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P*ONG

No more P*ONG (1/20/09)

My friend Sherri and I early birded it at P*ONG on a weeknight. Perhaps that’s why our waiter called me madam? Ma’am is one thing, and I hate it, but I’m not sure if madam is more offensive or plain goofy (I'd say gay but I don't think that's allowed anymore, especially from a grown woman in 2008. Just don't take away my ability to use retarded, ok?).

We ordered the smallest suite, as they have dubbed their tasting menus, seven courses at $63. Wine pairings always entice me, but I wasn’t up for that much of a splurge. I’m also not a fan of the mid-teens-priced cocktail, uh, because I like to drink and there’s no justifying $50 for a few Tuesday night beverages. A sweet wine seemed in order with this style of food so a bottle of Gewürztraminer it was.

I hate to admit that this meal is now a total blur, which isn’t necessarily a reflection of the quality of food. It’s more an indicator of dining partner. I tend to eat at pricier restaurants with James, not so much because he occasionally subsidizes me but because he’s not high maintenance (I recently did group dim sum and there were non-meat eaters, meat-eaters who didn’t eat shrimp, meat-eaters who didn’t eat pork, and well, let’s just say dining with others can be treacherous). And for no reason whatsoever we eat horrifically slow (which is more acute in casual settings where every table near us turns over in thirty minutes. Last night I was watching a grotesque Travel Channel infomercial masquerading as informative show called Cruising Do’s & Don’ts, which unfortunately had nothing to do with anonymous sex and everything to do with eking value from Disney cruises. My point is that they had to explain that the “specialty” restaurants for 18+ patrons require extra time and that a meal might take two-and-a-half hours like this was something unusual and a little outrageous. Then, I flipped over to Fast Times at Ridgemont High and un-ironically reveled in a simpler time) This isn’t some intentional savoring technique, it just happens. The main upside is that I tend to recall what I’ve eaten after the fact.

So, the pacing at P*ONG was jauntier and than usual because the conversation was animated which translated to quick consumption. This wasn’t an occasion for overanalyzing ingredients. And it’s not like the portions are exactly demanding of one’s time. It’s the kind of preciousness that could prompt totally cliché “dude, I could eat a hamburger” after seven courses. However, I’ve never left a tasting menu hungry, so I call bullshit on this sort of hysteria.

Tiny recap with less-than-ideal photos:

Burrata

burrata and american paddlefish caviar, frozen roasted red pepper, foccacia chip

The ice-cold pepper fluff kind of freaked me out and made the cheese seem like it had been over-refrigerated. Hot/cold interplays are interesting, they did it a lot at Moto, but I’m not sure if they’re the tastiest.

Squashsoup

kabocha squash coconut soup, tonka bean, cinnamon, white chocolate, amaretti

I didn’t even realize there was white chocolate in this. The overall effect wasn’t as sweet as these ingredients would imply.

Tartare

fresh yellowtail tartare, grapefruit, guava, ichimi pepper, avocado crème, beet oil

house cured arctic char, aniseed pastry, mission figs, maple mustard emulsion (oops, I forgot to take a photo of this)

Duckpie

chocolate and pinot noir braised duck, kabocha tapioca, raisin, oyster mushroom

There’s no indication from the description that this is a pastry-topped item, but it was a happy surprise because I love pot pie. If what I read somewhere is true, the dishes progress from least sweet to sweetest. This would be the point where I’m good since I have a sweet meat tooth (b'stilla being the ultimate in this realm). Still savory but on the verge of tipping into desserts.

Datecake

warm date cake, rum toffee, black mission figs, orange sugar, citrus crème fraiche

Ah, sticky toffee pudding—another favorite.

Chocolate

chocolate marquis, hazelnut, aleppo pepper, honey, green apple mousse

As I didn’t detect all the sweet ingredients in the earlier courses, I did not taste the pepper in this.

There were also cookies at the end and a course with two sorbet-like blobs somewhere in all of this. I know Pichet Ong is a pastry chef by training hence the sugary leanings but I might have preferred one more savory dish in lieu of a sweet one. Plus, I don't know how to categorize the cuisine using my limited self-created choices; it's not Asian or Thai despite others describing it as so, but I wouldn't feel right saying it's American either.

P*ONG
* 150 W. Tenth St., New York, NY

Fuddruckers

Even though I have an irrational fascination with chains (yesterday on my way to see Cloverfield in Astoria I noticed a brand new Panera Bread and Applebee's set to grand open tomorrow. Along with the pre-existing Pizzeria Uno across the street, this micro-suburbia off Northern Blvd. is simultaneously soothing and baffling), Fuddruckers has never been part of my repertoire.

