New York, Day 3

My final day in New York consisted of redemption at the Peking Duck House (28 Mott St./
New York, NY, 10013/212.227.1810 and 236 East 53rd St./New York, NY, 10022/212.759.8260), where we had originally planned to eat Saturday night. But thanks to the Fung Wah stop's location, we just happened to be in Chinatown.

Having arrived for a late lunch, we went straight into the main dining room (there was another one downstairs). The full length window of the Peking Duck House was shrouded by a red curtain, but the interior of the restaurant was not the hole-in-the-wall that I had expected.

We promptly got to work with the menu. Of course, Peking duck was on the list. The restaurant offers an Peking Duck Dinner special ($26.50 per n persons for a Peking duck and n-2 dishes - I couldn't explain it without the 'n's...), but we opted for the actual dish ($40) because we wanted to go a la carte. For other dishes, we chose homemade noodles with beef ($9.25) and more hollow vegetables (ordered 'off the menu' - in any case, it's usually there in Chinese restaurants).

Another habit - before Peking duck is served, it is shown to the customer so that he or she can approve of its size and how it's been cooked. (I might that Peking duck is notoriously hard to make - we actually talked about this while we waited for lunch. My sister's friend had prepared one, but had to hang it in his kitchen for three weeks.) This time, the chef actually hacked (in politer terms, I mean cut - not hax0rz) the duck in front of us, although he left a significant part of the meat on the duck, probably for someone else's duck soup.

The duck was placed promptly on the table with pancakes, cucumbers, green onions and hoisin sauce...which shouldn't be confused with duck sauce nor plum sauce. We wrapped all the ingredients in the pancake (really a very thin tortilla), and it was amazing that I might've as well hummed. The cucumbers were refreshingly crisp as was the duck skin (not quite as red as it is in Minnesota) against the chewy pancake, which was a little bit more thick than I would have liked. On the other hand, the dark meat was rich, deeply flavored, and the oil that mingled with it made the pancake taste better.

As for the noodles - I had expected brazenly shaven handcut noodles, similar to that of Joy Restaurant (one of my favorite restaurants in the Bay Area). At Peking Duck House, though, what homemade noodles seemed to mean were metal noodle cutters wielded in Chinatown. That said, the preparation is still legit in my opinion. Although the noodles were thin, they were well-textured and tasty - it didn't resemble the same shape as chow fun, but since it contained bean sprouts, beef strips and onions, it sure tasted like it. Finally, the hollow vegetables were delicious. They weren't particularly special, but they had been cooked in clean oil, and instead of the typical garlic stir-fry, scallions had been added to the mix.

Overall, the meal was a little pricey for a regular lunch - there was definitely a 'duck premium' added, but it was well worth a trip. We then headed over to Tai Pan Bakery. Again, mistaken assumptions - with its purple exterior and metal covered lunch counters, I thought it was a bakery for tourists. It turns out that it's a well-known Chinatown establishment...and that it was packed. I took a sesame ball for the trip (that's not my picture, though). It was two-point-five-inch-diameters of fried goodness, and the oil got on my fingers, even through the wax paper slip it came in. When I bit inside, there wasn't a lot of red bean paste to be found though, but even after two hours on the bus, it was still, weirdly enough, simultaneously crisp and chewy...but not crunchy.

And well - that concludes this short intersession trilogy. Stay tuned.

New York, Day 2

After a late breakfast, we headed to Times Square, followed by the Whitney Museum. By that time, it was 2:30, and we were craving a late lunch, so upon a recommendation from my brother-in-law, we tried to find Momofuku (171 1st Ave/New York, NY 10013/212.475.7899). The 1^st Ave address implied that it was near the United Nations, so we spent a twenty blocks’ walk looking for this noodle house, finally calling it twice. But no one picked up to confirm, and we ended up heading to Grand Central Station as a consolation prize, disgruntled. (It looks like something’s wrong with its directory entry – it may be closed?)

