Goodies First

Oct 16

Jade Island

I’m still not sure how I ended up at a Staten Island tiki bar on Saturday night. Woodside Filipino goodies were on the afternoon agenda. Early evening was devoted to braving gruesome Jersey Gardens crowds in an attempt to track down a parka that doesn’t make me look like I’m wearing a sleeping bag. And then, naturally, the pinnacle of an exciting Saturday evening would be semi-suburban grocery shopping. There’s nothing like a deserted Richmond Ave. Waldbaum’s for 10pm entertainment, Times-invented hipster influx be damned.

It wasn’t until after picking up total un-necessities like frozen waffles, a caramel apple kit and fish sticks, that Jade Island crossed my consciousness. I’d been wanting to try this strip mall Polynesian near the Costco for a while, and it’s not like I’m frequently in the borough.

I’m no stranger to American-Chinese food; my first ever job was bussing tables for $3.35 an hour at Hunan Garden in Gresham, Oregon. We did serve a pu pu platter but compared to Jade Island, Hunan Garden was practically sophisticated (though at the time, I thought moo shoo pork was supremely exotic). Jade Island is beyond retro; egg foo young, chop suey and chow mein commingle with kitsch like Hawaii “4” O and yam yam steak.

Ordering the pu pu platter was a given, but I had a heck of a time trying to come up with something non-mushy and bland to supplement the finger food. I eventually gave in and tried the chow mein, which was presented in one of those metal domed, pedestal serving platters. Fancy.

Two surprises: no hamburger and no crab rangoon. Rangoons are my favorite lowbrow fake Chinese snack ever. I survived on rumaki (with chicken breast, not traditional chicken liver), shrimp toast, bbq short ribs, fried shrimp and beef skewers, dipped in sweet and sour sauce and hot mustard.

The only other occupied table, whose inhabitants I couldn’t see because of the faux bamboo and thatching, were hell bent on making sure that their food wasn’t spicy, (like that could even happen). The funniest part was their waiter—all of them wear Hawaiian shirts and are hammy to the extreme— brought their food and jokingly said, “spicy just like you asked for.” Sorry, my sense of humor is broad. We started wondering if their thick accents were an act and if they might turn all gruff and guido-y as soon as patrons were out of ear shot.

After one round of sweet, fruity drinks with names like the headhunter, we went even further astray. I couldn’t ignore the list of $4.75 oldies. Forget all that artisanal tonic water and basil-infused vodka nonsense—bring on the grenadine and crème de menthe. By the looks of the lounge crew, it was fairly clear that beer was the drink of choice, but we risked ridicule and with straight faces asked for a grasshopper and pink squirrel. My pink cocktail was a no go, they didn’t have the ingredients (crème de noyaux, I’m guessing) so my fallback whiskey sour sufficed. The grasshopper was bizarrely sky blue, though it did taste harshly of mint. I was baffled since blue usually equals curacao and there wasn’t a hint of orange flavor. If anything, there was a touch of almond. I was too worried to test the bartender’s mettle after that; scotch and soda made up the final round.

At least my fortune was accurate: “You are going to have some new clothes.” I did end up finding a winter coat that only minimally resembles a sleeping bag.

These, plus a few extra photos that wouldn't fit can be viewed on Flickr.

Jade Island * 2845 Richmond Ave., Staten Island, NY

Share on Tumblr

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.

Share on Tumblr

Oct 13

Fighting Tooth and Nail

Maybe it’s because I just got a filling (those eight years of dentist-avoidance are starting to catch up with me. I never used to get cavities. I fear that my 20/20 vision is the only thing still going for me. Now, it’s only a matter of time before cholesterol, diabetes and other inevitables start ravaging my system. But I’m definitely having second thoughts about picking a Brooklyn dentist, the original logic being an office I could walk to in case I ever had to be anesthetized. It’s all stereotypes you could imagine. While drilling my teeth, the phone repair guy forced his way back to our room and got into an altercation about a job taking too long even though the dentist had given him $20 to work quickly, and the repair guy didn’t speak English and the dentist didn’t speak Spanish so they were angrily translating through the dental hygienist, all the while the pressure and pulling in my mouth got more aggressive as this situation escalated. I will definitely not return to this office when and if I ever decide to get my wisdom teeth out) or because I’m at my bedroom computer, which I rarely use since I got a laptop for Christmas, but I’m out of sorts.

There’s no excuse for feeling irrationally downtrodden; it’s Friday, the weather is finally crisp, I’m leaving for China in twelve days, there’s a fun food adventure planned for tomorrow, my copy of Dead Boys showed up at the library last week and it’s really good (reading fiction before going to bed instead of browsing websites [urgh, I almost typed Web sites, which is the wrongheaded style I must use at work] is so much more satisfying)…but I’m one of those moods where I hate everything and want to lay in bed for a week. Is that indulgent or pitiful?

