Gary Soup

Whoa. What's the story there? Not continuous "Since 1928"? I've only known them for a few years - used to see the billboard on the drive up from LA all the time. Then stayed at the airport Hyatt where they were sponsoring some event and got invited to an IT'S IT all you can eat - apparently I can eat an alarming number of them. Always want to buy a case at the factory - right next to the hotel - but can't handle it. One of my favourite IT'S IT moments - long hike through Sequoia, followed by an IT'S IT at sunset. I really miss California too. It's-it was originally sold from a stand at a beachfront amusement park in San Francisco, Playland-at-the-Beach. My memory may be faulty, but it I think there was a hiatus of a couple of years before it showed up in freezer cases in a foil wrapper, and I seem to recall reading that it was being "brought back."

Isn't it a bit of a stretch to call a restaurant that's been around for barely 5 years "legendary"?

Marketing? Isn't that what you and I are doing right now? If you are talking about direct sales, note that See's does not franchise, which helps to insure quality control, and their limited prescence creates the added value of mystique. They do on-line and traditional mail order sales, and the typical See's buyer is probably pretty mobile, so they probably do a huge business at airports, and with out-of-town visitors at their bricks-and-mortar locations. Anyway, who are you and I to second-guess Warren Buffet & Co.?

Banh Cuon (as it's usually spelled) is just as you described. It's essentially a spring roll, small in diameter, with a rice flour wrapper which is cooked separately (by steaming) from the stuffing. The bologna-like slices may have been pork roll, a.k.a. Vietnamese pate.

And at which location did you ingest that Top Dog? I always liked the south of Campus location (on Durant I think?), the walls of which carried numerous anarchist writings. God I miss Berkeley. I started out with the Top Dog on the south side, but switched to the more tranquil north side location after getting a whiff of tear gas as an unwanted side order one day. I guess things have mellowed out in the last 35 or 40 years on Telegraph, though. No It's-It's in those days, which may have been before the It's-It was re-introduced.

I love the original vanilla IT'S-IT, but the other flavors are very good, especially the coffee and strawberry. My daughter's favorite is the chocolate. No need to be defensive. It's just a Proustian riff with me. I can't imagine a strawberry It's-It bringing back the smells ands sounds of Playland-at-the-Beach.

Hi Tonkichi, your post was buried in the midst of a thread about another party's query. The Ferry Plaza Market and the Ferry Building Market Hall are at the very east end of Market Street, not at FW. The Ferry Building is that landmark building with the big clock tower, I'm sure you spotted it the last time. It was recently renovated and seismically upgraded, and the main floor of the interior is now dedicated to food related shops, mostly small and upscale. Some of the shops are still under construction, but enough are open to make it worth a visit (as is the architecture and the water view). The Ferry Plaza Market is a weekly "Farmer's Market" (with an upscale twist) on Saturday mornings outside the Ferry Building (there is a smaller version of it on Tuesdays, also.

As a public service, I should mention that if you are lucky enough to live in the SF Bay Area, Costco sells a two-pack of See's 1-Lb. Gift Certificates for $19. That's a 25 percent discount, and no law says you can't give a gift certificate to yourself!

Soy milk Its-It? Mint It's-It? Chocolate or strawberry It's-It? If an It's-It is not made with vanilla ice cream, pure and simple, it's an It's-Not, IMHO.

Don't know if it's still current slang, but the opposite number of an "ABC" used to be called an "FOB" (Fresh Off the Boat) in San Francisco Chinatown.

I don't have a sweet tooth, though I've banked a lot of goodwill by sending See's Candy to relatives back East. That notwithstanding, I've frequently heard people opine that See's marzipan is the best in the US at any price.

Don't worry about smoke-unless the kitchen catches fire- because there's NO SMOKING in San Francisco restaurants!! Well, yes and no. Belden Place is still a haven for smokers because most of the places have outdoor seating, and they haven't YET banned outdoor smoking. And isn't it a bit nonsensical to say "a touch of Paris in SF - but it can be smokey" when "a touch of Paris in SF - especially when it's smokey" would make more sense? Parenthetically, a recent public hearing about permitting a Starbucks in yet another SF neighborhood opposed to it featured an argument by a nearby organic food shop proprietor whose objection was "It'll bring more smokers to the sidewalk."

Zosui is a lot like the pao fan of Jiangnan and parts north in China, which is not surprising since so much of Japanese culture is derivative of China's.

I'm not familiar with the term "velveting", but it sounds like the way my wife makes "Shanghai Shrimp". Is this what is called "slippery frying", or maybe "liu" (—­) in Chinese? I don't look over her shoulder, but I can assure you that she never uses a thermometer.

