Taiwan Day 9. Childhood Memories Spawned by Zhuji Giant Potstickers / 朱記餡餅粥店 (Taipei: Zhongshan District / 台北市: 中山區)

While my aunt may reminisce her youth over a bowl of stewed pork rice, I get flashbacks of my childhood over a meal of rice porridge and giant beef potstickers.  For whatever reason, whether it was convenient location or affordable prices, my parents always took me to eat rice porridge and giant beef potstickers after a doctor or dentist appointment.  They probably believed that a blazing hot bowl of gruel would soothe the pain from an immunization shot or calm me down after a tough tooth pulling.  In retrospect, the logic doesn't quite work out, but I turned out fine... I think.  After running errands, my aunt and I stopped at Zhuji(朱記餡餅粥店) in the basement food court of Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store where I got my comforting meal of porridge and potstickers. 

To be honest, this gritty millet rice porridge (小米粥) is not appetizing at all.  It does not have much flavor, and it even has an off putting yellow tinge.  But it is homey and warming, and it just needs to be paired with some patty-shaped potstickers to prevent it from being called poor man's food.

By the way, these things... these round patty things... they aren't really potstickers.  But how do I translate xian bing (餡餅) into English? Meat pie? Chinese empanada? Grilled Taiwanese beef patty? Giant round potsticker? Filled flatbread? All of the aforementioned touch upon the definition just a tad, but none of the above are exact.  My dad said to a co-worker once that they were our version of a burger, but that's not right since the Taiwanese actually have a variation on the American hamburger.  Let's just say it's a blend of sorts.

The most important thing to note, though, is not the English name of this thing but that this thing has a good portion of beef juice and meat oil inside that can be tastefully slurped up by the spoonful or purposefully poured into the jaundice colored millet gruel for added flavor.  I have done the latter ever since I can remember.  In fact, I would make everyone at the table relinquish their beef juice to me so that I could incorporate the meaty extract into my porridge.  What a brat I was... a culinary genius of a little brat.

Another one of my favorite foods that spawned some fond memories are scallion pancakes (蔥油餅).  What used to be simply a snack item in China has become so much more when it came to Taiwan with Chinese migrants.  It is now an accompaniment to dishes at noodle houses much like the bread that is inevitably served with Italian pastas.  What was once something that quelled hunger has become a comforting staple in a meal that frequently over stuffs the eater to a level of discomfort... how ironic.

The scallion pancakes that spark the most nostalgia are arguably the ones with the most layers.  In the struggle of pulling apart the layers, the warmth and heat of the flatbread itself remedies whatever struggle the eater had prior to sitting down at the table.  For me, it was the dreaded shot in the tender regions by the nurse or the absolute fear of foreign metal objects that the dentist used to inspect my teeth.  Thank goodness for scallion pancakes.  Until next time, let's all get S.O.F.A.T.

What food or dish sparks memories of your childhood?

Zhuji (朱記餡餅粥店)
台北市中山區南京西路12號
新光三越南西店1館B2
No. 12, Nanjing West Rd., Zhongshan District, Taipei City
Shin Kong Mitsukoshi, Hall 1, Basement 2
MRT: Zhongshan Station, exit no. 3 / 捷運中山站, 3號出口
multiple locations throughout Greater Taipei

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Taiwan Day 9: Childhood Memories of Stewed Pork Rice / 懷念三元號圓環老店 (Taipei: Datong District / 台北市: 大同區)

When my aunt finally had some time to hang out, I asked her to bring me somewhere that she and my dad used to eat when they were younger.  She led me to a restaurant that used to occupy a space within the central ring of shops at the intersection of Chongqing North Road (重慶北路), Nanjing West Road (南京西路) and Tianshui Road (天水路).  It has relocated just off the roundabout (圓環) due to the municipal government's mandated renovations, which many of the older generation locals in the area gripe about.  How often have you heard the elders mention that things just aren't the way they used to be?

