Flavor Boulevard

What defines a good macaron?

I googled, but found only “10 signs of a bad macaron“. My pâtissière friend Hanna Lim told me a few criteria: a good macaron should look smooth on the surface, crunchy (but not crumbly) on the outside and a little chewy(*) inside, it should not fall apart when you take a bite, it should be a clean bite – no crumbs, no cream spewing out on the side. Looking through the Facebook page of The Pastry of Dreams, I see gliding smooth macarons and beautiful cookie-to-cream ratio. Visually, they are perfect.

But what impresses me most is their taste. These almond cookies reflect what real fruits and nuts taste like in a cookie. Instead of being masked by sugar, the flavors that each cookie is supposed to contain shine through. “There are no shortcuts in our pastries,” says Liz Laval, the chemist-turn-pastry-chef who started The Pastry of Dreams. For something as simple as vanilla, she uses special vanilla beans imported from Madagascar to France and shipped to her by family living in France. “The one from here and the one that people import here is useless, you have to use 2 vanilla beans to get the amount that one of mine would produce,” she explained as I took a bite.

It’s true. Her vanilla butter cream has the richest and sweetest aroma of any vanilla-flavored things I’ve ever eaten, and there was the nuttiness of vanilla beans that the extract simply cannot have. It was more vanilla-y.

The same principle applies for other flavors too, lemon zest and juice for lemon macarons, real lavenders in the cream and cookie shell of lavender macarons… Except for the chocolate macarons, Liz goes as far as avoiding using ganache as a shortcut to stabilize the cream, relying instead on a technique she learned from France which she asked me not to reveal. Of course, I have no intention of making macaron myself either. After tasting Liz’s macarons and learning about her 3 years of studying, including macaron classes at Le Notre and l’Ecole de Cuisine Alain Ducasse in Paris, and her 6 months experimenting in the kitchen, I figure it’s best to simply enjoy the work of the professional.

After all, it would be difficult to match her skill, which is repeatedly recognized by chefs and consumers alike. One of Liz’s favorite stories is the macaron match against the pastry chef at Hôtel Cloitre Saint Louis à Avignon, which she won. Another was the Saint Honoré, a puff pastry with rose chantilly, lychee cream and raspberry compote, which was made specifically for the Valentine’s Day menu at La Colombe d’Or, Houston this year, and it was the most ordered dessert that day. As I’m writing this post, she just got home from Le Grand Concours Macaron, a macaron contest hosted by the Texan-French Alliance for the Arts, bringing with her two awards. Her white-and-dark-chocolate Phantom of the Opera macaron won 2nd place for People’s Choice and Best Macaron by the judges.

During our dinner at her apartment in Houston, we talked about how desserts can be so overwhelming with sweetness that you can’t take more than a few bites. The dainty size of the macaron and its light texture, if done right, help alleviating the problem. “Making a macaron is about making art, you want it to be the last thing the person remembers from their entire meal. At the end of the meal, I want you to have the feeling of wanting more.” That’s her motivation. But as I watch her lively two-year-old son Liam playing with his lego crocodile and listen to her husband Sébastien telling stories of the crazy hurdles that are American immigration, I suddenly realize what it is that makes her pastry taste so good. The happiness of her family. A beautiful son, a supportive husband, a dedicated young lady – it’s a little family that makes onlookers want to have family or are reminded of their own familial love, the picture-perfect family. Liz is a happy chef. Intentionally or not, she lets that happiness seep into her pastries. We eat them, and get infected with a smile.

