Eastern Lights, a venerable Chinese and Korean restaurant in Durham (4215 University Drive, 403-3650, www.easternlightsrestaurant.com), serves a 10-course New Year’s banquet featuring particularly juicy and tender dumplings. The recipe descends from Chef Frank Chao’s father, who fled from China to Korea to escape conscription during the 1940s. Makes about 25 dumplings For the filling 1/2 […]
David A. Ross
Bio: David Ross is a freelance food writer. He teaches at UNC and lives in Chapel Hill.
Posted inFood & Drink
Eastern Lights’ divine dumplings
Imagine a Thanksgiving bender that lasts until just before Christmas, in a guiltless torpor of schmoozing and snacking. Now align your notion of “snacking” with the ceaseless creativity and cross-pollination of a few dozen stellar regional cuisines and some of the best tea on the planet. There you have Chinese New Year, possibly the world’s […]
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Stocking tchotchkes: Peanuts and pitters, beer and bonbons
“These are the stockings,” said my new brother-in-law, ending my nearly 40-year abstention from the obstacle course of the Christmas season. What did Ia Jewish bystander since my Nixon-era birthknow about filling a stocking? These stockings were particularly intimidating. I imagined an elephant with chilblains wondering what had happened to his hosiery. The rules were […]
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Plate by plate, Dim Sum House builds on its tantalizing textures and tastes
Dim Sum House 100 Jerusalem Drive Morrisville (919) 380-3087 website Dim sumsmall plates of dumpling, buns and miscellaneous tidbits served from roving cartsis a Hong Kong brunch tradition that has conquered the world on the strength of everything that makes food sportive. There is the suspense as each cart winds its way toward your table […]
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Heirloom taco recipes, handed down to you
Every genuinely good restaurant is good in the same way. Behind the scenes bustles a detail-obsessed, outcome-oriented person, dogmatic in his or her belief in a right way and a wrong way. At Los Comales, the superlative taqueria at 2103 N. Roxboro St., in Durham, Juana Moncada Angel is this type of person. “She wanted […]
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Uncovering the secrets of Chinese Bubble Tea
In the mountains of Taiwan, farmers grow the most delicate oolong tea in the world. Priced at hundreds of dollars per pound, it is savored by connoisseurs to whom it speaks with all the silences and shadings of Tang poetry. On the streets of Taipei, there is another kind of connoisseurof a sort. Picture an […]
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Elmo’s Cherry Cobbler: Fruit of the earth
Cobbler dates from the antebellum days of whortleberry pudding, calf’s foot jelly and suet dumplings, but it remains a beloved Southern staple, as emotionally central as the buttermilk biscuit and the smoked ham. Elmo’s, a bustling family diner with locations in Carrboro and downtown Durham, has a particularly good feel for what a cobbler should […]
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How the pros make their wondrous doughnuts
This is the first in an occasional series of stories sharing the secrets behind the Triangle’s favorite restaurant foods. Guglhupf, the German-Austrian bakery and restaurant in Durham, is famous for its impeccable breads, pretzels, tarts and croissants, but its Berliners, available only on Saturday mornings, are a special treat. Filled with tart raspberry jam, coated […]