Things I've never eaten

I ate at Long John Silvers for the first time in my life yesterday for lunch. It was ok, not great but better than a crappy burger or taco Supreme.

It got me thinking about things I have not tried and top of the list is Egg Foo Yung. Really, I've never had it once in all the years I've spent in Chinese restaurants and buffets.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't think I'm missing out too much but hey, it's bugging me in some part of my LTHself identifyingness...not a wrod but there's got to be a better way to put it.

That said, where is the best Egg Foo Yung in Chicago? I'm going to LTH next Saturday with my mom (raincheck from last week's snowstorm) and while that might be a good choice, I worry that if I order that, my crispy rice noodles and salt and pepper scallops will suffer.

As it happens, LTH has one of the best versions of EFY in the city. It's a Chow Poodle Standard whenever we go to LTH. I recommend the BBQ Pork version.

Octarine,

Closer to home, you might want to go to this Americanized-Filipino-
Chinese restaurant:

China Chef
5920 Lincoln Ave
Morton Grove, IL
847-967-6050

Regards,

Tripe. In any of its ethnic variations. I guess it can't be too bad, a lot of people seem to like it. I just don't know....

I had to scratch my head for this one. It's an interesting question, Octarine, in view of the omnivorous habits of many who post here. Excluding foods with restricted availability, it may be a matter of chance whether one has eaten a particular dish or not, as you suggest.

That said, I'm remembering a gooseberry pie I made during the summer of 1971. I can't recall how I ran across the berries, but I knew enough to know that they were a find. My Dad confirmed this with his astonishment when I brought them home. Diligent, I made the pie.. But the tranparent, striped yellow-green berries freaked me out. I proudly served the pie to the acclaim of my family, but could not eat it, not even a taste.

Lutefisk, brains, lips, and livers.

I've never eaten much offal, so cross all of that off. Never had a clam or a mussel.

Also, I've never had a Big Mac.

I've tasted so many things it's hard to think of absolute nos-- just brains, I guess, I have an exaggerated fear of Creutzfeld-Jacob, even though I eat the other parts of the cow into which all those prions are mixed by processors, and fully expect a sort of 28 Days Later madness to descend upon me any day now.

The real question might be things I avoid instinctively and thus haven't eaten in 20 years, even though I might now like them. One that comes to mind is artichokes-- I guess a few marinated artichoke hearts have passed my lips, but my sisters and mom frequently ate the fresh kind steamed when I was growing up, and I always stared at them like they were eating boiled pinecones. It will never, ever occur to me to pick some up at Whole Foods, in fact I can't even tell you if I've ever seen them there. There's a white space in the middle of the vegetable case, where I see nothing. That's probably them.

There are probably also some things I have yet to get around to eating-- especially seafood-related things, having grown up somewhere that hasn't had a coastline in 150 million years. Probably most of the things that you do with, say, clams, other than make clam chowder out of them (I just had that tonight at Glenn's, as a matter of fact), are still foreign to me. I've forced myself to eat softshell crabs but they still strike me as akin to eating the Happy Meal toy inside its bubble plastic packaging. Not having grown up with this kind of seafood around the house, I'm still way too freaked out by it to actually cook it myself.

But I love Long John Silver's. (Well, about once a year, anyway.)

I must admit that I'm a total freak for both Pork Egg Foo Young and Enchiladas, as inauthentic as both may be. If you want good egg foo young, it must be freshly prepared. No buffet version will suffice.

I like the pork egg foo young at LTH. When I'm not in the mood to travel, my local neighborhood place, Yoummy Yummy at Broadway and Surf suffices nicely.

I've never eaten geoduck. A geoduck's similarity in looks to a large weiner always grosses me out even when I do consider ordering it at a place like Silver Seafood.

Erik's post on Urasawa has reminded me of something I need to add to my list:

Cod sperm sac.

chad roe anyone?

Dondon wrote:chad roe anyone?

I think you mean shad roe.

And it's wonderful. Lightly floured and sauteed in butter or bacon fat, served classic East coast style with meuniere butter, crisp bacon and mashed potatoes.

Dondon wrote:chad roe anyone?

Trixies have roe; chads have sperm sacks.



Antonius

Eel. I know they're just fish, but I still can't take that first bite.

Ann Fisher wrote:Eel. I know they're just fish, but I still can't take that first bite.

