Laksa

Thank you for taking us on a trip around Hanoi! I found it fascinating. I'm glad to see the sugar cane resting in a plastic bucket - instead of on the pavement. The stalks have the ability to absorb liquid through osmosis, if you know what I mean. BTW, what is SCM?

Had dinner there Saturday night. Gotta say this first off - Montclair is a happening place Saturday night. There was a small crowd gathered near one end of Church St., listening to a pair of guitarists/singers. Diners on both sides of the street overflowed the restaurants onto the sidewalk, enjoying the good weather and the music. Indigo Smoke was pretty much a full house from the time we sat down to the time we left. A great atmosphere in there - lots of couples and families with kids. I ordered the "Q" sampler and my wife had the pork chops. Our sides were mashed potatoes, fries, black-eyed peas and collard greens. My sampler was great - would've been even better if I could've had the sauce on the side instead of having it slathered on everything. It nearly overwhelmed the individual flavors of the chicken, brisket, ribs and sausage. The ribs I believe were cooked with a dry rub and had wonderful flavor and smoke. The chicken drumsticks were my favorite - they had the most intense smoke flavor, yet tender, not dry or overcooked. The brisket was strands of shredded pork mixed with the barbecue sauce so tasted more like the sauce than pork. I'm not a big fan of the sauce -- reminds me too much of KC masterpiece -- but I'm no expert of barbecue so please take my opinion like you would something you read on the Internet The sausage in my opinion had the most complexity and depth of flavor. They would've been the best meat I ate that night had it not been for the fact that they were lean and a tad dry. Had they more fatty bits, I would'nt have cared for anything else.

I'd say > 90%. I'd foolishly tried to sear foie once. As soon as it hit the pan, it started melting. I left some pieces in the hot pan and they melted completely in a minute or so. I mopped up the drippings with bread -- it's all good!

I'm guessing the fish they use in SE Asia for fish head curry would be impossible to find in NYC. The fish head curries I've had have been fish with mild to neutral flavor, with firm flesh that won't disintegrate when cooked in the curry broth. And it ought to be a fairly nice size to get a good meaty collar. I guess that red snapper, or some kind of grouper or bass might be suitable. I certainly wouldn't use tuna or salmon or fish with richer flavors.

Let me add my observations to this fun and interesting topic. I've just had my parents stay with us for an extended period and it was fascinating and shocking to see how they responded to American food. My father must have congee for breakfast. Not being able to get that in New Jersey at 8 in the morning, he resorted to cooking his own. Every. Single. Morning. Without. Fail. He loves bacon and sausages though and would fry them up, along with eggs over easy, to go with his congee. He especially loves turkey bacon. They were happy to eat buttermilk pancakes, however, when I make them for breakfast. My dad topped them with concord grape jelly and peanut butter and ate them with his congee. Sometimes he would dip them in orange juice. Like Ah Leung's parents, my parents will not touch cheese, milk or almost any dairy product -- they claim mild lactose intolerance. They shunned subways, paninis, any "Western" sandwiches, but would gladly eat those sandwiches sold in Asian grocery stores. The "Asian sandwich" usually comprises a thin slice of rather bland cold cut, and sometimes a slice of very processed cheese (again bland), a leaf of lettuce, and a sweet mayonnaise-y sandwich spread on white bread, crust removed. It is quite delicious, actually. My parents love bagels, however. Can't get enough of them. My mum ate them plain. My dad with concord grape jelly and peanut butter. My parents quite like Americanized Chinese food and would be just as content with the local takeout as an "authentic" Chinese restaurant. My dad in particular loves the buffets. Once, against my better judgement, we went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. After months of dining on nothing but Chinese, I'd wanted my mum to get some exposure to "American food". I ordered a muschroom and chicken penne with madeira sauce for her and she loved it. She made me specify "no cheese" though. My dad declared that he'd be happy to have anything, as long as it came with congee or rice. At the Cheesecake Factory! So he got the mandarin chicken -- with rice. To me, it tasted unbearably sweet, but he seemed pretty happy he got his rice.

I'm amazed that the search for pho in the NJ forum yielded 0 results. So folks, where do they serve a good bowl? I've tried two places. Last weekend at the Vietnamese restaurant in East West Plaza in Belleville, by far the better of the two, but I find the soup a little watered down. No beef tendon or the peppery beef sausage in the soup. Even when you order the extra large extra super-duper special beef pho, beef balls will cost a buck extra. The other pho place is barely worth mentioning. It's the small cafe/take-out annex of the Kam Man supermarket in East Hanover. I'm sure they serve some decent noodle soups but I won't count pho among them. The folks running the joint are not Vietnamese but Fujianese Chinese -- culinary chameleons of the Western world.

If yer gonna look in the kitchen, yer better off not eatin' Chinese food.

