Tropicalsenior

It reminds me of a Joe's special.

The best way for us to get to know it is for you to start a topic and tell us about the food in your part of India and about where you live. I believe we have another member from there @Kerala. For instance, I had no idea that there were Starbucks all over India.

Starbucks has always had a tinge of being a bit more expensive than other places. As I said before, I remember the original Starbucks in Bellevue, Washington and it was in Old Bellevue, right at the edge of Maidenbauer Bay and Medina two of the most exclusive suburbs of the Seattle area. The regular patrons there never blinked at the prices.

They do freeze well although I never seem to have enough left over to freeze. If you don't like the sweetness perhaps you would prefer the char siu boa that I posted a while back. The dough is very similar to the one that I use regularly for my stuffed meat buns. The one advantage of this recipe is that the filling and the dough always come out even. I've made them from tiny golf ball size, (a real PITA), to croquet size balls and the filling still comes out even. I've also used the same recipe with ground pork and ground beef instead of the diced pork.

Last Friday we had a bottle of sparkling wine that was probably one of the best that I had ever enjoyed Since two in the group were teetotalers and I can no longer tolerate alcohol, it was non-alcoholic. If I remember correctly, I paid the equivalent of about $16 for it. I don't think that anyone tasting it would have ever guessed that it had no alcohol.

Carpacio is thinly sliced Raw beef fillet. I'm not sure about the original recipe but I've usually had it with a lemon and oil dressing or vinegar and oil dressing on arugula. The dish was named after the artist Carpacio for its red color because he was known for putting a splash of red in everything that he painted. I know that they call all kinds of concoctions carpacio, but to me it is only made with thinly sliced raw beef.

I actually saw a recipe the other day for medium rare carpacio served with wasabi sauce.

Either that or they are regurgitated recipes from other sites with one ingredient changed to make it the bloggers own original recipe. I cringe every time I see somebody taking the really good classics and adding things to it just to have something 'original'. I can't count the times that I have read through a recipe, gagged, and thought, you've got to be kidding me!

When I made my Sunday meat buns I wanted something different so I try to recipe from Hawaii called Manapua Meat Filled Buns. Since Hoisin sauce is already sweet it seemed to me that the amount of honey that they added was a bit much. I cut it down by a quarter and next time I will cut it down more because they are worth making again. I made it with my own light brioche dough so I had a little bit left over for a small loaf of bread. These are made with pork and they are delicious. They probably would have been better if I could have used the onion and the garlic but in our house that is The Impossible Dream.

Do you think there's any chance of a copycat recipe?

@Madon2234 Welcome to eGullet. Thank you for sharing your opinion and I'm looking forward to seeing your posts on food from India. In what part of India do you live?

Yes, that is the one that I buy. If you go to Presto by Nestle you will see that it is from Nicaragua. I don't care for instant coffee as a beverage, but this one is excellent for baked goods and as a flavoring agent. I have found out that I need to use it up quickly or keep it in the refrigerator because it will clump and go hard.

If you are really curious about the Starbucks drinks, you can find recipes for every one of them on the Internet and you can whip them up in your own kitchen for less than a tenth of what you would pay for them at Starbucks.

In case anyone is interested, here is the original Thread about olive oil in Starbucks coffee

Instant coffee has always been considered a quick cheap way of getting your coffee fix. People that actually liked instant coffee were considered to be not refined enough to appreciate the real thing. There are very few brands of good instant coffee. I believe that one of the reasons that a lot of Latin American countries drink instant coffee is because of primitive cooking situations. They may not always have a means to make coffee but they always have a way to make hot water. My Nicaraguan housemate says that his grandmother used to make coffee in a big open pot on her wood fire. She used to put river rocks in the bottom of the pot and two or three eggshells in with the coffee grounds and then boil the heck out of it. The coffee grounds settled into the rocks and the eggshells kept it from getting bitter. I'm rather thankful that she's no longer around to invite me to coffee.

Well, you are partly right. I have been in some coffee producing countries and they do drink instant coffee predominantly. Not Nescafe but instant coffee produced in their own country. Nicaragua makes a killer instant coffee. If you ever see it it is called Presto. It is what most of the people there drink. I always have a jar on hand for baking even though I don't drink it myself. Costa Rica is different. They are very proud of their coffee and their coffee heritage and everybody drinks the real stuff. I don't know about most companies but some years ago we did a tour of a small coffee plantation and the owner took us on the tour. When we got to the coffee sorting machine he explained that the larger coffee beans go to the US and the European prefer the smaller coffee beans. These are shipped green and whole. The broken coffee beans were the ones that they kept for local consumption and those they roasted and packaged for sale. He said that he preferred the broken beans because they presented more surface area for roasting and never got bitter. Our major coffee producer here is Cafe Britt. It's gone kind of along the lines of Starbucks and at times it gets a little bitter. I think I've tried just about every brand that they have here and I keep going back to one favorite, Montaña. When my grandson comes down, he always takes about 30 lb of coffee back with him. He goes to the Central Market and buys one of the brands that is probably the oldest in the country, Volio. He watches them roast it, grind it, and pack it in paper bags. He takes some back as gifts and keeps the rest in the refrigerator for himself and when it is gone, it is time to come back down. I just wanted to say that picking coffee is one of the hardest jobs in the whole country. When my grandson was down here as a student, he had some time off and decided to try coffee picking. He lasted only 2 days and wound up making a total of about $2. He says it makes him appreciate his coffee even more.

My housemate's girlfriend returned from Florida this week and brought me these. Just at random, she happened to choose my very favorite candy bar. They were a tiny bit melty but popping them in the refrigerator took care of that and as you see I already sampled them and they were wonderful. This may seem a bit trivial to most of you but when you haven't had something in 15 years it is a little bit of Heaven.

You're not missing anything and you're not missing the big bucks that they charge you.

I also prefer the darker roast. I freely admit that I am not a coffee connoisseur and I can drink coffee anywhere from dark roast to coffee flavored water. I think I've tried every brand of coffee that they sell in Costa Rica (except the Starbucks). I've had hundreds of cups of coffee in restaurants and nowhere do they have the burnt, bitter flavor that you get in Starbucks coffee. It's all in the roast. A lot of the coffee that Starbucks uses comes from Costa Rica. Within 10 miles of me there are huge farms that have signs proclaiming that their coffee is destined for Starbucks. Something happens between the field and the cup and it's not the fault of the coffee beans.

When I saw that earlier this year I Googled and found that supposedly this is a big thing in Italy. It's supposed to mellow out the bitterness. Seems like they would save a lot of time and money just by not burning the beans.

In fact it was on the very first page of this topic but it is certainly worth repeating.

Okay, I bow to your Superior and cultural wisdom. But as @MaryIsobel said on another recent thread, I taste with my mind and I just could not wrap my head around all that sweet sauce on meat. However I did not put lettuce on them. Do I get points for that?

I don't know about @chromedome but I would certainly have to pass. I have made the Nova Scotia donairs, minus the condensed milk sauce, and they are real gut bombs.

I did indeed read that and I'm just saying that she has much more patience than I would have. And the amazing thing is that each plate is a feast for the eyes.

Yuck! The coffee is bad enough hot but when it starts to cool off it is totally vile.