——————
The Pastry of Dreams is based in Houston, Texas.
Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Laval
——————

(*) In macaron language, as Liz told me, “chewy” is like tootsie roll chewy, which is of course not what I mean here at all. Because macaron are meringue-based sweets, macaron chefs want the macarons to be melt-in-your-mouth. As you bite into the macaron though, “melt in your mouth” is not how I would describe the sensation, in fact, you go from something dry to something moist, and that moistness is what I call chewy. 😉

This post is for the Vietnamese expats in particular and anyone who thinks of the avocado as a fruit (to be eaten as a fruit, not a vegetable). In America, people tend to think of avocado in guacamole terms or as a meat substitute in sandwiches. If you think avocado for dessert is weird, shall we talk about your pumpkin pie? 😉

Ever since the day I saw the option of “avocado smoothie” at UCafe, I’ve had 3-5 avocado smoothies every week. Drinking each smoothie with boba was like looking through old photographs and reliving the beautiful days. The avocado is healthy, but that’s not why I like it. It’s the best option when I’m too tired to chew, want something mildly sweet and cold, and when the weather is too hot for meat and carbs. It replenishes my soul and keeps me alive through the summer humidity that accumulates in my tin-roof office building. I regret that I had not eaten more avocados in Vietnam, where the fruit is as big as my whole hand from wrist to middle finger tip and as luscious as molten chocolate cake.

I love the avocado smoothie at UCafe, but after a while it proves too expensive: a regular 12-oz cup, which costs nearly $4, contains only half an avocado. Berkeley Bowl sells palm-sized avocados (which they label as “extra-large”) for $1.69 each. So I bought a blender to make my own smoothie.

This is probably the first and only time I use my blender because cleaning a blender is not my favorite activity, and because I prefer smashed avocado than blended avocado (the ice dilutes the taste). Still, who knows when the blender might be handy again.

Recipe for avocado smoothie: (1 serving)
– 8 cubes of ice
– 1 large avocado
– 2 teaspoons of sugar
Blend and serve.

In Europe the royalty and the aristocracy used to eat a lot better than the peasants – they weren’t eating the same things at all. It was either partridge or porridge, and each class stuck to its own food. But when Queen Elizabeth came here and President Eisenhower bought her a hot dog I’m sure he felt confident that she couldn’t have had delivered to Buckingham Palace a better hot dog than that one he bought for her for maybe twenty cents at the ballpark. Because there is no better hot dog than a ballpark hot dog. Not for a dollar, not for ten dollars, not for a hundred thousand dollars could she get a better hot dog. She could get one for twenty cents and so could anybody else.
– Andy Warhol

Why is that ballpark hot dog the best hot dog? Because the ballpark hot dog seller sells nothing but hot dogs. You can’t beat someone who does it day in and day out, a thousand times and another thousand times more often than you.

Every time I look at Nancy Togami’s collection of hundreds of kokeshi, I’m reminded of this championship of experience. Each kokeshi artist carves the same shape, paints the same eyebrows, creates the same facial expression for one doll after another. After each doll, he’s one step closer to perfecting it.

After each oden, Nancy is one step closer to perfecting her oden. And umeboshi. And seared tuna with avocado, frisée, enoki, daikon and tobiko.

Three yixing teapots for three kinds of tea.
We started off with Buddha’s Hand and Tung Ting Cold Summit, then finished with Medium Roast Tieguanyin. The Tung Ting was surprisingly long-lasting even after the fifth infusion.

Seaweed salad and Nancy’s homemade umeboshi in the middle. Tsukemono (clockwise from the pink ginger): pickled ginger, pickled cucumber, lotus root, takuan, miso-pickled garlic, and salt-cured garlic (also pink).

More side dishes. “Red and White” carrot and daikon (salted and seasoned with sweet rice vinegar), abalone salad with tobiko, burdock root and carrot kimpira, and black beans.
The Buddha’s Hand oolong made a nice pairing with the pickled vegetables, as it emphasizes the vegetal freshness and floralized the aroma.

Seared tuna salad, with frisee, enoki, avocado, daikon, yuzu tobiko (yellow) and wasabi tobiko (green)

Oden – with spiral kamaboko and satsuma age (balls and rectangles), shrimp, chicken thighs, quail eggs, lotus roots, green onions, carrots, kombu, tofu, konnyaku, and Nancy’s years of making oden.
Among the three teas that we tried, Tung Ting was the best match with this soup. “Comforting” sums up everything.

Rice by Kenji san, i.e., Mr. Togami. Perfect with a sprinkle of furikake.

Lychee gelato, mango and ginger cookie to pair with anonymous but delicious oolong.

