Goodies First

Apr 10

Sunday Night Special: Fish Head Curry

Who says Twitter is good for nothing? Every time I get back from Singapore (ok, I've only been three times—I'm not trying to make it sound like it's a regular part of my life) I intend to try making a fish head curry only to instantly forget after quickly getting caught up in NYC again.

Thankfully, I was re-reminded by a tweet from The New York Times' Pete Wells, about the glory of fish heads. Who knows what he ended up doing with his piscine score? I knew exactly what I would do after getting my hands on a nice meaty specimen.

Where he picked up a $15 tilefish, I was limited to what the Chinese market I happened to stop by had on offer: a 99-cent-per-pound mystery breed. I have next to zero capability for discerning fish species by sight so I asked what kind of fish these came from only to hear, "fish head!" in response like I was the dumbest person on earth. (I felt the need to mention I'd recently made a fish head curry while doing a phone interview with Zak Pelaccio and when he asked what kind of fish I'd used, I lied and said snapper because I didn't want to admit my fish ignorance. He then said I should've used something oily like salmon. I'd agree with the oily, though I've never had a salmon fish head curry. Then this morning I read about the kerfuffle involving Mark Bittman using overfished red snapper and realized that I’m not only incapable of identifying fish by sight, but the imaginary me also cooks endangered species) No need to press the matter and I'd only be out a couple bucks (plus lots of prep time) if the fish sucked.

Its face seemed a little slim and long with a little fleshy appendage that mimicked a goatee. Fish heads I usually see curried are fuller, broader. The dreaded red snapper is often recommended in recipes and I’ve also seen a call for threadfin, which I don’t think are common here.

One of these days I'll learn that no matter how many cookbooks I possess or experience I have with eating the cuisine, Malaysian-Singaporean food will never taste the same in my hands. Seriously never. I'm stymied as to what causes my food to always turn out flat and dull. I can't attribute it to lack of fresh ingredients because my Thai and Chinese food usually turns out pretty good. I'm clearly doing something wrong.

The first issue was deciding on a recipe. Every one I found was slightly different so I adapted a few based on what sounded right. Fish head curry uses dry spices, not a fresh paste or rempah, since it's a Singaporean specialty of Indian origin. Ok, there's also a Nyonya version but the curry everyone associates with Singapore is served at Indian restaurants and not so much at hawker centers.

Therefore, you need curry powder and lots of it. One thing I've discovered is that Malaysian recipes often specify the type of curry powder you need, none of that generic madras business. They seem to have two distinct blends: fish and meat. I picked up packets of each on a visit to Kuala Lumpur but that was a few years ago (perhaps the first step on my route to dull food was using old spices). It seems that main difference is that fish curry powder doesn’t contain clove, star anise, cinnamon and cardamom like the meat version.

The recipe I was following called for five tablespoons and unfortunately, my little packet only contained around four. So, I spent a bit of time grinding and making my own supplementary powder based on the recipe below, which I've left as is. Even cutting down those numbers by a third, I ended up with two whopping cups of the stuff, used an entire bottle of coriander seeds and still came up short. Grams to ounces confuse me. I had no idea what an insane quantity I was concocting until it was too late. I filled up the spice grinder with dried chiles three times and still didn't have the 50 grams per my digital scale!

You also might want to know about "curry seeds," which are called for in many recipes. From what I understand this is a blend of whole fennel seeds, cumin seeds, brown mustard seeds, fenugreek and black dhal in proportions that I’m not sure about. I didn't have the dhal.

Once you have your blends ready to go and your vegetables and aromatics prepped, the rest is easy. There aren't really any shortcuts since we don't have brands like Prima Taste here that sell ready-to-use mixes that aren't half-bad (I've tried a few of them). I'm loving this fish head curry "party pack." Now, that's my kind of party. James is trying to finagle a way to get his company's Singapore office to send us a bunch of these packets. I'd be curious how the fish head curry blend tastes because…well, my rendition didn't end up impressing anyone.

My pot of fish was wrong, even by looks (and I don't just mean that it's ugly anti-food porn). The consistency of the liquid should be thinner, oilier and ruddy. Mine was creamy even though I thinned it down with water. James insists the versions we had in Asia didn't contain coconut milk. I agree that they seemed sharper and soupier but every recipe I found included at least a little coconut milk. I would go easy on it.

