jogoode

Flor de Mayo does one better than that: they deliver. A chicken, a huge container of rice (try the cilantro rice!) and a big container of flavorful black beans -- more than enough for two, can be delivered to your door for a ridiculously small price. This is one of the best deals in town. ← And their menu says that they deliver for free from 60th Street to 125 Street.

I think Moskin mentioned Malecon in the body of the article. I live nearby as well and was headed toward Picnic to try its chicken -- and perhaps a burger if they had one (they didn't) -- but thought it was too expensive for my purpose tonight. Then I decided between Malecon and Flor de Mayo. A rotisserie chicken trifecta!

Sounds good, Peter. Certainly the first report of worthwhile sushi in Brooklyn that I've heard. Two questions: How big are the pieces of fish? And can you compare its quality to a place we might be more familiar with?

This thread was inspired by Julia Moskin's great article for the Times last week on New York's best rotisserie chickens. Here's her list of the best. Tonight for dinner I went to Flor de Mayo, a Peruvian-Spanish-Chinese restaurant that I never would have tried had I not read the article. It looks a little too upscale to have good cheap Spanish and Latin stuff, and I'm not typically interested in the Egg Foo Young de Pollo thing. But I'm glad I went. For under $10, I got a whole roast chicken with uncommonly moist flesh and great skin. I couldn't quite place the skin's flavor, but it tasted vaguely Chinese -- five spice powder, perhaps? Either way, it was excellent. I ordered black beans (great!), yellow rice, and maduros -- more than enough food for my girlfriend and I -- and the check came to $16.67.

Well said. I feel the same way.

Probably Szechuan Gourmet. I wrote an article for Time Out New York that mentioned it. I thought it was pretty good.

I also disagree with your premise, and we've discussed this before in another thread. While there is no one-to-one relationship between the absence of Asians and a poor-quality meal in an Asian restaurant, I can tell you up front that in my experience, there is just about a 100% correlation between a mainly non-Asian clientele and mediocre-to-poor Malaysian food in this city. ← The same could be said about Thai. But then take Sripraphai. Perhaps when it first opened, its customers were mostly Thai. Then press hit and its customer demographic changed considerably. Now you see three Manhattanite groups for every Thai family, except at lunch. People of all sorts know about Dumpling House now and seek it out; looking at the ethnicity of its customers is no longer relevant. Sorry for the tangent. (Do you remember where the thread about this subject was, Pan? I'd love to read it.)

I took a wonderful trip to Japan this summer and stayed for ten days in Fukui Prefecture, in a small village called Kamishihii. The town has a garlic mascot named Ninky, and I wrote about him for Saveur Magazine. Unfortunately, it's not available online. But if you can get a copy of the magazine, please check it out! A big thank you to Hiroyuki and Kristin for their help!

Cool. I'm a big fan of that idea; I'll definitely have to give it another shot. Have you ever purchased the to-go version? How does it hold up?

I've eaten at Capogiro's shop in Philly and was not blown away. It was good, but I thought many of the flavors missed their marks and were too sweet. But that was a while ago; I should try it again. How do you all feel about take-out containers of good gelato? I once bought a container of Il Lab's gelato and stored it in my fridge. I don't recommend it. I'm almost positive that my fridge is to blame, but either way, the texture suffered a lot. Haagen Dazs ice cream fares much better, though both are made without preservatives or gums.

Come on, guys. I don't think non-Asian customers portends bad dumplings, just as throngs of Japanese at a sushi bar tells you nothing about its sushi. One indication that customers' ethnicity doesn't matter is that many of the enthusiastic posters on this thread are caucasian. kurl's experience is more significant: the real indicator of a bad restaurant is tons of college kids .

