If I go out for Asian food, it tends to be Korean or Thai. However, I wouldn't cook Thai at home - the spices are too complicated for me to replicate adequately.

Favorite Asian dish? Bee bim bop (in all of its various spellings). I'm also a big fan of soba noodles - they are super delicious and versatile.

I like Japanese cuisine for the freshness of ingredients, and because little oil is used. Also Vietnamese for the fresh herbs. Cantonese steamed fish is also delicious and non-greasy

I just had Korean Bibimbap for the first time last week, I'd love to know more about Korean flavourings and cooking techniques!

I would love to see more recipes that highlight the use of bok choy. It is my favorite asian vegetable.

Currently, I love the RasaMayalasia.com recipe for "Restaurant-style Chinese Greens with Oyster Sauce." I have had great success with this recipe (seen at

This is so hard! I love most Asian food :) I would, however, like to give my warmest regards to Thai and Indian food... which for some reason has a comforting appeal to me. Japanese food is delicious, and so fresh! It's generally what I turn to when trying to embrace a healthier diet.

Winter Traveler: "If I go out for Asian food, it tends to be Korean or Thai. However, I wouldn't cook Thai at home - the spices are too complicated for me to replicate adequately."

There are curry pastes that take all of the complication out of cooking Thai! You just mix them with coconut milk, your choice ingredients, a smidge of fish sauce, and a bit of extra lemongrass if you prefer! Dont be afraid to cook Thai at home, it's a breeze :)

I sheepishly admit that Asian food is not something we cook all that often and when we do go out to eat, it is very rarely Asian food. Its not that I don't enjoy because I do very much; its just not on the forefront of my mind when thinking of what to eat.

Having said that, I love a good bowl of pho or ramen on a cold day.

Looking forward to the week ahead to help educate me and allow me to start thinking of new and interesting things to eat and prepare.

I'd love to see some simple Japanese dishes! I'm moving to Tokyo in a few months and I'd love to start preparing with some meals at home. Thanks!

I'd have to say my preference tends to lean towards the non-seafood dishes of Japan (sorry, I hate seafood!) but I do love me some kalbi!

BeBoop, Pho, Yakisoba,... This is part of a long and growing list.

Pad Thai, with chicken and shrimp, and lots of lime to squeeze over it.

One of our favorite restaurants, an Afghan place, serves this amazing stewed pumpkin dish with garlic yogurt sauce. Any chance we could get a recipe for that?

I've been looking for some good, reliable, stir-fry sauces. I'd like to learn what the base recipe for most of them is, and try to tweak them on my own from there.

Definitely Pad Thai with chicken!

Thai and Vietnamese are our favorites. I would love to see some accessible Vietnamese recipes this week! Yum.

My mother is from Korea, so I of course lean toward Korean cuisine, which I know quite a bit about. Otherwise, I love Vietnamese food! In Oklahoma City where I'm from there's a huge Vietnamese population and great food because of it. I grew up eating Japchae and Pho!

I LOVE IT ALL!! But my favourite regional cooking is the comforting homestyle dishes from Taiwan, which is what my partner's mom learned to cook. It's hard to pick favourite dishes but some that i could eat every day are stinky tofu with lima beans (*DROOL*) and all things HOT POT! My partner's favourite dishes are pork belly and this taiwan-style tripe dish that I don't know what it's called.

Also mid-autumn festival (moon festival) is on Wednesday the 22nd, how about a moon cake recipe? Challenging!

Pad Thai. Pad Thai. Pad Thai.

#4 or #5 with shrimp and lots of lime.

Might as well just roll me out of the door. I'm going to finish the whole thing. And possibly yours.

Hands down.... Thai Yellow Curry from J.Wok in San Diego, CA or from Isle Thai Kitchen in NYC.

I like the soups. The homey Korean soups (oxtail, bean sprout, seaweed), the miso, the pho. I always found Western-style soups, stews, and chowders just don't hit the spot.

I also have a weakness for Korean-style jjiajangmyun, which is the Korean version of a Chinese dish, but I never liked the Chinese version, which isn't "jjia" enough. And Japanese-style curry (S&B) is one of my favorite trashy/comfort foods. But I love all curries.

