Peter Green

An easy one is just take some gochujang and mix with some vinegar (and maybe a little sesame oil), and use this for dipping blanched squid, cuttlefish, or vegetables (my favourite's a little bundle of blanched spring onion). Once Yoonhi wakes up I can check the ratios.

I'd second this. We'd normally loop off of I5 to take the Chuckanut (what a great name) so we could lunch here on the way to Seattle.

I believe it was David Lo Pan from Big Trouble In Little China

Thanks very much for this, Import. It's a fun part of town, and I'll try to eat my way through your guide in September. One question, what's the story with the Golden Pig statue in that part of town? Cheers, peter

If it falls on the floor and you pick it up before 7 seconds, it's still okay to eat, right?

Cool idea. Did you add any spices or seasonings to the chicken balls before frying them? I am surprised to hear that the traditional approach involves grilling the mince in banana leaves – I thought it was traditional (at least for Thai larb) to simmer the mince in stock and seasonings. ← In the class they just worked with the chicken separately, but I prefer mixing with kheuang lap (effectively "stuff for lap"); eggplants, garkic, shallot, dried grilled chillis, and galanga; and some fish sauce (padek would be better, but I'm not carrying that back in my suitcase!). The non-meat bits get bundled up and boiled, and there is a saute/simmer of the meat before it's finished kranab style, and that's more for a bit of smoky flavour. Phia Singh was a fiend for grilling, but he was Luang Prabang. My Lao friends here were from Vientiane, and they had introduced me to the book referring to it as "burnt food". At one point they suggested that there'd probably be a recipe for grilled soup if it was possible. The cooking class did stray from the traditional. Balling the chicken like this, about the size of a softball, is something that I like, even if not particularly traditional as a fry. My main problem is keeping my kid away from them, as he'll try to eat them before we work up the rest of the salad. One place the class really disappointed was in the or lam (a Luang Prabang beef stew), bypassing the need for the roasted (he does like to burn things) eggplants and other vegetables, but there you can argue that every household has a different recipe for or lam. Anyways, of all of the laab, my favourite was the waterbuffalo this last trip. Once, long ago in the early 90's, we were guests at a dinner, and I found out too late that the laab that had just been popped into my mouth by my friend's companion was raw pork. It had a wonderful flavour of ceviched pork, with chilis and limes and herbs. I just don't think I'd be in a hurry to do that again.

Steven, A good piece. One factor you touched upon was the Vietnam experience. I'd go a little beyond this, and posit that you can track a lot of foreign food trends based upon where the US military has been (within certain cultural limits), particularly during the 60's through early 90's. There are a number of factors in this. One, there's the obvious, "been there, ate that" sort of thing. This gives a little advertising, but it's not really the major factor. Most of the troops try one or two bits of foreign food, but then stick to the base facilities (I've spent time inside Yongsan and Bahrain), or their "locals". Cross-cultural marriages make up a bigger part, as a fair number of the troops have come back from Asian postings with wives (and husbands). This is not happening (for certain reasons wew won't go into here) to the same extent with the SouthWest Asian and Horn of Africa operations. And, in parallel with this is a little discussed matter; the fastest, surest way to gain US citizenship is by joining the US military and doing your time. I know a lot of Philippinos with family currently serving with the US Army (and even Canadians who have taken this route). What this has done is create core areas, clustered around the domestic bases, where foreign communities gather together for company. And when Asians gather together, they eat. And they eat out. On the side: I remember driving down to Fort Lewis from Vancouver back in the '70s because the Korean restaurants and stores clustered around the base were the only ones serving kop chang to be found (it was a long drive, but I was young, and Yoonhi was with me). This is an interesting phenomenon, as it is an effective way of disseminating good Asian food across the United States, rather than directly importing it into the main cities. It also introduces it at a lower income point, which is part of the "cheap eats" element that we've seen. I'd hold that this isn't as big a factor now, as the we hit a critical point back in the 80's when we started seeing Asian restaurants really moving into the main-stream, outside of their community support. This happened as the new immigrants started feeling more comfortable with their chances of making it in the bigger market (unfortunately, a lot were wrong about this). Plus, they'd been around long enough to amass enough capital for the shift (or convince a bank to front them). I'd bracket this with the 90's as a close out point. At that point we saw a major change in the type of people coming to the West. There was a lot of money. The Yacht People of Hong Kong, the extemely wealthy new crowd of Koreans, bubble-economy Japanese enclaves, and baht-wealthy Thai were all over the place, and they created their own market for their cuisines (1997 is another matter). I've wondered about a rewrite of Disraeli's Two Nations with respect to some of these communities, but I digress (as usual). As a separate item for the discussion, I'd like to raise a concern I touched upon before. Often, when you go to a Thai restaurant nowadays, it's Chinese run. For many places with names like Kyoto, New Tokyo, and so forth, if you listen to the chef and owners, you'll hear Vietnamese. I can deal with Koreans doing Japanese cuisine (after decades of colonization, the older generation had it down, and have a genuine appreciation for the cuisine), but many of the places now have recognized a popular trend, and have jumped on the bandwagon (I'll forgive the Vietnamese doing Cambodian restaurants, as I've talked to a number of them, and they've either fled Vietnam, or were there with the Vietnamese military fighting the KR). And, on a completely separate note, flimsily connected; the most popular Western food in Asia? Italian, of course. Anyways, an excellent piece. I'm really enjoying this.

