trillium

It sounds like their 25 for $25 menu is not showcasing their best stuff or it just isn't to your taste. I know we don't have very similiar tastes in restaurants, you love Carpriel's, while I think the dishes are too busy, too many flavors going on and just trying too hard to be "creative", I guess. Southpark is one of my favorite restaurants in Pdx, I've been there about 4 times and each time had something pretty exceptional (spicy scallops and chard on spaghetti, a mixed fish stew, the mussels, the yuppie hamburgers, the roasted banana ice cream with chocolate galette, etc). I like the fact that they don't overwhelm their dishes with too many things going on at once and let the quality of the ingredients shine. The $25 menu doesn't look that exciting to me, though, and I'll add as a wine drinker, they have a very odd wine list for this location. Thanks for posting all of these, it's great to see what's on the menus. I'll only be able to go to one or two, we just don't eat out that much, so you're helping to narrow it down. regards, trillium

How nice to see you here, I've loved your website...and you've picked one of my favorite drinks to drink in NO as your handle. Um, I hope I don't get into too much trouble hijaking the thread, but could you recommend a good liquour store in New Orleans? I'm going to be there next month and I'd like to buy some things I can't usually except by mail, since I live in the land of state controlled shops now. regards, trillium

That is so cool! I love the proto-cocktail class in the Teniers painting. Neat. Thanks for sharing those. regards, trillium

While rum isn't condusive to "shots" there is plenty of very fine sipping rum that rivals good cognacs. I think for the most part the flavor profile of gin is created with the idea it will be drunk cold. regards, trillium

Cocktail glasses people, please! Not "martini" glasses although martinis are served in them. That's how we end up with x martini (apple, chocolate etc) to denote anything served in a cocktail glass. I'm a philistine. I've collected old Luminarc barware from Goodwills and I like drinking my cocktails in those, I'm not sure what I'd call them. They're smallish with very thick bottoms and hold just the right volume for a modest cocktail. No stems, one set flares up from the base, one set is curved in the middle. And while I'm confessing, we drink our wine in old little juice glasses. regards, trillium

I haven't read "Monsoon Diary", but I have and love "Life and Food in Bengal" (isn't there two different versions of this?). I was given "The Mistress of Spices" by someone and dutifully read it, rolling my eyes and snorting all the way through. regards, trillium

Or lamb... regards, trillium

Hi rona Hmmm. Traditional. I think it varies from house to house, and even inside of a house. I always rinse anything dried, to get off dust, grit, whatever...you know...processing cooties. In this case I also rinse the fish to remove a little bit of the salt, the same as when I'm using salted choys and turnips and preserved black beans. Sometimes the salt is even crusted onto the outside of the preserved thing, and I don't think it adds anything to the dish. I want to be able to add other salty ingredients that contribute flavors besides salt. I also think a little bit of water on the salted ingredient before you add it to the dish helps spread the flavor and also helps the frying, so the ingredient doesn't stick and burn at such hot temps. The other cook in the house doesn't bother, unless I bug him to do it while we're cooking. I hear you on the rice and fried salted fish bit...good stuff. regards, trillium

Ok, I should have been more specific in my examples, I got carried away. German cake isn't German and you won't find it in Germany. Manchurian chicken? All over India, not in Manchuria. Same with Singapore noodles. They don't exist in Singapore. You won't find them in Singapore under any name, unlike French Fries, Bombay toast, or Canadian bacon, which you can (sort of) find under a different nomenclature in their namesake country or city. I'm guessing Singapore noodles got their start in HK and travelled through cooks at Cantonese restaurants overseas. Not that they can't be good, just that they're not Singaporean. regards, trillium

I see your point, and you're right. regards, trillium (with a "u"!! like the flower and lake...)

Nope, they're not... Funny you should mention that, we just had a conversation about this sort of thing it at lunch, it was me and guys from Bejiing, Munich and Bombay. We came up with Singapore noodles, French Toast, French Fries, German chocolate cake, Bavarian cream, Bombay toast, Manchurian chicken and Chinese chicken salad. regards, trillium

Just for fun... regards, trillium

Some food for thought...ahem. In the US, at least 4 years ago when I read the reports, salmonella inside of eggs is larged confined to the NE, something to do with the ovaries being infected. The rest of salmonella poisoning came from sloppy food handling in professional kitchens where large vats of eggs mixed with other stuff sat out at room temp, and the bugs were most likely introduced after the eggs had been broken. Some countries, like Sweden, have removed salmonella from their flocks completely. The last time I was there, which was 12 years ago, they were selling eggs at room temperature. regards, trillium

