Kent Wang

This link is broken. When and how will we be able to purchase one of your bitters?

Do you think they make it in Texas, say in Houston where my parents are?

The next level is to deconstruct the sandwich and simply eat each of the individual ingredients by themselves. I like my charcuterie by itself, cheese by itself.

Pleasantly surprised with the Wellshire chorizo I tried their sopressata. Awful, very mushy. Their "salami with herbs" was nothing special, about as good as Molinari, inferior to Columbus. Fabrique Delices duck sausage Some of the most expensive sausage I've ever seen at $34/lb. Texture is very similar to a typical sausage, not at all like poultry. If I hadn't known, I would have guessed this was a pork-beef blend. Flavor is intense, lots of garlic with big chunks of black pepper. Strong meaty taste, like aged duck confit. Natural pork casing. I like it a lot, but it's rather pricey.

I went back to Gene's today. They have chicken & dumplings on Wednesday. The broth is extremely thick, with lots of flour, about as thick as a New England clam chowder. The chicken is pretty tender, but it's in one big piece that you have to break up yourself. It is only one breast. Serving size is huge, enough for a meal onto itself plus it comes with cornbread and a side of green beans. Broth had good chicken flavor, but most likely comes from a can of chicken broth. Seasoning has lots of black pepper and a bit of other spices but the very small and evenly sized pieces of spices in the broth strongly suggests a commercially made spice blend. Dumplings are nice, but not too fluffy. No vegetables or anything other than chicken and dumplings. Price is also expensive at about $8, but this is reasonable considering the portion. Also had the fried shrimp and catfish plate. Shrimp and catfish were of not too fresh, probably frozen, commercial quality. Frying is nice with a thin, unseasoned, golden batter. This is in contrast to Lola's which is even thinner but highly seasoned. I think Quality Seafood will do a better job with fresher ingredients and Lola's would do it with better seasoning. I had green beans (typical canned, no flavor) and potato salad (boring, too mushy). Overall, I think Gene's is pretty good but has no advantage to Quality Seafood and Lola's with the dishes they all serve. It is also not particularly more cajun than those other two restaurants with a lot of just plain Southern cuisine. The only exceptions are the jambalaya and New Orleans barbecue, which I plan to try next time.

In China, there are restaurants where you pick out a live chicken, they kill it in front of you (by smashing its head on the sidewalk) and serve it immediately. I suppose this is not a good idea then? Is this true for all poultry, or just chicken?

I once emailed Billington's complimenting them on their excellent sugars and asked if I could be an "ambassador" for their products in the US. No response. Anyone have any luck trying that out? I admit that I didn't have high expectations for them to accept my offer.

I like the dropper idea. But can you get bigger droppers that will dispense a larger volume with each drop?

An old lady once criticized me at Whole Foods for befouling the peaches with my grubby hands. This has failed to deter from continuing to do so. How about small items that you need a lot of, like key limes or lychees? I must admit that I just start shoveling them into the bag without much discrimination.

From Clerks: RANDAL: Liar! Tell me there aren't customers that annoy the piss out of you on a daily basis. DANTE: There aren't. RANDAL: How can you lie like that? Why don't you vent? Vent your frustration. Come on, who pisses you off? DANTE: (reluctantly) It's not really anyone per se, it's more of separate groupings. RANDAL: Let's hear it. DANTE: (pause) The milkmaids. RANDAL: The milkmaids? INSERT: MILK HANDLER A WOMAN pulls out gallon after gallon, looking deep into the cooler for that perfect container of milk. DANTE (O.C.): The women that go through every gallon of milk looking for a later date. As if somewhere-beyond all the other gallons-is a container of milk that won't go bad for like a decade.

Ah Leung, your many posts re-invigorated my passion for Chinese food. Thank you.

While this may be true for some people, I personally found the funkiness of the maraschino off-putting. I still prefer the Last Word to Aviation as it is balanced by the Chartreuse.

Funny that the Cocktail forum posters keep such strange hours.

