skchai

Thanks for the great info, Mudbug. However, one part confused me a little. Ipomoea and Convolvulus are two separate genus names for different types of morning glory (Convolvulaceae). I believe that Ipomoea spp. usually are the climbing kind (such as the sweet potato, Ipomoea Batatas) and Convolvulus spp. usually the prostate kind, but I'm not certain. Since Kangkung / Ong Choi is not really a climber, "water convolvulus" makes sense. But then why is the botanical name Ipomoea aquatica? Regarding how to cook old ong choi. I usually try the asparagus technique - stems on the bottom and leaves on the top sticking out of the water. You need a lot of ong choi bound together loosely, otherwise it tips over. The stems usually end up tough anyway, so I cut them off and let the kids use them for straws. By then I'm too frustrated to add anything but plain yellow bean sauce or oyster sauce and sesame oil.

Welcome, Vivin, and thanks for the correction. It's not Camilla Panjabi's fault, it's mine for misparaphrasing her without checking the original text. Here is what she actually says: So it was the marinade that was leftover, not the chicken itself. Reusing marinade would presumably not be allowed by U.S. health codes, so it might be difficult to recreate the original in a restaurant! I would second BBhasin in hoping someone will check out the original Moti Mahal, or what remains of it, and send back an eating report. If it now a chain, does the Red Fort branch still exist? How is the food? A web search indicates that there are "Moti Mahals" all througout the world (even Calgary!) but I suspect that none are associated with the original restaurant. When I lived in Tucson, AZ. there was a pretty good restaurant called Sher-e-Punjab, which I'm pretty sure had nothing to do with Sher-e-Punjab in Bombay, but that's another story. . .

Another example of what I mentioned in the previous post! Welcome to you Howler, another person-who-knew-Behram. This might be digressing a bit, but I'm not really in the know about why Contractor decided to start Afternoon in the first place. I've heard that Mid-Day was a result of him and some of his acquaintances leaving TOI en masse. Why did he leave Mid-Day? Was there some sort of falling-out? Also, now that you mentioned it, what did people think of his cricket writing? Has any one read his Howzzat collection of articles? Seemed like his wry approach to life fit in quite well, but Busybee was apparently quite serious about the game. Here's what another Mumbaiker had to say: Desperately trying to steer this posting back towards food. . . Busybee's love of food and cricket were often intertwined. In his review of Purohit's Gujarati Thali Restaurant, he wrote:

Yet another review of the book, from the NY Times. Grimes' take on the gastrostreit is noticeably different that that of the LA Times and SF Chronicle reviewers: ???

Pongi, Just how small were those "smallfish"? If they were really small, then what you are describing might be a way of serving ikan bilis, usually translated as "anchovies". The semi-dried product is often stir-fried with chillies, onions, and occasionally ginger into "sambal ikan bilis". You could probably find it in a lot of places, though I believe it is most strongly associated with the "greater Malay" (I know, this is a political faux paux) region of the S. Malay peninsula and N. Sumatra, where it is served as a component of a nasi lemak (coconut rice) set plate. Here's a link to a recipe from The Star (Malaysia)'s Cyberkuali. It doesn't contain ginger but I believe it wouldn't be inauthentic to add some to the rempah (pounded ingredients). . . Or maybe that's not what you were talking about at all! Perhaps if you could be more specific about the location. . . Sumatra and Java cover a population larger than that of Japan. . .

I'll take that as a compliment.... It is the highest form of praise of which I am capable. . . Stream of consciousness . . . someone should research the "Okinawan Paradox" analogous to the "French Paradox". Something about people whose diet seems to contain unholy amounts of pig fat yet (on average) live longer than just about anyone else in the world. When I saw the Okinawan Diet book on the best-seller lists I had a hard time supressing laughter. Lose weight by eating Andagi and Rafute? I guess those are probably not what the book emphasizes. . .

A bit of a digression, but could you enlighten us some more, Vikram about this Gujju-Mod phenomenon? One hears reports about Gujju-TexMex, Gujju Pizza, etc. being much more prevalent than the originals in Bombay. Presumably there is Gujju-Thai Curry as well. Why have Gujaratis seemingly dominated the introduction of these foreign cuisines into the city, as well as the way in which they are adapted to local tastes? Thanks!

