Peter Green

Day 2 The next morning was the required tour of the Forbidden City. But before that, we had breakfast. To date (I'm writing this in stop #3 - Chengdu) the Dong Jiao Min Xiang Hotel had the best breakfast of the lot. Their coffee was drinkable, and there're few things more pleasant in the morning than freshly steamed pork dumplings with a touch of soy and vinegar. And these were done right there. But that wasn’t all. Their rice was always fresh and hot, the bacon was likewise hot, and moist with fat (not just grease), and their juices were sweet and fresh. The grapefruit in particular stands out. Not harsh at all. As I said, we were doing a tour of the Forbidden City this morning. And now we were prepared for the outing. We wore three layers of clothing, with Goretex and gloves to go over that. It was cold. I won’t bore you with the details of the history of the Forbidden City. You can look that up in Wikipedia or wherever. Here’s the obligatory shot of one of the kids being sacrificed to the demons of the water pot: On the food notes, it appeared that the little Starbucks concession just at the entrance to the residential sector had been driven out. There was still a small shop there, but it didn’t have the familiar green and black and white out there. The top toilet in town (public) was still there. It had added wheelchair access, too. Actually, while the pre-Olympics press is beating on Beijing about the standards of their toilets (while they’re trying to single Vancouver out as an abode for homicidal pig farmers), we found their facilities were always clean and well maintained. And there was always a “western” toilet. They might have issues to work out with the spitting thing still, and I have no idea how athletes are going to perform in this air, but, aside from the effect of chilis, toilets aren’t going to be a sore spot (ouch!) for the games. But, enough of that. What did we eat for lunch? Jack was somewhat confused with our tour. Our schedule for Beijing had free days, and included no lunches or dinners. Patiently, we explained that we weren’t interested in the set tour menus, and that we wanted good restaurants with typical dishes. In all, he came through fairly well on this. This day he took us to Luong Tam Restaurant by the Beijing Entertainment Park, a nice Russian fantasy façade facing us from across the street. Inside the place looked great. Lots of wooden beams, and a couple of trees (or reasonable facsimiles, growing in the middle of the room). On the downside, their English menu was extremely limited. This was a common issue I had in Beijing. If you’re going to have an English menu, why not translate everything? This was a place with a Chinese food list of over 100 items, and here was an Anglo choice of 8, all on the relatively boring side. Jack wasn’t a lot of help here, as he suffered the typical tour guide phobia of not wanting to kill his customers off (it’s considered bad for business), but we managed to get some good dishes out of the list. Celery with lily blossom was a nice opener. Very crisp celery, with the odd taste of the flowers working well in the thickened starch of the sauce. Yanjing was the beer again. I had one of these, but also ordered a pot of pu’er, which confused them for a bit, but once they realized what I wanted they said it was a good choice, as it would help me lose weight. I think they might be hinting at something. Diced chicken with peanuts in hot sauce was pleasant. Although the thickened cornstarch sauce was laden with chunks of dried chilis, there was really no overbearing burn in the dish (although Serena still wouldn’t touch it). And the “organic” fungus was great (and one of the most expensive things on their menu). A variety of perhaps eight different mushrooms, all with variant flavours and textures, so every mouthful would be a bit different. It also included hidden snow peas underneath, so the girl was happy. In the open kitchen beside us I’d been watching one of the younger chefs giving a solid massage to a large lump of something. He then hefted this onto his left shoulder, and pulled out a wicked looking paring knife that he then used to flick off bits of the dough into an open pot with a backstop. The kids and I thought this was great. After a couple of shutter clicks and some video, we followed the third rule of ordering: we walked over to the kitchen, pointed to the noodles in the pot, and then to us. This usually seems to work, and it did here. The noodles came nice and soft and starchy, with some braised meat (I think it was pork) and a dash of greenery. Serena declared them hers, but the rest of us generally ignored her attempt at sovereignty and grabbed some as we went (we ended up ordering a second bowl for her). We’d ordered a sweet pork dish. This came as a large lump of pork cooked in what seemed to be bean sauce, under a pile of coriander, and accompanied by the sliced whites of spring onions and some cucumber. This is very similar to the traditional duck we’d had the night before, but here the wrappers were quite different, having a thicker, almost plasticy consistency. This was a very nice dish. I say so that in each of the constituent parts, taken on their own, weren’t that good. The pork came off far too cloying and salty, and the wrappers had the texture and taste of old Rubbermaid gloves (not something I would put on a formal dinner menu – the gloves that is). But when you combined all of the parts, this was a very enjoyable dish; the vegetables lifting the heaviness of the pork, and the pork contrasting the plastic of the wrap. From there we drove to the Temple of Heaven, notable for its concern about the gods getting enough meat in their diets. Unfortunately, even though I whined, they wouldn’t let me into the closed-off Divine Kitchen…..now that I think of it, that would be a great title for a John Waters’ cooking show. The kitchens were in the back. Once we’d worked our way around to the front, we came upon the bbq pits of the gods – a very nice brick affair, with a series of braziers set off on the flanks to burn everything down to ash to avoid the hoi polloi from getting their hands on the divine remnants. The Temple of Heaven, along with the cold, and jet lag, pretty much wiped out our merry band for the day. Jack arranged for a masseuse to come by for Yoonhi, the kids retreated to the Chinese language cartoon channel they had available, and I took the opportunity to go walk-about. I headed up to Wangfujing to see if I could locate a dumpling restaurant that had been recommended behind the Peace Hotel. I found the Peace Hotel, and wandered about the Xi Tang Zi hutong, but in my typical clear thinking manner, it hadn’t occurred to me that these places wouldn’t necessarily be paying for English language signage. Still, I did get a good little walk in, and came across this particular item: I’m just idly curious as to what would possess someone to present a fish in the shape of a squirrel? Is there some old anecdote about fishing for squirrels that I’d missed in my studies? If not, why a squirrel? I could see dragons or a phoenix….maybe even a pig, horse, or something zodiacal. But a squirrel? I just showed Yoonhi this shot, and she said it looked more like one of those grey bugs that scurry out from under the old wood and rocks when you turn them over. Maybe "squirrel" is more appetizing. Oh, well. It was time to get the clan fed their dinner.

