Gary Soup

Thanks, I guess I hadn't looked far enough down the list. There have been no replys in over a month, which sort of reinforces my notion that the Restaurant MM has become instant ho-hum. Yet M. Bauer seemed chagrined that his newspaper's policy prevented him from awarding it 4 stars on the spot......

Well, I'd want to know if Cosmo Kramer has called off his strike against H&H before I gave them my business.

As a followup to Chengb02's comments about Shanghai, you might want to check out the current Time/Asia's cover feature on Shanghai. Shanghai: The New World Capitol

I don't know if all Safeway in-house bakeries use the same recipe, but the "New York" style (their characterization) sold at the San Francisco North Point Safeway aren't bad, either; they're a lot closer to traditional New York style bagels than the oversized "rolls with holes" sold by Noah's and its imitators.

Well, my wife makes "hongshao paigu" but in her parlance "paigu" is always a pork chop, not a rib (which she calls xiao paigu), and it's braised in soy sauce. Barbequed ribs in Shanghai are invariably called Wuxi xiao paigu in deference to Wuxi's famous product. (What was that about Beijing, Chengb?)

I'd love to hear you elaborate on your experience there. It will be interesting to see how l'affaire Michael Mina plays out. There were a couple of early notices on Chowhound about Michael Mina (the restaurant) so vociferously negative that they seem to have headed off the front-runners on that board, even as M. Bauer was falling all over the place, and there seems to have been a lot of deadly silence in other quarters after the pre-opening hype . I haven't been, nor is it the kind of place I am likely to spend my hard-earned cash on, but it would tickle me greatly if MB were to meet his Waterloo on this one.

Or just ordering from the wrong part of the menu. You can't hammer out "Strange Taste Chicken" with a sledgehammer.

In Shanghainese cuisine, hong shao invariably refers to braising (or simmering) in soy sauce, usually lao (dark) soy sauce. The "hong" refers to the color, not the heat. Chinese color words (or more precisely our translations of them) are, of course, maddeningly imprecise and never seem to line up with our ROY G. BIV.

Unless it's changed recently, House of Bagels on Geary still makes bagels the old-fashioned way. They may be as good as anything in New York, though not Montreal quality.

I'm not Chinese either, though I have my acquired biases. My choice of the word "complex" may have been too imprecise, and at the same time too kind. I mean something like "busy". Cantonese food may not be as complex in flavoring as Sichuanese food (once you get past the warhorses beloved of chiliheads) but often has a cast of too many characters, like a Robert Altman movie on a plate. You often are left wondering what all those critters are up to, and why are they there. This seems to be most often true of vegetable or seafood dishes. I have to add the disclaimer that I have never been to Guangzhou, and my experience is primarily limited to Western US "high" Cantonese food (a whole book has been written about this "school", which I'm dying to read, but is, alas written in Chinese) and mid-range Hong Kong Chinese (with which I have separate issues). Let the record show, however, that I have not used the word "bland" in reference to Cantonese cuisine, and I have never turned down a Cantonese-style meal.

I've actually got O Mei in my sights for a future visit when I can partake, too. I've heard good things about it, but have never been able to determine if it is the same O Mei that was in Berkeley (Albany?) on Solano Avenue ca. 1969. It was the first good Sichuanese and maybe the first quality non-Cantonese Chinese restaurant in the Bay Area, as far as I know. (I still can't forget my first experiencing "Strange Taste Chicken!")

I think one man's "bland" is another man's "subtle". My knock is that Cantonese cuisine is too complex (despite Jo-Mel's "simple purity"). There's a northern dictum-- stated or unstated-- that a stir-fry should have no more than two main ingredients; my wife sniffs at the "Happy Family" type dishes on some Cantonese restaurant menus, to take an extreme example. Maybe the too-many-competing-ingredients character often found in Cantonese cuisine is what you meant by "show" (they carve birds from veggies in Sichuan too, after all). Cantonese may extol the complexity of their cuisine, but one man's "complex" is another man's "confused."

My Stepdaughter is off to UC Santa Cruz today. She is from China and professes to love American food, though she doesn't have highly developed standards since we eat Chinese almost exclusively at home and Asian generally when we go out. She's also adventurous about trying other cuisines. I'd love to forward her some suggestions on student off-campus favorites. Decent to excellent eats in all cuisines, not excluding Chinese (her standards would be higher for that), but with an emphasis on student budget prices. A collegiate ambience would also be a plus. Also, is there anything particularly good to look for in the on-campus dining options? My apologies (and give me a heads up) if there are previous threads on this topic. I couldn't face looking through 33 pages of topics this early in the day!

