Dio Seijuro's Profile
ASK SUSHI MAN 3
I have a slightly sensitive question, I apologize in advance if it offends anybody. The question is: at a smaller and not very expensive restaurant (perhaps like yours), can I really trust that I will get great stuff if I order the omakase or the "best sushi dinner" (sushi jou) on a slow night like Monday/Tuesday night? Or if I go to such a place at lunch time, where most people order lunch special, can I really trust that I will get great stuff if I order the omakase? I am under the impression that for economic reasons, perhaps smaller places will only stock the best stuff for busy nights like Thursday~Saturday. I am not talking about bad restaurants, just smaller places that may not get a lot of customers ordering the more expensive things like mirugai, amaebi, uni, toro, awabi etc. on week nights. I am thinking places like that might lose money to have those things be available (and in the freshest condition) on week nights to make it worthwhile. But maybe I am totally wrong! Please help with this question, thanks!
living dangerously--just how expired can it be and still be edible?
Bread and milk generally become unappetizing to me even before the expiration date is reached. So I usually try to finish those quickly.
I will leave prepared foods in the fridge up to 2~3 days, but a pot of stewed something or other I may keep longer. If I know I won't get to eating some leftover for the next 2~3 days, I just freeze it immediately. I find quality to suffer very little if the food is frozen and reheated properly.
Quick and tasty Japanese and Chinese noodle soup base?
Thanks. I've seen that movie before. For something intense like that I would just go to a dedicated noodle shop rather than making it myself.
I am looking for more of tips to make decent broths at home easily. As well as tips on variations.
I have the kind of noodle soup base you mentioned at home as well. Mostly I use it for cold soba. The problem with this one is that it doesn't make a meaty tasting soup. Maybe I can combine with chicken stock?
Quick and tasty Japanese and Chinese noodle soup base?
I love Japanese noodle soup for quick meals at home, and I love trying different brands of noodles both thick and thin, dry and fresh. Luckily there are a number of large Japanese/Korean supermarkets near where I live too so selection is good.
But I find myself mostly making a pretty simple broth and am getting a little bored with it. Would love to hear about some good ideas.
I usually just do an instant dashi (Hondashi is the only brand I ever tried) mixed with mirin and soy sauce. Maybe play with some salt or miso or the small silver stock fish (forgot the name). Throw in some seaweed, or sometimes shrimp, mushroom, or pieces of meat, maybe an egg. Maybe some shaved katsuobushi. But most of the broths don't really come out that different. And I would like to perhaps make a meatier broth, or thicker, fattier broth.
I also love Chinese noodle soups but these to me are somehow harder than Japanese noodles to make at home because there's really no one way to make it. No well defined recipe. I guess for now I am interested to make a basic "la mian" type of meaty soup. Or a Cantonese BBQ shop style with the yellow noodles. What are some ways to easily make these? Please help!
Buying frozen shrimps
Mostly I am wondering what's good frozen shrimp brands to buy? Or can I request at a farmer/super market the same kind of shrimp as they have on display, but frozen? And is that better than pre-packaged brands?
I prefer shell-on head-on.
The reason I am asking particularly about frozen shrimps is because for many of the Asian dishes I make at home, I only need a few shrimps at a time. Even for pasta and seafood stews, I only need a handful each time. I don't want to buy a few shrimps every time I cook such dishes. I'd prefer to buy maybe a few pounds at a time frozen that I can thaw out however much I need. I don't want to buy the fresh shrimp on display at seafood counters since I'd most likely damage them by re-freezing them at home.
The problem is there are many options and I don't want to test out the bad ones. Suggestions appreciated!
PS: I have access to Whole Foods and huge Korean/Japanese operated supermarkets.
Does beer make you fat?
I think a lot of people already know that beer itself is not a particularly fattening beverage. But the terminology is probably useful in conveying the bloated feeling one gets from drinking a lot of it (from carbonation), and in conveying the increased likelihood of overeating while drinking beers.
If drinking beer makes somebody do stuff that makes them fat, then in effect drinking beer is making them fat indirectly. The science is not correct but logically I am fine with that.
Blind taste tests that you think would lead to surprising results
I'd be interested to see if the much more expensive Japan raised kobe beef will actually beat American raised counterparts in blind tasting.
