Simul Parikh

Thank you! I figured this out after very mild googling! Will do that next time. It was really annoying b/c the taste was good.

What a weird story

Well, it turned out pretty darn good, lady was very happy with it. Couple issues, though - 1) Sichuan pepper tends to be gritty. I'm not sure if it's residual husks from the grinding process or what. Not a big deal, but a little annoying 2) Not really getting the numbness/tingling. I hear it's b/c you need fresh sichuan peppercorn. Where in the world can I find it fresh? 3) B/c of this, was much more 'la' than 'ma'. Sweat my face off

Does anyone have a good recipe for this? I've looked at a few, there are some significant differences. Trying to recreate Chang's or HKP's version at the home front...

Just saw the title of this ... is Matchbox national outside the DMV? Did not realize it was more than 4-5 locations

Those dumplings and momos look dope! And hot pot looks great, too. Looking forward to trying!

There's a rubric. A RUBRIC! I'm not saying you can't enjoy All Purpose. I just don't think it is objectively the best. And, online narrative reviews on a forum from mostly anonymous and untrained individuals is as objective as it gets. So, based on this RUBRIC, I guess it's not a crust issue. The crust tastes good. The objective criteria is the "lacks appropriate amount of cheese". I propose we use this RUBRIC in all further pizza discussion. It's a valuable tool and this way we can speak the same language. All Purpose - 4 for crust, 4 for sauce, 2 for cheese, overall 3 - 13/20. That's a good pie. Just not the best. (Slow day at the clinic. I'm waiting for lunch)

Yup!! That's exactly right. You speak Simul-ese quite fluently

Pizza is 1. Crust 2. Cheese 3. Sauce and least importantly 4. toppings. If you bungle one of top 3 components, you're not making a top pizza and that's that.

The cornicione goes almost midway into the pie in dslee's pictures. I don't get it. I want cheese and toppings, not 2 inch deep of plain crust.

I think their pre-made bowls are best... it’s sort of hard to make the ingredients make sense to together (at least it has been for me). As far as growth, without speaking directly for them, they are so focused on quality and making sure this place is and stays great before growing, to the delight and chagrin of the investors. It will be a while before location two opens. They are remarkably sensible for 26 year olds.

No kidding. Ridiculous. We should do meta reviews. I give that one 1.5 stars. Too focused on his other restaurants high quality and allowing that to bleed into the Cafe review.

There isn't a women's health podcast? A quality one would KILL... Oh, Freakonomics with Dubner. Incredible guests. This morning was Atul Gawande. Speaking of anesthesiologists, "Dirty John" is a serialized true crime/mystery with the villain being an anesthesiologist. It's really good, too.

Yeah... think Fresh Fields was there

Oh - it's subjective - most doctors think what I do is technical, boring, cook book, too computer/image based. In my subjective opinion, obstetrics is a very challenging specialty to develop an evidence base for. The statute for lawsuits is 18 years, thus randomized trials on pregnant ladies don't tend to be written or accrue very well. If you look at how many obstetrics trials were in the NEJM over the last 10 years, it's a lot lower than you'd imagine for one of the most common "illnesses" of the human experience - pregnancy. The differences in practice worldwide are eye opening - 15 years ago, an American doctor wouldn't dare tell a pregnant patient that a glass of wine occasionally is okay, while their French/German counterpart would not be as restrictive. Problem is, we can't do a study where half the women drink wine and half don't. And, when to do what procedure in an emergency situation - hard to randomize women in a high stress situation (labor) to X intervention or Y intervention. There are many other questions I had on my obstetrics rotation that were answered - "because we've always done it that way". Much of the practice of obstetrics is wisdom passed down from one doctor to the next, rather than a series of randomized controlled trials that brings you to the standard of care. Plus a distinct component of "gut" or "instinct" or "feel". If you listen to that podcast, listen to how the OB makes decisions ... it's different then how we do it. For example - rectal cancer was found to be cured by surgery, but not always and a lot of people died due to recurrence. So, they did a study with half getting surgery alone, and half getting surgery + radiation. People did better with radiation but still a lot of deaths. So, they did a study with surgery + radiation vs surgery + radiation and chemo. Combination treatment was better. It was really toxic, so they then studied surgery + chemoradiation vs chemoradiation first then surgery. Doing it upfront was less toxic. Now, we are studying how to reduce the dose of radiation, how to do less aggressive surgeries. It's iterative - hypothesis -> study -> hypothesis -> study -> until we get to 100% cure. My field, radiation oncology, is highly data driven (even if the data is not always high quality) and there is very limited use of "gut" thinking. I like that I had to answer my oral exam questions justifying my treatment plan by quoting a study - saying that Dr. So-And-So taught me to do it that way does not get you a passing answer. That makes my clinical decisions feel "right". Whether or not a pregnant woman can eat a ham sandwich - who really knows with new food laws whether it matters? Or certain cheeses? Or when the last possible moment for a C-section is? Or what fluids to use? If I were a pregnant woman (and obviously will never be one), I'd be hard pressed to consent to those studies, even if it does further the science. Too much at stake - in my opinion. Does that make sense? It's not a knock.. They are great docs. Plus, I'm just saying in comparison to obstetrics, oncology appears more cerebral / intellectual. It's all pretty rote. Compared to a intellectual property attorney or an architect or a Google / Facebook engineer, to quote one of my doctor buddies - "We're just giving expensive haircuts.."

