mrbigjas

Excellent, thanks.

What's the sodium level like in these, Holly? My problem with almost every canned or concentrated stock is that they're so damn salty that it's more than I can adjust for sometimes.

We're number one! We're number o--d'oh! This spring our water was especially bad; it even prompted me to start filtering it, and I been drinkin the stuff my whole life. But it wasn't as bad as the water in central texas (austin/hill country), which always tastes like dirt and a sort of mushroomy fungusy taste, or as someone else here said, along the gulf coast, which tastes like petroleum. Or the water in some parts of upstate PA, like the well at my aunt's house, which has so much sulfur that it's actually undrinkable, and when you shower, you feel like you're not actually rinsing the soap off of you because the water is so basic that it actually feels slippery, and fizzes when you pee in it.

That's the one I was trying to think of, above! Thanks gabe.

I thought International was more indian/pakistani than Thai? I mean, ingredient-wise, wouldn't 1st Oriental down at 6th & Washington be a much better bet?

I was thinking the same thing. Yeah when I mentioned on another forum that I'd gone to Port Richmond for crabs, the barrage of jokes like "that's a good place, but I woulda tried Kensington first" started and didn't stop for a while till people's moms were brought into the mix....

I've been mixing teas too for iced tea lately. My latest batch was mostly assam, with a little each of formosa oolong for that mid-mouth flavor that oolong gives and bancha for grassiness, and even less each of lapsang souchong and yin hao jasmine for a little smoky and flowery flavor. It was really an interesting mix. I'm not sure the bancha added much to the mix, though--I think I'll just leave it out next time. I don't find that letting it come to room temp works for preventing it from clouding up when refrigerated, though. I follow the advice of the nice people at the Tea Leaf in Reading Terminal Market here in Philadelphia--she said if you give it just a little shot of hot water, it'll clear up the cloudiness before pouring it over ice. It seems to work pretty well.

I know, that's what caught me off-guard too--I knew the trees were a pain to have around, and I knew the nuts were tough to crack, but I didn't know people didn't like them, also...

Interesting--law of diminishing returns, yeah. It exists nearly everywhere. I guess I'll shell out for the wagyu one of these days--on a special occasion, maybe. See if I notice a difference.

Wowee, is that stuff expensive. This weekend I was in a local butcher shop, where they owner had wagyu for $25 a pound. He made a persuasive argument for it, but I just didn't have the heart to spend the money like that. The main reason was that my usual butcher has USDA prime dry-aged strips for $10.99 a pound (their dry-aged prime bone-in porterhouse recently went up to $14.99 a pound because of the beef shortage that the NYT wrote about recently). Sigh.

Black walnuts have this odd flavor that is unique to them and very tasty to some of us, and they are also a bitch to crack open and prepare. Hence the premium prices. But yeah, they're pretty but annoying trees to actually have near you.

No I think you're right.

Isn't that just called the International Market? When I get off my ass and actually cook something out of this south indian cookbook I have, I plan on shopping there. There's also a tiny south asian (indian? pakistani?) market on Locust between 43rd & 44th, I think--near Koch's. Someone else knows the name--I think I learned about it here.

Yeah, on the corner, in the same building as Nam Phuong and that new Vietnamese place, across from the new Japanese place. Anyone been there yet?

I go for the big ones: Chung May, just below 11th on Race, for Chinese 1st Oriental, at 6th & Washington, for Vietnamese But if there are others with yet more hard to find stuff that I might want, I'd love suggestions as well...

Yeah, I had never had green chilaquiles before--it was an eye-opener. I haven't been to Rio Grande, but Holly said they were changing their menu and it was all still coming together--have you been back, Holly?

The potato logs were good, and I realized they have an additional advantage when eating crabs: since they're so thick, they stay warm for a really long time. So you can eat one, then pick crabs for a while, then eat another and it won't be all cold and nasty. Excellent. Their wings smelled great too. A friend of mine recommended that when we were trying to decide where to go last night. He said that the reason they opened a much larger facility, which is always packed with people, is that they really do the sports/seafood/bar thing right.

We did go to Byrnes after all. Excellent crabs, $2.50-$4 each. We got the $3.50 ones, and they came out cleaned already, but I think they woulda been nearly 6" across the shell if they shells had been left on. Big crabs, boiled I'm pretty sure from the amount of water left in them, with old bay. Anyways, we split a dozen of them, a dozen steamers, an order of potato logs and a pitcher of lager--total bill $63 or so. Everyone who worked there was so nice to us--they really make you feel at home there. I'm really pretty happy about the whole experience. Excellent stuff. I noticed that the 15 bus goes there, which makes it relatively easy to get there even without a car.

OK with all the discussion of crabs in... uh.... some other forum on here, and seeing as it looks like I'm not going to get down to MD/DE this year, I'm in the mood for crabs. I'm thinking of heading out tonight. We always went to DiNardo's if we weren't going to make it down the shore, but I feel like they're overpriced and I've been kinda annoyed with them lately. We've done Snockey's a couple of times, but they're cooked and kept cold and then reheated by boiling, which doesn't provide the same thing. So we're looking for somewhere new, and we have a car at the moment, which opens up a lot of options that usually aren't available to us. Really the thing we like is more maryland/delaware style crabs, steamed with old bay. Here's what I've found so far from looking around various websites: Grabbe's, which is somewhere in NJ, but apparently has $20 AYCE. Bonk's, which doesn't do baltimore style from what I can tell Byrne's, which does (neither of these are AYCE, from what I can tell). Someone recommended getting them to go at Ippolito's, but even if someone else cooks them for you and you eat outside, you still end up with big bags of really stinky trash. Anastasi has them for 4/$12, which is a little pricey for me. So what do y'all think? Where to go for crabs? Right now I'm thinkin Byrne's--a good idea?

Discuss. As of today I'm pretty happy with the mango at Italiano's, 12th & Shunk. Great mango flavor. MMMMMmmmmango.

Well, the way I look at it, breakfast, brunch and lunch all fall within that time frame--it's just a matter of getting someone to drive me there for lunch one of these days, since I don't really do breakfast, and brunch is verboten on weekdays unless I'm on vacation... I finally got a chance to stop by there yesterday and get lunch before touring the constitution center. The combo is everything I remember it being and more. My wife had her first taste of one as well, and was surprised at how good it was. All is right with the world.

Me too. Especially sometime in the next week and a half while I still have a car...

Did you ever look back and wonder why we did those things to ourselves? OUCH.

This was, I'm thinking, 1991 or 1992 maybe? One of the fun--or rather, often disgusting--things about this town is that it's a good size for a test market on the east coast. Hence Cool Colt, and Pepsi Kona, and the McRib.

Sad, isn't it? Sucks.