Flavor Boulevard

If you just want to enjoy a piece of sweet flaky mooncake, Vietnamese sandwich stores and bakeries are the place to go. If you have plenty of time at hand and little trust for unknown kitchens, then hit the market to find these ingredients for a batch of 12 bánh bía:

1. The skin dough

– 375g all purpose flour (Pillsbury preferred)
– 110g confectioner sugar
– 80g corn/canola oil
– 100ml coconut milk (Chef’ Choice preferred)
– 50ml water.

Add flour, sugar, oil and coconut into a mixing bowl, then slowly add water while kneading until the dough is smooth. Don’t need over 2 minutes or the dough would be too hard to flatten later. Cover with cling wrap and let the dough sit for 1 hour. Divide into 12 balls afterwards.

2. The inner layer dough

– 125g tapioca flour
– 95g wheat flour
– 110g corn/canola oil

Mix the flours and oil together. Do not knead. Let sit for 1 hour, then divide into 12 balls.

3. Bean paste filling with durian flavor and salted egg yolk

– 400g mung bean (peeled and split)
– 300g sugar
– 1 cup oil
– 1 tbs maltose sugar
– 1 tsp baking soda
– 1/4 cup wheat starch (the type used for potsticker)
– 200g durian flesh (ground up in a food processor)
– 12 salted eggs
– 1 slice of ginger
– rice wine

Separate the egg yolks from the whites, wash with cold water, then soak the yolks in rice wine and finely chopped ginger for about 30 minutes. Take the yolks out the wine mixture and quickly soak them in vegetable oil. Finally, bake the yolks on aluminum foil in 300F for 10 minutes.

Soak the mung beans in water and baking soda until they soften. Rinse them with cold water, steam, wait until the beans cool to make a fine paste with the food processor.
In a non-stick pan, simmer the bean paste with 200g sugar, 2 tbs maltose, and 1/4 cup oil over low heat. In another pan, mix 1/2 cup oil with 100g sugar to make caramel on low heat. It should be golden brown, or the pastry filling would be bitter.
When the sugar has caramelized, pour the bean paste into it and mix until there is no visible sugar. Add 1/4 cup of oil and wheat starch and continue simmering. Lastly, add durian paste and stir until the bean mixture no longer sticks to the utensil. Let the paste cool and divide it up to 12 portions.

4. The egg wash

– 1 egg, room temperature
– a pinch of salt (kosher salt preferred)
– 1 tbsp water
– 1 tsp sesame oil
– 1 tsp cashew oil
– 1 tsp dark corn syrup

Mix all ingredients into a blend.

5. Make the cake
– Flatten each ball of skin dough, then use it to wrap the ball of inner layer dough (like a dumpling). Keep the dumplings moist until all 24 balls of skin dough and inner layer dough are paired up.
– Gently flatten each dumpling into oval shape about 2mm thick, roll the sheets into Swiss-rolls.
– Repeat the flattening process with the Swiss rolls, then let the dough balls rest for 15 minutes. Make sure that during this process the skin dough always covers the inner layer dough, or the pastry will have a rough surface after baking. If the dough is too tough, let it sit for 5-10 minutes. Do not exert too much force while flattening.
– Flatten the dough balls again into disks, and use them to wrap up the balls of bean paste (each with an egg yolk inside).
– Preheat oven to 400F
– Bake the pastries for 15 minutes, then take them out to brush egg wash on one side, and continue baking for another 10 minutes.
– Let the pastries cool and oil release for a few days.

6. Eat the cake
(Caution: it may be too fatty and sweet to eat whole, one quarter at a time is the usual safe quota)

Recipe translated from source.

My mother keeps a strict Buddhist habit of eating vegan twice a month, once on new moon day and once on full moon day. It’s a good way of practicing self control, especially when those vegan days fall on party days. Such as Thanksgiving dinner. While everyone was feasting away at the fat 20lb turkey, my mom watched the Dallas Cowboys and the Seahawks with a bowl of vegan instant pho.

I thought of a PhD comic in which Tajel and Cecilia prepared “tofurkey” for Thanksgiving and wondered if she would have preferred that to the pho. Then over the phone Mudpie brought up the likelihood of being a complete vegan in the future, possibly due to californianization. So I was reminded of a place we ate in Mountain View. A vegan place, surprised, no?

How about some (tofu) crab soup for starter?

I’m never a soup fan, first it’s too hot then it gets cold quickly, it’s like hot pocket without the pocket. But this one was baby bear’s soup. It was just the right amount, too. Tofu cubes, sweet corn, diced carrots, cilantro, and perhaps a little flour to thicken the broth? Very heart warming.

Scallion pancake: just simple fried batter with scallion, I suppose. But scallion is the hit. It smells good. Its flavor dominates and instead of blanddom you get all time favorite snack. Pickled carrots and green beans soften the greasy effect.

Do they look like drumsticks to you? Maybe. But not chicken legs. They didn’t taste like dark meat either. But they definitely were worth the bite. Crunchy and fun to eat. I like these. The only thing I would miss from a real chicken drumstick is the cartilage and the bone marrow (ok, that were two things), but if they’re deep fried there’s little chance any bone marrow would survive the fire anyway. Now onto the main course.