How is this possible! My girlfriend is the same way. The only ice cream she likes is ice cream with chunks in it, like Ben and Jerry's. And she'd be happy with just the chunks. I can't stand gratuitous bits of anything in my ice cream. Don't get me wrong, I like ice cream a lot, I'm just perhaps less snobbish about it, or at least more content with just-okay ice cream than I am with other just-okay food items. I really enjoy the gelato at Alidoro (formerly Melampo), where I am probably three times a week when I'm in New York. ← Haagen-Dazs is more than just average ice cream, so maybe you're snobbier -- in a good way -- than you think. I haven't tasted Alidoro's gelato since they started offering it. Have you asked where they get it or whether they make it? I've also heard good things about the gelato at the Italian cafe on First Ave, right near Momofuku. Rumor has it that two Romans make it and deliver it daily.

How is this possible! My girlfriend is the same way. The only ice cream she likes is ice cream with chunks in it, like Ben and Jerry's. And she'd be happy with just the chunks. I can't stand gratuitous bits of anything in my ice cream. I am a big fan of Il Laboratorio, and also enjoy Otto a great deal. Otto's gelato has the texture I associate with gelato in Italy -- that is, uniformly smooth -- while Il Lab's gelato tends to take on the texture of whatever flavor it is: its chocolate gelato feels like melted chocolate in the mouth. I rarely see the flavor in New York; I'll have to try it at Cones!

I've really enjoyed the tea-smoked duck, the whole fish items, the cured pork (though I understand that there are other places that may do it better), and the non-spicy fresh chicken with mushrooms dish -- something that was very good, despite being very non-GSIish. ← Good suggestions, Ben. Especially because these are dishes that my friends wouldn't feel squeamish about ordering.

I was meeting friends for dinner last Wednesday and trying to decide between Congee Village (cheap and good and thus a good way to impress my friends from NJ) and GSI (cheap and different from anything they've had before). I chose the latter, though as soon as we sat down, one friend expressed his preference for anything that's "not too weird" and "not spicy." Good choice, JJ. My unadventurous friend ordered wonton soup and sesame chicken. The chicken was good. My other friend, whom I had brought to GSI for his first time last week, and I ordered double-cooked pork with sweet black bean sauce, spicy and sour squid, beef tendon with hot pepper sauce, and "sauteed and dry string bean" -- all dishes, except for the green beans, I've had and enjoyed from GSI before. The squid is definitely a favorite of mine: cucumber, a water chestnut-like vegetable, and intricately scored and very tender nuggets of squid. I ordered the green bean dish because of my experience with a similarly named dish at Szechuan Gourmet, the Manhattan branch of a Flushing Sichuan restaurant that I visited for an article I was writing for TONY. I figured that if GSI makes the dish in a way that is at all similar to the way it's made at Szechuan Gourmet, then it is guaranteed to be amazing. At GSI, it was a bit different -- they use strings beans instead of long beans and pork instead of salty fish. But the concept is the same: green beans cooked until they're soft and sweet and teamed with little bits of something salty. I prefer the version at SG, but it was the one dish at GSI that both my unadventurous friend and I would order again. The meal cost $50, and we could have skipped one of the main dishes and been just as full. What should I try next time I go? I keep ordering the same stuff.

I think the third floor -- the second floor is a space for private parties -- opens on February 28. The menu I quoted is the menu for the third floor, which they were giving out at the party. If I had been given access to the food on that menu, I'd probably still be eating.

Tonight, BLT Fish threw a cocktail party to celebrate the imminent opening of the more formal third floor. They served great food. As soon as I got upstairs, I started on a three-tiered platter of shellfish. My total oyster consumption for the night was 32; scallops, 9; and clams, 7. I nursed a glass of Sancerre and went about to find more food. All sorts of little treats were coming around on trays: scallops with "coriander oil", which tasted like citrus oil to me, but was excellent nonetheless; arctic char with ginger and lemon; tuna tartare with avocado and American caviar; miniature mugs of New England clam chowder; fried Maine shrimp with curry dip; and an excellent fried ball of something. Oh, and a little curl of squid that was amazing. Chefs, including chef Tourondel, prepared this stuff in the open kitchen, and guests ate it under the retractable glass roof. I had a small plate of fried red snapper with ginger and soy, likely a preliminary version of the "Crispy Red Snapper 'Cantonese Style' (for two)" on the menu. And speaking of the menu: Four-, five-, and six-course tasting menus will be available. Chef de Cuisine is Mathieu Palombino Pastry Chef, I believe, is Nancy Olson (also of Django) Also, when the transformation of the Union Pacific space is complete, it will be called BLT Prime, not BLT Meat, as rumor had it.

