Pan

I wouldn't be surprised if Tommy proves to be a prophet. The food I had at UP wasn't good purely by accident; there was clear evidence of a sound concept involved. I have to think that something other than a shoddy concept of cuisine has reduced Chef DiSpirito to this low ebb.

No yogurt in Indian Jewish chicken dishes and such, eggs used as a thickening agent in Calcutta Jewish cooking, at any rate.

Isn't the Hot and Sour soup served in the U.S. originally derived from a Sichuan source? If so, that could explain why versions of it in other provinces of China might be less hot and sour.

Kangarool, thanks for that great post! I'll look forward to your post on the Li Family Restaurant.

Flapjack, I'm glad you're putting in your two cents, and I'm sure you produce an excellent product, but I have a lot of trouble with the idea that confining chickens improves them in any way I can imagine, except if you'd rather not deal with the longer cooking times an active, muscular chicken requires. My 5th/6th-grade girlfriend's father had a coop of white chickens that were confined at all times, outside and with some exposure to the sun. I think there was space between the floorboards such that a lot of the crap went down to the ground a few feet below, keeping the environment in the coop from becoming disgustingly filthy. The chickens weren't de-beaked and could move around. Perhaps you'd call it moderate confinement; I don't know, but my perception was that those chickens were in a crowded environment that stunted their development because they never learned to fend for themselves, and I felt that they were dumber than the average bird, and rather pathetic. Of course, several of those things would be pretty hard to prove. But I think chickens need some land to run around in. Of course, that's in an ideal world, and we all know we don't have one.

Oh well. My first thought is "all good things come to an end." My second thought is that it was only one meal, but a meal that will live in my memory.

Now you do! Probably the best-tasting chickens I ever ate were free-range village chickens in Malaysia. No antibiotics, no cod liver oil, fed on rice plus whatever they scrounged while running around the neighborhood. They were muscular and did have to be cooked twice as long as the industrial chickens that have no life, however.

And of course, eGullet is a useful source of information. I got good recommendations from Malaysian members in advance of a trip I took there in 2003. One odd thing that happened in 1975 was when my parents asked the concierge in an international luxury hotel in Seoul (KAL was putting us up because a delayed flight from Tokyo caused us to miss our connection to Bangkok) to tell us where to find genuine, authentic Korean food. With a mischievous grin, he sent us to an extremely downscale, blindingly hot-peppery restaurant that was terrific. You should have seen his face when, upon returning, we told him we had liked our meal very much! You also might have some success if you ask hotel personnel where they like to eat.

Thanks for your reply, Mimi. Many eGulleteers would agree with most of the remarks you made, and have in discussions of the star system, the "$25-and-under" column, and the "Diner's Journal." Nice to get your feedback!

pan - what do you call places that are open 24 hours? ← 24-hour diners!

But it's open until 11 P.M. and serves dinner. 1 Av. between 6th and 7th Sts.

My father likes to buy Amish free-range chickens or, failing that, Murray's. Free range chickens tend not to have been fed cod liver oil, so they do taste clearly better in my opinion. I do recognize that some fakery is going on with so-called "free-range chickens" that really are not, though, as mentioned above.

I call places that aren't open 24 hours "diners." To me, a diner is an inexpensive restaurant that serves pancakes, waffles, french toast and the like plus eggs several ways, omelettes, and some kind of home or/and french fries and stuff for breakfast, makes a bunch of kinds of sandwiches, has some big main dishes that include meat plates (things like turkey with gravy, roast chicken, roast beef, meatloaf) and also makes salads and soups. Some kinds of dessert are always available. Tea, coffee, and soda also have to be available, and I also think of a diner as a place where beer is available, too, though that might be partly regional. I agree with Kara that there used to be a lot of coffeeshops and there are very few left. I guess I think of a coffeeshop as a place that was mostly for having coffee, with the food (except donuts and such) much more incidental than at a diner. Diners will serve you coffee, to be sure, but they're more about the food, which is generally hearty. My local diner is Teresa's, and it covers all the bases I mention above, while also featuring Polish food.

Mimi, I'm really happy you're taking part in this Q&A because you were the first restaurant critic for the Times who entered my consciousness. I always appreciated your willingness to give a star or two to a restaurant that served delicious Chinese or some other kind of "ethnic" cuisine in modest surroundings. I wonder if you'd like to comment on the job Frank Bruni is doing so far, or on what you think of other current New York Times critics and the star system and division of labor under which they all operate. Specifically, I'd like your views on the dichotomy between the "$25-and-under" and starred categories nowadays, and your remarks on how non-upscale "ethnic" eateries are regarded at the Times nowadays. I'll look forward to reading whatever you'd like to say on these and any related issues of your choice.

