Jammin

Gastro - Wondering which place you frequent now that your favorite place is gone? Also, I know we call cha siu BBQ pork, but keep in mind that the eG'ers here use the term BBQ a little differently. In any case, I think we all agree on what is being referred to here. Didn't mean to derail my own thread there... in response to your question though... "The word for Singapore is represented by three Chinese characters: xin1 jia1 bo1, the first word "xin1" being the same as the word for 'new'. In the Singapore Cafe sign, they've written the first character "xing1" as in 'star', which is a near-homophone, but unfortunately, no cigar. This goes unnoticed by most people except actual Singaporeans, who always snicker and/or make snide comments about it when they walk by." (The above information, incidentally, has been supplied by my friend, eG user tinymich, who is still upset that her account will not let her post it herself.)

what a shame. according to every single one of my singaporean friends, singapore cafe is arguably the least authentic restaurant for that type of food. heck, they even used the wrong chinese characters in their sign out front!

adding my vote for downtown atlantic's chocolate cupcakes. i am not a big chocolate fan (yeah, yeah... stone me later), but these were really off the chart.

on banquo's suggestion, i went yesterday at 7. service was quite slow - foh and boh still have some work to do, but that's not unexpected. after all, it shouldn't take 20 minutes to serve food that isn't being cooked to order. still, when a place opens up 3 blocks away from your home, well... anyway, the food... the brisket was quite flavorful and smoky. the issue i had with it was that is was also EXTREMELY fatty. as in layers and hunks of fat i had to carve off. this really changed the texture toward the chewy. additionally, (hey maybe they read egullet) the brisket was cut way too thick for my taste - probably about 3/8" - 1/2" slices. the pulled pork was mushy and had a hint of balsamic vinegar (?) flavoring it which i didn't appreciate. i probably won't order this particular item again, but i was very intrigued by the "whole butt" offering on the menu, though, where you basically get a hunk of pork butt and pull it yourself. hmm... the roast chicken we had was a bit flavorless. the bbq sauce helped, and i'll admit the sauce was pretty decent. our sides - potato salad and baked beans - were both excellent. toss some egg in the potato salad and it would have been even better. the baked beans were surprisingly good - smoky and offering huge chunks of meat to accompany the beans. overall, i think this place has promise and i'll try to head back in a month or two to re-evaluate. i'd recommend the rest of y'all hold off for a bit.

Well, after reading all the hype, we finally tried Dinosaur tonight more because we recently discovered a friend of ours is a waitress there than anything else. (Yes, she's cute and single) It was all I could do to keep a straight face when she asked us how we liked the food. Because quite frankly, I didn't. Maybe it's a Northeast palate thing. We split a Tres Hombres with sides of the Salt Potatoes and Baked beans and started with the Fried Green Tomatoes. I had never had Fried Green Tomatoes, but I really liked these. Fried to just the right crunchiness level for me and the dipping sauce added a nice depth to it. Without a basis for comparison, though, it's hard for me to say anything more. So... the cornbread. Well, it *is* advertised as Honey Cornbread. Personally, I didn't like this because it was just too sweet for me - I much prefer a richer corn flavor and less grittiness. Oh well. The Pulled Pork was mushy and the sauce weak at best. If I had eaten this blind, I would have sworn someone chewed it up for me in advance. So on to the brisket. Being from Texas, I love brisket and perhaps it's just me holding too high a standard, but the brisket was very much lacking in flavor and smokiness. I would even agree with some of the previous comments that it was more like pastrami than brisket. For the record, my favorite brisket is from Goode CompanyBBQ in my hometown Houston. It can not be mistaken for pastrami. Not even close. The ribs were perhaps the only passable meat offering on the platter. These were average, IMHO, but being a "wet BBQ" kind of guy, I was really disappointed the sauce offerings didn't do a better job complementing the meat. Side orders... the Baked Beans were a little too gluey for my taste, the Salt Potatoes were perhaps the highlight of the meal, and the BBQ Fried Rice... oh what was I thinking?! Before we ordered, I asked our waiter if it was more like a "dirty rice" but he was completely clueless. So my morbid curiosity decided to try what turned out to be a very Americanized fried rice with hints of BBQ smoke. Silly me. Finally, we finished with the Chocolate Ice Box Pie dessert (whatever it's called), which was fine, but by then, the damage had already been done. Score this one a 5/10. Here's hoping Paul Kirk will crack the code. I'm tired of having to wait for the holidays to get good 'cue.