IndAroma is legit - very similar to all the chaat shops in NJ/Oaktree Rd and Toronto/Girard St, but sort of cleaner and nicer. And the grocery store next door is great for spices and harder to find Indian ingredients.

Espita is the closest thing you're talking about... like in comparison to a Rick Bayless joint, or Broken Spanish or whatever. Just accept DC does not have good Mexican food (tiny proportion of Latin American immigrants) and go to Chicago, Houston, LA. I don't think the same person that loves barbacoa on the street goes to Senor Frog's ... I think the Venn diagram overlap of the people that enjoy both is a sliver...

That article is more troof... Everyone complains if brown people's food costs too much (even those same brown people complain, i.e. my mom - "HOW CAN THEY CHARGE $13 FOR SAAG PANEER?? WE'RE GOING HOME!!; me complaining about Masala Art's prices"). Heck, hand pulled Chinese noodles or dumplings in the US are $4-6, but handmade Italian ravioli is $18-20, and nobody bats an eye. The minute some Chinese place starts charging that price, the 1-2 star reviews will come on out ... I got the greatest tacos ever in DF, my favorite was a barbacoa with consomme. Those were 40 cents each, with legit fresh made tortillas and incredible braised meat. If I could get one of those for 10x the price in DC, I would go every week. Cheaper than a flight to DF. Legit mole sauce takes hours and hours, even days to make, and people will bitch if they have to pay $32 for it. So, we get shitty mole with way too much cocoa and no depth/complexity to keep it at a certain price point. Most Indian restaurants don't make their own paneer or grind their own spices, because how is a place that looks like Kohinoor Dhaba gonna 'splain $25 goat curry. Anthony Bourdain, who's typically right about everything... This feeling resonates in the wider food world. When asked about Mexican food on a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” in 2016, Anthony Bourdain called it “the most undervalued, underappreciated world cuisine with tremendous, tremendous potential.” “I think we should pay more attention to it, learn more about it, and value it more,” he wrote. “This is frankly a racist assumption that Mexican food or Indian food should be cheap.” One of the true "value" foods that is at a really high level is Korean food. With the banchan, exotic spices/seasonings, huge portions, I'm typically super satisfied with the food. I bet that's the next one that's going to explode, with high end places and subsequently people complaining about what a ripoff it is.

Listened this AM on commute. Pretty good story teller, though they telegraphed what happened. I'm by no means a diagnostician nor am I good at medical mysteries at this stage, but it was made clear about 25 minutes in what happened (I wonder if non-clinical folks picked it up). He's good, though, and I'm a big fan of docs that have a side hustle. His language is not at all oriented to the layman. He says things 'medically' and then explains it, and I like that. I'm going to listen to next one, but if it's more obstetrics, I won't be into it. Found that to be the most unintellectual/uncerebral field in all of medicine. The other concern is that although peer-review/morbidity-mortality evaluation is integral to medicine, hopefully he anonymizes and changes enough details so this doesn't become a medico-legal issue.

Ha... such a pain. And they screwed it up. Had to end up having my cousins buy it from India. We didn't do the traditional 'India shopping trip'. Whole family was just too lazy for it..

Pretty good list in Thrillist of some of the best Indian restaurants in the US. Obviously been to Rasika, NeeHee's is a hometown favorite, Chai Pani is super quirky and fun, Bombay Chopsticks was one of the first Indo-Chinese places I'd ever heard of, and Bombay Talk is a great place to get veg Indian food when you're buying your Indian wedding outfit in Edison. Time to visit a few of these...

I do the same thing on this board. I feel like if you search "Simul" AND "Flavorful" it will be the first 73 posts.

I will give it a listen, sounds interesting!

Planet Money - really quirky stories about the economy Slate Money - egghead discussion about the financial news of the week. Real "inside baseball" but some great episodes (the wine ones, especially) Sporkful is fantastic, Pashman is a national treasure. The more recent ones are really good, today's was awesome. How I Built This with Guy Roz (first episodes a lot better, in my opinion, then recent ones) This American Life is classic, has become a bit political and I bet that turns some people off. I listen to The Gist every night before bed, Pesca is great. Overtly political and liberal, as long as you know that going in, it's fine. The Daily Zeitgeist is probably an acquired taste, millennials who have a comedian on the show and then talk current events/politics. Very liberal, as well. WTF with Marc Maron, his voice annoys some people, the grandfather of podcasts, has had incredible guests Slate Political/Cultural Gabfests. The first podcast I listened to (not including TAL, which I listened to when it was a radio show). I feel like I know John, David, and Emily. West Wing Weekly, probably the nerdiest thing I listen to. It's going through every episode of the whole series, and one of the hosts was an actor on the show.

Those customers sound awful. People that just can't take "yes" for an answer. I had no intention of going there, but now I kind of want to now...