Sleepy After Meal & Wine
So you exercise afterward regardless. I guess that's what I'll have to do. Rest for a couple hours right after dinner, and THEN I'll be out of the food induced euphoria enough to be productive.
Sleepy After Meal & Wine
It's not that I can't do anything physically. I just get into a happy and relaxed state, so I have a hard time focusing if I were to read or study (I enjoy studying random subjects in the evening). And I have a hard time getting into a mood to punish the body after putting it into such a relaxed state.
Sleepy After Meal & Wine
The issue is that I feel too unproductive if I am relaxing for the whole time after dinner...usually a span of 5 hours. I'd like to study something or go to the gym for at least 2 out of the 5 hours.
I would like some "self-improvement" time everyday, instead of just work, eat, and relax. And I resist with all my power to wake up and do anything in the morning...I wake up and go straight to work.
What's the appeal of food trucks?
The food is not necessarily better. The way to look at it is to put a restaurant and a food truck that both serve, to your taste, the same level of food, side by side. Let's say they are both excellent foods to me. Then the appeal of the food truck to me is the strip down of everything surrounding the cook, the ingredients, the stove, and my mouth. There's the building, the serving staff, the bar, the bathrooms, a kitchen that's stocked to prepare many dishes and not just the one item I want to eat, etc. These I don't need, when I just want someone who really knows what they are doing with a particular item, to make me that item and hand it to me in exchange for a small sum.
I don't see the current trend as making food trucks haute at all. It's a different way of eating entirely. The trend is simply that people are aware of the existence of this alternative.
Sleepy After Meal & Wine
Just curious if this is a problem for anyone else?
I have a 9 to 5 job and if I eat dinner at home, it happens around 6:30~8:30. I go to bed usually at 1AM. I don't have children. So as you can see with that much time between dinner and bed time, I'd like to use it for something productive. But I found that if I eat a scrumptious meal, especially with half a bottle of wine, I enter a state of euphoria and just want to lie down and do nothing (probably end up watching a movie, worse would be taking a nap on a recliner). This is in turn bad because I'd probably drink even more wine at that point. This is problematic because the euphoria is such that I'd even rather lie down and relax than have sex.
Anyway, I thought it's worth sharing because I'd imagine many chowhounds eat very well on a daily basis, so I'm curious how you stay productive after dinner, especially if you drink alcohol with dinner?
What is YOUR meaning of fine dining?
I think of Fine Dining as an overall experience beyond the food quality. Complete and professional service, beautiful environment, expensive ingredients, extensive wine list. And the establishment catering to the diners' needs and whims. It should feel like a pampering and luxurious experience. Whether anything is overpriced or not is probably not exactly a relevant issue. If it boils down to just one word, it would be: luxury.
It's not exactly a strange situation for you to eat better food at a great bistro or sushi bar. It's quite normal for great chefs to run non-fine dining restaurants. You can eat $120 multi-course chef's tasting menu at a place that's still not really fine dining. But you would not expect the sort of total luxurious experience, the expensive ingredients, the pampering, the regal fixtures, etc.
Pasta cooked 'al dente', am I the only one who doesn't like it that way?
I prefer al dente. A very good cook can make a soft pasta dish taste good to me, but that's besides the point. When I make it at home it's always al dente, and when I order pasta at restaurants it's usually at places where I know it'll be that way. The kind of pasta I ate growing up was on the mushy side, but as soon as I went away to college I cooked it al dente for myself and preferred it since.
Why is "Pours a strong drink" considered such a positive bar review comment?
I can understand the reasoning here. But then, a person who prefers to drink this way would probably judge how good a bar is based on atmosphere and prices, once it is determined that the drink poured is strong enough. Maybe two bars are both known for mixed drinks, and one of them does a great job while another one doesn't live up to expectations. But if I read a review of either place that says "poured a strong drink, what more could you want", it doesn't help me at all.
Why is "Pours a strong drink" considered such a positive bar review comment?
Is it just me? I don't think of the point of going to a bar as getting drunk. I would rather they have a good variety of drinks, and/or that they take care of their drinks. The quality and tastes are very important. When I look at reviews of pubs/bars, I see a lot of people basing their positive impression on the moniker "pours a strong drink", and that's just not very helpful to me.
