An Awesome Post: Real Food

I had been thinking about a post describing my issues with ‘fake’ or processed foods for a while, but then I ran into this post by Michael Ruhlman, a food writer for whom I have great respect. Ruhlman approaches food from a very personal level, there is honesty and emotion in his writing that really draws you in while delivering facts.

Basically, this is my view of food. I’m no skinny minny, and this is not some sort of miracle diet, but I will say that I feel about a hundred times better all the time since cutting the majority of processed foods out of my life. I say the majority because my BFF Diet Coke is clearly going nowhere anytime soon.

 Anyways, I just wanted to call attention to the article because he really articulates my underlying feelings about foods today, and this saves me the trouble of writing a very similar food rant.

Dine for Darfur: Aka Shameless self-promotion

I will now be shamelessly using my blog to promote my event, but given that it is food related, I don’t feel too bad. Tuesday March 4th is Dine for Darfur all over Washington and Oregon. Please go out to eat at a participating restaurant, 25% of what you spend goes to Mercy Corps for aid in Darfur. And it is an awesome event, totally organized by yours truly.

 It also happens to be the reason I have not been writing much, as I have been totally swamped (that and I don’t have internet at our new place yet). So look for more good food stuffs to come after next tuesday. I might even write about the amazing quail egg and cherry tomato salad I made last night.

www.dinefordarfur.org

In Search of Greatness: Momofuku Ssam Bar

We came to Momofuku Ssam Bar because of the awards, accolades and heaps of praise I had heard. As we were seated, I realized I was going to like this place just looking at the menu “We do not serve vegetarian items.” This is a good sign, I thought. Follow that up with an entire section entitled “Offal” and I was pleased as a pig in punch, or whatever the saying is.

Immediately realizing I was not going to be able to order everything (unforntunate, because about 75% of the dishes offered looked amazing), I decided to allow Brett some input to narrow it down. We started with Maine Sea Urchin from the “Raw Bar” section, which came with tapioca, whipped tofu, scallions, shrimp crackers and a seaweed topping. This was terrific urchin, the one piece we got for $16. But it was hidden under the many flavors (get a little of everything in each bite, advised our waiter). I enjoyed it, but it was overwhelming and overdressed. This would appear to be a theme, as we ventured further.

From the “Small Dishes” we chose Steamed Buns with pork belly, hoisin, cucumber and scallions (really, must the scallions be listed everywhere? They were not memorable, more of a garnish). These were as delicious as my taste buds could have wanted. Served like an pita wrap (vaguely reminiscent of the new “sammies” offered at Quizno’s), the bun was perfectly steamed, the pork belly made fattily melty, it was terrific. This dish helped me understand they hype surrounding the restaurant.

We skipped the Country Hams section and went straight to “Local” where we tried Tello’s Chawan Mushi with snails and garlic. This too, was incredible. Brett had never tried Chawan Mushi before, nor snails, and he later declared this his favorite dish of the trip. The garlic flavor was just strong enough to make its presence known, but never overwhelmed the savory custard flavor of the Chawan Mushi. The snails were perfectly tasty, I’m not sure if it is hard to cook snails, but these ones were amazing.

Last but not least, we picked from the “Offal” section of the menu. I was so looking forward to the Pig’s Head Torchon, I could barely contain myself. It arrived, to beautifully cripy cakes of porky deliciousness. They were perfect. Pork flavor swelled in my mouth as my tongue felt out soft fatty pockets of meat. The cakes were served with a spicy mustard sauce which counteracted the rich mouthfeel with a sharp jolt of cooling heat (that will only make sense if you know the chinese hot mustard taste, I’m sure). Also on the plate was a pile of collard greens and red adzuki beans. These two matched perfectly well with not only each other, but with both the mustard and the torchons. If chef Chang had left this dish here, I would sing its praises from the hillsides. Unfortunately, he had chosen to continue on, adding a sprinkling of pineapple on top. First off, who garnishes with pineapple in January? Second of all, this flavor clashed with the pork. It clashed with the greens and beans, and I thought it clashed with the mustard. Brett disagreed, but I thought it made for a horrific taste in my mouth. Why does this man not have someone telling him when to stop?

