Pass the Moo Shoo

to the editor:

re: "where has all the moo shoo gone?" (feb. 25)-terrific article! i had a fabulous old school cantonese feast at jing fong restaurant at 20 elizabeth st. in chinatown the other night, at the asian jade society's annual dinner dance. i hadn't had that kind of old-school comfort food in such huge portions in decades. it really was a throwback to my childhood, as yes, the spicy szechuan/hunan thing nearly drove it off the map completely. now if we could only kick the menus out from under the doors and keep the bikes off the sidewalks, i'd be truly happy. by the way, i loved the mention of harley spiller's menu collection (brilliant!). and now i am totally ruined for this snowy evening. i have such a craving for noodles in peanut sauce, and everyone in manhattan is going to be ordering in.

sam katz manhattan -----

to the editor:

excellent article, nancy. very thorough and now i understand the history.

it's the same story on the east side, where all our favorite szechuan and hunan restaurants are either gone or have changed in character (read: change of quality). while my wife has embraced the "fresher, healthier" thai and other asian offerings, i remain un-seduced and rooted in the past. as i try and understand things on the menu that sound like citrus-flavored lawn clippings, i long for fried dumplings.

we do agree, though, that the cantonese restaurants that our parents introduced us to in the 1960s were just wonderful, as much an event as a meal: big places with comfortable seating, exotic décor, white tablecloths and white-jacketed waiters with their names sewn on. and the names in those days-joe, sam, paul, probably not their real names-reflect the change from an accommodation of a culture to a celebration of a culture.

the complexity and mystery of the menu, the bottomless teapot, the mad assortment of plates, bowls and dishes on the table... this led to the sharing and critiquing of all this strange but tasty food from halfway around the world. invariably my father would say something like, "you never see stray cats around these places, want to know why?" my sister and i didn't, and just kept eating. we'd heard that before, lots of times, and hadn't failed to note that our father was eating, too.

after the meal, there were fortune cookies to fight over and maybe a bowl of chinese ice cream that tasted remarkably like american ice cream. but what we hoped for, and more often than not got, was a heated argument among the wait-staff. this seemed to be a regular end-of-shift thing and, of course, we had no idea what the issue could be, but we figured we were just one meal away from seeing a real meat cleaver fight.

i don't know if we could duplicate that type of restaurant experience, maybe we shouldn't try, but as we gain new things we shouldn't forget what made the "old" so good. in the meantime i'll have another order of fried dumplings, hold the lemon grass.

chris a. randolph barak realty, third avenue

letters have been edited for clarity, style and brevity.