Thanks, Domestic! Today was fun. We're in Chengdu, and we spent a couple of hours eating in Jinli Street next to Zhuge Liang's "cottage". But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's see if I can get Beijing done up before I forget Xi'an! Peter

Day 1 - Beijing The Olympics are coming to Beijing. Don’t forget that part. Driving in, it was grey. Our guide, “Jack” (his real name was Sui Jun – but that’s close enough to Jack that he’d prefer we use that) told us that it was getting to the point that it was foggy more often than clear in Beijing, and that the city was becoming the “London of the East”….except that London’s not smoggy anymore. Does anyone call London “The Beijing of the West”? Or how about “Venice…. The Bangkok of the Adriatic.”? There’s a whole world of branding out there. Yoonhi was taken at how clean everything was (ignoring the odd puddle of phlegm on the sidewalk). There are streetcleaners constantly scrubbing at the pavement, and even I admitted that there’re fewer piles of junk about. What demolition there is (and there’s a lot) is pretty much hidden behind hoardings, all of which are nicely decorated in ads for just about everything, especially for the 2008 Olympics. Our hotel was the Dong Jiao Min Xiang, located “within walking distance of Tien An Men Square”. Our guide wondered why we were staying here, as most of his guests are located out on the ring roads, but I liked the location once I’d read up on it. It had a long history, tracing its origins back to the foreign quarter of 55 Days At Peking fame, when Charlton Heston was representing the NRA here. So, once we’d unpacked and washed, we headed out. It was already dark, and the family was hungry. We went down our alley as directed, past the main Beijing Police station, and the concomitant Police Museum, and we were there, in the red heart of the People’s Republic. Our plan was to get to Quanjude. Okay, okay…I know it’s a tourist joint, and there are better ducks in town, but I had a hungry family with me, and this was a place I knew how to get to….kind of….maybe…… After the usual ten or fifteen minutes of being sent in different directions (plus some time spent as Serena ogled the official Olympics mascot dolls in the official Olympics mascots doll store) we were on the right road, and my restaurant senses were kicking in, assuring me that the street shapes and various landmarks were correct. However, I was distressed by all the hoarding that was up on the street. I knew that my old favourite, Dark & Duck (across from the Kempinski) had been razed to the ground….Would they dare do the same to the venerable Quanjude? Is there no respect for the elderly? But it was there. There was still the streetfront place with the confusing sign about how there are no branches of Quanjude in the Qian Men area, and I knew from that that we were just around the corner. I was correct. The sign with photos of all the visiting dignitaries was still in place. Castro, Kissinger…. Fidel was up there chowing down on some bird… all the usual suspects were up on show. The hostesses, decked out in fur lined capes, showed us to our table, and we were cheerfully (although not sedately) given menus and expected to order. Right then. Now. This was an aspect of China I’d forgotten. As soon as you sit down and receive your menu, you’re expected to order. The 30 page menu you hold in your hands is expected to download upon skin contact into your cerebral cortex. I suggested that we have a couple of beers and some other stuff for the kids, and that they give us a couple of minutes to look at the menu. Obviously, we had the duck. This was a given, as the family needs their duck as much as they need their pork. And, while I'd been to China several times already, this was the first time the kids had been here, and Yoonhi's last trip was in 1994. The skin was a highlight for three less mature members of the party. We're happy to feast on fried chicken skin, so the glistening crispness of duck skin is way too good to pass up. Yoonhi (the mature member) suggested that this might not be particularly healthy. But the wrappers met with approval, as they're almost identical to the Korean ones (and there'll