're looking to limit your indulgence, Karen, Genuardi's carries the 25 cent bags of various Utz snacks, including Grandma's chips...... Hmmm-- maybe they can come up with a Peking duck-flavored chip! :wink:

    Thanks, Janet, but I don't even know where the nearest Genuardi's is. It's a good thing that Rite-Aid only sells it in small bags, or I'd be in big trouble. Then again, what's keeping me from buying all those little bags?

    Peking duck-flavored chip. Pork AND duck! :wub:

  10. In restaurants, my favorite was lobster with black bean sauce. My brother and I once were sopping the last bits of sauce with rice that — much to mom’s embarrassment — the waiter, thinking we were still hungry, took pity on us and brought us a bowl of soup. No actual licking though. Mom would have killed us for that.

    But at home, plate licking was the norm for us. My favorite were the dregs from egg foo young and string beans in fu yee sauce. Once again, my brother and I would fight over those last drops, until one of us would grab the plate and proceed to lick it, thus ensuring that the other would not get it, and also receiving a chiding from Mom. Sometimes, she’d actually laugh at our antics and ask “where’s that plate made?” Dad took it as a compliment though. "Good cook, good cook!" he used to say.

    Fast forward twenty or so years. I do everything short of licking the plate. Rice, bread, a spoon, I’ve even become quite adept at doing it with a fork. I’ve received comments from waitstaff ranging from “hmm…I see you’re a member of the clean plate club,” “I’ll tell the chef you didn’t like it.”, which I usually reply, “I’ll have the rest wrapped up to go,” or “there used to be a pattern on the plate.”

    In the StudioKitchen days, most, if not all of Shola’s sauces merited plate licking. And since I wasn’t the only one, I had no qualms about licking the plate.

    I’d almost forgotten about this thread until this past Thanksgiving. Mr. Duck’s cousin was trying to surreptitiously lick the last of the ice cream and cake from his plate. Until I caught him and started laughing.

  11. Frying chips in lard?  Mmmm...porky goodness...

    you don't know about this? it's pennsylvania tradition, yo. hie thee to a wawa and pick up a little bag of grandma utz's. they aren't the best lard-fried chips, but they'll give you the idea. next time i go upstate i'll score you some gibble's and maybe some red-bag good's, which are my families' favorites.

    Save your trip to wawa, as that is nothing but Herrs territory, you ain't gonna find an Utz at all...

    Gee, so much to learn about this here state. I may have to do a chip comparison somewhere in the distant future.

    I've occasionally seen Utz at the Dollar Stores, specifically, the one on 16th and Chestnut.

  12. i read somewhere that something like 1/3 of all potato chips are made in this state, including that the big companies like frito-lay have plants here.  where did i read this?  the inquirer?  anyone got a subscription that lets them search old articles?  sounds like a rick nichols column to me.

    I dug up this article from the Inquirer from 1999. It's an interesting article, even if it is seven years old. It's about what the smaller companies must do to compete with Frito-Lay, which includes frying the chips in lard, creating new flavors, etc. But it also has some chip facts.

    Pennsylvania has six regional potato-chip companies - a veritable embarrassment of potato chip riches, including Herr's, Utz, Martin's, Bon Ton, Bickel's and Snyder's of Hanover. They are clustered in the state's Potato Chip Belt, an area in the southeast quadrant of the state with quick access to the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

    About 20 smaller companies in Pennsylvania also make chips, largely for local markets.

    "You have more entrepreneurs in potato chips than other states," said Arvin Budge, a statistician and potato expert at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

    Lest anyone wonder, federal potato-market watchers won't say exactly what share of potato chip production occurs in Pennsylvania, or in any other state. But they will say Pennsylvania ranks first, followed by Texas (home to Frito-Lay) and California.

    Pennsylvania chip-makers must play to their strengths to survive and maintain Pennsylvania's potato chip dominance in the Northeast.

    It's only a short haul to Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York and Washington, all major markets. Companies can fry their chips and have them on store shelves within hours, allowing them to market their chips as fresher and premium quality without necessarily charging higher prices.

    Frying chips in lard? Mmmm...porky goodness...

  13. Second tip is the filling should be dry.  If the filling is moist, the spring roll skin will not get crispy.

    Good tip. Sometimes the filling will be a little moist for various reasons: napa released too much water or starch slurry was not thick enough. The solution is to just dump the filling onto a colander right after it finishes cooking.

    I actually refrigerate the filling prior to wrapping the spring rolls. I do have to be careful about not making it too wet, but I love how it turns out.

  14. 296343702_d0f0420d39_o.jpg

    Aww, thanks for thinking of me, Percy.

    Those photos are amazing. Everything looked great…well, maybe not those hot dogs. Regarding the Rudolph, er, reindeer comment, I’m beginning to suspect that my sister did have reindeer meat when she was in Sweden, but called it “beef” so as not to freak out her kids.

    Man do I miss Paris--especially the pastries and breads.

  15. We went on Friday. I saw butternut, pumpkin, sweet potato, and another squash whose name escapes me. The place was packed so I didn't get to peruse all the flavors. We shared a pumpkin praline and bourbon butterscotch. Great combination!

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