To my recollection, I'd only dined at one once in my life, at least twenty-five years ago. I know I was wowed by all the diy condiments, and I believe that I begged for a repeat performance whenever driving past the 82nd Street location on route to Clackamas Town Center. But I could just be imagining the longing and letdown because this was a common routine; my family rarely ate out, which was more a standard of the times than a commitment to thriftiness. I really don't think that children raised pre-'90s went out to eat, fast food included, frequently as they do now.

So, Saturday night Fuddruckers in Bridgewater was an accident (that we would drive 45 miles and spend $15 in tolls to return a defective mail-ordered Best Buy Dust Devil is a testament to how much NYC box stores suck). Red Lobster was our intended target, but even I can't justify a 75-minute wait for Cheddar Bay biscuits. Just on the other side of the Red Bull Motel (do you think they petitioned for another Red business in their parking lot?) was Fuddruckers, a total mystery to me.

Fuddruckers_interior

I didn't know the menu and I completely didn't understand the ordering process. I felt feeble-minded standing just shy of the line-up maze, gaping at the wall. The clatter, balloons and children (don't be fooled by the false calmness in the above photo) didn't help my decision making but I figured out that there are lots of things other than burgers but it would be ridiculous to try them on a maiden visit and that burgers come in combo meals with the specialty variations  listed on another panel.

Ok, I chose The Inferno, a 1/3-pounder with jalapenos, fried onions and pepper jack. And a Heineken because even though Fuddruckers is fast food-like, they do serve beer. I guess that makes it more fast-casual, in industry parlance. I was not allowed my requested medium-rare, medium is the needlessly strict minimum, though not as harsh as Five Guys well-done only rule.

You then get a beeper and are left to hunt down an open table. After settling for about ten minutes later you'll be summoned to the side counter, handed your food and set loose on the condiments.  I took a few pumps of nacho cheese, chipotle mayonnaise for my fries and added a smear of spicy bbq sauces to my burger. I'm fairly sparing with add ons.

Yet condiment-abusers abounded. I was disproportionately grossed out by a college aged girl with her family at a nearby table who overfilled two giant plastic containers (larger than the little ones everyone else had) with ketchup. Actually, I more grossed out by her scrunchy-tamed pontytail, sweats and sporty rubber slip on sandals. I have a violent inexplicable aversion to that half-athletic/half-schlubby look. These are the same girls who wear flannel pajama bottoms with cartoon characters on them in public and think fleece is dressy. I had to avert my eyes every time she went for a ketchup dip.

Fuddruckers_the_inferno

After I got over the perceived sloppiness and topping spillage, I was faced with a pretty good burger that held its shape and retained enough juiciness despite the longer cooking time. The peppers were surprisingly hot, hence The Inferno moniker. The fries fell into the mealy steak fry camp, which I'll certainly eat even though I prefer thin, crispy strips (but not shoestring) over hefty wedges.

It was satisfying without crossing over into monstrous territory (though they do offer a one-pound burger). I do fear the Baconators of the world. On that note, Portfolio just published a substantial article and interesting sidebars on the unabashed gluttony trend touted in particular by Carl Jr's and Hardee's. Knowing that the Double Six Dollar Burger contains around 95% of my recommended daily calories almost makes me want to try it, so clearly their backwards marketing works.

Fuddruckers * 1271 Route 22 W., Bridgewater, New Jersey

Kuta Satay House

Newish Kuta Satay House and year-old Kampuchea Noodle Bar seem cut from the same ikat cloth. Both are on Rivington St. and serve less-than-common Southeast Asian cuisines in modern settings. Sounds like trouble. I’ve meant to try semi-Cambodian Kampuchea since it opened late 2006, yet I made it to the semi-Indonesian restaurant first.

Kuta_satay_house_interior

You could survive on plates of multiculti satays (Korean kalbi and rosemary tandoori lamb are on the list) and sake cocktails (not my favorite beverage breed) or eat a full meal, presented Western-style, entrees for one with sides. They were promoting a four-course $25 prix fixe which isn’t a bad deal but I’ve been trying to tone down my consumption.

