Posts from the ‘International Intrigue’ Category

Nov 17

Are You Chicken?

Pollocampero The last Wal-Mart I went to only had a lame Subway inside. I’m not one for dining in discount stores anyway (and as much as I like cheapness and crap, Wal-Marts tend to give me the creeps—they’re always heavy with a crestfallen vibe that’s barely masking something violent. What, I don’t know, but they always exude potential danger. There was even something scary about the rendition of “Pop Goes the Weasel” blaring from the ice cream truck cruising the parking lot at the one in Linden, NJ that I last frequented. After the song cycle would finish, this crazy cartoon sound effect “boing” would reverberate like the worst jack-in-the-box ever was popping out and coming to get you, but then, I’ve always been scared shitless by jack-in-the-boxes) but I might change my tune if there was a freaking Pollo Campero tucked between those Faded Glory brand denim shorts and Looney Tunes nursing aide uniforms .

I knew we were behind the times in NYC. We couldn’t even sustain two Guatemalan fast food chicken franchises in a city of 8 million, yet they flourish elsewhere in the US.

Despite a sad lack of fried chicken, I might have to make a Wal-Mart visit this weekend because I’m seriously coveting this wood grain tablecloth. I have no idea when or why this faux bois thing became so out of control, but I’ve been buying it up for the past few years.

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Nov 6

China: KFC & Pizza Hut

Yes, strange that I would start my China restaurant recaps with Pizza Hut. I really intended to steer clear of western food, I swear, but curiosity eventually got the better of me. Pizza Hut and KFC (both Yum! Brands) definitely seemed to be the dominant US chains in China. You might think of McDonald’s or Starbucks as the global evils, but pan pizza and fried chicken are prevailing in that corner of the world.

KFC got the better of me while killing time in the Beijing airport, which is far from a fun way to spend two afternoons (Singapore’s Changi airport is completely engaging but I’ve never needed to hang around for lengths of time). Though I later saw ads for buckets, simple fried chicken didn’t seem to be the attraction. All the combo meals were focused on sandwiches and wraps, and crunchy breaded cutlets between buns appeared to be the snack of choice. As English was non-existent on signage or spoken by staff, James pointed at a random picture and that’s the combo we split.

The bonanza entailed the popular chicken sandwich, four drummettes/wings, a creepy mayonnaisey vegetable salad that I didn’t taste out of fear and lack of cutlery and what tasted like orange Tang. I don’t really eat at KFC in the US so I can’t accurately compare the two. I don’t think extra crispy is our default, though.

I intended to get two egg tarts for dessert and somehow ended up with four. As far as miscommunications went, this was a fairly minor and tasty mishap. The little custardy pies are served warm and were way better than a fast food apple pie (yes, I’m mixing up my chain desserts).

Malls, each with a unique name and different stores, can span multiple blocks connected by overpasses and underground walkways. The only inevitable commonality are the KFCs and Pizza Huts. I only meant to peek at the Pizza Hut menu posted outside a corner location (there was also a Papa John’s nearby, but I’ve never been to one and didn’t think I should start in Shanghai). But after seeing appetizers like escargots and catching a glimpse of the slightly upscale interior, I had to try one of their seafood pizzas, no way around it.

I haven’t eaten inside a Pizza Hut in years (though I did briefly work in a drive-thru only one in college) so maybe they’ve fancified here too. Chinese Pizza Huts are more of a full service restaurant with soups, pastas and light jazz tinkling in the background.

I wasn’t bold enough to start with escargots, the New Orleans wings gave me pause; it was the cumin lamb meatballs that won me over. I just wasn’t expecting the cold marina-style dipping sauce that came on the side.

Because I’m a grotesque American (despite attracting a 98% Asian clientele, we got nasty looks through the window by some young white folks. I really don’t get the big deal. No one ever takes issue with Japanese chains like Yoshinoya or Coco Curry House that were all over the place. I wouldn’t have a problem if someone from China wanted to try mediocre Chinese food in NYC) I ordered the most expensive pizza (around $8) from their Gourmet Line. This doozy contained smoked salmon, shrimp and squid and was drizzled with creamy wasabi sauce.

Lacking any Italian-ness whatsoever in my DNA, cheese paired with seafood doesn’t bother me in the least. And sure, the dairy and spiciness dominated but the mix of flavors was strangely compelling.

KFC * Beijing Capital International Airport, Beijing, China
Pizza Hut * Metro City, 1111 Zhaojiabang Lu, Shanghai, China

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Oct 15

Deep Purple

I went on a mini Filipino baked goods binge this weekend. I think my fascination with blue rice nasi kerabu (I encountered another enticing photo the other day) spawned a more accessible in NYC ube craze.

