Category Archives: Research

Lo Mein Recipes

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Last Thursday ( May 9th, 2024 ), I talked with my father about his first hole-in-one, which he had gotten that day after playing golf for 78 years since he was seven.

He’s 85 now.

At the end of the conversation, he mentioned wanting to know how to make Lo Mein sauce to save money from buying the dish instead of making it himself. He asked if I found out or knew how to tell him. 

Research of How to Make Lo Mein

So that Friday night, I started searching on YouTube for people I follow who have made Lo Mein.

I ended up with seven or eight videos to watch and one or two more recommended by the other videos. I made sure to take notes to send to him, which is what most of this blog post is from.

In the process, I learned the big difference between Lo Mein (saucy) and Chow Mein (drier and crispy noodles).

In the e-mail I sent him were notes to the e-mail that he should watch all the videos and take notes to see what he liked about one version and the next.

Here are are those YouTube videos on how to make Lo Mein and Chow Mein, which are similar, but Lo Mein is saucier than Chow Mein.

NOTE – The recipes are tend to be in the video description, or you might need to open them on their website.

Notes about the Videos/Recipes that Follow

  • There might be some upfront costs to purchase some of the sauces, oil, vinegar, etc., but you should have them for a while. You can likely pick these up at places like Wegmans or your typical grocery store nowadays, but you could find them cheaper at an Asian grocery store.
  • The Asian-style noodles they recommend have more chew for most of them than spaghetti noodles.
  • There are two sauces most of them use besides soy sauce: Oyster sauce and/or Hoisin sauce.
  • Watch all of the videos to see what each one offers and to get an idea of what you might want to do or tweak the recipes, which are primarily in grams.

Reminder

  • Some of the videos might be geared toward an audience of 20- and 30-year-olds, but not all.
  • The humor, sound effects, and music might be loud but not too bad.

Videos

The Cheapest Noodle Dish Ever (Chicken Chow Mein) | But Cheaper – Joshua Weissman (6:32)

 

Do me a FLAVOUR and try this tasty Lo Mein Noodles recipe – Yeung Man Cooking (8:36)

REMINDER – He’s a vegan cook, but you can substitute whatever you want.

Classic Takeout Lo Mein In 15 Minutes! – Aaron and Clare (10:35)

J. Kenji López-Alt

Cantonese Soy Sauce Chow Mein (Easy Pan-Fried Noodles) – Kenji’s Cooking Show (16:39)

Vegetable Lo Mein – Kenji’s Cooking Show (18:17)

NOTE

  • He shoots his videos with a GoPro camera on his head.
  • In case you’re wondering why the kitchens differ, he moved from the second videos house to the first one.

How to Make Lo Mein with Jet Tila | Ready Jet Cook With Jet Tila | Food Network -Jet Tila (11:35)

NOTE

  • Kenji takes a bit more time to explain how to prepare the vegetables, etc., so you can prepare them more easily than the others.

The Woks of Life

How to Cook Lo Mein Noodles (Raw vs. Pre-cooked Lo Mein Noodles) – The Woks of Life (11:53)

REMINDER – This video explains the difference and how to cook lo mein noodles. I found it very useful.

Chow Mein – Setting the record straight! – The Woks of Life (12:01)

 

NOTE – He takes a bit more time to explain the difference between fresh and dry noodles and how to prepare Chow Mein noodles, which are drier and crispier.

Further ARTICLES – The Woks of Life

Conclusion

Hope this was helpful and if you have any other foods You need to know more about maybe I can help figure it out for you or with you.

Places to Eat Application Progress

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Here is the running progress of what is happening while doing research for my possible new web application to store places you want to eat while home or traveling. The big reason for this idea/application is I’m always asking or looking for places friends, family, the internet, TV, etc. recommend to eat because they have been there and think I would like to go there. Having personal recommendations from at least a reputable sources is better than looking at some application.

Normally, I got places from people in e-mail, text, Twitter, DM’s, Facebook, in person conversations, etc. I want a place to store all of that information, which is accessible to my phone since I pretty much have it with me at all times.

So here is what I have been doing Sunday, December 6, 2015, from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM.

9:00 AM

Was able to get started on time, but had great difficulties with using my old 13″ White MacBook and Time Machine, which decided it had to take all the system resources, so it made using the internet near impossible. Did a quick update to the new MacBook Pro and will switch to that when I leave the house with a log list of articles, forums, website, and phone-based applications to research and review.

10:30 AM

Started writing this blog post on what I had done so far. Most likely around noon going to head out to local coffee shop or two to do some reading and writing about resources I have found so far.

Noon

Spent the last hour or so gathering more resources of food related websites, application, and further URLs to research, along with a few different categories of applications on iTunes to check on applications.

Later today time will be spent downloading iPhone applications that have some kind of community feature or ability to store restaurant recommendations.

Now, it’s off to St. Elmo’s Coffee Pub to get out of the house and start working my way through all the information I have gathered so far, which is a good 35+ URLs. My guess is that will lead to even more information to wade through.

2:30 PM

I have spent the last hour or so adding ten more URLs to my list of things to read while reading through the current list. Even asked a few foodie friends on Twitter what they use to store recommendations and it seems they use applications/websites to look at what other’s recommend, but nothing to keep a list for themselves.

It seems more digging is required and that not many people store this information in any formal way or at least that’s what I have found so far.

Think it’s time to finish this article and get a late lunch before heading to next coffee shop to do more work.

5:00 PM

Didn’t get much done last two hours, since ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in about a year walking towards my car so talked to then and then went to grab a late lunch of oxtail steamed buns and Miso Porky Ramen at Yano, which is a new Ramen shop in Arlington, VA.

Plus, talked to my father for a bit after he butt dialed me on his iPhone, which has happened to me more than once. Not sure how he manages that on an iPhone.

6:00 PM

Thinks it’s time to head home and use a proper chair or sofa to do more sitting. All these coffee shop tables and chairs are not meant to sit for long times or at least all the ones I sat in today.

Once home it might be best to relax on the sofa while downloading and trying out the different iPhone applications I managed to find so far.

9:00 PM

Ended up leaving last coffee shop around 7:00 PM after I did some reading on my iPhone to break up the staring at my laptop all day. Manage to get home by 7:30 PM and threw in some laundry before resetting my iTunes password and downloading the following iPhone applications that I need to investigate further.

  • Zagat
  • OpenTable
  • TripAdvisor
  • theFork
  • FourSquare
  • Yelp
  • UrbanSpoon
  • ChefsFeed
  • Dine

All in all, it looks like I managed to put in around seven hours of research out of the 12 hours I planned for the research activity for today. Which I don’t think is bad for an unplanned event on a weekend, plus I was running around to different locations to see if one was better than another and had to eat too.

In the short amount of time to do research I have done, I have not found anything similar to the application I want to build that stores recommendations and information I gather to use later. Will most likely have to spend time in many foodie forums to see how people are keeping track of where they eat, which I have got to believe a bunch of people is doing.

Conclusion

Started writing this blog post on what I had done so far. Most likely around noon going to head out to local coffee shop or two to do some reading and writing about resources I have found so far.

Thanks, for reading along with my progress on this mini researchathon for this project.

Please add comments or e-mail them to me if you have any recommendation or resources, you think I might find useful.