 Overall, while I enjoyed the food, I did not think that this was a totally unmissable stop in New York, as I had been led to believe, though I would reccomend it to a friend as inventive and delicious food.

Never Say “Eew”

I first heard of shirataki as a substitute for noodles for people on low carb or low cal diets. As often as I diet, I am committed to the idea of real food. That means no fake sweetners (except diet coke, and that is a flavor thing, not a diet thing), no freeze dried or frozen miracle foods, to me, I assumed it also meant no shirataki, some sort of concoction dreamt up by the marketing geniuses over at Weight Watchers. A short time ago I learned that this is in fact a traditional Japanese food, created from starchy vegetables and used in a variety of ways. I was only feeling slightly daring and decided to start with Tofu Shirataki. And I’m in love. I took it out of the package and gave it a quick rinse before tasting it. It was terrific. Just a hint of al dente texture, like a lovely thick piece of fettucini. I don’t know what I expected, but I think I thought it would be more like an over cooked onion. I was, suffice it to say pleasantly surprised. I had planned to stir fry the noodles with red bell peppers and onions in Korean red bean sauce. Instead, I made it like my favorite simple pasta dish: Olive oil, salt and pepper. I popped it in the micro for a minute and a half. It was perfect. I think I may have a new favorite instant meal, and I just wanted to share my love of this miracle food with the rest of the blogosphere.

New York Part 2: Celebrity Worship brings me to Hagi

Anthony Bourdain, as many people know, is kind of a hero to me. And by kind of, I mostly mean I am endlessly envious of his job. Eating my way around the world is, unfortunately, something I must do on my own dime. He on the other hand gets to do it for free. Luckily each week I get to watch and live vicariously by watching him on television. When in New York, he went to an underground sake bar. Seeing as B and I love sake and this sounded cool, we decided to check it out and see if Tony (that’s right, we are on a first name basis) really was eating as well as he made us believe. Hagi Sake Bar allowed me to retain my everlasting faith in Tony, that the man knows what he is talking about, at least when it comes to food.

As we were seated, we chose a few sake bottles and prepared to ask our waitress about them. They were out of both of them. This seemed like a bad sign, since there were only about 10 listed on the menu and they were out of the two we had wanted. We needn’t have worried, this woman was like a sake sommelier. She brought over a ring of cards describing various sakes, pointed out two that would be in the same vein as those we had chosen from the menu, then brought over a bottle of each and gave us tastes. She would later do this again when we bought a second bottle of sake. All of the sakes were delectable, and quite reasonably priced.

Also a reasonable price was the food. We came in here planning only to drink, but were quickly distracted and dazzled by the chalkboards full of amazing sounding specials. Starting with the sea urchin sashimi. We had just come from sea urchin at Momofuku Ssam Bar, which was amazing quality urchin, but overly done up. This was a slightly less good piece of fish, but simply prepared, over daikon. We enjoyed it. We moved on to a decent serving of spicy cod roe (not a dish for everyone, as it is lightly spicy and extremely salty).  We had a skewer of pork belly, which is not the best way, we decided, that one can prepare a pork belly and we had some reasonably good takoyaki. Then out came the clincher. It was off the cuff, out of the blue, that we decided to order beef liver sashimi. One of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Sliced thinly, there is only a hint of that liver taste, just enough to make you smile. It comes with a dipping sauce of sesame oil and daikon, as well as add-ons of garlic, ginger and onions. It was, with any combination of these items, a sublime, melt in your mouth, amazing sliver of a treat. I’m still dreaming of happy little slices of beef liver sashimi making their way to my mouth.