Never. Have a great dinner!

If you buy the ones that contain lysergic acid, I think you'll find the eating experience greatly enhanced. ← Are these acids used as preservatives?

Should I avoid canned tomatoes that contain citric acid?

Krik Krak is awesome. Try the griot (deep fried pork chunks and fat).

I'm glad to hear some praise for Nina brand canned tomatoes, because I bought a can last week that I haven't tried yet. I bought a box of Pomi at Fairway ($1.50) yesterday, and I'm excited to try them. What can I do with them besides combine them with canned tomatoes to make the sauce Steven described above (which sounds great, by the way)? I also saw cans of Il Miracolo di San Gennaro ($5, 35 oz) at Di Palo's. Edited to add price of Miracolo tomatoes

Huh. I've never been disappointed with the crust there. I think it's a bit of a mistake to expect that the crust will be crisp at the tip of a slice, however. That's not what makes the crust great. If you have a crust that is "crisp" all the way through and "stands up to the toppings" all the way to the tip without being folded, I think you are sacrificing the etherial flexible moist middle layer that is what makes a great pizza crust truly great. ← The crust was soggy at the tip. And when I suggest that I look for a crisp crust, I don't mean that I expect tomato sauce and cheese on a water cracker. Without going into great detail about crust strata, I think that the outermost part of the crust should have a wafer-like crispness. Patsy's has never served me a pie with a crust that's entirely crisp in that way. To say that the entire crust is ideal, I'd have to cut out of the pie a circle in the center of the pizza with a diameter of about five inches. If you're still not happy, Kinsey, put your money where you mouth is an buy me a pie. Really?! I think the toppings are Grimaldi's real strength. That sausage is imo hands down the best pizza sausage in the City, and the roasted peppers are also right up there. Now, the sauce may not be as "zippy" as some people prefer (I think it's nothing more than crushed tomatoes, salt and maybe a little evoo), but I like that simplicity. ← Sorry, I was only talking about the plain pie. I'd rather eat Grimaldi's pizza without the tomato and cheese and with olive oil and salt. The combination of sauce, cheese, and olive oil at Una Pizza is so tremendously flavorful that it has become my standard by which I judge other pies.

In my experience at Patsy's (East Harlem) the crust at the tip of the pizza slices has not once stood up to the cheese and sauce and stayed crisp. And I have never ordered toppings there. Every time, I get slices that droop. But once I eat past the tip, the crust is excellent and crisp. I tried Sal and Carmine's for the first time two weeks ago. I got the last piece in a pizza that had been sitting out for a while. I had them warm it in the oven; just after I finished it, a fresh pizza came out. Nevertheless, my slice was very good -- a far superior version of the type I used to love as a kid in New Jersey. The cheese and sauce was oily and full of flavor. If only that slice could trade crusts with one at Grimaldi's, which I had last week, at the height of its crust perfection. Still, it was underwhelming. Though I enjoy the place, I've come to realize that what tops the crust at Grimaldi's is bland.

I went for dinner on Friday. Since I hadn't eaten Grand Sichuan's food in a while -- this was the first time I went to the Midtown location, though last year I ordered food for delivery a couple of times a week as I was working nearby -- I ordered my favorites: beef tendon with hot pepper sauce, kung bao (with fresh chicken), and sour string beans with pork. Everything was excellent. Actually, the tendon made my lips tingle with the strange burn of Sichuan peppercorns more than it had before. Could it have anything to do with this? Does anyone know if that Web site's claim is true? Perhaps it allowed GSI to get fresher peppercorns.