rumball

thanks, i'll look for dosas too. they looked like soft light brown pancakes. i found some chilla and pudla besan chick-pea pancake recipes. next time i go, if they have them, i'll ask for the name to be sure. apparently it's north-western cuisine and from area to area names of dishes/varieties differ. i am still quite vague on the subject. unfortunately, when they provide recipe/ dish descriptions , you don't often know which area/cuisine they are from.

i'll check that f&w recipe! coincidentally i was looking to do smth with 'red batata' also labeled 'california batata'. anybody familiar with that? i saw a reference to dulce de batata in latin cuisine - is that like mashed sweet potatoes or smth else? i usually just bake it brushed with oil in the stove, but was thinking of more variety. why not latkes? especially spiced with poblanos may be and sprinkled with chorizo?

you know what i found very funny when i first got to nyc? that latkes are considered jewish food and served in dairy 'jewish restaurants' - tried my first somewhere around 57st - very different from my prior home food experience. the reason being: my granma was from the border of belorussia and russia and i grew up eating them. its' a traditional dish, a staple - nothing much grows in wet belorussia, but potatoes and rye. it's also very popular in lithuania and poland. guess, it's another example of borrowed dish? everybody eats it with sour cream, of course and caramelized onions too. my best approx to russian sour cream so far - cream on top of 'stonyfield farm' organic yogurt with cream on top. i'd dilute it with a bit of milk to create more liquid consistency - russian sour cream is more like thickened cream sauce. but besides that creme fraiche comes close. and yes, you fry it on butter - since oil in the old days was practically unknown in the villages. the idea of adding a bit of duck fat sounds very enticing. and of course, you put flour , not matzo into the mix! and grate strictly raw potatoes, never cooked. soaking 'the grates' in water washes out too much starch - so mine latkes were always kinda dark brown too . my mother used to make a very interesting variation: do half potato/half ground beef, brown on both sides, then stack them vertically in dutch oven, pour cream/sour cream mix on top and finish cooking on stove top or in the oven. m-m-m!

sorry, hit the wrong button! as a born russian i can tell you - adding either kalua or milk to vodka is an atrocity. here's my very own var of lemontini that goes down like lemonade, but you need to get a good expensive lemonchello for that: Lemontini: 3 jiggers limonchello (italian of course!) 5 jiggers vodka. half a lemon, juiced, zest grated into glasses. Shake with ice, add 2 drops of angostura bitters. Also can try with lime. Lime is better. my jigger is 4tsp (20ml). the other very healthy suggestion that you might mistake for a smoothie is this: 1 cup fresh strawberry puree, 3 cubes frozen blackberry puree thawed slightly, juice of ½ lime, 4 tsp powder sugar, 5 jiggers of white rum or vodka. it's my special for u-pick season , when loads of blackberries fall off the sky:-D. i puree, strain and freeze them. subs? may be frozen raspberries, since the drink needs the tartness. but that i have not tried myself. believe me, you can go thru your vodka supply in no time with these. ps. i like polish vodka best: belvedere and chopin.

most resorts in pc are all inclusive, so people stay inside. there's a little shopping village, but not busy at all. yes, the food is generally overcooked and underspiced. look on tripadvisor site - there's a lot of posts for punta cana - may be you'll find something to your taste.

I think my best meal of the year happened by accident and therefore it was that much more appreciated. We were passing thru Tampa and staying at grand hyatt tampa bay. being very lazy and tired on xmas eve we opted for Armani - hyatt rest. on 14 fl. To our chargreen it was booked solid and we opted to eat in the lounge. It's nothern italian cuisine and we ordered veal scallopini with wild mushrooms and brandy sauce and duck breast with raspberry balsamic reduction. saucing was totally superb! It was really a surprise, since later we went to miami and did sambal (miami favourite), michy - runner up and azul (came only 3rd!). But the meal at Armani topped them all!

i adore chinese mustard greens : gai(kai) choy. they are usually slightly cooked, but i use them raw in salads, they remind me of french mustard greens, but are crunchier, smoother and more peppery without the fuzzy feel. they're great with baked calabasa (mex. pumpkin) with boursin or goat cheese, drizzled with olive oil and very old balsamico. chinese garlic chives (in nyc markets they call them leeks) are great on top of that too. i go out of my way to korean market to get them.

i noticed nobody mentioned amiya yet - it's downtown jersey city, next to exchange pl path station. http://www.amiyarestaurant.com/ it's usually quite busy and a lot of locals like it. in case you don't know lots of IT indians from wall st live in the area and seem to love the place. they serve buffet at lunch - which i usually avoid. but it was rather good. especially the freshly made just for you chickpea pancakes. at least that's what i thought they were. i've been looking for a good recipe since.