New York Part 1: Celebrity Worship–Centro Vinoteca and Otto

There are, I’m willing to admit, celebrity chefs whose food and personality I very much enjoy. One such example is the delight I get when I hear Alton Brown announce “Sous chef Anne Burell making one of her famous pastas” on Iron Chef. Ms. Burell works as Mario Batali’s sous chef on the show, and I started making handmade pasta dough only after watching her endless parade of beautifully mixed doughs on my screen. Thus, I was not going to pass up a chance to dine at her latest culinary venture, Centro Vinoteca, while I was in New York. We arrived early for our reservation, having cut short our walk in the East Village due to the pouring rain. We were sat immediately, all through the night service was impeccable. We began with four piccolini, the miniature starters offered before the appetizers. These ranged from good to amazing. At the good level were the marinated anchovies. Marinated in lemon, I would say, they had a very sharp flavor, which I enjoyed. I enjoyed the sharp flavor even more when we were later given a basket of bread and my palate had a foil to the acidity of the fish. B rather enjoyed the goat cheese with pepperonata, though I was less enthused. I found the smokiness of the pepper overwhelmed the delicate flavor of the goat cheese that accompanied it. A good dish, for sure, but with a stronger cheese or lighter smoke, with the potential to be great. A bigger hit was the stir-fried olives. Simplicity is the latest trend in cooking, and Burell exemplifies it here by lightly stir-frying a variety of olives in olive oil. The heat of the pan enhances the texture of the skins, while the frying intensifies the flavor. It was as if she had taken an average olive and transformed it into a superolive. Lastly, the biggest hit of the piccolini, the fried cauliflower. In reading the NY Times review of this place, they said that this woman can fry. I don’t usually bother with fried foods, but with a review like that, I had to try. The pieces came with a delicious garlic aioli, however, I didn’t feel that my cauliflower desired a sauce, as the caramalized taste of cauliflower was rich and pleasing. The fry was done perfectly, not a trace of extra grease or sogginess. The texture and crunch of the cauliflower were perfect, and shone through the light layer of breading. I know it is hard to believe that a small piece of cauliflower could be so transcendant, but its the truth.

We shared one appetizer, easily the winner of the night, calamari noodles in broth. It was again, very simple, calamari cut into noodle like strips floating in a simple broth with a hint of lemon, black olives, arugula and little rounds of potato. While the potato I could take or leave, the rest of the dish surpassed my expectations of just how good squid in broth could get. The spice of the arugula matched the mild tartness of the black olives, while the potatos offered a crunch to contrast the touch of chew left in the calamari. This was certainly a dish for the winners circle.

For our main dishes, we chose to get a pasta each, as that is, after all what we came to eat. B chose the bucatini alla amatriciana. Having recently read the NY times article about this dish, I thought it had sounded good. The dish was. The bucatini (like an extra fat spaghetti) were perfectly cooked, there was the right amount of sauce and everything tasted great. It was still, though, as B pointed out, sort of a glorified spaghetti and meatballs. I chose the evenings special, whole wheat tagliatelli with pumpkin, broccoli rabe and pumpkin seeds in a broth and olive oil sauce. I know it sounds like something out of a health food store, but this whole wheat pasta avoided the common overly-al dente chew of many such pastas, and the crunch of the pumpkin seeds made for hidden treasures floating in the broth sauce.

The special treat for dessert? As we walked out B turned to me and said, “Look! There’s Anne Burell, and she is PISSED!” Sure enough, there was her spike blonde mop of hair, in the pass window asking, as we lip read, “What the fuck is this?” To some poor cook. It was awesome.

Later that week, we ended up at Ms. Burell’s mentor’s restaurant, that of the venerable (Seattle Native) Mario Batali. We had come to Otto with just one purpose: Olive oil gelato. Sure enough, there it was. We ordered it up, along with ricotta flavor and butterscotch pecan. It is easy to understand how this man became a star as you eat these simple scoops of gelato, just one of many flavors, of many desserts, of many dishes, and think just how delicious it is. The olive oil was certainly the star, like sucking down creamy versions of high end olive oil, and the real treat was the occaisional crunch into a piece of the sea salt sprinkled atop.