Pan

Thanks for that report! One question: What's mutbacha?

I just ordered #31 (Spinach w. Ginger Sauce) and #87 (Chong Qing Dry & Spicy Chicken) for delivery from the St. Mark's location. I told the woman on the phone that I like spicy food. We'll see how it turns out in a few minutes. Wish me luck; it's my first Chinese meal since I returned from China Thursday early morning.

I agree with Bux: Of those plus the Pell St. location of Joe's, Yeah has the best.

Actually, Minca does serve excellent gyoza as well as ramen. What hummus places in the East Village, ZenFoodist? Surely, you mean something other than Chickpea, the excellent felafel/shawarma place in the former location of St. Mark's Pizza?

Still jetlagged from the 12-hour time difference between China and New York, I had a great time reading this blog! Well done!

That Thai tamarind looks a lot less juicy than the rather round tamarind that grew outside the little kitchen area in my village house in Terengganu, Malaysia. Perhaps that was what you call asem jawa. I forget the Latin name, but that type of tamarind has juice that's great to use in curries and asam (sour) dishes. It's called asam gelugor in Malay.

If you're considering a €70 menu, what about the €78 lunch menu at Le Grand Vefour? Some eGulleteers have panned the place, true, but the decor is truly extraordinary and it's a 3-star. And I loved my meal there in the summer of 2002.

My father sometimes resorts to commercial Garam Masala, but it contains more of the cheap spices and less of the more expensive ones. He likes to use it in cooking for my brother, though, because my brother likes cumin and coriander seed but hates cinammon, cloves, and cardamom. The rest of us like it all (except that my parents dislike cilantro).

Laksa, I once got a small roach boiled in my tea in the old Malaysian-Indonesian restaurant. I think the ownership team in those days was a man from Batam, Indonesia and a woman from I think Ipoh, both Chinese. Unless I have things confused. But definitely one was from Malaysia and the other from Indonesia, both Chinese. Sounds like it may be a new team. Oh, and here's the menupages.com page for Eastanah. I've never been there but have heard some very bad things about it. Even the person I met who praised it said upon questioning that it wasn't spicy, which I'm sure you'll agree is a damning comment on a Malaysian restaurant.

Oakapple, my feeling is that a 3- or 4-star Chinese restaurant would have to be anchored by a wealthy Chinese clientele, not a non-Chinese clientele. But this discussion at the moment is purely theoretical. I wonder if there's already a truly expensive luxe Chinese restaurant somewhere on the West Coast with fantastic food that would arguably fit the profile of a 4-star restaurant. I think some discussions in the California Forum have alluded to places that might be candidates. There was some "going all-out for Chinese in the San Gabriel (?) Valley" thread that I can't find.

Thanks, Yetty. I'll post more reviews in time, including a review of the Li Family Restaurant with copious photos.

Thanks for that report! Mascarpone, this isn't the North Korean restaurant Asimov gave an excellent review to, is it?

I haven't been to Angon yet and don't remember whether I had dal fry at Mina, but I'd think it would simply mean dal (dried pulses of some kind or another) that's been fried (perhaps deep-fried), rather than cooked in a pot under low heat for a long time or something.

Laksa, it's exciting that you blogged! I have a lot to catch up with after a 2-week trip to China. I actually wouldn't have had any idea where to get kueh in New York. That Sanur Restaurant seems to be the same place as the "Malaysian-Indonesian Restaurant" I used to go to until a particular incident took place. Do you have any idea whether the management, as well as the name, is new?

This is a fascinating thread! I was born in 1965, so I don't have much to add to the central topic of this thread but would like to address a couple of tangents. South of Canal, I can think of two restaurants off-hand that date back considerably before 1968 and are still in existence: Nam Wah Tea House on Doyers and Wo Hop on Mott St. Whether they were in a New York Times book, though, I wouldn't know. On the subject of where a 3- or perhaps even 4-star Chinese restaurant could be opened and survive in New York today, I'd speculate that a large space some distance from the center of Flushing (Main/Roosevelt) with good parking space is the likeliest place for that, and most of its clientele would be wealthy Chinese-Americans with superb taste in food and folks from that community (by which I don't mean just Flushing Chinese, by any means) who demand the best for their wedding (etc.) banquets. And my guess is that we'll see that within the next 10 years, but then, I've never held myself up as a successful prophet...

bpearis, what do you like better on St. Mark's Place (and I assume you mean the actual street, not the whole neighborhood)? Start another thread on this if you like. As for me, it sounds like the place will certainly be good enough to be my new standby for Chinese delivery. And perhaps if I tell them to make it spicy, they will. Anyone try that yet? (Michael just back from China)

Agreed. Very positive review. I'm intrigued to walk past some time and look at the menu and the space.

Oakapple, I don't think it's uncommon for intelligent people to go to a restaurant after it received a 4-star review in the Times - in other words, primarily because of the 4 stars in the review. My family did that twice and was disappointed both times. The other 4 star I've been to I went to primarily not because of its Times rating but because my brother had previously had a fantastic lunch there. We were disappointed there, too. The disappointments are tangential and could be flukes, but my main point - that a rating of 4 stars in the Times does constitute a primary reason for people to go to a restaurant - is not. Rich, congratulations on your new position! I assume you aren't giving any star ratings.

