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eG Foodblog: mongo jones - how to lose friends and annoy people


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Can try to express how much satisfaction it gives me that I'm not alone in my loathing of Earl Grey tea? Vile stuff.

See, I like Earl Grey. Or, I at least drink it.

It's the only Western tea that is normally available to me that I find palatable

(read: strong enough).

Herb aka "herbacidal"

Tom is not my friend.

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An innovative chef who wants an audience (I'm not saying all of them do) needs to decide if one want to go where the audience is, or hope to draw the audience to wherever one is working. Practically speaking, cities like Chicago, NYC and LA not only have a built-in audience, but have already developed reputations as places where people travel to eat outside of their normal comfort zones, even if they are eating something like pizza.

i guess the question is of the size of audience. denver is not a small town by any means. i don't mean to imply that there are no fine restaurants in denver (or even boulder)--there are, even if, by virtue of my relatively recent arrival in the region, i'm not the best person to talk about them. there are restaurants and chefs here (at adega and luca d'italia in denver, for example) who seem to get rave reviews on a regular basis from both local gourmets and visiting ones (even if they aren't quite places you'd fly to denver just to eat at). the aspect of this that i guess i am more interested in is whether the only model of fine dining available in the smaller metros is a version of what's been "approved" in the bigger places--i.e. has to be frenchified in a certain way, serve certain kinds of dishes, have a certain kind of decor and so on. here in boulder we have chef bradford heap, at both the excellent full moon grill and overseeing the chautauqua dining hall who tries to do something different--using local ingredients and addressing local traditions etc. (not to mention the local scenery in chautauqua). sometimes i wonder if there is a greater anxiety among foodies in smaller cities: "we aren't a real town unless we have a fancy french restaurant" and that kind of thing.

If our imaginary chef instead decides to establish himself in a smaller market he will have to cope with issues of ingredient availability, costs, as well as his audience just plain not getting it.  Now, our chef may become a Thomas Keller (a small fraction), attracting devotees far and wide. Or possibly something of a local legend (a few more than that).  Or, he may just not cut it at all (how many restaurants go under in the first year?).

yes, clearly there's business plan issues involved. (as an aside: did keller become keller in yountville or did he make a name somewhere else first?) the question of ingredient availability and cost is an interesting one: is this really an issue these days? we have a sushi restaurant in denver (sushi den) whose owner/chef has fish flown in from japan (where his brother oversees packing). pretty much everything is available here. but maybe the economies of scale (given smaller audiences) don't add up. i don't know--again i'm the least equipped of all the colorado egulleters to talk about this; afoodnut, rlm etc. know far more about this scene.

there is one big culinary divide that i have found between los angeles and denver (and this is a function of my own propensities: if i was given $10,000 and airfare to spend only on food, i wouldn't be flying off to yountville or to wherever el bulli is or to new york or paris; instead, i would fly to india and china and eat my way through small restaurants and street-stalls-- and go to south east asia with what was left). the ethnic food scene here is not very good. smaller cities in more diverse states may not have this problem but chinese food and indian food here suck (for the most part). and i don't think there's a big sushi tradition here either: there's a couple of good sushi places but i've also been to places in boulder where fish gets hacked up nastily. the biggest disappointment here for me has been mexican and other hispanic foods. hispanics constitute the largest minority in colorado but, as far as i can tell, this has not yet registered in the restaurant world. (again all the caveats about my recent arrival and lack of local experience apply.) i'm still searching for an excellent mexican restaurant. doesn't have to be fancy, just has to have more than 2 or 3 things on the menu that you can be excited about ordering. on the other hand vietnamese food in denver is supposed to be very good, and i'm looking forward to the second egullet dinner at dalat on july 24.

look forward to hearing from non-coloradans about the general small-city stuff, and from coloradans on the denver/boulder stuff.

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So you would take your $10,000 and fly elsewhere and eat street food, sounds good to me, when are we leaving?