Ann,

If eel makes you squiggly first venture should be at a Japanese restaurant. Eel nigiri (eel on a little pillow of rice) will be surprisingly evocative of beef teriyaki. If presented a choice ask for unagi, fresh water eel, it's richer, more full flavored than anago (salt water eel)

Really, eel is very tasty.*

Enjoy,
Gary

*standard $3.95 recommendation reimbursement applies if you do not like unagi.

stevez wrote:As it happens, LTH has one of the best versions of EFY in the city.

Steve,

My father, who is a connoisseur of all things egg foo yung, agrees wholeheartedly with you. He is of the opinion 'Little' Three Happiness has near perfect egg foo yung, second only to Harvey Moy's in Milwaukee.

In general LTH does American Chinese standards quite well.

Enjoy,
Gary

'Little' Three Happiness
209 W Cermak
Chicago, IL

chicagostyledog wrote:... brains, lips, and livers.

Dude, what do you think they put in sausages!

Someday, I will take the jump - but thousand-year-eggs.....

balut
ortolan

Chitterlings (chitlins). I imagine them
being something like calamari...
but probably not so appetizing
in the en su tinta preparation.

Care must be taken when preparing chitterlings, due to the high possibility of disease being spread with chitterlings which have not been cleaned or cooked properly. These diseases/bacteria include Escherichia coli and Yersinia enterocolitica, as well as Salmonella. Chitterlings must be soaked and rinsed thoroughly in several different cycles of cool water, and repeatedly picked clean by hand, removing extra fat and specks of fecal matter.

-This is like being on the listening side in a confessional-(I would imagine) I must say I am shocked by some of these "gastric-sins of omission". The original poster is looking to rectify his negligence. Sounds like others are unrepentant- unwilling to mend their ways. However, those admitting to pedestrian things like clams, are truly baring their souls.

-Bless me father, I had the chance to eat pickled deer penis once in a Mexican market. After goading an intern into it, I declined my portion declaring: "Remember, you are what you eat." (I'm assuming penance will be eternal flames.)

Pork Rinds. There I said it.

For someone that enjoys/cooks the swine as much as me, it is a pretty tough thing to admit to. And it isn't like I am adverse to skin, as it is one of my favorite parts of chicken/turkey. Somehow as a kid I equated pork rinds with trailer park trash, so it is more of a socioeconomic food choice

Another shocking thing I have never had: Duck.

I know exactly why this is as well. At a restaurant with my family and grandfather when I was a very young kid. It was a nice place with a table overlooking a pond full of ducks. Yep, you can guess what he ordered. And to ruin me more, joked that I could go pick one for him if I wanted.

Jamie

Jamieson22 wrote:For someone that enjoys/cooks the swine as much as me, it is a pretty tough thing to admit to. And it isn't like I am adverse to skin, as it is one of my favorite parts of chicken/turkey. Somehow as a kid I equated pork rinds with trailer park trash, so it is more of a socioeconomic food choice

Would it make it easier if you just called them chicharron?

Jamieson22 wrote:I know exactly why this is as well. At a restaurant with my family and grandfather when I was a very young kid. It was a nice place with a table overlooking a pond full of ducks. Yep, you can guess what he ordered. And to ruin me more, joked that I could go pick one for him if I wanted.

You're missing out. More for me, I guess.

Octarine wrote:... where is the best Egg Foo Yung in Chicago?

I love Egg Foo Young and have had some really good ones around town.

Just over the weekend while out and about I made a random stop for some lunch and the EFY was very good there.

Twin Dragon Restaurant
1820 Army Trail Road
Hanover Park, IL
(312)376-8108
http://www.crabrangoon.com/

The patties were thick, cooked all the way thru, nicely browned and just chock full of vegetables. I had gotten the lunch special (2 patties, eggroll and fried rice). For $6 it was a huge meal.

The sauce was served on the side for your ladeling pleasure.

Another nice touch was the complementary bowl of egg drop soup.

Egg roll? Average.

Fried rice? Great! with a lot of large strips of chicken.

I would stop by again if I was ever back out that way.

Another shameful admission: I've never eaten whole lobster. And I grew up in New England. Even though my parents purchased it weekly to boil, and my family gorged on it every summer on vacation at the Cape. ("That sign is advertising twin 2-pounders for $14.95!" as the car swerves into the restaurant's parking lot.)

I've had bits and pieces here and there of lobster, say, in an eggroll or some similar package, but I've never been able to sit down and eat a whole boiled lobsta.

