huiray

Have a nice trip! At Naha, you might mention that you are celebrating a 50th birthday... ;-) [i will say that it can get expensive there depending on what you order. :-) I've dropped more than $200 dining by myself but then I had several appetizers, double portions of foie gras, wine pairings for the whole meal...and had a not perfect meal (nasty "veal lollipops") on top of that] If you are going after higher-end Italian (and even higher), next time you might consider some other places besides Prosecco. Some other options: Spiaggia¶, Cafe Spiaggia, Piccolo Sogno, Coco Pazzo... There are others. (All also show availability on Opentable for your weekend, indicating that - unless things change - reservations would also be available in a similar time frame in the future) ¶ Spiaggia is the pinnacle of Italian cuisine in Chitown but some think it way overpriced for what they serve. Cafe Spiaggia (it's smaller sister right next to it) is cheaper, more intimate/"rustic" and just as decent but with less selections. Consider Topolobampo for next time too. (Opentable shows limited availability for your weekend) But really, there are so many good places that don't get booked out months in advance in Chicago. It depends on what you want to eat!

Lunch today, Tuesday: • Pork, tofu rolls (see pic) & bamboo shoots braised w/ sautéed smashed garlic & mutenka shiro miso (Maruchan). • Stir-fried/sautéed chopped Chinese long beans ("Yard Long Beans"; Vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis) w/ garlic. • Semi-wide flat egg noodles (a Vietnamese brand). Those "tofu rolls":

Sable is not a personal preference of mine, but others rave about it. Hopefully you will enjoy it. The cocktails (bar) are great, however! I don't know if the situation has recently changed, but the last time I was there for brunch (on a Saturday a while ago) the place was deserted.

Everest is quite splendid IMO. I've had great experiences there, although there have been some who had "bad" experiences. However, the "bad"-ness were really less-than-perfect service issues which were thought to be "bad" because of the very high level/standards the place was held to (and also considering the cost - it WON'T be a cheap meal) The food IMO has been very good, although I haven't been back there in a little while. They also have probably the largest selection of French/Alsatian wines around on this side of the Atlantic, if that matters to you. I presume you have not been there - FYI the view (40th floor of the Chicago Exchange) is WESTWARDS over the city spreading to the suburbs, NOT over the Loop/Downtown/Lake Michigan; but is still very nice, especially if you get there just before sunset and have your meal while experiencing sunset then dusk then nightfall. Request a window table for this - you may not get it but they do try to be accommodating. Grand decor, JACKETS REQUIRED.

Having them in a broth with buckwheat noodles (soba) sounds very nice. :-)

These balls-of-various-types are often used in soups and broths of some sort, frequently just by themselves. Having them in clear, nicely flavored broths is common - dressed with some scallions or cilantro and such. Or in soups with other veggies. Certainly one can add in other meats as one wishes, but the "classic" manner is not to have too many things in soups where these balls are used. There *are* many "soup-noodle dishes" such as often found sold by hawkers etc (and also in restaurants and made at home) that have meat balls of this type as one of the components, though. These meat balls should have some "bounce" and "springy-chewiness" to them, with a certain "mouth-feel". In the East and SE Asia there are hawkers who have made tremendous reputations for themselves by turning out exceptionally "springy" and flavorful fish balls, pork balls, beef balls, with great "song hou" [the Cantonese term] texture. Vietnamese phở is one kind of dish that offers beef balls as one of the "meat" options in combination with the other cuts and stuff typical of the dish. If one wishes, one could have *just* beef balls as the meat by getting Pho Bo Vien. There are also beef balls with tendon added in (for extra texture). Many of them are pre-cooked (but not all, I think). It ought to be stated on the package whether they are already cooked or not. For myself, I have never used any of the commercial packages of these balls without cooking them (re-cooking?) anew in broth or soup. I usually simmer them till heated through plus a little bit more, or until they "puff up" (especially w/ fish balls) - but leaving them too long in boiling/simmering broth does degrade the texture as time goes on. They also often become tougher and more chewy, this time not in a good way. I've used the pork balls, if I remember correctly, in a SE-Asian/E-Asian influenced tomato-based "pasta sauce" but have not really done Western-type cuisine with them. To me, the texture and taste profile clashes a bit with Western spicing & texture profiles, but maybe I just haven't explored using them in those ways properly. The "cuttlefish balls" are just made from minced cuttlefish meat w/ appropriate binders. No, these meat/fish balls are not quite "oden", but they (or the Japanese equivalents) can be used in "oden", which is a kind of dish/preparation, not a specific ingredient. I just took a look in my freezer to see what I had there in terms of these balls - hmm, out of fish balls and pork balls; but there was Venus brand beef meat balls, and a Vietnamese brand (Que Huong Soi) beef balls with tendon. I'm not sure if I've ever tried meat balls from Prime Food; I've got various other brands instead. :-)

