Hungry Hippo

Noodlemania

2007-04-16T00:56:00.000-04:00

It has become more and more apparent that every restaurant has its own pièce de résistance. For example, Oversea Asian has their Young ToFu in curry soup and the Momofuku restaurants have their pork. Some things just stand out.

There are also many ways to find out about these highlights. Much of the time, some skilled internet reading will have one anticipating certain dishes even before setting foot in a restaurant. Lately, however, I’ve been employing a different method. It combines an underused skill of mine with my interest in food: people watching… while they eat!

This method has finally proven to be wildly successful.

A few months back, I visited Moon House for the first time. This tiny restaurant is one of the two Shanghainese restaurants that flank the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory on Bayard Street. The other restaurant is Yeah Shanghai Deluxe, which is notable in it’s own right.

While my first visit to Moon House was decent (the food was not bad—the value was amazing), I noticed, right after we ordered our food, every other table in the restaurant was busily inhaling plates of ropey stir-fried noodles. The noodles themselves didn’t look outstanding; they looked like most decent plates of noodles, lightly glistening with a good amount of oil with a good meat/veggie to noodle ratio. The look on the faces of those eating the noodles, however, was more telling. They looked content and satisfied—the exact facial expression I would want to have after eating a plate of noodles.

Unfortunately, we did not order these noodles, which is why that first meal only qualified as alright. I did, however, keep yapping to my dining partner that there was something special about these noodles.

These mystery noodles at Moon House were mentioned on and off for a few months, and finally, we returned for sole purpose of identifying this noodle dish on the menu and eating them. Luckily, I was in the company of an individual who speaks Mandarin. He quickly described the noodles and we were directed to a dish with the inauspicious title of “Shanghai Lo Mein (with Pork)”.

The noodles were stir fried in combination of vegetable oil and pork fat, and beautifully coated with a deep brown sauce that was satisfyingly savoury, yet sweetly complex with every bite. Matchstick sized pieces of pork, finely chopped suey choy (AKA nappa cabbage), and the occasional sliver of Chinese-style pickled vegetables were distributed evenly throughout. It was all made better by the taste a hot wok imparts on food.

The noodles themselves were in a category that I’d never come across before—that category being “I’d beat up your grandma if she stood in between me and the noodles”. They were Shanghai-style wheat noodles, with the approximate dimensions of the pointed end of full sized, plastic Chinese chopsticks. The texture of the noodles were unforgettable: a cross between being elastic and al dente, they gave back a little of what you gave them with every bite.

These noodles will keep me coming back. They’re the type of thing I’ll daydream about (and drool over, in my weaker moments). And, the best part about this dish? It cost $4.95 (tax and tip, not included).

Post Easter Egg Carnage

2007-04-10T16:52:00.000-04:00

A bunch of atheists and a Jew got together and celebrated Easter with Bloody Marys, Mimosas, blueberry muffins, granola and Greek style yoghurt, hot cross buns, Munchkins, and Easter egg painting. Or Easter egg decorating, rather. These new fangled pimped out egg decorating kits are startling with all their bells and whistles.

After being surrounded by the fragrant sulfurous scent of hard-boiled eggs, I decided against making Deviled eggs, and thought that a salad that minimized the natural bouquet of these eggs may be more palatable.

I bet that the addition of some lemon zest would be lovely too, however, I happened to be extracting juice from the single lemon I possessed; unfortunately, that lemon had been stripped naked the day before. He’d given up his skin for the muffins and the hot cross buns .

Red Potato Salad

1 1/2 lb red potatoes
5 hard-boiled eggs
3 1/2 celery ribs (or 1 1/4 C when chopped)
1 small onion (or 1/2 C when chopped)
2 Tbs capers
3 Tbs fresh lemon juice
2/3 C (scant) mayonnaise
salt and black pepper to taste

Boil the red potatoes in water until cooked through. Peel and cube potatoes to the size you desire (I tried to cut everything to approximately the same size—1/2 inch cubes). Cube the hard-boiled eggs. Chop celery and onion. Gently toss together all solids (potatoes, eggs, celery, onion, capers). Mix in mayonnaise and lemon juice and a bit of lemon zest (if you’re into that sort of thing—but make sure you zest your lemon before juicing it). Salt and pepper to taste. All amounts can be adjusted to taste, especially since I only had 2 Tbs of capers left in the fridge.

You can't take the maple out of Canadia

2007-04-03T00:54:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, sugar maples are migrating north, meaning that the US will be producing less and less maple syrup/sugar. You can read about the history of the maple in the US and the science behind this trend in an excellent article from Slate.
Also, please let me know if I'm the only one who is interested in this article, as I suspect it's the hard core Canadian in me that is so attached to maple products.

To Philadelphia and back, sans cheesesteak :-(

2007-03-13T23:28:00.000-04:00

So I've recently returned from a number of days in Philadelphia. We spent our time at the Marriott just across the street from the Reading Terminal Market. It was all for the Annual Drosophila Conference, which is a non-stop orgy involving fly biology. Ahhhh yes. Science.

I have returned, quite possibly fatter, and very exhausted. But I will update with the meal highlights... for now, detox.

The Japanese branch of the noodle family

2007-03-11T22:23:00.000-04:00

I'm a big fan of gorging myself every once in awhile. But, I've recently noticed that I can't recover from binging like I used to. Now I experience the “food hangover”, which includes symptoms such as general malaise, mild headaches, lethargy and bloating. Chronic sufferers of the “food hangover” may notice longterm bellyaches followed by gradual muffin top formation.

On that note, I’m excited to report that I’ve visited Sobaya a couple times now, and found that, regardless of the amount consumed here (ginormous is one word I would use to describe the food volume that went into my body), I have not been plagued by the hangover. I highly recommend this restaurant, where soba and udon noodles are handmade on the premises. Naturally, noodle dishes feature prominently, and are supplemented by a large appetizer and sake menu.

I’m a fan of their pickle platter, lightly pickled assorted vegetables, including daikon and bamboo shoot. Also, I recommend the dish with yam cake, which had a pleasing texture, jellyfish-like, but with a gentler crunch. If you are looking for something more luxurious, the Berkshire pork belly with poached egg will satisfy any craving (see photo on the left). This dish is soya-saucy yet not too salty or overpowering, and should be eaten by dredging the quivering hunks of belly through the yolk, so that every piece has a velvety egg/sauce coat. I think I just drooled on myself while I typed that.

Noodles, oh, noodles. They are excellent here, and I’ve had the Nabeyaki Udon and the Chirashi Soba noodles. There’s a photo of the Nabeyaki Udon, which is a sort of noodle soup casserole/hot pot, and contains shrimp and yam tempura, chicken, fish cakes, vegetables, and yet another poached egg. Delicious, but this definitely came in a solid second after the Chirashi Soba noodles, which happens to be part of the seasonal menu. The Chirashi contains deep fried tiny shrimp, bean curd skin, fish cakes, and quite possibly crack. And I mean that in the best way possible.