Grand Central Station had a huge food court with smaller versions of “unique New York” (try saying that fast) culinary establishments. I shared and quickly gobbled down a tomato and parmesan foccacia from Zaro’s Bread Basket ($4.95), only made better by the temporary heat from the panini grill. I imagined it as an yeasty, herby upgrade of a pizza.

We then headed to Rockefeller Center and picked up pseudo-lunches from ‘wichcraft, in the basement. The gourmet fast food sandwich bar was pricey, though the sandwiches were good. Plus, points for presentation.

The slow-roasted pork sandwich ($8.50) with red cabbage and jalapeno had enough – if not too much – of a spicy kick. While the grilled fontina ($9) was fairly small, the makers had the great idea of including chewy black trumpet mushrooms (I am fairly certain these are the mushrooms labeled “black fungus” in Chinese supermarkets) and truffle oil on the moist-but-crisp white bread. A better choice was the soup ($4) – pureed cauliflower that was only apparent in the aftertaste, with colorful chive oil on top. It came with two thin, crunchy breadsticks to dip.

A quick stop for Dean and DeLuca’s coffee was next – we had been looking all afternoon for one. The coffee was hot and pungent – while the scent did indicate its bitterness, most of the aftertaste evaporated quickly.

On to Pinkberry! We searched online for the nearest location – and it happened to land smack-dab in the middle of Koreatown. Given my fondness for Berryline, I was eager to compare Pinkberry to it. Perhaps that is somewhat irreverent, however: Berryline is actually a Beantown knockoff of Pinkberry. As a result of the recent froyo craze and the fact that Starbucks is actually putting a little of their brew into Pinkberry, it seemed that Pinkberry was a little paranoid. I was yelled at for taking photos in the crowded space, which looked like an internet café meets teenage-girl Starbucks.

And what do I think about Pinkberry’s froyo? To some extent, it might have been Berryline withdrawal (I found out that they had mango – plus Oreo – while I was gone), or simply the factor of being first, but I found Pinkberry to be refreshingly good. Other customers walking out of the store called it “yogurty,” and that was indeed the case. It was also surprisingly creamy – I had expected something icier. The fruit – I ordered raspberries, blackberries and mango – was for the most part, fresh. My mango was unripe (another point for Berryline!) and green tendrils were protruding from one blackberry, but the raspberries were ideal.

During our brief stay at Pinkberry, we planned out the remainder of this non-stop noshing day. Our original plan was to eat at the Peking Duck House in Chinatown but we were sidetracked by the Korean eateries. (Incidentally, the NYT published an article about the Koreatown that same day, which we only found later that evening.) We finally settled on Hyo Dong Gak (51 W 35th Street/New York, NY 10001/212.495.7167), a few blocks' walk from the center of Koreatown and the recipient of a few favorable online reviews.

Upon walking into the restaurant, we waited for seats to open. The restaurant looked comfortable, in a good way…but so did the menu, in a bad way. I scanned up and down the pages, but all I saw was “sweet and sour pork,” “Mongolian beef,” and more of what looked like to be generic Chinese take-out dishes. Not that I’m morally against “sweet and sour pork,” I just prefer to eat it only when necessary. (And by necessary, I mean once a year.)

My sister reassured me that “really, that’s the special thing about this place – they’re a Korean/Chinese hybrid restaurant,” but really, I struggled – and still do – with this conception.

(Warning: I am a moderate version of my friend Hank, who refuses to eat the (reputedly) “awesome” steak at Waffle House because he only eats waffles at Waffle House. That said, I do agree with him on the Cheesecake Factory – if you must, only get the cheesecake there. My take, however, is that the entrees there are not only generic but laced with sodium.)

Back to Hyo Dong Gak. I looked skeptically at my sister. First of all, the menu clearly stated Chinese restaurant. Second of all, one of the posted reviews on the restaurant’s bulletin board was from a local newspaper who championed the fact that their Japanese reviewer liked some sort of seafood delight. Awkward was an understatement, but just when I was about to leave, a table opened and we obligatorily sat down.