Kuta_satay_house_satay 

We easily could’ve ordered another dish or at least another pair of satays. Malaysian curry chicken was kind of uninteresting while the Indonesian Madura flank steak was sweet with kecap manis (one of my favorite condiments) and genuinely spicy. I don’t take heat warnings from waiters in Lower East Side restaurants seriously, but the beef had enough kick that it could set off sensitive palates. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but I feel like there should’ve been dipping sauces not just cucumber relish. Strangely, their menu notes three sauces if you order the twelve-skewer platter.

Kuta_satay_house_duck_salad 

"Bandung" duck salad is completely not an Asian salad, which I understood from the description listing spring greens, grape tomatoes, goat cheese and walnut pomegranate vinaigrette. James doesn’t read so he asked, “what’s the white stuff?” It’s clearly a vexing addition because I got the same question from Bill, who I can’t blame because he didn’t have a menu in front of him, regarding my Flickr photo.

The goat cheese sounds strange but it’s not grotesque. If anything, duck is the oddity. I like making seemingly healthy things like salads unhealthy, so this worked for me.

Kuta_satay_house_crispy_fish

If I hadn’t started with fatty poultry I would’ve tried the duck curry. Instead, we split the crispy striped bass a.ka.ikan goreng asam manis. I know enough Malay food words that I could deduce this would be fried fish in a sweet and sour sauce. I love the Vietnamese version, and I was sick of steaming and baking seafood at home. Crunchy skin is where it’s at. And 1/3 of the three potatoes was purple, so that made my night.

Kuta_satay_house_purple_potato  

We arrived early on a Friday and the only other diners were a loud already drunk (seriously, how are you trashed by 7pm?) work party, so I can’t speak to the atmosphere. However, the food was a little better than I’d anticipated, based on the surroundings (and shrieking office ladies). From the open rectangular slit in the wall, I could see an older gentleman doing all the cooking. Perhaps, I shouldn’t assume that wizened Asians in the kitchen guarantee goodness, but it made me feel a little better about what I was eating.

Kuta Satay House * 65 Rivington St., New York, NY

The Land of Lean Beef

Beefscape
The term beefcake (as opposed to cheesecake, I suppose) always seemed funny, unsexy and early ‘80s like Chippendale’s dancers and referring to asses as buns.

Beefscapes, on the other hand, are the most awesome food art since that guy started painting on tortillas (and they certainly beat Sandra Lee’s tablescapes). Canyons and valleys of meat? Maybe the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board's new ad campaign is working on me because I’m not a huge beef eater, yet I still find these carnivorous dioramas creepily mesmerizing.

Just get a load of that eye-popping Crumb-Crusted Top Sirloin and Roasted Garlic Potatoes with Bourbon Sauce.

via The Grinder

Engeline’s

Filipino food is a tough sell in America, though there’s no good reason why. I have a disproportionate fondness for it, which is probably due to my exposure to it during my formative teen years and  natural underdoggy bent.  I was thrilled when Memories of Philippine Kitchens, a hefty, memoir-ish  cookbook came out late 2006. I read a bit every night before bed (yet I’m having trouble soldering through Secret Ingredients—I’m really trying to overcome my New Yorker aversion). Maybe this weekend I'll actually tackle a few recipes.

I think the cuisine lacks the immediate punchiness of Thai food or the perceived lightness of Vietnamese. It’s kind of a Chinese-Spanish-Malay mishmash that doesn’t taste exactly like any of those three. You could even count a Mexican influence (by way of Spain) when you consider Filipino versions of menudo, flan, empanadas and tamales. I don't know who turned them on to Edam cheese, however, but it's totally a Pinoy Christmas thing.

The hot and sweet flavors that I truly love aren’t so prominent. Filipino fare plays with the bitter, sour and salty ends of the spectrum and many dishes are stewed to mellowness. Yet, I still really enjoy the food, so much so that a classic problem arose. Our two top could not support everything we ordered and we ended up having to move to a more accommodating table. I should just warn waiters upon being seated that we order for four. Unlike most fussy New Yorkers I've encountered, I like leftovers so it’s almost always planned into the equation.

Engelines_lechon 

Only a hater could have a problem with lechon's crispy skin and chewy flesh. This is the perfect pork preparation. I swear I’m going to attempt it one of these days. I would kind of be an awesome Super Bowl snack. But what sets the meat apart is the dipping sauce. I realize that vinegar, breadcrumbs and liver sounds disgusting, and I had no idea until fairly recently that those were the backbone of lechon sauce because the condiment just tastes wonderfully savory with a touch of sweetness. There must be umami at play because I want to put it on everything.

