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Thank you, Ellen. You're making this one of the most interesting threads on the site!

I had the lunch special ($8.88 + tax and tip) at the branch of Wu Liang Ye on Lexington between 41st and 40th Sts. today. On the strength of a discussion of their tangerine-peel-flavored dishes in this linked thread, I got their Tangerine Chicken (for a first course, I had a soothing Chicken/Egg Drop Soup which I think was described on the menu as "Corn Egg Drop Soup"). The chicken was moist and lightly breaded, and the dark sauce was a bit smoky (an interesting twist, I thought) and had a nice hot-pepper bite. But where was the tangerine peel? I almost flagged down a waiter to ask whether they had brought the right dish, when I finally happened upon one of the few bits of peel among all the raw onion slices, scallion pieces, and bell pepper pieces (uneaten because of my allergy to them), with mayonnaise-slathered lettuce on the side (also uneaten). Pity, it would be a good rendition if only they used at least 5 times the amount of tangerine peel. Is the problem that they have a better branch at the 36 W. 48 location?

Definitely sacrilegious!

Indeed, but not at 7th St., which doesn't exist at Broadway, but near Waverly Place.

Thanks for that great post! What was the meat item that you got at White Mana?

I wonder whether anyone who's been to Devi would like to comment on Bruni's response to the desserts there.

Bless those of you who are helping. My approach, though, is different. When homeless people beg for money for food and I have time, I offer to buy them a sandwich of their choice and a drink (non-alcoholic, like coffee or tea). I also have sort of adopted one street person who hangs out at the corner of my block and give him a buck or so when I have the time and money. It's great that many people remember the homeless and indigent on Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it's not nearly so good that so many people forget them during the rest of the year. Let's not forget that people have to eat every day of the year, not only on holidays.

What's wrong with Italian dishes that have no pork products in them? I'm sure you've had some, and I suspect that if you cook some of Edda Servi Machlin's recipes, you won't miss the pork.

See what kind of price you can get for long (e.g. 2-year) aged gouda.

You actually liked the food on People Express? I'm surprised, because I remember its cheap, no-frills flights as its selling point.

William, sweet potatoes were a very common food in my Jewish New York household when I was growing up. We seldom thought of them as particularly Southern, though since we had spent 1967-68 in Baton Rouge while my father was in residence at LSU, my parents couldn't have been said to be ignorant of the South or its food. But the most common way we had sweet potatoes was simply baked in the oven, with butter added with a knife on the table or not, according to our preferences (I always abstained). Another way sweet potatoes were used was in tsimmes, a traditional Ashkenazic Jewish dish which doesn't always use sweet potatoes but which I think is much improved by them. It's a kind of beef stew with various sweets that's traditional for Passover and we have sometimes made it for Thanksgiving, too. Prunes, sweet potatoes - various sweet things with stew beef, pepper, etc. We did sometimes have candied yams, too, and those were usually made with canned yams in those days (the 70s). My other exposure to sweet potatoes, though, was even more decidedly Southern. A wonderful black lady came by every week or so to do some cleaning and babysit me. She was a great baker and liked to bake things for us in her Harlem kitchen and bring them over. One of the things she brought sometimes was a delicious sweet potato pie. To this day, I remember my fictive third grandmother, Mrs. Carr, with love every time I eat sweet potato pie or any other Southern dessert.

This has been one of the best blogs ever! I'll miss it when it's over.

I'm enjoying this Q&A already, and I'd like to ask you perhaps a somewhat off-beat question. I spent parts of three summers in Siena and loved the fact that when I went to any old trattoria with a cheap menu', the vino da tavola would be a good Chianti, often gallo nero. The standard vini di tavola in Tuscany are far superior to wines that are sold by the glass in many restaurants in New York. So my question is: What city or town in Italy would tend to feature the best wines as vini da tavola in ordinary, inexpensive eateries?

Welcome! What is a laccha paratha? Is it so called because of its shape?

He answered your question. Just click on this text to read his reply.

Don't forget uborkasalata (that's Magyarul [Hungarian] for cucumber salad).

Thanks for the recommendation, FatTony.

Yeah, that would be ideal. I recommend to any of you who haven't seen the Betty Boop short about her campaign for mayor. I can't find it on www.imdb.com, but her slogan was "pests beware!" It's really a propos.

Kuih and kueh are just two different spellings, and the word is Malay and Indonesian. Whether it may be a word in any other languages, I don't know.

Indeed. We could also mention squash. But even more importantly, look at how the chili pepper changed world cuisine. Oh, and there's something called chocolatl...

My take on this compaining business is that I have no sympathy for a customer who, when asked "is everything OK" says "Yes" and then proceeds to punish the restaurant for poor service. If asked, I will always give a truthful answer, whether the questioner wants one or not, and whether s/he plans on doing anything about what I tell him/her or not. But as for making a special effort to find a manager and complain to him/her, that is purely up to the discretion and inclination of the customer. When you're a customer, you are off duty, not at work, and don't have any job to do other than fulfilling the contractual obligation of paying for what you ordered and behaving in the decent way people are expected to behave in public.

I haven't been to Nice since 1993 and, therefore, have no useful restaurant info to impart, but I just want to encourage you to try local specialties, including those which you might find in street stalls and not in restaurants, such as Tourte Blette, which is a delicious confection that - no kidding - features Swiss chard. The Nice I remember was filled with a variety of different types of eateries - Nicois, those featuring cuisine from other parts of France, Italian, Tunisian, Vietnamese, etc. I found both Jewish and Muslim Tunisian bakeries selling delicious Tunisian sweets made with date paste, fig paste, almonds, hazelnuts, honey, etc. Explore, and have fun!

That's a strong argument for eliminating, not keeping, the tipping system. And it certainly sounds like that man was a total asshole for stiffing you after all you had done for and offered to him. There's no doubt that there are individual tipping styles, but I would think there's little doubt that extremely rude or incompetent service is likely to get lower tips, though I suppose I stand to be corrected. I'll say this: Knowing what I know about waiters' wages and taxes, it takes a lot for me to stiff someone on a tip, and when I do, there was something really seriously wrong with the service.

My father might or might not let me do any cooking. I think he'd probably rather do all the cooking himself and will be happy for me to wash dishes, do some prep work, perhaps do some basting or stirring, and find whatever spices he needs that are in the spice cupboard. My father is a very good cook, though, better than I am, so I don't have the problem some of you do. My mother is also a very good cook, possibly still a bit better than my father, but after having been the primary cook for about 40 years, she usually doesn't cook nowadays and is delighted to relax and have dinner served to her.

Is Bubur considered a Chinese dessert? I consider it Malay(sian). On the other hand, there are some similar things that I consider Chinese, like red bean soup and nut soup.