With a little help from Yelp, we chose our order: the noodles in brown sauce (called jajang-myeon - $5.95), an bowl of seafood noodle soup (with extra seafood), and tang soo yook, described on the site as a Korean version of sesame chicken. We looked around at all the other tables, and it looked like they ordered the exact same meal as well. Good call; we patted ourselves on the back.

The first thing that arrived was the tang soo yook. It did look like generic sweet-and-sour chicken, but it was surprisingly good. It had been deep fried in the same style, but the chicken came out hot and the oil tasted clean. Granted that when you bit into it, hot oil burst out, but it was quite tasty. The sauce was somewhat flavorless and the vegetables were definitely of the sweet-and-sour chicken genre (peppers, water chestnuts, snow peas), but the dish’s freshness made up for it. It wouldn’t be a repeat though; upon picking up the check, we found out that the chicken was almost double the price of the other dishes ($12.95).

The seafood noodle was tasty – the broth was flavorful, but also delicate, with a hint of ginger added to the seafood brew. The noodles were chewy, and there was a good deal of seafood in the bowl, which on its own, probably could have manhandled two of us. As for the noodles with brown sauce, it was my favorite dish. This traditional Korean dish – thick soy-based paste over diced pork, onions and other vegetables – is my mom’s favorite (and even has a Chinese equivalent) but the Minnesota restaurant rendition could not compare to this. The noodles were the same as those used for the seafood soup, and they complemented the sauce nicely. And oh, the sauce. It wasn’t salty and it definitely didn’t lack ingredients – rather, it had a bacony flavor that melded to and a thickness that clung on to the noodles.

So I ended up having to walk about fifteen blocks before my stomach felt less full…and that concludes my second day.

New York, Day .5: Shanghai Moon House

My intersession trip to New York began with a harried rush to the legendary Fung Wah bus. And by legendary, I mean notorious. It’s no surprise that I was a little fearful of the Fung Wah – but the only negative story I personally heard was from a philosophy student I met on the T, who pointed out that one trip, his foot, straying in the aisle, was sprayed with Febreze. And even so, that wasn’t that terrible.

And the bus ride, in reality, wasn’t that terrible either. Granted, I played the role of a “yuppie seeking validation of and legitimacy in his or her life” (aka: the plotline of Love Story) through a cheap bus ride adventure, but really. My only worry was the strict ten minute allotment for the McDonald’s stop; rumor had it that the driver would promptly pull out regardless of missing riders. Whether that happened this time…I don’t know. The bus was fairly speedy in the 4.75-hour trip, but my brother-in-law had to point out to me that the driver almost crashed into a car upon arrival.

Whoops.

In any case, it was around 10:30 pm when we finally sat down at Shanghai Moon House Restaurant (67 Bayard Street/New York, NY 10013/212.766.9399 or 212.766.9098 ), a repeat visit for my sister and brother-in-law. They had been raving about the pork steamed buns (8 for $2.99 – ridiculously cheap by most standards) and the aromatic beef cold noodle ($4.50). We ended up ordering a few other things as well, as the dining and packing schedule had been a little harried to say the least. (I beat my roommate’s packing record – fifteen minutes. Take that.)

The food came quickly, and we started off with appetizers. The pork steamed buns were just as I had expected, and even a little bit larger-sized. A quick note on the buns: the kind that we got weren’t dry or sandwich-y, bread-based buns. Rather, these buns were what are called tang bao, “soup” buns, meaning that they were filled with the same broth used to cook the pork filling. The overarching goal of eating tang bao is to not let the soup leak out, since it’s really the best part of the bun. The way to do this is to use chopsticks to maneuver the bao into a soup spoon, dip the spoon into the gingery vinegar sauce, and to eat the bao in one bite, letting the ingredients soak against your tongue.

