muichoi

How was the Petrus? I hope it wasn't one of the thousands of fakes with which Paris is currently flooded!

What a hoot-but actually it's not a bad book. The one I like is 'Wild food from land and sea'. I'm a fan of wilfully non-functional cookbooks.

Oh my! Well, she's gotta be a little homesick. Many, but not all, recipes of spaGEEti (TM Giada) served at parties here (especially fiestas and children's birthday parties) have ketchup in them. So much so that some canned spaGEEti sauces are labeled "Sweet Style," thus making it more economical, not that people still don't add ketchup to them. ← Interesting...when we were kids, my mother decided to make spaghetti with meat sauce. Well, since we didn't know any better being first generation Chinese immigrants and all, my mom decided that ketchup was tomato sauce. (which I guess it kinda is) So growing up I ate and loved my mom's speghetti and meat sauce made with ketchup, pork, onions and rigatonni. It might sound weird but it's actually very good. ← you think that's bad? when my mom's friend's mother (whew!) first moved to the states from korea, she ate a can of dog food, because she thought it was for human consumption. EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW ← I expect she thought it was tinned dog. Korean grannies love dog,I've been on some very amusing excursions in Seoul!

Oh dear, oh dear. Can't you Americans behave yourselves?

This is SOOOOOOO TRUE. I am always running out of spring onions and when I have them they always go bad. What is up with that? koreans consume garlic and green onion like it's going out of style. I think koreans also consume more garlic than any other country in the world. ← I find it's best to keep spring onions out of the fridge just until they are dry to the touch. They then keep refrigerated for ages.

Isn't that a bit like serving Carnaroli or Vialone nano with korean food? it doesn't behave in remotely the same way. ← what is carnarolia or vialone nano? Is that a type or arborio rice? Of course my risotto isn't authentic, but hey I have huge 10 lb bags of rice and when I have it I'm going to use it for risotto. They both give off a lot of starch and I've seen other people use japanese or korean rice when it comes to making risotto so I thought I'd give it a try ← Carnaroli and Vialone Nano are Italian rices, as is Arborio. I don't think one should be cavalier with other cuisines, myself,otherwise the world becomes homogeneous,which is dull. Of course small substitutions are fine, but a Risotto is a dish of Italian rice in which the other ingredients are secondary. It's like trying to make roast pork out of rabbit-it may be nice, but it's not the same thing.

This is the irony; stock cubes are mainly hydrolyzed protein, which is essentially MSG, which is what gives the 'umami hit in the mouth' -- (grins impishly, much like a child in sweetshop). Now if you say you use Knorr, modern foodies will turn on you quicker than Actaeon's hounds, but if you say umami, they will queue around the block in order to get their chests autographed. ← True-but HVP has a really disgusting flavour and smell that pure MSG doesn't have. Far less bad.

More than me, Alan. I think 'celebrity' means someone who's been on the telly nowadays. An absolute shower, no doubt, judging by last nights' transcendentally inept showing.

It's funny , this chefly enthusiasm for stock cubes. They are instantly recognisable and all disgusting. The very discreet use of MSG is actually far preferable, though I'm certainly not advocating it in western cuisines.

I've heard about this rule, but never understood why it's bad form. I can see the logic behind many other manners rules (e.g. elbows on the table may crowd others, etc.) but what's the why of this one? thanks Milagai ← It's entirely logical-apart from anything else, by 'spreading' it we destroy the carefully achieved texture. It also looks awful-there is a similar tendency here to want to make everything into sandwiches. In France they also understand that cheese is eaten with a knife and fork, which is a great relief.

Isn't that a bit like serving Carnaroli or Vialone nano with korean food? it doesn't behave in remotely the same way.

I like Thai rice best with Chinese food. It's supposed to have a very high glycaemic index, but on the other hand you don't see many overweight Thais. American long grain is much better for frying, but I find fried rice too heavy on the stomach these days.Basmati is really a great delicacy, but no more goes with chinese food than does olive oil. I've just counted and I keep 11 different rices in my kitchen, even brown which i've tried to like but can't.

Not true-you need some soda and a great deal of stirring in one direction by hand.

Agreed-and has been on another level since about last december.

Pearl Liang is 3 minutes walk from Paddington, and absolutely first class. No queing problems, and if anything better than Royal China.

Jon's reply puts my position far more eloquently than I can. It was Michel Roux of the neighbouring establishment who first alerted me to the fact that the kitchen far prefers to be challenged rather than churn out tasting menus on automatic, and that choosing a la carte is always the more interesting choice. Zoticus, your last sentence defines tourism precisely.

Why does everyone order the 'tasting menu' here? it's always been the poorly informed tourists' choice in serious restaurants, and the FD is no different.

I understand that also. The roast meats are glorious, but don't order anything else!

Just enthralling, Peter. Thank you!

Be careful when opening-it may fly out all over the kitchen.

In my one-off experience, Canteen served food that was neither better nor worse than that served at my school in the 1970s. Remarkably similar, in fact.

About 1300.

If you grind rice in a a coffee/spice grinder you can make goodish jook in ten minutes.

Cooked in the oven in a salt crust, inside a cast iron casserole. I use egg whies with the salt, not too authentic, but good and spectacular. With the great Cantonese chicken dishes, though, all depends on the quality of the bird, and I have a Poulet de Bresse

Chinese new year lunch tomorrow, as it happens, by accident rather than design, weird menu as so many people to please. boneless pigs feet with garlic sauce Roast duck and jellyfish salad grilled baby squid with lime and chilli(not too chinese!) dry cooked bamboo shoots sichuan cucumbers dry fried pork with sesame Peking duck Beef with oyster sauce(and oyster mushrooms) Pork 'with fish flavour' dried squid with chilli gai laan with ginger-wine sauce lotus leaf rice belly pork with muichoi steamed turbot salt-baked chicken lime sorbet. lots of work for the cook!