tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15845241503874839872024-03-08T13:23:20.893+07:00Ben et Nate: The Gaping MawOpen Wide.Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-88396989088025465372007-08-08T15:34:00.000+07:002007-08-09T10:14:40.764+07:00Is That Salmon Ella?<span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/1053030755/" title="Nate et Cheap-as-fuck Salmon"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1197/1053030755_608fa9386c_m.jpg" alt="Nate et Cheap-as-fuck Salmon" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>[Nate sez]:</span> I've encountered scores of the scarred and traumatized who flee at the sight of fish. I'll grin and inform my guests that they will be dining on an array of formerly finned creatures and I all I get in return are gasps of horror, uneasy looks, and drops of sweat dripping down foreheads.<br /><br />Why does everyone seem to have an uncle that loved forcing twice-killed fish down their nieces' and nephews' throats? Am I responsible for showing people that fish is, like, really fucking good?<br /><br />Now I'm sure a great deal of you who would bother to read this unpredictable mess Ben and I call a blog are already hip to the fact that fish, whether fatty or slim, small or large, fresh or frozen, DOA or canned is a beautiful thing. you can grill it, steam it, poach it, bake it, broil it, look at it, play with it, make funny faces at, or even just shove it in your gaping maw raw...or at least I know I like to do that.<br /><br />But really, the most well-liked and easy to procure and prepare fish is Salmon. If you follow these five steps, I can almost guarantee that you will be shocked and awed by the sheer pleasure of it's juicy, fatty, delicious, healthy, salty, nutritiousliciousness.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/1053031061/" title="Cheap Salmon: Seaoned well"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1128/1053031061_aff08b9b5a_m.jpg" alt="Cheap Salmon" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">#1. Don't spend a lot.</span> I buy farmed, not that red, raised in squalid conditions Salmon that costs somewhere in the 'hood of 5-7 bucks a pound. What you want is marbled fish - look at that picture - all that white stuff is fish fat, that great shit your doctor's been trying to get you to eat. It also keeps the muscle fibers separate and lubed up so it turns out juicy and delicious. Make sure you buy your fish with skin on too.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">#2. Crank your oven.</span> Turn your oven onto 500 degrees F. And preheat it so you're fish hits the heat hard.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">#3. Smell that Salmon!</span> If your fish smells (and sometimes it does, though if you bought it the day you're cooking it, it probably won't) rinse it in the sink. "What!" you exclaim, "You want me to touch that thing, and like, get my hands on it?" Yeah, I do. And you're going to be rubbing stuff all over it soon so get over it already!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/1053030955/" title="Side of Polenta"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1377/1053030955_22477b5363_m.jpg" alt="Polenta" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">#4. Seasoning.</span> Take a cookie sheet, lay some foil down and cover it up. Throw a bit of oil on there and rub with your dirty hand. Now take the Salmon and slap it down on the sheet. Put a bit of oil on the flesh and a lot of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Kosher salt</span> and pepper on there (NO IODIZED SALT) - just like a steak. Now rub it gently and whisper sweet nothings to your meat.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">#5. Whacking.</span> Put the freaking thing in the hot as hell oven. AND READ CAREFULLY...There is no such thing as an exact time your Salmon will take. Depending on the size, anywhere from 8 to 20 minutes. The thicker and bigger, the longer. You should poke your salmon to see if it's done. It is getting near done when the thick area of the flesh feels firmer than it did before you put it in - it should have a little give, but not too much. An over done piece feels like a clenched muscle. Even if you think it's a little underdone, take it out of the oven and let it sit for about 10 minutes with some foil gently placed over it.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NOTE:</span> You will not die from undercooked salmon. In fact, you might even like it. As time goes on, you will learn how to judge the done-ness by experience. This is how good cooks are made.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]:</span> The great thing about Salmon is that it goes well with so many wines, red or white. One thing remains constant: you want a wine that is fruity and juicy, most certainly not that dry, and is probably closer to a "drinking" wine than a "food" wine (meaning something that sucks unless you eat something with it). I suggest a light, cheap Pays d'Oc Pinot Noir like French Rabbit (in a box!?), or a <span style="font-weight: bold;">Vouvray</span>.<br /><br />Vouvray is one of my favorite wines - it comes from the Loire Valley of France and is made from mostly Chenin Blanc. If you've had POS, way too dry, 16% Chenin Blancs from <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/1053031871/" title="Vouvray"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1230/1053031871_00ead2510a_m.jpg" alt="Vouvray" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>Aussieland and South Africa, you wouldn't even recognize Vouvray. The type I like is off-dry, which means it's not dry, but it isn't perceptibly sweet either. Ask your wine merchant for an inexpensive, off-dry Vouvray. It has strong notes of pears and apples, an understated minerality to provide structure, and is arguably one of the most agreeable wines around.<br /><br />I haven't had any this year yet, so I can't really tell you what's good right now. Just ask your damn wine people. It is their job to know after all...Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-3071311089020142382007-08-01T11:25:00.001+07:002007-08-01T12:28:45.189+07:00The Magical Fruit.<span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]:</span> We've always focused on the food that was awesome. Transcendental experiences of taste, things that make you go blind with the pleasure of the moment, or make you question if life is worth living as few moments seem like they could possibly top the bite of food you just took.<br /><br />Of<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/970526716/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1372/970526716_ac96996471_m.jpg" width="180" height="240" alt="Black Beans and Brown Rice" align="right" border="0"/></a> course every day can't be like this, and if it were we probably wouldn't find the truly amazing meals as noteworthy. Most days you just want something <span style="font-style: italic;">good</span>. It doesn't have to be mom's homemade comfort food, but I've found my own easy, filling (and fulfilling) meal which has changed the way I eat and I would choose over Mac'n'Cheese or a frozen pizza any day. Thinking about it might not make me salivate, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't eat foie gras numerous times a week and still feel good about myself (or my waistline).<br /><br />In my case the staple of choice that I would, could, and do eat a bare minimum of three times a week is brown rice and black beans. It's tasty, it's filling, it's remarkably healthy, and as if that weren't enough ridiculously cheap. Everything I want from my everyday meal.<br /><br />As you may or may not<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/970524862/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1334/970524862_2eba040f2f_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Brown Rice" align="right" border="0"/></a> know <a href="http://whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=128">brown rice</a> is way healthier than white rice - containing all sorts of vitamins, nutrients, and fiber. Oh yeah, <a href="http://whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=2">black beans</a> are also wicked good for you. Between the two you get more nutrition than you know what to do with, and as an added bonus all that fiber will keep things more regular than Mussolini's trains.<br /><br />I really can't sing the praises of this wonder-combo enough: fast, easy, and just damn good. If you're penny-pinching your way through college/unemployment/saving for something, maybe you should track down a 20 pound bag of brown rice and a pallet of black beans, it's responsible for getting me through pretty much every week (and maintaining my girlish figure).<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/969816049/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1167/969816049_2f31827528_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Black Bean and Corn Soup" align="right" border="0"/></a> The lazy man in me just boils up some rice, opens a can of beans (with the addition of spices) and through the wonders of modern microwave technology dinner is ready in no time. If you're feeling a little fancier there's always the black bean soup/stew/chili route which requires the addition preparation of vegetables and having cans of corn and tomatoes on hand, but is a good way to change things up if you've had three meals of simple black beans with brown rice this week and it's only Tuesday.<br /><br />Oh, and if you have some brown rice left over you can always make fried rice with it. But that's another blog.Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-54413777621240108782007-07-25T12:50:00.000+07:002007-07-26T00:43:58.874+07:00Meat and Potatoes.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/541807934/" title="Mmmm..Beefy"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1307/541807934_5d140ac6fb_m.jpg" alt="Steaky Goodness" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>[Ben sez]:</span> Now that our Asian adventure is quickly fading into the past we're not really eating out for three meals a day (plus four snacks and two desserts), and being the currently unemployed college graduates we are, we don't make it out to eat multiple times a week to find something to write about. As an alternative we've decided to treat you to some of our favorite home cooking (as with the smoked pork two weeks ago).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">This week is Ben et Nate's favorite meal: Steak and Mashed Sweet Potatoes</span> (or Yams if that's your preferred nomenclature).<br /><br />The first step in making this awesome meal is to find yourself a reputable source for good meat. I happen to luckily live mere blocks from a <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/541791540/" title="Ribeye, Baby"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1056/541791540_8c52361fd8_m.jpg" alt="Ribeye" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>butcher called "Ready Meats", or as I like to call it, "The happiest place on Earth." I might have spent too much time and money there since they all know my name and recent events of my life, but the key is to find a butcher you can trust as a source for high quality products and maintain a healthy relationship with them.<br /><br />Once you've acquired your steak(s) there are only a couple steps to perfection:<br />1) heat up a cast iron pan in a 500° oven<br />2) heavily salt and pepper both sides and rub with oil<br />3) cook 30-45 seconds on each side over high heat on your stove<br />4) finish with two minutes on each side in the oven<br />5) let it rest for five minutes.<br /><br />This is the Alton Brown/Good Eats method which I use for every steak in the 1/2" to 1" thick range - sirloin, ribeye, strip. With those instructions you should be able to turn out steak house quality steaks for a fraction of the price.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/541805374/" title="Mashed Yams et Shallots/Chilli"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1161/541805374_7a2a23c0c9_m.jpg" alt="Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Shallots" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>Of course a "meat and potatoes" meal needs some kind of potato, once again I turned to Alton Brown (one of my food heroes) for inspiration. In the yam episode of Good Eats ("Potato, My Sweet") he prepares a wonderful sweet potato mash spiced up with some chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. It dawned on me after I'd thrown away my third can of half-used chipotles in adobo sauce that there had to be a better answer - <a href="http://www.huyfong.com/no_frames/garlic.htm">Chili Garlic Sauce</a>! Steam some cubed sweet potatoes, mash them, add salt, pepper, butter and some Chili Garlic Sauce and you're in business. Extremely delicious business.<br /><br />I don't steal all my tricks from Alton Brown, I swear.. just most of them.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/541894431/" title="Thriller, BFI Style"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1169/541894431_aa90d353fc_m.jpg" alt="All Thriller, All the Time" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]: </span>Of course there needs to be a solid beverage to accompany this perfect meal. Beer immediately comes to mind because of the quintessential American nature of the meat and potatoes paradigm. However, our ill-mannered, cigarette smoking, coffee swilling, art snobbing friends in France have a much better match for steak et yam: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Bordeaux</span>. It can be strong, smoky, and tannic, or silky, smooth and succulent. With meat and taters, you couldn't ask for a better match either way.<br /><br />What the hell is Bordeaux anyways? Why do most all French wines have silly names like Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé, Chateauneuf-du-Pape (which means New Countryhouse/Castle/Residence of the Pope)? <span style="font-weight: bold;">A brief answer:</span><br /><br />French wine is classified not by varietal (like Cabernet, Merlot, Syrah), but by region (Like Napa, CA or Williamette, OR). Each region has specific wines that thrive in that environment; Napa grows mostly Cabernet, Chardonnay, and Merlot, and Williamette grows mostly Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/896657101/" title="Ch. Mouton-Rothschild"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1089/896657101_f16c18bcbb_m.jpg" alt="Bordeaux 1998" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="166" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">And</span> even when we buy a Napa Cabernet, other wines (Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, etc) are blended in to balance out the flavor of the main variety - so in essence, almost all wines are blends.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bordeaux is a region, like Napa</span>. The main grapes grown are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Semillon. When you pick up a bottle of Bordeaux at your vinomart, its color will give you the first level of insight into what the bottle contains - red is Cab or Merlot dominant, and white is Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc dominant. <span style="font-style: italic;">Most likely</span>. With French wine, the varietal note is not necessarily as important as the overall quality of the wine. To put it lightly, it takes a retarded amount of "education" (<span style="font-style: italic;">read</span> drinking) to remember which of subregions correspond to which dominant flavors (like St. Emillion is Merlot dominant, whereas Margaux is Cab dominant, but not <span style="font-style: italic;">as</span> Cab dominant as Pauillac...).<br /><br />The point here people: find yourself a wine merchant who you trust and gives you good, low price recommendations. I know I mentioned <a href="http://www.solovinowines.com/">Solo Vino</a> last week, but I'll mention it again. Ben and I learned gobs about wine from talking to the employees (who all have Sommelier licenses BTW), and they consistently sell us low price bottles that shock and amaze. We're talking $11-16 for bomb-ass Bordeaux k?<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/541901731/" title="Cluzan et Eyraux"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1410/541901731_b33a86fdcf_m.jpg" alt="The Evening's Selections" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>Bordeaux is beautiful, and though some of the most expensive bottles of wine in existence come from there, here are a few bottles that run the range of what is affordable, can be drank now, and can be cellared down for years to come:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ch. (that means Chateau) Cluzan Bordeaux, 2003</span> - Smells like cherries, rasberries, and other misc. red fruit, and tastes the same. The fruit is balanced out by a nice smoky oak, medium body and overall acidity. This is a drinker for right now - it feels soft, and easy to drink by itself, but pairs beautifully with just about anything that can take red wine.