PorkButt's Profile
Any places that use rice flour in their banh mi rolls?
The bagged Cam Huong banh mi that you can buy at grocery stores doesn't include rice flour in the listed ingredients. Identical to the bread that is sold at the Webster St bakery.
-----
Cam Huong Cafe
920 Webster St, Oakland, CA 94607
Does chow mein in NYC not have noodles in it? [moved from Manhattan board]
"Absolutely right all we lifetime nyc'rs and Jeopardy"
Could someone translate this for me?
Point is that the Jeopardy writers got the translation wrong and furthermore lo mein as it's made in the Northeast is completely different than what is found in places like San Francisco (and Hong Kong etc)
As a former Manhattan resident from twenty years ago, by avoiding crap Chinese restaurants I never tried the crispy noodle white gravy chow mein and went to Chinatown to get proper Cantonese chow mein. The local Upper West Side restaurants that I went to had lo mein but never chow mein.
Does chow mein in NYC not have noodles in it? [moved from Manhattan board]
The answer is wrong! Lo mein translates to mixed or tossed noodles, not soft noodles.
If you order lo mein around San Francisco, you'll get a very different dish. It's basically a deconstructed soup noodle dish of a plate of plain boiled thin egg noodles with the other items on the side. A bit of oyster sauce is provided to toss into the noodles. A small bowl of broth is there for sipping.
have you ever seen tea 'granules'?
You bought what's called CTC (crush, tear, curl) tea. It's a mechanical picking process and is common for inexpensive Indian and Sri Lankan teas. Lots of information out there about it.
I find that CTC tea is strong and dark but not fragrant or complex so it's often used for a drink like chai.
Another mystery fish
Looks like a Tub Gunard or Tubfish, Capone gallinella in Italian. It's in the Triglidae family.
Cantonese Chow Mein recipe
When I lived in NYC a long time ago, the Chinese restaurants in the Upper West Side didn't have chow mein on the menus but did have an odd dish with the thick skins that you obliquely referred to which was called lo mein.
Never heard of it before coming from the West Coast and I didn't read Chinese characters at the time. Do you know what this is in Pinyin? Jyutping?
Cantonese Chow Mein recipe
What's with the lecture? I was just pointing out that two styles of chow mein are properly called different names in written Chinese.
You win, pan fried in shallow oil Hong Kong bird's nest style chow mein is called zin min. That'll really help the casually curious Chowhound who might want to pronounce the words.
Cantonese Chow Mein recipe
Pinyin is for Mandarin, not Cantonese. Why don't you complain about my use of mein instead of mian as well? Jin is the word in the Yale system and a straight reading of that sounds much like the actual word. Admittedly, if I were consistent, mein should be spelled mihn.
Cantonese Chow Mein recipe
Furthermore, that dish in the picture should be called jin mein 煎麵 or fried noodles on menus while chow mein is 炒麵
If you want to keep the sauce white, then no soy or oyster sauce. Start by cooking the meats and vegetables separately. I'd just blanch the vegetables and not bother stir frying them. Make a sauce by frying some ginger in oil. Add inch long sections of the white part of green onions. Add wine/liquor and let it boil off. Add (unsalted) chicken stock and let it reduce. Remove the ginger if you want. Add a bit of starch slurry, let that thicken up some and then add more as the sauce gets glossy. When the consistency is right, salt to taste. Add in the meats and vegetables and bring up to temperature.
Looking for Alaskan Crab Legs to Purchase Locally
There's a label of origin at the Roadshow stand or styropacks.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003474869_russiancrab13m.html
Looking for Alaskan Crab Legs to Purchase Locally
Costco carries Russian crab legs, not Alaskan, if that matters
East Bay Saigon Seafood Harbor Dinner Report [Richmond]
@ckshen's comment about Saigon's broth:
I tried both the wonton and beef drop flank (ngau lam) mein and the same boring broth was used for both. Very disappointing.
It's been a while but I do remember being happy with Cooking Papa's wontons.
-----
Cooking Papa
2830 Homestead Rd, Santa Clara, CA 95051
Szechuan Trend?
Are American diners really embracing real Sichuan cuisine? I see very few non-Chinese customers at Sichuan restaurants here in the Bay Area. The reactions that I've observed from my dining companions have been been mostly negative. Too much oil and a strong dislike of the flavor from Sichuan flower peppers are common complaints (the peppers were banned for a quite few years due to a citrus canker so your first experiences with the cuisine might have been lacking). It's odd that the pejorative claim of "greasy" Cantonese dishes wouldn't be used to describe those Sichuan dishes that come in a slick of red oil.
Adaptations of Sichuan cusine have long spread across China so the pre-80s versions of Sichuan dishes were by Cantonese, Shanghaiese, and Taiwanese cooks. Mapo Dofu is a good example. So whatever "Szechuan" restuarants that existed before the recent immigration from Sichuan, an interior province, were run by non-Sichuan people who served their versions of dishes that were likely further adapted for America.
Szechuan Trend?
Basically lemon chicken? Doesn't resemble anything I've had in Beijing. What people call Mandarin in the US seems to be something in a dark gloppy sauce that doesn't exist in China.
So are you comparing real Sichuan cuisine to real Cantonese and Dongbei cuisine or some American version?
Dungeness Crab Prices '10
$2.69/lb at Lucky Seafood. The other places on 8th St were asking for $2.99. Got a big one weighing in at 2.67lb and the leg and lump meat were plump.
Wendy's Natural-Cut Fries with Sea Salt ... or what In-N-Out fries should taste like.