be more about the Korean connections in later posts). Then I ordered the Fried duck treasures in birds’ nest, which were chopped up bits of duck served in a crispy noodle cage nestled into a piece of lettuce. This was good enough that Scud took the first opportunity he had to snag Serena’s uneaten piece. The duck heart in hot sauce was excellent, beautiful chunks of meat in a rich, thick sauce. I wish the photo was better on this one, as it was probably my favourite dish of the meal. But the duck tongues, while always interesting, reminded me that I hadn’t been overwhelmed the last time I ordered them. The big piece of cartilege down the middle just makes them too much work for what they are. Then we got in the odd one. Fried duck liver and scorpions. The scorpions looked way cool, so Scud and I had to have this. Even Serena tried one. They were a lot like the crickets we’d had in Laos; crispy fried things. Maybe you could discribe them as nutty…..The fried duck liver was too dry, and dominated by the seeds coating the outside. Still, it delivered a nice irony tang, but lacked the fat I'd hoped for. After some nudging, we managed to get Serena to try a scorpion. For my part, I managed to get a leg from one stuck in my teeth. I need to travel with dental floss. We had two orders of snow peas for Serena. Hideously expensive back in the Middle East, these are a perfect add on here. So crisp you can hear them snap at you. She scarfed these down so fast we had to order more for the rest of us. We ordered some chestnuts and rape. I love the pastey taste of chestnuts, and the colours and flavours for this dish had us drooling. Yoonhi thought the rape was more like Chinese cabbage than what she would consider true rape (known as Canola by the more politically correct). This was all washed down with a couple of bottles of Yan Jin beer. I found this to be rather insipid. The bubbles were exhausted, the head non-existent, and it sat empty on the palate. It lacked crispness, not having the cut I would’ve liked to it for this greasy a meal. And it came over on the sweet side, which is never right in a lager. But, it was cold, and it was a lot better than no beer. They do claim to be brewed properly without preservatives, but I found they fell second to Tsingtao, which had a healthier head and better bubblousity. Scud hit on something interesting. Coconut juice. “The state banquet beverage”. It’s not coconut water (which we have at home quite often) as it’s not clear. It’s milky, but not as much as coconut milk for cooking. We were impressed to see that it was “coconut juice not processing the coconut magma and essence”. Plus, it's orthodox! Now I stay up late worrying about big, circumcised coconut volcanoes about to erupt their magma over unsuspecting civilians. This could be Freudian. Over on the side wall, a large counter announced that we were on their 11,528,502nd duck. I wasn't certain if this was what I'd ordered. I'd asked for the crispy walnut pastry, but what I received was a bowl of sweet tasting fluid. It was nice enough, very similar to some of the Korean desserts, however, I don't see how any translation can get from "crispy" to a "bowl of wet stuff" (this was early days for local translations, however). Being in China, we finished with Duck Soup, appropriate for the most famous Marxist....Groucho. The early closing hours catch me out here, although at least I'd been ready for Quanjude this time around. 8:00 p.m. is when we'd normally be hitting our stride anywhere else. When I'd been here last trip there were touts hanging around on the street to scoop up the unwary that'd come to late. We'd ended up in a side alley in Qian Men hutong eating lacklustre duck and watching drunks beating each other up and fall over while we drank Beijinger beer....maybe that wasn't so bad after all? Anyways, the family was taken care of. We could stroll back, brush off the touts, and take in the bright lights, and admire the signs for the Olympics. I'd managed to get them fed one meal without it being a complete disaster. Quanjude may be overpriced, and it may be touristy, but I knew where it was, and there were no fights involved. And have a real bed to sleep in.