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;" class="style2">Ch. Haut Lucas Côtes de Castillon,</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span class="style2"><span style="font-weight: bold;">2003</span> - at $16, it's a freaking steal - and I rarely want to spend more than $12. This wine is soft but structured, med-light bodied, not too dry, black-fruity, and just simply impossible to argue with. It's also 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc. I know it sounds wussy (I'm not drinking fucking Merlot!), but Haut Lucas has a very mature and artful presence - this is not like crappy, overripe, 18% alcohol, hangover-inducing CA Merlot we've all burnt out on. It's definitely Merlot based, and there's nothing wrong with that. Did you hear me? - </span><span class="style2">(french)</span><span class="style2"> <span style="font-weight: bold;">MERLOT ROCKS MY WORLD!!!</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/541914683/" title="Glass of Wine"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1322/541914683_bbdd2cc461_m.jpg" alt="Vino" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ch. Les Eyraux, 2005</span> - This Cabernet forward wine will need a few years to iron out it's bitterness and astringency (from tannins), but is fantastic with a fatty piece of meat right now. The aroma is definitively Cab - a bit vegetal and a bit dark fruit, countered with a great campfire smell coming up from your glass. Light bodied and neither sweet nor dry, the main flavor is of simple red fruit. It's not the kind of thing you would sit around and drink right now - it's too rough. Make sure you serve it with food - and buy a few extras to put in your cellar to drink in 2010.<br /></span>Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-70935406768865412462007-07-18T14:40:00.000+07:002007-07-19T12:19:23.917+07:00Stop and Smell the Rosé<span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/847244442/" title="Nate et Sutton"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1407/847244442_376c0a9027_m.jpg" alt="nateRoseRock" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>[Nate sez]:</span> Maybe I'm just tickled pink. Perhaps it's just my feminine side showing through. Or maybe I'm really just a closet White Zin drinker (::shivers violently::). No, Rosé is much more than meets your mouth, or your expectations.<br /><br />Last summer Ben and I were incredibly lucky to be in the company of people who wanted to tell the world about the wonders of pink wine. No, it's not sweet. And it isn't just a bucket of kool-aid strawberries in your face either. Rosés run a refreshing balance of fruitiness, minerality, acidity, texture. It also happens to be in the $7-12 range at your local vinomart. As far as wine is concerned, it's probably the most versatile style out there. Serve it well chilled with grilled anything, roasted veg, burgers, pastas, pizzas, and even a bunch of Asian food - Sushi, Thai Curry, Fried Rice, Dumples, and it'll probably even go with Jung's Chow Mein if you absolutely insist.<br /><br />Since you're probably thinking "Well Nate, this Rosé thing sounds fascinating, and I'd like to know more about the fine differences between Old World and New World style sensory descriptors, and what labels can I find at my vinomart?"<br /><br />I'm glad you asked.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">le Original: The French School</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/847343520/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1061/847343520_ca1188fd91_m.jpg" alt="leFrance" align="right" border="0" height="161" width="240" /></a>The French are stereotypically synonymous with good wine, and Rosé is absolutely no exception. Almost every French Rosé I've had has delightful fruity flavors like rasberry, strawberry, and plum - however unlike our friends in White Zinville, these wines are balanced by being very dry, very crisp, and often posses a structuring minerality that frankly drives me wild. Minerality is kind of a "stony" flavor, like limestone or slate. Not that I've spent <span style="font-style: italic;">a lot</span> time licking rocks, but minerality tastes like what you'd imagine rocks to taste like. They're also often high alcohol, and can be made from a very wide variety of grapes from Pinot Noir, Syrah, Grenache to Carignan, Cinsault, and Mourvedre. Or whatever the hell else is laying around your grape press.<br /><br />Personally, I happen to love the Southern French varieties that come from the Rhone Valley, Provence, and Costieres de Nimes. They're cheap and they freaking rule. Here's a couple of noteworthy labels.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Routas Rosé 2006, Provence</span>: At $11, it's a steal, and I can practically guarantee that you can find this wine no matter where you live. Crisp, dry, and medium bodied with a beautiful mix of reddish berry flavors. There is a "spice" note that I identify as Grapefruit, but I don't know what you're mouth tastes like so go out and taste for yourself.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/847244464/" title="Domain de la Petite Cassagne"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1051/847244464_1c5f41852c_m.jpg" alt="petiteCassagne" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Domaine de la Petite Cassagne Rosé 2006, Costières de Nimes</span>: This is much harder to find, and ironically cheaper ($9 to 10). I've heard a ton of Rosé geeks go on and on about this particular wine, and even though I'd never heard of it when I tried it last year, it blew my mind. It's got this really attractive rocky-mineral flavor that is just as strong as the fruit. It's really crisp, dry, and light bodied. This is a real food wine - I personally like it with fatty fish like Salmon or Trout. Maybe with some kind of herb sauce. You should really try this wine.<br /><br />Bottom line. if you see a French Rosé and it's a recent vintage (no more than two years old), and it's under $12, just go for it. It's probably pretty damn good.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">La Escuela Nueva: Things get interesting</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/846487945/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1010/846487945_983afb254f_m.jpg" alt="Sonoma" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="144" /></a>Since I'm doing my best not to write an epic tome on the pink stuff, I'll try to keep this under 750 words. Outside of France, people can and do make French Style Rosé. It's just not quite the same. Out here in the US, non-Zin pink wine is being made, but the difference lies in the complexity of flavor. You may have had other Rosés from Spain, the US, even Australia, and found that they are round, really fruity, sometimes off-dry, sometimes dry, but there is a startling lack of mineral in the flavor to balance out the heavy fruitiness. Some people totally dig the super-easy drinking, mess-you-up grapey-berry juice that sometimes gets passed off as fine wine. I just can't stand it.<br /><br />HOWEVER, there is a man, and his name is Carl Sutton. He happened to make what I feel to be one of the greatest wines I've ever had. It's a Rosé, and you better believe it doesn't taste one bit French.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/847244472/" title="Sutton Cellars Rattlesnake Rosé"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1070/847244472_a100ea8397_m.jpg" alt="rattlesnakeRose" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sutton Cellars Rattlesnake Rosé 2005, Sonoma County</span>: Our Friend Chuck at <a href="http://www.solovinowines.com/">Solo Vino</a> turned us on to this impossible wine. It's a Syrah, Carignane, and Merolt blend barrel fermented with wild yeast, aged 10 months on the lees (that means on the dead yeast) and put through a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malolactic_fermentation">malolactic fermentation</a>.<br /><br />It's kind of a mouthful. It tastes like a toasted fresh white English muffin, slathered with European butter, and topped off with a not-so-sweet homemade raspberry jam. It smells like Buttah - quite literally. Look, he only released 243 cases and he kegged some of this crap to go on tap in god-knows-where, and if you can find it you won't regret it, and if not, than you'll need to make me an offer I can't refuse to part with some of my stash.<br /><br />The Rattlesnake embodies everything I would like out of a new world Rosé: it's rich, fruity, buttery, juicy, off-dry, and deeply satisfying. A comparable stylistic analog would be akin to French vs California Chardonnay.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span>Today is a perfect summer day, so get to the vinomart and buy some freaking pink stuff, make sure it's cold before you open it, and pour a big mouthful of summer down your throat. Did I mention that this goes great with smoked pork?Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-81984753133216490092007-07-11T22:20:00.000+07:002007-07-18T23:50:11.090+07:00I Like Smoked Butts and I Cannot Lie.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/774418412/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1398/774418412_02bcb971fc_m.jpg" alt="The Gaping Maw" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>[Ben et Nate sez]: </span>We like pork. There, we said it. And yes, Nate is a Jew.<br />But that doesn't mean that he isn't going to put Babe on a spit and roast him till he falls off the bone in a blaze of tender, juicy, porky glory.<br /><br />So here's the deal: Ben figured out that smoked meat was one of the finest things on sliced bread, and he made this absolutely amazing pork shoulder last year. So when we'd had way too many helpings of sweet sticky rice, and were sick of eating all that perfect, delicious, I'll never-ever get sick of that Thai food, we talked about smoking the eating hell out of a massive piece of pork, and stuffing our faces with it.<br /><br />So we did. And it was delicious.<br /><br />Here's what's necessary to experience the quintessential American barbecue:<br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/774418324/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1427/774418324_959722ffe2_m.jpg" alt="Smoky McPork" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a><ol><li>A massive Pork Butt (that's shoulder you perverts)</li><li>Seven Hours of your life</li><li>A grill, and some appropriate smoking hardwood.</li><li>The desire to eat till your sinuses fill up, and your BPFL (Blood Pork Fat Level) exceeds the legal limit of .1 or .08 percent (depends on your local lipid regulations).</li></ol><p>This is yet another food (like Ramen Jiro) that elicits the famed heroin reaction. We believe this is caused by a full body pork contact - at the ramen shop, you have to wait for 45 minutes, then slip around a floor covered in grease, and then wipe up your greasy splash with a towel when you're finished. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/774418398/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1359/774418398_0f50e2229d_m.jpg" alt="Pulling My Meat" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>Similarly, you have to lovingly tend to this massive hunk of Babe for 7 freaking hours, and then let it rest for 15 minutes, and then take 30 minutes pulling the bloody thing apart with a couple of forks, and then dressing it, and getting it to the table - all without devouring the entire thing in the process.<br /><br />It's harder than you think.<br /><br />So grab a toasted bun, your favorite barbecue sauce, a couple of fresh brews, and splooge yourself sideways. If there's one thing you do this summer, smoke your meat.</p>Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-41220659249556161962007-07-04T07:30:00.000+07:002007-07-04T12:07:43.500+07:00Smoke n' Gras - Fatty McFatty Fatlicious<span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]: </span>While wandering the streets <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/707869441/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1004/707869441_5026532d33_m.jpg" alt="IMG_1943" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>of Portland trying to choose between the myriad of excellent restaurant choices it occurred to me that I really haven't been eating enough butter and fat. I also realized that my level of foie gras intake has been dangerously low as of late and I would be taking a major risk if I continued to live the life of brown rice, black beans, and other "healthy foods" which I have been recklessly engaged in since my return from the Orient. I needed a decadent meal, and fast!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Le Pigeon</span><br /><br />For a taste of the fancy side of Portland I found "<a href="http://www.lepigeon.com/">Le Pigeon</a>" (American pronunciation of pigeon on that) where a culinary school drop-out is using fresh, local, seasonal ingredients to make amazing French-influenced food that is to die for (possibly from a pork fat or duck fat overdose). With a reservation, an empty stomach, and a goal of indulgence I sat down for dinner with Jenny, my guide to all things Portland food and wine.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Foie Gras PB&J</span><br /><br />I had checked the menu online before arriving and couldn't<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/708709048/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1036/708709048_d48a3b49ef_m.jpg" alt="IMG_1931" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a> decide on an appetizer. This was cured when the menu was placed on our table and I saw "Foie Gras PB&J" at the bottom of the list. I wasn't sure what it meant, but I was pretty sure we had to order it. What came out was two pieces of white bread filled with a foie gras paté, heavily buttered and tossed on a griddle. Lightly browned, this sandwich was placed a top a layer of strawberry-thyme jam and surrounded by crushed peanuts. The creamy pate definitely elevated this above the pb&j that mom used to make (no offense mom), and while the thyme-infusion of the jam was sadly imperceptible to me, I was deeply sad that this sandwich was gone so quickly.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Quail and Foie Gras Ravioli</span><br /><br />For my entreé I ordered Quail with Foie Gras Ravioli. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/707843683/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1062/707843683_67e0726b0d_m.jpg" alt="IMG_1933" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>These two cute little birds came out stuffed with creamy spinach and currants atop a pair of ravioli filled with more foie gras paté. This dish featured a "deconstructed sauce," oil on the plate mixing with the fat from the foie gras and the cream portion of the spinach, combining their forces to create an excellent sauce for the lightly flavored quail meat.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Swine and Scallops</span><br /><br />My partner in culinary crime ordered the "Swine and Scallops," pork jowl and scallops with pearl onions and asparagus in a smoked pork fat hollandaise.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/708728432/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1345/708728432_afb2fad475_m.jpg" alt="IMG_1938" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a> I'd never had jowl before, which I now think is a horrible oversight in my life to this point, it was like a cross between thick cut bacon and pork belly. The scallops were great, I'm normally not a huge fan of this particular item, but compared to the saltiness of the pork the scallops tasted sweet, lightening up this otherwise salty, smoky, porky dish. The real magic here however was the hollandaise sauce made with smoked pork fat - oh the glory! In every bite the smokiness and delicious pork fat flavor came through, it might sound excessive, and maybe it is, but a little excess never hurt anybody, right?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Profiteroles with Foie Gras Ice Cream</span><br /><br />After having foie gras in the first two courses it seemed like it would be negligent of us to not order it for dessert when presented with the option. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/707895781/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1390/707895781_1a7415d7f9_m.jpg" alt="IMG_1953" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a> Glorious paté a choux puffs sliced open, filled with foie gras ice cream and drizzled with a rich caramel sauce. I don't know how to describe this besides rich, decadent, and delicious. Upon taking the first bite I think my friend temporarily transcended this plane of existence, living for a short while in a dimension of pure, foie gras-induced bliss.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/344905413/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/124/344905413_6bc4af5098_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="My New Year's Face" border="0" align="right"/></a><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]:</span> Ben told me about this brilliant abomination over the phone. I kicked myself thrice for not having thought of it myself. Not that foie would have made it into a damned ice cream machine if it anywhere near my greedy hands...Speaking of which, I'm going to be late for my cardiology appointment.