Pan

It's interesting that I don't think I've ever had a problem with ordering in Korean restaurants in Manhattan or Flushing. The server sometimes asks me if I've had something before; they want to make sure I'm likely to like it. But I can't remember the last time they brought something other than what I ordered. I think the places I've gone to must be more used to non-Korean customers who enjoy the cuisine than the places in Northern New Jersey are. I do remember overhearing one of a deuce of non-Korean men at Yangpyung Seoul Haejanguk Restaurant on 33rd St. telling a waitress that they didn't like their kalbi and getting no response, though, as if to implicitly reply "too bad." The same waitress was friendly to me, because I showed that I appreciated the food. (By the way, sone66, I don't mean to imply anything about you, just recounting a story.)

Let me make clear that my remarks were about Angon, which is on 6th St. in Manhattan. I have not been to Spicy Mina's, or whatever the new restaurant in Queens is called. In order to avoid confusion in the future, would someone please start a new thread under the correct name of the new restaurant in Queens?

What are some of your current favorites here in New York?

I rinse rice before cooking, but I think of it as more to get any dirt or dust or whatever off than for any other reason. I don't put water on noodles after cooking, however. Noodles should be clean to begin with, so I just boil them, then toss them in the sauce and serve. Of course, that's for pasta with sauce. But come to think of it, in European-style soups with noodles, I never remember the noodles being cooked separately by my father or mother. They just put the noodles in the soup and let them simmer, making sure to put them in late enough so that they didn't get mushy (or they used rice and, in that instance, dispensed with rinsing it, I think). I don't think we ever cared about the marginal amount of cloudiness that the noodles would put into the soup, since I'm thinking of things like a whole chicken and a bunch of vegetables in soup with a smaller amount of noodles. But then again, those weren't Asian soups.

I don't understand the concept of excess starch in noodles, since they're a starchy item. Please explain.

I feel duty-bound to tell you that I joined a friend (in fact the same friend as before) for dinner at Belleville a few days ago. Dinner was OK, nothing special (though I enjoyed my onion soup), but the funny thing was, though we both got creme brulee for dessert, they came out different. Hers was in a circular ramekin, mine in an oval one. Hers had the cardamom in it but had no pineapple taste at all, while mine had no cardamom taste but was full of pineapple jam. I thought mine was OK but hers was better. But the unfortunate thing is that based on this inconsistency, I can't wholeheartedly recommend for you to go to Belleville for the creme brulee. Oh well.

Susan, pho is a Vietnamese soup, not a Thai soup, and every Vietnamese restaurant I've been to in New York prominently displays Huy Fong brand Sriracha on the table, so if it's good enough for all the Vietnamese-New Yorkers, it just might be good enough for you. And as you said, it's cheap. I'd suggest you try a little of the sauce by itself, then decide whether you want to add it while eating a bowl of your pho. What I've usually seen Vietnamese diners do in pho joints is put the sauce they want in a little saucer, then use their chopsticks to put some some meat and fresh vegetables and some noodles in the porcelain spoon, then take sauce from the saucer and put it on top with their chopsticks. Then, they put the spoonful of food into their mouths with the chopsticks. At the end, they may or may not drink the broth, but I've found that the wait staff suspects that if you didn't drink the broth, you might not have really liked the soup.

I just did a web search on that and found out it's the sweet I know as Dulce de Leche. Great stuff!

Sara, growing up in New York is one thing that you and I share. I have memories of favorite restaurants that are long gone, and I'm sure you do, too. What restaurants do you remember (and perhaps miss) from your childhood?

What I like best is that I can hear her saying that while I read it. Sounds like a very tough experience on that stage, though!

Keeping in mind that mere assertion does not constitute evidence, what scientific evidence can you bring to the table to support this claim? Also, isn't it possible that SARS hasn't become a pandemic because of quarantines, travel restrictions, etc.?

How do they pronounce it? I think that this kind of thing, as well as "ersters" for "oysters" is just an accent, not a malapropism. My grandmother called the toilet a "terlet." That accent used to be called Toity-Toid and Toid (33rd and 3rd) and used to be more common in New York.

Just the same, I'm glad Bruni had the experience of being a waiter. Now, when's the last time he's been a line chef?