Good pad thai with lots of prawns. Or Thai chilli and basil sauce for stir fries. Oh and Thai green curry!
Okonomiyaki is king in Japanese food, but I have not yet been able to locate it here in Australia. A good bowl of udon soup.
I don't know what the situation is like over in The States, I always eat too much Mexican food while there to get to a Chinese restaurant but a rather ubiquitous item on Chinese menus over here is the shallot pancake. NOM!

oh it's all so good!

oh and Winter Traveler... don't be afraid of Thai at home!
All you need is a good mortar and pestle for a great green curry. Mine almost NEVER tastes the same as the previous one, even though I use the same amount of this herb and that spice. The variations are what make it a joy. Plus, who doesn't love a decent amount of time with their mortar and pestle. Just pound all that flavour out!

I love Soon Doo Boo, the Korean soft tofu soup. Would love to know how to make it at home.

If you could give us a good recipe for Japanese Kare Pan (curry bread), I will love you forever. A friend of mine gave me Japanese pasteries for my birthday and now I'm totally hooked!

I really love pad thai, but not the sticky/sweet kind. My favorite thai restaurant serves it spicy and I haven't been able to find one like it anywhere.

My question is - why does one absolutely tiny country (Italy) merit an entire week to itself, whereas last week we supposedly did three continents worth of cuisine (note to the editors - not all Latinos are Mexican) and this week we're doing one of the most populous parts of the world with even more variety in ingredients and cuisine, not to mention ethnic differences?

It's reductive, unimaginative and lazy at best.

Tie between Vietnamese, Thai, and Indian. I never cook these at home because in Silicon Valley we have plenty of these places that do dishes easier than I can. I love fish dishes and mixes of unusual (to me) spices and herbs. I love when I try something and I can't tell what is in it. Just recently had Sri Lankan Fish Curry and it was so strange and great.

My favourite asian dish is definitly spicy Thai chicken or prawn soup!! Delicious!!

Would love to see more in-depth Japanese, Thai and Korean recipes.

I'm a big fan of the sweet Indonesian soy sauce (introduced to my through my dutch boyfriend - it's a bit more common in Dutch cooking than English). Mix it with chilli, ginger, garlic, sugar, soy sauce and lots of black pepper in a tofu stirfry - Yotam Ottolenghi's one is incredible although far too buttery and spice - and it's just heaven.

I sort agree with MaryWynn though - a whole week for Italy and we can't separate out Asian countries? Even in the most obvious sense, India and China have such a separate distinct set of flavours to one another - Asia is a whole CONTINENT after all.

i just blogged about my shame re: being asian and never cooking asian food for uber blog angryasianman.com:
http://blog.angryasianman.com/2010/09/guest-post-eat-food-not-too-much-mostly.html

would LOVE to hear some really simple recipes like the ones i posted that my mom did!

I totally agree with MaryWynn. Asia is a huge continent with an incredible (and tasty) array of cuisines and flavour profiles. Personally, I believe that Vietnam, Malaysia and India should each have a week to themselves (not to mention the wonderful food of Korea, Cambodia and Japan, my goodness!).

It is so hard to choose a favorite. Living in Vancouver, BC, I am so lucky to be exposed to an array of Asian foods. We have fantastic street foods available at summer night markets, budget Vietnamese, the best congee (perfect after an evening of beers), high end gorgeous sushi (some of the best in North America), incredible Cambodian. The markets are great too and I have been so lucky to find all the Asian ingredients I could hope for, and on a budget.

I am a sucker for any kind of spicy noodle, especially Malaysian. I would love to learn to make more authentic Thai foods, in the style of the wonderful Pok Pok restaurant in Portland, Oregon. Singaporean street food recipes would be lovely as well. Perhaps Chili Crab, as a nod to the recent Top Chef season?

Agree re breaking out countries within Asia. Or at least a spotlight on South Asia versus Southeast Asia versus East Asia versus China.