Why? When I was a kid, my little brat of a brother would pull the live lobsters out of the frig when my parents weren't around, yank the bands off the claws, and chase me around with it, as I ran screaming from its madly-grasping claws. (Ever get pinched by one of those? Ouch.) While one might think that, after that, I'd be happy to boil a lobster alive and tear it apart, triumphantly ripping off its claw and dipping its meat into clarified butter, it had the opposite effect and turned me off to it altogether. Kind of like out of sight, out of mind.

Some things you just don't get over easily.

aschie30 wrote:Another shameful admission: I've never eaten whole lobster. And I grew up in New England. Even though my parents purchased it weekly to boil, and my family gorged on it every summer on vacation at the Cape. ("That sign is advertising twin 2-pounders for $14.95!" as the car swerves into the restaurant's parking lot.)

I've had bits and pieces here and there of lobster, say, in an eggroll or some similar package, but I've never been able to sit down and eat a whole boiled lobsta.

Why? When I was a kid, my little brat of a brother would pull the live lobsters out of the frig when my parents weren't around, yank the bands off the claws, and chase me around with it, as I ran screaming from its madly-grasping claws. (Ever get pinched by one of those? Ouch.) While one might think that, after that, I'd be happy to boil a lobster alive and tear it apart, triumphantly ripping off its claw and dipping its meat into clarified butter, it had the opposite effect and turned me off to it altogether. Kind of like out of sight, out of mind.

Some things you just don't get over easily.

Believe me, boiling a live lobster for the first time is not the easiest task in the world. I hugged the cooler several times before the big plunge just so there were no hard feelings.

gmonkey wrote:

aschie30 wrote:Another shameful admission: I've never eaten whole lobster. And I grew up in New England. Even though my parents purchased it weekly to boil, and my family gorged on it every summer on vacation at the Cape. ("That sign is advertising twin 2-pounders for $14.95!" as the car swerves into the restaurant's parking lot.)

I've had bits and pieces here and there of lobster, say, in an eggroll or some similar package, but I've never been able to sit down and eat a whole boiled lobsta.

Why? When I was a kid, my little brat of a brother would pull the live lobsters out of the frig when my parents weren't around, yank the bands off the claws, and chase me around with it, as I ran screaming from its madly-grasping claws. (Ever get pinched by one of those? Ouch.) While one might think that, after that, I'd be happy to boil a lobster alive and tear it apart, triumphantly ripping off its claw and dipping its meat into clarified butter, it had the opposite effect and turned me off to it altogether. Kind of like out of sight, out of mind.

Some things you just don't get over easily.

Believe me, boiling a live lobster for the first time is not the easiest task in the world. I hugged the cooler several times before the big plunge just so there were no hard feelings.

For some reason, a few years ago, I asked my Mom, who had boiled 'em alive hundreds of times, if she ever felt bad about it. She said, "I feel a little bad, but it's damn tasty."

Mhays wrote:

chicagostyledog wrote:... brains, lips, and livers.

Dude, what do you think they put in sausages!

Someday, I will take the jump - but thousand-year-eggs.....

I had one of those eggs in Beijing. It wasn't bad. It was like eating a forgotten left over.

YourPalWill wrote:
I've never eaten geoduck. A geoduck's similarity in looks to a large weiner always grosses me out even when I do consider ordering it at a place like Silver Seafood.

will have you had mirugai or giant clam at a sushi place before? thats geoduck...it does look gross before they cut it up into neat delicious pieces of sashimi...it can be little chewy(depending where they cut from) but awesome with chojang (korean chili-vinegar sauce). also good grilled ala yakitori

G Wiv wrote:

stevez wrote:As it happens, LTH has one of the best versions of EFY in the city.

Steve,

My father, who is a connoisseur of all things egg foo yung, agrees wholeheartedly with you. He is of the opinion 'Little' Three Happiness has near perfect egg foo yung, second only to Harvey Moy's in Milwaukee.

As previously stated, I had never had egg foo yung untill this month at LTH. My first time appears to have been a good one, though with out a frame of reference I'm at a bit of a loss... Y'all can tell me what you think:



I got to say the cornstar....er.. I mean "sauce" is a bit scary to first timers!



Jamie, I always thought you just didn't like duck but had tried it before. It's off to LSC for the tea smoked duck or LTH for the BBQ pork and duck with crispy rice noodles with you!

chicagostyledog wrote:Lutefisk, brains, lips, and livers.

God i hate brains and livers too.