Engelines_chicken_adobo 

I usually avoid chicken adobo because I’m afraid it’ll be boring. How exciting can soy sauce, vinegar, garlic and bay leaf be? Pretty good, it turns out. Maybe my one attempt was just uninspiring because I used boneless, skinless chunks instead of chicken parts. The magic is in the skin and bones, I think.

Engelines_pinakbet 

Pinakbet is essentially vegetables like green beans, pumpkin, okra and bitter melon boiled to softness, but the flavor is robust. I only ordered this out of vegetable duty but was kind of blown away by the non-blandness. Ok, it doesn’t hurt that nuggets of lechon are hiding out in nooks and crannies.

Engelines_kare_kare 

Kare kare can be overwhelming with its peanut buttery sauce; I only picked out a few bites of oxtail before falling victim to too much richness. It’s not a bad idea to add dabs of bagoong, fermented shrimp paste served alongside (I didn’t capture the condiment in any photos). Salty and pungent for sure, but the creamy dish can take the shock.

Ube_cake 

I’m a sucker for crazily hued chiffon cake. I think this ube had some help from artificial dye, but purple is pretty. I'll try anything unusually blue, purple or green. And after staring at the front bakery case throughout our lunch I had to take something to go. The insides were a little mangled, though.

I keep it to one tight paragraph for a Nymag.com review.

Engeline’s * 58-28 Roosevelt Ave., Woodside, NY

An Oldie but a Goodie

As much as this minor redesign implies a fresh start, I’m really just reverting back to an old url and title. Oh, and there’s a cat. But not an lolcat (lord, that reference will be dated by 2009).

You’re supposed to write what you know and in my case, that would be myself, duh. Here's my new About Me page just to up the me ante even further. I just like to pretend that this is an outwardly focused food-dominant site so I’ve removed the Project Me title. My 1998-2006 online diary of the same name still exists in all its hand-coded HTML glory.

Confusingly, www.project-me.com and goodiesfirst.typepad.com both work, but you're likely still seeing project-me.com if you came from a link, bookmark, wherever. I’m still working out technicalities like getting rid of the project-me.com without losing the small number of links that actually point here. That is all.

Anchor Bar

1/2 Due to its personal timeliness, I decided to kick off my impossible 1,049 words in three weeks task with Calvin Trillin’s “An Attempt to Compile the Short History of the Buffalo Wing.” It was insightful to get a 1980 perspective on a then relatively recent invention, kind of the equivalent of researching foodstuffs from ’91 today.

Hmm, how about pesto-sauced pizza with artichoke hearts and sun-dried tomatoes? I sure thought that was the ultimate edible at the time. I’m guessing the popularization of “gourmet” pizzas can be credited to Wolfgang Puck…in 1982. Ok, culinary trends took their time meandering up to the Northwest.

Oddly, around 1991 a college friend’s boyfriend came to visit from Rochester during the Super Bowl and insisted we eat buffalo wings to celebrate. I didn’t even know what they were (and had never watched a football game in my life). And he couldn’t find the ready-chopped drumettes in the grocery store. We made do with poultry parts of some sort. What I recall most is drinking so much that I had to call in sick to my movie theater job that evening. Wings didn’t wow me.

However, I’d forgotten that I’d already read this chicken wing essay a few years ago. And to compound my fears of age-onset dementia, if it weren’t for these two sentences I would’ve also forgotten just about everything about ever being at the Anchor Bar in 2000. Wings still didn’t wow me a decade later.

Anchor_bar_interior

My first meal of 2008 proved more memorable but unfortunately brief. A snowstorm hit Toronto on January 1, which made the drive to Buffalo slow going. But being a fanatical planner, we made it to town just on schedule with an hour to wing it up before needing to head to the airport (the nice thing about small cities is that you can cut it close; returning and rental car, checking in and getting through security can all practically be done in 20 minutes). I was nervous that they wouldn’t be open on the pseudo-holiday because no one answered when I called. But as I was reminded upon entering, the phone number is a pay phone that seems to get answered on whim.

I never thought of Buffalo as much of a tourist destination but it seemed obvious that a majority of the diners were not locals. Everyone, including us, were getting the friendly “where are you from” interrogation from our waitress.

There was no time for small talk. Time was ticking away. I started sweating it when our Sam Adams (no Genesee for us) arrived and twenty minutes later we were still wingless.