I'm probably just suffering another bout of pre-emptive senility, so forgive me if you've seen this before....I'm certain I posted it somewhere in the threads, but a quick search didn't turn it up. One way to get excellent service and food in many of the Asian restaurants is to show some knowledge of the culture. Not in a stuffy, erudite manner, but more of a "get them laughing" way. Certain phrases are always good to know, the keys being "thank you", "no problem", and "may I have another beer?". Politeness coupled with humour always work wonders. Also, know how to do the little things, such as how to politely accept a glass or plate, or acknowledge a pour. It's not a big deal, and no one else at the table with you may notice, but the staff will. As an aside - hardly an Asian restaurant, but I had great service at the Army & Navy Club in London last year. All the waitresses were Koreans - I have no idea why - and they were extremely happy to serve our table as a priority. Anyways, this'll all help them to remember you when you return. Then they'll be looking at suggesting things for you to try after awhile. Are there many Cambodian places out there now? Every place I've tried in the West has always turned out to be Vietnamese run, and primarily serving Viet cuisine with maybe some lob lak tacked onto the menu and a fish amok. It's a shame, as the native Khmer food can be very good.

I noticed that the laab has kicked up again, so here're some shots from this year's trip to Laos. A cooked pork laab in Vientiane, from Kop Chai Deua A buffalo laab (raw) from the 3 Nagas in LP that I can still taste in my mouth..... And, from the cooking class in Luang Prabang: The laab kai fixings are in the forefront. One note, in cooking school we prepped the chicken by balling it, then frying the balls. These were then broken/smashed for the laab. We'd pick up a nice contrast of crisp external bits, with the softer, rarer meat from the centre. This is in contrast to Phia Singh's more traditional approach of grilling the mince inside banana leaves. For the rice powder, they had us using glutinous rice, and doing the roasting with some kaffir lime leaves and some lemon grass green bits at the end for aroma. These weren't ground in, but were removed. There, I feel better.

I'm joining the list of people that wants one of these. Maybe I can ship one back in September? Alternatively, if there's an F18 crash nearby, I bet one of the thrusters would do the job admirably!

Here's one we found while walkabout in Shanghai. Kung Fu Chicken There could be a whole new Stephen Chow film in this somewhere.

It's a pity about the vegetarian thing. A lot of the Northern Indian recipes for lamb work really well with game, particularly venison and moose. Something that could be fun, how about trying a palak paneer lasagna? That'll fit with the dietary restrictions if you avoid egg noodles. Or a watermelon curry?

This should be a really good trip. I'm looking forward to more. Cheers, Peter

Polly, My bit on the shrimp cooked with tea is near the end of post 189 on page 7. There was another thread covering cooking with tea a couple of weeks ago where I slid the image in, as well. There are some fun links in the thread. Cheers, Peter

As I've been asked to comment on our current dining, here's the meal from the other day: on the right is hot and sour soup. For this, I went over the top with chili oil and Chinese vinegar. But I also used a small handful of my Sichuan peppercorns. This gave the right balance of spice and numbing. Above that is the mafu tofu. I did an equal amount of black bean and the Sichuan bean chili sauce I brought back. It had a nice, evil red tinge to it. And I sprinkled some peppercorns, and then hit it with some hot oil before finishing with the green onion. And, on the right,is one of my favourite dishes. Beef with walnut. I used the walnuts we bought in Xi'an (not all of them). And we marinated the beef with the Sichuan flour. I had one of my contractors in to translate the bag. We have the answer. Besides bean flour, there's corn flour...and..... .......papaya. Papaya is a great tenderizer. It'll break down just about anything. That explains why they use it with all their beef products. For this I used a cheap Brazilian piece of meat (tenderloin...but Brazilian). When we ate it, it was like butter. Remind me to post the water cooked dishes.......