If you still have room, or even if you don’t, I suggest some dessert. After all, most of the dessert selection is ice cream, which is designed to melt and fill in the cracks between the other pieces of food in your stomach. We ordered the green tea, back sesame, and the honey wasabi ice cream. I’d been eyeing the honey wasabi for a while, and boy-oh!-boy, it did not disappoint. Creamy and cold, with a quick, sharp wasabi bite, this ice cream is rounded out with wispy honey finish. I could definitely eat this ice cream ALL day, it was that good, and the flavour combination was a revelation. I shit you not. I also really enjoyed the strawberry tofu pudding, which had a more complicated name/ingredient list that I can’t recall now.

So if you think I can’t rave about Sobaya anymore, think again. The service here has been great and the environment is friendly and relaxing. I am seriously in love with this place. And if you are still wondering whether you should dine at Sobaya, let me tell you that the toilet seat in the ladies’ room is heated—and has a dual spray angle bidet function, with water pressure control. You can feel fresher than ever after an amazing meal.

I’m not even commenting on the sake… I don’t want to embarrass myself now.

Chocolate and lemon

2007-02-28T23:49:00.000-05:00

At times, anal retentive/OCD behaviour can be rather useful. It was the day I made these cookies, because they turned out well, and now I can attempt to recreate their lemon-chocolateyness another day. As well, others can too. I got the original cookie recipe from Baking Sheet, an excellent blog about, well, you guessed it, baking (and cooking too). I started changing some of the proportions of the ingredients; for example, being the slave to chocolate and fat that I am, I increased the amount of chocolate chips, and went for full size chips instead of the mini variety, and started skimming the top off of unhomogenized whole milk yoghurt. But this recipe has quickly become one of my favourites, because the light citrusey tang of Meyer lemons nicely off-sets the chocolate chip overload, which occurs with a slip of the wrist while measuring out that last step over the bowl of cookie dough (this is precisely why home-ec classes across the globe give the age old advice of measuring ingredients anywhere but over the bowl/pot/skillet in which you are preparing the food). I really do think that the brand of some of the ingredients have made a difference in the cookies, so the nit-picky specifics of the recipe are as follows:

Cocoa Fudge Chocolate Chip Meyer Lemon Cookies (whew, that's a mouthful)

1 C all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 C butter, room temp. (Organic Valley)
7 tbsp cocoa powder (Green and Black’s Organic/Fair Trade cocoa powder)
1 C evaporated cane juice sugar
1/3 C plain yoghurt (skimmed off the top of Hawthorne Valley’s unhomogenized whole milk yoghurt for some cream action)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 C (heaping) Ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate chips (plus a handful more, if you are so inclined)

For optional lemon flavour:
grated zest from 2 Meyer lemons (approx. 2 tbsp)
4 tbsp freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice
1/2 tbsp grated zest from a regular lemon

Preheat oven to 350F.
Mix together flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl.
In a larger, microwave-safe bowl, melt butter in the microwave. Sift in cocoa powder. Mix in sugar. Stir in yoghurt and vanilla extract. Stir in lemon juice and zest. Add flour mixture and mix until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop tablespoonfuls of the cookie dough onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet.
Bake at 350F for 10-13 minutes and/or until slightly firm at edges. Allow to cool on pan for 3 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to completely cool. Cookies should be crisp around the edges, but otherwise chewy throughout.
Makes ~2 dozen.

Ch-ch-ch-chicken!

2007-02-18T04:42:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks ago, three people I know sent me this article about Korean fried chicken (which, unfortunately, is no longer available for free). Carolyn was hell bent on figuring out what all the fuss was about. She called a teatime meeting for the ladies last Sunday. But we drank beer, not tea, and instead of dining on cucumber sandwiches, we chowed down on some fried chicken at Bon Chon. These are my kind of ladies.

Korean fried chicken means business. The skin is beyond crunchy—you cannot converse and chew this chicken at the same time because you won’t be able to hear anything except for the fried chicken skin shattering between your teeth. Under the golden skin, you find juicy, tender chicken—texture-wise, this fried meat is truly a winner. Both the spicy and sweet varieties were ridiculously tasty. And, it’s all relatively light for fried chicken, as I had more than four pieces of chicken with no ill effects (although others in the party may have suffered from oil overdose). You can go here for unflattering photos of chicken consumption.

Apparently, there are multiple Korean fried chicken restaurants around the city. Perhaps it’s time to organize a monthly brunch meeting to discuss women’s issues at these various venues? I suggest clothing as the topic of the next meeting. To start, pedal pushers are neither pedals nor pushers. Discuss.

How did I miss this??

2007-02-13T14:50:00.000-05:00

Yet another wacky egg related occurrence. I must be in the twilight zone. And, note another wonderful use for kitty litter: egg clean up. Again, via Poe News.

I ponder yolks and end up agitated

2007-02-13T00:11:00.000-05:00

Those who have dined with me know that I have a proclivity for egg-containing dishes. In this department, I’m all equal opportunist; chicken eggs, duck eggs, quail eggs, fish eggs, shrimp and lobster roe—the list could go on and on. Fried, boiled, baked, savory or sweet. If it has a yolk, I’m not picky about preparation.
Recently, however, an ungodly clash of my two worlds has occurred. My lab life has encroached upon my egg haven, and I’ve been purifying antibodies from chicken egg yolks, one of the more horrifying things I’ve had to do in the name of science (there are a few other things I’ve done that make this list, but they’re not appropriate to discuss now, trust me). I’ve been dwelling in self-pity for the last few yolk-filled weeks. On one hand, I have harmless egg yolks, the epitome of creamy comfort food. On the other hand, in stark contrast, is lab life. Nothing that resides in the lab has ever passed my lips. Now I’m centrifuging yolk solutions like there’s no tomorrow, and washing the chunky remnants of stale egg yolks down the industrial sized lab sink. I have moments in which I think I should be eating these eggs, but at the same time, I’m wholly repulsed by the fact that the yolks are sitting in a beaker. I wish I could say that this purification process produces lovely custardy smells in the lab, but really I have only been able to catch the fishy notes of the eggs—blech. Perhaps it’s not wise, but I’ve been forcing myself to eat eggs on a regular basis through all this. The idea being that I’ll be able to keep reminding myself of my love of eggs, and, therefore, I’ll never shy away from them after this purification is done. So far, this tactic seems to have worked and I only have four more weeks of this to go. FOUR MORE WEEKS. No, I wasn’t yelling. Maybe just screaming. After all this settles down, maybe I’ll get a chance to try this out.

Linky dinks

2007-02-12T23:28:00.000-05:00

Since I'm up late and trying to align DNA sequences from fruit flies to those in the honeybee genome, I found this heartbreaking news story about bee diseases sweeping the honey industry.

Then, I found this story, and though it's food-related, it is incredibly freaky and makes me feel queasy and wrong all over. I always thought that being a parent was all about keeping the food in the kids. Obviously, that doesn't work for everyone.

(Both links via Poe News.)

Re-starts and revelations

2007-02-05T10:08:00.000-05:00

January and February are the darkest, dreariest months of the year. It’s when time tends to distort such that hours and days seem drag out until forever. Yet on a seemingly random morning, one wakes to the sinking realization that January has become February without any warning. For me, these last couple of months have been quite eventful, for many reasons; some good and some more difficult. What it has done, however, is brought me back to this blog, which I’ve abandoned for a good many months. Perhaps I’m in a reflective mood, and this is simply a product of that, but hopefully it’s the beginning of more regular posts.