Anchor_bar_hot_wings

I eat slower than a snail (ok, they move slowly—who knows how they eat) so I did my best to get as many wings down as possible when they eventually arrived. We must’ve eaten like maniacs because we surprised our waitress with one remaining wing when checked on to see if we needed a to go container. We ended up with an 8/12 split, I with the lesser number since my wing fanaticism isn’t as strong. I get bogged down by the acidic vinegariness of the neon orange sauce.

In fact, earlier this week I posited the unthinkable.

“What if we made different kinds of wings for Super Bowl?” (ducks)

“What?! Let me guess, some Asian style?”

“Well, duh.”

James knows too well my desire to sneak fish sauce, shrimp paste or sambal into all items possible. And in fact my inaugural issue of Food & Wine, which I’d forgotten I’d subscribed to (see, the memory again) has a recipe Spicy Sriracha Chicken Wings courtesy of Michael Symon.

Hot isn’t that hot but suicidal, the next and last notch up, seemed too macabre. I’m not the wing-maker in my household so I can’t say what makes ours so kicky. A few extra shakes of cayenne, I imagine.

The thing that makes a superior wing is the crispiness of the skin. That’s kind of the point, right? The tiny pieces ensure a good skin to meat ratio and if the outside doesn’t contrast with the meaty interior then it’s a waste of calories. Anchor Bar has the texture down pat. These wings could stand to be left sauced on the plate for some time before giving in to sogginess.

Anchor_bar_wing_carnage

One thing to note is the absence of carrots at Anchor Bar. It’s a celery-only joint, and I kind of like that despite normally being depressed by celery. You need a palate cleanser and something bland to benefit from the fattiness of the blue cheese dressing. Oh,  the dressing should be thick and chunky, almost like spackle so that a celery stick could stand upright if stuck into the plastic container, if you felt like doing such a thing.

We finished just in time for Toronto’s southward-moving snow to descend on Buffalo. Flurries were swirling as we left the restaurant, though not enough to disrupt our take off time by much. And thankfully, we were fortified with enough Tabasco sauce and fried chicken to make it through the bumpy 50-minute journey back to the city. A few sick bags were employed on the short ride and not by me.

Anchor_bar_facade

Anchor Bar * 1047 Main St., Buffalo, NY

Booked Solid

Reading
I had this bright idea during my two Christmas days off that I would actually read books in 2008. So, I put a shitload of hardbound printed matter on hold at the library, assuming they would slowly trickle over to the Carroll Gardens branch (it took months for my requested The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao to show up and when I went to pick it up someone had taken it from the holds shelf. There is a place in hell for patrons who “steal” others’ reserved items). But now I’m freaking out because they’re all coming at once and the tomes are laughably enormous.

I’ll never be able to get through 753-page American Food Writing: An Anthology: With Classic Recipes, 582-page Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink and 614-page Tree of Smoke in my allotted three weeks. I don’t even know where to begin.

Thinking about books got me to playing around with Shelfari, a social networking tool that seems fun yet ultimately as useless to me as MySpace, Facebook and the rest. I started adding all of my cookbooks that were available and quickly realized that I have hundreds of cookbooks and pamphlets, yet probably only cook from about ten on a regular basis.

Great, in 2008 I could start cooking from all the books I’d bought for one reason or another, mostly reasons having little to do with good eating. For instance, Girl Food (an old zine pal made ziti from this for Robert Crumb–and wouldn’t you know it–she got laid) and The Madison Avenue Cookbook (which is poo poohed in this 1963 Time article that does give the nod to new book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking with no mention of one of the now legendary authors). It would be fun.

Except that Slashfood practically started doing the same thing, I recently stumbled on Cooked Books which champions gems from NYPL, the kitchn just started a book club and now Eat Drink One Woman has a guest blogger also talking up old cookbooks. Whew. Never mind, then, I'll keep my cookbooks to myself.

Um…because everything else I write about here is so original. No matter, I do foresee some tweaking and revamping in the immediate future. I just don’t think it will involve cookbooks (or god forbid, viral videos).

Tim Hortons

I honestly don't think I even consumed a dozen donuts (I just can't type doughnut even though it seems more proper) in all twelve months of 2007–they're not my sweet of choice–but I made up for it over New Year's weekend. And the reason for that uncharacteristic behavior is simple: Tim Hortons. I know they're all over the United States now, but if something isn't in the immediate tri-state area it's still exotic to me.

