An Indonesian in Mississippi. Not as catchy as "An Englishman in New York"
The spread
We’ve tried the bread at Omonia before, but what really intrigued us was their menu full of tortas, tacos, empanadas, etc. When we stopped by the first time we were stuffed with dim sum so we only got some breads. This time we planned well ahead of time to be there with empty stomachs ready to enjoy a full meal. » Continue Reading…
La Morena
A blogger named YAR who runs the Carpe Jackson food blog told us about La Morena in the comments section of my post about Omonia, so of course we had to try it out a few weeks ago. It’s hidden away in a little nook of a strip mall just off Old Canton Road that looks to be populated mostly by Mexican or Latin American businesses. The storefronts aren’t visible from the street, so you can be excused for not even knowing it was there. I didn’t know until YAR told me, so thanks for the tip. There are only 4 tables, but the bar space makes up for that somewhat. It wasn’t a busy night, so we were able to sit down right away.
As an aside, when it snowed in December we were coming back from a Mexican restaurant. This time when we got out of our car to walk to La Morena we had some snow flurries fall on us. It’s a sign! » Continue Reading…
Patel Grocery
Neither I nor Denise know much about Indian cooking. We love eating Indian food, but we haven’t had a go at cooking our own. With that qualifier out of the way, let me plug this grocery store anyway. Patel Grocery is an Indian grocery store just north of the new Ding How. I don’t think it’s in the same continuous strip mall, but the parking lots are connected. We went in there after having dim sum at Ding How, having just then spotted it for the first time.
Perusing the wares
I think they had 4-5 aisles full of wonderful stuff. Raw spices (whole, unchopped, unground spices), spice mixes, 1001 varieties of rice, heat-and-eat breads like naan, canned ingredients, fresh produce, etc. If you have any interest in Indian food you should at least go in there and look around. I don’t cook much these days since Denise is so good at it and I’m lazy besides, but even I felt somewhat motivated to try cooking some of my own after walking through Patel Grocery (or at least getting Denise to). And if you ever seriously considered cooking some Indian cuisine but didn’t think you could find the ingredients, now you know where to go. Simply. Awesome. Jackson is just full of surprises. Just when I think I’ve seen it all, something new pops up.
Patel Groceries
6800 Old Canton Road STE # 102
Ridgeland, MS-39157
601.952.0332
Ding How
A few weekends ago we revisited Ding How for another round of dim sum. First time around was good if slightly frantic in terms of service, which was understandable considering it was their first weekend of serving dim sum. The manager was so frazzled after that first weekend she considered abandoning the menu system and going to dim sum carts, which I was glad to discover they didn’t end up doing after all. With a large, high-traffic restaurant the cart system works great, but not so much with a cozier layout like Ding How where food might sit on the carts for a long time after cooking. They did, however, trim the menu a bit to make it more manageable, and items are now ordered by relative portion size and price. It’s a lot easier to sift through. » Continue Reading…
"Oh yes, sushi... you will be mine!"
Oops, in my haste to post as many Nifty Adventures posts as I could before the next guy started taking shots and posting them in the discussion thread, I missed this outing. When Susie was still here for Christmas we went out to Haru, I mean “Edo”, Japanese Restaurant. Haru is no more. New management has come in and renamed it Edo. Same location, same menu, same great ingredients–only a name change. Not sure why, but there it is. The new management had happened a while back, and we’d been to Haru/Edo a few times since and been happy with the food and service, but the official name change is recent. » Continue Reading…
Stix
After our baby-doctor visit we grabbed some lunch at Stix. Stix is a hibachi grill and sushi place similar to Kyoto, Bonsai, and any number of other “Japanese steakhouse” places in town. Stix had to close down for a while a couple years ago, but they’re open again now. Not sure how long they’ve been open–this is the first time I’ve been back since my office moved downtown. Or, er, we moved to a new office downtown. The old office is still right where it was. » Continue Reading…
Sal and Phil's Po-Boy - Seafood
Work is killing me and I’m still swamped, but I’m gonna die if I don’t take a break, so I’m doing so by putting up another Nifty Fifty post. All pictures here are courtesy of Nifty. The day Nifty arrived, we went to Sal and Phil’s for dinner. My cousin and his bride were in town for Christmas. With him having been away from the South for 10 years and her never having been to Mississippi, I racked my brain for Mississippi- or at least Southern-authentic food for them to have while they were here. We had an awesome Christmas dinner and delicious leftovers for days (post on that to come once the smoke clears), but it was time to switch it up a bit, so Sal and Phil’s it was. Oh, and my sister Susie was here too, but she visits at least once a year and is more excited about getting sushi instead of Southern fare while she’s down here. » Continue Reading…
Omonia
After dim sum (yes, waaaay back in November) we stopped by Omonia Mexican and Colombian Deli-Bakery. They’re on County Line, and as you can see by the hastily covered-up sign, they’ve taken over what used to be a Quizno’s location. I asked the gentleman serving us, and he said they had only been open for 3 weeks. Aha! So we weren’t exactly pioneers, but it felt like we were at least part of the first wave of people to discover this place. » Continue Reading…
Sofia-approved
As planned, we met up with a couple friends of ours, Scott and Rebecca, for the first day of dim sum at the new phoenix-rising-out-of-the-ashes Ding How at their new location on Old Canton near Lake Harbor. Rebecca invited a friend of hers, Stephen (Steven?), which made it 6 of us getting together on this momentous occasion.
I took the liberty of ordering for us since we had 3 dim sum neophytes with us. Note that not all pictures are indicative of actual quantity of each item ordered, as I didn’t hold up the show to take pictures before people could dig in. For (reasonably) accurate counts of each item type, refer to the dim sum menu. Here’s what we had:
Thanks to Scott for doing a bit of intel work for us. Either by tapping his Chinese connections or by going behind enemy lines himself, he’s managed to acquire a copy of Ding How’s dim sum menu, which he then graciously shared with us. I’m posting it after the jump (click the link to see the rest of the post and the menu). If anybody from Ding How has a problem with the menu being online, let me know and I’ll take it down. Personally, I wouldn’t turn down free publicity, but that’s just me. Anyway, hit up the menu and start salivating. The debut of dim sum in Jackson is only 5 days away!