The fish, itself was mild and inoffensive. I'm sure it could've been fresher but it was amazingly cheap. This whole dish probably cost under $8 (if you only count the portion of the $2.89 bottle of decimated coriander seeds that were actually used for this). Even at such a bargain, I'm going to lay off the Singaporean experimenting for a while because it's too much effort for lackluster pay off. But I feel compelled to write out a recipe, anyway, because I don't think that was the problem.

Ingredients
1 whole fish head, about 3 pounds
1 tablespoon mixed curry seeds for fish curry (optional)
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, chopped
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 onions thinly sliced
5 tablespoon fish curry powder made into a paste with 1 /4 to 1 /2 cup water
10 okra pods
3 tomatoes, quartered
10 chiles slit into half lengthwise
20 curry leaves
1 /2 to 1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon tamarind mixed with 1 cup water
1 cup coconut milk
5 tablespoon sunflower oil

Fish Curry Powder
250g coriander powder
60g cumin powder
150g chilli powder
30g turmeric powder
20g black pepper powder
10g fenugreek powder

Rub fish head with salt, then wash and pat dry. (I’m just repeating what I’ve read everywhere. Rather than seasoning with salt, this step seems intended to remove “fishiness.”)

Heat oil in a wok or saucepan, add the curry seeds and stir fry over high heat for two to three minutes till the seeds pop. Add garlic, ginger, onions and stir fry till fragrant. Add the fish curry paste and brown over low heat, till oil raises to the surface. Sprinkle water if the paste begins to burn.

Add the coconut milk, tamarind juice, salt, sugar and curry leaves. Bring to a boil, stirring. Add the fish head, along with okra, tomatoes and chiles.

Simmer for 15 minutes or until fish is cooked.

Adapted from Sylvia Tan's Singapore Heritage Food and the Singapore Tourism Board

Maybe it's impossible to perfectly replicate Singaporean fish head curry in Brooklyn. I've suspected as much and Laura Shapiro's recent Gourmet.com post, "Food Doesn't Travel" reinforces this notion.

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Apr 8

The More Tuscan The Better

Living in a bloggy vacuum, I find it hard to believe that internet reviews
and being "the latest 'in' place" scored 1% and 0%, respectively, in
a global Nielsen survey of criteria diners consider when choosing a restaurant.
Are we the only victims of Yelp and Minetta Tavern?

The number one factor was type of cuisine at 33%, and that's sensible. What
I was kind of surprised by is that after the "cuisine of my own
country/local area," the top two were Italian and Chinese tied at 14%. I
figured those were just American favorites. I guess one takeaway is that the
world loves noodles whether sauced with marinara or as the basis of lo mein.

Showing how slowly trends spread across the globe, Spanish cuisine, heralded for the last decade in foodie circles, scores dead last.
Seeing how most Americans (and I do feel it's an American phenomena) think
Spanish and Mexican food is the same thing (as opposed to New Yorkers who call
anything Caribbean Spanish—ain't no mofongo in Madrid…um, at least I don't
think, I'll check next week when I'm there and could be eating my words) I'm
not shocked that Iberian fare has an image problem.

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Apr 8

Jerky Even a Vegetarian Could Love

When I first heard about pineapple jerky, I assumed that it was fruit flavored dried meat like the Fruit Juice Roasted Pork strip in the photo at the right. Strangely, Aji Ichiban in NYC (at least last time I checked) only sell candy while in Hong Kong there are entire bins of plastic-wrapped jerky squares sold by weight. Chinese are kind of nuts for jerky; there's a whole dried meat chain called Bee Cheng Hiang.

So, when I was offered free samples of pineapple jerky from Jerky.com, I'll admit that I was expecting pliable sheets or beef or pork. As it turned out, pineapple jerky is fancy fruit leather, duh. I don't mind those sugary gelatinized dried pineapple rings you usually find in stores, but these dehydrated slices sweetened only with honey do taste more like real fruit.

Thin and a little chewy and tough, the texture is well, jerky-like. In the best way. Because I have a strange aversion to fresh fruit (ok, mostly to the boring apple/orange/banana triumvirate—cherries and berries aren't so bad) I could see these working as an afternoon snack when I get tired of the usual almonds, yogurt or wedge of Laughing Cow cheese. In the mean time, I need to work my way through that bag of Chinese jerky I bought in December. Jerky is preserved to last, right?

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Apr 7

Char No. 4

1/2 The tickly smell of smoke did hit me when I entered Char No. 4 but it wasn't an assault. I'm afraid that I've become desensitized to the strong fragrance due to periodic household experiments with a mini smoker. Venting the fumes towards an open door helps but keeping the apartment from smelling like a piece of jerky is nearly impossible.

I chose to use my experience with smoked food as fodder for my Spanish class response to "What did you do last week?" a question I stumble through every Thursday. But it only caused my teacher to ask if it was normal to keep a smoker in one's apartment and if that didn't bother the neighbors (he lives directly above Caputo's and says that smoke wafts into his apartment–what do they smoke in house, I wonder?). Well, as long as those neighbors continue to use the tiny foyer, a.k.a. the ten feet in front of my door as a stroller parking lot, I don’t care if the entire building reeks like a giant campfire. But I couldn't say this in Spanish because I didn't know the word for stroller or foyer and besides, it's tough to convey humor coupled with disdain in my painfully slow, dimwitted second language style.

So, post-11pm is a good bet if you insist on weekend dining since that's when the ratio of bar drinkers to back room sit-downers begins to shift. The restaurant may look mobbed from the street but it's just whisky sippers crowding the space in the front.

With 100+ choices ranging from one ounce of Fighting Cock for $3 to a $100 portion of Old Grommes 121 Proof, there’s something at all price points (none of that $120 per glass MacCutcheon Scotch). If I were feeling more flush I would experiment a bit more. As it stood, I tried a two-ounce pour of Woodford Reserve. Not so adventurous.

I was most interested in the fried pork nuggets and they weren’t disappointing. The soft centers contrasted with the crispy surface of the cubes like a meaty petit four. What they refer to as Char No. 4 hot sauce seemed like Sriracha to me, not that I mind since it’s my condiment of choice for nearly all fried food. Something about the heat cuts the fattiness.

While I expected greatness from the above pork, I actually preferred the fried cheddar cheese curds (once the fried food floodgates have opened there's no stopping). The firm chewiness worked even better with the crusty exterior. I assumed the creamy (bucking that hot with fatty trend) lightly spiced dipping sauce was remoulade but it’s described as pimento sauce. That’s a lot of orange on one plate.

The city is rife with pulled pork sandwiches, so many that I’m not always sure I should bother. They can't all be special. I do think this one was above average because of the whole package. The meat was moist, more chunky than shredded, and mixed with a barbecue sauce that tasted vaguely creamy and mustardy. The bun was toasted, which is very important to me, and the pickled onions and peppers added just enough heat and tartness. The baked beans weren’t bad either.

I shied away from the proper entrees because after a few ounces of whiskey priced in the double digits, the bill adds up. James wanted to try the smoked chicken, though, since it’s a meat we haven’t attempted in our smoker yet. Wanting to learn more about the preparation, he piped up, “I had a question?” to which our waitress responded a bit defensively, “The pink?” Clearly she was tired of explaining the poultry's doneness despite the deceptively rosy color. Uh no, just the details on how they keep their chicken juicy and not overly smoked. The answer, as it turned out, was using a pickle brine, and smoking at 225 for one hour. We’ll test it out.

Char No. 4 * 196 Smith St., Brooklyn, NY

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Apr 3

Fastest Growing Guts

What could possibly be the fastest growing chain restaurant in America? It must certainly be a question on everyone's mind. Ok, no one's but mine. But thank you, Technomic, for such meaningful-to-me data.

Once again, I'm reminded how out of the loop NYC is as we only have two eateries on the list. Five Guys is definitely a growing presence. In no time it went from big deal opening in the hinterlands a.k.a. College Point, to quietly popping up around the city with no one caring. I think the well done patty thing puts off the burger intelligentsia while I'm more weirded out by the hysteria-driven signs warning customers to not remove the gratis shell-on peanuts from the premises lest a flurry of deadly allergens become unleashed on the neighborhood.