The North Carolina State Fair

2006-10-25T18:29:00.000-04:00

Words can't describe it better than this picture.

Beets, beans, bacon, 'n' greens

2006-07-25T02:15:00.000-04:00

Aaaahhhh... fresh dinosaur kale, cannellini beans, and bacon, with roasted beets on the side.

New month, new start, and better health

2006-06-04T02:06:00.000-04:00

Hello, June of 2006. I've been anxiously waiting for your arrival, because let's be honest, as much as I love Spring and how it's all full of possibility and the official start of my hormonal thaw, Summer is pretty much where it's at. I hate to say it, and I really don't think Spring should know about this, but I'll admit that I claim to love Spring more than I actually do because I really dislike Winter, and any excuse to shake those Winter Blues messes with my head and toys with my emotions. So here I am, finally face-to-face with hazy heat and lazy afternoons, where all the Springtime anticipation has come to fruition and I feel like I've reached a point at which I can start over. I welcome any fresh start, because I always look forward to a revitalization of things--be it my work, my housekeeping habits, or my food. And I've been away from the food for awhile, because initially, I thought I was suffering from a sort of allergy. In actuality, I had some nasty infection that hit me like a sledgehammer, and knocked me flat, in terms of my energy levels. But now I'm better and I'm back, cause, as you know, it's all cyclical, like the seasons.

Solar melted chocolate

2006-05-14T23:47:00.000-04:00

The man on the television announces that rain is predicted for the next week or so. I've stopped paying attention because I'm still itching my armpits. But I'm half-smiling, as I remember the hot, sunny day, about a month ago, when I stopped to pick up a chocolate chip cookie from Build a Green Bakery.

These cookies are huge, around the size of a bread plate, and are the sort of cookies that every kid's dream-mom would bake every day. Buttery crisp edges with a resiliently chewy centre and chunky chocolate chips. And made with all organic ingredients. As with the store itself, which is all recycled/recyclable, renewable and non-toxic. Something mom would approve of, or, at least, something my mom would approve.

I took my cookie to the park, in its brown paper bag. I watched the old lady tea party meet and gossip, watched flowers bloom from tree trunks, and let the sun pre-melt the chocolate chips before the cookie met my mouth.

Build a Green Bakery
223 First Ave. (near 14th St.)

No snot, just hives

2006-05-07T20:51:00.000-04:00

Hello! It's been awhile, hasn't it? And now I am back, bumpy, spotty, and itchy. It's allergy season times ten here, and in the past I'd never suffered from high pollen counts, but this year, it's a first. The interesting part is that I don't have the average runny nose and puffy eyes. My body decided to do it differently--so I'm covered in hives, from head to toe...literally. To all those who thought it was a case of bed bugs or scabies: you are wrong (thank god).

Much has happened in the meantime, though, and I'll first point you to a post that I loved, and makes most of the points I wish I could easily verbalise on the topic. Many of you are already fans of my girl Monkey, so here's another shout out to her.

So, I'm backing to cooking and eating, especially since I'm not entirely sure of what's causing the hives/rash. I'd like to be able to blame it on the ever-blossoming flora here, but I'm currently trying to cut out some allergenic foods, like nuts and most dairy products, and trying to resist overindulging in wheat and corn. Notice how pork is not in this list? Just to celebrate the small things, I ordered some Berkshire bacon tonight...

The story in which I cream my pants at the MoMA and Sparks laughs at me

2006-04-12T00:51:00.000-04:00

Back last month, when Sparks was visiting, we found that we had long lists of things that we wanted to do together while she was in town. Despite the fact that we hadn't seen each other in about six years (6! Years!) we quickly discovered that all the shared interests we had since our Montreal days were still intact, and the best part about it was that we seemed to have developed new shared interests. Of course, being the food blog that this is, one of our newer interests is fine dining.

I don't ever recall eating well in back in university, though I realize this experience is probably universal. I just remember goals of trying to find ways to bulk up cheap food. For example, Sparks was the one who showed me how to melt a couple Kraft Singles into a box worth of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, for a creamier, heartier, calcium-rich meal. Much energy was also expended trying to find places (note the use of places, not restaurants) that would serve large quantities of food for ridiculously low prices. Regardless of the fact that I fearlessly ate at every cheap hole-in-the-wall (I'm talking $4 Canadian for a large pepperoni pizza, one CAD for a big, fat shish-taouk, and "Twoonie Tuesdays" at Poulet Frite Kentucky--that's right, Quebecois KFC--for two CAD you get two pieces of fried chicken, fries and a small soda), I repeatedly got violent bouts of food poisoning, and still do to this day--that whole immunity building thing never worked out for me. I suppose that was part of the whole college experience--getting a kick out of eating crap food.

Now that we've moved up a bit in the world, and are no longer lowly college students (now we're just grad-student paupers), we've taken to enjoying the finer things in life. Like getting into the MoMA for free and eating at the cafe there (the food, unfortunately, was not for free).

We actually hit up the MoMA twice; the first time directly following a visit to the Buttercup Bakeshop for a couple cupcakes (I adore the moist, fluffy cakes here, but have a real problem with the over-abundance of tooth-achingly sweet buttercream icing on each cupcake), and the second time was actually the very next day, right before a lab meeting I was required to attend.

The MoMA cafe, or technically, Cafe 2, serves "seasonal Italian food" (from the website), from paninis to pastas, with beautiful display cases showing off their vast array of grilled vegetables. All their dinnerware is fashionably modern, but charming nonetheless, from dessert goblets that teeter dangerously but never fall over to bean-shaped plates with uneven edges. Our first visit was actually out of necessity--I was so jittery from having two Buttercup cupcakes for breakfast that I could barely see straight, so I thought getting some other solids in my system would be a good idea. Sparks had a panini, and I had two vegetable sides; the braised brussels sprouts topped with pancetta and thin grated slivers of Parmigiano-Reggiano and the roasted red peppers with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic and anchovies. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of this because I was crashing from my sugar-high and could barely hold a fork, let alone a camera. But, trust me, the vegetable sides were delicious and extremely satisfying. The brussels sprouts were tender, and any natural fartiness of the sprouts was missing and replaced by salty, porky pancetta. Roasted red peppers are hard to mess up, but these went beyond that. They were sweet with the intense concentrated flavour of roasted peppers, and complemented well with the tangy, fruity balsamic vinegar and olive oil combo. The anchovies were velvety and sea-salty, and gave the dish the savouriness it needed.

Since we were not that hungry this first time, we were left to eyeball all the food that was being delivered to the other diners, and we ooohed and aaahhhed between us. All this coveting caused us to return the very next day. We ordered the salmon salad and a couple pasta dishes on our second visit--all dishes we had seen the day before. The salmon salad was not outstanding, but I thoroughly enjoyed my pasta. The pasta dish was no looker, as I ordered fregola, which basically are small, unevenly sized, chewy lumps of semolina pasta. It was topped off with a sort of carbonara sauce that had a lovely coating of cheese, a subtle egg flavour, and a topping of pan-fried, crispy pancetta (so porkalicious that it inspired this post). I loved this dish, because although it had cheese, cream, eggs, and fatty pork belly, it still managed to be light (mainly because just enough sauce was used for the pasta to be optimally coated and flavoured, and the fregola was not swimming in cream sauce). We still had room for dessert and coffee, so we ordered two cappuccinos, a tiramisu for Sparks, and the pear tart for me.