The char kway teow in Penang, East Hanover is different from the CKT I had in Melbourne many years ago. I'd say it's closer to the CKT you find in Penang and KL. The difference is mostly in the texture of the noodles. The size (width) is also different, but I don't think that's as noticeable. Regardless, IMHO Penang's CKT is certainly good enough to justify a trip from Lyndhurst. Hell, I used to drive 80 miles from Poughkeepsie. They have a lot more than just CKT on the menu, though. They also have homemade (restaurant-made?) kueh bangkit for sale. The one in Chinatown is sligtly cheaper.

This is my contribution to Thanksgiving dessert, Chinese American style. For your consideration and amusement, I present: Pumpkin pie custard baked in egg roll wrapper.

I don't know. I made that up. If you invent a new rojak, you have my permission to use that name. The rojak you find in Sibu has jicama, cucumber, deep fried dried bean curd and pineapples, mixed with the hae gor and crushed peanuts in a glazed earthenware bowl (seems to be a pre-requisite for good rojak). I'm a little worried now about my on-line reputation... I was hoping it would be different from the one I have in real life but alas... Very curious about the hand gesture Irwin is talking about.

TP, what's that crepe-like thing over the rojak? BTW, that rojak pic is kinda haam sap, don't ask me why. What is Penang rojak and how is it different from Negeri Sembilan rojak?

Mr. Leung, Mapodoufu is one of my favorite spicy pork and doufu dishes. I make mine almost exactly the same way...except I add back the pork before the doufu and let it simmer a while. And I leave out the hoisin sauce, and almost hate to put any sugar at all. I suspect the sugar will somehow smother the fire from the chilis. Gently bathing the dried chilis in warm oil (I typically use around 20-30) will minimize the fumes and the sneezing and coughing that follow on from.

Which restaurant?

I think this is exactly what happened. It started out with sugar dust forming on the sides of the pan, and it got worse soon after that. Thing is, without varying my method, I never encountered the same problem when using the glass pan. Maybe it's more forgiving.

Yes, the cleaning wasn't a problem (I think). Well, I didn't do the clean up, but had it been a problem, someone would've made sure I knew about it. I just hated to see so much sugar stick to the pan instead of my nuts.

I don't understand what you wrote, but it sounds good though. So the bubbles need to nucleate to make the sugar sticky? Why won't the bubbles nucleate on the non-stick surface? Why would superheating cause the sugar to recrystallize? I'm no chemist, but I'd thought that if the pan was hot enough, the sugar would remain liquid.

I tried to make some sugar-glazed walnuts by following this recipe a couple of times this past week. The recipe calls for boiling granulated sugar with a little water until the soft ball stage. The first time I made it I boiled the sugar in a glass saucepan and everything went well, but the glaze stuck badly to the pan. So, the second time round, I substituted the glass with a non-stick saucepan. I stirred the boiling sugar patiently, waiting for it to thicken and caramelize a little. But it never did. Before it could get the soft ball stage, the sugar recrystalized in the saucepan, turning from a clear liquid into grainy white lumps. WTF happened? And why?

I drink it because it's so damn tasty. I don't know of anyone who drinks it for medicinal purproses. The fatty ribs that give the soup its flavor will probably offset whetever benefits you might hope to get. The last BKT meal I had in Malaysia, we ordered a "spare parts" BKT (offal), and a seafood BKT in addition to the traditional pork ribs BKT.

That's a very saliva-inducing photo TP. I like the look of that red oil pooling on the side. You're not gonna throw out the oil, are you?

The defining characteristic of BKT is the use of Chinese herbal roots and medicines. There are more differences compared to "red cooked" dishes than there are similarities, IMHO. BKT belongs to the class of Chinese soups that includes 八珍药 and chao yi da (Foochow, will find out the pinyin - a pork soup prepared by boiling the roots of a certain tree). To describe BKT as medicinal isn't far off, but it doesn't taste as medicinal as 八珍药, and actual Chinese medicinal drinks. The "teh" in BKT is somewhat of an anomaly.

You threw away the soup?!?!?! The soup is only as salty as you make it. AFAIK, the "herb" packets don't contain any salt. Go easy on the salt and you'll be set, and the dark soy is optional. Feel free to double the amount of garlic that the instructions ask for. Bak kut teh is more a herbal soup than a tea. My stash is at home so I can't read the list of Chinese herbs from the packet. That information should be easy enough to google.

That looks a lot like ong choy / kangkung / Ipomoea aquatica / water spinach.

TP, I hope by "cannot block" you mean that the bak kut teh is good until tak boleh tahan, rather than commenting on the laxative effects of their soup.

The way I do it, the paper is not imaginary. The outstretched flattened palm of the other hand held an inch or so from the signing hand represents the paper.

Very enjoyable review PCL. Won't the finger kow-tow (light tap of the (middle) finger on tabletop) be sufficient and appropriate as a gesture of gratitude? Or is that not done at the "Drum"?