Pan

Impressive list, Tupac, but do you prefer Junior's cheesecake to Two Little Red Hens? I haven't had Junior's in a long time, but I don't remember being blown away by it. There's an even better place way up in the Bronx, as of several years ago, anyway. Around 231 St., I think.

Just amazing! Congratulations! (And I think the incredible weight loss is much more extraordinary than the pro writing beat. Compared to weight loss, writing is a cinch, I think. But maybe I think that just because I'm better at writing than losing a large amount of weight...)

USQ is a good idea. I'm also thinking Hearth, which is more Italian. But I've always liked USQ, though it's been a while since I was there.

I found that exciting reading. I haven't read the book, so I don't know if your marriage lasted, but I hope it did.

I love how they use the whole animal! I think that's the really ethical thing to do if you're killing an animal for food. What's the thing above the small intestines? The large intestines?

Classic deli is a synch: Go to Katz's. Not for seafood, but it's a little-known fact that their turkey is great, probably just as good in its own way as the pastrami, if any of your kids just doesn't want pastrami. Classic NY pizza? Go to Patsy's, between 117th and 118th on 1st Av. in East Harlem. Chinese restaurant? Consider Congee Village (but go on a weekday not including Friday, because weekends are NUTS!). Your steak-loving daughter will probably like the Sha Cha Beef and your older son will have lots of seafood to pick from. Other Cantonese places like Great N.Y. Noodletown can also work well, because they have good salt-baked seafood and good barbecued items (pork, chicken, duck, etc.). Pasta is pretty easy, because there are a bunch of good Italian restaurants in Manhattan. I think that although it is merely very good and not outstanding, Col Legno on 9th St. between 2nd and 3rd could work well for your bunch because it's Tuscan and your daughter can have Bistecca alla Fiorentina there, while your son will enjoy a whole fish dish, and some of their pastas (especially the one with sugo di cinghiale) are tasty. I have a feeling that more upscale Italian restaurants could work well, too, however. Let's wait and see what folks like Sneakeater, oakapple, and Sam have to say (and since he doesn't post that much, maybe you should PM JosephB for his recommendations).

Wow, this really sucks! Don't they have to have failed three inspections in a row to be shut down?

What could I possibly add about Ronnie's posts about food, except that his great foodblogs (first one;second one) have yet to be mentioned. I was very happy to have worked with Ronnie. He was always a straight talker, a hard worker, and a man of integrity whose word you could trust. As others have pointed out, he did a great deal of work for egullet.com and the eGullet Society which represented an in kind donation to a website which he had enjoyed so much since the time when he started posting. I hope you continue to post whenever the mood strikes you, Ronnie, and I wish you a great life as an emeritus member!

Man, I envy you! Makan baik! (Eat well!)

Is "guts" a really bad name to substitute for "intestines"?

You're reminding me of the vendor who sold delicious curried fishballs on the Kowloon side of the Star Ferry back in 1987. I wasn't thinking of that as a very surprising place to find great food, though. An airport is probably a little more surprising, but this is Hong Kong we're talking about, one of the great eating cities in the world!

Wow, that looks great! My cousin and I have been sporadically doing an Orange Flavor Beef quest in New York restaurants and all have been disappointing so far -- too much breading, not enough chan pei, not enough hot pepper, etc. I wish they made it more like that.

[...]It's a good idealistic statement but meaningless in the real world. ← It's also nonsense. Should we judge Grand Sichuan by the Sichuan and Hunan dishes, or by the American-Chinese takeout dishes they put on the menu because a certain segment of clueless customers wants them?

The canteen at the Sekolah Kebangsaan Merchang (the public elementary school in Merchang, Terengganu, Malaysia, a township of some 3,100 inhabitants in those days, spread between several villages) during recess in the mid 70s. Most every day, I had delicious keropok lekor (a kind of fish cake) with hot sauce, and great kueh bakar (woodfire-baked cakes made with wheat flour, coconut milk, eggs, and sugar). Sometimes, I got mee goreng (fried noodles), which were also quite good spicy home cooking. And always, I drank teh o (tea with sugar) with the snack. The taste I most remember is of the kueh bakar, which were so good!