Generally, I get a little disappointed and assy when I get really sparse-looking frothed milk on my cappuccino. Poorly frothed milk looks like the result of a kid who refuses to swallow of mouthful of milk, and proceeds to froth it between his teeth. That's gross, and I know first-hand, because I was that kid once. But this did not happen at my beloved Cafe 2, where the cappuccinos come with a thick topping of microfoam. The milk froth created a creamy, satiny layer in my mouth, and when I drained my cup, it clung tenaciously to the bottom of the cup. Don't worry, I didn't leave it in the cup for the dishwasher--I scooped it up lovingly with my spoon, and a grin rivaling the Cheshire Cat's spread across my face.

And the pear tart, this amazing tart, was the best part of the meal, of the two visits. It was of the lengthy variety, and not the round variety, and came with a small, alluring scoop of ice cream that was studded with vanilla bean seeds. Five seconds into my first bite almost made Sparks choke with laughter. "oh my god, you have GOT to taste this!" Apparently, my eyes bugged out of my head as I said this. This tart was dense and rich, with an amazing almond-vanilla egg-yolkiness that boasted the pungent, ester aroma of the pears--which remained pleasant and not overpowering or artificial. The pears were ripe and supple, and definitely not mushy or mealy. This was the point at which, according to Sparks, I creamed my pants. And she's right, I did, and I jissed my adulation of Cafe 2 all over the place.

Most stories that regale you with a happy-ending would normally end here, but I still had to get to my lab meeting. I had less than 30 minutes to walk from 54th Street and 5th Ave to 67th Street and York Ave (about 20 blocks), which is no problem under normal circumstances. But this day, I was packing a huge food baby from lunch. So with one arm clutching and holding up my distended stomach, and the other one swinging violently to maintain my centre-of-balance, I hobbled past all the fancy shops back to my lab meeting, moaning slightly all the way. In the end, it took me over 35 minutes to get back, and I skulked into the meeting about 10 minutes late. In hindsight, I realize my extreme fullness was probably as much to do with the three pint-glasses of water I sucked down as the lunch I ate. But, no matter, I love Cafe 2, and I like to think that it loves me back.

I long for Goode Company

2006-04-10T22:14:00.000-04:00

This past week, my guts have just not been right. They are bitching and crying because they are in withdrawal. Since returning to NYC, when I eat leafy greens and veggies containing non-soluble fibre, they ask "What is this vegetable doing here? We do not know how to deal with this sort of thing." Everyday since I've left Houston, they gurgle, asking me why I am no longer eating a pound of meat per day. They whine and beg, "Please, we want some pork! Where is the Texas food? Pleeeese, please we want more Goode Company food!!!"

Well, hell, so do I.

Top five reasons as to why I love Goode Company:

The pecan pie.
The barbecue.
The campechana de mariscos.
The grilled catfish po'boys.
The bull scrotum turned handy-dandy store-everything bag coupled with the bull boner walking stick.

Bar-B-Q, or how I sped a few pigs to the porcine afterlife.

2006-04-04T22:19:00.000-04:00

We had barbecue at three different places--Pappa's, Otto's, and Goode Company. I kept it real with consistency at each place--I sampled the pork platter, with baked beans and cole slaw, every time. In my experience with Texas barbecue, I think the sauce should have a tangy, rich tomato flavour. The meat should be well seasoned, to the point of being flavourful all the way through, and should be so tender that it's falling off the bone or that the nudge of the fork is all that's necessary to eat it, without having to wrestle it off the fork. All three places had the texture more or less right, but were quite different in other respects.
Downtown Pappa's had flavourful, well-seasoned pork and nice beans, but obviously lacked smokiness in its meat. It was pretty good overall, and the fact that I didn't manage to get a photo here before scarfing it all down is pretty indicative.
Otto's was the worst; the beans tasted as though someone threw in some high-fructose corn syrup and the meat, with or without sauce, was very one-dimensional in flavour. The fact that the meal was served in a styrofoam didn't help either--I find styrofoam to be one of the most objectionable inventions ever. Maybe this below-par experience was because the Otto's we visited was in the Houston Center food court, but we all agreed that we had some very unsatisfying barbecue. I confess that we crossed the mall and order some chicken strips from Chik-fil-a immediately after polishing off our lunch from Otto's.
Finally, Goode Company, oh Goode Company, had the greatest barbecue. I had the pork ribs, which were mesquite smoky, with a great, tomato-ey sauce that is perfect for sopping up with their jalapeno cheese bread... mmmm... And of course, the pecan pie is truly heavenly. All this, while sitting outside at a picnic table, listening to classic, Grand Ole Opry style, country music.

H-Town, Represent!

2006-04-04T21:39:00.000-04:00

I got back to NYC Sunday night, but have been more or less brain-dead until now. So brain-dead, in fact, that I watched Just Like Heaven* last night. But now I'm back to talk about some of the tasties that I engulfed while in Texass, and to alleviate my recent blogstipation.

*I feel an explanation is necessary. I like Mark Ruffalo and refuse to believe that he would get involved in an unwatchable movie. And I'm pleased to report that Just Like Heaven was not bad, for a romantic comedy. The absolute worst part of the movie was the opening sequence in which an acoustic-guitar-and-harp-driven version of the song Just Like Heaven played. The song was sung by a woman who changed the female pronouns to male pronouns. Somewhere out there, I am certain that Robert Smith is weeping. Sobbing, actually, with his eye make-up all streaming down his face.

Hella nerdy

2006-03-28T01:39:00.000-05:00

As promised, I want to let all the faithful readers know that I will be out of town for awhile. I'm going to attend a science meeting, the annual fly meeting, to be exact. Borrowing a term from Sparks, I want to confirm all your suspicions: the next few days will be hella nerdy. The best part about this trip is that we are heading down to Houston (H-Town, represent!), the birthplace of Destiny's Child, the hometown of the one-time world's largest movie theater, and the world's fattest city. I am actually excited to see all my old haunts, if I get a chance to separate from the Nerd Herd. I haven't been back in some time so I'm also looking forward to see how it's changed. I also think that my Texan accent would really benefit from a return to it's origins. And, of course, the food! You know, there's a reason why Houston is so fat and I can't wait to revisit it all.

Responsibility and flakiness

2006-03-21T22:54:00.000-05:00

I'm back to posting. I have been crazy busy here, and so much has happened in the last week. My girl Sparks came to visit, and I have many stories about our adventures. Also, a friend/labmate defended her thesis, so there has been much distraction and celebration. Her impending graduation also means that my status in the lab is changing--my new title of "senior grad student" is pending. This new title implies the possession of a sort of knowledge or wisdom or some kind of know-how. Unfortunately, I fear that these skills have passed me by in some way, which leads me to question my ability to take on responsibility. I'm flaky, I know it, and this last week, I got many inquiries from friends wondering what was up with the lack of posting. So here I am, back to reporting the highlights of what I manage to ingest. Next time I go long stretches with no posting, I promise to post in advance and say so. I've heard it's the polite thing to do.