In Wisconsin, deep-fried cheese curd (horrors) has become the rage, from what I've read. Not sure if they serve it with dipping sauces, but wouldn't be surprised if they did.

I wouldn't buy the "all regional styles" part of that, unless you mean all the regions of Hong Kong . I think TO can claim the prize, though, for having the priciest dim sum joint in the hemisphere, if not on the planet. (But watch out, San Francisco's Yank Sing is trying to catch up.)

I think the biggest problem is that cheese melts in cooking, and as such has no cognates in Chinese cuisine that I can think of. It's probably harder to incorporate new techniques and forms into a mature cuisine than new ingredients.

We once had a dinner party, all Chinese food, but our guest brought pears and gorgonzola cheese as a dessert. My wife liked it so much she later used the leftover cheese to stuff fried tofu and made a "mock stinky tofu."

It sounds like doufu nao (which Shanghainese call doufu hua). When freshly curded it looks like brains, hence the "nao." On the street in Shanghai it's usually sold heavily laced with chili oil; if done right, it's the fieriest food you'll encounter in Shanghai. It's typically a breakfast food, and a great way to start the day with clear sinuses. I've never encountered a sweet version, which I probably wouldn't have the stomach for anyway.

That was an editorial "we," of course.

I was fascinated by your pic of the Chengdu "Street doufu". Is this a sort of DIY doufu nao? Can I franchise it?

I'd agree that there are bargains available if you know where to find them, especially for seafood, if you don't mind that it is caught in the waters of the "Fragrant Harbor." I didn't, and quickly learned about Cheung Chau Island, where you can literally watch your fish all the way from the fishing boat into the pot, then enjoy it al fresco, with a great sea view, for a pittance. The Slate article, however, was trying to impute an accessible cosmopolitanism that doesn't exist. Did you find a corner to stand on where you could find food from six regions of China? If so where was it? (Probably Causeway Bay, where you're most likely to find a six-cornered intersection .)

Durian was right in pointing out that you don't really need macho-sized burners. My wife gets good results from the standard-issue gas range that's been in our flat since long before I moved in 27 years ago. She does pretty much what Durian described, using a cheapo cold-rolled steel wok. It takes it a little longer to get the wok hot enough, and you have to limit portion sizes to keep from cooling down the wok. (She typically cooks 5 dishes to feed three, with a little left over.) We did install a hood vent with a fan (highly recommended!)

I also think that would be easier to do in Flushing, Queens or Monterey Park, California than in Hong Kong. I spent three months in HK in 1997, and was not overwhelmed with the food choices. Very good (and very expensive) food can be found at the high end, but then it's generally Cantonese. In the affordable range, it's definitely a seller's market. Even the most atrocious hole-in-the-wall will have a line waiting to get in at 7:00 PM; there's little motive for putting out anyting more than a desultory effort. If you really look you can find a good, reasonably priced Shanghainese restaurant, but they don't exactly dot every street corner (and there's nothing particularly Shanghainese about cold, sweet dou jiang or fish wrapped in sticky rice). Most of the Shanghainese in HK have been there since 1950, and would have forgotten what traditional Shanghainese food was were it not for a few places like Wu Kong to remind them, and I'd bet the same is true of Beijingers, Sichuanese and others. It's not much easier nowadays for mainland Chinese to emigrate to HK than to other countries, and if those who do are generally treated with condescension at best, or (more often) contempt. Hong Kongese seem to be particularly parochial about Chinese food, and for relief from a constant diet of HK Cantonese food it seemed far easier to find other Asian cuisines (Singaporean/Malaysian, Thai, Korean Barbecue, even the mythical "Hainan" food than other mainland Chinese cuisines. HK is very good for street food and dirt-cheap seafood at the food stalls, but it's no showplace for regional Chinese cuisines.

Just to bring this timely topic's head above water again, let's expand the query. Other than moon cakes, what traditional dishes do you prepare or eat for the mid-autumn festival? My wife always makes taro and duck soup, similar to this recipe. The significance of taro is discussed in this article, and I'm told that the mid-autumn festival occurs during peak season for the tastiest ducks.

Sly chefs have been known to fake "wok breath" by using flaxseed oil, which has a low smoke point, in stir-frying.