A few years after moving to California, I returned to my hometown on Long Island and accidentally ordered “chow mein” thinking, given the inclusion of lo mein elsewhere on the menu, that it would be Hong Kong style crispy chow mein. The limp noodle-less plate of oversauced veggies that appeared in front of me was quite a lesson— I’d never seen that or chop suey before (those weren’t common Chinese American dishes to gen-xers like myself). I deserved it—- that’s what I get for being pretentious, and trying to be above my childhood favorite, lo mein.
Back to the thread, at Neptune Oyster in Boston I watched a family send back the platter labeled “crudo” because it was raw.
I guess we can blame La Choy and Chungking for their cans of crispy chow mein, which indeed are noodles in origin, despite the protestations of a lot of the Chowhounds. I presume these canned noodles were particularly useful to make “chow mein” in backwater locales where there would be no fresh Chinese noodles, or perhaps even dry Chinese noodles, available for hundreds of miles.
South Asian Woman (assume): Do you have pulled tea?
Starbucks Barista: We have bag tea…Earl Grey, Mint, Lemon, etc
I don’t who is more ridiculous in this. A barista that has no idea what pulled tea is or someone asking for pulled tea. Lady have your ever seen that done in a Starbucks? Maybe it’s done overseas?
Small oily fishes will never catch on here in LA as a health food trend and for general consumption.
More for me! For a second I thought anchovy/sardine toast was going to become a thing…Gjusta’s anchovy toast was the best damn toast I ever had lol I prefer savory over sweet so it beats out Sqirl’s toast.
I probably eat sardines in tomato sauce with black pepper once a week now (homestyle Vietnamese dish!)
here was my befuddlement over chow mein in NYC:
