Lunch at a new restaurant, dinner at an old(ish) one

July 30

Sorry the blog has been so quiet lately, I've been busy over at nrn.com, where I’ve been filing stories about all sorts of things, from vegetarian menu items (that one’s for subscribers only, click here if you want to subscribe), to Cascabel chef Todd Mitgang (listen to the interview here), to Carino's new low-calorie kids' menu, to 5 Napkin Burger’s beer list, to Marco’s Pizza’s new lending facility for franchisees.

“Oh, that’s boring,” egg man Howard Helmer said yesterday when I told him about the Marco’s Pizza story, which I’d filed that morning.

What can I say? Some people want to read about beer lists, others about menu items, others about creative ways, during this credit crunch, to help franchisees fund their expansion.

Here at NRN we have something for everyone in the restaurant world.

I was at lunch with Howard, goose farmer Jim Schiltz (freshly returned from a feather conference in China, during which everyone apparently asked Hungary to desist from its centuries-old practice of live plucking), and Food & Wine executive editor Tina Ujlaki. We were at the much ballyhooed ABC Kitchen, Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s new restaurant focused, like all new restaurants these days that aren't burger joints, on local, seasonal food.

Howard ordered a pizza for the table, one with morels, Parmesan and a “farm fresh egg.”

Howard represents the American Egg Board, you see. He also occasionally represents the National Goose Council, of which Jim is the president and only member (we only produce about 250,000 geese a year in this country, and most of them are raised or processed by Jim — or both).

Howard was supposed to retire recently, and was going to be replaced by Next Food Network Star runner up Jeffrey Saad.

Jeffrey's doing a lot of the social networking stuff for the egg board, which is all well and good, but apparently they still want Howard to make omelets at state fairs and whatnot.

So he’s not retiring.

I ate relatively lightly — raw diver scallops with market chiles, anise hysop and lime, followed by sautéed Arctic char, summer beans, lime and spicy corn broth, and Jim and I split one of the signature juice drinks, made of peach, currant, cherry and ginger — because my friend Jonathan Ray was in town and I’d managed to finagle us a table at The Little Owl.

But it was a 6 o’clock table, which was fine with us because Jonathan had to take a train back to Westchester that evening. But it meant I shouldn’t gorge myself at lunch.

This is embarrassing to admit, but I hadn’t been to The Little Owl before. It’s one of those little places that everybody seems to love, and although it’s not new by any stretch of the imagination —it opened in May of 2006 — it continues to be a hard place to get a table.

So, good for The Little Owl, but with so many places to check out, sometimes I pass over the cute little ones that are hard to get into.

So I was glad Jonathan was in town, because it was an excuse to check the place out, and to eat:

baked clams with watercress salad and bagna cauda vinaigrette,
broiled halibut with corn, favas and pesto vinaigrette
rhubarb crisp

The Soup Man draws a crowd

July 20

Whenever you see a big mob of professional camera-wielders, you can bet that that’s not where the news is. What you have here is not news, it’s a media event — scripted, predictable, usually boring, but in this case irritating because it was about 88 degrees out and muggy and I didn’t want to be there.

This particular media event was the re-opening of the soup shop that became famous in the Seinfeld “Soup Nazi” episode. Al "The Soup Nazi" Yeganeh capitalized on that episode and now there are 21 "Soup Man" restaurants, because you can’t call yourself a Nazi, across the country. Well, now 22 with the reopening of the original shack.

Why should you care? I don’t really know. I took my pictures and left. I'm not standing in line for soup.

But a lot of people apparently do care and will stand in line for soup. Because below, on the left there is a picture of the end of the line of people waiting to get their soup, and next to it is a picture of the line as it continued around the corner to the actual entrance of the restaurant, where they could buy the soup.

Now, although as a customer I’m not going to stand in that line, as a restaurant owner I’d sure like to have people doing that outside my restaurant. At least I’d like it to be an option.

The key to making that happen, it seems, is to be featured on a massively successful situation comedy, spend a decade or more milking that and hiring a good PR firm to promote the reopening of your spot.

Oh, it also helps if you get Reggie Jackson to show up to promote the event.

Did the people in line think it was worth it? Feast New York asked some of them. They seemed fine with it.

Rick Tramonto and Wendy’s salads

July 15

Rick Tramonto got his start cooking with Dave Thomas at Wendy’s.

“I still know the chili recipe.”

That’s what he told a number of journalists recently at the Institute of Culinary Education as he assembled the chain’s new salads in front of us.

I think it’s a little risky for a fine-dining chef to associate with fast food.

You might remember that another celebrity chef from Chicago, Rick Bayless, was in a national TV ad back in 2003 promoting Burger King’s new and ultimately unsuccessful line of low-fat chicken baguette sandwiches.