Thanks for those reports, Roz and Stone! I happen to really like lotus seeds, so I'll ask for that dish when I'm at Devi. It does sound like at the moment, Suvir and Hemant are continuing to present some of the wonderful dishes they served at Amma, and that's only natural, but the lotus seed dish may point in other directions they may eventually travel toward. I really look forward to not only my first time at Devi, but to how the menu will settle in a year or two, when I hope their new venture is well-established.

I suppose Melissa means that they have a duck tongue dish. They might; I haven't paid attention. I wouldn't call Spicy & Tasty a dim sum place; it's a full-service restaurant. Compared to what? When you're at a dim sum eating hall, you need to be assertive and you'll want to check out some of the stuff against the wall that doesn't circulate. If you have a choice, sit near the kitchen unless you've got a really big group, in which case, they'll put you in a private room and you'll probably get good service but might need to deputize someone to get stuff from the main eating hall too. Dunno, but I'd just walk around and look. You'll probably have luck somewhere between Bowery and Mott. There's that block-long store too, I forget the exact location (I think between Elizabeth and Mott north of Hester). You could also always contact eGulleteers and set up some gathering on a weekend, if there are enough takers. You don't need a very big group.

I haven't seen any mention of Buitoni. When I was growing up in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the early 70s, the available brands of dry pasta in our local Sloan's supermarket and such-like typically were Ronzoni, Buitoni, and Muellers egg noodles (I believe I recall that more expensive Italian imports like De Cecco arrived later). Muellers always seemed to me to be cheaper for a reason (broke more easily, somehow, and was harder to get a good al dente texture from). I found Ronzoni fine but preferred Buitoni, which seemed somehow more dependable in texture. Did I imagine it all?

I look forward to that report, Stone. $55 tasting menu: Sounds good to me. I very much look forward to my first trip, whenever that may be.

Chances are, you can get duck tongues at any of the big dim sum eating halls in Manhattan, especially if you go on a weekend. I remember them having them at Jing Fong, for example. I'm sure you could find them for sale in most any of the major prepared-dishes stores on Grand St. or elsewhere in Chinatown, as well.

You like duck's tongues? I find them too much trouble to eat. Now, sea cucumber is something I used to like at the Manchurian hotpot restaurant that used to be where Goody's is now right by Chatham Square, or really close to it. I haven't enjoyed it in a long time. I got a sea cucumber dish at the Chelsea branch of Grand Sichuan probably 2-3 years ago: Great sauce but strange texture. Sorry I can't help you, but I'll be curious to see the results of your search.

I have a friend who just moved to a town on the south shore of Long Island near Fire Island, and there are patches of wood sorrel growing as a weed in her yard. (Interestingly enough, I also spotted some growing as a weed outside of a friend's house on the East Coast of Malaysia, where many wild plants used to be gathered, and she didn't realize it was good to eat, so I ate some and gave her some to try.) A lot of people don't realize that the sort of clover-looking weeds are edible and have a nice tang. The type of sorrel usually used for shchav is sheep sorrel, which has a very different appearance and is not nearly as common (at least in these parts), but wood sorrel is fine to eat. The problem is that you have to snip a lot of it to get much food out of the patch, and it might not be worth it to most people. Here's a picture of the ubiquitous wood sorrel. And here's a picture of sheep sorrel.

Apparently, in Indonesian, "menggado" means to eat the side dishes (lauk), rather than the rice: http://www.seasite.niu.edu/Indonesian/TataBahasa/dictionary/ But "gado" also seems to have a connotation of a mixture: But there's no question that doubled words aren't always plurals. To give a food example, "matamata," meaning "policeman," is not the plural of "mata," meaning "eye." One can imagine an etymological relationship (the police are the eyes of the law, or something), but a literal plural it ain't.

Of course, there are other Jewish communities that are neither Ashkenazic nor Sephardic, including the Italkim (Italian Jews) whose foods Edda Servi Machlin has documented and various Indian Jewish communities, such as the Calcutta Jewish cuisine documented in Copeland Marks' The Varied Kitchens of India. There are also the Ethiopian, Yemenite, Buhkarin, and Iranian Jews, etc. I wonder what kind of cuisine is typical of the small Singaporean Jewish community.

I say "ni-JEL-uh." Or kalonji.

Nope. Yep. Or there's something else obviously wrong with it, like the wine is corked or the soup that's supposed to be hot is cold.