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bacon and Apricot Cornbread with Homemade Maple Ice Cream</span><br /><br />My dessert of choice combined two of my favorite flavors - bacon and maple. A thick piece of bacon, apricot cornbread topped with a big scoop of homemade<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/707884301/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1325/707884301_32cda8b5f8_m.jpg" alt="IMG_1950" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a> maple ice cream with little chunks of bacon scattered around it, all in a pool of maple syrup and bacon fat. The sweet cornbread was balanced by the salty bacon, with an occasional burst of flavor from the chunks of apricot suspended within. It was so amazing that once we had consumed every morsel of cornbread and every drop of ice cream I couldn't keep from licking the plate. As I was dragging my tongue across the bacon-maple residue on the plate the chef stepped over to our table to thank me for my actions, apparently licking the plate is the biggest compliment there is. I don't know why he was thanking me though, I just showed up and ate the amazing food.Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-3088004315958318682007-06-27T09:03:00.000+07:002007-06-28T08:29:59.728+07:00The Oregon Trail<span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]:</span> I am currently wandering through the culinary wonderland of Portland, Oregon. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/643656746/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1368/643656746_3f5af1c8ef_m.jpg" alt="Ben et Girly Sweater" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>I caulked the wagon and floated across the river to get here, I lost two oxen, and Holly died of cholera, but by god it's been worth it (sorry, I played a lot of "Oregon Trail" in grade school). The food here is definitely great, but thus far the true standout has been the Pinot Noir, and other wines, which I have had the chance to taste while touring wineries and getting a crash course from my friend.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Pork and Pinot</span><br /><br />I lost count, but I think I've been to at least 8 different wineries in the week I've been here, and that was mostly in one afternoon. I've tasted more Pinot Noir's than in the rest of my wine drinking life prior to this week, and it's been a fantastic time. These wines run the gamut from luscious and fruity to deep, earthy, even tabacco-like in flavor, subtle, complex - truly amazing.<br /><br />Thus far my favorites have been <a href="http://www.ponziwines.com/">Ponzi Vineyard's</a> 2005 Willamette Valley Pinot, the <a href="http://www.stinnocentwine.com/NewFiles/home.html">St. Innocent</a> White Rose 2005 and the <a href="http://www.stollervineyards.com/">Stoller</a> 2005 JV Pinot Noir. They are all obviously young wines, but each completely drinkable right now, and will probably only get better if I have the patience to not drink the bottles that I've bought as soon as I get home.<br /><br />For those of you who glaze over when people start waxing intellectual about wine, the Portland area has more to offer than just phenomenal Pinot Noir. After my day of laying siege to tasting rooms in the area I stopped at the Dundee Bistro located in Dundee, Oregon (shocking, I know) right across the street from Argyle Winery (makers of great sparkling wines).<br /><br />Every Wednesday the head chef has a special "Pork and Pinot" menu featuring three courses of pork-centric glory and an optional pairing of Pinot Noirs.<br /><br />The first course was a hearty tube pasta (1" diameter tubes cut into 1/2" sections) in a hearty smoked pork shoulder red sauce topped with a piece of summer squash.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/643647178/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1313/643647178_4fcfbfad1e_m.jpg" alt="Pasta in Smoked Pork Shoulder Sauce" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a> You may not know this, but I have a real thing for smoked pork shoulder, it might be one of my favorite foods ever.. hell, the first time I cooked it I had a heroin-like reaction and ended up curled up in the fetal position outside shivering with need, jonesin' for a THIRD sandwich, but I digress.... The fresh pasta was thick enough to stand up to the smoky pork flavor. Honestly if fresh pasta and smoked pork shoulder sauce doesn't make you a little weak in the knees you might want to make sure you're alive.<br /><br />Pork'n'pinot part two featured roasted pork tenderloin on top of a mix of roasted potatoes, local mushrooms, and applewood smoked bacon, all in a pork stock.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/643649826/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1031/643649826_c2669b47d4_m.jpg" alt="Pork Tenderloin with roasted vegetables" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a> A little lighter than the first course, the tenderloin was juicy and flavorful, but really I think the vegetables underneath almost overshadowed it. The mixture of meaty mushrooms, sweetness of caramelized potato, all tied together with the magical culinary glue that is bacon fat and tossed with green onions and parsley.<br /><br />Round Three continued to buck the general trend of serving courses lightest to heaviest via a light salad served on top of thinly sliced artisinal salami topped with ripe avocado. A refreshing end to the meal with the pepper and spice of the salami blending well with the vinaigrette and the bright, voluptuous taste of the avocado.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]:</span> Avocados really are voluptuous aren't they? So soft and round... and well, fatty, but "voluptuous" sounds a lot better I think..</span><br /><br />Add three glasses of Pinot Noir to that meal and you've got a guaranteed good evening in just about anyone's book (assuming the owner of said book eats pork).<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/643653178/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1066/643653178_c437ac7d4f_m.jpg" alt="Jenny Drinking Pinot" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a><br /><br />My food/wine chaperon for this adventure had the Duck Confit which was the best example of said dish that I have ever experienced. Deep smokey flavor, duck meat so tender it falls off the bone if you so much as look at it, and of course a liberal amount of juicy duck fat. Oh Daffy, you taste so good...<br /><br />I have some more things to eat during my remaining time here (anyone heard of <a href="http://voodoodoughnut.com/">Voodoo Doughnuts</a>?) so you can expect to hear from me again sometime soon. If I disappear forever it's likely that I'm hiding in the hills of Portland with a bottle of Pinot and/or a dozen doughnuts.Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-30375572014008125672007-06-20T07:30:00.000+07:002007-06-20T15:07:30.754+07:00Ben et Nate: The Book?<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/541761128/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1299/541761128_b9045cb8a3_m.jpg" alt="Ben et Nate at the Black Forest Inn" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]: </span>8 countries, 6 long plane rides, countless hours of attempted zen enlightenment on bus rides, and more noodles than is legal in an average lifetime. That's right everybody - the epic adventure across most of the eastern nations of the culinary mecca that is Asia is coming to an over-designed, self published coffee table book near you.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/385589833/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/165/385589833_79538b0b62_m.jpg" alt="32cm of soft serve" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>Ben and I sat around arguing many a Tuesday night about what to blog. We generally had a massive abundance of absolutely fantastic new flavors and dishes we wanted to talk about, but alas, a blog should not be too wordy or long. So we decided to write an entire book about it... and risk a crap load of our own money to do it too!! Imagine our blog, with much more detailed information and sensory analysis, more stories of being practically killed on sidewalks, more righteous rants about Thai mangoes, and 10 ways to get revenge on Tuk-Tuk drivers. We'll also include tons of appetite inspiring food porn photos and hunky, flattering portraits of Ben and myself.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/481565253/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/224/481565253_2b4c217ad5_m.jpg" alt="Panang Curry Paste" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>It is tentatively scheduled to be released December 2007 - January 2008. I give it about a 90% confidence interval that we will succeed in publishing by this time, but I make no promises. We do however promise to keep you all religiously updated about the progress of the book, and to keep you entertained in the meantime.<br /><br />This blog will continue to exist as long as Ben et Nate are eating, drinking, and being jackasses. Instead of focusing exclusively on the Asian cuisine paradigm, we will explore the incredible world around us, searching out the best noodles, the best wine, and expose the biggest food crimes being committed in the name of a profit motive.<br /><br />One thing we both realized coming back to America is that there is no other place in the world (with the blinding exception of Tokyo) where such variety and ingenuity exists in the world of cuisine. The American school of cooking knows no boundaries, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/503498066/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/195/503498066_3e5a0e021c_m.jpg" alt="Pastry Puffs" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>and we intend to share with you the secret hideouts of killer food/bev adventures. Ben will be tackling Portland, Oregon in the coming weeks while Nate researches the depths of the Chicago chef scene and tries to eat in New York without taking out a second mortgage. We'll reconvene in the great Twin Cities to rally up a thoroughly incomplete survey of the current state of US food culture.<br /><br />Deliciousness is sure to follow.Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-62186439618524916942007-06-13T14:22:00.000+07:002007-11-30T16:32:12.039+07:00The Best Bowl of Noodles in the World<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/354837549/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/131/354837549_6bfec3b8b4_m.jpg" alt="Pork POV" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]:</span> This is it. The hands down, absolute, no contest, by far best bowl of noodles. It's ugly. It's mean. The service is third class at best. You have to wait in a long, ever-present line before being sent down greased stairs to wait a little bit longer. <span style="font-style: italic;">Did you buy your ticket?</span> Because you can't order at the counter asshole. Get your damn water yourself, and if you want some soda, get it from the vending machine. <span style="font-style: italic;">Beer?</span> you ask. Buy a ticket, give them the ticket, and wait your turn you ungrateful, foul beast.<br /><br />I had been in Tokyo only three days when I stumbled across this mammoth noodle discovery. I was fumbling around, trying to find a Capoeira studio located somewhere <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/372039645/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/186/372039645_bd11f98c4d_m.jpg" alt="Chochin Kagurazaka Style" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>in the vague vicinity around Takadanobaba station, asking every convenience store clerk or willing listener where this building is, and having absolutely no luck. If you think a map would help, you are sorely mistaken. This <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> Toyko. Ben has a degree in geography, and always knows where he is, and he's helpless in Tokyo. Tired and frustrated, I decide to give up for the day, and vow to search there again... maybe even tomorrow. Little did I know why I had really been there that day.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/543658639/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1421/543658639_0370f1822c_m.jpg" alt="A sign from God" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>Wandering back to the train station I would find a bowl of noodles that would alter the course of Ben et Nate history. On the first floor of a nondescript white building, about 6 American blocks <strong>west</strong> of Takadanobaba JR station, on the south side of the road, you will see a line of hungry, eager Japanese males under a bright yellow sign that you can't read. If you don't see a line, the shop is not open. You should also quickly check your pocket, because the noodle-dar that you brought along is no doubt overloading, and will momentarily explode in the awesome presence of the quintessential Asian noodle dive.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Welcome to Ramen Jiro.</span><br /><br />The single greasiest, filthiest, most crowded noodle shop I've ever been in, and nobody gives a shit that you couldn't wipe all the porkfat off the floor with the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/543658655/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1438/543658655_259eba66c9_m.jpg" alt="Ramen Jirou - Inside" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>strongest caustic available on the market. This bowl of noodles is just that good. As I look around and take in the sights and the sounds (mostly raucous slurping), the overwhelming fragrance in the room is a deep hue of soul wrenching pork stock. This is not a pretty bowl of noodles; it will taunt you, it will tease you, and after 5 minutes of eating the crap out of this thing it will somehow breed more noodles, more bean sprouts, more cabbage, more melty, fatty, juicy chunks of days-cooked pork, more chopped garlic, more soup, more...ramen. I notice that every single bowl that goes back on the counter has been completely demolished, perhaps only a bit of soup remaining. It becomes very clear to me that absolutely no one can leave there without finishing the whole thing. I'm not sure if it's law or tradition, or if that voice coming from my soup taunting me, daring me, ordering me to eat it all was the cause, but I also demolished my bowl in its entirety.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/511306674/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/194/511306674_544d81c3fc_m.jpg" alt="Ramen Trio" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>The soul of the soup is the richest pork stock you've ever encountered. It's like drinking velvet - only the really, really porky kind. A savory "tare" or paste/sauce is added to give the soup its secret soy based overtones and character. Garlic infused rendered pork fat is dumped in before the noodles hit the bowl. The Noodles - holy shit! I don't know where the hell they found these but they are thick, round, chewy, eggy, salty, firm, curly, and soft all at the same time. The whole thing is topped off with blanched bean sprouts and cabbage, raw chopped garlic, and a pile of crushed chili powder. As if there isn't enough food, they shove a pile of illegal-tender pork in there too. If you ever make it here for some strange reason, when they ask you what you want in your bowl, just say <span style="font-style: italic;">everything</span>.<br /><br />Did I mention it costs 650 Yen? That's like $5.35. This is also most likely the single best deal on a meal available in the entire city of Tokyo.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Aftermath</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/372042566/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/161/372042566_0ce6cf33c5_m.jpg" alt="Revenge of Shochu" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>As I stumble out of there drunk on pork and high on MSG, it occurs to me that I've only been in Japan for three days and as the first bite of soup and noodles hit my taste buds, I had already found what I was searching for: the best bowl of noodles in the world. It is also of Ben's opinion that this is a fact.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">[Ben sez]: Reery, it's true.</span><br /><br />What is truly shocking is that it stood up to everything else we encountered. Before we hopped on our plane to come back to the US, it was mandatory as serious noodle experts that we make sure, be 100% certain that the Ramen Jiro noodles from Takadanobaba in Tokyo are the best we could find anywhere. After hundreds of bowls and plates throughout Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Singapore, there was nothing even remotely close to the downright soul this bowl possessed.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/308659938/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/115/308659938_b56d890e76_m.jpg" alt="tokyoWeek1 024" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>It was one of those often sought (and impossible to predict) perfect meals. The magical coalescence of time, space, and pork work in mysterious ways, but when it strikes, you are grabbed by the heart and led through an unforgettable journey of taste-bending glory.Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com92tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-34681932252736690462007-06-06T06:24:00.000+07:002007-06-06T12:44:41.933+07:00Ben et Nate's Noodle Countdown - #2 & 3<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/483552094/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/223/483552094_a5d2cfe592_m.jpg" alt="Sneezey?" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]: </span><span>Now, we've eaten a lot of noodles. I'm not saying that we definitively, absolutely, and without a doubt found <span style="font-style: italic;">the</span> best</span> noodles in the world. However, I can assure you all that at the very least, these are some of the finest bowls of noodles in current existence. Last week we spoke of Bangkok Pad Thai slingers and laid-back Lao noodle dives serving some really killer broth. I'm dying as I write this because right now I'd kill for a bowl of each of this week's noodles.