What kind of cheese? I think that certain types of creamy cheeses on ice cream, such as mascarpone and ricotta, would probably be relatively uncontroversial (but I stand to be corrected). At a restaurant in New York called Cacio e Pepe, you can order olive oil gelato with parmesan crisps, and the combination works very well together.

Doddie, I want to thank you for this interesting, fun, photo-filled blog, but a thought also occurs to me: It seems to me that Filipinos (and especially Filipinas) are among the most-traveled people in the world, adapting themselves to many different countries. Often, this is for sad reasons: The Filipino economy has been so weak that for many families, having the wife or/and older daughters work abroad as maids or nannies has been the best or maybe even only effective way to stay above water and maybe allow some of the younger siblings to get a decent education. So many Filipinas miss their hometowns and families acutely. But is there something to the idea that a culture of traveling for work has made a lot of Filipinos comfortable with adapting to foreign lands? And a couple of related questions: Are there many Filipinas/Filipinos in Korea? Do you know and get together with others from your hometown or other parts of Luzon to speak Tagalog (which I assume is your native language?), sing Filipino songs, etc.?

Update: I was part of a party of three at El Paso on Thursday. I concur with your opinion, Fat Guy. It doesn't threaten to supplant memories of delicious taquerias in California, but it is solid, and all three of us liked the place. I plan on going again, probably in the coming week.

That's astonishing! Why is salted fish so expensive in Korea? Is that an answerable question? Does it cost more than fresh fish? Sorry about the asthma, and I hope that doesn't recur. I liked the poem.

I hadn't been to this restaurant for quite some time but I've been reading lots of positive comments about it on Chowhound and decided to stop by for dinner on my way home tonight. Perhaps I ordered right, but in any case, I had a delicious meal and plan on coming back sooner, rather than later. I ordered the following: Tangtsel (cabbage, carrots, peas & bean thread noodles marinated in sesame oil & vinegar), $3.75. Shapta (A traditional Tibetan spicy beef dish sauteed w. ginger garlic & onion) with rice (paratha was the other possible accompaniment), $10.50. Large Masala Chai, $3. The Tangtsel was a fairly sizable portion crowded into a moderately deep elliptical dish, and tasted great! In addition to the ingredients listed on the menu, it also included a healthy dose of cilantro, which I happen to like very much. On the bottom of the dish was an outer leaf of cabbage, tougher than the finely chopped further-in leaves and probably best not eaten. I had them hold the bell peppers in the Shapta. The dish was pretty spicy, and a tomatoey hot sauce was also provided. I suppose the strips of beef were a bit overcooked and chewy, but I didn't really care, because the dish was so tasty! This was around the same size as a typical Chinese restaurant portion in a large oval plate, and plenty of rice was provided. The restaurant is very informal, with most tables quite close together and the little restroom in the back, through the kitchen. From their takeout/delivery menu: Cafe Himalayan Tibetan/Nepali Home Cooking FREE DELIVERY 78 East 1st Street (Between 1st Avenue & Avenue A) New York, NY 10009 Tel.: (212) 358-0160 Hours Open Tuesday-Saturday: 12:00 noon - 11:00 pm Sunday: 12:00 noon - 10:00 pm Monday: Closed

That nomenclature sounds wrong to me. In Malay, as in Mandarin, carrot is called "red daikon (radish)." The Malay version is "lobak merah." I have yet to hear any Malaysian call lobak "white carrot." Considering what they call carrots, how would they call something a "white red daikon"? Perhaps TP will weigh in on this.

Brooks is one of the most colorful characters to ever grace these pages, and his foodblog was one of the most memorable. Like many Louisianans, he loves his food and drink, and he vividly explained to us how food and drink is part of the culture of the community he loves and calls home. There's no way in a short post that I could possibly give justice to his unique perspectives, vivid and heartfelt writing, or the scope and high quality of his contributions to egullet.com and the eGullet Society. Or for that matter, his decency and integrity. But at least I mentioned them.

Many people of my generation and older will remember the long strike against Gallo, but I wonder how many people realize that after the strike was resolved, relations between management and the union eventually became amicable? At least, that's what I remember the reports stating.

Yeah. From dictionary.reference.com:

Why would they think pure salt would be more healthful than fish sauce?

What a cute picture!