The location may not be the same, but the flavors of its stewed pork rice (滷肉飯) have remained constant.  The stewed pork rice is old school here.  It is easy to see.  The meat is minced, ground, or chopped into bits and pieces and stewed in a sauce of soy and sugar.  When it is spooned atop the rice, it seeps into any space that it finds.  It is fully incorporated.  The meat is nowhere close to the glossy chunks or gleaming cubes of pork belly that are found in restaurants elsewhere.  The pork used here is lean ground meat.  It is far from greasy, but still... this is a hot mess.  It is saucy; it is soupy.  It is home style.  It is the way my dad, my aunts and uncles ate when they were little.  It is delicious.

It is hard not to imagine the thoughts, goals, and ambitions that ran through my father and his siblings' minds when eating a bowl of this messy, saucy pork rice.  Back then there was silence during meal time for my parents.  Not only was the pork stewing away in the pot, but the burrowed desires of a better life were stewing away in their heads as well.  Even to this day it is not easy for the elder generation of Taiwanese to express or communicate their emotions explicitly.

The only time a hint of their childhood memories come to light is when my dad makes this saucy, sliced garlic pork (蒜泥白肉).  This is another dish that elicits family history whether it is happy or painful.  For me, I only know this dish when cooked in our home kitchen in America, but my dad his siblings know of this dish the way that I experienced it.  The thin cuts of blanched pork are laid out on a platter before being drenched in sweet soy sauce paste, minced garlic, and a mound of freshly shredded ginger.  The raw biting garlic will undoubtedly leave a lasting taste on your tongue for a while... much like the memories of eating at the roundabout shops have left for the Lin family.

If this strangely emo post has not already turned the glories of pork upside down for you, continue reading... there's more! Not everyone is fond of their childhood memories, and not everyone appreciates the lingering garlic flavor on their tongue.  Fortunately, there is a pork spare rib soup (排骨湯) available to cleanse your palate and wash away bad memories.  The deep fried pieces of spare rib sink down deep into the depths of the soup, adding flavor and substance to the mild broth brewed from daikon.  A hearty yet mild flavor, the broth is substantial enough to rinse away any flashbacks of which you are not fond but just subtle enough to remind you that there were no regrets.

Oh, wow, that was a cliff of a conclusion.  Until next time, let's dream of getting S.O.F.A.T.

Read the post on 三元號 by TaiwanWalker in Chinese here.

三元號 (San Yuán Haò)
台北市大同區重慶北路二段11號
No. 11, Chongqing North Rd., Section 2, Datong District, Taipei City 

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Post 107: GReat BurGeR by Gordon Ramsay BurGR (Las Vegas: The Strip)

On December 12 of last year (12/12/12), jetBlue held a flash sale for short haul flights to help open the newly remodeled terminal at Long Beach Airport.  Flights from LGB to LAS, SFO, OAK, SAC, PDX, and SEA were only $12 each way with taxes included.  It was cheap enough (less than $24 total for a RT with taxes) to fly to Vegas for dinner and return in time for work the next morning.  Looks like quite a few spontaneous jetsetters had the same idea because the flights to Portland and Seattle sold out instantly... and that is how I ended up in Vegas in the middle of the week.

I met up with Vegas local Amber-Rose Kawewehi, writer of the blog Cheer Up With Food to try out the new Gordon Ramsay BurGR at Planet Hollywood.  Chef Ramsay's new burger joint strives to make the classic American burger and shake combination into a classed up version of comfort food in a casual environment.  Amber-Rose (yes, you can call her Amber for short) brought a friend with her, and I brought my roommate.  The four of us ordered just about everything on the menu.

We started off with the Roasted Jalapeño Poppers.  The outside was breaded with panko, and the interior was stuffed with applewood smoked bacon and English cheddar.  They were dunked into a shot glass of English cheddar ranch with chili oil.  In case you can't handle spicy, you're in luck because out of the half dozen poppers, five of them have had their seeds removed.  One of them, described on the menu as the "fiery surprise," still contained the vein of seeds within.  The odds are that you won't be the one to end up with the fiery surprise, but if you didn't have the best of luck with the roulette wheel on the casino floor, I wouldn't take my chances on this one.  After all, this is Vegas.

