mrbigjas

you know andrew, you should come over for dinner more often or something, because it seems we travel in the same food circles. i got this poke from livengoods, too. same place i got the pawpaws from (they said it was the same farmer who grew both), and... some other little-known veggies/fruits that i can't remember now. anyway, my posting now should be proof that i'm not dead. pokeweed toxicity, i laugh at you! hahahahaha

i made short ribs tonight; you should have come over. we called last night hoping that because of the storm we'd be able to get in. no such luck. i spoke to a neighbor of our today and he said they were in there after 10 and people were still coming in waiting for a table. really i'm quite happy about that, even if it means i can't go there that often. i've been living basically on the block for 12 years now, and pumpkin's success is really a validation that this is a great neighborhood. i couldn't be happier for them.

so a local farmer's market had some pokeweed shoots for sale last week. the market guy said the farmer had gone through this whole thing of growing them in the dark so that they grew up white instead of green and etc etc etc, and i'm always up for something new, so i bought a couple bunches. i wasn't sure how to prepare it, so i looked around on line, and found out that it's basically poisonous, and the only way to eat it is to boil it twice, once for a couple minutes and throwing the water out, and again for about 15 minutes until it's very tender, and then sauteeing with garlic/onions like spinach. which is what i did, and it was delicious. but it was pretty, uh, 'tender,' by which i mean mushy. so my questions are two: 1. did i just poison myself? 2. is there any way to prepare it so that it's not quite so mushy? anyone know?

craig laban's review here

i always feel bad when i go to roya or sansom st. kebab house because there is hardly ever anyone in there. but the food is so good.

tommy gunn's is da bomb. their pulled pork kicks ass. also for my money some of the best greens in town.

thanks for the initial responses, y'all. i'm waiting to hear back from him about the places he's thinking of going, in hopes that i'll be able to be a little more specific with my questions... edited to say: OK after further discussion, it turns out he was trying to find out because the m-i-l thinks that that sort of thing should exist somewhere if it doesn't. so he was trying to find out if it did. thanks for the info so far, and for reminding me about bistrot lepic--do they still serve that awesome pigs foot there?

hi there d.c. folks--a question from my father in law: is there any washington restaurant review site or reference place that includes a sound level rating? my motherinlaw really hates loud places, but as you know everything is on a continuum--for instance, obviously bistro du coin is out, while someplace like say, terrazza is in. so being able to compare noise levels would be very useful. (assuming the place has good food and doesn't generally suck, obviously) i know a couple of years ago, the philadelphia inquirer started putting decibel measurements into their reviews, but i'm not seeing them on line now. so the nice example i'd planned on using won't work... anyway, anyone know of anything? thanks.

desi village is really tasty. i was caught off guard when i went there a couple months ago expecting some crappy gunked-up indian food, and had a delicious meal.

oh lovey, that sounds like a simply maaaahvelous evening.

hey katie, i'm not interested in any changes to the menu, but if you can get your hands on some of those oysters we had at fuji that time, well...

as rich has delineated for the record somewhere in those threads, there are only three rules for pizza club: 1. rsvp 2. show up 3. gorge (paraphrased)

how you feel about shellfish, fresser?

sorry about that y'all; sometimes i get my dander up when i start discussing the ridiculousness of the lcb. see, kgeutzow? some of us don't just accept it, but rant and rave till we get all offensive and say shit we don't mean. edited for punctuational clarity

gino's pizza up in fairless hills (in bucks county) used to make them. but they called them ginocottis. to my knowledge the place is still there.

wait, not ALL the oysters cost $5, do they? i thought it was only the cheap ones. which aren't bad ones, just not, like, kumamotos. or at least it was that way the last time i went there. katie, if you've changed that policy in the last three days, i'm canceling my dinner reservations tonight and coming to gorge at happy hour instead...

i've bitched about it long and loudly, on this very forum. what really gets me is some hayseed from pennsyltucky telling me that jesus doesn't want me buying a bottle of wine on a sunday or after 9 at night--and then being able to enforce it, rather than having to listen to me laughing at them. actually upstate in the aforementioned pennsyltucky where my family is from, they have a couple of drive-through beer distributorships. also they fry potato chips in lard up there. you can get a case of yuengling and a big bag of good's and never get out of your car. now that's a party!

thanks chefzadi!

yeah. i've roasted pork myself and while it's not dinics, even <shrug> eh </shrug> roast pork is pretty damn good. i think it's pretty easy to make it ok... taking it that extra step to transcendent is the key.

oh, excellent idea, gastro888. i've been into the concept of making everything into pancakes lately. just last week i tried making my first okonomiyaki. the week before i made that bindaedok recipe from the november gourmet magazine. hm, i think i need a good korean cookbook. off to search eg for a recommendation. many many years ago i dated a korean girl, and dinner at her family's house still remains one of the great eating feats of my life. after about six bowls of rice and probably two entire chickens i finally convinced her mother that i couldn't possibly eat another bite.

OK good to know. this week fresh, and shared with family and friends. next week stir-fried with vegetables and/or pork belly. the week after that kimchi jjigae. then when it goes bad i'll toss whatever's left over. i feel bad, but she shouldn't have given me so much... i don't have a large korean family to feed... thanks jschyun!

i heard an ad on the radio this morning that wawa is now serving roast pork sandwiches. they advertise them as coming with provolone and roasted red peppers. i doubt it'll beat out john's or dinic's or tl's or george's, but maybe it'd be ok for when you're headed upstate, you're starving, and that big wawa at the intersection of the northeast extension and rt. 80 is shining like a beacon, offering... offering... a decent roast pork sandwich? could it? would even a bad roast pork sandwich be better than the arbys, mcdonalds, and burger king offerings at the site? perhaps. i'll report back.

a coworker of mine told me her mom makes the best kimchi. i said, that sounds great! can you bring me some? she did. boy, did she ever. i now have about eight pounds of kimchi in two large gladware containers. i've never seen so much of it, and there are only two of us here so it's not going away anytime soon. my question: i know this will last a long long time in the refrigerator. but how can i store it so that everything in my fridge doesn't smell like kimchi? i love it, but it's not the only thing that i eat, and it definitely doesn't go well with french or mexican food, for instance. would sealing it up in glass canning jars preserve it, or shouldn't i, for some reason? thanks for any help anyone can provide.

you guys wanna hear something weird? on saturday night i got a call on my cell phone. the person said, 'lacroix?' i got kinda confused, thinking that maybe it was lacroix restaurant calling me. i said, uh, what? she said, is your address 220 w. rittenhouse square? i said, wait, this isn't lacroix. she said, is this (some mangled version of my phone number, which is apparently lacroix's number)? it wasn't. but isn't that weird, that i'd get that wrong number the night before going there?

as i do with nearly every white castle-related thread, i would just like to take this opportunity to once again bitch about the fact that all the white castles around philadelphia have closed. waaaaaaaaah