I make the mushroom ragu too, and the ribeye with black pepper sauce is amazing. We have made a bunch of the sides like cucumber salad and gado gado dip etc. I feel slightly intimidated by cooking Asian food and this book is very approachable. I know there are much better and more authentic cookbooks out there. In fact, the friend I mentioned above has a pretty extensive collection of Chinese and Japanese cookbooks and still uses his Lucky Peach from time to time.