I can appreciate the charms of number eight, Chipotle, and only work a block from one (that has a perpetually huge line) but I hate rice in my burritos and even without the extra starch those hefty tortilla cylinders are still too caloric for my sad world.

Speaking of trying to reduce girthiness, how could you eat at a place with potbelly in the name?

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Mar 30

10 Downing

No mention of 10 Downing seems complete without noting how much noise the highly windowed flatiron space generates. Perhaps I'm hard of hearing but the sound level barely registered with me. In fact, I prefer a raucous hum—especially among tightly packed tables—it creates an aural blanket so you can at least have a facsimile of a private meal. On the upside, I didn’t get crammed into a row of two-tops either. A spacious corner banquette miraculously opened up, making the 15-minute wait well worth the temporary smooshiness. The narrow holding pen really can't contain the crowds that amass. After being seated just beyond the far end of the bar, drinkers began spilling over into the dining area behind the back of our L-shaped seat. Our waiter offered to shoo them away but I didn't want to be that kind of asshole.

The menu is one of those hand-wringers where so much is going on that I'm not sure how to compose my meal. Pastas in two sizes, small plates, charcuterie, grilled prawns by the piece, then full sized mains. If I weren't self-conscious I would've ordered the whole cured meat shebang but knowing I read somewhere that it could easily feed three-to-four diners made me balk (though I recall a similar portion suggestion for the charcroute at Irving Mill and thought it was totally acceptable for two). Plus, I wanted to try at least one other item.

10 downing pork belly rillettes & duck prosciutto

I lamed out and selected two meaty treats: pork belly rillettes and duck prosciutto. And yes, it was plenty. The thing about rillettes is that once the main ingredient has been moussed it's not like you can discern the original cut of meat (At least I can't, and also lack the palate to discern fat percentages and meat sources comprising hamburger patties.) The spread was rich and definitely porcine but I would never be able to identify it was pork belly. Duck prosciutto is a great idea since the dark meat is rightly rich, oily and striped with a nice white stripe of fat, like pork prosciutto plus. (Timely: one of the gifts I gave James later than evening was a copy of Charcuterie, mainly for the smoker recipes but there is also one for duck prosciutto I want to try. Also timely: my opening up directly to a passage about Charles Ingalls, a recent fascination, and his venison smoking practices in Little House in the Big Woods,) Accompaniments included mini apple cubes flavored with mustard and pickled green beans, carrots and cauliflower.

10 downing brussels sprouts anchovy vinaigrette poached egg & parmesan

I'm always happy with hearty winter vegetables like brussels sprouts and these were pleasers keeping in the style of the restaurant: rich, strong and shy of overwhelming. The runny yolk, anchovy vinaigrette, sharp parmesan shavings and breadcrumbs melded everything together. I recreated a not-half-bad rendition of this dish for dinner last night.

Mild disappointment set in when we were told upon being presented with menus that the porchetta special was a goner. Decimated by 8:15 pm? Oh well. I wasn't immediately drawn to any of the entrees either. I could've ordered another appetizer instead but wanted to see how the mains played out.

10 downing duck breast pickled figs tokyo turnips & shallot marmalade

Duck breast with Tokyo turnips satisfied my obvious taste for root vegetables and dark meat poultry. I felt like all of the components remained separate, not just visually, the flavors didn't want to integrate either. Turnips were firm and bitter, the figs were soft and pickled sweet and sour, the grass green swaths were beautiful but didn’t taste distinctive. Everything looked pretty and the meat was cooked just rare enough but the overall impression was flatness. Or maybe sense of taste had been dulled after the more aggressive starters.

10 downing beef cheeks saffron cabbage bone marrow soubise mustard spaetzle

Braised beef cheeks, saffron cabbage, bone marrow soubise, mustard spaetzle.

10 downing chocolate cake almond ganache salted caramel with malted gelato

I don't know how I fell for the molten cake. I refuse to knowingly order those damn soft-centered pucks out of some misplaced anger at their pervasiveness across all cuisines and strata of restaurants, highbrow and low. The description just said chocolate cake. How could I have known? Of course it was wonderfully gooey and pleasant. The malted gelato and crackly salt caramel topping is what made the dish, though.

