Content about Chinatown
February 3, 2011
The Chinese New Year is the perfect time to look back on a spicy year.
Greetings from bitterly cold and blustery Chicago. Currently the city is buried under two feet of snow, and battling some of the coldest temperatures in years. Though it seems like everyone is putting a post about where to eat Chinese food tonight in honor of the Chinese New Year, I decided to take the time and talk about what it has been like to cook Chinese dishes at home. I fell hard for this mighty cuisine in 2010, cooking it nearly...
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June 11, 2010
A mixture of tofu, ground meat, and chile bean paste suspended in a bright red and dangerously spicy sauce
Had you put a gun to my head a few years ago and asked me what my least favorite kind of food was, I'd have A) asked you why wanted to shoot me, and then B) probably said Chinese. Bad broccoli and beef, greasy fried rice, those strange orange packets of sauce--these were my impressions of the entirety of Chinese cuisine and what a billion people ate for dinner. Though I probably knew better, I couldn't block the mental image of...
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December 11, 2009
Where to start your Sichuan obsession.
For awhile now, I've been looking for a way into Chinese cooking. The whole business of it feels impenetrable. Strange flavors, ingredients, and cooking techniques, and no ability to rely on what I've already learned about Western cooking and improvise. Then there's the problem that you can't accurately call anything "Chinese cooking," because China is made up of provinces with different recipes and methods. They...
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November 26, 2007
Manhattan. 1 day. 9 Restaurants.
I hadn’t been to New York since my exodus in July and I returned with a plan. I wasn’t going to waste any moment visiting attractions, or seeing a Broadway play. I lived there for two years, so it felt right to walk back in and get to what I spent most of my time doing: eating. And with the Paupered Chefs reunited for the first time in half a year, it really wasn't that hard for our minds to go racing all...
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April 12, 2007
Every once in a while I get really excited about something I've never made before, and before I really have a firm understanding about what I'm getting myself into, I'm in the middle of making it. "Hey, I've never made a whole ham. Let's do it tonight even though we have no guests." This is the thinking that lead me to pull out an apparatus that has never, ever been used in my kitchen before: the bamboo steamer....
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April 22, 2006
Braving the cold weather for all the $1 tasting plates you could want
Tai Hong Lau 70 Mott Street Deep Fried Dumplings Verdict: The first of many deep-fried samplings, not the cheapest but quite tasty. They had an assortment of vegetables and mini shrimp.
Eastern Villa Restaurant 66 Mott Street Sweet and Sour Short Ribs Verdict: Good meat, but your basic sweet-and-sour taste. Heavy on the MSG. Notice Blake in the scrum. Each restaurant had crowds like this one, and each one had short...
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February 1, 2006
An exploration of Philadelphia's quintessential greasy delicacy...the cheesesteak
With Blake off for the weekend, Nick blew the whole...
With Blake off for the weekend, Nick blew the whole Paupered Chef budget on a $20 Chinatown Bus ticket to Philadelphia in search of the city's quintessential greasy delicacy...the cheesesteak. Armed with locals with serious appetites, he checked out some of their favorite institutions in search of the real thing...Wait, with cheez whiz?
Up until three months ago, I wasn...
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All content copyright Nick Kindelsperger and Blake Royer.
