Pan

Get some Wuxi Spareribs when you're in Suzhou or Shanghai. I had some in Wuxi, but Suzhou is not far downriver/down the road from there. My caveat is that I've been to Suzhou only once, in 1987, so I couldn't recommend any particular place for you. I do recall that the city is known for its sweets. In those days, there was a particular pedestrian street that was full of sweet shops. I spent most of a morning walking the street and stopping in one shop after another. The sweets I had were a little strange (I found the spices they used a little unusual tasting), but certainly not bad to try once.

Maybe if you get there just before closing time and they're trying to get rid of stuff. In the Union Square farmers' market in Manhattan, some vendors cut prices themselves in order to get the inventory off their hands.

My first thought was "shopping cart." Is a shuk cart different from a shopping cart?

Correct.

I agree, Bryan - modern-looking, ergo appropriate for avant garde cuisine. No, I wouldn't be put off by the utensils; the food (which will be great!) is more important, anyway.

You didn't try the tonsils? You are a brave man. After eating some scary things in China and Japan in my pre-kosher days, I just don't have the stomach for that anymore. ← I've always like innards, or at least since I was a little kid. Chicken livers, kidneys, etc. I probably would have tried the tonsils if I had gone back a second time.

Pundak Shaul or Shaul's Inn is in the Yeminite Quarter of Tel Aviv. This section of Tel Aviv is near Shuk HaCarmel and Neve Tzedek, which is the original part of Tel Aviv. I will try my best to feature Yemenite food this week. The restaurant serves grillled meats and yemenite soups, all sorts of salads, borekas, etc. I have never been there, but I have heard that it is good. ← Wow, I'm amazed the place is still in business after so many years, and might still be good! I'm sure you won't have what I had for dinner there: Grilled bull's testicles. Quite good! My parents had less "out there" food and felt their meals were very good, too.

I don't remember having parsley in any of the food I've eaten in Malaysia or Indonesia, but honestly, I'm not sure the taste would have been very apparent in such highly aromatic food. Cilantro is much more part of that aromatic food world. As for why an herb isn't used somewhere, it could be that it just isn't to their taste. Are there any Malaysian or Indonesian dishes with dill? I doubt it. TP, do you know of any?

Thank you! What kind of wine should we bring? (For those of you who never saw Woody Allen's Bananas, where one of the funny scenes has to do with what the Woody Allen character should bring to his meeting with the leader of the revolution in a fictional Latin American country, Jews are taught never to show up emptyhanded, especially when invited for a meal. So if not wine, cookies or a cake are things to bring, or unusual fruits when appropriate for a thanksgiving blessing [shehechianu] over the "first fruits" of the harvest.) Michelle, thanks for blogging this week, and hang in there. I have a special request: When I was in Israel in 1977, the best food I had was Yemenite food, specifically in a restaurant in Tel Aviv called Shaul's, which I think was on or perhaps on a side street close to Dizengoff Street. If you like Yemenite food, perhaps you'd like to show some. I hope I didn't ask for the same thing when you did your first blog...

Not so inaccurate at that, Mark! Malay and Indonesian nowadays share spellings for most things, the so-called ejaan baru (new spelling), which has been standard since the 1970s or so, but if you understand the correspondances, you'll have no trouble. Basically, showing the Dutch/old Indonesian spelling first and the ejaan baru second, tj=c, ie=i, ch=h or perhaps kh (Achmad=Ahmad), dj=j, sj=sy, oe=u, j=y. I'll show you the correspondances in the words you've posted. The second spelling will be Malay; the third, an English translation: Santen=santan=coconut milk Boemboe=bumbu=seasonings or ground fresh spices [i had forgotten this one and looked it up in this Indonesian-English dictionary.] In Malay, I think I'd expect the term rempah more often for the spice paste, but I'm not sure what's most prevalent in recipes, nowadays. Koenjit=kunyit=turmeric I am not familiar with the word "peterselie." Neither the Indonesian-English dictionary nor Bhanot's Malay-English Cyber- Dictionary had it.

Who are you asking locally?

Donbert, almost all of the things you posted apply to Chinese restaurants, too, with the one partial difference being that some Chinese restaurants in China do have more or less long menus and, therefore, don't specialize in just one thing. I'm not sure whether cooking has been held in more respect in China than in Korea; someone else would have to address that.

Only one day left? I'm sure that's a relief to you, Alina. Well, anyway, I'll look forward to the posts from the last day. I really like eggplant caviar. When I was in college, I had a friend named Ina whose mother did a really great rendition that was super popular at parties where people drank entirely too much vodka.

Anyone got an update? I'm going to be meeting some people at Grand Central this Sunday for lunch. Is the Pepe Rosso outlet still there? Anything else you'd recommend?