Just like how Momofuku Ko waylaid me with their music (I'm still baffled that someone on a message board scoffing a bit at my typically tangent-filled write up referred to me as a "he." Do I sound like a dude when I write?) 10 Downing divided my attention with the art. The more I drink (two glasses of Cote du Rhones with dinner and two glasses of a random happy hour Italian red at Dove Parlor earlier) the more I focus on things other than the food. Not a crime when they are distractions I enjoy. I never thought I'd live to encounter a collage containing Mark Lester in the bathroom of a West Village restaurant serving $27 entrees.

The dining room features a pleasing hodgepodge of paintings and photos curated by Tracy Williams, Ltd. From my seat closer to where the angles of the room converge into a triangle there were no walls. However, I was face-to-face with a row of black and white publicity shots and drawings of what appeared to be child stars, though I only recognized a few faces. An infant head covered in a blanket, Spanky from Little Rascals, pupil-less Orphan Annie from the comic and Jonathan Ke Quan, the Asian nerd from The Goonies. Though it's not likely apparent from this here blog, in past online and print lives I devoted quite a bit of energy to child stars, E.T.'s Henry Thomas being number one. In my Portland days I decorated my studio apartment with framed photos of Ike Eisenmann, Peter Ostrum, Mark Lester and the like. At the time it never occurred to me that this would be an appropriate motif for a trendy restaurant.

I'm not sure if this series on 10 Downing's wall was art or décor (I haven't yet deduced who the creator is). I do know that it endeared me to a restaurant that I otherwise might've categorized as solid but typical of what's currently en vogue. Strange how these things work. I'm emotional not rational, and even though I've smartly closed the gap significantly with age my impression of brussels sprouts can still be enhanced by the presence of long forgotten juvenile actors.

10 Downing * 10 Downing, New York, NY

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Mar 28

Taking It to the Streets

Writing about Southeast Asian street food served indoors would be my ultimate assignment because I love the region's cuisine and have a fetish for dining in malls abroad (ok, here too).

Robyn of EatingAsia got to live my dream for the Wall Street Journal. It's really not her beat, though. She and her husband (both Americans who I met during my 2005 Kuala Lumpur trip shortly after they had moved there) are really masters of the street food scene. Ok, scene sounds overblown but they know what they're doing.

I've been to quite a few of the venues mentioned in the article: Madame Kwan's, StraitsKitchen, Food Republic and Lau Pa Sat (as a foreigner I consider that a real hawker center not so much "stylish street food"). I've also eaten at Bangkok's MBK Shopping Center, though not the specific restaurant mentioned. I recently had my sights set on Central World or Siam Paragon, but Suvarnabhumi Airport ruined my end-of-2008 vacation. And yes, I'm still bitter.

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Mar 27

Does Anyone Really Eat Ribbon Candy?

Whenever James returns from visiting his parents in Northern Virginia I get scared. When returning from trips related to a gift-giving event such as Christmas or a birthday, I become even more frightened. I have a low tolerance for useless crap and clutter. If I had my way, it wouldn't enter the front door because once it has crossed the threshold you know it's stuck in the apartment for life (or until I move).

It's one thing to lug home lamps and potholders sourced from stores like Home Goods or the back section of Marshalls that looks just like Home Goods, but in some ways the oddball cast off food is even worse. Monday night I was faced with the following:

¾ of a white fruit-topped cake from Giant (I tried a slice because I can't resist desserts in the house and the damn thing was 85% whipped cream, 10% dry cake, 5% flavorless fruit…so disappointing)
2 packages of Oscar Meyer bacon
4 pounds of powdered sugar (have you ever heard of Holly brand?)
2 bananas
1 Chick-fil-A spicy chicken sandwich
1 Chick-fil-A waffle fries
1 packages of Vortman sugar free Almondette cookies
1 bag of Barcel pork rinds (a Mexican brand)
1 2.25 pound bag of Sun Maid raisins
1 bottle of V8
1 tray of Costco sweet rolls
1 pound of Costco butter
6 assorted Kashi TLC bars
18 extra large eggs
1 bag of stale looking cookies with lots of German and Russian words (The only English reads Ginger “Lux” cookies. These look to be a product of Moldova imported to Brighton Beach. I imagine these were purchased during a trip to Brooklyn, forgotten about, and now repatriated.
1 box of hard ribbon candy (about as foul a treat as candy corn, but it certainly is pretty)

So many abnormal sizes and peculiar brands, half probably past their expiration dates. EVen my cat is baffled. One would say that this bounty definitely provides a window into the psyche of the givers.

