Pan

Seconded. I can't imagine voluntarily working in 90+degree heat for hours on end every day, just to mention what seems like the worst thing some of you deal with. You must really love your work to put up with such dreadful working conditions. Any thought to a pastry chefs' and bakers' union?

I've gotten a beef stew at Rinconcito Peruano in New York in which french fries are actually part of the dish, and it's a good dish.

You don't mean Casimir, do you? I guess not; they're on Av. B. That place looks like a bistro, and I like to go to their bar and get mojitos, but the one time I got food there, their moules marinieres were barely tolerable, almost too old. That was a long time ago, however, pretty soon after they opened, so perhaps the food got better.

I had another fantastic dish at Spicy & Tasty for the first time tonight: Mild Spicy Chicken. Fried hacked chicken that had had a wonderful spice rub on it, with lots of garlic, the top branches of celery as an herb, some moderately spicy (or Bell? hard to tell because of the hot oil) green peppers in small sections, diced ginger now and then, a few pieces of minced scallion, and plenty of hot oil. The chicken skin was crispy and some of the bones were cooked enough to be eaten. Just amazing. As I was eating it, I was thinking "This is not your Colonel's chicken!" Also, I could have paid a lot less to get Xinjiang-style chicken kebabs up the block and down the street, but why do that when you could pay more and get an exponentially tastier dish?

I see. So did he franchise already? Also, is the soup really fabulous? I've never been there. Interesting how much his personality comes across on the website.

To be precise, it says: No post, hence no reopening yet, I figure. What has his seasonal opening and closing routine been in past years? By the way, it's interesting that he wants to franchise. Any eGullet members interested? http://www.soupkitchenintl.com/franchising.htm

Shalmanese, the Metropolitan Opera performs La Boheme, Madama Butterfly, Tosca, Aida, Otello, Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro, and various other popular operas all the time, with numerous performances per run. A longtime member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra could play each one of these operas hundreds of times in his/her career. Are you suggesting that that repetition eliminates artistry from the performances? Is the difference to you that whereas each multi-act opera performance takes about 3-5 hours, it takes a much shorter time to execute a dish conceived by Keller? Because I'm not sure I see the fundamental difference in the equation. The Met performs something conceived by Mozart, Verdi, or Puccini hundreds of times in x number of years while The French Laundry executes and plates a dish conceived of by Thomas Keller hundreds of times a day. In both cases, considerable skill and practice are required for consistent excellence, but isn't the ability to play the right note the right way in the context of a larger work that needs to be greater than the sum of its parts something like the ability to perform some part of the preparation and cooking process just right? I'm not convinced that there really is such a big difference between the performance of music and dance and the preparation and cooking of food that required some thought to create the concept for. Cooking in a sense really is a performance. And I'll also address a related point: How can a great piano soloist connect with 2,000 wildly different people by playing the same thing for them all in Carnegie Hall? Would it be better if he or she played for each one in person on the mediocre baby grands in their respective houses?

Thanks for the clarification, and sleep well!

