Pan

Is horse fat available in New York?

Marlena, you're a world traveller, but you have to go to Malaysia and find out what people are talking about there.

Well, this thread is about the "most interesting food city in the World," not in the US. And New York isn't the most interesting to me, but that's probably because it's my city and, therefore, some other cities (like Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh, Hong Kong, Shanghai) are more interesting to me because they are great and different. What is it they say about the grass on the other side of the fence?

What an adventure! I'll check out Tasty Dumpling but won't ask anyone's name! Did you see any Chinese people at Excellent Dumpling? I get the feeling that that's a real non-Asians' restaurant (in terms of the clientele), and I'm not surprised you weren't pleased with the dumplings there.

Is that really true? And how far does "San Francisco" go in your accounting? All the way to St. Helena? I enjoy visiting San Francisco very much, but if it's 2nd, it comes after what? New York? Chicago? Where does New Orleans fit in? What about LA? How good a food city is Phoenix? I think San Francisco is a plenty good food city, especially at the low- and mid-priced levels. But, as you said, it's a pretty small city. The fact that I believe most people would think of SF before Boston or even Washington -- if I'm right about that -- says something about all those cities.

Not everywhere in the airport. From the thread on airline food:

I'd say that salt is #1 in this category. I feel that salt normally should be there to give a touch of flavor and help the other flavors to come through. It shouldn't be very assertive per se but should blend in. So I find that strongly-salted dishes can be OK if they're also very hot-pepper and have several other strong flavors in them (as is the case in some Korean dishes, for example). But not in desserts, thank you very much! I would also say this is true about butter, cream, and oil. All are important in their place, but an excess of them is the bane of digestion and I don't think that most of the time that is justified by considerations of taste. I find that sage is often used a bit more than I'd prefer in dishes that include it. I like it but find it a very strong flavor. Thyme, rosemary, and oregano can be overused, but I seldom come across overuse of those herbs at restaurants. In terms of spices, nutmeg can be overused, though again, I don't come across this too often. And here are some items that are pretty hard to overuse: Sauteed garlic, basil (I guess it's conceivable to overuse the stronger Thai basil), mushrooms. And while I can imagine overusing lemon zest, I've never come across such overuse. I've also never exclaimed "There's too much cardamom in this!"

I can't resist asking whether Hungarians have a traditional rice pudding and, if so, how they eat it. Attila is a national hero in that very civilized place.

It's more than incomprehensible; it's repugnant. If the couple get divorced at some point in the future, that injurious behavior is likely to be a contributing factor in the mix somewhere.

I love France, and I love Paris, but I wouldn't agree that it's hard to find bad French food in Paris. Actually, I found it a lot harder to find bad food in Nice than Paris, unless you went to the Flunch [sic] at the train station. My fellow students were so strapped they went there for the 18-franc sandwiches (this was in 1992-3). I had one once and it upset my stomach. I went for 40-to-45-franc lunches instead, such as plates of pasta, which I'm convinced is a local food in a city that but for somewhat of an accident of history could be part of Italy today.

Nice stuff, Adam. I love Siena! Where in Siena is Hostaria il Carroccio?

Is that an Indian Jewish recipe?

Maybe. But there are also an awful lot of Americans who eat fried chicken with their hands, so it doesn't seem weird to me that you ate roast duck with your hands. Actually, in informal situations, picking up roast chicken in your hands is really common in some circles. We always did that when I was growing up - though only at home or, when we were guests at someone else's place, only when we saw the hosts do it first.

Clinton Restaurant is Dominican. Good steam-table Dominican fare at good prices - $7 for dinner specials like Mondongo (which comes with a nice red sauce there). I can't remember what I've had at Spanish-American, but it was way too oily and upset my stomach. I think I gave them a couple of shots and then gave up.

Yetty, eating with your fingers is hardly a faux pas to confess, considering that you're an Indonesian and presumably doing that in an appropriate situation. When in Rome, etc. I was received with great approval for eating Nasi Ulam with my fingers, at the day market in Kota Bharu. Imagine that, a white guy who speaks almost local-sounding Malay, understands Kelantan dialect and can imitate it by request, orders Nasi Ulam, and eats with the fingers of his right hand!

I can't verify or refute that. I do know that there is a guy with a cart right near the railroad tracks where Main St. meets Kissena Blvd. in Flushing who sells Xinjiang-style barbecue (really, kebabs). His stuff is cheap, but just OK.

Chris, I've never tried Penzey's spices. Do you think they're better than what you can buy cheaply in bulk at an Indian store, should you have one in your general vicinity?

You can make Sayur. Unripe papaya was routinely used for Sayur in Terengganu in the 70s, and it works well that way. A quick internet search didn't net an English-language recipe with unripe papaya, though. Anyone have a recipe? Basically, though, Sayur is a savory side dish of starchy vegetables and such (beans, etc.) boiled in coconut milk with chilis and other stuff. This looks like a fancy sayur recipe, what with the candlenuts and so forth -- and probably good. This looks a little more basic, but I question the small amount of coconut milk. The milk of one whole coconut from the first recipe is more like it. But keep in mind that whatever vegetables you have handy that will boil nicely belong in Sayur. I'll note parenthetically that a web search for "sayur +recipe" produces a lot of irrelevant results because "sayur" means "vegetable(s)" in standard Malay/Indonesian, but "Sayur" by itself refers to the dish I'm describing, at least it does on the East Coast of Malaysia (or did in the 70s), where "makan sayur" means (or meant) "eat a side dish of vegetables boiled in coconut milk [etc.]," not "eat vegetables" -- a fact that led ignorant surveyors to conclude that rural Terengganu Malays must be suffering from malnutrition because they didn't eat enough "sayur"! (Of course, there are and were many other ways to prepare vegetables in rural Terengganu, but none of the others were called "sayur.")

I found the traiteurs in the 2ieme fine, but they're not restaurants. Otherwise, I would make similar points to yours. Have a look at some comments from a previous post of mine about Orleans, France:

It's illegal to make wine from the fragolino grape grape where? In Italy or the US? I have to admit to never yet having tried prosecco! I like other sparkling wines, so I'd probably like that one. What I remember having fragolino di bosco in was macedonia di frutta con gelato, a treat I got myself every so often at my favorite bar on the Piazza del Campo in Siena. I forget the name of the bar, but it was good each time I went there, and one of the bartenders remembered me each time (1991, 1994, 1998).

Good point about Mexican/Southwestern use of cumin.

I think we have to distinguish between Han Muslims (Hui) and Turkic Muslims from Xinjiang when we discuss this. I don't know whether Han Muslims use any spices not often used by non-Muslims in the same regions, but I do know that Xinjiang-style food includes kebabs with cumin and such-like. Undoubtedly, much more knowlegdeable people than I will have more to say on the subject.

I love fennel, and cumin is one of the best seeds in the World. So there! Seriously, if Indian food becomes seriously mainstream in the US, cumin could become a very important all-purpose spice. But I think that'll take more than 5 years to happen.

Gone? Not around here.

I have no idea what special dishes they may make for Ramadan, because I wasn't in China then. But certainly, they use spices. So do non-Muslim Chinese.