jkonick

When I was a kid I was fascinated by food. My favorite TV shows were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Frugal Gourmet. I was probably also the only boy in my neighborhood with an Easy Bake Oven. I always loved cutting food coupons out of the newspaper, going grocery shopping, helping my mom cook, basically anything that had to do with food. I was pretty overweight as a kid, so I'm not sure if the fact that I became obsessed with food was because I ate a lot of it, or if I became overweight because I was obsessed with food. Either way, I've since lost the weight, but kept the passion. One of my best childhood memories was getting a hot dog from Zingerman's deli in Ann Arbor after swimming lessons. I hated the swimming lessons, but I kept going for the post-swim hot dog. I can still taste those hot dogs, and even then I knew they were a cut above the stuff from the grocery store. I moved to Seattle from Michigan when I was about eight, and when I went back to visit a while ago, getting a hot dog from Zingerman's was high up on my list.

I'm taking a class right now at the University of Washington on the tea ceremony. As part of the class we actually practice the ceremony, and each week we get to try a different kind of wagashi. This week there was an interesting kind that my teacher didn't know the name of, and I'd like to know what exactly it is. This is how he explained it was made: it's made out of kanten and sugar basically, then cut into pieces after it sets up, and is allowed to dry. This makes the outside hard, while the inside stays gelatinous - almost liquidy. I guess they're really popular in the summer because they resemble ice, so they have a "cool" connotation. The ones I tried came from Japan with a visiting student, and my teacher said that he didn't think they were really available in the US, or at least not in Seattle. Any idea what this is called? And where I could get some more? The taste wasn't anything special, but they looked really, really cool, and I liked the texture a lot.

Today I saw a new (I haven't seen it before anyway) teriyaki/Korean place in the U. District. It looks pretty much like the average teriyaki/yakisoba with random Korean dishes thrown in there, although they had something that caught my eye - cheese ramen. I'm intruiged...

Has anyone tried these new types of tomatoes yet? The idea mentioned, the "strawmato": appetizing or off-putting to you? ← The idea of the "strawmato" is interesting. I'm pretty sure strawberries and tomatoes are actually related, so I guess it's not that far off. In fact, I had some tomatoes last summer that tasted surprisingly strawberry-y.

wine - 9 or 10 (Manischewitz at Passover) raw oyster - 17 in France pain au chocolat - 17 in France, watershed pastry moment for me tripe - 11 at dim sum eel - 17 liver and kidney (together in noodle soup, first time for both) - 19 natto - 19 durian - 18 sushi - 12 caviar - 15 truffles - 17 foie gras - not yet really good Mexican food - 18, La Super Rica in Santa Barbara raw milk cheese - 17 in France goat - 18 fish maw - 18

Blasphemy perhaps, but when you can use your student food account to buy it at Safeway it's not bad. Maybe too much dorm food has dulled my tastebuds... Also, I don't think that puddings are particularly popular on dessert menus - part of why I'm asking here. Sticky pudding might be a bit far off but I'm interested in pretty much the whole pudding family - that is, all things creamy and thick.

I love pudding in basically every form. From tapioca to Christmas, I go crazy for the stuff. I'm currently working on an article for the UW Daily about pudding in Seattle - local pudding, restaurants with good pudding, etc - although it's mainly an excuse to eat a lot of pudding and get paid for it. What restaurants have great pudding, or related desserts? Are there any good local pudding companies/makers/etc in the Northwest? Or simply, what is your favorite kind, and where do you get it? (My vote goes to Kozy Shack's raisin rice. Mmmm). Thanks! Jeremy Konick

Pie, definitely, but not fruit. Although I like fruit pies, I am a strict devotee to the mecca of desserts: pecan pie. There is truly nothing better than a well executed pecan pie. A little salty... a lot sweet. Slightly crunchy and slightly gooey. It's a perfect combination. I'm also a sucker for all things puddingy, so any pudding or custard based pie makes my heart swoon. I'm a huge fan of vanilla filled fried pies. I am conflicted though, because I do love carrot cake with almost as much passion as I love pecan pie. HOWEVER - I really only like carrot/other spice cakes, particularly with cream cheese frosting, whereas the variety of pies I like is a lot bigger. Thus, the pie prevails. Long live pie.

I went to Salumi today and was upset to see that this was on the specials board... for next week. I guess it means I'll be going back. Of course, I wasn't dissapointed - I had the prosciutto with fig and goat cheese, and it was insanely good. If I'd been standing up while eating it, I think I would've needed to sit down. My friend got the meatball which was equally delicious, totally different from any other meatball sandwich I'd had before, in a very good way.

That's interesting that they're owned by the same people. HK Noodle House reminded me, in terms of what dishes they served, of Canton, but I thought HK was better. The broth at Canton tends to be REALLY salty, and the noodles at HK were better. Also, the menu seemed bigger. Report back when you go, white lotus!

I worked at Subway for a few months and we did some interesting things when business was slow. One thing that we always used to make was pizza - take a slice of the stale, unusable bread and put tomato sauce (for the meatball subs) and just a variety of meats and vegetables on it with cheese. Put it in the oven for about thirty seconds and voila! Subway pizza. We also experimented with cooking the vegetables in the oven before putting them on the sandwich, instead of the other way around. You can almost carmelize onions in one of those things. We got as much free soda as we wanted, so I came up with a lot of combinations of soda. My personal favorite was something I liked to call the "Subway Sunrise," on part iced tea, one part one part lemonade, two parts orange soda. If you got it right, the soda would stratify, hence the sunrise. We almost fried an egg on the (incredibly, incredibly hot) inside of the door of the oven. We put oil on there, then realized a) Subway doesn't have eggs (not fresh ones, anyway) and b) the oil might catch on fire.