Next up we ordered a platter of the Fury Chicken Wings, which were a combination of four tangy hellfire bleu cheese wings and four honey wasabi wings.  The hellfire wings definitely had a bit of heat... maybe even more so than the honey wasabi wings.  The second set of wings had a obvious wasabi bite, but the restaurant was careful not to have the volatile condiment overpower the flavor of the wings.  The Deschutes Chainbreaker White IPA that I was drinking tasted even better with the spicy fried food.  By the way, we ordered our drinks off a portable iPad that our server whisked to us each time we wanted to quench our thirst.  Very cool.

There were only two salads on the menu, and thankfully neither of them were the typical house or classic Caesar salad.  Amber made a great call by ordering the Kale Granny-Apple Caesar Salad.  I love that the salad section actually had a vegetable that was substantial in nutrients without coming across as way too healthy.  The kale was a smart move on Chef Ramsay's part.  And even smarter was the addition of the crispy and slightly tart Granny Smith apple slices.  The apples added a light and fresh touch to a salad that becomes quite heavy with its eponymous dressing.

Although there were other items on the menu we wanted to try such as the Honey-Pig Bao Buns and the Devil Dawgs, we stuck to the classic burgers and fries combo.  Our highly attentive server Charlie expertly explained that the meat used in the burgers were 100% beef, a blend of beef brisket, chuck, and short rib.  They are all grilled with an English Devonshire butter, but no other seasonings or sauces were added.  Two types of wood were used for creating the fire under the grill... applewood, which created a smoky flavor, and alderwood, which created a sweeter flavor.  After the detailed description, we knew that ordering burgers was the way to go.

I ordered the Farm Burger from under the Stacked section of the menu.  It came with a sizable portion of duck breast bacon and a runny fried egg, which ended up dripping into the sharp English cheddar cheese.  The duck bacon was more tender, more crispy, and even more decadent than the typical breakfast pork bacon.  The bun was more than just buttery.  Biting into the crispy yet pillowy bun was like biting into a soft, buttery crouton.  Absolutely delicious.

Amber ordered the Britannia Burger, which was made with mango chutney, sharp English cheddar and a layer of arugula.  I wasn't quite sure what was so Britannia about this burger... not that it needed a Union Jack to scream Britain or anything.  It could have been the mango chutney, which would have been a nod to the heavy influence of Indian cuisine on English cooking.  The mango chutney was a nice touch, especially since its sweetness contrasted the peppery arugula leaves.  But really, it was simply creative.  When was the last time you had mango in your burger?

Amber's friend Byron ordered the Uber Cheese Burger.  Just from its profile we could tell that it was loaded with cheese.  This cheeseburger had a trifecta of fontina, reclette and goat cheese all melted between the patty and the bun.  It oozed out and covered the circumference of the patty to give it enough more moisture and juiciness.

We couldn't leave without ordering the Hell's Kitchen Burger.  It had a good amount of asadero cheese melted over the patty along with roasted jalapeño peppers, oven roasted tomato, and freshly sliced avocado.  Needless to say, this burger was stacked.  I appreciated the oven roasted tomato, and I liked the creaminess of the Mexican asadero cheese... but what really made this burger good was the spiciness from the peppers.  Angela, by the way, was the lucky one that picked the popper with the seeds still inside it.  Looks like heat followed her in burger form this time.

The four of us split an order of the Just Fries, an order of the Truffle Parmesan Fries and an order of the Sweet Potato Fries.  The truffle fries looked as if it were covered with Parmesan snow.  The truffle salt and truffle aioli made the cheesy fries extra salty and finger licking good.  The sweet potato fries were surprising in that the two accompaniments provided completely different tastes.  One was a vanilla powdered sugar, which made the naturally sweet fries even more sweet.  The other was a honey jalapeño mayo, which was both sweet and spicy at the same time.  The orders of fries were so big that the four of us couldn't finish, so we took them home for the next day to eat.  Usually that isn't a very smart idea, especially for fried foods, but the sweet potato fries held up well and were still tasty the following day.