Thomas Keller also uses frozen fries.
http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2007/01/in_his_cookbook_bouchon_thomas.html
Dungeness Crab Prices '10
The day after Thanksgiving there were four full tanks at the Richmond 99 going for $2.99/lb but the big surprise were the dozens of cooked crabs at the hot deli for $2.99 each. At first I thought that these were just dead crabs taken out of the tanks but there were just too many of them. Perhaps there was a new shipment on that Friday and the tanks were cleared of the pre-Thanksgiving crabs.
Gave one a try and besides being a bit overcooked, the taste was fine. The yield of meat was as disappointing as the live 2.2lb crab I bought in Oakland the week before. The leg meat was good but the lump is best used for something like a crab salad sandwich.
Sweet corn cakes - dim sum dish - do you know about it?
As tarteaucitron mentioned above, it's 粟米餅, Cantonese Jyutping suk1 mai5 beng2, Mandarin Pinyin su4 mi3 bing3. The first two characters mean corn, the last character refers to food objects that are disc-shaped.
Your Most Favorite Dim Sum is?
The sugar caramelizes while steaming? No way, this is just bok tong gao made with brown sugar.
Sweet corn cakes - dim sum dish - do you know about it?
What you called "ban" is pronounced "beng" in Cantonese and can be called a cake but in this case is more accurately translated as a patty. Just seasoned ground meat with add-ins, pan fried in your case.
I had something like this that was made of pork, grated lotus root, and a bit of shrimp that was described as a specialty of Zhongshan in Southern China. It was served as a dim sum kitchen special but was also on the dinner menu.
Very bony fishes like dace, carp, or steelhead are often sliced very thinly to cut the bones and the chopped up to form the base of a common beng in Cantonese cuisine.
Chilis; a little perspective, please
A new British cultivar, the Infinity chilli/chile, is claimed to have the highest Scoville rating.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/new-chilli-could-take-world-record-say-producers-2075143.html
This year's crop rates at 1.176m while the tested ghost pepper sample came in at 1.041m
The Price of Bacon Has...
Futures contract for pork bellies are in sharp backwardation (the front month contract is more expensive than future months). I don't follow agriculture prices much, but the price for Sept bellies has gone up from around 100 in late July to a close at 144 today. Feb 2011 delivery costs only 105. Just about all food commodities are spiking. Sugar has been quite high for some time now and speculators have piled into wheat after reported problems in Russia, Canada, and Australia
So there's strong demand for pork belly so companies that aren't big enough to afford to use hedging strategies to keep prices capped are taking a hit on input costs.
Berkeley is my new Cambridge, now where do I eat?
Turkish Kitchen's lamb and beef doner could make a reasonable substitute for a gyro if you're not too culturally insular.
-----
Turkish Kitchen
1984 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA 94704
SF Chowhound's help - Chinese sausage but not lop cheung
I brought the fo/siu issue up because these days, my elderly Toisanese mother gets sneered at when she uses old Cantonese words that aren't in common use any more.
I don't remember seeing this sausage in SF recently but the deli on the east side of 8th St in Oakland next to the dim sum shop regularly has it.
SF Chowhound's help - Chinese sausage but not lop cheung
Right about the mid-rising tone, should have caught that.
Odd that there's no 肠肠, even the French have that in the form of andouillette
SF Chowhound's help - Chinese sausage but not lop cheung
A bit late to this thread...
I agree with CYL, it's "fire sausage" and the pronunciation is "fo" with a rising tone and the o is like hot in a British accent. I've been told that ordering roast duck or pig using "fo" labels you as old fashioned or a country bumpkin depending on your age.
@MW - wind is pronounced as "fung" with a high flat tone so I can understand the confusion.
@ rotiprata - your word would be pronounced with a "fun," high tone, and would probably result in hilarity because that's a transposition of the dim sum item of a rolled flat rice noodle cheung fun!
All the talk about cilantro has left me puzzled. This sausage used to be very common but I've never seen it with the herb.
richmond / el cerrito saigon restaurant grand opening today
Went for mid-week dim sum and it not enjoyable. The restaurant was packed at 11:30 but the wait was only ten minutes or so as the waiting crowd grew and grew. It was funny to see group after group walking over from the 99 parking lot. Inside, the noise was about the worst I've encountered at a Chinese restaurant. I seem to recall that the original building was subdivided with a lower ceiling while now it's just one big space and whatever acoustical dampening that the large panels attached to the ceiling provide is negligible.
Carts and trays only and unlike the Sunnyvale location, there isn't a dim sum menu on the table from which you can make special orders.
The small round tables are a serious problem. Over six people were crammed in at some tables and the result was that the narrow aisles were blocked. Too often the cart ladies would just skip congested areas and the only way to get some items was to take the ticket and walk directly to a cart.
Quality was below average. Siu mai were small; cheung fun were sticky and gummy, the shrimps were big but not flavorful; char siu bao were a bit soft and mushy; chicken sticky rice in lotus leaf was dull; etc
What was surprising was the lack of selection and how few carts were circulating around the room. I've never had such a difficult time getting items at dim sum. No har gow at all. No daikon cake. It was as if the kitchen went into lulls and then whatever came out was snatched up quickly while other items just languished. In one of the glass sided carts I saw the same plate of stir fried clams again and again for over an hour.
As for the touted $1.99 small plate special, the only item we got that was a small were char siu bao. Plates that are priced as small at other places are mediums here and it seemed like everything was inflated in price. At over $40 for three with only modest leftovers, there's no value here.
Asian Pearl remains my choice in the area.
-----
Asian Pearl
3288 Pierce St, Richmond, CA 94804
