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Grand Szechuan International, 9th Ave and 24th
I went there for lunch 3 weeks ago and it seemed fairly authentic, both from a food and a service standpoint. I wouldn't say rude, but I wouldn't say they were fawning over you like an American restaurant would.
What have you ordered that was generic? I usually get the husband and wife, one of the fresh killed chicken dishes, maybe twice cooked pork. All were good, i had some eel that was a bit fishy, but I suppose that was poor ordering on my part -- I can't imagine they sell a lot of eel.
Dinner Club — looking for a creative way to entertain at home
Craigslist is very hit and miss when trying to set up a dinning club -- our club in NYC has been trying for months to find someone on CL with little luck (we've gotten a ton of responses, but most of the people are either looking for a social outlet or looking to learn how to cook, but not a single person of the 20 we have interviewed from CL has been "serious" about food.)
It would be great if chowhound or SE allowed you to post to get people to join your cooking club, but if you point anything too obvious, then they take it down. Best way to find people is to start a discussion of the pros/cons of a dinner club and hope people are smart enough to contact you directly or figure out how to reach you.
They way we do things is rotate thru people's homes and divide into groups of two, each group handling either an appetizer, an entree or a dessert. Our dinners are based on themes -- you need some constraints or else it's hard to get focused.
If you live in Chicago, it would probably make sense when you are interviewing people to ask where they shop and where they eat -- not to say that someone has to have eaten at Trotters/Alinea/Moto/Blackbird/Hot Dougs to be in a cooking club, but you have to wonder about someone's seriousness about food if they haven't.
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Step one: Read everything you can by david schomer
Step two: visit the epicenters of coffee -- Blue Bottle, Philz, ritual in san fran, Stumpton in Portland, Vivace in Seattle, Intelligentsia in Chicago. Barrington Coffee in Lee (I know I'm forgetting places, sorry). In NYC, Gorrilla, Grumpy, Joe, Gimme, 9th Street, Abraco.
I'd also highly recommend a class on espresso and milk frothing. Joe in NYC offers such courses ...