Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I would like to learn to cook Indian and Middle Eastern food. I recently started to enjoy these cuisines and loved it!

There are actually real cooking shows out there on the web. I make a meal live each week. I burned things and have set my smoke detector off most of the time when I grilled meats indoors. It is an opportunity to show people that a meal can be made in 45-60 mins (my shows run longer since I interact with chatters). You should check out the live stream on Justin.tv.

When I was in Texas, there was this small sandwich shop inside a grocery store that sold banh mi for $1. Yes!! $1.00. They were always packed for lunch, and people would order 5-10 sandwiches at a time. I think they raised their prices to $1.50 now. However, it wasn't overstuffed, but it had a little of everything.

I second Xe Lua as well. The pho and bun is good. I had the carmelized salmon with the hot and sour soup. Both have really good flavor, and the fish taste fresh. If I am correct, the young lady there looks like the owner, and she's Vietnamese. It's also one of the cleaner place that I've been to as well. The waitstaff don't check on you so just give a polite wave if you need anything, and they'll bring it to you. If you want tasty vegetarian Vietnamese food, you should try Lan Cafe in the East Village. It's tasty, but the portion is small for the price that is being charged.