We could barely finish the big burgers and phenomenal fries, so we chose to pass up on the milkshakes.  The milkshakes, though, looked absolutely intense.  Each of them were served with a pudding (choices included caramel, coconut, butterscot, banana, and chocolate hazlenut) and topped off with a cookie (choices included toffee, chocolate, snicker-doodle, gingersnap, and praline).  What we could eat though were the Sticky Toffee Pudding Push Up Pops.  The interactive dessert was made with layers of sticky toffee pudding, salted peanut ice cream and dusted with cocoa powder.  It brought a sense of nostalgia to those of us who grew up eating Push-Up ice cream pops.  These things were not easy to eat, but that may have been the point... to create the sticky mess that we made as children perhaps brought the nostalgia closer to home.

But mess or no mess, Gordon Ramsay made some great burgers.  They may not have been the best burgers I have ever eaten (what burger can top In-N-Out, really?), but the burgers were definitely worthy of at least one visit... at least.  Thank you to all the local Vegas bloggers that I was in contact with.  But a huge thank you goes out to Amber-Rose for meeting me at PH.  Cheers to more blog collaborations this year, and to meeting many more food bloggers out there.  Until next time, let's all get S.O.F.A.T.

Cheer up with Amber-Rose's post on Gordon Ramsay BurGR here.

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Post 77: Fun Size Korean School Food (LA: Koreatown)

My roommate recently introduced me to School Food Blooming Roll, a restaurant that makes food that Korean students would typically bring in their lunch boxes to school.  This concept is quite unique, so I was eager to gather some friends for some famous Korean fare.  We ordered School Food's two most popular dishes, a super spicy tteokbukki and an epic platter of nine different kimbap. 

The rice cake typically used in tteokbukki are tubular and cylindrical, but School Food serves their version in a shape more similar to marshmallows, tater tots or fun size Snickers bars.  It's as if the restaurant purposely cut the size of the rice cake down so that elementary school children would enjoy their lunches more.  Who doesn't like miniature versions of everyday food?

The flavor profile is not just spicy but a melange of sweet and spicy together.  The thick, crimson sauce from the first taste of the tteok is sweet, but the peppery spice penetrates the taste buds soon after.  This wasn't the spiciest tteokbukki I've ever had, but it was pretty damn close to it.  We all know that gulp after gulp of water doesn't help, but I think that the spiciness led to a bit of temporary insanity because that's all I did to relieve the pain of the spice.  It wasn't until I munched on the kimbap and the accompanying sweet mayonnaise that my tongue calmed down and my ears stopped ringing.

Our massive platter included the following types of rice rolls: beef, garlic and bacon, anchovies, squid and squid ink, smelt roe, Spam, tuna, spicy anchovies, and kimchi.  And just like the tteok, the kimbap were bite sized too.  Korean style rice rolls are usually bigger than Japanese style sushi, so it takes more than one bite (depending on the size of your nom) to munch on the entire thing.  Luckily, these itty bitty kimbap were junior sized, which meant that popping a rice roll into your mouth didn't require much effort.  Hmm... is this the lesson we want to be teaching in schools?

My favorite kimbap were the ones that had tuna, Spam, and squid ink wrapped inside.  The tuna and Spam weren't anything out of the ordinary, but the saltiness of canned tuna and canned lunch meat really complemented the neutral flavor of the white rice well.  Japanese sushi relies heavily on the freshest raw fish to taste good, and since Korean kimbap focuses on ingredients other than raw fish, I found that the stronger the flavor, the more I ended up liking the kimbap.  

The squid ink kimbap, on the other hand, didn't quite have a strong flavor.  In fact, the squid was subtly sweet, and the flavor of its ink didn't really shine.  We all liked it just because the rice was black, and it seemed almost like a novelty food item.  It was unique, and we have the evolutionary bodily function of a certain cephalopod to thank for it.

After seeing the dishes, I could really imagine Korean school children carrying the fun size versions of tteokbukki and kimbap to class.  The food wasn't amazing delicious, but it was definitely fun to eat.  It was almost like revisiting the school cafeteria to have some of those nostalgic chicken nuggets, fish sticks... or for those of us from AUSD... crispitos! By the way, where can we find crispitos? Simply reminiscing about those school lunches from the good ol' days isn't going to cut it for me.  I'm going to need to munch on some real crispitos real soon.  But until then, let's all get S.O.F.A.T.

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