<br /><br />Dizzamn.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/401759116/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/125/401759116_d16ab57b20_m.jpg" alt="Best Noodles in Taipei" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Noodle #3 - Pork Dry Noodle in Taipei, Taiwan</span> -located on Heping Ave. Next to some Chinese medicinal herb shop. Taipei was deserted when we arrived - the streets devoid of pedestrians, the storefronts gated and boarded up, it was Chinese New Year and the city had shut down. As we prowled the streets for long hours, we noticed a few noodle shops kept their doors open.<br /><br />After hours of stumbling deliriously down the deserted streets, a waft of gingery/porky/shrimpy wontons entices me towards a completely nondescript off-white hole in the wall. We approach the service area in the front and do some pointing at other people's dishes, soon the noodle lady is gesturing for us to sit down and wait. 5 painfully long minutes later, she brings us a small bowl of noodles with saucy ground pork, green onions, and crushed peanuts. As if a killer bowl of noods isn't enough, it comes with a bowl of pork soup with shrimp/pork & ginger wontons. There are scores of noodle & wonton joints in Taipei, but none could so well articulate <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/398662312/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/113/398662312_e75e36a5a7_m.jpg" alt="Cheap Noodle Joint" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>the depth of pork flavor, or so perfectly complement meat with ginger, or salt and MSG soups and sauces so perfectly to induce the "Oh fuck, that's just wrong - where's seconds?" reaction as this place. We of course were back there again, and she's got follow through. We ordered seconds this time because we were leaving for Bangkok the next day, and I have no idea when I'll next be in Taipei, but I will return one day to eat these noodles again.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Noodle #2 - Blue Awning Pho in Saigon, Vietnam</span> - Located on De Tham between Co Bac and Co Giang.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/511307736/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/219/511307736_f397447d6b_m.jpg" alt="Nggggeah! + peace" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]: </span>We already wrote a whole entry about the wonders of pho and the other phenomenal soup offerings in Vietnam, so it stands to reason that our dedication to pho would lead us to find a bowl worthy of our top five. Having a vibrant Vietnamese community in the Twin Cities we'd already had a few bowls of pho before we even got to Southeast Asia, a couple of them really really good, so we hoped that somewhere we'd find a better bowl, just so that we'd know our trip was worth it.<br /><br />This bowl of soup edged out any bowl of soup we've had in Minnesota for the official Ben et Nate stamp of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Best Bowl of Pho</span>. An amazing feat no doubt, next time we're back in Saigon we'll be sure to take the proprietor her commemorative plaque.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/462696467/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/231/462696467_9311c00f23_m.jpg" alt="Best bowl of Pho Tai yet" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>This bowl was built on an artfully crafted beef stock, with subtle spices mixed in (chinese five spice? anise? lsd? clove? I'm not quite sure) to take it to that next level of deliciousness. Throw in some sliced beef and bean sprouts cooked in the broth plus the plethora of Choose-Your-Own-Soup-Adventure fixings on the table (fish sauce, chili oil, sugar, various local greens) and it's a damn fine bowl of noodles. This shop was only open for breakfast, but it was good enough that we actually woke up on more than one occasion to get there before they closed at 11:30am. That should speak more for the quality of soup than any words I can say: I was willing to get out of bed before noon for this bowl of soup.<br /><br /><br />Next week we'll be back with our final installment of Ben et Nate's Best Bowl of Brothy Noodley Goodness. Which country will reign soupreme in the battle of the bowls?Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-26704130799449295442007-05-30T14:22:00.000+07:002007-05-30T12:58:32.598+07:00Ben et Nate's Noodle Countdown - #4 & 5<span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]:</span> We ate Asia. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/511303904/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/219/511303904_345740ba11_m.jpg" alt="Yakult - The Freshmaker?" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>Ok, not all of it, but we ate a lot of it, and somewhere in there we were hoping to find the best bowl of noodles. The jury is still out on whether or not we found the best bowl of noodles on Earth (or even in Asia) but we're going to count down the top five delightfully delicious bowls of noodles from our trip over the next few blogs.<br /><br />Noodle #5 - Pork noodle soup on the banks of the Mekong River in Vientiane, Laos - We rolled into Vientiane after 24 hours on a bus (19 of which they had the air-conditioning turned off for) and settled into our hotel. On our second night in town we wandered past a restaurant advertising their Duck Noodle Soup.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/481543307/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/217/481543307_2fcc81ad97_m.jpg" alt="Pork Noodle Soup" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a> We tried this, then we went back for breakfast the next day and tried the Pork Noodle Soup. The woman here was slinging some deeply porky broth - a balance of pork flavor, soy, fish sauce, and hints of garlic and ginger. Throw in a condiment selection of limes, fish sauce, and chilies and you've got the makings for a deliciously meaty bowl of soup with your choice of fresh egg noodles or rice noodles. Somewhat of a middle ground between Chinese and Vietnamese soups.<br /><br />Noodle #4 - Pad Thai outside BTS Station Saphan Kwai - We spent a lot of time in Thailand - somewhere around a month in total. Invariably we were going to eat a little bit of Pad Thai. We would have eaten a lot of Pad Thai but the portions in Thailand are so reasonable (that means "small" for all the Americans out there) that you don't end up eating massive quantities of anything.<br /><br />We tried probably twenty different Pad Thai street stands in Thailand and only on our last night in Bangkok before going to Cambodia did we stumble<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/511316309/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/215/511316309_407521fa67_m.jpg" alt="Pad Thai" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a> across a great man standing at a griddle dishing out large (Thai) portions of awesome Pad Thai for 25 baht (about 75 cents). This man embodies everything right about the street vendor system, he makes one dish - with optional shrimp for 10 baht more - and makes it really well. All of the Thai restaurants in the United States that are slinging huge plates of bland noodles should take some notes from this man, pare down their menus and learn how to do it right. He has his pre-mixed sauce in leftover Aquafina bottles which he pours over the noodles, tofu, and bean sprouts to create this quintessentially Thai dish.<br /><br />I'm sure you're tired of hearing it, but it's all about balance, in the US Pad Thai always seems overly sweet, served with a wedge of lemon to make it even brighter. In Thailand they focus on a healthy amount of shrimp or fish sauce and tamarind paste to balance out that sweetness with some salty, sour, tangy goodness.<br /><br />I haven't quite figured out why so much of the Pad Thai in Thailand is pink colored, but I heard that pink is in style this year, so I'm not concerned.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]:</span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/511304994/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/202/511304994_f2a622007b_m.jpg" alt="The Taste Test" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a> I think they mix the blood of virgins into the sauce, but that's just a rumor as to why it's so delicious.</span><br /><br />This has been a succinct wrap-up of the first two of our top fives bowls of noodles in Asia. Nate's too busy "taking care of business" to blog right now but I'm sure he'll have some epic treatises about the top 3 bowls of noodles in the coming weeks to make up for it. Join us next week for the second installation of our continuing noodle countdown - <span style="font-style: italic;">Same Ben et Nate time, same Ben et Nate channel.</span>Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-7950107378401436532007-05-23T03:05:00.000+07:002007-05-23T05:20:25.243+07:00Murtabak to the Future: The Singaporean Delorean<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/509499294/" title="Nate Sez"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/191/509499294_09bc26a7b0_m.jpg" alt="You Will Obey ME!" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]:</span> Anthony Bourdain called Singapore "New York in 20 years". Being the Americentric fool that I am, I assumed that he meant that Singapore was doing a bang up job catching up to the most cosmopolitan, hip, and resourceful city in the world. Turns out, every other city in the world is 20 years behind Singapore...but who's really counting?<br /><br />We came here to eat at a couple of restaurants that Tony raved about on <span style="font-style: italic;">A Cook's Tour</span>; those being the Sin Huat Eating House and The Banana Leaf Apollo (awesome fish head curry). In fact, <span style="font-style: italic;">A Cook's Tour </span>was basically the inspiration behind the whole "Ben et Nate eat the world" idea in the first place - having spent dozens of hours sitting in Ben's basement watching Tony eat in Vietnam, Thailand, Tokyo, and Singapore, we were sick of drooling buckets at the sight of the spicy, the fresh, the exotic, and the supposedly tooth enamel melting goodness. We decided we must eat it for ourselves.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Crab Bee Hoon</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/503488098/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/196/503488098_bf2a87d2bf_m.jpg" alt="Crab Bee Hoon" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>This was the crown jewel of Tony's trip to Singapore: <span style="font-style: italic;">Crab Bee Hoon </span>at the Sin Huat Eating House. This place attracts a hungry and rich crowd every night for some of the best Chinese seafood on the planet. If we had a budget I would have ordered what Ben so lovingly refers to as "One":<br /><br />"One what?" you ask.<br />"Oh, sorry - <span style="font-weight: bold;">one of everything</span>."<br /><br />The crab was massive (the claw weighed almost a kilo). And insanely good. A deceptively simple sauce of boiled crab, ginger/soy, and what can only be described as love stock was all wokked to high hell with green onions, fried shallots, and <span style="font-style: italic;">bee hoon</span> noodles (<span style="font-style: italic;">Bee Hoon </span>noodles are thin, round, rice noodles, similar to the Vietnamese <span style="font-style: italic;">Bun</span> noodles). Needless to say it was fucking awesome. We'd also waited for a bit more than two hours for this dish (Apparently you're supposed to call ahead). And I was really, really, really-really hungry.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/503527115/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/196/503527115_2005a7b473_m.jpg" alt="Stir Fried Guilan" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>We ordered some stir fried Gailan for something vegetal to nibble on. I've never had better "brown" sauce in my life. It was the single greatest dish of Chinese vegetables I'd ever had - it was almost better than the crab. Almost. And the argument is still open since the veggies were 8 bucks, and the crab 80.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Stalling</span><br /><br />Around every corner, at every MRT station, in every part of Singapore, inside, outside, rooftop, or seaside there are food courts. The Singaporeans love to eat. You can't miss the fact because at all hours of the day there are food stalls running in food courts filled to the brim with people. The locals refer to these places as Hawker Stands. Singapore boasts being one of the great food destinations in the world; and with the eclectic mix of Chinese, Malay, and Indian citizens, there is certainly a very wide variety.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/503498452/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/231/503498452_84cdae3ed9_m.jpg" alt="BBQ Stingray" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>There are far too many good dishes to describe - from silky tender Hainanese Chicken Rice to Satays, and Spicy curries to crispy duck, so we'll stick with the greats: Barbequed Stingray and Roti Prata.<br /><br />Belinda turned us on to the stingray scene - our first night we went out to a new food court in downtown (CBD) Singapore. Take a large banana leaf, stick two pieces of stingray on it, a slightly smoky sauce of chillies, garlic, salt and I have no idea...and then grill it. Garnish with limes and sliced shallots. The stingray is so juicy and succulent, and the Sambal (the sauce that it's cooked with) so mysteriously rich yet light, salty, and inviting. It's quintessentially Singaporean, combining flavor elements and cooking methods from all of its residents and mashing it up together to make something completely original. This one's a keeper.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/503485814/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/219/503485814_74bb41be24_m.jpg" alt="Prata." align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>Our daily eating ritual almost inevitably involved Roti Prata or Murtabak. You may remember such Rotis as "Holy shit that's killing me softly" Thai Banana Roti. Welcome back. A magical dough is stretched paper thin by whipping it around holding onto one edge by a skilled Roti engineer. He then rolls this up (that's the roti part) and either grills it plain (roti prata) or adds sweet or savory ingredients into the middle before griddling it to crispy perfection. Our favorite was Mutton Murtabak: A Roti Prata filled with onions, lamb, cilantro, and egg. All the savory pratas/murtabaks come with an amazing mutton curry sauce to dip your bready deliciousness into. Order up a cup of creamy stretched milk tea and call it a day.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/503488270/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/227/503488270_6d9e3aeec0_m.jpg" alt="Ben et Crab Claw" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]: </span>Don't worry, I contributed to the blog too. I spent all the time that Nate was writing this blog coming up with that horrendous title.<br /><br />I don't apologize for it either... okay, maybe just a little.Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-60954967814895489462007-05-19T03:15:00.000+07:002007-05-19T01:46:19.016+07:00Singa-pour me another. OR Putting the Lager back in Lagerquist.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/503526831/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/209/503526831_4e25ca2999_m.jpg" alt="Ben Flexercising" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]:</span> In our travels through Asia we've sampled a lot of the local beer. All crappy golden lager, all the time. Sometimes bottles, sometimes cans, sometimes fresh from a big tank for fifty cents a liter. Sometimes if it's fresh enough, it's not even that bad.<br /><br />But you know what's better than fresh beer? Fresh German Beer!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate exclaimz:] <span style="font-style: italic;">BREWED BY GERMANS!!! OMFG!!!!</span></span><br /><br />That's right, we've tracked down another rare delicacy, seemingly unavailable even in the United States. Wandering around the central shopping district of Singapore, we looked across a street as the clouds parted and a ray of sunlight shown down upon a <a href="http://www.paulaner.com.sg/index.html">Paulaner Bräuhaus</a>. I think I even heard some angels singing.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/503478526/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/189/503478526_04089d472a_m.jpg" alt="Paulaner Brauhaus in Singapore" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>It was even 2-for-1 happy hour. That's just wrong.<br /><br />We sat down, ordered up a couple half liters and basked in the glory of fresh, German beer. I'm not sure what it is but there's something about this stuff that makes life multiple times better. Cheap Asian Golden Lager might get you intoxicated, but it doesn't make you feel <span style="font-style: italic;">this</span> good.