To me, non-restaurant food means either markets or stalls. For stalls, I automatically think of Malaysia, but most any Southeast Asian country would be a good bet - Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, etc. And then of course there's India.

Rich, I'm kind of like you. I expect professionalism and competence from my servers and busboys. Give me the menu, pour the water, and bring the bread in a timely fashion, clear the dishes when I've clearly put down my fork. You know, the usual. If you know about the food and can give me useful information or good recommendations, that's great, but the essential thing is to make sure everything comes when it should, properly hot or cold, and that you do it civilly and without dumping anything on my head. I will add, though, that my standards of service change when I'm in a 3-star restaurant, as opposed to my local diner. The waiter in the diner should provide good service, but the waiter in the 3-star had better do so; the waiter in the diner should know something about the food on offer, but I want to be able to count on the waiter in the 3-star for specific information and recommendations. Etc. And that's only fair, because with the usual ~15-20% tip the waiters get, they're making a hell of a lot more money in the high-end places. [Edit: Now, having read Owen's comments, I see I'm in agreement with him. I also agree with you that it's not appropriate for a server to ask if I need change, and I'm happy to say "Keep it" if I don't need change.]

Have a look at this thread on Chowhound: World Tong - Any Change?

John, Malaysian cuisine is really a fusion cuisine par excellence. I believe satay/sate is truly an originally Nusantaran (Malaysian/Indonesian) dish that has become popular elsewhere, whereas Malaysia has adopted (and adapted) so many dishes from elsewhere, like Hainanese chicken rice, roti canai (from Chennai=Madras), etc. I don't think "Malaysian" cuisine has been too much of a hard-sell, it's just been watered down to pablum for an Anglo audience. This from a country where "If there's no chili, there's no taste" is a common expression but white people are known to "not like spicy." But getting back to Burmese cuisine, if it is a fusion of three different popular cuisines, why would that be a hard-sell? I'm not sure I understand that. In my limited experience (having never been to Burma/Myanmar), it doesn't seem to be characterized by the prevalence of salty/fermented foods found in Korean cuisine, but seems more like a delicious melding of things that remind me of Thai, Indian, and Chinese cuisines. The concept of fusion is popular, anyway, so I doubt a lack of distinctiveness is the problem. The very small number of Burmese in the area is probably more at issue.

Your honeycake was splendid! When I was a kid growing up in New York, I didn't know the word millefeuille, but called them Napoleons; I think that is or at least was standard here. The place where I most often got them was called Eclair, and it was a Viennese pastry place on 72 St., an elegant place (or so I thought) until it gradually got rundown and petered out.

Actually, school kids use profanity to sound like adults. Adults who use kiddie terms all the time haven't grown up. Yeah, Aristophanes, Chaucer, Joyce... a bunch of children, no doubt about it... ← Shakespeare, too, in spades. 'Sblood, zounds, whoreson, and a whole bunch of other expressions that were bloody offensive at the time. Rich, if I told you I don't really give a fuck about whether obscene expressions are quoted in food writing or not, would you think that shows a lack of self-esteem on my part, or merely a fair degree of apathy? Jaymes, I don't completely disagree that use of obscene expressions in writing and movies is sometimes associated with a lack of imagination, but some of the funniest comedians (e.g., Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, George Carlin) couldn't have been so funny without cursing, and man, were they fucking funny! Besides, this seems to be about quoting chefs, and it seems that they curse a whole fuck of a lot. Just remember, the refined food you're having was probably conceived, cooked, and plated by coarse people with a lack of imagination in language. Though I have to say, when Anthony Bourdain wrote after a night in which he shared an orgy of food and wine with Michael Ruhlman that he felt like he had been "skull-fucked by a walrus," it was one of the funniest and at the same time most vivid and imaginative quips I've ever read. Now, what would an editor do with that?

One small correction: Cho Dang Gol is actually on 35 St. Did I make the point before that Koreans started coming to the U.S. in significant numbers much later than Chinese and Japanese? I think that could be a factor, too, though it probably isn't relevant to the Thai vs. Korean question.

You have to look at Is It Really that Great!, A BBQ Road Trip Report. I've never been to Texas, but I learned something about the area between Dallas and Austin by reading and looking at the photos in that super-fun thread!

That was an immensely enjoyable thread, one of the best of its kind here. A link to this is going to go on the Thread of Great Threads. Thank you!

Key words: "a little." Besides, it's not so much that I don't like the butter (though it was really unnecessary and excessive), but that eating that much fat makes me stay up all night with feelings of strong discomfort in my stomach and lower throat.

Word to the wise: There's a new branch gradually ramping up its operations on 3rd St. and 6th Av. in the Village. There's a very active thread about it on Chowhound. I haven't been over to try the place yet but plan on doing it. If any of you try it, please report on your experiences.