Ah, good old rec.food.equipment! And don't forget rec.food.cooking and alt.food.asian...the length of those threads always astounded me. You'd never see such heated discussion about electric mixers vs. handbeaters like you would about rice cookers. Don't worry, you're in the majority, everyone is always surprised. But you get bonus points for 1) knowing it wasn't a chemical, 2) knowing it wasn't a character in a Douglas Adam's novel and 3) that because it was a flower, it was likely I was female. regards, trillium

No, certainly not! You actually don't want the water to come all the way up to the bottom of the steamer. Usually for quick dishes, 2 - 3 inches is enough. You can always replenish it with more boiling water if it starts to run low. Just remove the steamer with hotpads (don't uncover it), set it aside, and add a little more boiling water if you think you're going to run out. regards, trillium

I knew someone would ask! MSG gets put into claypot dishes very often, because it's believed that it heightens the "meaty" and rich taste of the dish. Claypot dishes are supposed to be very mellow and rich tasting, not exciting as much as comforting. It really is an optional ingredient, especially since the dried fish has tons of free glutamate in it anyway. In talking about sapo dishes with friend's mums, one woman insist you can't make claypot dishes without it, but another who thinks MSG is a crutch for lazy cooks. I figured I'd let the reader decide. regards, trillium

Hi Chad, I'm glad you enjoyed the class. The question about whether or not rice cookers "are worth it" is a relative question and old Usenet threads used to go on for days discussing the pros and cons, so excuse the length of my reply. In short, it's not at all necessary but it's very convenient. I'll try to list why we like them. It frees up a burner on the stove, which we frequently need, when both of us are trying to get our dishes done at the same time. It takes the guess work out of cooking rice, you dump in your rice, you fill the water to the line inside the rice cooker (or higher or lesser depending on the rice and your preference), you push the button and come back a half hour later to perfect rice. Since we get home rather late, but still like to cook dinner, the "no brainer" part is appealing. During grad school days, we throw in stuff to cook along with the rice and have a really easy, tasty meal. The cooker will not do a better job than the stove. Some people find the texture of rice cooked on the stove is slightly better. Will it be more consistent? It depends on how well you can cook your rice! I was given the rice cooker we have now as a parting gift in college from one of my best friends, who would come over to eat when I made Thai red curry (college style...all from cans, except the chicken, and frozen green beans). She's ethnic Chinese and told me when she gave it to me "this is for all those dinners you cooked for us, the curry was great but you cook rice like a white person". Sometimes it would be soggy and waterlogged; sometimes it would be too crunchy. So back then, it did do a more consistent job than I could. This was about 10 years ago, now I'm much better at doing it on the stove, but I still prefer the ease of the rice cooker. For the other cook in the house, who grew up eating rice 2 or 3 times a day, the rice cooker didn't really do a more consistent job but he likes using it for convenience as well. On brands, the two best makers are probably National and Zojirushi. That being said, the one we've been using at least 4 times a week for the last 10 years is the Aroma brand. Models are a trickier question; it depends on how much of a gadget freak you are. A basic model would be one that has a "cook" and "warm" function. The warm function keeps your rice warm until you turn it off. In some houses, the rice cooker is on all the time. You can go all the way up to the super fancy Zojirushi fuzzy neuro logic models that are supposed to have the ability to figure out what sort of rice you're cooking and change the cooking and steaming times. I think you can program those as well. The gadget freak in the house has been eyeing them for years, but I'm sentimentally attached to my old, beat-up little rice cooker, so we haven't replaced it. We advised my mum to buy the Zoji basic 10-cup model with the stay warm feature and she's been very happy with it for years. Don't buy the smallest one, if you buy one, buy at least the 6 or 10 cup model, they can handle smaller amounts, but you'll probably end up using the larger amounts more often. You can find online deals nearly anywhere (30 - 35% below list), but most Asian grocery stores will have matching prices. regards, trillium

Sweetish things are mostly just snack items in a lot of Asian cuisines or special occasion stuff. The idea of eating something extremely sweet, heavy and rich at the end of your meal is just not really done. I'm not so sure it's really a bad thing. You can get good sweet snack items at most Vietnamese restaurants, but most Americans don't think of them as "desserty" enough. I'm thinking of jackfruit, soursop or avacado smoothies or what I call chendol (mung bean noodles flavored with pandan and served with palm sugar syrup and coconut milk), various agar based desserts etc. regards, trillium