We followed this up with a combination of three appetizers ($9.95): sliced aromatic beef, wine chicken (aka drunken chicken) and jelly fish. The sliced beef was thin and had a good proportion of jelly, which added to the meat’s chewy texture. And yes, it was aromatic – but the spices were subtle. The wine chicken tasted like any other drunken chicken, but the chicken meat was a little leaner and there was less fat and skin. The jelly fish, although vinegary, was a little less flavorful. However, a generous portion of it was served, and it was nice and chewy. For those of you who are a little less adventurous with regard to jellyfish: don’t worry, it’s good. And it doesn’t really look like meat; it’s just clear.

The sautéed water spinach came ($7.95), followed by the aromatic beef cold noodle ($4.50). The water spinach’s sell comes from its crunch – it also goes by the name “hollow vegetable” because its stems are indeed hollow. Typically water spinach is drenched in oil and lots of garlic, but Shanghai Moon’s rendition was a little bit more delicate. Yes, there was plenty of oil, but at least it looked like it wasn’t reused oil (a heads-up: if your egg rolls ever look dark-colored, it’s probably because it was the tenth batch to be deep fried in the oil). The fresh flavor of the spinach really stood out, but I wished there was a little more garlic flavor in the dish. The cold noodle (shown above – with close up of the meat) was topped with a creamy, light-color peanut sauce that could have been thicker. Combined with the noodles – which had a wavy, fettucini-like texture – it was really quite tasty.

Finally, the surprise hit of the meal was something I didn’t realize we’d ordered – pork and vegetable strips in garlic sauce (admittedly, I don’t have the price because it was a last-minute order). It consisted of thinly shredded pork with green peppers and water chestnuts, topped up with sliced garlic cloves under a brown gravy. Although it looked out of place in a Shanghai-style restaurant, next to the pork steamed buns, it was my favorite dish of the evening; the flavors were bold and the peppers were sharp.

Knowing the huge quantity of restaurants in Chinatown, you could easily head from one to another for a month without repeats, and during visits to New York, I’ll have more on the list to try. But this one may warrant another trip.

Fortune Cookies and Good Reads

I recently found Jennifer 8. Lee's blog, the Fortune Cookie Chronicles, and am loving it. She happens to be releasing her book (of the same name) in March, and it's about the history and role of Chinese food in America. Obviously, it's about food, but it's also about culture (example from the summary: "unique bond between Chinese food and American Jewry" - yes).

In any case, she recently wrote a piece for the New York Times about the fortune cookie's backstory, which my sister forwarded to me. Check it out - surprisingly, a historian argues the fortune cookie could have stemmed from Japan. And if I've told you about my return to Boston last week (where the annoying know-it-all across from me claimed fortune cookies were from China - more on him later) then this article seems to be in good timing.

For me and for him.

Hot Pot, Hot Pot...

Survivor: China was the first season of Survivor that I actually watched more than one episode of, only because there was a DVR handy. (The delay on this post is proof of this fact.) In particular, one scene towards the end of the season caught my eye. As TV Grapevine puts it:

"Although Denise, Todd and Courtney seemed blown away by the sight of the Great Wall they spent their entire time complaining about the food they were provided [from the reward challenge]. It was a Chinese Hot Pot which none of the three knew anything about."

A brief definition: hot pot consists of a pot of steaming hot broth (usually chicken, although another meat base can be used). Various vegetables, thinly-sliced meat or seafood are placed by the pot, and it is the eater's job to put into the pot what he or she wants to eat at that time (by using individual mesh baskets with handles). When the food is fully cooked, the eater takes it out and eats it, after dipping it in a sauce - like a fondue, basically. The pot is kept hot throughout the meal, either by a gas/electric stove built into the table, or more commonly, a hot plate. It's also known as the onomatopoeic term "shabu-shabu," for the swishing sound the meat makes when cooked in the soup.

The variations on how people do hot pot are astounding. Some people cook with chicken broth, others splash a dash of chili sauce before boiling. Someone might make an all-seafood hot pot, while the next week, he or she might skip the scallops. Fried tofu? Soft tofu? It depends.