Spring Fever

2006-03-13T23:44:00.000-05:00

I'd once read that chocolate contains a chemical that, upon consumption, causes humans to experience the feeling of being "in love". I've never encountered that sensation when eating chocolate, however, today I believe I've found the food that triggers that particular response in me. Maybe it's all the spring weather we've been having or perhaps it's the emergence of the tulips and daffodils, but today I let some crispy pan-fried pork belly melt on my tongue and I felt positively euphoric. I swooned, and then I fell in love.

Popeye-esque cheese biscuits for a coal-miner's daughter

2006-03-05T11:21:00.000-05:00

While in hibernation and hiding from the frosty weather outside, I re-watched Coal-Miner's Daughter, the classic film about the life of Loretta Lynn. As I watched 13 year-old Sissy Spacek-as-Loretta marrying much older Tommy Lee Jones-as-Doo Lynn, I thought about the many things I liked about the South and living in Texas (considered by natives to be two separate and distinct regions, may I add). I only lived in Houston for two years, while I completed my junior and senior year of high school, but my family stayed in Houston for a total of eight years, so I continued to spend holidays in Texas while attending university in Montreal.

Throughout those years, while in Houston, I often hung out in Montrose with my high school friends. Most of the time we aimlessly cruised around town and would end up seeing a movie or playing pool, but sometimes we would catch a band at either the Abyss, Numbers, Fitzgerald's, or Rudyard's. Once in a while, we would find ourselves at a honky-tonk bar down town or rubbing shoulders with bikers at the local ice-house. At the end of those late nights, we'd find ourselves hankering for some late night grease and, inevitably, we'd find ourselves driving to the outskirts of the nearest ghetto to go to a "late-nite" Popeye's drive-thru. Back then, we'd order the combo meal, which was a small cup of rice and beans, two pieces of fried chicken--always spicy--and a fluffy biscuit, to split between two people. Most of the time, we couldn't wait to drive to someone's house to eat--we just parked somewhere and ate in the car. I found Popeye's to have some of the tastiest fast food that I've had, and although I really like the chicken and even the rice and red beans, my heart was always in the biscuit. Such light, fluffy biscuits, obviously made using some sort of vegetable shortening that served to swiftly deliver salty, flourly deliciousness straight to my tastebuds.

As I watched the newly married Sissy/Loretta attempting to learn how to cook, I thought about making my own biscuits. Since I'm not from the South, I didn't have a special "Grandmama's recipe" to recreate, but I did want to try to recreate the taste of Mr. Popeye's biscuits. The main difference in my attempts was the use of good ingredients, such as real, organic butter, instead of shortening that doubles as mechanic-grease. I ended up tweaking a recipe I found on the inside of a Horizon butter box. I figured that Horizon would want the best biscuit recipe possible to showcase their butter's rich and creamy flavour, so I chose to believe their implicit corporate message. Also, the recipe was for cheese biscuits--and who doesn't love cheese?

2 C all purpose unbleached flour
4 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 C salted butter (1 stick)
1 1/2 C shredded white cheddar
1/2 to 3/4 C whole milk

Preheat oven to 400 F. Measure and pour all dry ingredients into a food processor. Cut up cold butter and also add to the food processor bowl. Run the food processor with a regular blade to cut butter into the dry ingredients. The mixture should now resemble cornmeal. Empty the contents of the food processor into a mixing bowl. Mix in shredded cheese. Then, add milk slowly and blend until dough becomes sticky. Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet. Bake for approximately 20 minutes until golden. Cool on rack. Makes about 15 biscuits.

Straight out of the oven, these biscuits are amazingly like Popeye's biscuits, but cheesy! Loretta would have made Doo happy with these bad boys. For overnight storage, make sure to NOT use an airtight container. I've found that wrapping up completely cooled biscuits with parchment paper works best. But, honestly, the best way is to just eat them while they are still warm.

I'll pass on the Plumpy

2006-03-03T21:31:00.000-05:00

Please let me preface this by saying that I like to eat squid. In fact, I think squid can be delicious. I am also rarely picky about the species from which I obtain my protein. Tonight, however, while stopping by the local Food Extortion, I found this:

Is it the name? Or the scary mascot? I am guessing that it is a squid that happens to have a full set of human teeth yet no eyes. Yikes. Also, "juicy rings and tentacles" just doesn't sound like something anyone would want to eat. It sounds more like the result of a mating between a dog chew toy and an octopus. Not yummy at all.

The closest thing to Spring

2006-03-01T22:35:00.000-05:00

With the threat of snow tonight, those who are pining for sunny weather and green cloaked trees can pretend to dance amongst the spring blossoms at the Cupcake Cafe.

maple-walnut

My favourite flavour here is the walnut cupcake with maple buttercream icing. The cake is denser in texture than the average cupcake, but is always moist with a rich, not bitter, walnut flavour. And the lovely, buttery icing with a light maple touch compliments the cake perfectly. It all makes for a heavy (literally, weightwise), robust cupcake. But, really, what it all comes down to are the pretty, pretty flowers. If only all blooms were like a maple-walnut cupcake.

mocha-chocolate

PBJ: breakfast in bed

2006-03-01T11:07:00.000-05:00

...and I risked getting crumbs in bed.

You may think that crumbs are rather benign, but really I'm saying that I risked
getting a full-body rash from sleeping in a crumb-filled bed. Not so pleasant.

Mr. Topsy-Turvy's Cake

2006-02-23T01:09:00.000-05:00

I have fleeting memories of my mother baking upside-down cakes. From what I recall, there was only a short period of time in which upside-down cakes appeared in my childhood kitchen. Back then, I helped out a bit in the kitchen, but I was a bit too young to do much, so my main role was to partake in the "cake demolition". During that period of Topsy-Turviness, I fondly remember devouring cakes topped with either kiwi or pineapple.

Since I had a bag of frozen cherries sitting around and I needed something to remind me of summer, I decided to bust out with a cherry-apple upside-down cake. This recipe is based on the cherry upside-down cake recipe from Epicurious. I made adjustments to the recipe because I wanted a little apple on the top of the cake (for vanity's sake more than taste) and I was a little too lazy to separate the egg whites from the yolks (and all that is entailed once you start the egg separation process). Also, I only had cane sugar, so I went with that.

In the end, the cake turned out pretty well. I have only two criticisms, the first being that I would have liked the butter/sugar topping to have been more caramelized. I guess for the next time, while making the topping, I would ensure that the sugar would have combined a bit more with the butter before placing the fruit. I also thought the cherries tasted a little flat, and that may have been because they were frozen cherries that seemed to have lost a good part of their cherry flavour. I look forward to the summer when I can try fresh cherries in this recipe (another fruit topping may work well--kiwi?). Otherwise, I was pleased with the result.