I was happy for the Chick-fil-A items, though, since those were specifically bought for me somewhere in Maryland. Now that I look at it, most of the non-sweet items are useful. I'm still not touching the unappealing cookies, candy, cake or the powdered sugar. I can't even recall the last time I used confectioner's sugar and I don't see any glazing or frosting in my future either. If only I could go a little re-gifting of my own.

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Mar 26

Pa is My Co-Pilot

I have a particular fondness for Michael Landon’s touching portrayal of Charles Ingalls, a.k.a. Pa on Little House on the Prairie (I swear more than once I caught my own dad’s eyes welling up with tears during an episode. He was full of paternal pioneer spirit, too) as well as smoked comestibles, so a friend’s impromptu birthday celebration at Diamond in Greenpoint served me well. By the way, have you ever seen the real Charles Ingalls? He sported some seriously au courant facial hair.

Never a beer aficionado, I just discovered rauchbier, a German smoked beverage that tastes like a campfire. A little goes a long way as I’ve been discovering with the newish smoker in my household. (I will soon be experimenting with different flavors—cherry, hickory, alder—since last night I gave a wood pellet assortment to James as one of his birthday gifts. He shares the same date of birth as Jane, who was the guest of honor at Diamond, but missed out since he was out of town.) If they can mentholate beer, why not add smoky overtones?

I need to stop complaining about the state of dining in my neighborhood because Greenpoint seems unusually bereft of choice. I have plenty of options in Carroll Gardens and environs; I just don’t happen to like many of them. If you don’t want mediocre Japanese, Thai or even exemplary Polish what do you do?

I ended up at "Mediterranean Bistro" Lokal, primarily because it was close the subway, en route to drinks afterwards and inoffensive enough (probably a little too inoffensive). Pork ragu with handmade pasta was actually pretty good and soft enough that I could justify eschewing the mush-only wisdom tooth extraction regimen I’d been following. It's not the most attractive plate of food but it was very satisfying.

The birthday season has begun and the first of my fellow 1972ers has turned 37. The greatness of that number shocks me. Thankfully, I still have four months to spend staving it off.

On the upside, I was able to convince a few guests to pose with Pa. My favorite bar decor so far this year.

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Mar 23

King Yum

I wish I had known I was going to be in Floral Park earlier in the day so I could’ve tried Keralan food for lunch. In fact, I wish I had known quite a few things before heading to the Queens/Long Island border early Saturday evening. One being that the movie theater I was looking for that was still playing Swedish teen vampire movie, Let the Right One In, (don't tell me Robert Pattinson is hotter than this kid with zero pigmentation and a pageboy) was housed in the lower arcade of a retirement community. Two, that Let the Right One In had been replaced with He’s Just Not That Into You.

Sure, there was a theater 30-minutes away in the East Village also showing the film but I was intrigued by what Northshore Towers Twin Cinemas far into the outerborough fringes could possibly be like. I was relishing the prospect of an empty house in a weirdo location and as the black-and-white checked finish flag appeared on the GPS device when I all I could see were three ‘60s era co-op towers looming in the middle of a field adjacent to the Grand Central Parkway, I became more intrigued.

While the Northshore Towers website paints the property as luxury residences, all I saw were walkers, canes and oxygen tanks. In the basement of the Beaumont building, you’ll find a gussied up diner filled with middle aged children dining with their parents, a grocery store for tenants only and a cinema with a hard ass security guard.

We were told we had to wait behind the velvet rope because the previous movie hadn’t let out yet. We were the only expectant patrons so I had time to scrutinize the Xeroxed movie schedule taped up on the glassed enclosure and was alarmed to see that Let the Right One In had been whited out and He’s Just Not That Into You had been scrawled on top in block letters. Argh. My plan was too good to be true. After asking the humorless gatekeeper which movie was actually playing, she went downstairs fetched the manager, a younger brunette version of the Crypt Keeper (god bless your soul, Geocities), who had no idea what we were talking about.