Cheesecake from La Farine, Fiorello’s raspberry gelato and balsamic caramel ice cream. Paired with the dry Medium Roast Tieguanyin, this dessert combination gives an intense finish that Nancy describes as citrus like grapefruit, while I find it more nutty and cocoa-y. 
Per Nancy’s advice, we sprinkled our balsamic caramel ice cream with some Iburi Jyo cherry-wood-smoked sea salt from Oga Peninsula of the Akita Prefecture, Japan.
The salt’s aroma is smoky yet sweet. It tastes as expensive as it costs.

The pictures speak for themselves better than I can. This American lady embraces Japanese tradition, cuisine and visual art and incorporates them into her daily lifestyle with so much fine details that humble my experience at any Japanese restaurant I have tried in America. Because they are restaurants. Nancy’s homemade oden is the ballpark hot dog that triumphs over any other hot dog, in the same way that our mothers’ homemade dinners are the best ballpark hot dogs, except they’re the hot dogs that only a handful of lucky people can get. 😉

The meal was so inspiring I felt like I could speak Japanese afterwards.

A very small part of Nancy’s kokeshi collection. Click on the image to see better details.

Yesterday was Flavor Boulevard’s 3rd birthday. Today is my nth birthday. Back in 2010, a good friend of mine used to give me a ride to San Jose at least once every other month, sometimes more, when I got cravings for Vietnamese food, and especially when the Lunar New Year approached. When Flavor Boulevard was about one year old, things got complicated. Long story short, I hadn’t been back to San Jose for two years. – Why? You couldn’t rent a car? – Well… you know the stereotype that Asian girls can’t drive? It’s true for this one. It’s embarrassing. People, even those who don’t like driving, feel much more relaxed when they drive me than when I drive them. I’m also used to driving in Houston, where signs are helpful and people are friendly. Driving in California scares me. I’ve been here for 4 years, driven here twice, and both times reaffirmed my scare. So Vietnamese food cravings are satiated with the places in Oakland, where I can reach by bus. I don’t remember what I did for the 2012 Tet (Vietnamese lunar new year), and there seems to be no record of it on Flavor Boulevard.

Then one day Mom decided: “Rent a car and go with Kristen to San Jose. It’ll be good for you to drive, and I wouldn’t worry as much as if you drive alone.” I asked Kristen, she agreed to join me (brave girl). I felt nervous and excited. I reserved a car. Step 1 complete.

I signed the paperwork and got the key. I turned on the engine. Yes! Step 2 complete.

I drove from Enterprise to Kristen‘s house. Minus the two times people honked at me and one strange male voice “where are you going baby?” that came from nowhere (there was no green light to turn left, I got confused and stopped at the intersection for god knows how long), I’d say it went smoothly. I parked across the street from her place. The phone call “I’m here” to her was the most accomplishing moment I felt last week. Step 3 complete.

There is a huge difference between driving alone and driving with another person. It’s more huge than the difference between I-880 from Oakland to San Jose and US-59 in Houston. We arrived at the Lion Supermarket. Step 4 complete.

We ate.

Cold-cuts bánh mì (silk sausage and pate).
Grilled pork bánh mì (also with pate).
A wider-than-my-hand ice cream bar with frozen banana, jackfruit, coconut shavings and peanuts that sent both of us back into the car to rest. (While resting, we sipped on sugar cane juice (with a salted kumquat) and tried to figure out the flavors of two frozen treats that tasted durian one minute, passion fruit the next, and jackfruit the next next. Those were weird.)
A giganmongous plate of bánh cuốn (steamed rice roll), where the rolls (quite a few of them too) were completely buried underneath a thousand other things: an eggroll, an infinite amount of chả lụa (silk sausage), fried shrimp sausage on sugar cane stick, bánh cống (fried mung bean bread), and a shrimp wafer. (We couldn’t finish this plate. A mere $10, not the best banh cuon I’ve ever had, but the leftover was enough for my dinner.)

We bought.