It seems to me that one of your complaints is that ethnic food here isn't as good as street food there. Actually, we have damn good street food here, but it's hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza - American street food - and only occasionally, with the trend towards larger cities with more diverse populations, can you find good street food that would qualify as "ethnic". I wouldn't expect yakitori here to compare to yakitori in Japan because, as you have lamented in the blog so far, you just can't get all the same ingredients in both places. And, not everyone who comes to American and cooks here is the best representative of that country's cuisine, if they are even cooking the cuisine of their home country. On the other hand, how has your experience been with the quality of "American" food in your small city? In fact, when you are talking about restaurant quality are you specifically looking at "ethnic" restaurants, or restaurants in general?

Not knowing many Colorado statistics, how large a minority is the Hispanic population, and how much of that minority lives in your area?

--adoxograph

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food-wise: leftovers for lunch--polish off the liver curry, the nadan meen kari and last night's channa dal and okra; cook dinner: do something with chicken and make either kali urad or moog dal, maybe also a veg (potatoes? cauliflower?).

haven't eaten lunch yet (stomach rumbling). but before i go off to the feed-trough another poll for tonight:

kali urad dal enthusiasts will be glad to know that i am making it tonight (being the nice guy that i am, i only made enough channa dal for two meals worth last night). however, there is the question of chicken. i was originally planning to make a comfort-food style chicken curry/stew. given the weather this is an attractive option. but my aunt and uncle brought me a couple of recipe books when they visited last week and in one of them (the aforementioned "flavours of the spice coast") there are a couple of very sexy looking chicken recipes: easter chicken roast and chicken piralen. the former a whole marinated, pot-roasted chicken, the other closer to a "curry".

all three recipes are simple enough (and involve no exotic ingredients). i usually follow a rule which says "never cook something for the first time for public consumption (or in this case, display)"--but i will leave the choice to you people.

so what should i do with the chicken tonight:

1. make my usual bengali'ish chicken curry/stew

2. make a kerala christian pot-roasted chicken

3. make a kerala style curried chicken

vote soon and often

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so what should i do with the chicken tonight:

1. make my usual bengali'ish chicken curry/stew

2. make a kerala christian pot-roasted chicken

3. make a kerala style curried chicken

vote soon and often

forgot to add: polls close at 4.30 mountain time since option 2 will require 3 hours of marination (in case, anyone's wondering we eat dinner around 9 pm).

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Do I vote for #2 because it sounds more interesting and sexy, or for #3 out of some respect for Mongo and the lousy weather.....hmmmm....

Another vote for #2 :laugh:

Kathy

Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all. - Harriet Van Horne

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Do I vote for #2 because it sounds more interesting and sexy, or for #3 out of some respect for Mongo and the lousy weather.....hmmmm....

Another vote for #2 :laugh:

just so there is no confusion #1 is the comfort-food (suited to the weather) option. but don't let that sway you.

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not wishing to skew the voting-just a plug for my current favouritecookbookofalltimeeveryoneawinnercan'tgowrong!

the easter chicken roast has established itself very firmly in this household-so simple ,so effective..

the piralen is divine too-best with shallots.

just finished prep for mathi vattichatu(dry cooked sardines) -with smelt.i was once desperate enough to attempt this with canned sardines-not half bad!

working on the earl grey-the clues are piling up thick and fast....

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just so there is no confusion #1 is the comfort-food (suited to the weather) option. but don't let that sway you.

I was leaving that one out of the game entirely - this is blog week, cook something exciting! I figured something curry like would at least be more of a comfort food than the roast....but didn't let that sway me, either :wink:

Kathy

Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all. - Harriet Van Horne

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As if there was a choice:

I vote for roasting the kerala christian

I've heard of throwing Christian's to the lions, but roasting them??? What are you thinking hathor?

:shock::shock:

I vote for #2

Barbara Laidlaw aka "Jake"

Good friends help you move, real friends help you move bodies.

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I vote for number 1-- I'd like to see your 'basic' bengali chicken curry. Selfishly, it sounds like a tried and true recipe that I would appreciate a window on.

(second choice, #3)

"Under the dusty almond trees, ... stalls were set up which sold banana liquor, rolls, blood puddings, chopped fried meat, meat pies, sausage, yucca breads, crullers, buns, corn breads, puff pastes, longanizas, tripes, coconut nougats, rum toddies, along with all sorts of trifles, gewgaws, trinkets, and knickknacks, and cockfights and lottery tickets."