He was all, “Er, I just play what they send me.” It was finally determined that he had no idea what Let the Right One In was and that it was never sent. I have absolutely no idea how it ended up on Moviefone in the first place (the schedule on the theater’s website is currently for the week of March 6-12 so no clue there). A white haired couple had appeared by this point and after noting the painful romantic comedy, slowly shuffled away.

The only thing I could think of that would soften my disappointment was finally being able to pay a visit to old-school Americanized Cantonese King Yum in nearby Fresh Meadows. How would it stack up compared to Staten Island’s Jade Island, the only other restaurant of this ilk that I’m aware of?

The dining room was appropriately bambooed, thatched and set off with wooden tiki carvings. A karaoke cabana was set up against one wall. Tall burgundy vinyl menus with fantastical rum-based cocktails on the front page seemed like a good sign.

But all in all the food was as I’d expected it to be: merely average. James thought the space was dreary and that little things like the duck sauce to the spicy mustard tasted off or watered down.

The cuisine isn’t meant to be mind-blowing, which is why I focused on the pupu platter for two and only ordered one entrée, General Tso Chicken. Lo mein would’ve been appropriate but I didn’t want to go overboard.

Nostalgia doesn’t come with a twentieth century price tag. The prices were a little higher than I’d expected. Sure, you can do the column A column B combos, and maybe most diners do (the Queensy crowd didn’t strike me big spenders) but a la carte dishes were well into the teens and the pupu platter was $20.

I chose a zombie to go with my sterno-warmed treats. Maybe I haven’t been giving fruity drinks a fair shake because this wasn’t half-bad.

It could be an east coast west coast thing but I never had wontons with sweet orange duck sauce growing up. I don’t really get their appeal though I do like the crunch they add to hot and sour soup. The sauces of my youth were candy apple red sweet and sour and ketchup in a little circular dish that also contained a small dab of hot mustard. My first ever job was bussing tables at a restaurant a few blocks from my high school called Hunan Garden and I’d spent the first 15 minutes of my shift pouring sticky still warm sweet and sour sauce from a tea kettle into little plastic to go containers. Hot mustard was doled out sparingly, only to the half-way mark.

The pupu platter contained thick beef wedges on skewers and spare ribs, both dangerously sinewy and wanting to occupy the open space in the back of my lower right jaw where my wisdom tooth lived three days prior. Puffy hyper-battered fantail shrimp (they always remind me of fat miniature seals) were a must. The shrimp toast was oozing oil yet I still found the crispy mousse topped triangles irresistible. The foil wrapped chicken was odd. I think it was flavored with a shitload of curry powder, kind of bitter and yellow-tinged with a hint of crushed coriander. I heard a girl at an adjacent table refer to these as Thai chicken. Maybe the curry powder makes it so? Definitely not my favorite.

The general tso wasn’t breaded and crispy as anticipated. I know there’s a real version of this dish that’s not battered, I’ve made it myself, but when I go to a restaurant of this ilk I expect crispy nuggets. There's no denying the silver dome is classy, though.

Once the fruity cocktail floodgates had opened I felt no shame in ordering a pina colada. I’m not sure if it was my vicodin (this meal ended up being a huge mistake considering I was supposed to eating soft food only) or if they actually went heavy on the rum, but I started warming to King Yum after the second drink. I still prefer Jade Island. Even though it’s in the middle of a strip mall the kitschy establishment feels more like a hideaway.

There was no rectifying our thwarted Swedish teenage vampire flick. The least offensive movie playing after 9:30pm in the immediate vicinity was The Reader in Kew Gardens. I was at least hoping for some hot cougar action (ok, I actually take issue with anyone getting that label, but especially anyone under 40) but was faced with a bit more nazi schmaltz than I would’ve liked. Bizarrely, the couple in front of us left within the first 30 minutes, before the film even went south.

King Yum * 181-08 Union Turnpike, Fresh Meadows, NY

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Sunday Night Special: Fish Head Curry

The More Tuscan The Better

Jerky Even a Vegetarian Could Love

Char No. 4

Fastest Growing Guts

10 Downing

Taking It to the Streets

Does Anyone Really Eat Ribbon Candy?

Pa is My Co-Pilot

King Yum

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