From this article. Noticed that "Sonzy", the author of the aforelinked article, highly recommends Monica's cookbook. So he must know what he's talking about!

Great pictures! Your goya champuru seems to be authentically crusty brown and stirred up, not like the namby-pamby kind that you sometimes see in Japanese housewife's cookbooks. The rafute looks delicious . . . By the way, there's an Okinawan restaurant here in Honolulu called Kariyushi, though I haven't had a chance to try it. My wife can't eat pork (no she's not Muslim or Jewish, just somehow turned off by it).

I'm very, very envious that everyone on this list (well almost) seems to have known Behram personally except for me. Any recollections you all would be willing to share? Also, besides the Upper Crust crew, who else today who is carrying on with his type of food journalism?

According to Camilla Panjabi, Butter Chicken was invented at Moti Mahal in Delhi during the 1960s to use up leftover Tandoori Chicken. Chicken Tikka Masala was apparently invented in Great Britain about the same time. There is a popular story that some restaurant owner poured Campbell's condensed tomato soup on top of Chicken Tikka because a customer demanded gravy. No wonder no one steps up to take credit for inventing it. The Guardian ran a hyperlink special on it a couple years ago after Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said something to the effect that CTM was the British "national dish" - trying to score diversity points or something. So if anything Butter Chicken is more "authentically" Indian despite the English name. It also seems to have the more clearly codified recipe, since virtually all versions I've tried have kept true to the tomato / butter / methi combination, as BBhasin points out. CTM on the other hand can be just about anything as long as it has chicken and tomato in it. The chicken can be anything from tandoored tikka to microwaved chicken nuggets; the sauce anything from fresh pureed tomatos to the tradition Campbell's (diluted or not). So one could say that Butter Chicken is a proper subset of CTM. Murgh Makhni on the other hand has been around for quite a long time. Presumably the term can be used for dishes that contain no tomato, as long as they contain sufficient cream / butter in the gravy. So Butter Chicken is also a proper subset of Murgh Makhni. Or perhaps I am wrong about this?

Wow. Sorry, don't have even a speculative answer to Plummer et al.'s query. Why would it be pink? However, getting back to RossyW's original question, presumably the previous owners of the restaurant prepared their patio with kokum (a fruit related to mangosteen) or (more likely) tamarind concentrate. Both would give a kind of purplish color.

Hey. . . Mock them we must, but at least give them credit for trying to create a new menu item that is not simply (1) an existing menu item thrown into the deep fryer or (2) two or more existing menu items piled on top of each another (the two most popular innovation techniques at fast food places worldwide). Ratatouille (even faux ratatouille), smoked beef, mugwort spring roll (cho-kawaii!) - could you imagine that level of experimentation at U.S. McDonald's? O.K. the sausage katsu thing and the omelette salad thing do fit into to the deep-fried / piled-up paradigms, but still. . . McDonald's Japan, after decades of extraordinary growth, has gone through a long difficult patch in the past several years. It responded to the post-bubble economy through the discount "set" strategy, which worked for a while. Then mad cow disease came along, and the response was to first cut prices lower even on single menu items, then increase prices again in anticipation of an end to deflation, then cut them again when this failed to materialize. Even with beef consumption picking up again Makudonarudo (which reminds me - have you played the game where you try to find the Japanese "gairai" katakana word that has the most syllables relative to the foreign word from which it was adapted? No? O.K. forget it) remains in the doldrums. Beyond external shocks, the main problem, as in the U.S., seems to be that people have finally gotten bored of the product and enjoy an expanded range of alternatives. Fujita Den, the Japan operation's founder and a former biz-school case study superhero, was forced to resign as Chairman/CEO few months ago, along with his son Gen (and their pet mice Ben and Zen), due to the failure of these tactics. So now the new management is trying something different. More power to them, as the saying goes.