I am quite surprised that after running a search and perusing 24 pages of thread results, I was unable to find a discussion of the best char siu in the city. So here we go... My current favorite is hole-in-the-wall Wing Wong on Lafayette St., which - strangely - was recommended to me by my uncle for their roast duck. I didn't think the duck was particularly outstanding, but their char siu is really something else and I've been eating char siu my whole life. Your suggestions?

i have had the nabeyaki udon at honmura an. definitely one of the better ones (if not the best) i have had. also, it's fairly cheap relative to other offerings on the menu.

i've read a lot of your opinions on fish meals on planes and i absolutely would agree. so, here's my question. what are your experiences with SUSHI on your (presumably asia) flights? business or coach? go for it or keep away?

in that case, you're also near wondee (52nd/9th), which is one of the better thai places in that neighborhood. i think it closes at 11, so post-theatre you would need to hurry a bit.

i had the omakase back in september and it was nearly identical to everything tetsujustin had. there may have been slight differences in the specific pieces of fish served, but the rest looks really familiar. at morimoto's in philly, if you tell them you've already had the omakase on a previous visit, you will absolutely get different dishes the next time around. not sure if it works the same way at JB since i've been there only once. i would also agree with earlier sentiments that you must compare to yasuda (my favorite) and/or kuruma before jumping to any conclusions.

delta grill i think you mean. quite average-y.

i'll add my vote for nha trang, centre st. i find their pho to be good in general, but it seems to get better in the evening, presumably as the flavor of the broth deepens. for banh mi, i like saigon banh mi. it's a TINY storefront at 88 east broadway right next to where the chinatown buses pick up for boston, philly, d.c., etc. and the line seems always to be about 7 or 8 people out the door. the other vietnamese dish i get constant cravings for is grilled pork chops on broken rice. for that dish, pho viet huong (mulberry @ bayard) seems to have the competition licked.

We went for a celebratory dinner the week before Thanksgiving and were seated at the bar with the man himself. One thing that surprised me is that you can still get the combination dinners for cheap - like 20 or 25 bucks. So you could theoretically walk out of there *under* $40/person which is just sick. Anyway, it was fab. Again. I don't know what I've been smoking that it's been 2 years since I last dined at Yasuda.

am i the only person here who finds the shack burger too salty because of the cheese? i ordered it this weekend without the cheese and it was so much better.

bukhara seems to get all the hype in delhi, but i found dum pukht also in the sheraton maurya to be outstanding as well (my last meal there was this past thursday). the food was classical mughal and the gosht biryani was particularly well done imho. if you get shut out at bukhara (which only takes reservations in the 7 - 8 pm slot with the rest first come) don't hesitate to bingo across the hotel to the other great restaurant.

[note to newyorktexan: who ever you are, you are making me think i'm reading my own posts. current new york resident born and bred in texas who just recently hopped AF to new delhi in business class.] anyway... i had SUCH high hopes for the food on air france after getting the first appetizer on the new york to paris half of my trip. it was a scallop and shrimp with some kind of mango salsa and both were PERFECTLY executed. i was stunned that *seafood* could turn out that way on a plane. what i failed to note was that it was served cold so when i took a chance on the fish main course, it was - as usual - overcooked and dry. in general, i found the apps to be much better than the mains. depressing what a convection oven often does to food. ahh, and yes, the champagnes/wines on the flights were superb.

wow. that's 20 blocks north of columbia. whoever said they'll be pulling in lots of the students had to be referring to the grad students.

i'm a transplanted texan who is up at columbia every week, so count me in! btw, if anyone can post the actual location (i couldn't find it on the website) that would be great; i'd love to walk by one of these days.

the curry katsu at katsuhama is da bomb. but what i really love there is that cabbage salad with the amazing dressing. the dressing bottle is usually empty by the time i leave!

i think haru is ok. it's just overpriced for what you're getting.

not sure if this has been brought up yet, but apparently, per se just went on opentable.com. i tried searches for the next 60 days and... ZILCH. ugh.

So we tried Casa Mono this weekend. We didn't eat all that much since it was rather late, but we were a little disappointed. Chipirones w/ White Beans - good, but the chipirones were a little overcooked and we felt the flavor was a little unidimensional. It also lacked the brininess of the same dish we had in Barcelona, which made me think perhaps the ingredients were not as fresh. Scallions with Romesco - these were good, but the Romesco sauce was a good bit spicier than what we had in Spain. I thought the spiciness dominated the sauce and if there was any complexity to be found, I couldn't find it underneath that layer of heat. Lamb with Favas and Mint - very tasty and perfectly cooked, but echo the comment above re: extremely salty Sweetbreads with Fennel al Mono - Excellent. Slightly salty, but the flavors and textures were controlled very well. This was definitely the best dish of the night. Chicken Liver a la plancha - I am not a liver fan, so it's hard for me to objective. My girlfriend thought this was good. I thought it was overpoweringly salty. (I suppose that is better than it being overpoweringly liver-y) Total bill was about $75, which we both felt was high given that we didn't exactly gorge ourselves, had no drinks, and no dessert.

i shudder to think how much food i could get at nha trang for $160...