Topping

1/4 C salted butter
3/4 C turbinado sugar
~10 ounces frozen, pitted cherries
1/2 golden delicious apple, peeled, cored, and sliced

Cake

1/2 C unsalted butter, warmed to room temperature
1 C cane sugar
1/4 t sea salt
2 large eggs
2 t vanilla extract
1/2 C whole milk
1 1/2 C all purpose, unbleached flour
2 t baking powder

Topping

Preheat oven to 350 F degrees
Butter sides of a 9" diameter cake pan with 2" high sides
Melt 1/4 C butter in the same pan set over low heat
Add sugar
Whisk until blended
Remove from heat and evenly spread mixture over bottom of pan
Arrange apples slices and cherries in a layer in the bottom of the pan and set aside

Cake

Using a hand mixer, beat butter until fluffy
Add sugar and salt and beat into butter until creamy
Add eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth
Measure and mix flour and baking powder in a separate bowl
Slowly mix dry ingredients and milk into the butter mixture
Pour batter over apple-cherry topping in the cake pan and smooth top
Bake cake until deep golden on top and inserted toothpick comes out clean, approximately 55 minutes
Cool cake in pan for 15 minutes
Invert cake with its pan onto a plate and set aside for 5 minutes
Lift pan, voila!

Les pancakes

2006-02-19T13:39:00.000-05:00

Weekends are for pancakes, especially freezing cold weekends.

Growing up, we had pancakes almost every weekend, and I always looked forward to them. Since I had family in town, I'd been harbouring a craving for pancakes, which came to a head late Saturday night. I decided to wait for Sunday come 'round, and as usual, I used whatever I had in my kitchen.

This recipe is pretty much the same one that was used by my family. The measurements in this recipe are approximations, as we never measured the milk and flour we used. Most importantly, the batter, after resting, should be able to coat the back of a ladle, but still be runny (see pic). I've heard that this consistency is similar to paint...but seeing as I've not had to paint a room yet, I can't corroborate this observation.

2 large eggs (preferably Pete and Gerry's eggs, if near New Hampshire)
3/4 C whole milk
1 t vanilla extract
1 t baking powder (Rumford always works well...and it doesn't have aluminium in it)
3/4 C all-purpose whole wheat flour (although I've also used unbleached white, and it works well too)
Salted butter. Enough to grease the pan--essential for achieving crispy, savoury pancake edges, which is my favourite thing about pancakes.

Beat eggs in a bowl. Add vanilla extract. Measure and mix baking powder into flour. Combine all ingredients by alternatively adding flour mixture and milk into the egg mixture. Mix until there are no lumps, but do not overmix, or the pancakes will be more gummy than fluffy. Heat pan and melt a small pat of butter. Using a ladle, pour batter into melted butter and cook on medium heat. Flip pancake when bubbles have formed holes in the uncooked side. Cook to a golden brown, then transfer to plate, top with favourite topping and eat standing up at the stove, while you cook the rest of the batter. Pancakes are best straight off the pan. Makes about 6 medium pancakes.
Today I alternated between maple syrup and Sarabeth's strawberry and raspberry preserves. Used one plate for pancakes topped with syrup and another plate for those with preserves--I'm not a fan of topping cross-contamination. Also, you can put those bubble holes to work when topping with maple syrup; the holes act like waffle wells. I think the smooth side works better with preserves.

Sinful pleasures: the soft, supple flesh of the mochi

2006-02-16T23:54:00.000-05:00

I have yet to meet a glutinous rice product that I did not like--a statement that leads me to my last act of gluttony.

A couple weeks ago, while celebrating the birthday of one half of Bitch-Dork (the Dork-half), the greediest two of the entourage (I won't name names, but obviously I was one of the two), abandoned the party and went on a snack-run. We headed straight to M2M, a 24-hour Korean grocery store that stocks many tasty Japanese products. We were on a mission: we knew exactly what we wanted and how much food we would be taking on. Heading straight to the freezer section, we pulled out the Mikawaya brand of strawberry-flavoured mochi ice cream. Between the two of us, we had three mochis each.

I haven't actually tried all seven flavours of this ice cream, but I love the pale pink colour of strawberry kind--which comes from beet juice. Looking at all 6 mochi nestled in the tray, these desserts look like something Smurfs would have made.

Mochi is a Japanese product that is actually made by pounding cooked glutinous rice into a paste, flavoured, then shaped--according to Wikipedia. I'm more familiar with the Chinese version of glutinous rice-based desserts, where uncooked glutinous rice is ground into flour, made into a dough, shaped, and then cooked. This difference in preparation may contribute to the fact that the Chinese desserts I've had don't hold up well in the cold. Any refrigeration results in a hard, powdery texture that loses all the appeal of the chewy, gooey consistency of glutinous rice desserts. These mochi ice cream gems, however, are soft and springy on the outside, yet cool and creamy on the inside. Thanks to my partner-in-crime's cold-tolerant teeth, I am able to share this delightful contrast of temperature and composition. Here, I bring you the best cross-sectional view of a dessert in the history of Hungry Hippo Central:

Observe the rice flour-coat of the translucent mochi and the real strawberry seeds embedded in the ice cream.

Negligent bloggher returns to posting after visiting MoMA, dog show

2006-02-15T23:42:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile. I've been off hanging out with Momma and Brother Hippo. They were in town for the last week, and I've spent most of my time gallavanting around the city with them. Highlights included going to the MoMA, where I found this:

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to credit the artist, but I will find out (and update) the next time I'm there.

And also the Westminster Dog Show...

Now, it's time to get back to food...

Slowly, but surely, this thing grows

2006-02-05T15:44:00.000-05:00

In the last few of days, I've added some more blogs and sites to my blogroll. I decided I needed a reference section (Need answers?), which , so far, includes The Cook's Thesaurus and Wikipedia.

I've also listed more friends: Monkey Wearing Chaps (90210 adventures and misadventures), gregnog (visiting his site is like hanging out at someone's house: you can read his comics, play paperdoll with him, listen to his music, and meet his friends), and Bitch-Dork (Pitchfork-who?).

Finally, in the food blog section, I've linked to The Amateur Gourmet, who has witty posts and incorporates pop culture references into his food adventures.

I also want to introduce Goliath, the hamster I've adopted for the site. If you click on Goliath, he'll do a few laps on his hamster wheel. He's a good boy, but try not to feed him too much junk.

We got Laphroaig-ed

2006-02-04T10:04:00.000-05:00

I've recently tasted an unforgettable scotch. I'm still not sure if I really liked it or just sort of enjoyed it, but I've been thinking about it far more than I ever have about any other scotch I've sampled.

I do like my scotch. I'm usually grumpy and miserably cold in the winter, and I learned to battle my internal chill by having a little nip of whiskey when I've gone out into the frosty winter nights. Again, one of the many things useful things I learned in Montreal while doing my undergrad studies. So when I was offered to try Brian's new single malt scotch, I couldn't say no (plus it was Chinese New Year's Eve...I had to represent).

