RossyW

Yokohama has definitely been recommended to me, so it will be on my list of cities to do some more research on. Thanks for all the help so far. And smallworld, I will definitely say where I end up, but for now I'm going to concentrate on being accepted in the first place!

Torakris, My experience with Japanese food is pretty superficial. Much of it comes from hokey Benihana's type restaurants too. So consider me without prejudice Just wondering if anyone thought that quality/variety varied from place to place. Obviously I wouldn't just be interested in Japanese food, I couldn't limit myself to just that. If there is a significant difference in the amount of international tasties available, well, that's something to consider too. As it is I'm planning on throwing myself straight into Japanese cuisine, so that was more what I was concerned with. herbacidal, I don't think that putting Tokyo on the application would impact my candidacy (at least that's what they claim) but it is unlikely to be granted. I think the vast majority of applicants will put Tokyo (or maybe Kyoto) as their preference, and most of those people will in fact be assigned to rural areas. So I think and hope that putting somewhere like perhaps Kobe or Fukuoka, from what I can tell both pretty/interesting/cosmopolitan cities but unlikely to be named on too many applications, will make my request more likely to be granted.

Hello all, I'm in the process of applying for the JET Programme to go live and teach in Japan for a year. I have to choose a few specific cities/prefectures as preferred placements. At the moment I am targetting Kobe and Kyoto as my top two choices and am considering a number of other places for a third choice (Osaka, Yokohama, Hiroshima, Fukuoka). Are any of these places, or any other cities I haven't listed that would be worth considering, notably food challenged? Or have great culinary reputations? I very much enjoy everything I find at a US Japanese restaurant but don't know much beyond that, I'm looking forward to the variety offered in the real country. However I can't say much more beyond that about what type of eating options I'd be looking for. And it should probably be obvious that I'm not going to be having a lot of $100 dinners on my teacher's salary, so I'm not looking for the culinary cutting edge so much as a place that has great tasty variety. By the way, I have decided to avoid Tokyo, although I would love to live in a city that big, because I'm getting scared of being stuck in one of its ultra-boring concrete suburbs. Thanks!!

Well, I had my burger today. Went to Molly's for lunch (I got hooked in by the idea of a Guiness accompaniement). Outstanding burger. Juicy but not runny. Tasty. Definitely worth the trip. Another burger not mentioned on this thread that I've enjoyed is at Island Burger, on 9th avenue in the lower 50s. I've been there a few times, and the quality has been inconsistent. But it can be quite good. Not as good as Molly's. But this is one of those places with about 50 toppings you can add.

I thought I would revive this topic. Because I plan on eating a great burger tomorrow for lunch. Does anyone have any new ideas on the subject?

Amazing post!!! I've always been in love with Mongolia, for some reason. It is unquestionably one of the top 5 countries on my list of places to visit. I love wide open spaces, I love fields! And I love diets almost entirely based on meat and dairy! Beautiful and inspirational! Thank you! -Ross

Haven't read through the thread, but I have tried the Atkins diet... I dieted for approximately 20 days. In that time I lost about 15 pounds, nearly a pound a day. Did I keep it off? Not really. I kept it off for a month or so, during which I was concentrating on keeping it off. After a while, I stopped paying attention, and I added the weight, as so often happens. The good: I lost weight really really quickly and efficiently. The bad: My diet was sort of disgusting. I was in the UK and couldn't find any low-carb ingredients, so I just had to do what I could with a normal supermarket's variety. I ate untold numbers of eggs - breakfast was actually one of the tastiest meals (I usually ate eggs scrambled with chorizo), but it was very tiring to eat essentially the same thing every day. For dinner I would have a salad with a vinegarette (not bad at all), and something like chicken with a few spices thrown on it (bleh). It's a tough thing to do if you're not a very creative cook. Once I had tacos without the shells. And I definitely had sandwiches without the bread (meaning salami and cheese in my hand). The inability to eat rice and bread drove me pretty mad. The ugly: Being in ketosis really does make your breath smell horrible. My girlfriend had trouble being within a foot of my head, and I had to consciously be sure not to breath in the direction of any strangers. Sort of a rotten egg smell. Yuck.

Thank you all, should be easy enough to try Fairway.