Then the matter of sauce expands hot pot possibilities, as people mix according to their individual tastes. Most Chinese families use a satay sauce - made out of brine shrimp - coupled with some soy sauce (to make the sauce more fluid), and then they add other garnishes, like cilantro. Some people add raw egg to their sauce for thickness as well (it's apparently better than hollandaise sauce). And one person I know adds a teaspoon of sugar to his sauce to "neutralize" the salty part, per his family tradition. Meanwhile, Japanese shabu-style restaurants (like Shabu-Zen, a new Boston favorite of mine) use a lighter, sweeter - almost vinegary - sort of soy sauce or even a peanut sauce. One adds chopped garlic, onions or hot pepper to this base at his or own discretion.

It's these regional differences that interest me the most. Sometimes, when I visit family friends for hot pot, I'm momentarily shocked that they don't put spinach in like we do at home. But ultimately, good soup is good soup. Case-in-point: not only is hot pot one of my favorite meals, it was my dinner tonight.

And so that's what peeved me about this segment of Survivor (if you'd like to look it up, it's episode 12: "Hello, I'm Still a Person"). The hot pot was part of the reward, so clearly it wasn't disgusting, not to mention too daunting to learn - in fact, there was a lot on the table, and it looked pretty good to me. What bothered me was that the Survivors were disgruntled about it and complained all the way to the Tribal Council.

It's fine to not take risks or to refuse something- admittedly, I like trying out "weird-looking" fruits more than I like more physically-trying feats. But in my opinion, it's another thing to complain about how other cultures do food (although cannibalism is another story). And honestly, hot pot is about boiling - not eating bugs or slugs or random pieces of cardboard, and it's fairly easy to do. Food flexibility shouldn't be too much of an issue...especially if you're a Survivor.

Review: Whole Foods'/Byerly's Asian selection

My friends know that I dislike Leeann Chin (the Midwest fast food restaurant chain). I should probably note that I have had some success with their Peking Chicken Stir-Fry (mainly because it has jicama). (Yes, for the most part, these informational links lead you to Wikipedia.)

That said, I complain often enough about Americanized Asian food, although I have gotten accustomed to it. Another complaint that I have is regarding the dearth of vegetables in my entrees at Americanized Asian fast food places. More often than not, I get meat in a tasty brown sauce over my rice. No veggies - unless they involve a (not-so-very) special fungi. That said, I began a quest for vegetables, and for really good - not just edible bordering on vaguely tasty - lemon chicken. Or something to that effect.

I went to Whole Foods first and bought some sweet and sour tofu ($7.99/pound) and teriyaki sweet potatoes ($6.99/pound). Following that, a trip to Byerly's yielded me Big Bowl Chinese Express, in the same spot where Leeann Chin had been a year earlier. And my Big Bowl Chinese Express choice was the teriyaki chicken ($6.99 regular size, $5.79 small).

The sweet and sour tofu was not really typical tofu, but bean curd, a tougher, denser version that explained the more expensive price. It was nowhere near sweet and sour, and not particularly Asian, but was vaguely sweet and salty. The bean curd, because of its texture, did not absorb the sauce but was nonetheless pretty good, especially if you treated the sauce as a light dip. Chopped green onion added flavor, though I wished the red pepper slices were thicker to contribute more sweetness.

The teriyaki sweet potatoes were long, quartered and covered in sesame seeds. They also looked shriveled. Nonetheless, the interior was moist, although some potato pieces were clearly less cooked than others. The teriyaki sauce was slightly sweet and even a little bit spicy, a good complement to the chewy texture.

Finally, the teriyaki chicken. While I enjoy Big Bowl as a sit-down restaurant, its Express chains in Byerly's don't match the main restaurant's flavors. For example, the kung pao chicken on display had a significantly lighter tone than that served in the restaurant. In addition, the entrees are limited, and in particular, none of Big Bowl's noodle dishes are available via Express. Instead, a refrigerated peanut noodle salad was in the case. The teriyaki chicken that I ordered was standard Teriyaki, but the sauce was a little too sweet and rich for my taste. Green peas added color to the chicken, but were few and far between, and didn't soften up the tough texture of the chicken.