We cracked open his bottle of Laphroaig 10 Year Old. Before even approaching my lips, I noticed the pungent smoky-medicinal smell of the whiskey. I drank it neat, with a glass of water on the side. I tasted it's charred, caveman-like flavour and immediately sat up. I mean that it literally tasted like a bearskin-clad caveman, had he have rolled around in his charcoal-y firepit. I imagine that this would be the equivalent of licking burnt wood which has been coated with the essence of a sweaty, musky, wet animal. Normally, drinking scotch gives the sensation of having leather and warm velvet(the low-shag variety) in the mouth, and sometimes, depending on the scotch, with a hint of cigar smoke. Not when drinking this particular 10 year old--it was more akin to having a group of hyperactive preadolescent boys attempting to play speed metal on aluminium garbage cans inside my mouth--I felt like it was all over the place and slightly overwhelming. Basically, this scotch demanded your attention, and continued to beg for it as it left an aftertaste of burning wood.

Upon closer inspection of the information booklet included with the Laphroaig scotch, we found that the intense smokiness can be attributed to the blue peat smoke that is used to dry the malted barley. This peat is only found on the "remote island of Islay in the Western Isles of Scotland". The Laphroaig distillery also produces a 15 year old whiskey that has been described as the older, sophisticated brother of the 10 year old--without all the sharp angles of the younger scotch. This is one 15 year old that I'd like to meet.

The highlight of the Laphroaig booklet, however, was the information on how to join their "Friends of Laphroaig" club. As a member, you instantly get a plot of land in Islay. And every year, if you visit the distillery, you receive a dram of whiskey from them as rent for your land (what is a dram?). Visits from land owners are encouraged, as you then get to identify your plot. To do so, you are loaned "size 12 wellingtons, headgear against low flying geese, a hip flask of Laphroaig whiskey, a life belt and an anchor: on the breeziest of days we wouldn't want you blown out to sea." The idea of wearing oversized, rental rubber boots, fending myself from sadistic geese, and trying to prevent myself from drowning in the sea sounds kinda fun. It sort of reminds me of a mini-quest from the Legend of Zelda games. Except here I'd get some smoky-ass whiskey instead of magical elixir.
Photographs courtesy of Brian. Thanks!

A return to the homeland

2006-02-03T00:20:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday was Chinese New Year's Day. We welcomed in the year of the dog by having Malaysian food.

Oversea Asian Restaurant is run by Chinese-Malaysians (apparently, the owner is originally from Kuala Lumpur) and has been identified as one of the best Malaysian restaurants in Manhattan. I've read reports that Flushing has the best anything-that-is-asian-restaurants, including Malaysian, but because it takes so long to get there by subway, I'll have to save those restaurant visits for a day-trip just to sample all the food out there.

This restaurant has produced the best Malaysian food I've tasted in Manhattan. I tend to crave Malaysian hawker food, which is characterized by food being sold out of stalls and/or carts--like hot dog stands in NYC. Oversea Asian does a good job with these types of dishes.

Some things stand out, especially the appetizers. One dish, young tofu, is, I think, the best appetizer on the menu. Young tofu involves stuffing various tofu/bean curd products or vegetables with a fish/shrimp paste, and frying these pieces. It is then served in soup, which comes in two flavours--clear chicken broth or in curry soup (left, shown here in broth). I prefer the curry soup; it is one of the few dishes I've found that I can say has the perfect amount of flavour--salty and spicy and just plain good. The chicken soup is also full-flavoured, so it is by no means the lesser choice. The young tofu soaks quickly soaks up the soup it's served in, so consuming it as soon as the bowl arrives at the table showcases its crispy deliciousness, but waiting until the young tofu soaks up its soup results in a whole 'nother taste explosion!

The other dishes that warrant mentioning are the roti canai (pictured right) and the satay, both also appetizers. The chicken curry that accompanies the roti is definitely something to talk about. It has a mild heat, creamy coconut taste, and compliments the light layers of the roti well. The roti here is much less greasy than I am used to, but I think I like this "low fat" cousin of the K.L. roti.

The large selection of noodles dishes is impressive and I have yet to try all of them. The fried noodles have proven to be pretty good in general. I enjoy the seafood scramble egg chow fun, but I'm not a fan of the fake crab meat that's included. I think the dish would do better without. The Hokkien chow mee (see left) is one of my favourites (complete with fried pork fat...mmm...), although it's got nothin' on Grandma's version!

I put my fish back into the water

2006-02-02T21:45:00.000-05:00

I think it liked being there. I know I did.

Bowl-meals and my own fast food: the fake tortilla

2006-01-30T23:30:00.000-05:00

More often than not, I come home late, feeling tired and hungry. I've had conversations with friends in which we fantasize about having our own personal slave, something akin to an Oompah-Loompah, so that upon arrival at home, a full meal spread would be waiting. Until we figure out how to acquire one of these, I'll have to take care of myself. That means putting together meals within 30 minutes of arriving home, or I'll start feeling my stomach dissolve itself.

Today, I thought about picking up some food on the way home, but couldn't think of anything I really wanted to eat. I quick look in the fridge yielded eggs, cabbage, and frozen peas. I instantly thought Tortilla!, but with only three eggs, that seemed like an impossibility. But once I thought that I wanted a spanish tortilla, I couldn't give up the idea. So I made a modified one that was healthy, tasty, and satisfying but looked nothing like a tortilla:

- approx. 3/4 lb green cabbage, shredded
- 2 medium Yukon gold potatoes, sliced 1/4" thick
- 1 1/4 cup frozen peas
- 1 medium yellow onion, sliced
- 5 cloves garlic, sliced
- 3 extra large eggs
- 4 T olive oil
- salt and black pepper to taste

Heat a pot of water to parboil the potato slices. In the meantime, in a large saucepan, heat olive oil and saute onions and garlic until soft and golden brown at the edges. Add cabbage and mix into onions and garlic. Cook for approximately 5 minutes. Add frozen peas and cook for about another 5 minutes. Lightly beat eggs in a bowl and set aside. Potato slices should be done now, so drain and add potatoes to the saucepan. Mix to combine. Season with salt and pepper. Add eggs to pan, let cook at medium heat for about 2 minutes, allowing it to set, if possible. In this case, there was no hope, so instead, I coated all ingredients with egg. Serve in a bowl and scarf down.

Makes about three servings.

I realized a couple things as I was eating.
1) I love one-bowl-meals. It's similar to a horse eating out of a bucket--only one task at hand and very little distraction
2) This fake-tortilla was similar to a fake-egg foo young; peas and potatoes (tortilla), with shredded cabbage (egg foo young). It was a strange hybrid of the two that ended up with about 1/8 of the egg volume necessary to set the dish.

Still pretty good, nonetheless.

Unbirthday party and Malaysian extravaganza

2006-01-30T22:15:00.000-05:00

Momofuku? Momo-freakin-awesome!

2006-01-29T14:59:00.000-05:00

Let's champion the pig.

One of my all-time favourite meats is pork, which why I adore Momofuku, a relatively new ramen joint in the East Village. Clearly, the good folks who run Momofuku love pork as much as I do, so much, in fact, that the most of the menu features Berkshire pork from Eden Farms. These pigs are raised in a healthy, humane, environmentally-friendly way, and result in a quality meat that is very tender and beautifully marbled.

The restaurant itself has a soothing atmostphere for me, even though it is almost always packed. The space is long, so diners are seated at blonde wood bars, mostly facing the kitchen. I like watching my food being prepared, and I also am always pleased to see how clean the kitchen is and how well the food is treated. In addition to having Berkshire pork star in the menu, Momofuku mostly uses locally grown produce and seafood. Fresh, fresh, and fresh!