I don't think I knew what chorizo was until a couple years ago when I lived in Scotland for a year. Great stuff. Adding chorizo to scrambled eggs singlehandedly extended my flirtation with the Atkins diet from one day to about, um, 10 days. Anyway, when I was across the pond I read an article on NY Times online that said that a years long ban on the product had been lifted, and that chorizos could finally flood the NY market. Since then I've ordered two or three dishes that claimed to have chorizo in them (all at mediocre Mexican restaurants), and what I've received in each case was some sort of generic untasty red sausage. But I imagine the real product can be bought here. So, the point is, does anyone know a marketplace that I can get a few links of real Spanish chorizo?

My favorite dish at the local Indian takeout place was Chicken Patia. It was quite sour, and the color was an extremely vibrant reddish-purple. At some point the ownership of the store changed, and although the menu remained the same, the Chicken Patia quickly became less distinct and less tasty. It was less sour and the interesting color was completely gone ... basically the dish had slid into a sort of generic, boring curry. I'd like to try and make the dish I ate before. I assume you use a good amount of vinegar. But where does the purple come from?

I see we posted simultaneously As for my experience with Indian cuisine ... I only "discovered" it a couple years ago. I'm 21. I began to become a serious Indian eater last year when I was in Edinburgh... Scottish food is of course horrid, but there were great Indian places of all different price ranges everywhere, so I ended up eating it at least once a week. Since I've returned to NYC, I've been exploring some of the city's great places. One of the great Indian eating experiences of my life was this winter ... I attended the big peace rally on 1st avenue and because of police crowd control we were totally unable to leave the area, and extremely cold and hungry. Luckily, however, we were able to get to the row of restaurants on 58th and after a short wait were enjoying a lunch buffet at Bukhara Grill, which was absolutely the perfect meal at that time. Now I'm in Vermont though so the opportunities to eat Indian have been severely curtailed. But, not if I cook it myself! I have attempted to cook before but never an entire meal or with a proper recipe ... basically my dishes have consisted of chicken + Patak's chili paste = quick tasty meal. I look forward to asking more specific questions on this forum in the future, but for the past few days I've just been occupied with the wealth of links and older threads ... there is some excellent stuff on this board!

Nice. I only found egullet a few weeks ago but have already realized that Monica is a great person! I'm sure her book is similarly good. Actually, maybe I should be more specific about my cookbook needs. I'm basically a novice cook (not just Indian - everything), and I'm looking for a good basic Indian cookbook. I don't need the fringes of the cuisine, or the local variations, or the delicacies. Basically I want to get your standard Indian takeout fare down very well - Rogan Josh, Chicken Tikka Masala, Saag Paneer, etc - before I make any other adventures. Reading the website it seems Monica's book is close to what I'm looking for, but, who's to say I can't buy more than one book?

Has anyone here bought Monica's book? I'm about one recommendation away from ordering it.

Thanks all, for your help. I got the job ... I will probably eat more goat this summer than most eat in a lifetime. I'm sure I'll figure out something good to do with it!

Aw man, I really wanted to win. If any of the winners already have a copy of either book and do not need an extra one, I very humbly nominate myself to receive the award in their stead.

I may be working on a goat farm for the summer. One of the major benefits of this job would be the huge amounts of free ultra-fresh organic goat's cheese, meat, and milk. Browsing around the cookbook aisle yesterday, and glancing at some indexes, I found virtually nothing that would help me out in the kitchen, aside from various uses of goat cheese. I'm an enthusiastic but beginning cook and am just looking for a place to find some nice goat recipes. I imagine it can be substituted for lamb much of the time, but I'm sure there are better ways to use the meat. I haven't eaten goat enough times myself to know how it might be uniquely used. Anyone have a cookbook to recommend (in any national/regional style at all)? Or, maybe, some favorite recipes? Or just ruminations on goat?

Mr Bittman, I'm planning on a long Asian journey and am really psyched about the food possibilities. When you travel, do you tend to 'scout out' places, restaurants and such, or do you eat on the spur of the moment? I imagine that some of the best food you can find in a place like Thailand you just find by "following your nose." Any advice on how to find the tastiest places, or any stories about great finds? Thanks!