Here's one site of interest listing some Indian types of chillies: http://www.nickys-nursery.co.uk/seeds/pages/veg-chilipepper2.htm (don't forget to go to page 2 of the list)

There is also what is called "Kum Chin Tofu" or "Kam Chin Taufu" which means "Gold Coin Tofu". This was one of my favorite tofu preparations ever - and eaten in a very few restaurants (even 30-plus years ago in SE Asia) where they bothered to make it. This was tofu that was broken up into a mash, reformed into balls with egg/other stuff, deep fried and processed further (e.g. boiling in stock) to give fluffy balls of tofu with a golden skin which was cooked with some sort of slightly thickened sauce, such as a crab/seafood sauce or a minced meat sauce, often with egg white drizzled into it to give "ribbons" of white in it as well. YUM YUM. Here's one video showing one prep of it: The blurb regarding the video about the stuff not being found in restaurants is INCORRECT, even though it is rare to find it. (Keith_W, maybe your mix for pei pa tofu was *too wet*? So adding more egg yolk might have made it worse...)

SobaAddict70, lovely meal. I would be inclined myself to eat that nice tomato sauce w/ poached egg with some Angelhair pasta. :-) The fork-smashed potatoes - rose fingerlings? (Rather than the purple potatoes used in the linked recipe) Thanks for the kind words upstream.

Sunday lunch: • Chinese okra (Luffa acutangula; Google images), snow fungus (Tremella fuciformis), fresh "Far Koo" (flower-patterned thick-cap shiitake mushroom; fresh, not dried), and Southern-Chinese type fish cake [store-bought] soup. • Chicken thigh meat¶ stir-fried w/ garlic, shallots, Thai basil, Thai eggplants§, hot long green (ripening) chillies. • Chinese roast pork [store-bought], re-warmed & skin re-crisped in the oven. • White rice (Basmati). ¶ Marinated w/ fish sauce (Red Boat), peanut oil, bit of corn starch. (Not sure now, 12 hrs later, if I added anything else) § Not terribly fresh - the seeds are already blackening on being cut open. Most of the ingredients after prep:

"Spicy & Hot with Braised Chitterlings Flavor Vermicelli" (麻辣肥腸粉絲) [Lam Sheng Kee "Healthy Food" (brand)] with chopped scallions added in. [Actually, "肥腸" is "fat intestine" and would usually be the colorectum. ;-) The soup in this does have the expected "taste" and is pleasantly spicy although not very "numbing" (the "麻辣" or "ma la" part). The vermicelli is cellophane noodles. The spicing mix (in 2 internal bags) also contains (dried) whole soy beans.]

Dinner last night: Steamed¶ short-cut pork spare ribs. With Black Bean - Garlic sauce (Lee Kum Kee), finely julienned fresh ginger (a generous amount), a bit of veggie oil, chopped de-seeded hot long green chillies. Trimmed & sliced "Kai/Gai Lan" stir-fried w/ chopped garlic, oyster sauce, Shaohsing wine, bit of light soy sauce. White rice. (Basmati) ¶ I use an enameled metal shallow dish for a fair number of my steamed dishes - you can see it (red-colored edging/blue rim) in the pic. (I have two other similar enameled metal shallow dish-plates) I think I've had this plate for something like 30 years or more. In fact I don't seem to see this type of plate around much anymore - if at all.

If you "just pile on" the ingredients, I must say you have a gifted way with "just piling them on" - in no time flat, too, as you say! Thanks for the kind words about the photo of the Shui Kow & stuff.

I seldom post on the dinner thread - my night-time meals have tended over recent years to be simple, modest things, seldom the complex and lovely spreads that so many of you show here. Not infrequently I don't even have dinner. (I do have full, more elaborate meals from time to time. Especially if I dine out.) Here's what I had last night: pork, cabbage & XO sauce "Shui Kow" dumplings [Prime Food][they're decent] with finely chopped white cabbage in a sautéed-garlic-chicken-stock soup.

Lovely dinners from all, both complex and simple. @ dcarch - just wondering, how do you keep the food warm while doing all that fantastic plating (surely it takes some time) and photography (yet more time)? @ Ashen - Nice dinner. (Why call it breakfast-for-supper? It's simply supper. Or dinner.) @ mm84321 - No truffles this time, I see. Just curious (like others here, I think) - do you have a special or private supply of truffles for your many other meals incorporating it? @ patrickamory - nice looking duck. Any pics of it cut-up and showing the meat and insides? @ sobaaddict70 - lovely elegant dishes as usual. @ red rock - yes, pussycat seems to be wondering where his/her share is, heh.