The dish that I never fail to order is the pork steamed buns, as seen in the top photo. Pork belly cuts are sandwiched between steamed buns that are painted with hoisin sauce. Add some scallions and a few slices of mildly pickled cucumber--ta-DAH! Scrumptious deliciousness. It reminds of Peking Duck, which can come in two versions: wrapped in thin "crepes" or in these steamed buns. The assembly of Peking duck is similar; a thin layer of hoisin sauce, some slivers of cucumber, and then the crispy, fatty duck skin (and a little flesh) in a bun.

Of course the noodles are not to be missed. The wheat noodles themselves have a nice texture to them, a sort of Asiatic al dente. I prefer the soup ramen, which is also shown above. Since I was sharing a bowl with another person who doesn't like poached eggs, I got the yolk all to myself. Score! Observe the shredded pork and pickles on the side, with (hidden from view) braised collards, scallions, and bamboo shoots. The soup itself is a rich pork broth, and my only critique is that the noodles are usually not salty enough for me. This tends to be a common complaint of mine, so perhaps I'm eating too much salt.

The sum up: yummy food, great pork, hott staff in full view, and good music selection (Stephen Malkmus and Danzig!). My own personal heaven.

Teabagging

2006-01-28T02:03:00.000-05:00

Technical shiznit n friends

2006-01-28T01:08:00.000-05:00

Since the launch of Hungry Hippo Central (HHC, if you will), I've been taking baby-steps towards figuring out how this here blog works. I've learned how to strategically place links to other sites, post photos, set up side bar links, and alter my comments section.
I point all this out because I want visitors to:
-appreciate my hard work (procrastination from actual work)
-welcome and encourage non-bloggers--and bloggers--to comment
-notice that I've added a couple blogging friends from my days in Mtl, and check out their sites

I've also linked to a number of my favourite food blogs, though they don't know I have yet. I'm still naive in the ways of blog etiquette. Maybe I'm being rude, much like my first year of email-sending, when I didn't know that the use of caps is the EQUIVALENT OF YELLING IN SOMEONE'S EAR.

More pou for you

2006-01-28T01:07:00.000-05:00

Poutine, that is. And for me, too, as you can see. On our way to the Broken Social Scene show, the Canadian collective du jour, we indulged in some gutt-clogging fun at Pommes Frites. In this picture, what you see are two servings of 1000% of your lifetime recommended intake of acrylamide, trans-fat, pesticide and MSG. Thank god I only managed to eat two-thirds of my poutine.

But now, let me take a moment to wax poetic on the mighty poutine. For the uninitiated, poutine is the Quebecois delicacy of layering fries with cheese curd, and then dousing the whole she-bang with hot gravy. Ideally, for me, Belgian fries and real cheese curds are used--the kind that squeak in your teeth. This grotesque concoction is what broke my metabolism while in living in Muntreal: night of drinking beer + poutine before bed = FAT. And the next morning, I would eat the cold, congealed leftovers. It was just that irrestible. I could never understand why the poutine phenomena has only stayed in Quebec. I mean, it was so ubiquitous that you could get poutine at Burger King up there. Also, being the food for champions, it never failed to keep me warm in the bitter Canadian winters--it's tasty and practical!

I still get nostalgic and misty-eyed at the memory of Mtl. poutine. To be honest, I think Pommes Frites has pretty tasty poutine, but minus the curd squeak. The fries were a good balance of crispy and mealy, and were well packed and nicely layered with the cheese. The gravy was tasty enough, and the amount of gravy was just right; enough to flavour and lubricate the whole thing, but not so much that the fries were swimming in gravy. Nobody likes to have to fish their fries out of puddles of gravy.

When the apocalypse comes, I could just eat my moisturizer to survive

2006-01-24T22:27:00.000-05:00

When I fully transformed into my current state of Crunchy Granola Wholesomeness, I really started dropping cash on beauty (booty) products. Not that I really spend all that much on products now, just that I spent most of my youth being a tomboy--or least, not conventionally girly--so any amount of money spent now is far more than what I used to spend. Now I generally purchase "natural" products, meaning that the ingredients of my soaps, shampoos, moisturizes, etc. are somewhat identifiable substances. Much like my general attitude towards food, I prefer to know what is being absorbed into my body. More often than not, I find that this means the ingredients are things that can be eaten. For example, this evening, I slathered on a couple moisturizers that contain buttermilk, honey, chamomile extract, rosemary essence, coconut oil, sunflower oil, peppermint oil, and green tea extract.
Let's not forget the vitamins: A, C, E, and B5.
And the minerals: copper, zinc, and manganese.
Plus the polypeptides…don't forget those.
Holy bejesus! it's looking like the back of the Total cereal box. I'm assuming that all these things are good for my skin, especially since my face starts to tingle (pleasantly) upon contact with my nutrient-rich crème. With all this oily creaminess sitting on my face, working to hydrate, firm, and strengthen my skin, I feel pretty certain that at least my face won't get cellulite, despite the calories.

With love, from Texass

2006-01-23T22:46:00.000-05:00

Just this past Friday, I came home from Happy Hour, and found that I had received a package. I thought it was going to be the CDs I had ordered from Amazon, but when I picked it up from the mailroom, it turned out to be much larger and waaayyy heavier than two CDs. Instead, the box had come from Houston, TX, and when I'd cracked it open, it was actually an early birthday gift from my family (who are not living in H-Town); a beautiful, beautiful pecan pie from Goode Company. This arrival was awesome for at *least* two reasons. First of all, I wasn't expecting a birthday gift from the fam; I'd already requested a birthday goat (from the Heifer Foundation), and they had followed through with that. Secondly, I LOVE Goode Company pecan pies. LOVE, love, love these pies. They make the best pecan pie I have ever eaten in my life. Actually, I just love Goode Company, but that deserves a post all on its own. This pecan pie came in its own MADE IN TEXAS wooden box, with the unforgettable Goode Company slogan (incidentally, written by an long lost friend's father). Check out the whole pecans adorning the top of the pie…yummmm…a total Homer Simpson moment. And let me tell you, the gooey, custardy middle is to die for. What a way to start out the weekend. Thanks momma, poppa, and bro!

Already disappointing…

2006-01-23T22:39:00.000-05:00

To my non-existent readers, this here is the first installment of my very own food blog. I've talked about this for months, so finally it has arrived. All that talk, however, results in built up expectations from my putative future readers, and I'm already going to be letting down a few of them. I'd promised that the first installment would feature the experience of dining at an All-You-Can-Eat Japanese restaurant (the buffet table being approximately the same length as a city block--possibly not as impressive when living in any other American city, but in NYC, it is positively awe-inspiring). Unfortunately, being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of food and the corporate décor, my camera never left my handbag as I methodically stuffed my face for almost two hours. So here's a shout out to Minado, the lovely AYCE restaurant, and the gut-busting chow down we all had there, sans photos.

At any rate, I intend to blab about food related escapades and document all forms of food enjoyment, from straight up gluttony to interesting/exotic food finds to (hopefully) recipes.