Best Place To Tour The Orient

Toss in a few rickshaws streaking through the aisles, and visiting Lee Lee would be as authentic an experience as any of Asia's bustling open-air markets. Weekends are a zoo here, as happy cookers claw over piles of fresh produce, exotic meats, seafood, herbs and spices. What an incredible selection: bitter melon, long beans and Asian pear, plus an endless array of bok choy, eggplants, tofus and noodles.

Some things are acquired tastes, like the three-color dessert fashioned from cassava, sweet potato, mung bean, seaweed, peanuts, coconut and sugar. And it takes a confident cook to bring some of the meats and fish into the kitchen: salmon belly and head, gaspergou, barracuda, goat, duck feet and pork uterus.

But we never hesitate over such hard-to-find items as live crab, mussels, clams, tilapia, catfish and carp, or on-ice critters including squid, cuttlefish, massive shrimp, rabbit loin, filet and deer flank. Whatever we need, it's here -- fresh banana leaves, rice steamers, incense, oyster sauce, Thai iced tea, avocado ice cream and pickled lemon.

We love ya, Lee Lee.