Kent Wang

I don't know if you can get much under $1k that isn't IKEA. Buying used on Craigslist, and MattJohnson's suggestion of getting it custom made would be good alternatives. This is my IKEA bar that I got second-hand from Craigslist for around $400. I think they paid $600. It's probably discontinued. It works really well for me. A little wobbly if you shake it, but that doesn't happen often. It's not like a chair that's going to take a lot of punishment so the IKEA quality is fine for my use.

FWIW, Death & Co. uses Barbancourt white in a lot of their drinks. It appears to be their primary white rum, though they also use Brugal and La Favorite rhum agricole. Andy, where are you getting your Barbancourt white in Texas? Spec's appears to only stock their dark rums.

Are they the same snails as escargot snails? The eggs seem awfully big for such a small snail.

It's hard to tell how big they are from the photos? Are they as big as salmon roe?

I was under the impression that all good sushi restaurants buy their fish frozen. The idea that the best sushi is unfrozen is something that amateurs thought up. Yasuda (of Sushi Yasuda in New York) told me something like "frozen or not, doesn't matter. And tuna is better after a few days." It seemed like a rant, as if he encountered this question often. Please explain. Not that it matters to me whether it's frozen or not.

I visited Snow's again 27 Dec 2008. I asked for my brisket moist (which I always do) and the guy grabbed a fresh, uncut brisket and gave me a cut right from the tip. He did this for me twice, once when I got my dine-in order, and another to go. He said he recognized me from my previous visit. All the people in front of me in line got very dry looking pieces from the middle. It was great, certainly, but not as smoky as what I've had at Louie Mueller, Cooper's, etc. But definitely Top 5-level quality. Chicken this time was pretty dry. Sausage was decent, but is all beef and naturally quite dry. They don't make the sausage themselves, they get it from City Meat Market in Giddings. I didn't notice they have pork loin last time. It was very good, best I've ever had. It's not as smoky as the brisket, but I imagine it's not possible to have it come out both smoky and moist, and with pork loin I'll take moist over smoky. On the way to the rest room I noticed these jugs of pre-made barbecue sauce. The ingredients list include high fructose corn syrup and a variety of artificial junk. All the more reason to not besmirch your barbecue with sauce. I wonder how many other barbecue restaurants also use this stuff. More photos on my Flickr Snow's BBQ review on Fearless Critic partially written by me

Do they have fortune cookies in other parts of the West?

Google define says: Brasserie - A small restaurant serving beer and wine as well as food; usually cheap (wordnet.princeton.edu). Osteria - A tavern or humble restaurant where wine is served as the main attraction and tasty food is prepared to wash it down. splendidtable.publicradio.org/whereweeat/travel_italian.html Not that those are the most authoritative sources... Also, in America I get the feeling that the definitions get corrupted.

I usually roast it in the oven on a rack. Low and slow, just like bacon.

This is a great start. I'd like to make some tiki drinks, and non-tiki as well but don't want to stock more than four dark rums. Do you think Cruzan Blackstrap has a place? Does it deserve its own super-dark category? Now that we've established these broad categories, where do all the countries fit into them?

For mixing purposes, how many rums do I need? I figure only one white rum, so Flor De Cana for me. For dark rums, maybe I need three or four. I see recipes that call for Bermuda, Virgin Islands, Demerara, and all these different types; so instead of stocking each one of these, can I just substitute some of them? Between the dark rums, can I have just three rums, categorized as light, medium, and dark? Maybe: light: Flor de Cana medium: Gosling's Black Seal dark: Cruzan Blackstrap

There are cloudberry liqueurs as well (Google). That funky flavor Verjuice described sounds interesting. I first heard about cloudberries at the liquor store. A woman asked about the liqueur; she saw it on TV and said the program said that cloudberries only grew at the high altitude of the Himalayas. Haha.