BK actually tapped two celebrities to promote those sandwiches, Bayless and Rachel Ray.

I think Ray was an excellent choice, but Bayless seemed like a silly one. He wasn’t yet famous enough outside of the food world for him to impress many Burger King customers, and in the world of food-elitists where I dwell, he was (and still is) a champion of local, seasonal, touchy-feely food from cute farms. He advocated strongly against development of genetically modified organisms (in fact, I’ve never managed to get a call back from him when writing about his forte, Mexican food, but he was on the phone instantly when I was writing about GMOs) and in general was viewed as an opponent of “Big Food.”

Many of those relatively few people who knew Bayless’ reputation at the time were hurt, puzzled or outraged by his appearance in a BK commercial (although, for what it’s worth, from what I understand he did insist on trying the sandwich before promoting it, so that’s something).

Times have changed, lines have blurred, many fine dining chefs are opening burger joints, and Tramonto, if memory serves, has never wrapped himself as tightly in the Slow Food mantle as Bayless has.

Indeed, he said the spirit of quality and training that he got at Wendy’s is part of his DNA.

He also said he met his wife — I assume he meant his ex-wife, celebrity pastry chef Gale Gand — at Wendy’s where she was making sandwiches while he was flipping burgers.

Tramonto looked like he knew his association with Wendy's could be controversial in the food snob world, and he seemed relieved, or at least glad, when I told Wendy’s corporate chef Lori Estrada how much I liked the avocado ranch dressing (it’s true, I did; the pomegranate vinaigrette not so much, but I’m not in to lo-cal dressings).

And although the Rick Bayless-Burger King association was scandalous for about 20 minutes, both Bayless and BK survived quite well, and if I hadn’t just dredged it up again that episode would have been relegated to the dustbin of history.

Jeremy Fox not just at Plum

June 30

I just got off the phone with former Ubuntu chef Jeremy Fox, who was recom-mending new and soon-to-open restaurants in San Francisco for me (including Benu, the much-anticipated restaurant of former French Laundry chef Corey Lee, which is slated to open later this summer).

The world learned last month that Jeremy was going to be the chef at Plum, an Oakland, Calif., restaurant Daniel Patterson (of Coi in San Francisco) had planned to open in July.

Jeremy tells me Plum is now slated to open in the first week of September, serving plant-based cuisine, much of it from a garden on which he and Patterson will be breaking ground this summer (the picture above is from Jeremy’s days at Ubuntu, where he also had a garden).

Plant-based doesn’t mean vegetarian. Jeremy said he will be making his own charcuterie for Plum, and that the restaurant’s dishes will have more animal ears and skin than loins and other muscle meat — for flavoring rather than to be featured in the center of the plate.

But things will be hopping at that garden, which not only will be supplying produce for Plum, but also for Bracina, Patterson’s long-delayed restaurant in Oakland’s Jack London Square, which Jeremy says is now slated for a January opening.

Jeremy told me he’s going to be involved in that restaurant as well as in Plum, and also in future Patterson ventures.

I asked if he was Patterson’s corporate chef, then.

I kind of heard him shrug, and he said: “For lack of a better word.”

And there you have it.

Malacca

June 18

Malacca’s a very touristy city.

That in itself is not surprising. It’s an old port settled first by a rebel Malay prince of the maritime empire of Srivijaya, whose capital, it is believed, was near the modern-day city of Palembang, on Sumatra.

Then the Portuguese took it over, then the Dutch, who traded it to the British for Aceh, the northernmost province on Sumatra (and the epicenter, as you may recall, of that terrible tsunami in 2004).

So it has cool architecture and old forts turned into museums and, on top of that, is an important center for Peranakan culture and Nyonya cuisine. Why wouldn’t it be touristy?

What I found interesting was that most of the tourists we saw were Malaysians.

I hadn’t expected that.

But we didn’t take a day-trip to Malacca to see its historic sites (although we did a bit of that; you might as well while you’re there). We were there to eat Nyonya food. See? That’s me, on the right, taking notes as Alvin, the owner of Taragon restaurant, explained what I was about to eat.

See how serious a note-taker I am? I was, as always, glad that Albert Foo was there to take the pictures.

Usually in the United States we refer to the food of the Straits Chinese as Nyonya cuisine.

Actually, we don’t usually refer to the Straits Chinese at all, as Malaysia is noticeably absent from our country’s radar. We don’t know a thing about the place. But you know what I mean.

In Malaysia I’ve usually heard it referred to as Baba-Nyonya, which is really more illustrative. As I understand it, “Baba” is Chinese for father, while “Nyonya” is Malay for mother, or “madam” — the female head of the house.

You see, single Chinese men came to the Malay Peninsula centuries ago to work in the tin mines. They married Malay women and tried to instruct them how to cook food they were accustomed to.

