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Tried and true Korean? Well, I've probably been going to Kang Suh long enough for them to qualify.

Do you mean when I mentioned that I had a turkey shawarma sandwich at Chickpea that had a large gob of pure fat in it? That's not a criticism of the fat content, but of the presence of a large piece of fat (and also the somewhat unpleasant taste of turkey fat). I've had lamb shawarma with much higher fat content than that turkey shawarma and liked it.

Thanks for the clarification, Marco_Polo. I know only a handful of non-food-related Korean words (e.g., anyong haseyo).

This is going to be a great thread. Thanks so much for sharing, Kevin!

Thanks for the clarification. That sounds like my viewpoint on the best Malaysian food New York seems to have to offer: Boleh tahan saja (just so-so).

That might be a good idea, especially if you're questioning whether controversy over your ratings adds much to this thread. Instead, you can simply describe in words what you thought of your meal and how it did or did not fulfill your expectations.

Luckylies, I'm inclined to disagree with you on Canton. At one point, I thought it might have been the best Chinese restaurant in Manhattan, but in about three years, my meals went from great to good to mediocre, which is disappointing at the prices they charge (higher than most any other restaurant in Chinatown, it seemed to me). But those were just three meals, and the last one was a few years ago (after which the restaurant seemed to be closed for a while), so maybe it's good again.

Amy, I have the chicken shawarma a lot more often than the felafel at Chickpea. Thanks for the recommendation for Hoomoos Asli.

I've seen them in menus as Pa-jun. These would be Kimchi Pa-jun.

Where is the lamb? I see only chicken and turkey shawarma. Is there lamb mixed into one or the other?

There are indeed fish dishes, but non-Jewish Hungarian food uses a lot of lard. You might try some uborkasalata (cucumber salad), though. Man do I love that stuff! And yes, definitely retes (strudel). Meggyes retes (sour cherry strudel) is my favorite (makos retes = poppy strudel was my next-favorite). I used to go to a bakery in the Jewish Quarter, and it could very well have been kosher, for all I knew.

This is just a heads-up about a great new offering at Chickpea: Coconut cookies. They have such a rich, powerful coconut milk taste! $1.90 for a bag of six. Go get 'em!

Yetty, thanks for the report and for posting those great pictures! Have any other members checked this place out? I want to have some of that tasty food! How close is this place to the subway (R line, I guess)?

As long as there's no metallic taste (which probably means, wash the oranges), I've always found canned mandarin oranges OK. Canned lychees have their purposes, without doubt. But I still remember when I ate my first fresh lychee in China, and what a revelation that was! There's a kind of unique sweet/tangy/perfumy taste of high-quality fresh lychees that is never present in the canned lychees in syrup, and it's that taste that makes lychees one of my favorite fruits in the world. I feel so lucky that the delicious fresh lychees are flown in every year from Guangdong to New York nowadays, and I wait for their season so that I can appreciate them then.

They are indeed, as are fresh bamboo shoots.

Yes. They suck! But remember, chacun 'a son gout.

The best way to make a comparison is to try both for yourself. They're both terrific and have their places in delicious cooking in places as distant from one another as France and Malaysia. In Malaysia, there are three types of "onions" that are used very often and prized in cooking: Bawang merah (translation: red onion = shallots, not what we call "red onion" in English), bawang putih (white onion = garlic, not what you might call "white onion" [e.g., baby onions]), and bawang besar (big onion = what we call onion). Of those three, shallots are used most in Malaysian food and are a standard part of the rempah (spicy mixture), which is likely to also include belacan (shrimp paste), fresh or dried chilis, turmeric, and sometimes fresh ginger and garlic -- all pounded in a pestle or pureed in an electric functional equivalent thereof.

In the Riverdale Garden thread, the fact that that restaurant is one of only twelve Bronx eateries in the Zagat guide was mentioned. I wouldn't put much stock in Zagat's negligence of the Bronx. I don't think Zagat's Manhattan-centricity is based on quality, but on their bias and the bias of their reviewers, a group which I tend to think still skews toward Manhattanites and others who eat out much more often in Manhattan than in the "outer boroughs." I recall from the time that I used to be one of those reviewers that there was also a somewhat laughable Upper West Side bias over downtown locations, and I figure that at that time, it had a lot to do with the fact that in my parents' big apartment house on West End Av. (and presumably other such big apartment houses), lots of blank Zagat survey forms were left in the lobby, whereas none were to be found in a tenement like I and so many other people live in downtown. Nowadays, Zagat reviewers use online forms, but there is probably carryover from people who starting reviewing by paper checkoff lists.

I hope I'm not being a party-pooper if I say I'm surprised so many of you like canned mushrooms. I really dislike canned mushrooms and really like fresh ones. I'll take dried/reconstituted if fresh ones aren't available. I prefer no mushrooms to canned mushrooms. The things that I find OK canned are those that don't end up having a "canned taste" afterwards. That would include, as many people have pointed out, tomato products (paste, whole peeled tomatoes in water, etc.) and coconut milk (though frozen coconut cream also exists). I can tolerate canned bamboo shoots only if the dish is strong enough that I don't really notice the canned taste; same for waterchestnuts. In both cases, fresh ones are way better than canned.

Yep!

And here's a link to the preparatory thread (boy, was that hard to find ): Food photography in India, What would you like to see???

As usual, learned discussions of kashrut are extremely complex and use numerous Hebrew terms obscure to the uninitiated or barely initiated. But the controversy is interesting. I would have never thought any rabbi could have argued that gelatin from pig bones could be kosher on the basis that bones are not prohibited meat. The part that isn't surprising, though, is that that is a minority position.

Melissa, I checked out your second link, and there's stuff there that seems unbelievable on the face of it. Is there any possibility any of this stuff is true? HUH?!

I've read Genesis several times and yet never took note of the relevant passage that proves your observation correct: New American Bible; Genesis 32 Genesis 32: 25-26: Genesis 32: 32-33: Thanks for teaching me something about my religion.

Yes to Katz's. I've gone there perhaps an average of once every 3 months or so for the last oh, probably 8+ years, with other visits way back in the 70s. As for El Malecon, I've been there repeatedly for well over 30 years. I've been going to Teresa's for most of the time it's been open (over 15 years) and frequently get delivery and eat out there. Col Legno is a place I've been to over 10 times in the last 8+ years at least. I agree with you that there's no way to judge the consistency of a place if you haven't been there repeatedly.