My donut binge began unwisely at a LaGuardia Dunkin' Donuts. While picking up a 6am coffee, I couldn't resist an artificially strawberry-flavored pink glazed specimen. That might've been a mistake.

I still can't say whether it poisoned me or the tiny plane was the source of my stomach distress, but I was queasy an hour later when disembarking in Buffalo. However, I didn't get violently ill until after popping the two Tums James gave me that tasted like they were made of shampoo, apparently from sitting in the bottom of his toiletry bag for months.

We stopped at a Tim Hortons (which is great because it makes use of what I call the white trash S. Tim Horton is the hockey player. Tim Horton's would the hockey player's restaurant. Tim Hortons is just colloquial. I cringe when I hear people say Barnes & Nobles, Nordstroms, JCPenneys and the like, though just recently I caught myself saying that I worked off Williams St. when it's plain ol' William) on the outskirts of Buffalo and the tragedy was that I was too ill to indulge in a timbit, apple fritter or any of the Canadian chain's specialties. My queasy stomach temporarily stood still when REM's "Driver Eight" came over the speaker while I was hunched over the toilet bowl in one of their bathroom stalls because it was an odd song to be playing. Eh,  and then I threw up in their parking lot and repeated that lovely performance two more times during the two-hour drive to Toronto. Sadly, I never got to sample their excessive coffee, breakfast sandwich and donut combo.

Tim_hortons_maple_dipped_2

Luckily, I perked up enough to later enjoy a maple-glazed Boston cream donut at a mall where strangely, the anchors were Wal-Mart and nofrills. Maple bars, a total NW staple, don't even exist in NYC; people have no idea what you're talking about if you bring them up.

On our third Tim Hortons excursion I got a butter pecan tart. I forgot about these mini treats that seem to flourish in Canada. They're like tiny individual pecan pies with a thicker richer crust. You can also find plain and raisin topped versions in any grocery store.

Tim_hortons_pecan_tart

We love Tim Hortons so much that after our first visit to Toronto in 2000, we named a plush toy rabbit (James's mom is always giving him pointless and inappropriate gifts) Tim Horton. I don't know what ever happened to him, though this very second there is a nameless stuffed animal reindeer and giraffe in the living room.

Tim Hortons * throughout Canada and random U.S. states

Shrimp Sambal Tea Sandwiches

Shrimp_sambal_tea_sandwich

Do you ever create something (arguably) edible and can’t decide whether it’s genius or disgusting? I just possibly made the most grostesque yet edible sandwich that I wouldn’t recommend anyone replicate.

I was going to make shrimp sambal tea sandwiches from Singapore Heritage Food over Christmas break but never got around to it. I figured it would be a good in-the-office-alone meal. I share close quarters with three others who don’t strike me as appreciative of funky odors. Yesterday, I felt self-conscious about the Sichuan snapper and water spinach leftovers I ate at my desk. Fish isn’t work-friendly.

Last night I tackled this recipe because I was afraid the loaf of white bread I’d bought for the purpose was probably on the verge of molding. All you really do is grind dried shrimp, shallots, fresh and dried chiles and then fry in oil and season with salt and sugar. Yet, I botched it somehow.

Chunky_shrimp

They include a photo, which makes the filling look crimson and moist. I had an idea in my head of how it would taste; hot, sweet and kind of sticky-jammy like a Thai paste that I used to keep in the freezer. But it was nothing like that. As you can see, everything's salmon-colored and crispy.

The dried shrimp didn’t get soft enough or break down flossy enough in my mini food chopper (I’d never heard meat referred to as floss until I went to Malaysia) so rather than a puree I had more of chunky blend of shrimp jerky. And when cooked with dried and fresh chiles and shallots, nothing really melded. The flavor wasn’t bad, but the consistency was loose to hold together between bread.

I needed a binder that wasn’t high fat. Mayonnaise makes me wary on a good day and I didn’t have any in the fridge, anyway. Greek yogurt to the rescue. Why not? It’s no weirder than a tuna salad sandwich, really. I was going to add lime juice and the tanginess sufficed. However, the yogurt dulled the hotness so I added a blob of jarred sambal. Nice.

Shrimp_yogurt

The thing is that the paste tastes much better eaten plain than on bread. It was like starchy dryness compounded with salty dryness. And now I have a headache, which I'd like to blame on the sandwich. Oh, and I completely stunk up the apartment and the hallway. I’m starting to think that I’m immune to fishy, fermented scents (though not stinky tofu) and a destroyer of recipes.