@ Paul Bacino - ah, OK, thanks. I thought you were having some sort of oyster prep with raspberries when you said "Raspberry oyster chasers". :-)

I buy them. It's too much bother to do it myself, especially in small batches. I don't mind that they are not super-freshly-prepared "just a few minutes ago". I think the stuff you can get in both the Chinese and Indian groceries are fairly decent and cheap - in my experience - so long as you do inspect the packages for apparent crispiness/freshness and relatively non-shattered stuff ("banged around to a powder") at the bottoms of the packages.

Variations on a Theme. An example of the repurposing of leftovers into several separate meals: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/143989-lunch-whatd-ya-have-2012/page-7#entry1910934 http://forums.egullet.org/topic/143989-lunch-whatd-ya-have-2012/page-7#entry1910938 http://forums.egullet.org/topic/143989-lunch-whatd-ya-have-2012/page-7#entry1910999

NancyH, sorry about whatever happened at trial in Chicago - but glad to hear you got to eat some nice stuff. LizD518, thanks for the report. Oh well, next time. :-) I must suppose the postprandial stroll was beneficial to the digestion (heh). :-D

Lunch today: Variations on a Theme, finale. Remainder of the "chicken sauce" from yesterday, with added "aged" soy sauce (Kimlan) and with the flavor profile changed by also adding in sesame oil, ground white pepper, ryori-shu, chopped Serrano chile peppers. Served on smooth-textured/slippery semi-wide flat rice noodles I used Bánh Phở - this one - as a stand-in for "Hor Fun" (河粉) which was what I actually wanted but did not have on hand. Cilantro leaves & deep-fried shallots on top. Remainder of the "chicken broth", with trimmed soaked baby Bok Choy cooked in it till just wilted.

Paul Bacino, looks interesting. Nice lunch. Raspberry oysters?

Lunch on Thursday: "Kai See Kon Lo Mein". ("Shredded chicken dry mixed noodles") [in Cantonese] chez huiray on Thursday. :-) The "chicken sauce": Yesterday's Hainanese Chicken leftovers were shredded (deboned) and reserved. "Far Koo" (shiitake mushrooms w/ flower-patterned caps) were de-stemmed, rehydrated and fairly thinly sliced. Smashed & chopped garlic was sautéed in peanut oil; oyster sauce (Lee Kum Kee), fish sauce (Red Boat), a splash of "aged" soy sauce (Kimlan) and a bit of "Gula Melaka" added, the mixture tossed/stirred a short while, the shredded chicken added in & the mix stirred; some "chicken broth" [from yesterday's poaching of the chicken] added and the mix simmered a short while to blend and reduce a bit. Skinny wonton noodles (briefly cooked in the usual manner) were dressed with the sauce and plated w/ "Yu Choy Sum" that had just been blanched in oiled hot water. Chopped scallions on top. Cauliflower florets simmered in more of the "chicken broth". Chopped scallions on top.

Lunch on Wednesday: "Hainanese Chicken Rice", in the Malaysian/Singaporean style. Small chicken poached in salted water w/ lots (LOTS) of smashed [with cleaver] fresh ginger & scallions in the chicken cavity. Removed at an internal temp of ~160ºF. Poaching water (now "chicken broth") reserved, of course. I intentionally did not do an ice-water rinse/dip of the chicken this time. (More gelatin retained) Chopped after cooling, served w/ sliced deskinned cucumber, drizzled w/ light soy sauce (Pearl River Superior). The rice was made by sautéeing generous chopped garlic & grated fresh ginger in chicken fat [freshly rendered from additional stuff I get in a tub from the butcher], tossing the raw rice (Basmati) in the mix for about a minute or two, then quenching w/ the reserved "chicken broth" (the poaching liquid) and cooking in the usual manner. The soup was Taiwan A-choy in the "chicken broth". The sauce was chopped chicken livers sautéed w/ oil, finely sliced shallots, fish sauce (Red Boat), "aged" soy sauce (Kimlan), MRT ryori-shu, Honteri (sweet) mirin.

rod rock - potatoes & pork? :-) scubadoo97 - Aw shucks. Thanks. Steve Irby - ...and capers? I think I'd need two of this at least. :-D

Simple but satisfying breakfast of vegetable soup in chicken broth. Carrots added to some of the salted & well-gingered chicken broth (poaching liquid) with generous chicken fat floating in it, from yesterday's Hainanese chicken lunch; the mix simmered a bit; large-ish common (button-type) mushrooms added in and the broth just barely brought to a boil again; chopped Taiwanese-type "Wong Nga Pak" [a.k.a. "Napa"] cabbage added,¶ the mix stirred and the heat shut off at once. ¶ The long, relatively skinny type with less leafy parts than the more usual ones. The upper parts were used this time.