Okay, I've got Singapore out of the way, and now I can turn to China. Yoonhi, Scud, Serena, and I've been on the road for a week now, having finished Beijing, and being about halfway through Xi'an. Fongyee's been a great help on the Beijing side, and I'll be posting some pics on dinner at Fangshan and The Loft once I can get things sketched out and get back on the internet. peter

We leave the day after tomorrow for three weeks. I've got some great suggestions from Fengyi on Beijing. Anyone want to weigh in on Xi'an, Chengdu, Guilin, Yangchao, or Shanghai? So far, the Chaine connection is coming up with good rec's in Shanghai. Does anyone have any must eats in Chengdu or Guilin? Yours in hunger, Peter

Pufferfish.

On the Asian side.... I just rewatched the Korean flick, The Art of Fighting. Besides the expected fighting, there are a huge number of wonderful bits of the old fighter and his mentee sitting around grills with bottles of soju, beer, chopsticks, and things grilling. There's a beautifully shot scene of a clam just poppoing open.......of course, it costs someone an eye.......

Stocks. Fish. Chicken. Beef. And especially vegetable. Some work in the skimming, but how hard is it to have a big pot of water handy to through the odds and sods into? Then you leave it alone to cool, and bung it into the freezer in a bottle for later?

Ease...what is "ease"? I'm challenged by scissors and getting things open. I abhor the idea that people are spending serious money on ready made polenta. Just twist off the top of the corn meal container, blend the corn meal into some boiling salted water, add in some pork fat as it plops, drop in the mushrooms, and finish it with some fresh parmesan (that I would've added anyways). There, I didn't have to wrestle with any plastic seals or anything. (we won't mention the 3rd degree burn marks I have all over my body from hot polenta)

Alright! I've been waiting for guinea pig photos!

There's an interesting story in there (one I'm not qualified to write) that could trace the food of Peru back through the Japanese emmigration to Japan in the 20th century (remember, Fujimori was head of state of Peru until 2000(?) and then fled for Japan where he was granted citizenship. Peru was one of the areas that saw large Japanese immigration, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect that they brought with them the tastes of Empire, particularly from Korea, which they had taken control of back in the 1890s, and China, which they took over some time later. It'd be a fascinating story to trace.

I hadn't noticed that with snake, but we only had scraps off of the rattler, and the one in Taipei was mainly for the bile for the soup. Many of my Korean friends have had dog, and all talk of a rush of heat that comes with it, running up and through and out your pores. Taegu is supposedly one of the best places for dog, but I only had one night there, and I was after the sunde which was another speciality. But, here's another dish! In Sip Sawng Panna they told me to have the "salad". What I got was a big bowl of congealed pigs blood loaded up with chilis and herbs......quite good, but slow going.

We were talking about this at dinner last night. Even though they're both dairy products, there's something just not right about cheese on ice cream.