Can we watch YouTube anime on it?

Okay, I think I can cover - Patrizia di Benedetto from ByeByeBlues in Palermo (dinner) - Suzanne Tracht from JAR in LA (cooking class/lunch) - Michael Ginor (dinner) - Romain Fornell from Caelis in Barcelona (lunch and dinner.....I'm very interested in him) - Malahov Andrey Vladimirovich from the Pushkin in Moscow (dinner) - The Gala (which'll be a bunch of them...I'm waiting on the line-up) - Paul Wilson from the Botanical in Melbourne (lunch) - Susur Lee from Toronto (Lunch and dinner) - Roberta Dona from Galileo and others (dinner) Now, the heartbreak is, I'm going to miss Douglas Rodrigues (unless I can talk them into having him do one of the two unspecified lunches) and Steven Snow from Fins, out of Sydney. I'm hoping they'll be cooking at the Gala, so I'll at least get a taste. Russian Standard is running the bar, and the Italian Association of Sommeliers will run two classes (which I'll cover) so this should be a full week. But I have a bad feelling I'll miss someone.

Isn't that a bit like serving Carnaroli or Vialone nano with korean food? it doesn't behave in remotely the same way. ← what is carnarolia or vialone nano? Is that a type or arborio rice? Of course my risotto isn't authentic, but hey I have huge 10 lb bags of rice and when I have it I'm going to use it for risotto. They both give off a lot of starch and I've seen other people use japanese or korean rice when it comes to making risotto so I thought I'd give it a try ← I did a side by side test once, using Carnoli and Korean rice. The visual appearance on the Carnoli was a little better, a little more distinct and pearled, but once they went into the mouth they were hardly distinguishable. Back on topic, I'd generally go with Korean short grains, especially wih sauced dishes. But I'm also fond of the Thai black rice, especially with salmon. And how can you not love sticky, glutinous rice? Anything you can make a snowman out of......

I was kind of thinking the same thing! Actually, I was wondering if Peter would adopt me. I'm Canadian, so we wouldn't have to go through all those immigration hurdles, plus your children would have no fear since I would only show up at vacations (and maybe food-related holidays). What do you say, Peter? Need another child? ← Okay, I'm working hard to avoid any Woody Allen jokes. Seriously, thanks to everyone who's been writing in with restaurant recommendations, research info (particularly on beer), corrections, and requests for clarifications. All of this makes for a better trip, and a better apres-trip (now there's a new catch phrase!). Beyond that, thank you for the support. Left to my own dilettante ways I'd've flaked off weeks ago (I still have 6 hours of Moscow and 11 hours of Laos video I haven't touched). Having your feedback and support has done wonders for keeping me on the straight and narrow, and I've enjoyed the discipline of writing on a regular (most of the time) schedule. Next - The WGF

Thanks, Orange and Doc, I'd missed Susur at the WGS last year, but he was getting some very good comments at the tables I was at. And Fornell had caught my eye from what I've been reading. Roberta looks good, too..... Y'know, it's going to be the usual pain. There are only so many days, and so many events, and I know I'm going to have to miss one person. It'd be easy enough to say I'll miss Michael Ginor, but his dinners are always excellent. I'm really in agony over the Russian. If he shows up with a bucket of Beluga, I'm going to be kicking myself like when I missed Vivalda's dinner because I'd already done his cooking class. He showed up pockets bulging with white truffles he'd brought with him. Life is suffering.

The pill bottles are just that. Among other things we made a non-food visit to a Chinese doctor. Yoonhi's family has a lot of faith in them, and this seemed a good opportunity. Surprisingly, he was concerned about my liver. I can't imagine why. The knife is a shuriken, but not the variant we're used to from the modern ninja flicks. "Shuri + ken", a palmed blade. This, along with the smaller throwing stars are some of the cute little toys our darling daughter had to have from Cartoon World. We found out when we got home and unpacked that these are steel, not plastic. Luckily they were in the same suitcase as Serena's toy halberd, so while they were flagged by the x-ray, the customs guy didn't nail us for concealed weapons.

Okay, I'm done now.