I went to go to Green Leaf tonight, but we got there too late so we went to Hong Kong Noodle House. Even at 11:00 it was packed (we were also the only non-Asians there). The menu is very extensive - mostly noodles and congee with a few other things, but almost every possible variation of the noodles and congee. I got the sliced liver and kidney, much to the surprise of our waitress - any myself. I'd never had liver or kidney, so I was a little wary. It turned out to be pretty good, actually better than my friend's more pedestrian BBQ pork. I definitely want to go back and sample more stuff off the menu, they have a lot of good looking side dishes. Unfortunately the reason I was going to Green Leaf was to review it for the UW's paper, and it's due tomorrow... whoops Luckily I have a lot of previous experience there

I've tried this twice now and I'm still not sure what I think about it. Coffee seems to be the overwhelming flavor, and the Coke just sort of gets lost in it, giving a sort of coffee jelly bean flavor (if you've ever had Jelly Belly coffee flavored jelly beans you'll know what I mean). I wish it was a little less sweet too - it has corn syrup and aspartame, but maybe they could've left out the aspartame, then it would be less sweet + no "diet-y" taste.

That squid snack actually sounds sort of good... in a strange and gimmicky way. The translated page is just as funny as the stuff on it I think. I liked this: "Fermented soybeans shoe cream the ? which comes from the viscous (never) land" MMMMM, the viscous neverland!

What are those things labeled "curry" and "red pepper" on the Hall of Strange Foods site? I'm almost afraid to know...

I'm one of those people who thinks that natto tastes like coffee, and I stand by it! I'm convinced that it must be something with the natto available in the U.S. (or Seattle) because I've tried a few kinds, and even my Japanese friends say that it doesn't stink the same way their parents' natto does. Stinky or not, I like the stuff. It's just the texture that I had to get used to. Durian too - I haven't tried the actual fruit yet, but I've been threatening to bring one back to my dorm room as punishment for my roommate (and reward for myself, I suppose) who hasn't cleaned his side of the room for a few weeks and it's starting to smell like... well, durian. I do like durian flavored things though. Durian ice cream is great.

One of the best foods I've discovered via the Japan forum is takoyaki or okonomiyaki with mochi and cheese - unfortunately I haven't seen this at any restaurants in Seattle (or okonomiyaki or takoyaki at all, for that matter). My favorite things to eat when I got out are usually saba shioyaki and anything curry, like corrokke with curry or curry udon.

The French influence is very interesting. The ways you see it most often in Vietnamese restaurants in the US seems to be banh mi, Vietnamese style coffee and the cream puffs which seem to always come with pho (in Seattle anyway). Another thing I've wondered about is banh xeo - are they like a Vietnamese take on a crepe or is it a more traditional Vietnamese food? It seems like it could be either one.

As a former vegetarian, and someone who still feels slightly guilty about eating meat, this is interesting. A lot of vegetarians/animal rights people are in it to save the cute animals - cats, dogs, horses, etc, yet it seems like many don't care as much about the more unsightly pigs and chickens. I personally could care less whether it was a cat or a cow being killed - I just didn't want them to be killed. So now as someone who eats meat, but still understands that in the meat industry there are a lot of problems, I really have no issue with this, or at least no more of an issue than I have with any other animal being killed for food. I would much rather see people protesting factory farmed chickens than horses simply because they're not thought of as food by most Americans.

I second Green Leaf for Vietnamese. Tamarind tree is also good. Jade Garden is good for dim sum but can get pretty crowded. Takohachi has tonkatsu and a lot other similar Japanese foods. Their hours are kind of weird though, so you might want to look into that before going. Like most of the other reccomendations, all of these are in Seattle. I'm not super familiar with the east side...

I made some takoyaki with a mochi/cheddar cheese filling the other night. The cheese was natural cheddar, and it turned out pretty well. It melted quickly, but the cheese that "escaped the takoyaki formed a sort of crust on the outside that kept the rest of the cheese in. The combo of mochi/cheese was good too, very gooey. Here are some pictures: You can see the cheese "crust" on these ones

That's really interesting, thanks for the info! I never knew there was yogurt in Vietnam at all.

Exotic: tripe. Until about six months ago, I had only one run-in with tripe. I was about eleven years old at dim sum with my family for father's day. I'd had dim sum a lot before that and I'd tried just about everything at the place we usually went. So when a cart came around that I'd never seen before offering "beef tripe soup" I immediately asked for it, despite the warnings of both the cart pusher and my parents. I wish I'd listened to them; I ate one bite and ran out of the restaurant, to a grocery store next door where I bought a soda which I drank immediately to get the terrible, rotten, sour taste out of my mouth. About two years after that, I became vegetarian (and the tripe experience may've had something to do with it.) Fast forward to a few months ago. I'd decided to start eating meat again, and in the spirit of things I decided to get the "everything" combo when I went out for pho - which included tripe. I was a little scared at first, but finally got up enough courage to try it. Not sour, not terrible... I didn't think it had that much flavor at all. A little bit crunchy, a little bit chewy. Not bad. In fact, I now enjoy tripe in my pho often. I suppose it's not the most exotic food in the world, but based on my previous experience I had exoticized it to a great degree - maybe even beyond bugs - in my head.

For anyone in Seattle, the UW Bookstore website says he's doing a Nasty Bits signing on June 13th I think. I'm looking forward to that, and of course the book!

Today I went to a Vietnamese deli I'd never been to before, and they gave me a strange addtion I've never seen before - a cup of yogurt. It tasted more or less like regular yogurt, but a little thinner. Is this a normal Vietnamese thing? I've never seen it before. Is it a remnant of the French occupation? Also, what are the basic ingredients in the brownish sauce that usually comes on banh mi? I've always wondered, I assume it's fish sauce based. Thanks!