I came home from work to find a very-tired wife and a kg of pig belly. I was presented with a simple ultimatum "Make me something good, and make it now" I bisected the swine,chopped up half, then cut the other half into nice slabs. I took the chopped stuff, and did it up in a red curry with some of the basil I'd found at the commissary. Typical Thai preparation with coconut milk, kaffir lime leaves, garlic, sugar, onion, and a bit of stock. Slice up some zucchini and toss them in because I like them. Finished by letting the basil wilt in a the end. Meanwhile I did a moo wan "sweet pork". For this I used the outer layer of pig fat to get some grease layer going in the wok, then tossed in a bunch of garlic. Then the pork. Then season with nam plaa, sugar, and a bunch of white pepper. Stir fry for another minute, and the pork comes out and the sauce gets drizzled over it. Served with white rice. The verdict was that the curry was too evilly hot (I forgot to mention the extra red chilis) for anyone but me. but the moo wan was judged to be quite repeatable.

There's a place near St. Catherine's, a little almost-portable looking lean-to that sells a great (really great) supply of mushrooms. I wish I could remember the name. They had stuff from everywhere, and it was all good. I bought some Italian black trumpets from them that I can still taste. If I can find my Brussels notes from 2005, I'll get the name in. But if you're around St. Cat, ask for the mushroom people. That'd be a great name for a band. Back and editing..... I found it! Champigros, Rue Melsens 22 They're closed on Sundays!

I was going to put this under Dinner!, but this is a better place..... Living abroad, you miss those bits of home......strangely, as my wife points out I miss things from home that I never had when I was there. The worst case was when my mother visited us in Egypt and Yoonhi found out that I'd never had those handmade pancakes with maple syrup I'd always moaned about. But I digress. When I was growing up in Vancouver, in Kitsilano, like most people of my background, we didn't eat fish unless it was sole, and then it had to be rendered almost unrecognizeable in a white sauce of some sort. ....I'm being uncharitable....my mother actually once made an halibat ("a halibut?")with a very nice crispy coating made from corn flakes, as I fondly recall. But, we didn't eat salmon. I probably hadn't had any salmon until I started dating and got onto the sushi bar circuit. But, once we moved away, I had to have salmon. My fondest memories of Egypt are sitting out ont the beaches on the Gulf of Aqaba with a bbq going and everyone's contributions of wine, beer, and other ingredients, and our salmon grilling over the fire for the common good....... Now, every year the wife totes back a cooler full of BC salmon, generally Spring, caught by her brother-in-law. This works out to about 30 kg, roughly 5 or 6 fish. Fully frozen, it's good for the 35 hours door to door run. And the fish has enough oil in it that the freezing doesn't affect it. For cooking, we maintain the law of simplicity. Take the salmon away from the bone, with the skin on. Lightly salt. Put it on the grill for a quick sear on the flesh, then turn it over onto the skin and let it slowly cook. Take it off when the juices and fat on top are getting frothy. Toss down some fresh dill to serve it on, and a twist of lemon and some good salt and pepper for the heathens amongst us. The meat just squirts at you slightly, the extra oil in this fish keeping it from drying out. Meanwhile, the head and bones are back in the kitchen, being stocked up with tamarind and some fresh vegetables for a nice, tangy soup to go with rice. When she goes home this summer (I'll stay out here and make money to pay for her shopping) I'm tempted to have her bring back some cedar planks and give that a try. Anybody have any comments on planking? It seemed to be the big thing last summer. I've thought a lot lately of salt encasing a salmon (what do we call this technique?), and seeing what happens, but I've been threatened with a slow death if I waste any of the fish. I may buy some of the farmed stuff from Scandinavia that we can get here, and see what happens.

One of my Vancouver friends had become very fond of another natural tea....I think it was yerba matte or something like that. Any comments? What is it?

In 1982 there was a flick with Scott Glenn (star of such excellent films as "More American Graffitti", "Khan!", and "Wild Geese II") called The Challenge (aka Equals aka Sword of the Ninja). This has a fantastic food scene early on where Scott is served a Japanese meal with all the great delicacies such as tadpoles, served live in a cup with a lid that he had to slip off just right so they wouldn't escape...... 25 years on and I still remember that scene. But, all time favourite would be a tie between Babette's Feast and Tom Jones. There's nothing like a period piece to set off good food.

