Pan

After seeing a fabulous concert of the Hilliard Ensemble at Washington Irving High School, mascarpone and I walked down to Chinatown and visited Fuleen Seafood Restaurant for the first time (for both of us). We had an excellent meal. A woman who seemed to be a manager (she was not a waitress) and was quite fluent in English came over to our table to talk to us about the specials and answer any questions we had. When we asked her about the Special Crispy Black Jelly Fish ($10.95), a cold dish, she explained that the jellyfish is not fried but is naturally crispy (i.e., chewy) in texture. When the waitress brought the dish to us, she was really doubtful that we'd like it. We did, very much. It was pleasantly chewy but not difficult to eat, was accompanied by sweet pickled cucumber slices and some fresh cilantro, and had a little sesame oil and some sesame seeds on it. We were given a dipping sauce that went terrifically with the dish. I do not know all of what was in the dipping sauce, but clearly, there was some vinegar and some salt; I know there were other things in it, though. Next in order of appearance was Shredded Squid Chili Style ($8.95), listed on the menu as an appetizer. It was in fact a full plate, but had the character of an appetizer because the squid tentacles were breaded and deep fried like French fries. The dish was too oily and salty for us to finish a whole plate of it, but would be better as an appetizer shared between four or more people. It included little bacon strips (I think), chopped scallions, crispy rice noodles, and some fresh ginger, but the jalapenos clearly in evidence in the photo of the dish on the menu were almost completely absent. So overall, this is the closest to a failure of anything we had, but it still had some merit. We then got a special: razor clams in black bean sauce ($11.95, IIRC). These were wonderful!!!! Delicious clams, excellent texture, and the black bean sauce was not the typical black bean sauce but must have included some kind of high-quality special soy sauce or/and good stock of some kind, I guess. We found the service quite good. The total bill came to $46 for two, including a deservedly generous tip. I think this would be a great place for an eGullet banquet one of these days. Fuleen Seafood Restaurant 11 Division St. (right off Bowery) New York, NY 10002 Tel: (212) 941-6888

I'll try it no matter what. If the place is even 1/3 as good as the one at 50 St., it'll be better than any other East Village Chinese place.

Beats me! All I saw was the sign.

Nope - in Nuova Iork itself. At what was then New York Hospital I was also born in New York Hospital! Your father conducted Broadway shows, or was it you who worked on Broadway? Soul mates.

There will be a new branch of Grand Sichuan at 23 St. Mark's Place, the renovated/new building with the Quizno's and so forth between 2nd and 3rd Avs.! Now, finally, perhaps there will be a truly good Chinese restaurant in the East Village that I'll be able to get delivery from! The sign is on in English and Chinese, but the restaurant is not yet open and it may be some time yet.

Great idea, BBhasin!

I really appreciate your post, Nina. Most instructive.

Nope - in Nuova Iork itself. At what was then New York Hospital I was also born in New York Hospital! Your father conducted Broadway shows, or was it you who worked on Broadway?

Oh, fish skin is often really good (right, Ankomochi? ).

In the St. Mark's Pizza thread, LJC touted Chickpea, the kosher (but not shomer shabbos) Israeli felafel/shawarma place on the former site of St. Mark's Pizza. I've been there a few times. Their felafel and chicken shawarma are tasty (I reserve judgment on the turkey shawarma, having gotten some slices with gobs of pure fat in them, probably just luck of the draw), and I will be back often. I spoke with one of the owners today, who with a smile confirmed that I had indeed tasted cloves and allspice in the shawarma; they are part of the marinade, and make for a taste I haven't experienced in any other joint's shawarma. I highly recommend getting your felafel or shawarma sandwich with a nice helping of the spicy pickled vegetables, which are really good. To be clear, I don't get the impression the place is worth a major trip, but it is a very welcome addition to the East Village and if you're around here, do consider dropping in. The place is clean and well-lit, and the service at the counter and cash register is friendly and good. Felafel, shawarma, and shawafel (some shawarma, some felafel) sandwiches cost around $5 apiece, and they put all other East Village felafel and shawarma sandwiches to shame.

Seems like Sifton liked the food but found some of the rest of the experience off-putting. What does anyone make of this:

I think I'd be curious to hear what you think about religion some time.

