jschyun

Anywhere. No sense limiting oneself when there's a car.

I checked the back posts and so far have only come up with Merriman's. A friend is going for Thanksgiving, and I was curious if there were any good places to eat there. Looking for expensive, no holds barred dining, as well as local, unpretentious eats. Ice cream and snow cone recs are always welcome. suntrips.com was having a special, $250 out of Oakland, and I'm tempted to go as well. If anyone is familiar with the Big Island, please tell all!

I love all pocky but my favorite is the Giant Pockys (Pockies?) When my friend first brought them to a party, for reasons known only to herself, I remember thinking, "What the hell is that!" And then I ate as many as I could.

Whoah, you're showing your age, Gary Soup just kidding (ducking pie being thrown) I have always thought Top Dog on durant was the...top dog of them all. In the early nineties, there was this long haired brunet dude who didn't say much but grilled those sausages as if his life depended on it. As for It's-It's, I remember how we used to buy them at school during lunch hour but I forgot how great they were. Thanks for the memories!

My favorite right now are the Almond Royales. I go through a whole can by myself with some soy milk (I'm lactose intolerant, or else it would be some ice cold cow milk) I like See's better than Godiva unless Godiva is having an online sale. If I have a craving for really high quality chocolate, I wait until I can get to Europe and go crazy. I hope See's never goes out of business. Going there is like a a trip home, where mom has a full table ready and waiting for you to chow down.

Although I can't see myself eating dog, because I'm female and I have 4 dogs of my own, I can say that the guys I know who have had it, don't think it's all that different from beef. These are not gourmets I'm talking about, though. As for ethical issues, at least some restaurants raise dogs for meat, and I'm sure they also catch stray dogs on the street. How different is that from raising cows, goats or chickens for food? Or hunting venison? Also, tiny dogs (Pomeranians, or Yorkshires like my dogs) are expensive in Korea, if you can get them at all, so they don't get grilled. Also, they wouldn't have much meat, I imagine. So you don't have to worry so much about those.

My sister went to a Food Network signing and she accidentally gave him Jeffrey Steingarten's book to sign. He was a bit irritated, but signed it anyway. What a guy.

Faves: Flo Braker. She used to have a baking show in the morning. Very good teacher. Mark Bittman. He's every bit the teacher Flo is. Jeffrey Steingarten. A little corny, but very enthusiastic. Iron Chef. I enjoy it when they are beat by little women chefs. I only watch those shows. Two Fat Ladies. My favorite was when they made all this horrible looking food for a boarding school, and then when they realized it was crap, they took off as fast as their little bike could go. Grudging Respect: Jamie Oliver. I can't stand watching him, but his recipes work. Also, I understand his new restaurant is a stunning success (15). Mixed: Rachel Ray. She's so perky I wanna slap her, but I like the $40 show because I'm always on the lookout for inexpensive good eats. Alton Brown. Dude, you're a nerd. But if you can sit through it, show is somewhat educational. Dislike: Anthony Bourdain. I read a little of his book and watched his show only as much as I could stand his self-congratulating attitude Bobby Flay. I hate him Emeril. He would be great to hang around with, but he's like the Oprah of cooking. I like Oprah but not in the kitchen. I used to dislike Martin Yan but now after reading your posts, I really like him. After years of white Americans talking down to my immigrant mother, with their flailing arms and loud, obnoxious voices, I feel that Martin Yan's showbiz tactics are just desserts. Very clever, Mr. Yan. --edited to add Alton Brown, 2 Fat Ladies and Martin Yan

Nonni's Biscotti, the kind with a thin layer of chocolate on the bottom. I keep eating boxes and boxes of them, and at $4 for 6 biscotti, I have to figure out how to control myself. Particularly good with green tea, or any mild tea, not Earl Grey. I know it's not really a cookie for tea, but it's so good, it transcends the genre, as they say. Also, I second (or third?) Girl Scout Thin Mints. I also like those mini milanos (several flavors) Pepperidge farm just put out. I don't particularly care for Pepp. Farm cookies, but these are too cute for words.

If there's no sign how did you find it?

I think Mehak in Berkeley has the best butter chicken I've ever had, but I haven't had them all. It's on Sacramento, right across the street from Breads of India. In fact, I heard from an Indian guy that there was some sort of tiff, and some of the people of Breads of India left to start Mehak right across the street, but I can't confirm that. Ambiance is not that great, the lunch buffet at $6.99 is limited to about 10 very good items.

Thanks for the links and the suggestions. I had actually done the searches for the earlier threads but none of them mentioned Nicolina's, which was recommended by this one guy, whose site I read on the internet. From his description the food there sounds delicious. I actually commented on one of the threads with suggestions culled from a bunch of reviews on the internet. However, I recently found some more and thought it might be nice to get comments on them from people who know. I will report back with my experiences. Thanks again. This is a very useful site.