I see that there's no thread about this restaurant, which has been around for several years. At least until today, I had never heard a rave about this restaurant (a former flute student who used to live on 3rd St. said they were fine for takeout but nothing special), so I hadn't ever tried it. Now that I have, I intend to be back, and it will also join my rotation of delivery places if the quality of the food proves to be consistently good. I started off with Gado Gado ($5.95), a classic Indonesian salad of mixed steamed vegetables (I believe this rendition had among other things tofu, lettuce, bean sprouts, potato slices - which I've never had in Gado Gado - and krupuk [shrimp toasts]) in a peanut sauce that could have had more hot pepper (that's a personal taste, I think) but had a nice touch of galangal fragrance. I enjoyed it. It was fine, though I suppose not special. On the other hand, the main dish that my very friendly waitress recommended when I said I like spicy food was quite tasty. It was Ikan Balado ($15.95), described as "Fried red snapper tossed in a spicy hot chilly tomato sauce." It had a nice hot pepper bite and a pleasant sauce, and the fish was nicely crispy on the outside without being from my viewpoint overcooked on the inside. To drink with the meal, I had Indonesian jasmine tea from a tea bag ($1.50), with a free refill of water. The total cost of the meal with a deservedly good tip was $31, but I can easily pay ~$6 less before tip by ordering chicken or meat dishes instead of the more expensive fish dishes. For most of the time I was in the restaurant (I showed up around 8:30 P.M. and left around 9:50 P.M. after considerable conversation in English and Malay/Indonesian with the waitress and proprietor, neither of whom I had known previously, but who were interesting conversationalists), it was completely empty, and a two-top showed up just at the end. I think this place needs more business. If you're in the neighborhood, consider going there and letting them know you like spicy food. Indonesian food is more about the fragrance of native spices like cloves, cinammon, nutmeg, and black pepper, and less about the bite of hot pepper than Malaysian food, but they clearly agreed with me when I said "Tak ada cili, tak ada rasa" ("No chili, no taste.") Borobudur 128 E. 4 St. (between 1st and 2nd Avs.) (212) 614-9082 Open Daily Sunday-Thursday: 11 A.M.-11 P.M. Friday-Saturday: 11 A.M.-Midnight

When did the chef leave? Who is the new chef?

I'm with you, Mark. I immediately become suspicious of the quality of restaurants that serve obviously misspelled dishes.

So you figure basketball is an art and cooking is a craft? If so, how do you figure that?

They did?

Define "middle class" and "regularly," if you like, but that still leaves a large number of people who by no reasonable definition are "middle class" (let alone rich). And with that, I bow out of the argument that everyone can afford to splurge $300.

All occupations are different, but I find that if I concentrate on doing what I can do and accept that I can't change what people of equal or higher rank than I are doing or telling me to do, I feel better. It's sometimes really helpful to say "Yes, yes, yes" to unreasonable or annoying stuff that you can't fight if you want to keep the job, and then go ahead doing your own thing to the extent you can get away with that in good shape. Ignore any part of this reply that's inapplicable to your situation. And hang in there. I can't take a stiff drink when I'm teaching, either.

I just watched all your three pages of photos as a slide show (an excellent way to look at a bunch of photos). Terrific stuff! Looks delicious, and I have to go to this place some time! One odd note: One of the four Google ads right now, as I write this reply, is for a vegan cookbook! Could anything be further from what I just saw than a vegan cookbook?!

I really believe you're overstating your case. There are people who simply can't save $300 for a mere meal, period, because they're too busy trying to earn enough to not have to choose between food, rent, clothing, utilities, and medical bills.

Thanks for your answers. Sounds like it's complicated out there.

Beats me, but I'd like to know. I'm guessing yes on this, or at least sometimes.

I think these threads will be of some help, including the back-and-forth banter: H&H v. Tal Bagel Thoughts, What do you consider sacreligous?

That's one of the laugh-out-loud-funniest things I've ever read on the internet! Thanks, Bux. To the point, too.

After a while, I forget just how good the chicken shawarma is at Chickpea. I went back there for dinner tonight for the first time in some time, and man, was that good! Shawarma with tahini, hot sauce, salad, spicy mixed-vegetable pickles, and red onions, accompanied by nice lentil soup with an extra freshly-made pita, still hot, and iced tea, all for $10. For the quality and the pure smile factor, it really is a great bargain!

I'd definitely agree that supermarket bagels in the U.S. are lousy! Those bagels in the photos look like they could be good, but the way the light is reflected off them surprises me. They almost look glazed, like doughnuts.

In the onomatopoiea thread, Hiroyuki had the following to say about bagels: So, given the Japanese appreciation for bagels, how do Japanese bagels compare to American ones? Is there a different taste in bagels in the two countries? For those of you who come from or spent time in the US and whose standards of bagel quality come from memories of eating American bagels, how do Japanese bagels measure up? In other words, can you find a good bagel in Japan?

No kidding? That's cool! As a followup, I've created a thread about bagels in Japan.