I was glad to see Raoul finally getting in here.

John, I had a great meal a couple of years ago by a visiting chef from Peru, Blondet Moreno (I think....I'm old) from La Rosa Nautica in Milaflores off of the beach. The food was fantastic, and justifiably qualified as food porn. And the setting, from what I saw, looked like something from a Miyazaki anime, built out on a pier out on the water. Soo........What I'm getting at is, if you can fit it in, please give us a review and some pictures! This has been a country (and a restaurant) I want to hear more of. Cheers! Peter

Yes, please run up some of the photos! Good choices in Penh. Khmer Surin's fish amok is one of my favourites. The dish is called a khnom khrok, it's often used in Thai food for desserts, but that dish is an amazing appetizer. And Friends is a nice little spot. I like the work they're doing with the street kids, and they play around with things on the menu. But, again, photos! Especially of Vietnam! I do need to get back there.

Back on the subject of how munching down on Rover can elicit a certain cultural reaction....... As Gastro88 has said, much of the thing about dog is the heat burst that comes with it. Many years back (when I had hair) I'd heard that the best dogs in Korea were the ones that were raised on their own faecal matter. So, with a trip planned (which didn't materialize as would happen), I'd memorized my one key phrase for the trip. ttong-ke shiktang odi issumnika? This left my Korean friends rolling in laughter, falling off the couches for quite some time (I think one of them is still chuckling a few years on). I had literally asked "s**t eating dog restaurant, where is it?" We won't go into the reaction as to when I asked where the penso is........

I was banned from the kitchen, but the wife did up some of the truffles with gnocchi tonight. I've posted the results here in the Dinner! thread. Following the advice given, we've kept things simple, giving the truffles a chance to show through. I'm thinking a risotto next.

All credit for this goes to the madame, as I'm temporarily banned from the kitchen due to a lack of help to do the clean-up. What we were looking for was a preparation for our truffles that would be mild enough to showcase the truffles, avoiding any other ingredients that might overpower them. We decided to go with gnocchi (I'd been holding out for risotto, but that'll be another day), and match it with chicken, onions, and butter. A touch of salt, and no other distractions. For greens, they had some nice looking spinach in, so we separated the stems from the leaves to try two different approaches. First, we start with a bowl of desert truffles - fuqa (for more on this go here Then we slice them up.... Then we make some gnocchi (in a method very similar to the Korean kalgetsu preparation...which I find oddly unsettling at times) And presto chango you have a meal on the table and on the plate spinach stems done Korean with sesame oil, salt, and garlic spinach leaves fried in olive oil and garlic gnocchi with desert truffles, chicken thighs, garlic, onions, butter, and chicken stock It's amazing how much easier a meal can be when you have someone else do all the work. the gnocchi worked well with the truffles, giving plenty of contrast in texture and flavour with the firm bodied fungi. The spinach stems, being Korean, were very good, but the pan fried spinach came off a touch bitter, and would've been better done just blanched, with some sesame sead to set it off. Maybe they'll let me back in the kitchen tomorrow.