It is impossible to pick favorites, but when we're going out to celebrate something, it's usually dim sum or sushi. To put a smile on my face any old day, anything with coconut milk in it.

i'm vietnamese and my mom still cooks 2 meals a day every day and i've never had anyone else's vietnamese food that i love as much.

her savory crepes are my all time favorite, but she also makes a mean pho :)

What about a good gyoza/pot stickers or jaozi(dumplings), a good bowl of wonton noodles (not the American Chinese wonton soup kind) a good stir fry, Korean soon du bu, Chapchea...etc and etc....

for eating out i tend to go for thai or korean, and when eating in i like to keep it simpler. our weeknight favorites are tonkatsu (japanese crispy pork cutlets) and korean sesame pork with spinach!
http://theweekendgourmande.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/kitchen-firsts-korean-sesame-pork-with-spinach/
http://theweekendgourmande.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/tonkatsu/

Whenever I go out, I'm always craving some type of Asian food so this is always on the top of my list. My tops:

banh mi
chap chae
pa jun
peking duck (crispy skin, picked radish, pancakes?? kill me now)

I love most of the Asian food I've eaten, but I haven't had enough Korean to give a fair shake.

Filipino food and Indian food are probably my favorites. I'm more familiar with Indian food, and some of the dishes that I've felt deserve a broader appreciation in America include these:

*Savories*
patra
Gujarati daal

*Sweets*
shrikand
penda
siro (sooji halva)

*Snacks*
tikki puri
vada
kali puri
shankarpali

Sake (salmon) Sashimi... Buttery delicious and terribly good for you.

Thank you, MaryWynn! Completely agree. I'm having flashbacks to Edward Said readings from my college years.

Could you imagine a "Europe week"? And Europe has less variety than Asia by far.
Meanwhile, I am loving the food!

I am a Soup Girl all the way. You name it - Pho, Udon, Arroz Caldo, Congee, Mami, Real Chinese Wonton Noodle soup , Batchoy, Miswa, Muligatawny soup, I LOVE SOUP! And I gotta have some Sriracha sauce with it.

I am Filipino with Spanish ancestors so my asian tastebuds go a long way. I just love food. I'm not picky and I eat anything and everything. My favorite is spicy and hot Indian food! Muttar paneer, samosa, garlic naan, lamb biryani, rogan josh and I can keep going but I need to stop because my mouth is drooling. I also love a good tofu basil fried rice with loads of hot chili thai peppers. As you can see, I love spicy too! And don't get me started on dumplings----literally every country out there has their own form of dumpling! I love it!!!

I also agree with MaryWynn's comment!

Growing up with my mom's delicious Indonesian cooking, Indonesian cuisine is still my favorite but I always struggle to get each dish to taste just right. I would love to see some more exposure for this cuisine which is apparently not as well known in the rest of the world (outside Indonesia & the Netherlands).

However, I'm starting to discover so many new dishes, ways of cooking and ingredients from Asia and LOVE them! Sadly I really can't see how such a variety can be discussed in one week though...

Ramen is the best. And I am hapa Korean and live in the SF Bay Area, so I've had many delicious types of Asian cuisine. But I still go nuts for my packet of ramen.

And I agree with everything said above regarding Asian Week. At least tell me that there will be a separate Indian week.

tom kha soup is so perfect i could eat it every day.

My favorites are actually ingredients...not dishes. I love any Indian dish with panir, and Thai peanut sauce is also amazing!

My favorite Asian dish is one that's been in my family for 3 generations. My mom's mom used to make a variation of this but I take leftover pot roast meat, chopped hard boiled eggs, chopped green onion, soy sauce, and serve it over hot somen noodles. Try it! I promise, you'll LOVE it!

I'm all over the place on this one, but right now, my fave is vegetarian tofu soon dubu. I live right next to Koreatown and I crave this at least once every few weeks.

Request: I'd love to learn to make roti prata.

I love Vietnamese food and would love to learn how to make the lightly pickled carrot & radishes that come on the side of spring rolls.
Somehow I've managed to learn how to make tasty Vietnamese spring rolls, but not the accompaniments.

Learning how to work with Japanese miso paste would be wonderful too!

I am very excited to learn some new recipes and techniques.
I LURVE pretty much all Asian cuisine.
Though, as mentioned above, I would hesitate to group all of those cultures together, each has distinct cuisines and ingredients.