There are numerous references on Google to the Song Dynasty poet, Su Tung Po, who was said to have eaten 300 lychees a day when he was exiled to Guangdong. Does anyone have more information about this fellow. Maybe he wrote a poem about lychees, too?

The season is more than half-way over! Has anyone ordered from this place this year? Any other US sources?

Sale alert: Central Market now has lychees in stock at $3.99. MT Supermarket will probably have them, too, now but last year all the ones I bought from them were dry and not very fresh.

There is an old thread on the Sunset Valley Farmers Market but I thought it would be good to consolidate all discussion of farmers markets and groceries in one thread. Sales and new items of note at Central Market, Whole Foods, HEB, etc can be posted here as well. As far as farmers markets go, I only frequent the Sunset Valley and Austin Farmers Markets (downtown). Sunset Valley Farmers Market Website Sunset Valley is a bit larger than the downtown market and has received a lot of accolades from local and national sources. They recently celebrated their 10th anniversary (Statesman article). My favorite vendors: Full Quiver Farms. Cheeses, chicken, pork, beef. I think the Peach Creek (downtown market, see below) pork is slightly better but Full Quiver is a bit cheaper. Every few months I will buy a whole boneless pork loin from them to cut up for use in various Chinese dishes that call for pork. Small-farm pork is truly worlds better than commercial. I think the difference is much greater than it is for chicken and beef. Pasta & Co. (Discussion). Fresh-made pasta products. They have a storefront on Kirby Lane but it's convenient to buy from them when you're already at the market. Greek empanada vendor. I can't remember the name but they are the best ready-to-eat vendor there. I like their empanadas the most. Austin Farmers Market Website. They're open on Saturdays downtown at Republic Square and also 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesdays at The Triangle. The Wednesday time is very convenient as not everyone can wake up early on Saturdays. Favorite vendors: Peach Creek Farms. Pork is all they sell. They are the primary reason why I come to this market at all. Their pork is a bit better than Full Quiver, about the same marbling but much juicier. Brazilian food vendor. They're my favorite food vendor at this market, and I think I like it even more than the Sunset Valley empanadas.

June 21, 2007 Austin Chronicle Eating Fresh in Texas. By Barbara Chisholm. Guide to Texas produce now in season. Austin Chronicle Chado Tea Market. By Virginia B. Wood. "Today, Tony's chic little shop is filled with the results of his explorations – more than 70 varieties of gourmet loose teas sold by the ounce, plus a tasteful selection of tea accoutrements, including Japanese and Chinese teapots." Austin American-Statesman Cafe 909 continues to surprise and please with its Top 10 fare. By Dale Rice. "With his cuisine, Schmidt has made Marble Falls a mandatory excursion for the serious foodies of Central Texas. He continues to demonstrate that the Top 10 restaurants of this region aren't all within 30 minutes of downtown Austin."

If you're not familiar, a popular use of the watermelon around these parts is to to carve a whole in the melon and stick a bottle of vodka in it and let the liquor infuse the entire melon. It takes about a day or two, then you crack it open and chow down and get wasted. Or so I've been told. I've never actually had one and the few times I tried to do it myself, the vodka never distributed throughout the watermelon. I gave up on trying when I decided I don't even like vodka in my watermelon. I put some watermelon in a blender and added vodka and found the combination revolting. Not nearly as good as, say, a strawberry daiquiri.

I, too, use the Evert-Fresh bags. I only have the small ones as I put scallions, mint and other herbs in them. I find that they at least double the life of vegetables. Scallions, for example, will last for two weeks instead of the usual four days.

Does DC, as a federal district, have no liquor laws beyond the federal ones?

I had a soup with sea horse and cordyceps (discussed in the blog comments) in Hong Kong. The seahorses did not seem to contribute much flavor to the soup. It's fun to eat the remaining bodies as the bones become very brittle.

They have truly shamed their ancestors.

Fat Guy, I am intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Those kosher restrictions really made you miss out on what Hudson's is known for: the wild game. But that the more conventional dishes were also done so well really speaks volumes about their menu. That cake sounds intriguing, very unusual. I'm impressed that it turned out well.