Lao comes to the Kitchen It’s been two months now since we left Lao. There were a few days in Bangkok, but I can talk about that elsewhere. What I wanted to do was get back to my kitchen and try some things out. As usual, I’d topped up our luggage with bits of food. Along with the usual collection of dried mushrooms and fungus and eggplants, I’d bought some Sa Khan – the peppery wood used as a substitute for chili – and some of the river weed I love so much. This stuff goes under a variety of names. Hsimay has the name from a local source as chai penne, which may refer directly to the prepared matter sold in plastic bags all over town. Going to Phia Singh as a reference, here’s what Alan and Jennifer Davidson (the editors) have to say: “In the market at Luang Prabang one used to see white enamel bowls full of a dark green semi-liquid stuff, which was algae collected from ponds and other stagnant waters during the rainy season. The name at Luang Prabang was thao; at Vientiane phak thao. These algae apparently belong to the genus spirogyra. But the matter is uncertain. Vidal, in his Les plantes utiles du Laos, refers also to two kinds of algae in the north of Laos, both known as khai. The first of the two is described as a mixture including Cladophora spp. and also Spirogyra spp. Vidal believes that the second sort, which he identifies as Dichotomisiphon Tuberosum, is much rarer and found mainly in the vicinity of Luang Prabang.” I thought Spirogyra was the name of a band. Whatever the name, this has been extremely popular at the last few dinner parties. Cut into small rectangles, and quickly washed in very hot oil, it’s gone done very well as a bar snack with aperitifs before dinner. I reckon I have an adequate supply to get me through the several months. Once that’s done, I’ll have an excuse to go back. The Sa Khan I’d specifically bought in order to do an Or Lam. We cleaned the wood, and then broke it up into segments for long term storage. It’s a “soft” bit of tree, and I can see it easily going moldy, so we opted to freeze it once it’d been worked down into portions. This “working down” gave me an opportunity to break out my beloved Japanese saw and make more of a mess in the kitchen. Mind you, I did this only after failing miserably with a cleaver and a serrated blade. My problem with the Or Lam that we had in Luang Prabang was that it came across as too thin for my taste. Luckily, they had ox tail in the commissary, so I grabbed about six packages and then set about making stock in the morning. I figured that this should give me a fluid with the richness and depth that I was looking for. The other thing I did was to rely more on Phia Singh’s directions. At school, the eggplants had just gone into the soup. Phia Singh calls for them to be first lightly charred, then soaked in the broth, and then removed and pounded down to mush. This mush then goes back into the broth, distributing evenly through the fluid. This worked just the way I wanted it to, and I was quite happy with end result. (Sorry, but with a dinner party and the rush in the kitchen, I failed to get any pictures. I’m better at shooting when I don’t have guests). As the book says, there is no authoritative recipe for an Or Lam. Everybody does something a bit different, so it’s just a matter of finding what fits your taste. Interestingly, in the notes below the recipe, there’s reference to Or Ho, which is a catch all, allowing you to “throw in” – ho – any fresh vegetables you may have at hand. I really liked the method for preparing minced meats for laab, and for prepping the fried rice salad. I’ve done this in the kitchen a couple of times now, and it is a big improvement over my earlier approaches. Rolling up baseball sized spheres for frying is giving a nice range to the meats, rather than the usual everything-kinda-dry approach of frying I’d done in the past. Laabs and the fried rice salad have been regular dishes for the last month (especially as the fresh herbs here have been very good). The stuffed lemon grass was a big success. Any seasoned mince works well, and I’ve played with different seasonings, but at the end its something breaded and fried. I’ve got some Thai knives for carving, and these work well for accordioning the stalks to create the basket. What hasn’t worked as well is the equivalent stuffed bamboo shoots. The problem here is just in the material. I can either get shredded bamboo, or else chunks of bamboo. What I can’t get is the whole stalk to work with. I tried doing “cups” from the bamboo – sort of like Sergi Arola’s tatatas bravas - and frying these, but it doesn’t work. I’ll just have to think of other things to do with bamboo. I’d done hor mok before (steamed seafood mousse), but not as kranab (grilled in banana leaves). This was an unfortunate disaster, as I used some banana leaves I’d had in the freezer. This effectively destroyed the competency of the material, and when I tried to remove the food from the grill, everything disintegrated. I salvaged enough of the meat to assure myself I was on the right track, but I haven’t had the opportunity to get into town to buy fresh leaves since then, and we can’t get them at our local store. The stir fries have all been successful, with more of an eggplant background starting to creep into much of what I’ve been doing. And I’ve broken the habit of preparing my dressings ahead. I’ve also gone back and looked through Charmaine Solomon’s book. She has a few pages on Laos and Cambodia, unfortunately combined in one section, with the recipes overlapping. However, it’s easy enough to separate the dishes based on the phonetics, and there are some interesting fish recipes in there that look to be worth the attempt. I’m having a lot of fun now with Phia Singh’s book. It works well as a complement to Fergus Henderson’s Nose To Tail Eating (the St. John cookbook). Both have a high regard for their ingredients. Live and learn.