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]:</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">I'll tell you what makes it feel so good - getting the hell out of beer purgatory, that's what. I've been in beer purgatory for 6 God-forsaken months. You want to know what's frustrating? - drinking beer in Japan. They have 10 new types of beer every single season - Extra Dry, Super Mild Hoppy, Black Raw, Fresh Raw Draft Dry, and my new personal favorite: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Style Free</span>. THEY'RE ALL THE SAME FUCKING BEER! And then you leave Japan for the rest of Asia, where there's less advertising and brands and labels and stuff, but they all serve the same thing: shitty mild golden lager. An Asian beer is as shitty by any other name.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/503517545/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/217/503517545_066cb2be27_m.jpg" alt="Dunkel in Singapore" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>We tried the light Munich first, a refreshing golden lager (a legitimate one, no shitty Asian knockoff here) with that perfect bready finish that we enjoy so much but is hard to balance properly. After our first half-liter we were feeling much better about life (along with an inflated sense of self-esteem) and figured, "Hey, it's happy hour, why not order another?"<br /><br />Round 2 we went for the Dark Lager. This one lived up to all of our hopes and dreams as well. The fantasies of delicious beer which we had during those long, tropical nights staring at boxes full of Beer Lao, Tiger Beer, and all the other regional crap they pour in SE Asia which actually benefits from being served over ice.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/462747399/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/229/462747399_c36368f6c5_m.jpg" alt="This is a Custard Apple" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]: </span>I'd describe the dark (or Dunkel if you will) as the perfect combination of vanilla, banana, and pumpernickel. It was carbonated so perfectly that the CO2 bubbles made the texture of the beer, in combination with the slightly heavier body, creamy. To put it lightly, it was so good, I almost tried to actually <span style="font-style: italic;">dive</span> into my glass. So I could swim in it. Drinking this beer was like taking your big, first step back into the first world: the wonders of refrigeration and precision engineering allowing the local production of real German Beer.<br /><br />Singapore is a really bizarre place. Spend a few solid months in mostly lawless, or flexibly (and sometimes downright gymnastic) lawed countries, and when you suddenly can't spit on the street, walk with or against the flow of traffic, or god forbid <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/503524567/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/196/503524567_2c4fbfedb8_m.jpg" alt="IMG_6275" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>think too loudly without it being caught on camera, you'll feel really out of place. The quasi-totalitarian, 1984-esque panopticon that is Singapore caused us both major culture shock. I mean, the streets are fucking air conditioned in some parts of Singapore. It's <span style="font-style: italic;">too</span> perfect - like Pleasantville, only in SE Asia with a dizzying array of food, shopping, and ethnicities all living way too harmoniously together. It's too peaceful. It's too clean. I'm labeling it the 0.5th world - Singapore is the future. At least it's a damn tasty one.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]:</span> I prefer to think of it as the zeroth world; it's that far removed from my concept of the first world. We spent our first half-hour in Singapore actually laughing in shock at the clean, shiny, futuristic, efficient, lightly-perfumed, orderly, over-the-fucking-top reality of being slapped in the face with a big plate of Singapore after swimming in bowls of Southeast Asian noodles for the last three months</span><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/503498066/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/195/503498066_3e5a0e021c_m.jpg" alt="IMG_6455" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a><br />I know, I know. What the hell did we eat? (mmmgmhmg... curry puffs) Well, seeing as it's Saturday 3am Tokyo time, you'll just have to wait a few days until next Wednesday. When we actually can publish on time.Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-87790824634788982242007-05-16T15:12:00.000+07:002007-05-16T15:23:36.175+07:00Clogged Singa-pores.Dear everyone who is expecting a witty food-related blog post to be here,<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/481525165/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/183/481525165_25b7db0fdb_m.jpg" alt="20, 20, 24 hours to go!" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>We're traveling.<br /><br />In an amusing turn of events, the more first-world a country, the less available good internet cafes are. Seeing as we've been in Singapore for the last week (and everyone who lives here actually owns a computer) the closest internet cafe to our house is about a 45 minute walk and doesn't like to cooperate with blogger or flickr.<br /><br />We have to catch our flight back to Tokyo soon so our actual blog post will be delayed by a day or two. Our sincerest apologies.<br /><br />--<br /><br />Dear Nate's Mom,<br />Don't worry about us, we are both doing fine. In fact, our flight back to Tokyo is on Thai Airways which means it will most likely be the most comfortable, enjoyable economy class flight we could possibly take.Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-46301333926321326592007-05-09T15:43:00.000+07:002007-05-09T15:49:05.019+07:00So Good I Chiang'd Mai Pants.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/483552338/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/202/483552338_a0e46bd50a_m.jpg" alt="Ben Coyly Eating a Doughnut" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]:</span> A few more 12-24 hour budget SE Asian travel bus rides, a few more stamps in our passports, and we are now back in Bangkok having visited the awesome cities of Vientiane, Laos and Chiang Mai, Thailand. These two cities are somewhat similar, both possessing a similar cuisine, and dealing in the most laid back attitude possible without life completely stopping. We took some cooking classes to fill out our schedule between long periods of doing absolutely nothing.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Vientiane - No Rushing A-Lao'd</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]:</span> This city is hot. And I don't mean like Jamie Oliver making pesto, I mean like getting shoved into a 105 degree oven as large as a city. To bake. Or dehydrate. Or mostly want to do close to absolutely nothing. So after a hard morning/afternoon/evening of chilling out in our A/C, we'd venture out to the local Ban Lao, which loosely translates as "Lao Restaurant". If you've had Thai curry, papaya salad, Thai stir-fries, and sticky rice, you've just about eaten everything mainstream offered in Laos. We hear that rat and iguana is also frequently on rural menus, but after seeing Anthony Bourdain's reaction to iguana, we decided it was not on our agenda.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/481542705/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/185/481542705_0479ad7013_m.jpg" alt="Laab" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>The national dish of Laos is Laab. Or Larb. Or Lahb. Depends which menu you consult. However, this is <span style="font-style: italic;">quintessentially</span> Lao: ground or shredded pork, beef, chicken, or fish dressed with searing chilies, lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, roasted rice powder, and a bucket of mint. We learned how to make the fish version with a very nice French gentleman named Greg and this was truly a great dish.<br /><br />Simple. Fresh. Tasty. Definitively Lao. The mint and chilies really balance each other out in a deliciously synergistic way. Serve it up with some sticky rice and papaya salad, and a Beer Lao over ice, and you've made it.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Touch Mai Sausage</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/481541465/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/168/481541465_ed1655ef73_m.jpg" alt="Papaya Salad" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>Chiang Mai is absolutely my favorite city in Thailand. They took my favorite dish, Som Tam (Papaya Salad - I'll make it for all of you when I get back) and made it better. Instead of Papaya, they used shredded green mangoes. My mango salad lady put 8 chilies in, used about twice as much palm/coconut sugar, and created what became a two to three time a day habit for me. I'm adding her to the list of street food vendor ladies I intend to marry.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]:</span> To keep me from feeling left out I found a couple of nice sausage stands in the markets selling succulent, slightly spicy, fresh-off-the-grill pork sausages flavored with kefir lime leaves and lemongrass. One of the best moments of my recent life involved sitting down in a park with a bag of this sausage, some sticky rice and a bottle tea. Sometimes it really is the simple pleasures that are the best.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">[Nate sez]:</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> There's been a noticeable pattern of almost all of our best meals being eaten outside in a park, plaza, or squatting against a wall on the street.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/481547518/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/230/481547518_83912e1f4a_m.jpg" alt="Roadside Sausage" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>Much of the sausages that we've encountered throughout the region have been from the Chinese school: <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> fatty, <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> sweet, <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> not good at all. I'd been craving some tubular meat to put in my mouth, and until northern SE Asia, it was all deeply unsatisfying. The Chiang Mai sausage in particular was so crisp, meaty, and it's contents so well integrated. The herbs and spices perfectly accompanied the pork's sweetness, and sticky rice brings a fantastic texture combination as well as an effect of cooling some of the heat from the chilies.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">[Nate sez]: God, Ben really likes sausage doesn't he?</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br />The one real problem with this city is their love of sweets. Not so much a problem as a liability to my waistline. Every corner seemed to have a mango sticky rice stand, along with another one halfway down the block, and I suspect there may have been a lady with a portable setup tailing me through the streets just to taunt me. We even ended up at a buffet which included mango sticky rice in the "all you can eat." Needless to say, I went back for seconds.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/483551594/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/226/483551594_880af3aa03_m.jpg" alt="Nate's "Sexy" face" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>Nate and I also learned how to prepare sweet sticky rice in Chiang Mai. Recent news also suggests that Indian mangoes are making their way back to the American market. Word on the street is that they are (I don't know which of the thousand + varieties are getting imported) sweet, non-fibrous, custardy, and will make you appear to have just shot up heroin.<br /><br />God Bless Mangoes.Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-21691551905310814052007-05-02T14:55:00.000+07:002007-05-03T00:08:50.075+07:00Eating Anything With Four Legs Except the Table<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/481530163/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/192/481530163_ae126b7faf_m.jpg" alt="Ben gets stabby on Teddy-Rice" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]:</span> The plethora of animals which are available at restaurants throughout the region is staggering, and while the list of "Creatures Ben et Nate Have Consumed" doesn't quite live up to the standard of "eating anything with four legs except the table" it is, as you can imagine, not too short either.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Buckets of Prawns: </span>I'm sure you're thinking <span style="font-style: italic;">Prawns? That's not very adventurous. </span> but I figured I'd start on the boring end of the scale. The real shocker here is the volume of prawns which we have consumed (especially Nate), the quality, and the do-it-yourself attitude one must take to eating prawns in this region. We've had shrimp, whole-prawns (head on), and most excitingly whole, live prawns with a stick <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/426495794/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/186/426495794_6c9991e625_m.jpg" alt="Steamed Prawns" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>shoved through them in an uncomfortable looking manner for our grilling delight. Far be it from us to freak out at live shellfish and a charcoal grill, in fact it usually leads to us slapping some still-moving prawns on the grill and taunting them at the table thusly:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Us:</span> Oh no Mr. Shrimpy, what's going on? Is someone grilling you over a blazing hot fire? Look at your little antennae getting all crispy!<span> <span style="font-size:85%;">(Mr. Shrimpy lets out a tiny shrimpy scream of agony and writhes in pain until cooked to sweet, tender, delicious perfection.</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]:</span> Thailand has the finest cooking shrimp/prawns in the world. The smaller U30 to U20 varieties are always so tender, sweet, and with an almost fluffy texture. Did I mention that they're like, the healthiest thing around? And those big-ass 111 grams a piece (or U2) prawns, marinated in honey, fish sauce, and love will make you lose control of your bowels. And your bowls.<br /></span><br />The other delight of giant prawns is having to pop their heads off, which releases a nice little orange ooze which makes a perfect accompaniment to their tasty flesh.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Viet Grille<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/481519276/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/195/481519276_d8c8174528_m.jpg" alt="Yatta! I'm Dimploma-ed" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]:</span> To our great fortune, we met a local food/bev freak at a Bia Hoi joint we frequented in Saigon. His name is Bang. I like this guy, no, I might actually love him. He showed us some of the finest food we've ever consumed for prices too low list. In particular, he took us to a goat restaurant where they serve three things: Goat charcoal grill with herbs, raw veg, and rice paper with God sauce, Goat brain and kidney soup, and some other goat concoction that was not communicated to us properly. If you are in Vietnam and see <span style="font-style: italic;">De Noung</span>, you have found the goat grill. In fact <span style="font-style: italic;">Noung</span> indicates the preparation described below.<br /><br />We also stumbled across a massive joint where they serve most of Earth's edible creatures (and some that aren't) in this manner. They bring out a heavy stone bucket with holes in it, filled to the brim with searing hot charcoal. Next, they stick a metal grate on top, bring out some marinated meat, fresh herbs and veg, some dipping <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/462723001/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/250/462723001_05be2cd544_m.jpg" alt="De Noung - Goat Grill" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>sauce, and set you loose on one of the most deeply satisfying, delicious, and <span style="font-style: italic;">fun</span> meals you'll ever have. It's usually less than 3 to 4 dollars for a plate of meat which goes a long way.<br /><br />If you've ever done Korean BBQ - this is like that, only much better. Mostly because unlike South Korea, in Vietnam they let whitey get down and dirty figuring out how to grill his/her own meat. Here's a tragically brief overview of some of lucky critters to die for our cause:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Rabbit:</span> You think Europe has the market cornered on rabbit and hare with that glorious, thick, wine soaked French country-style rabbit stew they make? Well, maybe. But Viet-marinated Bugs Bunny cooked over hot coals<span style="font-style: italic;"> on your table</span> has very few rivals.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/462723843/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/172/462723843_c0c48f0855_m.jpg" alt="Okra on Grill" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Crocodile:</span> It was on the menu. We'd had a few drinks. It sucks okay? And it doesn't taste like chicken either.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]:</span> It tastes more like white, chewy amphibious river pork. I had to check it off of my whitey list of things to eat while in SE Asia, okay?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dog:</span> Yes. We fell victim to the availability of Poochy in SE Asia - the curiosity was just too much. We were on our way to a seafood restaurant with some local friends during our last night in Saigon. We mentioned our curiosity and soon were heading for a street stand to pick up some dog to go. <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />[Nate sez]: </span>In A Bag! The most legit doggy bag I've ever seen in my life!