Denoument We have a long-standing tradition in the family, a reversal of the hunters’ creed. We shoot what we take home This actually has two elements. One, it acts as an inventory check on the house, which is good for insurance and general sanity issues. Two, it allows us to relive the events. I am, I admit, a material boy. The things I own trigger memories of where I was, the smells, and the flavours……okay, I’m just materialistic. Here’s a shot of some of the stuff that came out of the bags first. The metal canisters are Guilin green tea, which I particularly admired for the softness of its flavour. Just in fron of those are some dried wild mushrooms that I’ll be using for cooking. I’m thinking risotto actually, with some of it, along with the other mushrooms you see there in the green back. The camera box is one of two we used on this trip. That’s the better of the two, which we picked up at the airport on the way out. A Canon, just small enough to slip into a pocket (the other camera was the 3.3 MB in my Nokia N73 – again purchased originally so I could get some shots without lugging around the GL1 video everywhere). Here we see what’s left of our Zhang Fei beef after Scud has had his wicked way. Behind more of the Guilin green is some dried seaweed, and to the right of the gren back of mushrooms are those really juicy dried tomatos we’d found. There’s a Ziploc of Chinese walnuts for me to use in beef and walnut, some dried kiwi fruit on the far right, and some bags of bean starch (also on the far right). The open sack is Sichuan peppercorns (in the lower right) and there’re chilis in the red back, and those star anis I found in Guilin. I love these peppers, but I know they’ve got a limited life before their numbing characteristic goes passive. I’ve been doing water cooked dishes with these, mafu tofu, and lots of other things of an evil nature to amaze my friends here and influence people. And what’s a trip without some more dried chilis? These ones look nasty, but are actually quite mild, and work well in the things I’ve been trying out now that I have my own kitchen again. There’re another few shots of toys and junk for the kids, but I won’t worry about that here. So, what are my final comments? I’d like to say that I wish the trip had been longer, but I’d be lying. Three weeks with the kids is a long time, for me as well as them. I would like to say that I wish we could’ve spent longer in each of the locations (except for Yangshuo. Two nights was enough there), but that would’ve meant missing something else, so I can’t say that. I would like to be have done more cooking courses, but what I can’t, really, as that would mean giving up some other activity. I use up a lot of words not being able to say anything, don’t I? The beer, I must say, was undistinguished. The regular stuff was serviceable, and it was better than not having beer, but there was no real wow factor to any of the brews I had. Even the microbrews were generally disappointing, tending to be a little too sweet, and not as hopped as you’d hope for. But the wines were generally good, far better than I’d feared. If they can get the wine right, then perhaps there’s hope for the beers in the future. Besides Yangshuo, I probably could’ve skipped Beijing, as I’ve been there twice before. But it is an important visit for Yoonhi and the kids. Me, I know I’ll be back in Beijing sooner or later. Still, I liked my meals there, particularly The Shanxi Loft (although it was pretty close to an open mutiny in the family at that point). Xi’an was the big surprise for me. I’d expected not to like it, and found it to be the most relaxed and pleasant location of our trip. I could return to Xi’an and spend a few days more eating my way through those alleys…..and have some popped rice. Chengdu was great for Scud and I, but Yoonhi grew tired of it. Sure, it’s a big, crowded city, but it had some really fun eating, and the pigs’ bladders, hot pots, and water cooked dishes are some of my favourites. Guilin was another surprise. When I think of Guilin now, I’ll think of the broth from when they cooked the chicken inside the pig’s stomach. And the city had such a comfortable feel for me. I suspect I’ll be back. And Shanghai…..I have to eat my words about Shanghai. I’m trying now to figure out how to finagle a trip back to Shanghai on business sometime soon. I want to go back to Jade on 36 and have their other menus and talk with Paul Pairet about what he’s doing. I want to find out where to buy the Mandarin caviar. I want to get to more of the dumpling restaurants. And I want to do some of the cooking classes that are on offer there, particularly with Dang at T8. The white truffle ice cream he did has to go down as one of the most memorable flavours I’ve ever had. So many meals, so little time.