Hong Kong Food Street Very good Hong Kong cuisine. I posted about it in my eGfoodblog in 2007 (first visit, second). Below are some excerpted photos: Winter melon soup, which is a rich soup cooked inside a winter melon. It is considered one of the most famous dishes of Cantonese cuisine. This had to be ordered a few days in advance. Clams steamed in rice wine. One can find similar versions in Spanish cuisine that use sherry instead of rice wine, French using white whine and Italian using red wine. Rice wine is the least acidic of these and greatly enhances the richness of the broth. Fuzhou My parents told me about this place. They heard about it through a Chinese radio ad. I couldn't find any information on Google about it, not even an address. Their phone is 713-995-1889, and it's located in the Di Ho shopping center, north of the Welcome Food Center in Bellaire. I've been twice now and think this is as good, maybe even better than Hong Kong Food Street, but it's hard to compare as they are different regional cuisines. More photos, comments, and menu on my Flickr. Some excerpts: Pickled daikon. Superb. Made in-house. Ask if they forget to give it to you as soon as you sit down. It's free, and you can ask for refills. Fuzhou style dumpling soup. Very small dumplings. Quite tasty. Sauteed snails. Will take one person an hour to eat. Very flavorful and fresh. Needs to be eaten with toothpicks; ask if they forget to provide you with some. Frog with salt and pepper. Great. Like tiny fried chicken legs. Their salt and pepper technique is the best I've ever had, better than T&S Seafood (Austin). Light, airy batter. Business has been really slow the two times I've been there, so am a little concerned it might close. Please pay them a visit, for their sake and yours!

I should add that I think it's much better eating if you flip the fish because you have better access to the delicious skin. If you don't flip, you could very well lose some of the skin. And it's not too hard to flip if you employ the assist.

Nearly every Chinese I know! Topic: Fish eyes. The question then is: do non-Chinese eat fish eyes?

With the pineapple rum, are you just chopping the pineapple? Could you also puree it since you're going to filter it? You would get maximum extraction, though you would also end up with a lot of the juice and the attendant sweetness, which could be good or bad. Wouldn't this also be good for making a bisque, where you take shrimp (crawfish, or lobster) shells, blend them, boil and then put them through the funnel? Basically, any application where you would otherwise use cheesecloth and press? Or is this just as time consuming?

I've tried chopping up just the core of a pineapple, into centimeter-size pieces, then covering with white rum (Flor de Cana). I keep it in the fridge (maybe optional) and shake it a few times a day. After about four days the infusion is ready. In some ways, it is better than fresh pineapple juice because it doesn't have the sweetness, just the aromatic, pineapple-y elements. I don't bother straining as you only have a few tiny bits of pineapple and I like that. A fine-mesh strainer would work, or a Büchner Funnel. What I like about this method is that it extracts a lot of pineapple flavor without extracting very much liquid (the amount seems neglible), and you have a shelf-stable product that you can add at your convenience. And to echo Chris, it makes a killer daiquiri. The syrup extraction sounds interesting. I'll give it a shot. If you really want pineapple juice, I think you can actually put it in a juicer. An automatic, mechanical one would probably be best as it seems pretty time consuming. Central Market has a huge industrial juicer and will sell you a half gallon of juice for about $20 (you have to ask for a custom juicing as they usually only make a pineapple-orange juice). I would never ever use the canned stuff. It just tastes terrible. I recommend just using the pineapple rum infusion even if it calls for juice and adjusting your recipe to compensate. This sounds pretty crazy. Is there any potential of it spoiling and getting you sick? Would it be better to buy a yeast?

These scrubs are just getting you nice and marinaded for when the aliens come and cook you and eat you up.

New York Times: Norway Wins

I forgot to add that we raised $20 for eGullet.

A dumpling house could make several different kinds of dumplings, from each region. Actually, I think there are lots of dumpling houses in New York (see THE BEST: Chinese Dumplings) and the Din Tai Fung chain that's mostly in Asia with a few shops in California. I agree with you that it has a lot of potential, and you would think you would see more all over the place.

Is Estonian cuisine similar to Finnish and Baltic?

It seems like the amount of effort each country puts into the contest is very uneven. The LA Times articles touches on this, explaining that European teams are better funded while US teams have to seek their own sponsorships.

What is the proper etiquette for eating noodles with chopsticks? Do you grab as much as you can with the chopsticks, stick what you can in your mouth and bite off the noodles that don't fit? Or grab only as many noodles as can fit, then suck all of them in, without biting off any? This is a little messier due to the potential splashing of broth while slurping, and of course the accompanying sound. Can we learn from the Westerners and twirl the chopsticks?

I think it's wonderful that eGers are getting together like this. How did you first break the ice and ask Pille and Verjuice if you could come visit? Are you staying with them or do you have a hotel?