Great video as usual, but with all due respect, you need a new music consultant. The video for the Mumbai tiffinwallas had an obvious South Indian song accompanying it and this one on Sri Lanka is scored by a Hindi song.

This is a good technique, but Heston's method uses a slotted spoon and he places a plate in the pot of boiling water. Here is the link to his great show on eggs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gbgSCV9hbM (8:20 for the poaching segment).

Whenever I'm feeling a cold coming on, nothing beats a good bowl of pho. I don't know its name in Vietnamese but my go to is with well done brisket, rare flank, and beef tendon.

I used to make pigs in a blanket using canned biscuits. I make PIABs pretty regularly so I once stocked up on the cans when they went on sale. However, I then came across a recipe for PIABs that used puff pastry (I'm pretty sure it was on SE) and as a result, those cans are somewhere in the back of my freezer, which according to the label is not recommended.

Here's a link to the Modernist method of using Wondra and potato starch. Would love to see a side-by-side comparison or better yet I'll try it myself :)

http://www.chow.com/videos/show/all/126622/did-you-know-you-can-carbonate-fruit#!/show/all/126738/how-to-make-the-crispiest-fried-chicken-wings-ever

I first saw this sandwich on the PBS special "Sandwiches That You Will Like". I always thought it was a cool concept and remember that with the sandwich you were always served a glass of cold tap water. And I remember it from Roseanne reruns too!

Finding chicken tikka masala in India is difficult, you'll find murgh makhni/butter chicken, but CTM is largely a British invention. Same goes with onion bhaji and kedgeree is completely different from the South Asian dish its supposedly based on, the South Asian version never has fish. So really they are British and for something to be considered British in the 21st century is completely different from what was considered British in the Victorian Age. And I've never bought the argument that scotch eggs are based on nargisi kofta, in the same way I don't think Marco Polo brought noodles to China (or vice versa). I don't think it's too far-fetched to think that similar food items to be conceived in two different places.

Toast with an egg in it pan-fried in bone marrow...that's just beautiful.

The best episodes are the ones where he genuinely enjoys the locale, so my favourites are the ones that took place in Southeast Asia, the episodes in Vietnam, Cambodia, Hong Kong, and Singapore stand out (the latest one in Penang was pretty great too). Loved the Cajun Country episode as well and all the New York ones, particularly the Disappearing Manhattan one. My favourite moment in the entire series was in the Haiti episode, where he decides to buy out a street vendor and giveaway the food to the locals...which of course leads to skirmishes between the people fighting for food. It's hard to explain why that scene sticks out so much to me. I guess there was an incredible sense of honesty in that scene. Following the earthquake, a lot was made of how we can help out Haiti; this scene put that into perspective and demonstrated that problems in the world are not so black and white. The complex nature of how the world operates has been a recurring theme on No Reservations. Because the show and Bourdain himself refuse to sugarcoat things is why it has been such an endearing watch over the years. Can't wait for the last few episodes and I look forward to his new show on CNN.

A lot of people up here have this patriotic/nostalgic allegiance to Harvey's, but I've personally never been a fan. I'd much rather prefer a burger from McDonald's or Wendy's, because the meat patty tastes like filler, not beef nor grease, but some bland substance used to stretch out the meat. They do make good chicken sandwiches and it's almost always fried to order.

Corn on the cob!

@digital Being a big fan of dosa and Das Racist, I can't wait for that film to come out.

A good friend of mine who has travelled his fair share across South India came over the other day and whipped up some masala dosas for a great little Sunday lunch. He used the stuff from the box and it isn't as hard as you might think. You do need a special pan called a tawa to get the conical structure, but theoretically you can use whatever you have that can make crepes.

This might be sacrilege to say but one of my favourite variants of dosa are the ones filled with processed mozzarella or cheddar. The cheese gets a nice crispness and it's quite reminiscent of how you get the cheese from a grilled cheese sandwich to ooze out and then essentially fry in the pan. Dip that stuff in an extra potent sambar and you're set!

Awesome post. My homebase when I visit New York is Jackson Heights where my cousins live and I'm definitely checking out some of these places, if not the entire tour, the next time I'm down there.