 A while ago, I was fairly convinced that of all the different types of spiciness, I can handle the Korean spiciness. Take kimchi for instance, it usually looks scarier than it tastes, and the scorching can be quickly washed away with corn tea. Not an eye was bat when I saw the garnet broth of Il Me Jeong‘s specialty. It’s just loads of shredded beef, sesame leaf, glass noodle, green onions, etc., in a thin soup. Then tears rained down. No more yuk gae jang (육개장) for Mai. Ever. Il Mi Jeong has good unagi don and bossam though. 😉 Go for those instead.
 If you had to choose, what is the most Vietnamese dish? If you are a Vietnamese expat, what would make your mouth water the most just thinking about? What is the food, the smell, the taste that when you see or hear some stranger is savoring, you’d immediately think, “hey, he must be my fellow countryman”? One of my friends lives in Freiburg, Germany. There is one Vietnamese restaurant 1 km away from the University, der Reis-Garten, and it is the only Vietnamese restaurant in a 40-km radius (the next one is across the border: Le Bol d’Or in Wintzenheim, France). For over 6 years living away from home, he survived on pasta and tomato sauce, students don’t have time. One day, external circumstances have finally driven him to decide that he no longer needs to suppress his cravings out of consideration towards his Germanic housemates. He bought a bottle of fish sauce. The next day he made thịt kho. That makes it official: he’s Vietnamese, and he hasn’t forgotten it. “Success?” “Did you add coconut juice?” “Do you have eggs in the pot?” “Do you have chả lụa […]
Continue reading Year in, year out, savoring the savoriest of pork
 Great Khan is big, clean, American-looking, and in Houston. Little Mom took me here. It’s an ideal place to get glutton and gain some weight, that probably was her intention for me. The idea is splendid: ~$8 for the first bowl, which includes a small bowl of meat, a small bowl of vegetables, rice or noodle of choice (or both), and an extra $2 for unlimited extra food if you’re still hungry. The “wok” masters gather at the big grilling platform in the middle (no wok), waiting for you to hand over what you think would constitute the best bowl of Mongolian grill. Confronted by rows of shining vegetables and meats and a dozen kinds of sauces, you’re tempted to pile and press as many different things as possible into the little bowls. Over the years, I’ve had my share of stirfries (a Mongolian grill is really a stirfry). To put it more bluntly, I’m Vietnamese, I know stirfries. Truth is, a good stirfry is a simple stirfry. 0. The starch: choose thin rice vermicelli That stuff soaks up the sauce the best and meshes well with other things texturally. Thick noodle would be too bland […]
Continue reading The trick to a good bowl of Mongolian grill
 Who goes to a sushi and donburi house to get dessert? Me. It got it all. Tropical, fried, icecreamy, salty, nutty, fruity. It’s the dessert of Miyuki. Miyuki sweet: eggroll filled with banana and pine nut to pair with vanilla and mango ice cream. Ah, and a dash of chocolate syrup, of course. Address: Miyuki 1695 Solano Avenue Berkeley, CA 94707 (510) 524-1286
 Yesterday Yookyung and I made songpyeon (송편), japchae, bindaetteok (mung bean pancake), dotorimuk (도토리묵 acorn jelly) and 5 kinds of jeon (battered fried vegetables and seafood in this case). Actually, Yookyung prepared everything, I was just making a few bad looking songpyeon and flipping some jeon in the skillet, but I felt so Dae Jang Geum. 😛 What did I contribute to the festive dinner? Four baked red bean mooncake. Yookyung liked them. 🙂 Then in my Korean class this morning, Chang seonsengnim gave each of us two songpyeon, smaller than our homemade version but prettier, one filled with sweetened sesame seed and the other with mung bean paste. Life’s good. Songpyeon is kinda like bánh dẻo (literally, “chewy cake”) bánh ít trần in Vietnam, steamed, chewy, and a tad sticky, but because they’re so much smaller than bánh dẻo bánh ít, they don’t get repetitive and overdosing as quickly. They’re also not as dense as the baked mooncakes. They’re cute. Happy Chuseok! Happy Trung Thu! 🙂
