In North Carolina we had a Filipino friend that made lumpia. Not just as a hobby, but the whole family got together for the local annual festival. Every order of lumpia ever since has been a pale but we'll intentioned imitation.
In North Carolina we had a Filipino friend that made lumpia. Not just as a hobby, but the whole family got together for the local annual festival. Every order of lumpia ever since has been a pale but we'll intentioned imitation.
I usually just go back to the source for more so I won’t encounter the problem!
I suppose similar irking experiences would be that I’ve never been able to find Taiwanese street vendor foods as good as the ones I remembered back in childhood whenever I visit Taiwan.
Not sure if the quality has gone down, or perhaps I was just more impressionable back then?
I normally would do that too, but in both of the examples I mentioned the original restaurant is gone. I did just find the recipe for the croque madame (https://www.foodrepublic.com/recipes...dame-sandwich/), but I'm not sure I'm good enough in the kitchen to pull that off. Also, not sure where to get hamachi that good.
I think you're kinda screwed! The article said that you can almost guaranteed it to be unlike any croque madame you’d find in France! So what hope do you have in LA?
Anyway, Hamachi is just yellowtail, you can probably find some sushi markets in Torrance area since there are lots of japanese folks. In my neck of the woods, I've found this place to offer fresh and reasonably fresh sushi for you to take home: https://www.yelp.com/biz/yama-seafoo...el-4?osq=sushi
That only solves your hamachi hurdle, still plenty of other hurdles left which I won't be able to help much! My cooking level is probably only at the Panda Express or Black Angus or olive garden level... no way will I be able to tackle French Cuisine... I would try it but my wife and kid actually don't like fish.
Last edited by Crazed_Insanity; July 10th, 2020 at 08:40 AM.
Oh yeah, we've got at least three big Japanese markets near us (Sawtelle is Japantown, after all), but at least the hamachi I get there tends to be not quite as nice of a cut as I get at an expensive sushi place. Still, might work well enough for my needs.
Yeah, I'm not too familiar with japanese stuff around santa monica... we don't usually go there for Japanese food! Also, I'm sure the top sushi chefs probably get 1st dibs on the top grade sushi cuts. We only get the leftovers!
Last edited by Crazed_Insanity; July 10th, 2020 at 09:33 AM.
This is a classy joint! I feel like Moe Szyslak reading Mr. Burns' personal chef's shopping list above.
I can't think of a single dish that was so good that it ruined all others of its kind for me, but I do remember the most amazing grocery store I've ever seen: https://www.uwajimaya.com/stores/bellevue
It's an Asian market in Bellvue, WA and the first one of its kind I'd ever been in. We stayed at a nearby hotel and visited several times in the course of a week. In addition to just about every kind of land and sea animal I've ever heard of and some I hadn't, they also have a few counters where you can order different kinds of food to eat there or to go - sushi, of course, and Chinese food and probably sandwiches and whatever else. The variety and apparent freshness and cleanliness was amazing. They had tanks of live fish and I remember seeing a bowl of live shrimp/prawns out on a counter for customers to serve themselves. They had whole pigs and goat meat and organs from various animals and unfamiliar produce and other things you just don't see in landlocked middle America where McDonald's and Budweiser better represent local tastes.
When we got back to the Denver area, I found a couple Asian stores and one Korean one that are similar in concept, but they just don't hold a candle to that Uwajimaya store. I imagine LA and SF have lots of similar places.
Lori's garden is doing quite well. She's getting heaps of tomatoes right now. I do not know what else she has going out there, besides herbs and such. She's making lots of meals including fresh stuff from the back yard!
We've got tomatoes and I always love non-store tomatoes. The ones at the grocery store are always the kind that are bred to last a long time without going bad, and they're always so flavorless compared to the stuff at the farmer's market or what we grow in the tiny backyard we have. We've also got a small lemon tree going but none of the fruit has ripened yet, and we have a curry leaf plant that's been used pretty often in indian food.
George, we have a few markets like that out here, but at least in my part of town they're smaller than that and don't have quite that selection. If I go into the valley some of the Chinese markets have the live seafood and stuff like that, but our local markets don't usually have that. We do have a Pakistani market nearby that has goat though, which comes in handy. There's also one really good Mexican market not too far from here that has the best selection of dried chiles I've found anywhere.