The grunginess of the spaces between the keys on my keyboard is bothering me, and my irritation starts at my fingers and spreads outward to infinity. I can’t concentrate because I’ve run out of room on my shelf for magazine storage and now there’s a foot-high pile of newish issues stacking up on a speaker, my cat hasn’t stopped pooping on the floor and peeing on my clothes since spring (I had to remove all of my clothes from the bottom shelf they’re stacked on—not having drawers for nearly a decade also irks me—and now they’re piled in my windowsills, which is doubly irksome), the zipper on my only decent winter coat has been broken since last year and I don’t know how to fix it, the prospect of dyeing my rapidly graying hair dark brown for the rest of my life only to have it fade to copper a few weeks later is demoralizing, letting it just go gray is even more demoralizing, I need to move my old Tripod site to save a few bucks a month but never find the time, this here blog makes me crazy because the design was only meant to be temporary and it’s not like web weaving is my forte, plus I’m sick of the name, and I don’t mean to write about food so much but I’m too old to regale the world with personal foibles, and now I’m annoyed for even saying that because I don’t really believe that personal foibles ever get stale, long live personal foibles, I want my apartment to look stylish and thought out rather than being a junk heap—I would be fine with a ReadyMade or the low end stuff from Domino look, there’s no need for Elle Décor or Dwell…

Do you know how ridiculous/embarrassing it is to complain about a two-floor apartment in NYC with a dishwasher, washer and dryer and two refrigerators? That’s like weighing 120 pounds and thinking you’re fat (unless you’re a dwarf, in which that case might be tubby). See? Now I’ve crossed the line and annoyed myself, which is great because now I feel much better and can shut the fuck up. But seriously, what do you do with a grown cat who refuses to use a litter box even when you clean it twice a day?

Share on Tumblr

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.

Share on Tumblr

Oct 9

BarFry

1/2 *wow, these closings are getting faster and faster (4/23/08)

As someone who has been known to throw B.Y.O.C (candy, duh) deep fry parties, I couldn’t really ignore BarFry, gimmicky concept or not (though I do think it’s odd to have barf in the name of your restaurant). I figured it would be a while before I got around to trying the restaurant, though.

One, I’m never in the neighborhood, and two, I hate crowds. But Saturday night I found myself attending a rooftop party in the West Village and discovered that a Times Under $25 review has less affect on diners than I’d assumed (even if a write up is so-so, I figure that jus the mention of a new venue might pike curiosity). While Bleecker Street was already kind of a mess at 8:30pm, BarFry was nearly empty. Ok, so neither New Yorkers nor tourists are sold on the concept of haute fritters.

It’s certainly not the type of meal you’d want on a regular basis, and as I’d anticipated, the prices quickly add up (though four drinks probably made up half the bill). Even if you could justify eating this battered, fried food daily, you might not be able to afford it. We were encouraged to order six-to-ten items for two, which I thought was a little excessive.

For the straight up tempura treatment, we went with pumpkin, shishito peppers, a crab cake and two pork dumplings. You’re given four dipping sauces: sweet miso, jalapeño soy, chile yuzu and wasabi remoulade. Soy, proving you can’t always fight tradition, worked the best. The batter was crispy, barely greasy and seemed like a fitting match for equally light items. The pork dumplings didn’t really need the coating, but I could’ve told you that before ordering them.

We split an oyster po boy, which was a bit heavy on the lettuce. I couldn’t even tell you what the oysters tasted like. As part of a sampling meal, the sandwich wasn’t a disaster but if it was the only thing you picked you might be disappointed.

Our only non-fried dish, a special of “noodles” made from cuttlefish, spiked with wasabi and I think shisho leaf, was a smart departure. If there were to be a next time, I would balance out the meal with more fresh items. But how many tempura-centric restaurants does one encounter in a lifetime? I didn’t go there to eat delicate Japanese-influenced raw dishes.

I’m not a chefy person but I did notice Zak Pelaccio wandering in and out the front door during our meal. Later, at the party where I didn’t know anyone because the common thread was Johns Hopkins and U. Penn, James made an offhand comment about how we’d just been at BarFry and saw Fatty Crab. I don’t assume that anyone knows anything about restaurants. I barely do, myself. But a younger, brownstone Brooklyn version of Susie Essman standing nearby barked, “I’m friends with his wife.”