Suvir - You really do seem to know everyone! Any interesting reminiscences that you have about Behram or Farzana Contractor would be appreciated. Thanks for your kind comments. Vikram - Though we may differ on some details, we seem to basically agree about Busybee and the importance of his contribution to Indian culinary culture. I too appreciate your postings and hope you will continue to inform and enlighten us about Mumbai food scene. Unlike Suvir, I do not know much about Farzana other than what appears under her byline. Nor have I had an opportunity to read either Afternoon or Upper Crust beyond what is published on their websites. Hence my comments come along with an astounding lack of direct knowledge. Nonetheless, that has never stopped me in the past . . . Given that it is a medium-circulation regional newspaper without a major financial backer, perhaps it is too much to ask Afternoon to challenge the big boys in terms of depth of news coverage. Nonetheless, I find it hard to believe that Mumbai would be better off if the paper is, as you put it, "put out of its misery". At the very least, it provides a distinct voice and competition that keeps Midday, as well as the nationally-distributed giants, on their toes. Furthermore, while set of bylines does have a "luvvy" appearance to it, this circle of friends includes people like Mario Miranda, Dom Moraes, et al, and hence it would seem that they are a big plus, notwithstanding the need to broaden the range of contributors. Regarding Upper Crust: Unlike Afternoon, it seems that a very large percentage of its articles are written personally by Farzana. I have not personally found anything she has written "excruciating". Even if might be desirable to spread the writing chores more, she has clearly put in a huge amount of willpower and effort into keeping the magazine going. Furthermore, she and the other writers manage to provide information on contemporary culinary developments that are hard to find anywhere else. Other than (of course) this illustrious egullet group, the only other regular sources of timely analysis of India's culinary scene that I've had access to have been Jiggs Kalra's columns in the Singapore-based New Asia Cuisine and Wine Scene magazine, as well as sometimes Magna Publishing's Savvy CookbookMagazine, now seemingly kaput or at least offline. So I'm grateful that Upper Crust exists, and that Farzana has chosen to maintain Busybee's legacy of promoting Indian cuisine as a proper topic of study and appreciation.

Since things seem to have slowed down a tiny bit on this forum, I thought it would be a good time to send out a mini-tribute for one of my favorite restaurant critics - the late Busybee, aka Behram Contractor, co-founder and editor of the Mumbai Afternoon Despatch and Courier, as well as the writer of perhaps the world's longest-running newspaper column, Round and About. Through his Eating Out columns on the net, I began to view Indian cuisine as something approachable and at least conceivably knowable, despite the fact that I was outsider. Two things stuck out in his writing: One was his well-known subtle and often whimsical humor. But another was his modesty and unwillingness to pass judgement - his writing was relentlessly neutral or at most slightly positive. No superlatives or put-downs, no five stars or three forks or whatever. He was not a professional foodie, so no technical details either. Instead, he stuck to describing as meticulously as possible what he had just eaten, making me feel like I had eaten it as well. So, despite never having set foot in Mumbai or for that matter any of the restaurants he reviewed, I was as crushed as everyone else by his untimely death a couple years ago. Luckily for us, his staff have put together an fine tribute site, busybeeforever.com, which contains an expanded archive of Eating Out articles (an alternative archive can be found here). In addition, Upper Crust, the magazine he founded with his wife Farzana shortly before his death, seems to still be holding up and is a great source of information on the contemporary Indian food scene. Could anyone, including the Mumbai natives out there, provide me with anecdotes, comments, analysis, etc. about Busybee's role in developing India's food culture?

Not that I have anything useful to add, but . .. . The practice of dyeing chicken must be quite long-lived, and as BBhasin, mentions, seems to have originated in India itself. The Time-Life Cooking of India, by Santha Rama Rau, published in 1969, mentions that chefs in India color their tandoori chicken using cochineal dye. This, I believe, is from squashed bugs, but at any rate is "natural". Other natural forms of coloring might have included Kashmiri Mirch or Maval (cockscomb flowers). Coloring seems to have been taken to the current extreme, however, once tandoori chicken reached Britain. Doesn't seem to be any consensus about how Tandoori Chicken became such a standby in Indian restaurant food, other than that it was spread by the Punjabi diaspora to other parts of India and the world. The restaurant Moti Mahal popularized it in Delhi and Sher e Punjab likewise in Bombay, but it's not even clear whether they were really the pioneers or simply the first ones to be successful.