But the Malay women had their own ideas, and as a matter of course added their own culinary flourishes to the food.

The result was dishes like the sambal-petai squid you see as the first picture of food in this blog entry. It’s stir-fried squid — something Chinese would make, but it’s flavored with Malay sambal, the local chile sauce, often spiked with shrimp paste called belacan (pronounced bla-chan), and a, oh, let’s call it aromatic, bean called petai, known for its bitter taste and ability to linger on the breath.

Next is terung bakar, or eggplant, served with chiles and a soy-sauce based gravy.

Notice also the tiny limes that flourish in this part of the world.

Next, well, that’s actually just a Malay dish — beef rendang. It’s a sort of curry made — as curries generally are — by heating chiles and other spices in oil, and adding liquid to that. Rendang has coconut milk added to it, and is generally cooked down until most of the liquid has evaporated, although like all national dishes it kind of depends on who you talk to.

Alvin told us that at Taragon they make the rendang a day in advance to make it taste better, as stews tend to do as their flavors meld.

We also had a cincalok omelet. Cincalok (pronounced cheen-cha-loke) is very much like belacan, except it comes from Malacca.

The last picture is of lemak nenas, a ginger-laden fish cooked with coconut sauce and pineapple.

Satay

June 16

On your left, please enjoy a beautiful picture by Albert Foo, the kind man and extraordinary photographer who accompanied us on Penang and has rejoined us here in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur.

He actually took that picture at the Shangri-La Rasa Sayang in Penang, and once I get his shots from last night I’ll replace it, or possibly just add it below for the sake of contrast, because this picture would not be approved by Matrade.

[update: I did it; I added the new picture below]

Malaysia’s export-promotion body takes its satay seriously, you see, and this satay is displayed incorrectly.

Satay is not just a bunch of skewers of meat, it’s a meal. Like the one on the right, in the picture taken, of course, by the inimitable Albert Foo.

Incidentally, it’s also not Thai, any more than tacos are American. You can get satay in Thailand, but they’ll tell you flat out that it’s Malay.

Whether it’s Malaysian Malay or Indonesian Malay is open to debate, but everyone agrees, more or less, that satay was invented by the people of the Malay archipelago.

Honey Ahmad, chief content creator and co-founder of friedchilies.com, who accompanied us last night to a restaurant called Satay Station, says the term might be an abbreviation of salai di tepat.

Salai is the Malay word for barbecue, and a tepat is a makeshift grill.

Makes sense to me.

But as I was saying, satay is more involved than that. To be called satay by Malaysian standards, it must be served with pickled cucumber and onion as well as peanut sauce.

And it must also come with rice.

Ideally, satay is served with nasi ketupat, which is made by pouring uncooked rice into a sort of stiff pouch made by weaving coconut leaves together. That’s put in boiling water, and as the rice cooks it expands and is compressed into one solid piece of rice, which is then sliced and eaten with the satay (and also dipped in peanut sauce if you like).

If you don’t have nasi ketupat (and Satay Station doesn’t have it) nasi himpit, which is boiled white rice pressed together into one solid piece, will do.

A Matrade-sanctioned picture of satay must have the skewered meat, pickled cucumbers, onions and rice in it.

Honey explained that satay is made by pounding together fresh turmeric, sugar, onion (or shallot — usually shallot) and lemon grass and marinating cubed meat in it — any meat, including liver or tripe or whatever you like — for about a day.

Then you skewer it and cook it over coals, being sure to let some of it caramelize.

We had chicken, beef and chicken liver satay, with a really sweet peanut sauce with coconut milk in it. The beef had little bits of fat skewered on it, too, and the chicken had pieces of fatty skin.

It was fantastic.

It was preceded by mee rebus, which you can see on the left (in a picture by Albert Foo) made in the style of Johor state, I’m told. That’s yellow noodles, green chile and seafood broth with potatoes, sweet potatoes, boiled eggs and fried shallot.

Kelantan

June 15

This dish might not look particularly appetizing, but blame that on my photography, not on the food.

It’s ayam percik (pronounced perchik), one of the specialties of the Malaysian state of Kelantan, in the country’s northeast. It’s charcoal-grilled chicken topped with a coconut milk sauce.

Sounds good, right?

It is typically served with nasi kerabu, which is rice topped with herbs and other nutritious green things, plus bean sprouts. And two nights ago, when I took this picture, it also was served with shrimp crackers.

You can see a picture of it on the right.

Ayam percik and nasi kerabu are delicious together, they really are, and I think they’d translate well to a western state of mind.

We also had them with clams cooked in sambal (what’s not to like about that?) and peppers stuffed with fish paste and served with salted, hard-boiled eggs that were sliced in half and served still in their shells.