Ok, lady, no disparaging was occurring (it’s not like I got into my irrational displeasure with the Times’s obsession with his parents’ Soho loft). I don’t think being called a fatty crab is so horrible. In fact, I’m a fatty crab personified.

Yum…crabs. BarFry should totally tempura soft shell crabs, assuming they’re still in business by the time they’re in season.

BarFry * 50 Carmine St., New York, NY

Share on Tumblr

Oct 8

1 Comment

Cute Overload: Plush Edition

Oh my god, how many sewn, knitted and crocheted renditions of food exist in the world? There’s a whole softie subculture (not to be confused with furries) that’s nearly too wide-ranging to wrap my head around. Squishy is good but squishy with faces is even better. Next to blue food, anthropomorphism is about as good as it gets.

I went on a Nyanko buying binge a few years ago and have tried to temper my mania for cats disguised as food. Now I’m attempting to be more selective; the first type of cuteness I can weed out is crochet. To be honest, all that nubbiness gives me the creeps. There’s something too cigarette-smoke-and-wet-dog-infested-afghan about it for my liking.

Here are three items I could live with.

I can’t look at these felt egg tarts for too long or they’ll make me crap myself with glee. Maybe that’s the true meaning of the term Cutesypoo.

Moldybreadslice

My Paper Crane has ridiculously sweet products. The bruised banana is sad cute, but I won’t be able to rest until I get the plush moldy bread.

Sweet Meats don’t have faces but I don’t love them any less.

Share on Tumblr

Oct 4

I’d Rather Eat Molten Lava

Dark_molten_chocolate_cakes No, I never talk Top Chef. I hardly talk TV at all, lest you think I watch hours and hours a night (I turn it on at 7pm and it doesn’t usually get turned off until 1am, I’m not really ashamed). But it’s the finale and all I cared was that the too-young-to-be-so-‘90s, poor man’s Jennifer Aniston didn’t walk away a winner.

But first, I couldn’t get past everyone calling foie gras “foie.” Gross, how hard is it to say the extra syllable?

Then, I nearly lost my shit when Hung (my favorite because he’s so unabashedly un-nice, yet proficient) went molten cake for his wild card. I hated how last episode it was all about who cooks with soul and how Hung isn’t in his food (like an Asian must fish sauce, tamarind and coconut it all up to get respect—which is exactly what he did to win). But after I saw those chocolate cakes coming out of the ring molds, I understood the true meaning of soullessness. So, so wrong, and so straightforward. I’m surprised he didn’t continue on the proving myself to be warm and cuddly through my heritage route by spiking the dessert with five-spice powder, ginger, pandan or something seemingly exotic.

No matter, it’s quite a feat for a chef to pull off a victory in spite of such a lame dessert. But seriously, chocolate molten cake?

Photo from Kraft, which tells you all you need to know about chocolate molten cakes.

Share on Tumblr

Oct 3

All Atwitter

I totally don’t get the point of Twitter, but then, I didn’t immediately get what the big deal was with Flickr or YouTube either. Maybe it’s because succinct-ness isn’t my forte. Yes, the old windbag theory must be it.

So, look, here are some homegrown attempts at Twittering:

Watching Damages in awe as Dillahunt makes brief appearance. Indeterminate time a few minutes ago

Well, you can’t use HTML so that was already a bust.

Wondering if I’m going to get enough use out of my light jackets since fall isn’t cold enough to wear them yet and next thing you know it’ll be full on wool weather. On the way home from work

Phew, got that within nine characters of the 140 limit, but I actually had a lot of pointless stuff to add to that deep thought.

Angry that I saved my breakfast until 12:30pm to conserve on food and my yogurt I just bought yesterday with a Halloween expiration date had already gone moldy. 12:30pm

Angrier that I left my camera at home this morning. Using a phone for photos doesn’t feel natural. 12:32pm

Ok, that’s my entire day in a nutshell and now I’m exhausted with all that rehashing—Twittering takes a lot out of you.

Share on Tumblr

Oct 2

Pamplona

Sadly, I knew this day would eventually come. (10/23/09)

I don’t take on restaurants as causes and I rarely visit places more than once, even in my own neighborhood (er, maybe especially in my own neighborhood). As it is, there are a gazillion worthy restaurants that I’ll never get around to. But for some inexplicable reason I took a shining to Ureña. I guess it’s the appeal of the underdog; it wanted to be something it couldn’t.

So, I was a little bummed to hear of the inevitable closing. But I was also curious how Pamplona might mix things up and finally had the chance to pay a visit after a semi-nearby wine class. You’d think after tasting eighteen wines (in addition to a full glass of pinot noir at lunch) my judgment might be impaired, and maybe it was. However, I’d like to believe that the two albariños with dinner only heightened my senses.