Yes, the clam dish is the most photogenic. In general the homestyle stuff doesn't look very pretty on the plate, but it does taste good! It's fine to use the steamer insert in a pasta pot set, or pressure cooker, like I mentioned. I hope lack of a bamboo steamer doesn't prevent anyone from trying a steamed recipe or two. I've seen bamboo steamers in high end kitchen shops under the Joyce Chen line, or you could buy one online at places like Sur La Table or Ethnic Grocer. Just make sure to buy one that fits your biggest pot, larger sizes make it easier to steam things on plates. Even smaller places without large Chinatowns should have an Asian grocery, and bamboo steamers are a pretty common item. regards, trillium

I'm going to stay out of the whole "exportation of a particular thing from one culture into another purely for profit can be good for the original culture" question. I still haven't decided how I feel about Elvis, so I can't really move on to bao, as much as I think every stance is more interesting if there are equal and opposite polemicists contributing to the discussion. I can say how I felt about the bao. The bread part of the bun was perfectly acceptable. Some people hold that the best are ultra-white and super, super fluffy, and these don't fall into that catagory, which is fine with me, I like a little chewiness. I had the char siu (bbqed pork) and kung pao chicken fillings. I thought both fillings relied too much on a sweetish, cornstarch thickened sauce. The kung pao needed more of a roast chilli and vinegar flavor, it was too sweet and gloppy for its namesake, but it did have a nice ginger zing like good kung pao does. I like char siu fillings to be less saucy and have a more pronounced bbqed taste, but this one fell within the acceptable spectrum of styles. I thought both fillings tasted too similiar. On a positive note, it's very unlikely that you'd get a bao at Wow Bao that has gristley bits of meat in it as can happen when you're at a snack shop that isn't very good. Would I call them delicious? It depends on how hungry I was. For quick and cheap on Michigan Ave, If I couldn't go to the Fontano's or Pizza Capri or other trucks outside of Northwestern, or have a bowl of soup at Heaven on Seven or a hotdog, or have the time to go further south to a cabbie joint, then yes, I might buy them again for a snack. regards, trillium edit for spelling

Your post made me laugh because last time I was in Chicago my friends bought some bao from Wow Bao and I grumbled about how ripped off they were paying 1.19 for something so tiny, they made me eat two any way, but I complained the whole time, mumbling about yuppies and the superiority of Sun Snack shop under the el tracks at Argyle. Usually in Asian snack shops you get something twice the size for that amount of money or even less. There are many different types of fillings besides char siu (bbqed pork) ya know, and you don't even have to go to Michegan Avenue to get them... Here in Pdx we're obsessed with one that has pork, lap cheung (sausage), hard boiled egg, cabbage and mung bean noodle filling and it's twice the size of those Wow Bao ones for a nickle less! regards, trillium

My mum actually bought a bottle because of the French connection. regards, trillium

Being a generous tipper helps with the quality issue of free drinks, well, it helps anywhere actually. My stomach isn't what it used to be, and like beans, these days I'll pay to have my booze of choice, but I totally dig your problem. My dive bar drinks used to be, depending on the weather, Manhattans on the rocks with extra bitters or a gin and tonic with extra lime. Notice the extras, they help... regards, trillium

Whatever you do, please do not take Tylenol as a preventative measure before bed when you've been drinking. That's much to cruel to your liver to do on a regular basis, and you want to treat it kindly, so it will continue to treat you kindly. Amen to the lots of water part. regards, trillium

I'm not sure what your point is. I thought you were saying that what is in common usage (word or recipe) should be the standard. I would disagree with that, given what is most "common" in cocktails today. People wouldn't think that McDonalds should set the standard for American cuisine, cocktails deserve the same respect. They had it in the past and its my hope, through education, they will have it in the future. While I prefer wit over a rant any day, I in no way intended to come across as smug. Perhaps the sincerity of my conviction reads as smug, but I stand convicted nonetheless. Yes, Meow Mix did ask how "you" prefer your martini, and I will assert that a martini means something in particular, and does not refer to any clear drink in a cocktail glass with an olive. I'd just say your guests are uninformed. I don't need to be tactful, my livlihood doesn't depend on their generousity. Something interesting I've found that the level of education on both the patrons' and the barkeeps' part really have huge regional differences. For instance, when I lived in SF I could order a Picon punch nearly anywhere and they'd know what it was. The biggest dive bar would ask if I liked it with grenadine or not. Bars there also knew what Negronis were about 50% of the time. When I'm in New Orleans, I'm almost guaranteed that when I ask for a Sazerac, I'm going to get one, without having to explain what it is. Too bad I can't get paid to research regional cocktail education and preferences... hmmm.... regards, trillium