My verdict? I would pass on the teriyaki chicken, but I think it's up to you on the teriyaki sweet potatoes and the sweet and sour tofu. Of those two, I preferred the latter; I could see myself becoming bored with the teriyaki sweet potatoes after one serving.

Update on senior program: I am eating.

Thanks for the comments. I just realized that they were getting "blocked" by my account, but feel free to post - they should be working fine now.

After two messages, one plane trip (!) and three voicemails, I got my first lunch scheduled - for a half-hour. Hurray! (Anyone I actually know: if you'd like to be part of any additional trips, please email me to schedule a time.)

Review: Chin's Kitchen, 1533 Larpenteur Ave West, St Paul
It's hard to find authentic Chinese restaurants in the Twin Cities, but Chin's Kitchen is one of them. It's even harder to find a Taiwanese restaurant in the area (with the exception of Evergreen on Nicollet Avenue), but Chin's Kitchen is that, too.

Like most Chinese restaurants, Chin's Kitchen has a full dine-in menu with chow mein, but the real deal is on the back page. "Hot dishes" and "cold dishes" are both labeled in Chinese and English. I tried favorites that the majority of people I had talked to had recommended to me.

First up was the seaweed salad ($2.40). Taiwanese seaweed salads are unlike Japanese seaweed salad (bright green, stringy) in that they are darker in color. While some seaweed salads feature thick strands of seaweed tied in knots, this salad was cut in thin, smooth strips. The texture worked well with the flavor, which was pleasantly more "garlicky" than soy-based, but did not overpower the actual seaweed taste. The assorted roasted sampler ($6.35) contains this as well as some other appetizers and was generally very good over my trips.

Next was the beef stew ($5.70). Chin's Kitchen is known among family friends for its soups, so I didn't exactly need a repeat visit for this. I ordered it anyway. That said, it was excellent. Note that unlike American beef stew (read: biscuits and thick stew), this beef stew is more of a soup. The texture of the noodles was wide enough and hearty for the stronger flavor of the beef broth, and the beef was pre-cut in manageable pieces. Carmelized onions also added to the flavor.

I custom-ordered the pork stew (above photo, $5.70), the beef stew's equivalent, with rice noodles (a popular option) instead of the typical wide noodles or rice. It also came with an additional five-spice egg, a traditional Taiwanese appetizer. While the staff was flexible enough to accomodate me, changing the noodles probably was not a good idea on my part. The rice noodles absorbed nearly all the soup, making it more delicately flavored than it needed to be. However, on a later visit, the pork stew was rather tasty over rice. The egg was nicely flavored.

Finally, I went to the extreme: I went off the menu. That is, I asked the owner about any new dishes that would soon be on the menu. She came back with a large bowl of a traditional Taiwanese recipe she was trying out. I recognized it as a soup that my mother made. Pronounced "bah gay" (nasal "n" overtone on the "gay" sound), the dish consists of pork covered with fish paste, then boiled in a shiitake mushroom-black pepper soup with Napa cabbage. Chin's took a different route - while they did the same thing, they also boiled taro and ginger (both roots) together for their soup base. The ginger flavor was particularly strong and added a heated flavor to the soup without making it sour (a problem that can occur when making it). I'm not sure when this will be added to the menu, but I ordered a bowl home for the road.

Chin's isn't made to be a banquet facility, but it does offer authentic homestyle Taiwanese food - a rare occurence. Portions are also generous, especially at the price. The restaurant also offers a take-out, but not with the more Chinese menu. However, if you asked, it probably would be fine with the friendly staff. If not, go for the juicy potstickers (10 for $6.00). One particular pro is that the bottom of each is evenly browned.

Did you know?
"Smarties [the British, Nestle equivalent to M&M's] are oblate spheroids with a minor axis of about 5 mm and a major axis of about 15 mm." - Wikipedia

This fact just needed to be heard because I have never used the phrase "oblate spheroids" before (hello to all math teachers!). And despite having collected M&M dispensers for fourteen years of my life, I have never measured an M&M nor Smartie...so I'm impressed.