Share your enthusiasm about the Time-Life books. They were my introduction to the world of food. . . Not sure I understood your note regarding Morimoto from the Time-Life books - or are you wondering if he is related to the former Iron Chef with the same family name? Not sure, but have never heard any info to that effect. Believe Kitcho was at one point considering opening a branch in the U.S. but this never came about. As a kaiseki "chain" it is considered much more staid than e.g. Shunju, though I believe Patricia Wells once included the Kyoto home branch on her list of the world's ten best restaurants. One bizarre factoid about the Time-Life books. Bando Mitsugoro, the gourmand Kabuki actor featured in the Japan volume, later made the news by dying after insisting that the chef at a fugu restaurant serve him the liver, which is supposed to be thrown away for good reason. Apparently he was the last recorded person to die of fugu poisoning in a licensed restaurant - over 20 years ago. Of course, a lot of people (particularly fishermen) have died since them trying to prepare do-it-yourself fugu.

Soupsong is one of my favorite personal food sites. Don't know who Pat Solley is or why how she got so obsessed with soup, but it's a great place to browse aimlessly.

Some of the deepest insights into Chinese cookery are found not in cookbooks, but in essay collections. The aesthetics of Chinese cookery were covered extremely well in three books that were published quite a while ago (they also contain a recipe or two): Buwei Yang Chao, How to Cook and Eat in Chinese (London: Faber and Faber, 1956). F. T. Cheng, Musings of a Chinese Gourmet (London: Hutchinson, 1962). Hsiang Ju Lin and Tsuifeng Lin, Chinese Gastronomy (London: Thomas Nelson, 1969). I also strongly recommend two ethnographic / historical reviews of Chinese cookery: K. C. Chang (ed.), Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives (Yale University Press, 1977) E. N. Anderson (ed.), The Food of China (Yale University Press, 1988).

Not to distract from zaru soba, but how about Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki? You know, the kind with soba and other junk in the middle and batter on the outside. So good! But the soba seems usually to be yakisoba (wheat) kind, not buckwheat noodles. Also, some people seem to find it very strange . . . noodles in a pancake? Zaru soba can be memorable or the epitome of blandness - it really depends on the quality of the ingredients, especially the noodles. Also, it really helps to have fresh wasabi with it - a small amount provides a spicy / herbal counterpoint for the soba but doesn't overpower it. I know, I sound really precious. . . Tenzaru is a different thing altogether - chomping on fried shrimp means that you're not really going to taste the soba much anyway, so the counterpoint is mostly textural. No wasabi in that case (doesn't go with tempura IMHO) but chili (and fried garlic) by all means.

Thanks for the replies. In response to your question, Bux, my children are 3 and 7, and eating with them in France was somewhat of an adventure. We ruled out in advance anything approaching haute cuisine - the kids can't sit in one place for more than 20 minutes or so before they start to thrash about and complain, so it would have been very difficult for us or the people around us to enjoy the full experience! Not to mention my son's habit of lying down on the table, but that's another story . . . We did try some cafes and had a mixed experience. Didn't have a lot of time for research, so went to some the guidebook standbys, e.g. Les Deux Garcons in Aix and Les Deux Magots in Paris. They were actually reasonably child-friendly, possibly since they get so many tourists - even a children's menu (hamburger steak, fried chicken) at The Garcons. The food was as ordinary as you would expect. Cafe Lenôtre on Champs Elysee was more "gastronomical" but somewhat less child-friendly - it wasn't that they were inhospitable, but they weren't really set up for children. The chairs were extremely high for the kids to climb on, and menu didn't contain anything that was really that a typical kid could identify with right off the bat - though my son nonetheless liked their "tapas" (sic) plate, which was basically a bunch of dips and breads plus chicken wings marinated tandoori-style with turmeric and a couple of vanilla-scented prawns. Neither of the kids would touch the gnocchi with very nice sauce made of pureed fresh peas. The one thing that was pretty intolerable at all the cafes was the smoking. Even where there was a non-smoking table, it was surrounded by smoking tables, so there wasn't really any point. Nor were the smokers hesitant about lighting up around children - in one case a guy lit up a big cigar right next to my three-year old daughter. He gallantly moved away, but only because everyone at our table began to gag and cough very loudly! After a a few bad experiences my wife decreed that we wouldn't eat out except when absolutely necessary. Actually that turned out not to be such a bad thing. We had a lot of fun assembling a meal at various boulangerie, charcuterie, etc, then taking it back to our hotel room. It was easier for the kids to pick and choose, since they could see the choices right in front of them. We also frequented the hypermarche, as mentioned, though we mostly used that to get the basics - milk, juice, yoghurt. Everybody got addicted to freshly-squeezed blood orange juice and are now experiencing painful withdrawal. The reaction of the kids to the food was pretty much similar to what we get at home. Of course, they are not that typical - my son eats almost everything and my daughter eats almost nothing (except candy and ice cream). When in doubt, we could order a steak-frites or croque monsieur at just about any cafe, and if that didn't work, just skip to dessert. The wife and kids missed Korean food, so we tried a Japanese-Korean place in Aix called Yoyo (winner of the Golden Baguette!), and it was a strange experience. Certain of the "panchan" (side dishes) were classified "entree" and others were "plats" - it seemed pretty arbitrary. The waiters seemed to be Vietnamese. Getting really off-topic, so I'll stop.

