Pan

For me, the #1 thing would be heads. Fish heads, chicken heads, duck heads, goat heads. All good stuff.

Getting back to this: The area to the west of 111 St. (closer to Manhattan), say, between Junction Blvd. and 77 St. or so, has a large concentration of Latinos. I'm not that familiar with anyplace beyond 90 St. or so, but between 90 and 77 St., you can find eateries representing most any Latin-American cuisine from genuine Mexican taquerias to Argentinian steakhouses. I'm not up on things enough to give you specific recommendations, but there's a lot of good food around there, so if you don't get specific recommendations, you could do a lot worse than to just walk around and pick a place that seems interesting. If you get off at 74 St. on the 7 train and walk up 74 St., you will see a row of Indian restaurants and shops. Jackson Diner is the most famous. Astonishingly, there is no eGullet thread on it. A bit closer to Manhattan is Woodside, and the most famous restaurant in Woodside is Sripraphai, considered by many the best Thai restaurant in New York. I haven't tried Sapori d'Ischia, but here are some threads on it.

There are some great Chinese places there of various descriptions, my favorite being Spicy & Tasty, a delicious Sichuan-style restaurant with a fairly long and very varied menu. There is also great Korean food to be had. I'd recommend Woo Chon, which has a very long menu and is a good place for "barbecue" (galbi/bulbogi), among many other things. For much lighter fare, I recommend the bing (Fuzhounese sesame buns) at Unique Pastry for breakfast, brunch, or lunch (by dinnertime, they will have run out of some varieties, and you might want a bigger sit-down meal). You can sit down in the restaurant, but most people get the bing for takeout. Another good restaurant, which serves some spicy food and some that's not so spicy, but has nothing quite as hot as the hottest Sichuan-style food (I think it's fair to say), is Laifood, a popular Taiwanese restaurant on the corner of Prince St. (one block west of Main St.) and 39th Av. (one block north of Roosevelt Av.). Some offal is to be had there, among other things. Taiwanese customers often order pig intestine dishes. These four places are all within a few blocks of the last stop of the 7 train at Main St. If you don't mind going further afield: Silver Pond Seafood Restaurant 5650 Main Street, Flushing, NY 11355 (718) 463-2888 I haven't been to this place in years because it isn't convenient to the subway, but it's always been considered a great Cantonese banquet restaurant, and various folks like Jason can tell you about their branch in Fort Lee, New Jersey, which is known for its dim sum. Note that if you map Silver Pond on superpages.com, the result is inaccurate, and shows the restaurant to be much closer to the subway stop than it really is! The New York City Map Portal (a great site you should bookmark), shows the location of the restaurant to be on the corner of Main St. and Booth Memorial Av., which is a long enough walk (approximately 1 mile) from the train station at the corner of Main and Roosevelt that you'd probably want to take a bus down Main St. You can take the 20A or 20B buses, and possibly also the 44, a limited-stop bus which charges an ordinary fare and runs every 9-10 minutes during the day. In any case, one or the other of those buses will get you there; just ask the driver whether s/he stops at Booth Memorial Av. Here's a thread you should look at: THE BEST: Flushing Dim Sum. So far, the best I've had was at Prince Seafood Restaurant, just a block or so further north than Laifood (ergo, about 3 1/2 blocks from the subway stop), but I've been hearing things about places closer to Northern Boulevard and still walkable from the Flushing - Main St. subway stop.

I am now thoroughly confused. I think I'm just going to have to take a trip "over there" and find out for myself. Janet ← You should make the trip. But this one, at least, is fairly easy to explain: Italian-American "gravy" is at least roughly equivalent to Italian ragu'. So if you know what ragu' is, you have a decent concept of what the sauce many of them call "gravy" is. They may use a lot more of it on their pasta than most Italians do, however.

Sure haven't, Pan. I'd love to check some out, though. A quick search on Menupages for Polish restaurants reveals only 7 in Manhattan (East Village) and Brooklyn (BklynHeights/DUMBO & Williamsburg/Greenpoint) total. Surely there must be more. Any suggestions?[...] ← My standby local Polish diner is Teresa's East Village location, but you might want to look at the Lomzynianka thread.

I thought of another good retro food: Flanken soup! I miss this soup my father used to make when I was a boy. Cheap or free flank bones with a little meat on them, boiled with leeks, parsnips, onions, white beans, dill, salt and pepper, barley, and I forget what else. So soothing! Now flanken is too damn chic and expensive to make a peasant-style soup out of. Similarly, his split pea soup seems retro to me. Or is split pea soup merely a classic?