These purple yam products have frustrated me into actually reading my camera manual and online tutorials to no avail. The purple I see with my eyes is much warmer and more magenta than the bluish deep color that shows up digitally. Unfortunately, you’re not getting finely tuned photos because around 2pm I had to abandon my mission. The urge to check out the Cat Show struck and I was forced to get out of my pajamas and hightail it in order to justify the $15 entry fee with 5pm closing time.

My first find was a slice of ube layer cake after a meal at Engeline’s (which I’m not detailing at this moment). As you can see from the photo, the guts got a little mangled, not from getting knocked around in the car but from crazy slicing. I expected it to be dense from afar, but it's actually a chiffon cake that's very light and not overly sweet.

After a stop at the Phil-Am market down the street, I came away with an ensaymada from a New Jersey bakery. These sweet rolls have always weirded me out a bit because of the mildly strange butter, granulated sugar and grated cheese topping. That’s not really a bad flavor combination but I’m more accustomed to cream cheese as pastry cheese. I used to have the same mixed feelings about cheddar cheese with apple pie. The ube filling is randomly and sparsely striated throughout the bun. I wouldn’t have minded a bit more swirling.

Ok, puto (which if I'm correct, isn't always a word used to describe an edible treat) are fairly bland and not ube affiliated at all (and somehow instead of fixing the color, I managed on narrowing the frame) but I couldn’t resist the purple muffin-ish blobs and then found a combo pack with all three colors available. These are simple steamed treats made from rice flour and the colors have no bearing on their flavor. I do love the springiness of sweets made with non-wheat meals, mochi being the most extreme. These bright fluff balls will be good for breakfast during the week. I was getting kind of sick of granola bars.

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Oct 11

Sunday Night Special: Steamed Taro with Chopped Salted Chiles

My Hunan salted chiles from a few weeks ago were good and fermented (I’m not sure why fermented food seems desirable but liquids not so much. This very second, I’m 1/3 of a way through my first ever bottle of kombucha and I’m not sure if it’s likeable or putrid. I’m having a very tough time not letting the floaties get to me. A friend was raving about it, but then I reminded myself that in college she used to drink apple cider vinegar like it was soda) so I needed a recipe. I still don’t feel like it’s root vegetable weather but steamed taro didn’t sound like a bad idea.

But I didn’t end up buying taro, even though it’s not too hard to find disguised as malanga in Caribbean-oriented grocery stores. I saw it at Western Beef Sunday, where I picked up this adorable Croatian packet of seasoning that uses a semi-chopstick-like font.

Recently I picked up a frozen bag of something called ratalu at Patel Brothers. As I’ve stated before, I love all things Swad brand (their microwavable vegetable dishes in a box are only 99-cents–aren't Trader Joe's like $2.99?), so these magenta cubes drew me in. I figured they were taro and I could save all the cleaning and chopping (taro contains irritants—if you recall the Top Chef season two finale, Ilan got taken to task for not cooking his taro leaves long enough).

But according to web searches it seems that ratalu is a purple yam. I’m not convinced that it’s the same as Filipino ube yet. That was a strange find because just yesterday I decided that I would use my newish ice cream maker to create ube ice cream for a halo-halo experiment and had been wondering how hard it might be to find frozen (fresh is out of the question). Who knew I had in the house already?

I love it when someone else has already typed a recipe out for me. Steamed Taro with Chopped Salted Chile Peppers was posted on Serious Eats back in February when Fuchsia Dunlop's Hunan cookbook came out.

The one thing I’m not clear on is how the taro chunks are supposed to hold up or if they’re even supposed to. I’ve had taro in Chinese casseroles and it stays in squares. This mystery root turned to mush and I ended up just mashing it into a violet paste that tasted much better than it looked. You have to admit that it’s still prettier than poi.

It sounds silly, but the ratalu, whatever it was, tastes lavender. The flesh was barely sweet, more potato than yam and almost perfumey without being sickening like rose water (a personal aversion). The saltiness and mild heat of the chiles and black beans played off this hard to describe mauve flavor and created a dish that would almost go better with grilled meat than white rice. But I’m not one for double starches.

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Sep 30

Am I Blue

When life gives you lemons, you’re supposed to make lemonade, which is kind of stupid if you ask me. If I’m feeling blue, I look at blue food. It’s kind of the same concept, right? Instead of dwelling on life’s little annoyances, I culled nasi kerabu’s greatest visual hits.

I’ve never seen nasi kerabu (Malaysian herbed rice) in person, but I’m in love with the idea of dyeing rice colors even though I’m not sure that I understand the logic behind it. I just don’t think blue rice would fly with the typical American consumer, which is one more reason why I have to give props to Malay Peninsula cuisine. These are not people who are afraid of rainbow hues–just look at the pans of agar-agar that masak-masak (yes, double words are another regional trademark) photographed at a Ramadan bazaar. The blue rice above, came from another such bazaar. All we get at street fairs in NYC are grilled Italian sausages and mozzarepas.