The clear rice paper ones are millet candy. The original brand, I believe, is the famous Tomoe Ame, which has been around a long time. I remember going to Toyo's Superette in Manoa, Honolulu back in the 1970s to pick them up on the way home from school. Nowadays, in the U.S., at least, it's easier to find "Botan Rice Candy" which is basically a copy. There's also a character called "Tomoe Ame" in the Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo series, a play on the name of Tomoe Gozen. The little cups of jello are often referred to as "konnyaku jelly" or "konjac", though they are very different than the konnyaku you put in your sukiyaki. However, they were banned by the FDA because they could lead to choking death in small children - apparently the jelly is almost impossible to dislodge immediately once it is stuck in your throat. I don't think they are available (legally) in the U.S. any more except in greatly modified form. Apparently some producers got in trouble for trying to sell off their existing stock after a recall notice was issued.

Just returned from a week in Paris and Aix-en-Provence. Unfortunately not much of an eating report to provide. Two small kids meant that dinner more often than not was in the hotel room. But this meant that we had to venture out to the "hypermarche" quite a bit, and one thing that caught my eye was the ubiquity of the Reflets de France brand. Apparently this is Carrefour's house brand of regional gastronomic products - all have allegedly been vetted personally by Joel Robuchon, who I guess has become quite a man of the people, what with his cooking show and Atelier. Each product is produced by subcontractors in the region of origin who are supposed to use traditional recipes and incorporate AOC ingredients where applicable. The brand is sold by Carrefour but also by other retailers as well. One thing I noticed was that these are REALLY cheap. Brioche tressée vendéenne for a couple bucks, pâté de campagne breton for about 2.50, if I recall correctly. While they tasted good to my uneducated taste buds, I was wondering if august members of this group had a different opinion. And, perhaps more importantly, how do people perceive Reflets de France as a symptom of social change? Does it reflect a growing awareness among consumers of the need to preserve regional cuisines and support local producers? Or does it simply reflect the disappearance of specialized retailers to sell these regional products and the need for a mass marketer to take their place?

Todai is actually a large chain of restaurants across the U.S.. I believe that it was originally started by a Korean-American family but is now franchised out and has 20-some odd locations, including one in Hong Kong. Like Islandmom mentioned, there is one in Honolulu. We've only gone when it's someone's birthday - that person eats for free. Bewildering variety (see here and here) at a relatively reasonable price given quasi-luxury items like crab and lobster (albeit of the lowest conceivable quality). Much of the food is vaguely Asian-American rather than Japanese.

I've always wondered (really!) - since we're talking about brisket and Texas here, has anybody ever tried or know of a recipe for barbecued corned beef? Since the meat is going to be smoked rather than boiled, I assume the cure will have to be somehow less salty than it would be otherwise, or the meat will have to be presoaked somehow in fresh water. But otherwise it sounds like an obvious fusion concept, so someone's got to have thought of it, with boiled cabbage "cole slaw" - you get the idea.