Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, SideDishers! According to the lunar calendar, today is the day the moon is the biggest and brightest. Chinese people exchange and eat mooncakes filled with red bean, egg yolks, and a bunch of other sweet and savory flavors leading up to the festival. You can still buy mooncakes at Jeng Chi in Richardson. (If you want to know more about these pastries, I wrote a whole spiel about them last year.)
Ever wondered what it’s like to be a restaurant critic? The New York Times has a series of interactive videos that give you a taste of what this gig’s really like. The last five dining critics at the newspaper were asked about their disguises, how they assign stars, and some of their trade secrets. Pete Wells is pretty funny.
These 5-star chickens eat better food than I do. Ariane Daguin ate her first bite of American chicken in 1977 and called it a “crime.” She then decided to raise her own French chickens and feed them scraps from fine restaurants to see if they’d taste better on a plate. The experiment is ongoing. And tasty, I bet.
