Oriental East

Somehow, I made it all the way to February and still have quite a few posts I need to make regarding East-coast food. Luckily, it looks like I might have some free time this weekend to churn this stuff out.

We used to go to Oriental East a lot when I was younger and we went to church in Silver Spring. I'm not quite sure what the correlation is between going to church in the area nearby since you can't really time dim-sum to be before or after church when there is lunch service and then Chinese school in the afternoon, but whatever.

The main problem with this place is the horrible parking, there's a tiny lot right in front where people triple park and block you in, so usually it's better to go to the side lot if there is space there.

Anyway, this place apparently does a lot of business, so one would expect the food to be quite delicious. As it turned out, I felt kinda queasy afterwards; I think the amount of grease combined with just arriving after a red-eye flight got to me. Either way, the food was not bad: overall, it was above average, I just felt like there was a whole lot of grease to it.












































Oriental East Restaurant
1312 East-West Highway
Silver Spring, MD 20910
(301) 608-0030

Joe's Shanghai

Yes, I know, what a horrible name/translation for a Chinese restaurant. I guess, in some ways, it is similar to the food, really really excellent along one dimension and failing past mediocrity in others.

Some of you may know that I am a big fan of XLB. I think that's an acronym I picked up from Kirk. Anyway, Joe's Shanghai is well-known for their ridiculously good XLB. Seriously, Din Tai Fung had better hope to God that Joe's does not expand beyond its three stores in the NYC area. (BTW, we stopped by the Chinatown shop, but they also have one uptown and in Flushing, Queens.)

Before I begin my love poem, have a picture first:Leaving aside the issue of "does size matter", one must admit that 8 of these gigantic XLB for the low price of $4.65 is a f***ing steal. And as a side note, I should mention that my mom first ordered the version with crab meat, which had a strange taste. Also, it costs more. (crab is expensive?) However, I successfully argued that XLTB was significantly different from standard XLB. (After all, why does XLTB sell out so quickly at Dumpling House when XLB does not?) So what you see here is one of eight XLTB that we got. Yes, that IS a standard size Chinese-style soup spoon.

The broth you see starting to spill out is mostly from inside the XLB with a small amount of vinegar: as you can see the XLB is still quite plump, indicating quite a bit more broth inside. And the broth is soooo good... Such a perfect flavor. It's hard to compare the quality, but all the ones I had were as expected, rich and juicy, perfectly flavored pork inside, complemented by just as much vinegar and ginger as you desire. The wrapping was also done excellently, thinnish on the bottom, having soaked up so much broth on the inside, and yet the top part was dry and easy to grab with the metal tongs, indicating a very well balanced thickness that allows for comfortable eating while preserving the broth inside from spilling because the wrapper was too thin. Tastewise, I would say that Din Tai Fung is comparable in flavor, but Joe's wins along multiple fronts: broth quantity, overall size, and price.

If you ever stop by NYC and you don't have an aversion to XLB, I highly recommend you spend a paltry 5 bucks and grab yourself and excellent meal. Heck, it's cheaper than a decent combo at McDonald's.

My one and only complaint about Joe's (and a rather large complaint at that) is that the rest of their food ranges from mediocre to Teh Suck. The noodles we ordered (Shanghai Fried Flat Noodle, I believe, based on a suggestion from a review my Mom read) were mediocre: just soy-sauce flavored that could've used some more nutty flavor or veggies or Something. The fried rice we ordered for my brother was just crappy: cold, bland, mostly rice, with very little veggies, egg, or chicken. I made better fried rice the first time I made it. (And now my fried rice is even better still, tempered by years of cooking experience and knowledge of seasonings.) I should also mention that the noodles and fried rice were priced at $6.95 and $7.25 respectively. So with 8 XLB at $4.65, why would you want to order anything else? Get your variety some other day.

When we went, we managed to find a spot splitting a large table with two other small parties. However, as we left the place, there was a large line, so I suggest going early to grab a comfortable spot during the lunch time rush. Of course, the non-Chinatown locations might be less crowded, but I find that somehow hard to believe...

Joe's Shanghai
[chinatown]
9 Pell Street (off of The Bowery)
New York, New York 10013

[uptown]
24 W 56 Street
New York, New York 10019

[flushing]
136-21 7th Avenue
Flushing, New York 11354

Ba Ren (part I)

For some reason, I was in the mood for spicy food. Not just the standard spicy food that I knew how to make (via loads of black pepper, cayenne pepper, etc.), but stuff with actual peppers (that I am too cheap to buy and work with) that has a really pungent (in a good sense) flavor. Anyway, I figured I should probably go to Ba Ren at some point to get some food pics and do my thing. After all, it is well-known as one of the best places for authentic Chinese in the SD area. Luckily for me, they serve pretty authentic (read: numb-inducing spicy) Sichuan cuisine. So, if you haven't been scared away yet, let's proceed.

Ba Ren offers a very nice selection of cold appetizers that you can get to start your meal. You can choose between 2-n different dishes, and they give you quite a large portion on a small plate. I couldn't find a third dish I really wanted, so I settled for these two: a marinated seaweed mixture, and a spicy beef (?) tendon mix. (Note that there is actual lean meat in addition to tendons, which is always great.) For some reason, I love seaweed prepared in this fashion: I guess I must have a lot of love for the vinegary-flavors...

Anyway, as expected, it was excellent, although it is somewhat different from the Japanese preparations where they use a couple different seaweeds and seaweed-based products to give some variety to the textures. The spicy tendons were also great, not quite as numb-inducing as I am used to, but still very flavorful.

The other dish I ordered 口水雞, which my mom translated into "Saliva Chicken", using a 2-1 character split for translation. The rationale she came up with is that it is supposed to induce saliva on the part of the consumer. I find it interesting that in this case, a 1-1-1 character split makes for a more accurate and appealing translation of "Mouth Water[ing] Chicken", only slightly more poetic than what Ba Ren uses: "Cold Chicken w/ Spicy Sauce". Personally I think the latter is better off as a description, but such things are difficult when the menu has 500+ items (supposedly; I didn't keep track when I went).

If this dish looks scarily red, well, it's actually not that bad. Maybe? My good friend M, would probably die if he entered the same room as this evil-looking dish. (He has no tolerance for spicy heat whatsoever, unable to take a twice-diluted Orochan level 6. I, on the other hand, consider Orochan's level 3 to be a nice mix of heat and flavor, with level 2 starting to get overbearing.) Anyway, the chicken is very nice and tender, and the flavors are actually quite complex. That is not standard chili oil floating at the top: it had just the right flavor that I thought it would make some very nice cold noodles. (And later that week, I did exactly that using the roughly half I had left over, making quite a few servings of nice spicy soba noodles.)

Yes, I had half the dish left over. The other half resulted in me consuming all the rice they gave me. And I didn't just get the single-size serving of rice but one of those large bowls that normally suffices for a party of 3 or 4. Yes, this dish is quite spicy.

The other two dishes I ordered for takeout (I think it's a $25 min credit card order): Mapo Tofu and Dry Cooked Lamb will be covered in part 2.

Ba Ren
4957 Diane Ave
San Diego, CA 92117