Just had some fantastic potstickers from Nan Xiang Express in Downtown Brooklyn. About 8 bucks for 6 pieces. I had never been there before. Lovely, fairly delicate wrapper and a fresh, generous filling. Nicely crisped on the outside. I will go back again.
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I generally avoid these kind of “discussions” (I guess a new thread could be started on it?) but here goes:
1- we actually do have a separate small group thread where the usual suspects talk about get togethers. That’s why Jen said [quote=“JenKalb, post:601, topic:37153”]
should we post a note on the usual chat thread perhaps
[/quote]. I started talking about going to one of the places around Coney Is. Ave to gauge interest from others who may want to join. I also wanted the specifics of the get together to be negotiated in public so that others could chime in with their needs/wants & not see the details as set in stone. I could’ve started a separate thread on this but didn’t think to. Next time.
2- Unlike Chowhound, this board has a Personal Messaging system so its very easy, when a poster has a criticism of another poster (or posters) to PM them instead of voicing their complaint on this thread, diverting even further away from its purpose & lessening the chances of misinterpretation of intent.
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I’m not reading all that. It is not personal. It is a NYC board. Is it so hard to keep it a NYC board. Geesh.
Maybe there would be a good level of support for a new thread that discusses NYC food and strictly prohibits any references to food elsewhere?
Where you can compare an Uzbek restaurant in Kensington to an Uzbek restaurant in Rego Park, but not to an Uzbek restaurant in Khiva?
Or you can compare a Basque restaurant on the Lower East Side to a Basque restaurant in Chelsea, but not to a Basque restaurant in Bayonne?
And that would prohibit an immigrant Uber driver from saying that a Nigerian restaurant in East New York is just as good as her favorite restaurant in Lagos?
Sure. Start whatever sort of thread you want.
So what exactly was objectionable about my comparing NYC barbecue places to barbecue places in Texas and North Carolina and my comparing NYC Uzbek places to places in Tashkent?
I genuinely do not understand what the problem is. It seems designed to put limits on conversations that would exclude the world outside NYC.
And, as I said earlier, I knew this was coming as soon as I mentioned Tashkent restaurants.
As with most threads, it’s a bit rich for those who don’t participate to instruct those who do on how they should.
I started this as a conversational thread. Conversations don’t progress linearly or the exact way each of us might ideally want them to. A mention of an Uzbekistan trip from a frequent and prolific contributor to nyc discussion (who happens to be a visitor) expanded to discussion of nyc Uzbek restaurants and ended up in an impromptu meal organized at one of them. That’s excellent food discussion to my read.
Not sure why this is so bothersome, especially to people who have variously declared that they don’t follow this thread and have no interest in it.
Would it be nice if everyone was super organized all the time and discussions didn’t stray off topic ever? YES. Is it possible? NO. Is there thread drift on EVERY other thread? YES.
Live and let live. If you don’t want to be here, don’t be — no one is forcing you. But please stop spoiling it for everyone else who does.
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Is there such a thing as a delete drift? 
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You’d better delete this. 
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DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO.
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I feel like we are getting off topic.
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As long as we are getting off, Saul Goodman.
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I’m going to try to drag this thread back to its former thread drift by letting you all know that reservations have been made for tomorrow at 4pm at the Uzbek restaurant here in Brooklyn that we decided, after much back and forth, that we (the 6 of us) wanted to go to (while everyone else stood by, transfixed on our every word). And Dave was even nice enough to start another thread for this, not yet totally ruined by its own thread drift.
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Have I mentioned how much I love the barbacoa at Vera’s Backyard Barbecue in Brownsville, Texas?
The unctuous richness of the cow’s head smoked underground overnight at Vera’s brings to mind a wonderful meal that my wife and I had at the now-shuttered Dante’s Kitchen in New Orleans, which featured the lovely triple-grease that is so characteristic of the best Creole-Cajun cuisine. One of the highlights of that meal was a spectactular bone marrow dish topped with escargot and drizzled with butter and topped with bread crumbs. Unbelievable.
And then, by coincidence, Toni and I had bone marrow this very night at Tandiriy Restaurant in Tashkent, a relatively new place (open less than a year) that is trying to serve traditional Uzbek food in an upscale setting. As opposed to the over-the-top bone marrow dish at Dante’s Kitchen, this version was relatively restrained, topped with diced peppers and onions, and accompanied by a bulb of roasted garlic, which was intended to be squeezed onto the bone marrow.
The only arguably extreme thing about this dish is the restaurant’s insistence that it is be eaten with your hands and bread – though they will provide plastic gloves to tourists who are uncomfortable with this.
Our waiter at Tandiriy was extremely knowledgeable about traditional Uzbek food and was eager to answer all of our questions – in fluent English – which made me think of our severe communication difficulties in much less posh surroundings at Urgut Osh Markazi in Kensington, Brooklyn.
And then my happiness at all these memories brought back even more happy memories of our wonderful cat, Tino, who we miss so much.
Then, I started feeling maudlin about how unfair it is that anyone could ever criticize me, with my laser-focus, for allegedly having a tendency to ramble.
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About 40 years ago, during my first job on wall st, my team walked to Chinatown twice a week and after a couple of years, I fancied myself pretty knowledgeable.
One of my colleagues and I decided to double date at one of our favorite places . my girlfriend decided she wanted to try a menu item called a Chinese hamburger. The waiter, who spoke little English, told us it was just for Chinese people but, since we were such great experts on Chinese cuisine, i confidently brushed aside his repeated objections.
He brought over the hamburger, I tried a bite and, not wanting to appear like a naif, managed not to spit it out. It was at that point, not for the first or last time, my perverse sense of humor got the better of me, I declared it delicious, and passed it over to my gf.
She had no absolutely no compunction about spitting her bite into a napkin. Somehow she wasn’t happy about my little joke and accused me of knowing the hamburger was a dry pita hiding a big ole hairy, crunchy, pigs ear. She broke up with me the next day. I saw her a couple of years later at a friend’s party, amd somehow resisted suggesting we go out for a burger sometime.
given a pigs ear got me in so much relationship trouble, I’d be afraid to see what a cows head might do to my marriage.
Best,
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We probably went to the same place around the same time. However, my work lunches included intentional pig’s ear sandwiches. I’m pretty sure the place we went to was on East Broadway – might’ve been Little Shanghai, a small storefront place close to Hwa Yuan (the original one that burned down). Our other lunch place was where Wu’s now stands, called Wing Shing, where we adventurously ordered the pieces of “liver” that went by on the dim sum cart only to find that it was congealed duck blood, not liver. Made my teeth rattle for hours.
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