</span><br /><br />We got to the seafood joint and they were kind enough to plate up our barbecued dog <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/453760589/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/200/453760589_e3ae81f63f_m.jpg" alt="Stir Fried Clams" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>and steamed dog sampler. The BBQ dog was really, really good. I'd eat it again. Steamed dog tasted like old, wet, angry Australian mutton. But what are you going to do? The seafood was incredible. And criminally cheap. Think less than 16 dollars for 5 people to fill to the brim on mussels, clams, grilled sea snails, oysters, shrimp, and lots of beer.<br /><br />Though we could ceaselessly vamp about Vietnam (more specifically Saigon), you no doubt understand that it is most likely, the most important food destination in SE Asia. Then again, Chiang Mai rules.<br /><br />...and we haven't been to Singapore yet.Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-69648501546040063052007-04-25T16:45:00.000+07:002007-04-25T22:01:01.626+07:00The Best Part of Waking Up is Weasel Shit in Your Cup!<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/462699707/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/168/462699707_b052a7ecdb_m.jpg" alt="Nate et Coffee Lady" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]:</span> Having a <span style="font-style: italic;">really </span>good cup of coffee is a rare moment in our lives. We've all experienced it a couple of times - and you're caught off guard, the Charbucks and Cariboos have conditioned us to believe that good coffee is coffee smothered into the background by decaf this, and frappe that. Triple bypass machiatto? I'll take two. Double decaf vanilla caramel nonfat soy extra room no whip latte? Is that all?<br /><br />For fuck's sake, why do we pay out the ass for thoroughly adulterated shitty coffee? It's a crime. I have wondered for far too long: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Where the hell is my real coffee? </span><br /><br />Apparently it has been waiting for me in Vietnam - and when that succulent, rich, chocolaty, smooth perfect sip weaved it's way down my throat, I remembered what it's like to feel alive. You can ask Ben about my reaction to the first cup of Vietnamese coffee, it was downright sexual. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/462710012/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/246/462710012_b9356ad1ce_m.jpg" alt="IMG_5732" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>It's a simple pleasure that makes life infinitely better. Wouldn't you like to wake up to a fresh cup of melted chocolate lava that packs a caffeinated punch like no other every day? One day I had four cups of this stuff and I had to cut myself off lest I fly off the pavement. And did I mention, it's less than 30 cents a cup? And like 40 calories? Bakaahhh!!?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Cafe Da</span>: Straight Iced Vietnamese Coffee. Take some coarsely ground arabica beans and place in a stainless viet-coffee filter (pictured below next to cups of ice). Add hot water and fill filter to top. Wait. Lift filter when done brewing. Add a tiny bit of sugar (no more than 1 tbsp). Stir. If you want to cream your pants, add 1 tbps (or really to taste) of sweetened condensed milk instead of sugar (this is called <span style="font-style: italic;">Cafe Sua Da</span>). Pour over ice and stir - let the ice melt a tiny bit so it's not too strong and sweet; and so the temperature cools down as well.<br /><br />You can get approximations of this stuff in the US in Vietnamese restaurants - but it's not the same. I developed a relationship with my coffee lady (pictured with me at top) who sold the best of the best. Her coffee was earthy, thick, and frothy - perfectly balanced. She would take a clean glass, put in a tablespoon of sugar and a few ounces of coffee, and then use a pump whisk to mix and froth the concoction. Pour it over freshly bashed ice (they only have ice blocks in the street markets of Saigon), stir and serve. I will one day return to my coffee lady. I may even try to marry her.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]:</span> We figured that while we were here taking in the amazing local coffee we might as well try to infamous Weasel Coffee. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/462692818/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/204/462692818_4ed25d325f_m.jpg" alt="Weasel Coffee" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>Rumor has it that special Weasels eat the raw coffee berry and on the way through its digestive tract the outer fruit is digested and an enzymatic reaction occurs in the bean which is then dried and roasted.<br /><br />Now, I should preface this by saying that in America I don't drink coffee, I generally thinks it's too bitter, and since I gave up on caffeine when I was 16 I don't have much need for it. With that disclaimer out of the way, one morning I felt, more or less, like poop - so a little pick-me-up was in order, and what better than some freshly brewed Weasel Excrement?<br /><br />I tried the coffee and it was fucking phenomenal. After watching the water percolate through the grounds in the little Vietnamese coffee maker into a clear glass I added a couple teaspoons of sugar and then poured it all over my glass of ice. I wasn't quite prepared for what happened next.<br /><br />It was magically delicious - something so good that it shouldn't even be referred to in the same way that coffee is in America. This just tasted like sweet, chocolate juice. So smooth, creamy, and overwhelmingly chocolaty that I wasn't quite sure what to think. This stuff packs a punch too. By the time we were done with our glasses I had gone from "woke up on the wrong side of the bed" to "I'm on top of the world - WHEEEEEE!!!"<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Editors Note: We realize that the coffee we bought was actually </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.trung-nguyen-online.co.uk/legendee.html">this</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, not actually weasel-shit coffee, but beans put through an enzymatic process to simulate the effects of the weasel. Not authentic, but much cheaper, and still wicked good.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Other Drinks<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez:] </span>It's not all just coffee, coffee, weasel shit, and coffee. There are a host of other great things to pour down your throat. On the plastic baggie drinks side, fresh iced white sugar cane juice (tastes like sweet, light orange juice), lime sodas, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/462743356/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/240/462743356_e8be9f8cc7_m.jpg" alt="Lime-licious" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>vanilla pudding drinks, blacks sesame pudding drinks, bubble tea, and every kind of fruit flavor from syrup under the sun. My personal favorite was the sugar cane juice because it was really refreshing. All of these can be purchased for under 20 cents.<br /><br />Saigon had a lot to offer in the beer department as well. First, there are the <span style="font-style: italic;">Bia Hoi</span> joints. <span style="font-style: italic;">Bia Hoi</span> is locally microbrewed superlight golden lager that tastes kind of crappy, but is really thirst quenching. In some cases, it's cheaper than water. If you drink a couple liters at an accelerated pace, you might even get drunk. Why bother drinking it? At 50 cents per 2 liters, free ice (we drink beer on ice out here), free peanuts, and a mess of locals gettin tanked, there is no better place to spend a great night on the town at a crowded <span style="font-style: italic;">Bia Hoi</span> bar. They're everywhere by food in Saigon, and on every street corner in Hanoi.<br /><br />There are also a couple of Brewpubs serving up a respectable and very fresh Dunkel and Munich (@ the Saigon Race Track District 11) and even a solid Pilsener at the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/453742954/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/242/453742954_d50db1fd06_m.jpg" alt="Real Beer!!!" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>Lyon Brauhouse in District 1, Saigon. After 6 months of nothing but golden lager, more golden lager, and golden lager on ice, some really fresh, substantial beer made from German malt and hops was a welcome addition to my stomach.<br /><br />Let's face it: The guys who declared war on this country obviously never set foot into a side street to sample some of the local flavor. I don't care how communist these cats are, I was yelling "AHHHH MOTHERLAND!" by the time I finished my first cup of <span style="font-style: italic;">Cafe Da</span>. Any self-respecting food/bev fiend will find a way to get their hungry ass down to Ho Chi Minh City for some serious stomach reeducation. But make sure before you set foot out onto the hot, steamy streets of Saigon that you have that life giving perfect cup of coffee. You'll never quite be the same.Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-28771367494599506212007-04-18T15:24:00.000+07:002007-04-18T17:13:58.908+07:00Vietnamese Soup: Here Today, Saigon Tomorrow<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/453720865/" title="Nate loving a Sandwich"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/225/453720865_b636f51271_m.jpg" alt="Nate et Banh Mi" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]:</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">as he cradles his first sandwich of the day...</span>In light of all the glorious stupid jokes one can make about Vietnamese beef noodle soup like: Pho Real, the Pho-cking best, & call me on the Pho-ne, let's just skip the shit and get down to business.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Pho: Shizzle</span><br /><br />As the national dish of Vietnam, we're all (hopefully) familiar with it in one respect or another - a meaty beef soup flavored with star anise, cinnamon, and five spice, filled with fresh medium width rice noodles, topped with raw sliced beef, brisket, tripe or other offal, and finished with basil, mint, <span style="font-style: italic;">rau ram</span>, chilies, fish sauce, chili sauce...and the list goes on.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/462748215/" title="Phock Yeah"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/198/462748215_9cf903458f_m.jpg" alt="IMG_6005" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>Every single street stand, every soup-slinging hole-in-the-wall, every overpriced, tourist oriented upscale noodle dive has a distinctly different style. The condiment trays vary widely, the amount of anise or 5 spice changes, are they fresh noodles, dry noodles, chili oil, chili sauce...nobody knows. You simply have to try them all.<br /><br />And we did. And we do. And frankly, after 14 days of shoving bowls of 60 cent noodles down our throats, we still can't quite get over the shocking variety, the heart and soul, and the massive repeat value these noodles deliver. It's breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner.<br /><br />Maybe you've had too much Hanoi Vodka - have a bowl of Pho. Maybe those tiny Vietnamese guys who took you out to the best clams and snails you'll ever eat drank you under the table - have a bowl of Pho. Maybe you're homesick, desperately lonely, and the cacophony of motorbikes, screaming children, and blasting Backstreet Boys are killing you - Have a bowl of Pho. This isn't world traveling food writer's over-romanticism, it's the stone cold truth.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]:</span> Yeah, we save that kind of romanticism for our sandwich ladies.</span><br /><br />Call it the chicken soup of Vietnam. This comfort food at its finest.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Viet Noodle Primer:</span><br /><br />If you think that all there is to Vietnamese noodles is Pho...you're just wrong. As much as I'll go on for days about Pho, I'm a diehard <span style="font-style: italic;">Hu Tieu</span> boy to the end. Pho is beef soup and medium-width noodles. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/462734565/" title="Lime et Chili"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/241/462734565_07c1fac745_m.jpg" alt="IMG_5904" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>Hu Tieu designates a whole different creature: rich pork soup, sometimes clarified, sometimes not - filled with thin rice noodles, roasted pork, shrimps, maybe wontons, maybe seafood, and garnished with the same dizzying multitude of herbs, chili products, and citrus. Order <span style="font-style: italic;">Hu Tieu Mi</span> and you'll get thin Chinese-style egg noodles. I personally only roll with rice noodles, but if you need some variety, it's okay with <span style="font-style: italic;">Mi</span> once in a while (I'm not sorry about that one).<br /><br />Ben and I are constantly at odds over which is better. He's beef Pho-Life. I roll with the Who's-Hu Tieu crew. Pork stock is god.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Bun</span>: Rice vermicelli rocks out in noodle salads and special soups. You may order a <span style="font-style: italic;">Bun</span> dish and get a bowl of noodles with grilled pork, fried spring rolls, and herbs, served with <span style="font-style: italic;">nouc cham </span><span>(sweet, sour, spicy, Vietnamese fish sauce)</span> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/462680130/" title="Co Bac Hu Tieu"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/239/462680130_c55ccba9b1_m.jpg" alt="Street Tieu" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>and pickles. You may order <span style="font-style: italic;">Bun Bo Hue </span>and get a tomatoey-sweet/spicy beef and thick rice vermicelli soup. Bun refers to the type of noodle: round rice noodles.<br /><br />There are also clear noodles, thick wide noodles, thick round clear noodles, pork skin noodles, long noodles, short noodles, fresh noodles, dried noodles...let's face it, these guys don't fuck around. Vietnam is noodle heaven. We've covered half a square kilometer and it took us almost two weeks to eat at most of the street stalls and noodle garages.<br /><br />We heard that Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) doesn't have much to offer - few museums, not many tourist/world heritage sites, and it's loud. Who the hell cares? If you like food (meaning if you have a pulse) - this is Mecca.<br /><br />Welcome to the Noodle Revolution.Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-35550976648701365432007-04-11T11:03:00.000+07:002007-04-13T22:29:55.130+07:00Banh Mi Harder!<span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]:</span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/453721629/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/236/453721629_98f8bcca81_m.jpg" width="180" height="240" alt="Ben and his pink drink" align="right" border="0"/></a> Live from Vietnam, Ben et Nate are here to bring you a breaking news bulletin from the food frontier in Saigon.<br /><br />We arrived in Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City) after 16 hours in transit. Watching out the bus window we saw cities that seemed to be 90% Pho restaurants, city blocks with five or six Pho restaurants next to each other. Suffice to say, we were excited.<br /><br />After grabbing some sleep and checking our email like the good internet addicts we are, we stepped outside to meet our first portable sandwich shop (a woman with two baskets on a yoke to be carried down the street on her shoulders). A little pointing and holding up two fingers and she was slicing open baguette, inserting a few meatballs from her simmering pot of delicious red sauce, stuffing in pickles and cilantro, then pouring on a delicious chili/fish sauce mixture. The "OH MY GOD, SANDWICH!" meter was off the charts, after the shit we were eating in Cambodia, we could hardly contain ourselves as we reached into the bag to remove our little, newspaper wrapped, sandwich bundles of joy.<br /><br />One bite into the light, crispy, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/453704028/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/205/453704028_dcbb0e9524_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Making the Banh Mi" align="right" border="0"/></a>distinctly Vietnamese baguette and we knew this was something criminal. Something so good it makes you groan and melt into a little puddle of bliss on the ground. A combination of slow-cooked pork in mystery sauce and awesome pickles (and probably some heroin based on the reaction we had) that for that moment seemed to embody everything that is good about life.<br /><br />Nate got that glazed-over look to him, looked off into the distance and said happily, "I really wish a sniper would just put a bullet in my head right now, because I'm pretty sure it doesn't get any better than this."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]:</span> It's true, and I wasn't completely kidding.</span><br /><br />Vietnam is going to be awesome.<br /><br />Oh, did I mention that the sandwich cost 5000 Dong? That's about 30 cents. That's a deal I can live with. On top of that there seem to be Banh Mi stands everywhere serving a a vast array of sandwiches, from the aforementioned juicy meatballs, to grilled brochettes, to god-knows-what paté - all of which are delicious.