Kent Wang

The blue and brown shades work beautifully.

Are there many restaurants serving bone marrow? I had some at Union in Seattle but they were not on the menu.

Dale Rice rather likes El Gringo.

Señor Sambamaster, I will defer to your analysis on that dish. You are much more experienced with this cuisine than I am. The ma po tofu was wonderful, very soft tofu. I wonder if I can buy that tofu to cook at home. Sichuan-style duck, though I think this is an inaccurate translation. Dry and crispy, quite the opposite of greasy Peking-style duck.

Peony, your last two photos are terrific; they really capture the textures of the foods. Imitation pork intestine (wheat gluten) stir-fried with mushrooms and bamboo. Anyone interested in a pictorial recipe for this? It's pretty simple.

Spec's in Houston. http://www.specsonline.com/cgi-bin/snf?body=/cgi-bin/people

Much better than Ehmer headcheese (see above). No vegetables, nice big chunks of pork. Meat is a little hammy, not soft like head meat should be. Nevertheless, a fine product as far as commercial charcuterie goes.

I like steamed egg custard. Tofu "salad" is also nice.

Chinese cuisine is the only one that I know that incorporates scrambled eggs into so many dishes. One of my favorites is tomato and scrambled eggs. I'll make that in a few days and post pics.

I think the real loser here is going to be Grapevine. Spec's has them beat on liquor (about the same selection but cheaper prices), food and maybe wine. They only maintain the lead in beer, and that has a much lower profit margin. Plus, it's an independent store, unlike Central Market, Whole Foods and Spec's.

I just went today and spent nearly an hour there. You really think their food selection is superior to Central Market North's? I definitely feel that the cheese and charcuterie, at least, are inferior. I've made a little Google Spreadsheet with liquor prices from Grapevine, Costco and Spec's. If you want to help contribute, send me a PM with your Google account name and I'll add you to the list of collaborators. The liquor is cheaper than Grapevine but on par with Costco, except on scotch where I've found Spec's to be about $4-9 cheaper than Costco per bottle. Spec's has a much larger selection than Costco so for things that they don't carry, Spec's will probably have cheaper than Grapevine. Beer selection is on par with Central Market North, inferior to Grapevine.

Looks cool, but won't it oxidize and brown very quickly, especially with apple?

I marinate the pork in soy sauce, cooking wine, baking soda and starch. The sriracha and sugar are added while cooking and sesame oil is added at the very end. Yes, we just had a new Asian supermarket open in Austin and the bitter melon is some of the freshest I've seen.

I believe Taqueria Arandinas on East Riverside is open until 4am. They have lengua (tongue) tacos.

I'll join the bitter melon party too. I like mine with a bit of sugar and sriracha to balance the bitterness. Then I like drizzle a bit of sesame oil.

How about those little glass vials of ginseng juice? I miss drinking those as a kid. I may have to pick that up again!

The Fermin Iberico chorizo is definitely from Spain. The pigs are from there and the chorizo is made there, too. Mortadella with pistachio: Fratelli Beretta, Rovagnati Fratelli Beretta: Very mild, nearly tasteless, faint preservative off-flavored aftertaste. A bit harder and denser than Rovagnati. Rovagnati: Slightly more flavorful than Beretta, more smoke and meat flavor. No off flavors.

Here are Qin Hui and his wife in Hangzhou. The Wikipedia article is nice: The Cantonese name yau ja gwai and Hokkien name u char kway literally mean oil-fried ghost and, according to tradition, is an act of protest against Song Dynasty official Qin Hui (秦檜, Cantonese: Chun Kui), who is said to have orchestrated the plot to frame the general Yue Fei (岳飛), an icon of patriotism in Chinese culture. It is said that the food represents Qin Hui and his wife, both having a hand in collaborating with the enemy to bring about the great general's demise. Thus the youtiao is deep fried and eaten as if done to the traitorous couple. In keeping with the legend, youtiao are often made as two foot-long rolls of dough joined along the middle, with one roll representing the husband and the other the wife. The word yau ja gwai is believed to be a corruption of yau ja Kui (油炸檜, Mandarin pronunciation: yóuzhá Huì; lit. oil-fried Qin Hui), possibly because the population were afraid to openly declare their contempt towards the corrupt official; nevertheless, the food became a tool in expressing contempt.

I don't beat the eggs before cooking. I just drop them into the pan, drizzle the oyster sauce and then stir it around a bit with the spatula. I like it more this way as the eggs are not so uniform; I like having patches of yolk and white here and there.

Have non-Japanese ingredients such as avocado, cream cheese, jalapeno become popular in Japan or do they remain American preferences? I rather dislike cream cheese but I think avocado is great and appeals to the East Asian palate. Are there ingredients that originated elsewhere, other than America, that have been imported back into Japanese sushi cuisine? I suppose this only covers non-seafood ingredients as I believe nearly all species from around the world are imported into Japan.

I made scrambled eggs with oyster sauce. Is that weird? It sure was delicious.

Another matter is just general economics. The market becomes less efficient if the buying public places a high cost (defined as any disincentive in addition to actual price) on food miles. As markets become less efficient, waste increases, quality of living is reduced. Also, food miles discourages specialization and the economics of scale are lost. The most efficient market solution is to simply penalize carbon emission production (through international treaties and pollution credits). That way the market assigns the true value of pollution from transportation and pricing becomes more efficient. I also agree that on face "food miles" is a bullshit argument usually espoused by under-informed yuppies who buy everything organic because they can afford it -- the Whole Foods crowd, if you will (OK, maybe that's getting too controversial). This is also the same crowd that loves sushi, so I always like to bring that up when one of them starts going off on "food miles" and then they quickly have a change of heart. I'll buy local if it tastes better, not because of pollution.

Tepee: Those ping pei rolls are beautiful. You know that shape resembles a butterfly. Maybe you can add a few sprigs of carrot, lotus stalk or ginger to make the antennae.

November 30, 2006 Austin Chronicle The Belmont. By Wes Marshall. "The place is gorgeous, both inside, with its plush leather horseshoe-shaped booths, and outside, with its inviting upstairs patio bar and stylish patrons. ... Final verdict: excellent bar, world-class service, but the kitchen needs a little attention."

Austin Chronicle's Mick Vann just reviewed Asia Cafe this week. Restaurant website. I went on Friday and had the twice-cooked pork and zhong dumplings, as recommended by the review. The zhong dumplings ($4.50) were terrific with handmade skins and very loose, fluffy filling. The pork ($7) was really bacon. It was sliced like store-bought bacon and had a smoky taste. Pork belly is certainly used in Chinese cuisine but bacon is not native. Nevertheless the dish was quite tasty with copious amounts of meat. Based on this single visit alone, I must say that I agree with Vann's review. Quality food, especially considering no one else is doing Sichuan cuisine in Austin. I definitely want to return many more times to try out the rest of the menu. Most of the employees there were speaking Mandarin, though I don't know the Sichuan dialect well enough to know if they were from Sichuan.