-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1962 "Big Mama's Funeral"

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As if there was a choice:

I vote for roasting the kerala christian

I've heard of throwing Christian's to the lions, but roasting them??? What are you thinking hathor?

:shock::shock:

I vote for #2

Thanks god you didn't remember upthread that I was into roasting vegetarians.

I swear I'm not a cannibal.

Then again ...you put some fava beans and a nice chianti in front of me.... :laugh:

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It seems to me that one of your complaints is that ethnic food here isn't as good as street food there.  Actually, we have damn good street food here, but it's hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza - American street food - and only occasionally, with the trend towards larger cities with more diverse populations, can you find good street food that would qualify as "ethnic".  I wouldn't expect yakitori here to compare to yakitori in Japan because, as you have lamented in the blog so far, you just can't get all the same ingredients in both places.  And, not everyone who comes to American and cooks here is the best representative of that country's cuisine, if they are even cooking the cuisine of their home country. On the other hand, how has your experience been with the quality of "American" food in your small city? In fact, when you are talking about restaurant quality are you specifically looking at "ethnic" restaurants, or restaurants in general?

Not knowing many Colorado statistics, how large a minority is the Hispanic population, and how much of that minority lives in your area?

adoxograph--asking me questions that need thoughtful response rather than my usual off-hand speculation. who does she think she is?

actually i'm not sure where the "here" and "there" you refer to are. i'm not comparing ethnic food (hate that word in this context, by the way: it isn't like "anglo-americans" aren't ethnic as well) in america as a whole with street food somewhere else. my current frame of reference is actually denver vs. los angeles. as i've said before, no matter what deluded new yorkers think, los angeles is the place to go in the u.s to eat the largest, deepest, most diverse array of cuisines. i didn't expect denver to have that but i've just been so spoilt by the chinese food in the san gabriel valley that dim sum here makes me want to cry. indian food in l.a sucks but there's divine stuff in artesia (20 minute drive from downtown). denver/boulder have decent indian food at best--but that's not a big deal, i cook enough at home and prefer home food to restaurant food anyway (in case someone has read the blog so far and has not figured that out). there's some okay korean restaurants in aurora but after l.a koreatown...

but anyway, my point was not that cities should be able to somehow have a range of cuisines that don't have the demographics to sustain them and maintain quality control. actually, i suppose my point wasn't very clear. i'm saying two things: 1) there does seem to be enough of a hispanic population in colorado/denver to support good hispanic cuisine (i'll hunt for the numbers if none of the coloradans here can provide them); 2) while gourmets and european food enthusiasts in small cities like denver know enough to recognize good european style restaurants (and thus when they say adega in denver is excellent i believe them), they don't seem to be as knowledgeable/interested in other cuisines to be able to support/enforce quality.

(this is, by and large, the problem with indian restaurants even in the major metros: people know so little about indian food they are often satisfied with mediocrity, and get overly-excited about anything that's a little different. now, i'm not saying that non-indians have to somehow develop "indian" tastes or like the same things for their preferences to be valid. chicken-tikka masala may have developed outside india, and a pork vindaloo in goa may be not so much hot as tangy, but chicken-tikka masala and spicy lamb-vindaloo are dishes in their own right now. and while i can sneer at them i'm not going to sneer at people who like them--though i reserve the right to sneer at these people if they make larger pronouncements about vindaloos as a whole, or on cream in all indian cooking based on these experiences. what does it mean, by the way, when the parenthetical asides are larger than the main paragraphs?)

but to get back to your other great point: no, i wasn't, and totally should be, talking about american food as well. when you mention this do you mean classic american food, diner food, or what in california has come to be seen as "new american"? one of my favorite fun restaurants in boulder is a place called zolo--i can't describe their food in terms of ethnicity; it seems to me to be good american food (here's a link) -- they call it "traditional southwestern cuisine with a contemporary twist". a good example of contemporary takes on american regional? or am i now an indian who doesn't know enough about american regional food getting overly-excited about something that looks a little different? cuts both ways, unfortunately for me!