Actually, I think a lot of modern cooks use food coloring rather than the traditional bunga telang/pea flower to achieve this look. (I know a lot of the intense purples in Filipino ube-based snacks aren’t naturally derived. Wow, this Pillsbury ube hotcake mix is one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen.) And not all nasi kerabu is even blue; most recipes I see don’t call for tinting at all.

When researching a trip to Malaysia in 2005, I relied a bit on Lonely Planet World Food Malaysia and Singapore (which I now know was photographed by the always on trend Chubby Hubby) and kept coming back to a photo of Kelantanese woman placing bean sprouts on top of a plate of blue rice. It reminded me of a childhood impulse to keep returning to engrossing illustrations in picture encyclopedias. Unfortunately, my ‘80s Childcraft set is in storage across country (or at least I hope it still is—it freaks me out to think that I still have at least ten boxes somewhere in Portland with records, books, kitchenware and possibly a few clothing items which are probably so ‘90s that I could now re-wear them and be in fashion. Er, I might’ve gotten rid of the Childcraft books now that I think about it) so I can’t look up the exact photo I’m thinking of.

I’m fairly certain it was the “Look and Learn” volume on science that contained an image of a tableau of food that was supposed to be unappetizing because the colors were all wrong. I think there was a green orange, black cookies, white butter, a pitcher of milk that wasn’t white, and a few more items. There had to have been something atypically blue but I can’t say for sure. I thought the food looked cool rather than disgusting. Childcraft is the reason I know about anything I know today and why my knowledge level is that of a nine year old.

I have a few recipes for nasi kerabu in cookbooks, though in print and on the internet there are many more for nasi ulam, which is kind of the same thing; they’re both herbed rice salads but nasi kerabu is the one that’s usually blue. So many of the dishes in my cookbooks that sound unusual and worth tackling are next to impossible because we just don’t have access to the same ingredients. For this dish you need bunga kantan, daun kesom, cekur leaves, kaduk leaves, turmeric leaves and more depending on the version. I have basil, mint and frozen pandan and kaffir lime leaves covered but that’s it.

When and if I get back to Malaysia (I had originally planned on Langkawi and elsewhere for vacation 2008, and am still trying to figure out how China became the destination instead, not that I’m complaining about going to China) I’ll have to seek this dish out.

Putting Burritos to Shame

I was vaguely aware of the tortilla artist (yes, tortillas) Joe Bravo, but was re-reminded of his existence via Guanabee yesterday. Strangely, he’s not alone. There are a lot of folks who enjoy messing with tortillas.

Roundaboutly speaking of tortillas, I couldn’t find any outrageously staged al fresco photography in September’s Gourmet. I was confused for a spell. While doing an initial flip through, I saw an article on Salvadoran food in L.A., another on taco trucks in unexpected cities and a recipe for Dominican sancocho. My, how multiculti.

Duh, then I realized it was the Latin American issue. A welcome enough theme. They managed to make a spread on Puerto Rican food look romantic (nothing against the cuisine, but in NYC it’s hard to think of it minus fluorescent lights, formica and steam tables). The closest thing to an outdoor shot is a little girl inspecting a roasting pig head on a grill, illustrating an article on Cuban Miami. That, I like. No zany lighthouses or idyllic farms in sight.

Moz photo from The Great Tortilla Conspiracy on Flickr

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Aug 19

Bak Kut Teh

After the world’s shortest detox ended in digestive turmoil, I was scared to eat anything even though I was starving. (And now just to torment me, James has taken up the master cleanse. He’s been at it for nearly two days now and is a serious pain to be around. I predict that there won’t be a day three.) I decided to move away from the raw minimalism of the health nuts and look towards the Chinese food as medicine approach. It’s much tastier.

Really, I’d just been looking for an excuse to use my older than I’d like to admit package of bak kut teh spices that I picked up some time ago in Kuala Lumpur. This is a mostly Malay, also Singaporean “pork rib tea” that’s more like an herbal soup with meat. Food from that corner of the world engenders strong opinions (the number of food bloggers from Singapore and Malaysia is mind boggling) and every region puts their own touch on preparations. I’m not even going for sheer authenticity. I made do with what I had.

Just getting up and to the stove with my stomach churning and head pounding was hard enough. I would’ve loved to have added tofu puffs, chopped my pork ribs into smaller hunks and served the bowl with a fried crueler but I didn’t have the extra additions and a cleaver is still on my wish list. Ah, no clay pot either.