<br /><br />All this blogging is making me hungry... I think it's time for another Banh Mi.Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-29986092965181775412007-04-04T17:33:00.000+07:002007-04-18T15:30:24.640+07:00Khmereoke?<img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/211/444781466_732deaea94.jpg?v=0" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]:</span> Cambodia brings to mind the massive and incomparable Angkor Wat. The exotic tropics of SE Asia. Paris of the East they called Phnom Penh. The truth is, this place is a nightmare (and ironically) since we didn't get our Vietnam visas in Cambodia, we have a fixed entrance and exit date instead of flexible date visas. Whoops! Now we're stuck on this god-forsaken shithole with nothing to do, and you better believe the food/everything here is bordering on inedible, toxic, and unsanitary <span style="font-style: italic;">at best</span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Highlights so far:</span> we found a bottle of '92 Bordeaux at a store in Siem Reap. Which anagramatizes to 'Rape me, si?' - which is only completely appropriate given the level of over-the-top hawkers and dramatically overinflated prices. Funny thing about that bottle of wine - it looked suspicious, like why does this label look wrong? Like why is it only $5.50? Why does this seem to <img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/179/444791525_c447f5cd9f.jpg?v=0" align="right" height="240" width="180" />be lacking some important information that any other bottle of French wine would have? I was too curious to see whether it had simply been the worst year for Bordeaux as I sensed (turns out it was really bad <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.winespectator.com/Wine/Archives/Show_Article/0,1275,381,00.html"><span id="lw_1175594157_3">according to Wine Spectator</span></a>) or if there even more foul play fermenting...<br /><br />Unfortunately my deepest, most hideous and unrighteous fears came to fruition - as we opened the bottle, the cork looked funny and wet, lacking a name that matches the chateau label. I poured the wine into my cup (fine, I'll admit it, I'm doing sensory analysis with Orikaso plasticware), the aroma was waaaaaayy too sharp to be 15 years old. Heavy duty fake vanilla , lots of alcohol, nail polish remover, and an ambiguous assortment of ripe red fruit that can only be described as Red Kool Aid. The taste was truly hilarious, and the finish was that of a tinge of malty flavor. Yes, malty flavor - as in malted milk balls and sweet, dark German beer.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Apparently, I'm not the first to notice the presence of fake wine in Cambodia - read a funny article about it </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.cambodiapocketguide.com/siemreap/editorial/2006/CounterfeitChateaux.aspx">here</a><span style="font-style: italic;">.</span><br /><br />This could only mean one, terrifying and horrible thing. The Cambodians have a flare for knocking off anything. This stems from the fact that Burger King won't do business here, the 7-11 won't do business here, no chain/franchise/international-institutions-of-convenience-and-economic-dominance will <img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/240/444713736_6ecb25f6bc.jpg?v=0" align="right" height="240" width="180" />do business here yet, so they tend to poorly copy everything and pass it off as the original.<br /><br />Guess what they did? They made up a fictitious chateau called "Chateau la Prevote" and filled it with, that's right, UNIDENTIFIED ASIAN RED WINE. I'm almost completely sure of it. While I was in Japan doing way too much alcohol research, I started exploring the wide, unrecognized world of cheap Asian grape wines. They all have this mysterious malty note to them - and la Prevote was super Asian-wine malty. Don't worry Australia, their best wine is worse than your cheap, sickening Yellowtail. Whether I would describe it as "rice malty" or "barley malty" is yet undecided, but malty indeed.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]:</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Actually the maltiness was reminiscent of Taro root if you ask me.. which you didn't, so I'll let Nate get back to lamenting our time in Cambodia.</span><br /><br />We've now been stuck in Phnom Penh for 10 days, trying desperately not to get so depressed by the squalor, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/444785383/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/232/444785383_5c3d2634c1_m.jpg" alt="Fish Amok @ Amok in Phnom Penh" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>the begging children, and the absolutely oppressive heat. After eating so many desperately mediocre meals in Siem Reap for too much money, we had little hope for Cambodia's capital. We found a couple tolerable joints, not too expensive, roughly Vietnamese, kind of Chinese, a little homestyle Khmer now and then.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The market food is sketchy</span>. I mean if the smell of rotting meat and fish baking on asphalt (indoors no less) isn't enough to turn your stomach over a few times, the utter absence of any food safety practice should be sufficient to keep you away. I have an iron stomach, I'll eat anything that won't injure me, but this was too far.<br /><br />With heroic persistence, we found some good things to eat. A night market near by our guesthouse puts out what was immediately identifiable as the best meal in Cambodia as soon as we tried it. How do I know? Because everyone and their mom eats here every night. And it costs 75 cents - Fried Rice and Beef with Soy Sauce and Local Greens at Orussey Night Market is the only way to fly. We also found an awesome sandwich of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/444745934/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/236/444745934_3e44985658_m.jpg" alt="Poulet et Rice" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>grilled beef brochettes with with shallot/daikon/cabbage pickles on grilled, margarined baguette. On this one evening where the food gods smiled upon us, we found a dessert stand serving assorted syrup soaked thin cookies and donuts with sticky rice, coconut pudding and coconut creme covered with shaved ice and sweetened condensed milk. It was safe to consume. It was 50 cents. It was what good SE Asian street food should be.<br /><br />This little market was a rare gem in the war torn, lawless country that attracts mostly sex-tourists and druggies. We should have heeded Anthony Bourdain's warnings about the absence of great, much less good food in Cambodia, but I was thoroughly convinced that any country next to Thailand had to be paved with delicacies.<br /><br />Seeing as it took 14 days of digging to find anything much better to eat than convenience store peanuts and Pocky, this was a tough blow to the Ben et Nate contingency, but we must move on to the promised land of noodles.<br /><br /><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/189/444776654_3095792164.jpg?v=0" align="right" height="240" width="180" /><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]:</span> Vietnam, watch out, we're hungry, malnourised (peanuts and Pocky is not a balanced diet), and started this trip with the mission to find the best bowl of noodles. You better believe I'm going to be eating Pho (Vietnamese Soup) three, four, maybe eight times a day.<br /><br />We're taking a boat down the Mekong tomorrow to get to 'Nam and there are preliminary flood warnings for low-lying areas based on the massive uncontrollable salivating that I will be doing the entire trip to Ho Chi Minh City.Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-79476177080903282792007-03-29T11:51:00.000+07:002007-04-18T14:39:43.657+07:00Take A Fruit Stand<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/411429809/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/128/411429809_c992012242_m.jpg" alt="How do you work this thing?" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]:</span> What's sweet, succulent, beautiful, a little prickly, and beloved by all? well...yours truly of course - But the more widely available, and much cheaper, Thai Fruit is a more apt answer to the above query. On practically every damn corner of Bangkok, on every island paradise, in every alley, nook, and cranny is a fruit stand selling whole or prepared fruit.<br /><br />People take their produce very seriously here. Once you get used to this insane abundance of 30 cent servings of juicy, crunchy pineapple, bizarre but addictive sweet soaked green guava, watermelon, cantaloupe, green mango, asian pear, strawberries, mangosteen....<br /><br />Let's rap shall we.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The all encompassing, ever popular, Mangosteen.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/437558974/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/165/437558974_427bcd3695_m.jpg" alt="IMG_5533" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>No other fruit carries such a large following these days in gourmet circles as the mangosteen, with it's hard, green stemmy top and eggplantian body, one cuts the top off to reveal the delicate white flesh segments inside. It has been touted as the single greatest fruit you'll ever eat.<br /><br />Let me tell you something. We bought a bucket of these, tore into it like ravenous wolves, and when we emerged, we looked at each other - confused - because there was something seriously awry. <span style="font-weight: bold;">It's called hype</span>. Now maybe we didn't eat the shining example, <span style="font-style: italic;">perhaps </span>we managed to dig out all of the wrong mangosteens (including the ones the Thai ladies picked out for us), but we've eaten them in central and south Thailand (and Cambodia), and it still tasted like a cross between sweet lime and cherry with a wonderful, soft, juicy texture that was (look, I'll admit) fantastic.<br /><br />Queen of the fruits? No. Worth the god-knows-fucking what they're going to charge you at your local Chez le Trend d'Semaine for a well plated piece of fruit? Not this one guys.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Daily Fix</span><br /><br />The mangoes (as discussed previously) are the undisputed king of all fruits around here. May his reign be supreme. Nothing has beaten the face contorting deliciousness with which a Thai mango will annihilate you. There is also the much more prevalent <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/437558694/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/167/437558694_36c401139f_m.jpg" alt="IMG_5274" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>(and cheaper) pineapple. They are so sweet, sooo juicy, sooo overflowing with pineapply love that no matter how mundane it may seem, it's just really fucking good everyday. Ben has issues without the stuff. I personally branch out into watermelons, asian pears, and green sugar soaked guavas.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]:</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Seriously, between the 10 baht pineapple (put it in my veins!) and the ripest mangoes you've ever seen I've though about hiring one of the fruit cart vendors to just follow me around and hack up pineapple all day long to supply my fix. When I get tired of that there are countless mango-ladies on the street to peel and cut up mangoes in all of their groan-inducing goodness. The combination of these two delicious yellow fruits is like having god shove a fistful of sunshine down your throat.</span><br /><br />Rose Apples (pictured right) are also one of the more interesting (and consequently completely unavailable in the states) fruits. They are really crisp, actually bordering on styrofoam (like the ones discussed from Taiwan), and have a slightly grape-apple flavor that is really refreshing. In Thailand they're much juicier and sweeter than their Taiwanese counterparts, and this makes a regular appearance on my daily fruit consumption list.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What's that smell?<br /><br />Durians - Jackfruit<br /></span><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]</span>: We finally bit the bullet (and the fruit) and picked up these members of the spiky-fruit-of-doom family <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/437558756/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/181/437558756_3fc3a9676e_m.jpg" alt="IMG_5263" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>(a.k.a the <span style="font-style: italic;">Bombacaceae </span>family). Jackfruit is actually good, a little bit of that Thai fruit funk, but also tangy and banana-y, not something requiring multiple daily indulgences , but not something to be avoided. Nate compares it to the flavor of JuicyFruit gum, I'm not sure if I agree, but I definitely see where he's coming from.<br /><br />Durian, the stuff of legends, myths, epic poems, and more than one "No Durian Allowed" signs in hotels. On our last day in Bangkok it seemed like it was time to see if all the hype was right. According to various sources this is a stinky, custardy, caramelly fruit - I don't really agree. We got our massive lobe of Durian (in Ben's hands on right) in its plastic bag, and already there was a palpable funk that I couldn't quite place. Definitely soft and custard-like in texture, it barely required a knife to break apart before going into our apprehensive mouths. After some deep sensory evaluation, accessing the depths of our taste memories - it has hints of banana and pineapple, the ubiquitous Thai-fruit-funk taken to a whole new level, but primarily it tastes like steamed/sweated white onions. Maybe a little celery. Somehow this fruit has managed to be a perversion of unsalted mirepoix flavors.<br /><br />Definitely not what I'm looking for in my fruit - and it tastes even worse when the Durian-flavored burps set in. I think Nate's solution for stinky tofu burps (swilling whiskey) might be required next time I eat durian.<br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/437558838/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/162/437558838_7ba4c24fee_m.jpg" alt="IMG_5536" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]: </span>And to put this into perspective everyone - we're being ridiculously concise. There are more fruits (RAMBUTANS!), more delicacies, more fascinating and mysterious fruit products that we could actually write a book about. So until we either have the luxury of a financier, or become independently flush, we'll stick with concise.<br /></span>Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-88436169194056492502007-03-19T16:32:00.000+07:002007-03-27T22:11:39.746+07:00Furry Uri's Curry in a Hurry<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/426539981/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/188/426539981_b067b9305f_m.jpg" alt="Brrr...It's cold out here" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]</span> Landing at Bangkok International Airport, the one thing filling my myopic agenda for the near future was the procurement of curry. Sadly, it took over 12 hours before I was able shovel my first spoonful of curry into my mouth - the unavoidable result of a flight landing at 11pm.<br /><br />Curry, much like in India, translates to sauce. So saying I wanted curry might be a bit of a generalization, but after the subtlety and balance of Japanese food, the "you expect us to cook it for you?" barbarism of Korea, and the two weeks of "Closed for Chinese New Years!" of Taiwan, I was ready for a punch to the face of aromatics and flavor. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Thai curry did not disappoint</span>.<br /><br />I will even (slightly shamefully) admit that even the curry on Thai Airlines flying from South Korea to Taiwan was enough to send me into cries of pleasure after the overly-pickled week that we spent in SoKo. Coconut milk and lemongrass have never tasted so good.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/414775081/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/168/414775081_1ab8a7412c_m.jpg" alt="Food Court Food" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>There are of course the normal classifications: Red, Green, Penang, Massamun, and Yellow. Of course at about 30 to 50 baht a plate, you'll find me on the shoveling end of way too many, somewhat indistinguishable, yet different curries - and identifying these properly becomes somewhat difficult.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">[nate sez]:</span> Sufficed to say, they all are heavily aromatic and delicious, some significantly more coconutty, some rocket hot, some sweet and lemongrassy, some with shrimp, some with pork, some with chicken. Bamboo shoots seem to accompany a red curry more often, and coconut shoots (which are <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/411593214/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/174/411593214_4db4ccb1b3_m.jpg" alt="Curries and Soups." align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>crunchy delicious) go with a fishier yelllow/red fusion curry. The variations are as numerous as there are fat, white, balding lechers in Patpong. Every Mom running her hole in the wall restaurant has her own way of making each type of curry, and they vary, of course, regionally.