Pan

I figure they simply gave up because they figured you weren't paying and it wasn't worth the trouble to try to get payment.

Yeah, if you go there, get their specialties, but eat very lightly the rest of the day, and have plenty of Metamucil handy. Frankly, I thought the place was overpriced and just not that great, but the more you stick to offal and high-fat Auvernois specialties, the better it is. But I think you're paying fairly heavily for rustic cooking. You can read my meal report on Ambassade d'Auvergne here: Ambassade d'Auvergne

You should do a blind taste test with some cookies some time, Pan, even just sugar cookies. I've done it several times now on lots of people. No one can tell the difference. Between real vanilla and vanillin? Is that what you're talking about? I can taste the difference in a chocolate bar. I gave up Hershey's some time back because of vanillin. Sure, Hershey's never was premium chocolate, but that's not my point.

You're reminding me of the tale of the Stone Soup, Maggie.

Is Toro fancy food? (I have a lot to learn about Japanese food.)

Admin: An archive of 2001-2003 Grand Sichuan International discussion may be found here. I had an excellent pre-Chinese New Year's dinner tonight at Grand Sichuan (9 Av. between 50th and 51st). I started with the 2nd of the dishes for the Prodigal Daughter, which deserves to be on my list of Favorite Chinese Restaurant Dishes in New York. Amazing raw vegetable dish, probably done better than the best examples I've had at the Chelsea branch. Slices of garlic and scallions, shreds of hot green pepper and what I believe to be extremely fresh celery (no carrots, unlike in the Chelsea branch), in a very spicy sauce that includes hot pepper oil, vinegar, and soy sauce (but that might not be the whole thing). My main dish was a special dish for Chinese New Year's. It was a great chicken dish - a sour and spicy dish, but not nearly as spicy as the cold dish. If you order it, don't be afraid of the red peppers: Eat them. They somehow absorb most of the sourness but are not very hot at all (at least not after that other dish, which really breathes fire), and eating them is important to fully appreciate the dish. Other ingredients included scallions, ginger, garlic, and some Sichuan pepper from time to time (yes, it was potent and didn't seem at all stale), and it was garnished with slices of hothouse cucumber (which I ate) and red bell peppers (which I didn't eat). That chicken dish was so good that it continued getting better as I ate more of it and even after I had finished, when the taste continued to develop in my mouth. I'm not sure if it was made with freshly-killed chicken, but the meat did taste good. Total bill: Just over $21.

I haven't seen any mention of poems so far (not counting plays in verse). The first one that came to my mind was William Carlos Williams: "I ate the plums that were in the icebox..." There are many traditional Malay pantun (poems with 2 rhyming couplets) that include food in them. And in the Bible, the Song of Songs has references to food and wine "The kisses of my beloved are sweeter than wine," etc. If any of you haven't read the Song of Songs, read it. It's one of the most beautiful books of erotic poetry ever written.

Soba, where's Omen? Japanese peasant food sounds like something that could really hit the spot in this frigid weather. Also, some of us need definitions of some of these things. But that's probably best left to another thread, I suppose. I happened to walk past a place called Teriyaki Boy today, and I picked up a takeout menu. There's a chain of Teriyaki Boys. There are 8 in Manhattan (this one was on 9th between 57 and 58 Sts.), two in New Jersey (Fort Lee and Prinston [sic]), and three in Pennsylvania (two in Philadelphia and one in Harrisberg [sic]). Various dishes are available, including various types of sushi (some, like "Mexican Roll," clearly inauthentic), a few types of sashimi, Bento Boxes, and so forth, but I do think this place qualifies as a teriyaki specialist. I didn't eat there (I was in fact walking to Grand Sichuan for dinner), but it did smell good. Their prices are quite inexpensive. I'd be curious to hear from anyone who's eaten anything at any branches of this chain. Anko, I'm glad you're participating in this thread.

I refuse to eat anything with artifical vanilla flavor (vanillin) anymore, because it's so grossly inferior to real vanilla. So I have to disagree with you here. However, I agree with most of your other nominations.

Welcome, Mona! No. You need to press the "I" button above the compose screen twice: Once before typing the italicized text and once at the end of that block of text like this.

Thanks for your contribution, Steven. Sure, an effort at comprehensiveness is a good thing. I was also going to make a comment about one of the places, but I think it's probably best to list the categories and entries and then discuss which places are best in each category.

How about vserna if he's not too busy (which he might well be) or one of our other Iberian posters?

Thanks for telling us your story. The owner of the Indian place operated incompetently. If I had waited 2 1/2 hours to be served any food after ordering dinner in a restaurant, I'd expect them to comp the meal. But I'm just curious what percent of the expected payment the deposit you paid was.

I think it would be useful and interesting for us to subdivide cuisines by category. I thought I'd start with Japanese. Seems to me, the best-known specialty in Japanese eateries in New York - served in a wide variety of settings from pretty cheap places in the East Village to very expensive places like Nobu - is sushi/sashimi. But there's that little hole-in-the-wall otafuku place on E. 9 St., and there are soba specialists like Soba-Ya. There are also ramen places, including Ajisen on Mott St. in Chinatown, and Japanese sweet shops (one also on Mott St. comes to mind). Are there any sukiyaki specialists in New York? Any tempura specialists? Etc. Let's make a list.

Thanks. That sorbet was great!

If my teaching schedule ends up not being too tight, I may volunteer later. It'll be more interesting, because then, I'll go to Flushing every Thursday and doubtless often go to Chinatown after work on Mondays and Wednesdays for dinner.

I really don't want to do this. I almost never cook, and I'm a bit embarassed about some of my eating habits. Do you really want to hear about delivery from my local Chinese place and a pint of Haagen Dazs Dulce de Leche frozen yogurt?

Jason, I guess I have approximately the same feeling about cumin that I have about onions and garlic: Yes, it's possible to have too much cumin, but perhaps not very easy. And frankly, I love the smell of a good Indian spice store.

I don't see why. The gallbladder stores bile, which breaks down fats.

You're most welcome, Elyse.

Jon, I think the pizza that Pan and Docsconz are referring to is Neapolitan pizza -- as it's found in Naples. Pan made the remark that the pizzas he had in Naples didn't lend themselves to the NY fold-and-eat-standing-up treatment. They were more suited to knife and fork. Exactly, Chad. And ditto for the restaurant whole pizzas you get in places like Li'l Frankie's, which have the same thickness of crust as Neapolitan pizzas, and some other similarities to them.

I haven't been to India since 1977, but I loved Fatehpur (with Sikri down below in the valley), and I also liked various sights in Delhi, including the Red Fort. Neither Fatehpur nor Delhi is very far from Agra.

I'll look forward to that. Perhaps it'll be another Daily Gullet article?

I think it's funny how Quebecois really think beer is the drink of the Devil. So they advertise Molson's (circa 1996) with the slogan "Un gout qui pete le feu" ("A taste that farts fire") and have brands with names like "Maudite" ("Curse") and "La Fin du Monde" ("The End of the Earth"), with appropriately apocalyptic pictures on the labels.

Yep, they sure are modern! My father cooks Indian food with a very minimal amount of fat, much less than called for in the recipes he uses, and I daresay, much less than is common for the overwhelming majority of Indians. As a result, my stomach is upset much less often after eating his Indian food than after eating Indian food even in a good restaurant like Madras Cafe - though their food is good for my respiratory system. Don't you find that most Indians use a fair amount of fat in their home cooking?