Is there a benchmark dish in Thai cuisine?
I think I mean a combination of specialty and skill in relation to other restaurants of its type. And the reason why I do this is simple: I search for the best food, not the most reliable dining experience. I don't necessarily go into a restaurant already having a propensity to order certain dishes...I would rather eat what's supposedly their best, so my taste buds can learn something, and/or hopefully experience something amazing.
The "common approach" you mentioned tries to minimize possibility of disappointment. My approach, tries to not "miss out" on the best (or most telling) dish at a place in a first visit.
I understand that for some cuisines or types of restaurants (Tapas bar for example) there just isn't an obvious choice. Thai might be one of those. However, at a sushi place I am very confident I can tell a whole lot by only tasting the tamago, saba with sushi rice, and perhaps a broth dish. Also, the not-focused dishes at very good restaurants might not taste much better than average restaurants, since the skill required to make them is lower, and the attention paid to them by the good restaurant might not be very high. I would find it strange if somebody gushes over a General Tso Chicken dish at a much lauded authentic Chinese restaurant, ordered specifically from the "American Chinese" side of the menu, as even if it's tasty, it can't be what sets the chef apart from others.
Is there a benchmark dish in Thai cuisine?
I don't often get to go out to eat with a large group of people, so whenever I try a new place I try to order either the specialty, or else a dish that can be considered a benchmark in whatever type of restaurant it is, so I can mentally compare it with other places I've been to. My question here is, what dish to order would be good as a benchmark at a Thai restaurant? Is it a noodle dish, a curry dish, a seafood dish, a soup...something that might most closely and accurately reflect, or most dependent on, the skill/recipe of the restaurant?
At a sushiya I always try the saba, tamago, and sushi rice. At pizzeria, usually the most plain one like Margherita. Depending on the type of Chinese restaurant, I may use the salt/pepper squid, beef chow fun, xiao long bao (soup bun)...etc. A Southern restaurant, certainly fried chicken and grits. A Cajun one, probably will use gumbo and boudin. At a Cuban place, likely the ropa vieja or roasted lechon.
Anyway, to me it's hard to see what the specialty is in a given Thai restaurant. They all seem (at least around here) to offer lots of different dishes.
In America: ethnic restaurants and kids
I need to clarify some things. When I started the topic I had in mind very young kids (4~8), who are not doing the ordering, who probably don't have a preference either way, and in situations where they haven't had the food before. In this case, I see a lot of American parents having the mindset that many ethnic foods are "not for kids". It's often based on notions such as exoticness and safety in the parent's mind, not exactly based on the child's taste. I feel like this is a cultural, rather than universal, phenomenon.
In America: ethnic restaurants and kids
You are talking about kids' lunch boxes. I specifically ask about eating at an ethnic restaurant with kids. Based on my experience growing up in Asia, this seems to be a very American phenomenon.
Lots of parents here will order a grilled chicken breast dish for kids when they go to a Thai/Chinese/Mexican/Korean etc. restaurant. Yes sometimes they already know the kid will not eat anything else, but often they just assume kids won't eat the same thing they are eating because it's "exotic", when such notion hasn't even developed in a very young child...the notion of "exotic" only develops when you feed the child same thing over and over again.
Foreign cuisine restaurants in Asia don't seem to have the equivalent of this grilled chicken breast dish that exists just for kids, in case they find what they are eating "too exotic".
In America: ethnic restaurants and kids
It is a very common thing in the US, for parents to assume that kids cannot eat a lot of the ethnic dishes. To the point where most parents get something very generic, plain, and bland especially for the kids (like a grilled chicken breast dish) when the whole family go out to an ethnic restaurant.
Why is that?
Food that Most People Love and You Don't...
A chowhound named "sukekiyo" replied somewhere on this thread listed "typical American comfort food" as an item. So I meant to say "me too".
I think most people like queso cheese dip. Is it just my opinion? Queso cheese sells better than any other cheese product, at least here in US, I thought.
When I said some people were not listing things "most people like", I refer to stuff like caviar, oysters, offal, celery, coconut. I mean you just know a lot of people actually don't like those.
Food that Most People Love and You Don't...