I suspect going to Kelantan was my doing: As this trip was being planned I mentioned to one of the organizers that I’d had the best mangoes in my life in this state’s capital, Kota Bahru.

Next thing I knew it was on our agenda.

Apparently I had given entrée to Wan Norma Wan Daud, director of the Product Section of the Product & Services Development Division of the Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation, or Matrade.

Matrade sponsored this trip, and Norma is a native of Kelantan.

We had a good time there. Kelantan, I’m told, is quite distinct from other parts of Malaysia. It’s the most Muslim of the 13 states, but also displays strong influence from its neighbor to the north, mostly Buddhist Thailand, a country of which it was once a part.

The part of Thailand that shares a border with Kelantan is actually mostly Muslim, but the Malaysian state still has a number of Buddhist temples and monasteries, and it shares some words and eating habits with Thailand, too.

The Kelantanese expressed pride in their elaborate wau (pronounced “wow,” which, in a perfect world, is also how it would be spelled). It’s a word for kite they share with the Thais.

They also share a love for funky, fishy flavors, such as budu, made from fermented and, to my taste, slightly rotten, anchovies.

That was served to us during lunch yesterday, they day after our dinner of ayam percik and its traditional accompaniments.

Kelantan was unseasonably, unreasonably, inhumanely hot yesterday and, cognizant of the fact that I was in a serious Muslim state, I chose to forego shorts and wear long pants instead. Thus did I swelter with my fellow westerners as we were led through the market, breakfasting on a hot soup of laksam — sort of like boiled rice gnocchi — and looking at the region’s signature blue rice, dyed from a flower we haven’t yet identified, and at silks [June 16 update: the flower, according to my new friend Krista, is bunga telang; she hasn’t lied to me yet].

I had Paco buy some mangosteens — a fruit I’ll discuss later, along with the salak that we’d found the night before — before we went off to look at how serunding and dodol were made.

Remember, it’s easily 90 degrees out. And humid. Feel your scalp as the sweat pools there and then trickles behind your ears and down your neck and back as I explain that serunding is shredded meat made by stewing beef or chicken in massive vats of a rendang-type curry for a couple of hours, until the meat falls apart into strings.

We stood over hot cauldrons watching this happen, and saw the meat in other cauldrons being further dried out over huge flames.

Remember that heat as we moved on to watch the production of dodol, a type of caramel made of palm sugar and coconut milk that are slowly cooked together, again in big, bubbling cauldrons.

Dodol’s interesting, because coconut milk has a gelatinous quality that becomes evident as it solidifies; dodol has a softer, gummier, less chewy and more tender texture than a western caramel. It’s frequently flavored with pandan, although Paco gave me one with durian, which he has decided is my new favorite flavor (it’s not; I like it now, but I like pandan, too).

It was all quite interesting, as was seeing the coconut-milk snacks made by pouring coconut milk mixed with flour and eggs into cast iron molds over smoldering fires, covered with coconut husks to give them a bit of extra smoky coconut essence.

But did I mention how hot it was?

We didn’t have much of an appetite for lunch, which was another traditional Kelantanese meal called nasi ulam kampung (rice and village greens, I believe).

The name of the meal focuses on the rice, but it really reminded me of the Thai meal known as nam phrik, which means (roughly) “chile paste.”

Here’s how they both work: You start with rice in the middle of your plate, and you add to it, one bite at a time from an array of dishes in the center of the table, any of a wide variety of greens and a dab of chile sauce (nam phrik in Thailand, sambal in Malaysia), augmented occasionally by a bit of meat or fish.

Our nasi ulam kampung also had a tasty roast chicken, fried fish and a couple of different fish curries, plus that fermented/rotten fish called budu that I was telling you about.

I told Paco that budu was one of those tastes that are not easily accessible to Westerners, and he said that lots of Malays don’t like it either, “including this one,” he said.

But A’dzimah showed me how to eat it.

Both A’dzimah and Paco are from near Kuala Lumpur, but A’dzimah married a man from Trengganu, the next state over from Kelantan, which shares an appreciation for budu.

The key, she basically explained, is not to eat very much of it. You mash some chile up in it, then get a bit of fish and a vegetable, and eat it all together.

I agree that if you have to eat fermented fish, maybe because, I don’t know, no other food is available or something, it’s a pretty good way to do it.

Along with various faintly aromatic greens that looked like weeds, we also had green jackfruit, which has a texture very much like artichoke hearts, and a vegetable that looks like a gigantic pea pod, maybe from the Cretaceous era. I knew it from Thailand as satoh, but Paco just called it “stinky bean,” probably because of its tendency to linger on the breath. I’ve always kind of liked its weird nuttiness.

I later learned its Malay name: petai.

We all agreed the chicken was terrific.