"Trolling" is being deliberately provocative in order to start a heated exchange, which often leads to flaming. Sorry if I misunderstood your intentions. You're proving my point that Zhejiang cuisine is major. The dishes have been "borrowed" by Cantonese Restaurants in the US precisely because they are so famous. Many Cantonese Restaurants also offer Peking Duck, would you consider that a Cantonese dish? Zhejiang cuisine is folded into what is usually called "Shanghainese" cuisine. Shanghai has no broad cuisine of its own, per se, but you will find many Shanghainese restaurants. They usually offer menus that skillfully balance the saltiness of Zhejiang cuisine with the sweetness of Jiangsu cuisine. If you are talking about the thread on the LA board, "Real Yuanan or Sichuan in S.G. Valley (LA), Spicy hot food and where to find it", that confused the heck out of me. They may be talking about food from the Yunnan-Sichuan border region, which I would consider Sichuan cuisine. To me, a "Yunnan" Restaurant would feature Chinese muslim food, and not be overly spicy. Nice little Yunnan food page

I think you are trolling, Herbacidal. If you reduced Chinese cuisines to four, they would be most likely be Su-Hang (encompassing Zhejiang), Northern (Beijing/Shandong/Manchu), Cantonese/Chaozhou and Sichuan/Hunan. When's the last time you went to a restaurant in the US that DIDN'T have Westlake Soup on the menu? How about Sour West Lake Fish, Tea Shrimp, Beggar's Chicken, Su Dongpo pork? Anything with shredded bamboo shoots?

In the US we have something called "Crab Rangoon." It was invented a long time ago by "Trader" Vic Bergeron, the guy who also invented the Mai Tai cocktail, and launched a chain of "Trader Vic's" restaurants that circles the globe. It's basically crab and cream cheese in a deep-fried wonton. It's been around so long that many people think it's Chinese, and it can be found on the menus of many cheap neighborhood American-Chinese restaurants. (They usually use imitation crab.)

Here's a snippet about Wenzhou, including a half-sentence about its cuisine. It's really in a remote corner of Zhejiang, and the people speak a dialect that's incomprehensible to everyone but themselves. The pork and black rice vinegar sounds Shanghainese, which I wouldn't expect. (I would expect Ningbo and Fujianese influences.) Wenzhou is noted for having sent a large number of migrants abroad in the past, especially to Europe, so maybe there's a Wenzhou colony in Paris! Wenzhou

I think wontons are also ultimately Northern in origin (the wrappers are wheat-based, after all). I've read that they have traditionally been eaten at the Winter Solstice since the days of the Han Dynasty in Beijing. The yellow wonton skins may be Cantonese, though, since the Cantonese apparently have more of a penchant for adding eggs to noodle batter. The Cantonese may also have influenced wonton-making by being more creative in the use of fillings. According to some accounts, "hundun" and "jiaozi" were originally two names for the same dumpling, which evolved in shape (and appropriate wrapper thickness) into two distinctly different forms, but with the same type of filling. In Shanghai, they make a distinction betweeen "small" wontons and "big" wontons. The "xiao hundun" are always filled with a dab of jiaozi-like pork and cabbage filling, and are formed quickly by placing the wrapper in the palm of the hand and making a fist, like crumpling a sheet of paper. These are a popular breakfast item. The "da hundun" are the more familiar carefully folded wontons whose filling is subject to the cook's creativity. You guys are making me hungry!

My wife freezes them all the time. She spreads them out on cookie sheets to freeze separately, then bags them after they are frozen. I don't know how long they hold up well -- they never sit in the freezer for long at our house!

You are right, it's not a big thing, as far as I can tell. But sometimes a minor difference can lead to confusion, as in the case of an instruction manual of any type. Even in the case of the professional media, the differences are sometimes palpable. When my wife first came to the US, she would read the Taiwan-based World Journal because it was "easier" than the Hong Kong-based Sing Tao Daily. She soon switched loyalties, however, because Sing Tao had more relevant local news, and it doesn't appear to be particularly burdensome for her to read it. But the spoken dialects, of course, are a horse of another color.

Not so far-fetched. I'm familiar with Shanghainese dialect (through my extended family) and it's amazing how Shanghainese (compared with Mandarin) can turn C sounds into T sounds, J's into K's, R's into L's or Z's, and L's, W's or Y's into N's, for example. Final N's usually get dropped, and often turn the preceding vowel from short to long. Contrary to what herbacidal said, there's no refuge in the written language, either. Character order will vary among dialects (linguistically they actually are separate languages), idiomatic forms may be mutually incomprehensible, and printed characters are sometimes made up to represent words or pronunciations that are unique to a region. Although local Chinese print media here in San Francisco (such as the regional edition of Sing Tao Daily) generally adhere to consistency with Mandarin form, other documents (such as the Chinese version of the California Drivers' Instruction Manual) which were apparently translated from English by Cantonese speakers, are unintelligible in places to non-Cantonese Chinese persons. But what does this all have to do with food?

One SF Bay Area Chaozhou restaurant spells it "Chinjiew". I think it has more to do with dialects than with transliteration schemes.

I believe the ban is presumptive, and applied to all regions known to have citrus canker infestations. According to a paper by University of California at Davis researchers, "The importation of fresh fruit, peel and leaves from eastern and south-eastern Asia (including India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam and China), the Malayan Archepelago, Philippine Islands, Oceania (except Australia and Tasmania), Japan, Taiwan, Mauritius Seychelles, Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil is banned due to the presence of citrus canker in those countries." There is no mention of peppercorns because the paper was presented before the ban was extended to them, but I assume that it applies to the same regions. Ex ante Economics of Exotic Disease Policy: Citrus Canker in California

Does Mos Franchise? Is the pope Catholic? Cracking the US market is a little daunting, however. I think that even the one they had in Honolulu folded. The only Mos I have ever seen was in Shanghai. I've never tried it, but it's on my list (at number 3,739).