 Both times that we wandered about this perpetually sunbathed town, we found ourselves drifting to the corner of Marcy and Washington for some perpetually melting sweets. Without Ecco Espresso & Gelato, I don’t know if I could have made it to O’Keefe museum the first day. Ice cream is my life source. They have 20 flavors each time we’re there, rotating the rarer avocado, boysenberry and guava while keeping the common but ever-endearing chocolate and lime. As they claim, “what’s in [their] gelato case changes too quickly for [them] to post” on the website; I fantasize that Ecco’s gelataios just wake up and churn whatever ingredients they dream of the night before. There were always a few magenta red raspberry things in the case, and at least among the three of us, raspberry appears to be one of the most popular flavors to pair: with sake, with lime, with cherry, and with chocolate. I can eat chilled mashed avocado (with or without sugar) as a hefty dessert for 70 years straight, but like taro ice cream, avocado gelato may sound weird to the American palates that […]
Continue reading Ecco the Oasis
 So we’ve been stealing bananas for nothing. Today I discovered that St. John’s cafeteria lets you have take-outs. As many boxes as your heart’s content. I know, right? What school cafeteria does this? Their food is not out of this world or anything, but for us student conference attendees, who pay only $50 per week for a room and 2 meals a day, I’d say it’s pretty sweet. And here I thought we’ve been sneaky after every meal, before walking out of the dining hall, we wrapped up one banana or a piece of brownie to save for breakfast the next day (‘cuz breakfast isn’t included in the 50 bucks). Oih, St. John’s, you crashed my smuggling dreams.
 “When in New Mexico, eat chile,” that’s what I’ve been told before my trip to Santa Fe this week. I’m not particularly crazy about chile, but I’ve also been told by a reliable source that the New Mexican chile is a whole different game from the Texan chile (which the reliable source is not particularly crazy about either), implying that the New Mexican chile is something worth looking for. And so be it: the first time my girl friends and I descended from the St. John’s College cafeteria to downtown Santa Fe, we joined everyone else at the Bumble Bee’s for burritos and tacos. Of course, I got the only thing on the menu that has “chile” in its name: the Red Chile Chicken Burrito ($10.81 with tax). It was huge. It was chubbier than my arm, stuffed with exceedingly tender chicken and smothered in pico de gallo, queso cotija, and red chile. The chicken was no doubt tasty, but the raw onion overpowered everything else in bitterness, which didn’t help the monotonic spicy chile, either. I stopped short after a third of the way. […]
Continue reading Red chile at Bumble Bee’s
 It is not pretty, but from the label I knew right away that it would be good. Strips of nutty taro embedded in soft-chewy tapioca just got on my list of things to make, if I ever feel like cooking. That can mean only one thing: the online recipes seem that simple. If you google “bánh khoai môn hấp“, and presumably you read Vietnamese, the first links you find will contain something like dried shrimps (tôm khô) and pork, perhaps some mỡ hành (green onion in lard), too. That version is similar to Woo Tul Gow (or Woo Tau Ko). I haven’t tried that nor seen it in any cling-wrapped styrofoam plate at banh mi shops. If you don’t read Vietnamese, well… that’s why you have me :D: I translate. Here’s the Vietnamese recipe of the (vegan) steamed taro cake from Thư Viện Phật Học (The Library of Buddhist Studies), which most resembles what I’ve gotten from Alpha Bakery & Deli. Actually, this recipe sounds better. Like most Vietnamese recipes online, this one lacks precise measurement (which I agree with to some extent, but that’s […]
Continue reading Sandwich Shop Goodies 18 – Vegan steamed taro cake (bánh khoai môn hấp)
 What hits the spot in the morning better than a hot packed handful of sweet sticky rice with muối mè (sesame-sugar-salt mix)? A hot packed handful of sweet sticky rice with soft steamed whole peanuts and muối mè. Xôi đậu – my forbidden childhood love. $1.50 for a full tummy. Mom did not want me to eat too much xôi đậu in the past because peanuts are known for producing gas excess.
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