The end (better yet, start ) of a good strudel or bread. The crispy bits of rice that line the pot if you cook the rice long enough. The brown meat of the chicken. The red part of the roots of the spinach. The young leaves of the cashew tree. Yum! (Note: Don't look for them unless there are cashew trees growing in your area. They don't travel well.)

La Focacceria is around the corner from me, so let me know when you'll be there, and I'll hopefully be able to meet you. On the next block downtown, Teresa's makes a tripe soup I enjoy. Laifood in Flushing makes a pig intestine and mustard greens soup which is worth trying, but I doubt you'll be making such a long trip. There's a place just south of Excellent Dumpling House on Lafayette St. south of Canal, that has soy sauce duck gizzards. I don't remember the name of the place, but I've gotten duck gizzard and bok choy on rice for lunch there for around $6, and it was pretty good - great, if you take the value into account.

I miss this blog already, though I'm enjoying balmagowry's. I don't really know what else to say; I'm sort of rendered speechless...

Lauren, I don't think you're old enough to remember what TriBeCa was like before it became trendy, because I think that was basically in the 1970s. In any case, I don't miss what it was. It used to be deserted, and spooky if not downright dangerous at night. The Meatpacking District has never been a place I hung out, but I sort of vaguely sense that it used to be a stinky bunch of meatpacking plants. And I don't hang out there now that it's trendy, either. Would I want to live there? No, probably not, if I could afford to move there now. But I wouldn't have wanted to live there in the old, stinkier, spookier days, either. Don't get me wrong, I saw some merit in the old Times Square District from my high school days (1979-83) and the East Village that contained cheap pierogi dives like the old Leshko's and not the more expensive restaurants and sandwich places that have opened since (though some of those have merit!), but is there really much to miss from the tranny whore days of the Meatpacking District?

My mother got married in 1953, and some time before that briefly dated the son of the owner of the Karachi Rice Shop, which used to be on 46 St. between 6th and 7th Avs. in Manhattan, so you can figure that restaurant was around from some time in the 40s at least, I suppose.

Well, this will be fun! One question: Were you born on Lawn Guyland?

I think it's better, and has more variety of offerings, especially in terms of cold dishes. I also think that Sichuan Dynasty, about 2 1/2 blocks from Spicy & Tasty, is probably better than Grand Sichuan, though it's been a few months since I've gone to Sichuan Dynasty.

Me! That request takes balls. If I were the restaurant, I'd probably make that substitution with a supplement only. Customers asking for a substitution are asking for a favor and should be reasonable and tread lightly. It's a given to me that restaurants always have the right to refuse to make a substitution. I just don't think having a blanket policy of automatic refusal is praiseworthy.

For that dinner? Wow!

So does that mean that neither of you have ever asked for substitutions because you thought they'd be good? I have, on rare occasions, and without remembering specific instances, I generally remember that when the requests have been granted, the results have usually been good.

She can't recall how we made it, but if we can remember, I'll let you know. I'll try to remember to look for a recipe the next time I visit my parents.

It's nice to see such unanimity here. Yes, the owner was right and the customers were assholes. If they never come back, good riddance to them.

Isn't sambal (and many varieties of it) popular in the Javanese style cooking ? Yes, many varieties. To me, sambal is just a sauce that has a mixture of things in it, but not a curry or some other types of dishes. The online Malay-English dictionary I use defines "sambal" simply as: This "Interactive Dictionary: Indonesian-English" defines sambal as: And in Indonesian as That means "A condiment (`makanan penyedap' means a food that makes other things tasty) made with chili peppers (lombok and cabai both mean chili peppers - I recognize cabai from Malay, but the more common word there is lada; I wasn't aware that lombok means chili, and the word is not found in the Malay-English dictionary linked above)." So I guess that establishes beyond doubt that sambal has chili in it, but still, the amount of bite does vary. And to be honest with you, it's almost a given that any Malay sauce for savory food will have some hot pepper in it. With Javanese food, some dishes may be liable to use black pepper and dispense with hot pepper. I can remember at least one Indonesian recipe like that - I'm pretty sure it was for beef (probably originally water buffalo) cubes in a delicious rempah (spice mixture) with coconut milk and plenty of black pepper but no hot pepper. It was still pretty robustly spiced, at that.