I’d been to Ureña twice, and still, I couldn’t tell you what’s changed with the décor, though a cartoony painting of a pig with acorns definitely is an addition. The palette and furniture seemed muted and neutral before and still seems so. I hesitate to say that they lack patronage because our dining like freaks at 6pm on a Saturday didn’t exactly help us observe the reincarnation under ideal circumstances.

We were originally told by the hostess that we could only sit at the bar or the new tables set up in the bar area since we didn’t have reservations. I acquiesce, rarely pipe up, but the dining room was completely empty and thankfully another staff member said we were welcome to sit at a table as long as we finished by 8pm. Not a problem, and the gesture was appreciated.

I decided to try a few things from different sections of the now abbreviated menu. Gone are $30+ entrees, the tasting menu and anything foamy. I was interested in the $10 pulpo braseado a la rioja, essentially wine-braised octopus. I can’t find this dish listed anywhere in the iteration I had. Others mention sausage and smoked lima beans, but this rendition consisted of a purple tangle of octopus legs atop swirls of cream-colored horseradish sauce flanked by disks that resembled carrots but made themselves known as potatoes once bitten into. I don’t know what the wispy sprouts were.

It was too tough to decide which cured meats to sample, so we went the whole $19 and had a plate of Serrano ham, chorizo and two others that are slipping my mind. I’m not afraid of bread, and I always like to have plenty on hand when eating straight up meats or cheeses. Same with oily, saucy dishes like the octopus. Our original serving was replenished. I only mention this because the couple who later sat next to us rejected a second batch of bread, which made me ponder our gluttony. It’s not 2004, carbs are ok again, right?

I would’ve chosen a couple more small dishes instead of the paella if it had been totally up to me. But I’m frequently wrong. The paella, made with bomba rice, was spot on (not that I’ve eaten my way across Valencia, but I have sampled a few versions in Spain). I don’t tend to get excited over non-Asian dishes centering on rice (what’s the big deal with risotto? And chicken soup with rice is foul), paella included. It either tends to be mushy or dull. This saffron-enhanced beauty dotted with mussels, squid and generous hunks of rabbit, was neither. All the grains stayed separate without being chalky or dry.

I make mention of prices (a practice that always feels too servicey for my purposes) only to illustrate part of the Pamplona re-vamp. Emphasis is on smaller dishes, tapas and sharing. The $30 paella was one of the priciest items but wasn’t unreasonable split between two diners.

Sheesh, I almost forgot dessert. Churros with Valrhona chocolate were light and only barely sweetened. I can’t say that they were the most exciting thing in the world.

It’s hard to predict if the new formula will catch on with diners who go for the flash of Boqueria, Mercat or Suba. Not that Pamplona necessarily needs to capture that audience to succeed; there’s plenty of room for creative Spanish food in the city.

Pamplona * 37 E. 28th St., New York

Share on Tumblr

Oct 1

Peking Duck House

After researching where to eat in Beijing, the urge for peking duck became hard to ignore. I can’t say for sure that Peking Duck House is a top contender in NYC—I’ve only tried a few places for this delicacy—but it’s where I tend to go and I like to believe that it’s above average.

Two diners are tricky. We wanted a whole duck, but the $25 per person combo dinner with more side dishes and appetizers only offers half a duck for two. It’s not immediately apparent from glancing at the menu that you can just buy a duck flat out for $38, but you can.

The bird comes out whole and is shown to you before being taken to a nearby table to be carved. I always wonder what they do with the carcass. I know that some restaurants will make a soup course from the leftovers. The pancakes at Peking Duck House are large, more burrito sized that normal, so each bundle is substantial. I actually prefer the sweet fluffiness of mantou that some restaurants serve; it feels more decadent.

I never know what to order to compliment the duck. Cold sesame noodles seemed innocuous to start. A vegetable would be smart to counteract the fatty meat and skin, garlic eggplant wasn’t the wisest since Chinese-style eggplant is rarely healthy with all the oil and sauce it comes in. It was good, though incredibly garlicky.

My fortune didn’t sit well with me, true as it may be. “Perhaps you’ve been focusing too much on yourself.” Well, duh. (9/28/07)

Jade Island

Deep Purple

Fighting Tooth and Nail

Sunday Night Special: Steamed Taro with Chopped Salted Chiles

BarFry

Cute Overload: Plush Edition

I’d Rather Eat Molten Lava

All Atwitter

Pamplona

Peking Duck House

Featured

Occasional Instagramming

Yes, it’s come to this

My Other Blogs

What?

The Past Will Haunt You

Pigeonholing 101