Several of you have hit some of the foods I was thinking of (for example, chicken croquettes, blintzes), and one I had forgotten: My mother used to make delicious piccadillo, from the Round the World Cookbook, I think (there's a cookbook that would have some other retro dishes in it). To me, goulash and chicken paprikas are "retro," at least in this area, though they're undoubtedly perfectly commonplace in Hungary. Stuffed cabbage is retro to me, though I could eat it every day of the week at various nearby Polish diners if I wanted to. Lokshen (Jewish [and presumably also non-Jewish] Eastern European sweet noodle-and-cheese pudding) feels old fashioned and perhaps therefore retro to me -- nice comfort food. And eclairs and black forest cakes and Sachertortes -- joys of my childhood -- feel retro to me, probably because I'm not in Vienna or Paris (eclairs=mille feuilles). Good thin-battered onion rings are retro.

Not along with sugar, only in a savory cake. (I know I'm stating the obvious; I just can't help myself. )

These are really areas I don't know that well, but Cock's, a pleasant and very no-frills Bajan restaurant, is within walking distance of the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Are you considering any trips to parts of Queens? There's a bunch of interesting stuff there, in Flushing, Jackson Heights, Woodside, Astoria, etc.

Never heard of it. Where is the East Village location?

Have you been to any Polish places in New York?

B&H Dairy, 2nd Av. between 7th and St. Marks. I don't know whether they're kosher or not.

What about modern winemaking makes it harder to notice terroir?

Crème brulée ice cream has been available in my neighborhood convenience stores for months if not a year or more. I'm sorry to say that I don't find it very interesting; too insipidly creamy and not enough burnt (brulée) taste, from what I remember. I like the looks of that Mayan Chocolate flavor, but lately, I've been sticking to yogurt.

My parents and I use Madhur Jaffrey's recipe in the hard soft-cover (if you get my meaning) book. I forget the name of it offhand. We love urad dal, however, and quadruple the amount she uses.

Pam, what's shkiday-marak?

tupac17616, enjoy your week of blogging. I plan on checking in here as time allows and I'm certain this will be a fun journey.

A most eloquent statement, Ellen! It looks like I will be making a similar journey, as will many of us. I am discovering (maybe "being hit over the head with the fact" is more like it) that growing older means having to beware the consequences of heedless excess and become more aware of my body's actual needs and limitations. Because when I don't pay attention, my body attacks me mercilessly. I suspect I will continue to lean on you from time to time as I deal with, or rather, am thrust headlong into confronting my problems before they make it even tougher on me. Have courage and continue to enjoy your life!

The "s" is silent. "Dos" means "back," and "tourne" means "turn." People have sworn up and down that French syllables are all equal, except for context, but I (a non-native speaker, it must be underlined) emphasize the last syllable. I pronounce that word more or less "toor-ne-doh," where the "e" is a schwa and the "h" is only very lightly sounded at the end. Then, there's the issue of how to pronounce the letter "r" in French...

Looks great as usual, Ah Leung! One question that may seem overly basic: How do you clean your wok between frying the chicken pieces and frying the other items? Hot water, then cold water?

I'm unfamiliar with Kin Jup but agree with your other two recommendations. I'd also recommend Cho Dang Gol, Kang Suh, and Han Bat. Cho Dang Gol is known for its artisanal tofu, Kang Suh for its barbecue (though only gas is used there nowadays), and Han Bat is just a really good cheap Korean diner. I love Woo Chon, but I've been thinking lately that Seoul Garden may be the best all-round Korean restaurant in Manhattan. There are threads on all of these restaurants, I do believe. Since you can't do a site search for 3-letter words, search for "Hanbat" rather than Han Bat, and search for "Dang" in order to get the Cho Dang Gol thread (if there indeed is one).

That may be too high a standard. If you find a place anywhere in the Five Boroughs that is in fact comparable to good dim sum in Hong Kong, please let us know.

Are you using particularly high-quality Shaoxing wine? When I went to a liquor store in Manhattan's Chinatown to inquire about rice wine, they showed me some real drinking wine that cost I think around $10 a bottle. The stuff that's sold in big Chinese supermarkets in these parts goes for closer to $1.49/bottle and is indeed fortified with salt. I'm enjoying this blog very much, mizducky. I was going to suggest a West Indian-style curry goat, but I have no recipe for you. I'm sure Ah Leung's recipe is delicious, though!

I definitely second the recommendation of El Malecon. But $5 for 7 blocks? Aren't there lots of livery cabs around there that wouldn't overcharge like that?

Hi, all! I've changed the title of this thread for greater ease in searching. I really enjoy eating Kaufu in Shanghainese restaurants but have never made it. Carry on!