One doesn't toast the queen? Is there a reason why not? Too familiar?

Thanks for the link, ecr. I've looked at your blog before and really enjoy it.

Based on my dinner tonight, I think this place is no longer good. I ordered a mildly salty lassi which was so salty I couldn't drink it, and it was replaced with a supposedly "neutral" lassi that was itself saltier than I really wanted. The Samosa Chat was overly sweet and the flavors weren't balanced throughout. The Mustard Fish tasted more of salt than anything else, though it's fair to say that the excess of salt in the lassi had helped to keep that flavor in my consciousness. But anyway, the meal was just plain too salty, too sweet, and not good enough. I don't think I'll go back.

What kinds of hot sauce do you like best, Sara? Many eGullet Society members love hot sauces and have strong opinions about which ones they like and dislike. Have a look at The Hot Sauce Thread if you like. It's already on its seventh page. As I wrote somewhere on that thread, my standby is Sambal Oelek from Huy Fong, the same company that makes Sriracha. I don't have cable and have seldom watched Food TV, but I look forward to watching your show on PBS. Thanks for being so generous and real in this conversation, and I hope that, time allowing, you continue to post now and then.

That doesn't mean it couldn't mutate today. I don't think that all those health authorities are blowing smoke when they say this has the potential to become a disaster of epic proportions if it's not carefully watched. Undoubtedly, but isn't it probably because of very expensive efforts to control the disease (such as by killing large numbers of chickens) and travel restrictions that it hasn't spread further in human populations? Obviously, it has affected humans, just not by sickening them in large numbers. In 2003, they guessed wrong about what strain of flu would infect the most people in North America, so despite getting the shot, I got sick -- so sick that there was one day when I would have been physically incable of opening my door and getting to the hospital, if I had had to (I managed to slowly walk outside and get a cab to the doctor's office and back the next day), and it took me at least a month to get well. "Ordinary" flu kills thousands of people a year, and I have no doubt that if I had been a fair bit weaker or had had an impaired immune system, that episode would have been fatal. And now, when you're talking about a strain that has killed over 50% of those infected, including young, previously healthy people, while there's clearly no reason for panic, I think it's pretty damned important for them to keep their eyes on it.

Is this the image most Middle Americans have of the very geographically large and varied borough of Brooklyn? I don't take personal offense but did immediately think of an exasperated expletive while reading this. Sheesh, what you saw from a cab in the 80s! I thought some places looked rundown in the 30s, too. (Nope, I'm not that old; just saw photos.) Magus Burgers sounds fine to me, though. It sure is unlikely to be similar to any other burger joint's name, plus it has that magic connotation. Have you been thinking about slogans yet?

If it was put out by Ronzoni and calls for Ronzoni products throughout, it's the same edition my parents have.

I think bird flu is a much bigger deal. The people who have contracted it, albeit few for the time being, have died in high percentages: http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/reports/avianflu.jsp And as everyone knows, flu can spread easily. Furthermore, flu virus can mutate easily, and one of the worst epidemics in history was a flu epidemic that killed millions of people in 1918 and '19: http://www.stanford.edu/group/virus/uda/ All that said, malaria and diseases related to water contamination (cholera, infant diarrhea, etc.) remain by far the worst health crises today, yet since they mostly remain localized in poor areas of the world, not that much is done about them.

jsolomon, I thought that Lincoln actually had a middle-class upbringing, log cabin or not, but the fact that the mythology is that he had a humble birth merely reinforces your point about Americans wanting to believe our heroes and rulers are "ordinary people like us." That's why multi-millionaire CEOs of multinational corporations who come from old money and went to exclusive private schools from nursery school through law school pretend to be "regular guys" when they campaign for office in the US. And eating hotdogs is very much part of their campaigns.

I hope you're getting nice bonuses for all that extra work beyond the call of duty. Nice to meet you, and enjoy your week of blogging!

Wooden wontons -- sounds painful! It's been a pleasure. Enjoy not having to report on all your food tomorrow.

Lupa is one of my favorite restaurants in New York. What do you mean by "it's what Lupa should be"? (I still haven't been to Otto yet, by the way.)