This place is just fabulous! I'll warn you that it can be a little smoky, but go anyway! It's an elegant upscale restaurant just across the street from the old Jin Jiang Hotel, down a short flight of stairs, but it won't set you back much - we paid some 330 RMB for 4 people for dinner. (The last time we checked, 8.21 or so kuai RMB=$1 U.S.) Freebie appetizers included a terrific little plate of spicy (sweet-sour pickled) cabbage and peanuts with powdered seaweed and sugar. We ordered several dishes. All were good, and some were revelations. We had mashed taro with raisins and pine nuts, which was great and unlike anything I've had before. Another cold dish was air-dried goose, which was nicely smokey and tasted slightly reminiscent of pastrami. Two little dishes of crab over lettuce (we didn't eat the raw lettuce) were wonderful and worth the 150 RMB seasonal price. Mashed bean with preserved vegetables turned out to be the best dish of the evening. Some type of white bean was used, and the taste is really indescribable and again, totally unlike anything I've had before in a Chinese restaurant (a neighboring table that got it on our recommendation described it as a sort of Chinese hummus, but that only hints at its actual taste). Rounding out the dinner was a dish of a sauteed green vegetable that tasted like watercress and looked more like bak choy. There may have been something else I can't remember at the moment. Never mind, it's a great restaurant and if I go back someday, I'll get all different dishes. When we sat down, the rest of the clientele was all Chinese. By the time we left, one party of Westerners and another table of an American and her Hong Kong-based translator had arrived, but the rest in the fairly large eating hall were still Chinese. Olympic diving was being shown on a large-screen TV. From their business card: Old Shanghai Moon, 1/F., Cathay Building, Jin Jiang Hotel 50 Mao Ming (S.) Rd., Tel. 62582582 - 9102

It was too difficult to reply "on location." Internet connections at hotels were really expensive and then my brother's laptop died (I may have lost a lot of photos I uploaded to his hard drive, but he'll try to recover them). I'll make detailed reports in separate threads, but I'll make some general comments here: I was in Changchun for 3 nights, as it turned out. Unfortunately, I was too often stuck eating the mediocre steam-table food in the hotel, Nan Hu Binguan (South Lake Hotel), a beautiful but oppressive Communist government hotel. The Korean influence was shown by the fact that they served weak kimchi, not nearly as spicy as I like. Outside the hotel, though, I had perfectly good Beijing Duck in a large restaurant just west of the big public square that people fly kites from, which has a large high school and several sculptures on it and which is across from the old administrative building of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. There isn't much reason for ordinary travellers to go to Changchun, but the people were particularly friendly and wonderful there. Thanks in part to recommendations here and in part to instinct, observation, and luck, we ate very well in Beijing. I had possibly the best meal of my life at the Li Family Restaurant (thank you, Ed!!!), but most other meals were at least hearty and satisfying, sometimes more. We made an unscheduled visit to Shanghai for 3 nights and except for one meal ate well there, too. Here, Frommer's China: The 50 Most Memorable Trips was helpful, but our most memorable meal - a really terrific one - was at a place that required some legwork to find - Old Shanghai Moon. Mind you, this restaurant is clearly famous among Shanghainese, but the way we found it was by calling a location listed in the above guidebook where they apparently used to be, but which is now a Spanish restaurant. They gave us the phone number and location of the new place, and we chose to go despite misplaced suspicion that the new location in a famous hotel could be a detriment to the quality of the food.

I just got back from China in the early morning hours yesterday. We stopped by a store past security in Pudong Airport (Shanghai) to spend some remaining Renminbi, and among the things we got was a box of assorted moon cakes - red bean, "chocolate," and green tea. The red bean ones were good; the chocolate ones didn't taste strongly of chocolate and may have had some coffee in them, but the green tea ones were the best of that flavor I've ever had - jasmine tea flavored! I loved 'em!

I'm in Beijing now. I've had some excellent meals that I'll post about in due course (the connection in the Novotel Peace Hotel where I'm staying now is quite expensive), but please post more recommendations, preferably with characters, if you have any. My brother and I are also seriously discussing spending perhaps a couple of days in Shenyang. Talk to you all later!

Geez Louise, 87 views and no replies! I hope some of you have something to say about this thread while I'm gone (I'll be in China, including a province bordering on North Korea, for the next 2 weeks).

I eat them sparingly, but I love Indonesian kerupuk udang (shrimp toasts). Malaysian keropok ikan (fish toasts) are also excellent. Yes, I've had the Indian masala cashews. I get them from time to time at Kalustyan's. Very spicy, kind of salty, very tasty. I think those are made in the U.S.A., though.

Soba-Ya of course specializes in soba, though, much more than ramen. I was going to check their menu on menupages.com, but there's no entry for them there. I do believe some ramen selections are available there.