I based my recipe on the one from Rasa Malaysia, but the thing is no one explains how to handle the myriad spices and dried bits that come with the mix. I’m like a Malaysian who opens a bagel shop and makes varieties covered in white chocolate and Oreo crumbs (I think they're confusing bagels with donuts). It’s obvious to a New Yorker why that’s wrong. I was clueless as to what got added to the broth, what should be wrapped in cheesecloth for steeping and what beyond the ribs and soup are meant to be eaten.

I took a look at Amy Beh’s recipe on Kuali, and she explicitly lists what should be cooked loose and what should only flavor the broth. The trouble was that she uses Chinese terminology so I had to Google Image everything and match it to the herbs in my package. The other trouble was a lack of cheesecloth. I ended up cutting a piece of old underwear and tying it up with a string. I told James it was a t-shirt to not gross him out. I’m not even sure that a cotton-poly blend allows proper flavor escape.

This was not a photogenic meal in the least but it was amazingly aromatic. Lightly medicinal and bitter, but warming and slightly sweet from the cinnamon, tangerine peel, star anise and wolfberries. It smelled like a Chinatown herb shop. And obviously, the richness of the pork ribs permeates everything. It’s kind of fake healthy because it’s fatty, but that’s the beauty of nourishing Chinese food.

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Aug 10

Can-Do Spirit

Food_s4 I’m not sure how one becomes a “culinary critic of tinned foods” outside of simply declaring yourself as such, but I do like the notion. A few weeks ago, I was speculating on how the French can make eccentricity chic, but it’s the Japanese who make batshit crazy cool.

Ok, collecting canned food isn’t exactly crazy (and I’ve never understood what guano has to do with mental instability). I’ve been known to find and hoard a few oddball foodstuffs but I don’t have outlets like Chika Takai. She serves canned food in a restaurant, has published a book translated as “Canned Food Maniacs” and guest spoke and produced a menu for Nichiro’s 100th anniversary celebration.

I’m not even wild about canned food (though I love spicy Thai catfish in a tin) but I’m impressed. I now want to become the foremost culinary critic of chain restaurants.

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Aug 1

And You Thought Radish Roses Were Fancy

Radishes aren’t a loathe like melons or malta, but I could do without them in most circumstances. (Daikon is another story. A good story.) When they come with tacos I might take a nibble or two because I hate to waste. I kind of thought radishes were good for nothing until I heard about Noche de Rábanos a.k.a. Radish Night in Oaxaca. Not that I’ve witnessed it first hand, but it appears to be a freaktastic folk art blitz that takes place right before Christmas. I’ve always dug Chinese and Thai fruit and vegetable carving but these inedible sculptures are something else altogether.

Radish Night [Planeta]
La Noche de Rábanos [Aqui Oaxaca]
Radish Festival Photo Gallery [About.com]

Photo from Beverlita on Flickr

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Jun 4

Turning Macanese

So, I’m gone for a week and now Macanese food is the new hotness? I have no idea why this irks me, though I’m sure I could get to the bottom of my annoyance if I dwelled a bit (isn’t that what therapy is for? Figuring out your feelings? I couldn’t say because I’m not one for paying for such indulgences. I’m certainly not going to waste $100+/hour on why I’m bothered by a restaurant with the already off-putting name of Employees Only deciding to open a Macanese restaurant).

Babyjojo I’ve eaten food in Macau (and am still kind of kicking myself for not trying Joel Robuchon a Galera) and the traditional Chinese-Portuguese culture is really a dying breed even on the island, itself. I don’t see how it could transcend gimmickry or approximate authenticity on this island. (I’ve thought the same of Wild Salmon. The only food I ate in the NW were burritos and jo jo potatoes.) Maybe they’re trying to ride the Fatty Crab hip-Malaysian wave. I would be curious to hear what dishes would be served at this mystery eatery since I suspect food will be secondary.

Ok, I’ve dwelled for a few minutes and have gotten in touch with the shriveled black nugget that is my soul. I think I’m annoyed because this is actually a good idea, an idea I might have if I had any inclination towards restaurateurship or chefhood (which I don’t—there’s not an entrepreneurial capillary in my body) but that it’s going to be bungled by smugness or irony and smothered by a pointless scene. Eating there will not make me feel happy and I don’t enjoy unnecessary unhappiness.

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Posts from the ‘International Intrigue’ Category

Are You Chicken?

China: KFC & Pizza Hut

Deep Purple

Sunday Night Special: Steamed Taro with Chopped Salted Chiles

Am I Blue

Putting Burritos to Shame

Bak Kut Teh

Can-Do Spirit

And You Thought Radish Roses Were Fancy

Turning Macanese

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Occasional Instagramming

Yes, it’s come to this

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The Past Will Haunt You

Pigeonholing 101