Edited by mongo_jones (log)
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a good example of contemporary takes on american regional?

i think so. that menu looked great to me - american, kind of trendy in a bobby flay kind of way. i mean no disrespect to zolo.

maybe the most successful restaurants in smaller/mid sized cities tend to be those that make regional food more interesting. in the northwest, for example - you can't swing a dead cat without hitting 6 varieties of (delicious) salmon. it's prepared in a million ways, but the restaurants that seem to endure are those that use local ingredients in new and interesting ways - they keep up with what current trends are in food without over-fusing.

from overheard in new york:

Kid #1: Paper beats rock. BAM! Your rock is blowed up!

Kid #2: "Bam" doesn't blow up, "bam" makes it spicy. Now I got a SPICY ROCK! You can't defeat that!

--6 Train

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1) there does seem to be enough of a hispanic population in colorado/denver to support good hispanic cuisine (i'll hunt for the numbers if none of the coloradans here can provide them

I'll take your challenge Mongo...according to the 2000 Census (Click here for useful facts!) 17.1% (or 735,601 people) of Colorado's total of 4,301,261 are of Hispanic or Latino origin.

Anyway, I think that we do have good Mexican (and other Hispanic restaurants) here. Yes, there's a hell of a lot of bad, cheezy (not cheesy), gloppy crap out there, but there are some good ones.

I'm just not telling you where they are, you have to find them yourself. :biggrin:

Brian Hoffmeyer

"It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black."

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if i was given $10,000 and airfare to spend only on food, i wouldn't be flying off to yountville or to wherever el bulli is or to new york or paris; instead, i would fly to india and china and eat my way through small restaurants and street-stalls-- and go to south east asia with what was left).

I don't know. (Other than raising my hand to be your valet shoe-shine boy food taster for what will be a trying time) I always think of street food as somehow indicative of LIFE. It's what you grab with your hands from people in the street and consume as if everything depended on it. Just had a great trip to Naples, btw, where pastries, arancia's, pizza lure passers by like Donald Trump to a large metal sphere covered in glue and money. It's entirely visceral and unfair and fulfilling.

The other meals - Gagnaire, Ducasse - they're the opera. They're expendable, but it would break your heart to do it (once you've done it, that is).

"Gimme a pig's foot, and a bottle of beer..." Bessie Smith

Flickr Food

"111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321" Bruce Frigard 'Winesonoma' - RIP

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i like your analogies.

i don't by any means mean to slight the "opera"--i love that food too when i can afford it or when someone else pays. and a good part of my dream food-fund would be spent at some of the top restaurants in delhi and bombay. i wish i could have actually been in delhi for half of this blog--could have shown people not just the fancy and non-fancy restaurants but also my mother and aunts' cooking. wait, i already did that with the trip photos from january--linked to here and related discussion of some of the home food here .

and forgive me if i don't get around to answering your very good question from yesterday: the answer is probably already distributed somewhere in all the longer, more boring posts i've already made on the blog, and i don't know that anyone, including me, wants to read any more of that.

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I'm just not telling you where they are, you have to find them yourself.  :biggrin:

dammit! you're in boulder, right? any of these places in the 80304 or 80305?

I actually was in Westminster (80234) and am now in Erie (80516). Anyway, I can't think of any great Mexican off the top of my head in Boulder. But in my little town of Erie there's Mina's which started as a tiny hole in the wall and is now a bigger one and is quite good. Just be prepared to wait a while for your food.

In Denver I like Jack-n-grill (not exactly Mexican, more New Mexican) is great. I also like Tacos Jalisco.

Tortillaria Rey on Valmont (between 28th & 30th) now boasts a taqueria. I haven't eaten there yet, but it's probably reasonably authentic; when I've bought tortillas there in the past, I've had to do so in Spanish.

I've said it elsewhere, but again: Efrain's on 63rd north of Arapahoe; order the #2 (green chile, beans, rice, tortillas). And Lafayette's La Familia has the best chili rellenos I've ever eaten. Get 'em "smothered on the side".

Or just go downtown and drink a couple (no more than two or you'll be sorry) of the Rio Grande's killer margaritas--instant attitude adjustment, which you may need; the forecast is for continued rain/gloom. (Note that I do not recommend eating at the Rio.)

"Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside." Mark Twain
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