Huh? Some replies are simply listing things they don't like to eat without bothering to filter it down to stuff most people like. I'll try to only list what I think most people like.
-fowl breasts...no preparation can make it as tender, juicy, and flavorful as the dark meats.
-queso cheese dip (and various dishes that utilize them)
-raw tomatoes. I love them cooked though.
-typical brunch dishes...I don't hate them, but people seem to think there's something magical to brunch.
-salads in general. I'll eat them if tasty and offered automatically. I'll never specifically *want* to eat or order salad.
-second sukekiyo on typical "American comfort food". never crave them.
-soft drinks. Never liked soft drinks even as a kid.
-"Buffalo-style" anything. To me this is just spicy and no taste.
I generally love all those "foodie" stuff some people listed, and never had to acquire the taste.
Elements Of Americanization?
Very good post. It's not just a taste preference issue. In a way, "Americanization" indicates a paradigm shift from serving food that makes taste and nutritional sense, to a more profit-maximizing model. So, in a way, even American restaurants can "Americanize", by becoming chains, use extensive market research to decide what to serve, take mass opinion over chef's, nutritionists' or more discernible eaters', etc. What's served is not determined by people who know something about good food (such as the chef), but by what brings most money. It's a result of American culture as much as it is of American taste, if not more.
I think if restaurants in China, Japan, Mexico, Italy take this approach, their quality will go down as well, because the average eater in these countries do not necessarily have any better taste than the average American. It just seems like they have better taste because traditionally the cultures have let the chef, the person who's supposedly most able to decide what's good, decide what to serve you.
Elements Of Americanization?
More than one person now mentioned corn syrup. This is a very interesting point because I don't think it's even used in normal American cuisine. I wonder what was the rationale for using it in American Chinese.
Elements Of Americanization?
With this topic I would like to explore the common elements in the "Americanization" of foreign cuisines. Some of these cuisines are more familiar than others, such as American Italian, American Chinese, non-traditional sushi rolls. Do you think there are certain things that generally take place when a cuisine is Americanized?
One obvious element is the removal of offals. Another related element is to make food look less like the animal it came from, such as removing bones, heads, skin. These are not taste changes though. As far as tastes go, perhaps the removal of pungent herbs. Another obvious element is a great reduction of fat, especially visible fat attached to the meat.
What else?
Taste of Atlanta foodies might surprise you
I can't ever get over how visitors only ever want to eat "Southern food", and on this board and elsewhere there's endless requests for recommendations in that category.
In my opinion the best places to eat in Atlanta count very few actual Southern places in the top 20...unless your idea of "the place to check out" when you only have a weekend in town is something you could have cooked at home yourself.
To find out if my opinion is unique among local passionate eaters, I have started to conduct a survey recently (still in progress). I ask people who love food and have been to numerous local restaurants to think about their top 10 favorite places to eat in Atlanta, and simply group them by cuisine type and list the numbers under each. I will update the results from time to time. So far, it's actually quite consistent with my suspicion, and might surprise you, whether you are visiting or live here.
#People surveyed so far - 8
BBQ - 1
Brazilian - 1
Brunch - 2
Casual American - 1
Chinese - 4
Ethiopian - 1
French -1
Gourmet Deli / order at counter - 3
Indian - 4
Italian - 3
Japanese - 12
Mediterranean - 1
Mexican - 5
New American - 4
Korean - 4
Pub - 3
Pizza - 8
Thai - 3
Seafood - 3
Southern - 2
Southwest - 2
Steakhouse - 3
Vietnamese - 9
how to do respond to "how is everything?" when it is just not "good"!?!
To honestly say I didn't like the food that much is a LOT easier to do at a mid-high end place with servers trained to be attentive and accommodating. The remarks are non-personal.
It is a completely different story when you are eating at a small ma-and-pa or family owned restaurant, with super-friendly servers, and the smiling owner comes over to ask you with a warm sincerity, how was the food? Many times, I didn't like the food at all, but did not have the heart to say it. What am I gonna say, "your family recipe" sucked? "Your wife is not that good of a cook" ?
What do you do in this situation?
Savory
Do you think there isn't degrees of umami though? It seems to make sense to me that we should be able to detect degrees of umami just like the other major tastes.