<br /><br />The single most important thing I learned from Joseph's curry-stained technicolor dream plate is that the Thais are overwhelmingly, and by far, some of the best cooks on the whole damn planet. <span style="font-weight: bold;">The driving concept is balance</span>. In 86/87 curries (yes, I counted) the hot/sour/salty/sweet balance was always working toward a equilibrium that we rarely come to expect but in the finest dining establishments. The only exception in my book is super-salty shrimp paste curry which outright sucks ass. It's soooooooo salty and <span style="font-style: italic;">rotten</span> shrimpy. You have to taste it to believe it... ::shivers::<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/426506598/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/178/426506598_4934df519d_m.jpg" alt="Get in my mouth!" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>The best of the best highlights of curries: Bamboo shoot red curry at Suan Lum night market in Bangkok, The shredded pork lemongrass coconut curry at Suan Lum, the spicy curry soup at Wireless Road across from Lumphini Park (that was a serious good meal, we saw like eighteenhundred thai cats piled into this place every night we walked by - not a gringo in sight - and so we were on it like Sticky Rice on my face), and loads of plates of Shrimp sautéed in curry paste. What curry paste you ask? How the fuck should I know? I've unsuccessfully negotiated for an affordable Tuk-Tuk ride in Thai, I know how to say "just mangoes, no rice", but I am faaar away from actually getting some real information off of these sauce slingers about their amazing dishes.<br /><br />I'm working on it I swear.Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-26604239099933309992007-03-10T00:02:00.000+07:002007-03-10T22:24:46.758+07:00Holy Crepe, Batman it's dessert time!!<span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]:</span> Having eaten countless curries<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/411593805/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/180/411593805_b699e97dbf_m.jpg" alt="Ben et Coco" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a> in the week we've been here, most of which cost less than $2 per plate, we decided that perhaps it was time to invest a dollar or two in dessert.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Banana Crepe:</span> Walking down an unknown street somewhere in the old section of Bangkok near Chinatown after a long day of walking in 100°F heat with brutal sun beating down on us, we passed through a street market and my dessert-radar began signaling me with an emergency situation, there was a sweet treat nearby that required my investigation!<br /><br />A few feet away we spotted a pastry-like device of unknown contents being flipped in a shallow-wok, pan frying to golden-brown-delicious perfection. Upon closer inspection (and salivation) we watched a few of these desserts being prepared and discovered that they were crepes filled with bananas and egg.<br /><br />First the crepe-slinger (as she will henceforth be referred to) grabs a pieces of dough and slaps it out to paper-thinness and tosses it into the buttery wok. After a few seconds of puffed cooking, a mixture of a sliced banana and egg is poured into the middle. A few more seconds of cooking and the sides are folded <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/414786663/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/123/414786663_be58d45784_m.jpg" alt="Banana Crepe" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>up to create a beautiful crepe package. The crepe is then flipped and butter and melted palm sugar are thrown under the flipped crepe, increasing exterior caramelization, and thereby flavor. After both sides are browned, the crepe is held vertically to drain most of the excess sugar-love, then moved to sheets of paper to absorb further grease.<br /><br />Now here's the criminal part. While resting, the crepe-banana-package is heavily doused in sweetened condensed milk by the crepe-slinger's partner in dessert-crime. If that weren't enough the already awesome combination is then given a savage dusting in pure, white sugar. It's like a case of type two diabetes in a little 6"x8" crepe envelop.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]:</span> a veritable glycemic sledgehammer if you will.<br /><br />You better believe it was delicious, and it took all of our will power not to go back for a second.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/411589256/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/145/411589256_a35685d61e_m.jpg" alt="Mango and Sticky Rice." align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mango with Sticky Rice:</span> We've all had this at one point or another at your local Thai wannabe restaurant. It's good. No, I take that back, it's really good. To put it lightly, when I tried this in Bangkok for the first time for 20 baht (that's 60 cents you currency converters you), I had the rare heroin-reaction.<br /><br />My blood suddenly races through my body, my tounge swirling around in sweet, salty, sticky foodgasm, and I wasn't the same, I was changed. I really mean it. These mangoes are treacherously delicious with heavy sweetness, deep mango flavor, custardy texture you can scoop with a spoon, and the ubiquitous good Thai tropical fruit stank (a sulfuric substance also found in Durian and Jackfruit).<br /><br />The sticky rice is sweet and fragrant. It has a glossy, pearly white coat with a perfect chew and mouthfeel. The sweetness is balanced by the jasmine-floral notes of the rice itself and a pinch of salt. I hope to be embalmed in this shit someday, maybe even a great idea for a new edible spa treatment in which you get fatter and sweeter. I mean, Thai food is trendy right?<br /><br />To make matters worse, you get a small bag of lightly salted and sweetened coconut cream for a bit of that fatty, round coconut taste to tie it all together. There are a lot of food writers who exaggerate things out of proportion, we're sometimes guilty of that, but I can't stress how I'm not doing this glorious creation justice.<br /><br />It's worth whatever a plane ticket costs to Bangkok to eat this...and some other stuff too, I guess.Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-60588488565580076142007-03-08T07:45:00.000+07:002007-03-09T22:34:53.915+07:00Cha For Tea (Not redundant at all)<span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]:</span> (as he tenuously holds a bottle Mogen David in a Taipei grocery store) One last note about Taiwan. This place was <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/411562864/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/173/411562864_d2742553bb_m.jpg" alt="No Way Face" align="right" border="0" height="240" width="180" /></a>named by the Portuguese as "Formosa" meaning beautiful island. This beautiful island is also home to some of (and arguably <span style="font-style: italic;">the</span>) best bloody tea on the planet. The specialty is Oolong tea. Now we've all had Oolong tea at the local Danny Fu's Chinese Greasy Wok, with its largely unappealing flavor (unless cut with some sugar) and mostly appearing to be an incomplete black tea. BUT the real truth about Oolong is that it is <span style="font-style: italic;">partially </span>oxidized instead of <span style="font-style: italic;">completely </span>oxidized (as Black Tea is).<br /><br />For all of you who knew me when I was starting a tea business (that didn't get off the ground), I could go on for days about this shit so I'll simply link you to an appropriate tea information area for anyone who cares. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea">Wikipedia - A Primer on Tea</a> & <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oolong">Wikipedia - Oolong Tea</a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOW</span> - There is a chain restaurant owned and operated by the massive tea company <span style="font-style: italic;">Ten Ren</span> called <span style="font-style: italic;">Cha For Tea</span>. I read about this place <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/401757673/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/157/401757673_064c7284bf_m.jpg" alt="IMG_4587" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>in a Taiwan train-stop tourism guide and thought it might be worth a shot, even though guide book recommendations are notoriously expensive (which it of course was). I spotted the joint while we were walking back to a train station after visiting the National Palace Museum. We were peckish and thirsty so we stopped in.<br /><br />Little did we know, we were in for one of the best dining experiences to date. Cha For Tea (as it's completely obvious name would suggest) serves a lot of tea, but as a bonus, all of their cuisine is inspired by/made with their tea. It was shockingly delicious.<br /><br />We started the meal with a pot of their highest quality High Mountain Oolong (which is a Taiwan specialty). It is a very lightly oxidized tea so it tastes and feels green, but has developed mature and floral notes - specifically that of rose, jasmine, and sometimes lychee-muscat flavors. These teas are unusually sweet in flavor without the addition of sugar (which would kill it).<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/398661250/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/110/398661250_b48a7cee9b_m.jpg" alt="Tempura Tea Leaves" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>We moved on to our apps which were Tempura Tea Leaves and Jasmine Tea Pork God-Knows-What sauce Tofu. The tea leaves were served with a ground green oolong salt that was absolutely insane and ingenious, and the tofu dish was divine. The tofu was warmed slightly and covered in a light, beautiful savory reduced shrimp and pork stock infused with jasmine tea. I'd never had anything quite like it.<br /><br />The main dishes were noodles (c'mon, what else do we eat?). I ordered the "King's Noodle Soup" and Ben got the Tea oil Noodles with ground pork. My noodles were actually made with tea powder, so they were green and slightly bittersweet. The broth was underwhelming - that is until I dived into the ungodly-delicious braised pork spareribs next to my bowl. The sauce was similar to that of standard Chinese roasted pork, but they had cut the Cha Siu sauce with some King's Tea Oolong, which delicately rounded out the overbearing sweetness and raisiny tastes found in Cha Siu. I generously added the remaining sauce to my bowl of noodles (whether that was the "right" thing to do or not) and it tasted a <span style="font-style: italic;">whole</span> lot better after that. Maybe even really damn good. But the pork spare rib was the best spare rib I've had to date, so that says something.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/398661344/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/160/398661344_096da6007e_m.jpg" alt="Rice flour noodles in Tea oil" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a>Ben's dish was in another league all together. This green tea rice noodles were cooked off, then coated with tea oil. Then it was topped with a salty, meaty-dark pork sauce with a shredded seaweed garnish. The plate came with some steamed broccoli, baby corn, and tea infused prunes. This was the star of the show. The flavor was definitely a savory one by and large - but the tea oil brought a body and character we had never ever tasted before. Slightly bitter, very green, indirectly floral - this tea oil was magic. And the tea infused prunes were a brilliant match for this rare dish.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />[Ben sez]</span> The presence of strong green tea flavor in this dish was amazing. Using tea oil to create a magical, savory tea flavor (as opposed to the sweet, floral notes of tea as a beverage) made for an out of this world plate of noodles. A perfect balance when mixed with the salty ground pork.<br /><br /><br />We kind of looked at each other in disbelief of what had just transpired. So if you're in Taiwan, and you're in Taipei, go to Cha For Tea. I'm the last person on this bloody planet that would encourage anyone to visit a chain establishment. However, there are noteably important exceptions.<br /><br />And who doesn't like Taco Bell at 3 in the fucking morning after drinking too much anyway?Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com44tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1584524150387483987.post-45610957980264638572007-03-06T15:35:00.000+07:002007-03-06T00:56:30.024+07:00Coming Soon to the State Fair: Chinese Cheese (Curds)<span style="font-weight: bold;">[Ben sez]</span> One fateful evening prior to our departure from Taipei it was decided that we needed to re-enter the neon/florescent-lit world of the night market and indulge in some of the traditional Taiwanese street foods which we had missed (or avoided) on our first romp through the golden fields of consumption which are the Taiwanese Night Markets.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/411417045/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/160/411417045_6017d3309e_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Stinky Tofu" border="0" align="right"/></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Stinky Tofu:</span> "Stinky Tofu? That sounds appetizing.." you might say, we found ourselves walking through the markets on our first nights in Taiwan smelling something that is best described as somewhere between extra-potent fish sauce and smelly gym socks (sort of like the kind we get after the fifth day of walking 9 hours a day in the same pair of socks.. ahhh life as a backpacker, but I digress). After talking to some locals we were informed that this smell was Stinky Tofu, or Chinese Cheese as it is sometimes referred to in tourist oriented literature, and the stinkier it is the better. To say that we had eaten Taiwan we knew we had to eat it, so we pointed to a wok of these golden brown blocks of tofu, held up one finger and soon had a plate of stinky tofu, cabbage and onions on a table in front of us.<br /><br />It was surprisingly unoffensive during the first bite, not something I'd miss if I didn't eat it again, but also not gag-worthy. The outside was a little crisp, yet oily, yielding to a somewhat crumbly interior like dried cottage cheese, and the flavor was of course slightly tofu and slightly gym sock.<br />(<span style="font-weight: bold;">[Nate sez]</span> However, when you burp up this flavor over the next 4 hours, you kind of feel the need to kill something. It gets really nasty. The only cure was good old Japanese whisky. And it worked, damn it.)<br /><br />Perhaps cheese is the best analogy for this substance. When I try to think of something from the US that would be disgusting to an unfamiliar Asian palette cheese comes to mind - oily, fatty, sometimes incredibly pungent - much like stinky tofu does not easily find a place in the hearts of foreigners, but has its passionate devotees among those who grew up with it.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/411561599/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/153/411561599_53e4dd1e69_m.jpg" width="180" height="240" alt="Oyster Omelet a la Shilin" border="0" align="right"/></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Oyster Pancake:</span> The Taiwanese specialize in these omelet-like devices which are built on a foundation of griddled oysters, topped with a mixture of egg and an unknown potato/rice starch creating a "pancake" which is then topped with a sweet chili sauce. Despite the description the example of this which we tasted was relatively flavorless, tasting only faintly of low-grade oysters. The egg/starch portion of the omelet was gooey and relatively bland.<br /><br />On the other hand the night markets also have a flat-bread pancake which can be ordered with egg and then covered in soy and chili sauces which makes for a delicious evening snack - though it was not mentioned in the "Night Market Delicacies" pamphlet we were given. Our lovely friend Morgan clued us into this scene.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/411418233/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/176/411418233_d611fd357c_m.jpg" alt="Fried Chicken!" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Fried Chicken:</span> While there's nothing shocking about fried chicken conceptually, the fried chicken available at Taiwanese Night Markets is undeniably out of this world. It's a simple chicken cutlet, pounded thin, breaded in a tasty batter, and then fried until crispy (and optionally run through a slicer at some stands). It might not be rocket science, but it's so good it will make you laugh, cry, and undoubtedly go back for seconds, thirds, or possibly ninths.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/91756855@N00/411418424/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/123/411418424_629a7fc3c1_m.jpg" alt="Milk and Coconut Jelly Ice" align="right" border="0" height="180" width="240" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Shaved Ice: </span>Thin strips of frozen water in a cup, a good start for dessert. Well, it is when you then add a magical Taiwanese flavor concoction to it. Nate and I finished off our evening with two of these cold sugary treats, one in Yakult (Japanese sweet drinking yogurt flavor) and the other Milk with Coconut Jellies. I'm not sure if milk shaved ice is healthier than ice cream, but with the addition of coconut flavored jellies it certainly is more delicious than ice cream.Ben et Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549965680391792542noreply@blogger.com3