Nearly all ramen in Lisbon is cooked by Nepalis, the Ecuadorians of Lisbon. And most of it is below this crossover point, somewhere between bad and naive not-so-nice tries.
But while even the best Nepali ramen shops are completely devoid of Japanese flavor vibe, they can be delicious in their inauthenticity. That's the level of "naive nice try".
At Macau Dim Sum, despite the Nepali waiters, I got the impression (right or perhaps wrong) that it's Chinese-owned. And I beamed widely when plates arrived, and things looked more or less right, if not stellar.
Nothing's quite good (and the sticky rice in lotus leaf "tamales" were repulsive - freezer burnt and dry - because who in Portugal would ever order them, and what was I thinking when I did??). But goddamn if I didn't nonetheless appreciate this feckless grudging implementation after a multi-year dim sum drought.
Normally, I'll prefer the deliciousness of a naive nice try to the mediocrity of feckless grudging implementation. A delicious fake beats crappy authenticity. But desperation drives a good hound mad. Note: the radish cake didn't come like that; I'd ripped into it ferociously before remembering to take the shot.
5 comments:
Fond memories of Ping's on Queens Blvd, Sunday afternoon Dim Sum.
Jesus, yes.
If this is HLing, I asked you to shoot me an email in reply to your previous comment. jimleff.ny@gmail.com
Hey Jim , nope that was me, Vinny, my Brother and I took my Uncle John there for a number of years. He loved it, he was in his glory!!
Pings was a quality score, especially from your distance. Kudos.
My Uncle lived in Glendale, Queens still on the same street where we had grown up. We visited with him often from up here. I loved those Afternoons... chicken feet , duck feet the lady would say, we always declined that round.
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