What is the classic dish every American would get at a Chinese restaurant (that is not sweet-n-sour chicken)? Orange Chicken! Our friendly hostess recommended it to us tonight. Presumably you can never go wrong with a chinese chicken, even if it’s not a real chicken. Tofu clumps of various shapes pretended to be oddly cut chicken pieces, browned (not oranged) in sugar and soy sauce and many other ingredients I can’t dissect. They might have been too flavorful by themselves, but were great with fried rice, just like a good chicken always is.

What is the one Chinese dish every American, including my Greek professor who has lived in America for a long time, knows the name of? Peking Duck, you got it! This is no Peking duck, just duck. In fact, it’s no duck, just a bundle of different kinds of tofu, but close enough. It looked just like the real duck, with skin, bone, fat and everything. I felt there were strands of “meat” when I ate this. The only difference is we could eat the bone, which makes it better than real duck. It’s been too long to remember if it was sweet or salty or what, but the stew sauce was arguably the best part of the dish. It shows seasoning is the key to make something taste good, not the stuff being seasoned.

We probably would have gone for dessert to complete a three-course supper, had the restaurant any dessert. But thank God they didn’t, we were so full by the time we said goodbye to the friendly hostess. For only $36.15, we had enough leftovers for another lunch. Excellent service. Take a look at the menu. (It grew since last time we were there.)

Address: Garden Fresh Vegetarian Restaurant
1245 West El Camino Real
Mountain View, CA 94040
(650) 254-1688

The Hong Kong Market IV complex in Bellaire is always busy. At least during the days I go there. And I’ve been there an awful lot of times. No matter what time it is, the closest parking spot we could get was about 20 rows away from the door. Makes me wonder whose cars those 20 rows are, cannot be just the market’s employees’, can it? On the other hand, across from the artificial minipond and fountain, Tay Do restaurant looks so quiet we didn’t know if it was opened.

This is lunch hour, guys. The place is clearly so packed we had to wait to be seated. The only visible person in charge was talking on the phone and to a waitress behind the kitchen counter, and only spotted our unexpected visit after 10 minutes. Feeling welcome?

Except for the wait, we got more attention from the waiters the rest of our visit. Of course, the service here is about as indifferent as many other Vietnamese eateries, but at least we got our water, our food, and our bill in a timely manner. After all, we came to eat, not to chat and find companionship. And eat we did. A lot. Starting with appetizer: cua lột chiên bơ (butter-fried soft shell crab), eaten with fresh xà lách xoong (watercress). This is simply a must-have. I don’t like crabs because it’s too much work for too little meat, but when the crustaceans are caught shedding their exoskeleton to grow, the shell is soft enough to be edible, and among various possible recipes one of the best is you deep fried ’em. My taste buds like it, but thinking of the weak unprotected crab being thrown into a vat of boiling oil is, you know, unnerving. I wouldn’t be able to do it myself.

As we stuffed the last crab legs down our throat, the array of main course was brought out. From top to bottom: vịt chiên khoai môn (fried duck with taro), bò xào sate (stir fried beef in sate), and bánh hỏi tôm thịt nướng (banh hoi with grilled pork and shrimp).

The taro is the purplish layer underneath the duck meat. I like duck, and I like taro. But somehow the combination wasn’t spectacular. The taro was too sweet and the duck was too dry. Overall score: 2.0/10.0 for innovative idea.

The beef is a tongue trigger. It might have been a tad salty, but was great with steamed rice. I know it’s not spicy because my mom could eat it. 6.5/10 for taste and oldschoolness.

When I wrote this wikipedia article about bánh hỏi I couldn’t find any picture of just banh hoi by itself, without the oodles of meat and condiments atop. Why, you may wonder. Because banh hoi is simply fine thin rice noodle. It’s simply white. It doesn’t look appetizing on pictures by itself. And it doesn’t taste amazing by itself either. Much less because this is downtown Houston and the best banh hoi we can get is the dried prepackaged type imported from Vietnam. Things change after a long voyage. Was it an enjoyable dish with the company of grilled pork and shrimp, though? Oh yes. Don’t forget spoonfuls of nuoc mam either. The best thing is this dish is so light. I was not miserable after finishing it. 6.5/10 for satisfaction.

The whole bill came out $57.26. There were a few other customers coming in as we were leaving. The manager/main waiter informed us that this place has been mentioned in several American reviews (didn’t say which ones), and since they’ve been here since I first went to Bellaire in 11th grade, I suppose their business is decent. The red lanterns hanging at the front door enhance the Chinese look, the menu is littered with kung pao chicken and chow mein, the restaurant is named Tay Do (West Capital) after the common name for Cần Thơ, Vietnam. But that’s ok. How should I sum this up? Shania Twain’s song comes to mind.

Address: Tay Do Restaurant (next to Hong Kong Mall)
11201 Bellaire Blvd
Houston, TX 77072
(281) 988-8939