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After visiting Jerry's in East Rutherford last night, I went past Taos. Has anyone ever been there? After looking at their web site, it appears that they are affiliated with the Village Gourmet and Mignon Steak House. Not bad company.. The menu is unusual and all bottles of wine are $20.00. Has anyone been there?

Hi everyone, My flamethrower - oops I mean wok burner has finally arrived! I got a friend living in Thailand to send it to me via snail mail (sea mail) and a month later, its here! I've been trying to recreate that taste that appears to only be obtainable from the huge gas powered woks in chinese & thai restaurants/takeaways. This elusive "wok hey".... and now I can confirm that I am able to get similar results... sure the marinades and sauces are kept secret, but thats just a process of trial and error... now that I've got the equipment there is no stopping me . Last night I made a dish similar to that known as "ants climbing trees" - a mixture of stirfried pork mince, soy, rice wine, bean thread noodles with some tobanjiang (chilli bean paste) and other assorted sauces and ingredients. I cannot describe the difference between cooking on this and my stove top wok burner (which is not bad at all, it puts out about 20000 btu according to the manual). Instead of the mince oozing out water and liquid and it almost boiling in its own juices, the second that the water/meat juices come out, they _instantly_ evaporate, so that even with a tiny amount of oil, the mince is being stirfried not boiled. Due to the high heat, the meat gets this unique flavour that was never present with my stovetop wok burner, and it gets that beautiful caramelised colour too. The only problem is that you have to have EVERYTHING ready and you have to be extremely quick handed... leave something for 5 seconds without stirring and its burnt... put the sauce in and turn around - by the time you turn back again it has evaporated and the sugars in it have burnt. Its all about speed and when you get it right oh man, its beautiful. Anyways enough raving on... I have tried to take photos, but either I have a really crappy digital camera, or flames are VERY hard to capture properly. I tried it at night and during the day, with and without a flash, with and without lights on... so I have included the best shots I could get. All I can say in addition is that these photos do not do the flame justice. The SOUND of the flame is scary enough on its own, sounds like someone has cut open a huge city-wide gas pipe and your ear is right next to the high pressured gas rushing out. And the flame itself is completely blue when its set to the highest, and about 1.5 feet high. This little baby uses a high pressure regulator and runs off LPG.. at its peak, it is putting out 120000 - 125000 BTUs (per hour). Day shot of the wok burner in action on "Medium-high" setting: Night shot of the wok burner on "Medium-high" setting: Night shot of the wok burner on "Medium" setting: Night shot of the wok burner on "High" setting... notice the blue flame wrapping around the wok. Night shot of the wok burner on "High" setting... notice the blue flame wrapping around the wok... futhermore, notice the wok actually glowing orange because it is so hot (this shot is about 20 seconds after I turned it on)

Just had dinner with the family at Funky Broome. We had a good meal but the portions always seem to be a bit undersized there. We had : salt & pepper fried squid, jellyfish, braised tofu, crispy chicken that wasn't so crispy, sizzling plate of beef fillet w. pepper, sweet & sour sea bass, stir fried conch & squid, scallops & winter melon in XO sauce , & stir fried spinach with shrimp paste, & some stir fried sticky rice (law my faan) for my little nephews. All in all, a pretty tasty meal. I haven't been there in a while so it was nice revisiting it again. The wait staff were real accomodating considering we had a group of 10. Seating always seemed a bit cramped in there when the house is full. Then again it's C town at its best. Incidently, I wasn't aware that Congee Village had a second branch on the bowery named "Congee Bowery" .

Last time my mom went to target, she grabbed me some little $20 wok to go with my other one. After seasoning, I cooked with it an hour later and the thing rusted! The handle was split when i got the thing and it gave of a metallic taste, too. Any reccomendations of a wok that may actually last a while?

I'd like to try and organize a dinner at Rocking Wok, seating is not really limited unless you count a cap of about 30 to be limiting. So the more the merrier. Would you guys prefer before or after the holiday season? Any requests? What price range is comfortable? They are very willing to put together a menu that will satisfy any budget and desire, especially for the "weird" stuff. Rocky

Got a thick and glossy brocure in my mail today advertising the Grand Opening of California Wok's first Hawai`i location int he Ala Moana Center. It informs me that: etc. The menu looks pretty standard Chinese-American (Beef with Broccoli, Beef Szechwan Style, etc.) And while the prices look very cheap, and I'm all for low fat, the whole place just comes across as too generic - and not just because it's a chain. On the other hand, it trumpets the fact that Zagat has rated it the best "to-go" Chinese. . . So what's the real deal California denizens? Is it worth trying after all?

Can somebody explain the difference (if any) between an Indian wok and a Chinese wok? What are woks used for in Indian cookery?

For almost 30 years I used the same 14" flat-bottomed steel wok. Even when the handle loosened i wouldn't give it up. Last November everything changed. I bought a new wok, still flat-bottomed and still 14" and still made out of steel. But it was a thinner gauge metal, a highly conductive metal that heated more quickly and didn't retain the heat very long. It worked better! Could've knocked me over with a feather. It was hand-hammered and made in Hong Kong. I LOVE it. Haven't used that old wok even once since then. What kind of wok do you use, and why, and for what?

The food diary thread (keep them coming) has got me thinking about my relationship to Asian (particularly Chinese) food. [i'm not going to start trying to make sushi at home except maybe as an entertainment.] Although I think its incidence may have been exaggerated over the past couple of weeks, it's clear to me that Chinese and related cuisine is a very regular part of my diet, but that I almost never attempt to cook it at home. There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, experience: I am confident I know more or less what I'm doing with European dishes generally. Meats and fish turn out fine, pasta and risotto probably better than the average decent restaurant over here (although some notches below the best). On the other hand, my occasional attempts at Chinese dishes are unarguably worse than the average decent restaurant. Of course, this is related to the relatively tiny amount of experience I have. The main issue here is fear of the wok. This may be partly rational, viz. the widespread line that you can't cook well with a wok on a domestic gas hob. Related to this is the speed of cooking: I am used to tasting throughout the process and adjusting amounts, speed and heat accordingly. Wok-cooking seems more like Superman in the telephone kiosk: when do you get to respond to what's happening? Then there's the sheer number of ingredients that seem to be involved in many Chinese recipes, versus European ones. Concerns here include both managing the increased number of variables and simply managing to control a decent larder of useable ingredients. Then there's the fact I don't have a rice cooker ... Firstly, then, is this something I should be pursuing, or is it best left to the several good-to-very-good restaurants within comfortable walking distance of where I live? And if so, am I best just continuing to bash along until I improve, in which case can somebody recommend a good book to work through, or should I think about an evening course or something?