Day 22 – The Dawning of the Age of Aluminum Scud was feeling better. I suspect that YouTube is a good remedy for these sort of illnesses. But we left him behind in the room to recuperate, just in case. Our final meal was to be downstairs, out the front entrance, hang a left, and hang another left. And then a quick stop before we got to the end of the block and the collection of shops with young ladies in evening attire offering therapeutic massages. Mind you, there were some interesting looking Muslim restaurants in that area, too…… Nope, we were going to get a last meal in the kids, and then get ourselves to the airport (or rather, somebody would get us to the airport). Pacican was getting used to us at this point. They had the English language menu ready for us; they made no attempt to communicate with Yoonhi; and they brought me a cold Suntory beer. As we’d touched upon before, Pacican was a Chinese-Canadian venture. Given the demographics, I figured it was pretty likely to be out of British Columbia. Now, when you think of B.C., isn’t the first thing that leaps into your mind…. Aluminum? Is Alcan behind this place? And, yes, those are little dabs of burning sterno around the container. Okay, all my life I’ve had an association with these little disposable containers with the cardboard lids. All the fine establishments had them (along with the 100% cardboard versions). You know the places. The ones that serve both types of food? Chinese and Western? Ah, I’ve had some mighty fine meals up and down the TransCanada and the Crow. What we have here is grilled greens. They’d been cooked inside of the aluminum container, along with a teriyaki sauce. They were actually pretty good. Plus, there’s nothing like those an orchid and those little daubs of lighter fluid to perk up a dish. And if you recall, when we’d had food to take away for the vermin from here the days before, it came in tidy little plastic containers. Obviously metal has taken the high ground from oil by-products. Serena’s old standby – corn soup with pork ribs – came in ceramic, so it didn’t get a lot of note from us (and doesn’t really warrant a picture, even if it was in a bowl this time. And the Shanghai noodle with greens was pretty much a straightforward fried dish, bringing back memories of the wee hours of the night down on Main Street at Hon’s Wonton – the old one, before they got all cleaned up. When you had the most interesting collection of people rolling in after the bars closed (Bill Kee’s over on Broadway was another good, reliable grease joint). But the crab rice showed up as a return to Kitimat, all wrapped up in aluminum foil. This was some of the best rice of the trip, just buried in thick juice from the crab and the braising sauce. I left the crab proper to Yoonhi, and just concentrated on the rice. And, while we could still have them, we ordered the scallops. These were served over a bed of vermicelli that’s been cooked with it. There’s lots of garlic and spring onion in the sauce, and a bit of pickled ginger. (But it could’ve used some aluminum). It was actually a fun meal to leave on. There was nothing to complain about in the flavours, and we had a good view from the front window of the comings and goings to the mini-red light district just up the road. But, our time came and we were ready to go. Kyle was there on time, and we managed to shoehorn our hundred and eighty odd kilos of luggage into the van for the trip to the new, international airport. Kyle was scandalized by our trip. We hadn’t gone to Souchow, we hadn’t gone up to the top of the Tower, we hadn’t gone to see Epic, we hadn’t even bought any Prada handbags. Luckily, the kids were soon asleep, and Yoonhi and I couldn’t care less what Kyle thought of our behaviour. He talked up the new airport as a Wonder of the World (and didn’t seem to appreciate my concerns about food toxicity), but when we arrived, I found it to be large – yes – but not really as inspiring as some of the other new airports (including the unfortunate Suvarnabhumi in Bangkok). In fact, it just sort of looked like all of the other airports. High steel roofs, the usual. I looked for things to spend money on, now that I could be assured that they’d be way more expensive than if I’d bought them in town. There really wasn’t much, but I managed to find some pu’er tea in cake form, so I burned off my remaining Yuan that way. And so we found ourselves back in the routine. Waiting in airports, suffering through flights. We returned home through Dubai, affording Serena a chance for one last cheeseburger happy meal at the Mcdonalds there. We found the usual drifting clouds of friends routing back through this hub. It’s kind of fun when you know there are some places where, on certain dates, you’re going to find acquaintances. Heathrow, Schiphol, Bangkok, Bahrain, and Dubai are all safe bets. We had a few hours for a layover, but once we had company that flew by. It was strange to think, but our family had basically been self-contained for the last three weeks, with very few people – outside of Java – to talk with and share the experiences. And soon enough we were back in our own domicile, with our own beds and sheets and pillows. And our own laundry machines. There’s no place like home. Next – Loot

My favourite still was Pakxe, in the Panhandle (of Laos). There was this place..and, you have to understand...we were dying of heat...they had a/c. As we were looking over the menu, we asked the waitress what was good, in my broken Lao. She answered, in perfect MidWest Anglo "I'm not certain, but I'll ask my Mom". I said,"you're not from around here, are you?" You see, I am perceptive. Her mom advised that this particular spot, her sister's restaurant, did pork leg so good that the party aparatchiks in Vientiane would have it flown back. And, I would agree, it was very, very good. P.S. - we asked the waitress what she and her mom were doing there. They were Lao that had left for America before the Fall. She and her mom had come back to visit, but her dad didn't want to miss the ice-fishing season in Minnesotta. You gotta love the Lao.