In regards to the Citizen Cake (San Fran) query, I feel this doesn't qualify as a world class pastry shop. I go here occasionally and am always struck by how much I am paying for what is essentially a cylinder/slice of buttercream. The tarts are good, but as I wouldn't consider it as good as L'Aduree and as I know that there's (got to be) places better than L'Aduree, I say nay. As far as Sen5es in Vancouver is concerned, when I went there, it had just opened, so I think I got the best quality they have to offer. Also, the one time we went, we got only the small cakes, which I think go faster than the large ones, thus keeping the quality up, although it might have been irrelevant for us, since we basically opened the shop. Someone said their mousse was room temp, but ours was cold, in a chocolate crunchy shell. But if you are saying that you've gotten bad stuff from them, this is unacceptable, especially considering how expensive they are. That is not world class behavior. Their croissants are totally disgusting. As for chocolates, Thomas Haas is good, but not first class, in my opinion. I've only been to a couple of chocolate places in Europe (Chocolats Rohr, La Fontaine au Chocolat, some other ones I forgot the name of). But even the crappiest pieces I had in France or Geneva outshined the stuff that Thomas Haas has to offer. Plus his chocolates are so small, it's not much of an experience. And it's expensive as heck. I like the Kron shop in Beverly Hills for odd shaped chocolate truffles but it's exceptionally pricey. ($25 for a small bag when I last went). They do have those sex chocolates though, you know, the ones that help the female libido. I have often contemplated getting those... The best deal here is to grab a handful of the free samples and run.

We're staying in one of the Kahana Vacation Club Condos, near Lahaina, next week. We're there for my boyfriend's b-day, and I wanted to surprise him with a nice dinner out. Budget (feh, who needs a budget) is however much it takes to have a lovely dinner with great food, decent portions (he's a big eater), and comfortable surroundings with few if any kids. I heard Nicolina's is good for this. Any comments? Also, for non b-day meals, what are the best, inexpensive places to go for lunch/dinner? I heard Manana Garage is good. Also, Honokowai Okazuya & Deli for inexpensive take-out. Kahana Grill? We like all sorts of food, but it would be nice to find some little shack that serves the food you can only find on the islands.

If anyone is going, I'll be in the area. We could make it an impromptu egullet dinner.

I just had Kaesong style Tteok-guk (rice cake soup) at Yongsusan and it was awesome. Instead of slices of rice cake, they make their own little rice balls that go into a very light, clear broth. After that, I love sullongtang (sp?) Basically it's a white soup that's so good on a cold day.

I used to spell it kim but then realized that it was not correct because the Korean letter is a hard 'g' sound, not k. I didn't want to be incorrect but I guess I was trying to hard.

You know, Korean for nori. Except we crisp it up and make it salty. Yum --actually I know about the 9 grain bap and such, but I never had it like this. Very light, with little black crunchy grains in it. I wonder if it was that restaurant that had a special rice cooking guy or something, it was so good.

I love nurungji as well. I took a Vietnamese friend to a soondubu house and the rice was cooked individually in the dol sot. I poured the water and put some of the nurungji in a bowl for him to try. He tasted it and said it reminded him of when he was back in 'Nam, when he would do the dishwashing chores in order to get the last scrapings of the rice pot, because they were so poor. He didn't try any more. My favorite rice dish is one that I experienced in Seoul 2 years ago. My relatives took me to a fancy restaurant where the most amazing thing was this small bowl of rice, that was an appetizer. Maybe this is normal in Korea, but I had never seen it before. It had little black round grains of what they told me was wild rice. It had other grains as well, and it was topped with crunchy ghim slivers and some other stuff I can't describe. The taste was amazing: light, salty, nutty yet sweet. Does anybody know what this is called? They don't have it here, and I want to eat it again.

We have a bunch of Krispy Kreme's here in California. You get to see the doughnuts as they go through a see through proofing chamber, then on to the cooking apparatus, where you watch them fry, flip over, then fry again, then run under an icing waterfall. It's great fun for kids and they give everybody a free glazed doughnut. The doughnuts are like a hot, sweet wisp of fried air. That is, they're not very substantial. My boyfriend doesn't really care for them, but I do like the maple glazed. It's more maply than at other places. That said, I am tired of seeing American chains in other countries. When I visit other countries, I want to leave America behind. My nightmare is that our world will turn into one big ubiquitous mall where you see the same 5 mega-chain stores. *shudder* I can understand why the world hates the Americans, who invade their territory, and leave in their wake McDonalds franchises.

Sen5es bakery, owned by Thomas Haas and located in Vancouver, Canada, had some very nice little cakes, like a stilton cheesecake with a "bruleed" top, financier(passion fruit), and a good chocolate mousse type cake with raspberry they called "crispy raspberry". The quality is among the best I've had but the selection is so small, I don't know that it qualifies here.

If you're buying with US dollars, they go a lot further in Canada, so perhaps "Good cheap eats" is not what you are looking for. Heck, I would read some of the "what are the best..." posts here, and trot on over to Joe Fortes (seafood, great oysters), West, or the other fine dining establishments. When you pay with credit card you get the best possible exchange rate, from what I understand. I was pleasantly surprised when my credit card bill came in the mail. I've heard a lot about Vij's (Indian) and frankly, thought it had good ambiance. But it was overpriced, and the food was inconsistent. This is a minority opinion. You could try La Casa Gelato, outside of downtown, if only to look at all the weird flavors. Who is ever going to order stilton, gorgonzola and pear ice cream? Or curry ice cream? Pickle? Actually I kind of liked pickle, strangely enough. Actually, I think the Mondo Gelato shops have better gelato (I like a creamier mouthfeel) but you can't beat the freak value.

darn I did a search for dim sum but not dumpling. Thanks.

I've been meaning to go to Din Tai Fung (sp?) for years and never got around to it. I did a search for dim sum on egullet and didn't come up with anything. Is there anything in Monterey Park or OC right now comparable in quality to Vancouver (Richmond) or SF? I'm out of date.

I loved Mondo Gelato in Vancouver. For someone who wants to budget their stomach space on a weekend trip to Seattle, would you say Mondo is worth driving 2 hours for, or is Gelatiamo almost as good? What are the differences, would you say?