Bánh chưng for Tet.
Chewy sesame candy (mè xửng) and candied coconut strips, also for Tet.
Cha lua.
Pickled mustard greens.
Banana bread pudding.
Bánh xu xê.
Some fermented tofu cookies (I haven’t tried them yet, but Kristen said she likes them, so I think I’d like them too…)
Eleven green waffles at the Century Bakery, because when you buy 10 you get 1 free.
And other food things…

We drove back.

Minus one tiny tiny incident where stupid me forgot the key inside the car, locked us out, had to call Roadside Assistance and waited 30 minutes for the rescue, I’d say Step 5 was wildly successful.

I dropped Kristen off. Refilled the tank. Drove to Enterprise. Tried to park between a gargantuan 12-seat van (or maybe 17?) and a car. Got myself halfway into the spot and literally one inch away from the van before realizing that I could either stop or crash into the van. This was 7 pm, dark enough that the pedestrians who were pointing and laughing at my ridiculous situation couldn’t really see my face (I hope). Step 6 very far from complete. I called Kristen for rescue. She and her boyfriend rushed over. It was one of those moments when your friends seem to appear with a shining halo and white wings. I felt forever indebted to them.

When that car got into the spot (Kristen‘s boyfriend moved it like nothing at all), I sighed in relief, and strangely, my fear of driving in California also evaporated. The last barrier between me and food removed. I thought about the next trip to San Jose with ease. Now I can go there any time I want. Now I can have banh chung for Tet again. Now I can go everywhere.

Step 7 complete.

Step 8: learn how to park.

Happy Lunar New Year! Happy birthday to me. 🙂

Addresses:
Kim’s Sandwiches
1816 Tully Rd, San Jose, CA 95122
(408) 270-8903
CD Bakery
1816 Tully Road, Store #198, San Jose, CA 95122
(408) 238-1484
Thien Huong Banh Cuon Trang Hoi
1818 Tully Rd, San Jose, CA 95122
(408) 238-8485
Century Bakery (inside Grand Century Mall)
1111 Story Rd, San Jose, CA 95122
(408) 287-9188

P.S. Check out Kristen’s post about our adventure on her blog, she described the food in details. 😉

The latest addition to my dream house: a wooden platform to put in the garden where we can sit cross-legged, eat, drink tea, lie down while listening to the birds and wind chime. That platform, we call it phảng |fang|, but I don’t know the Japanese or English word for it :-/

It came about when Kristen and I sat on that wooden thing outside Ippuku tonight. It was outside outside, not a patio sitting, no chairs, no tables, just a platform like a wide bench. We came for their goma ice cream, and the wait for a table was super long so ordering at the bar was the best idea. You’d think it’d be cold, but there was the heater lamp hanging off the roof to warm us. My face was so warm I thought I was gonna get sunburn at 9 pm.

It was so relaxing. Sit cross-legged, savor sesame ice cream, sesame cracker and a mochi, watch the street and the boys goofing off on it, and be watched by people waiting for a table. Come to think of it, we weren’t any less goofy than those boys. 😀

Address: Ippuku
2130 Center Street #101
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 665-1969

I wrote about twenty different Ippuku dishes before. Every time I came here it feels nicer and nicer. The guy at the bar was also so kind, he gave us water and wet towels (one of which is visible in the picture to the right) although we only ordered one bowl of ice cream…

*Photo courtesy of Kristen Sun*

UPDATE: As of November 2013, this dessert is no more. The machine broke down and would cost too much to be fixed, mostly Asians like this dessert while non-Asians don’t, and management doesn’t consider Asians the target audience. I weep (with rage).

Heloise from Eating Modern voted me for the Super Sweet Blogger Award. Thank you, Heloise. 🙂 I did some quick Google search and this game seems at the very least a nice way to know who (besides myself) reads my blog and whose blog I read. So, I’ll treat it the same way I treat food: if someone tells me to try something, I’ll try it (except balut, dog meat, bear paws, and so on). Here goes the meme (it’d be nice to know who started it maybe…):

There are three rules to follow:

-The nominees have to thank the person that nominated them.
-Answer the 5 Super Sweet Questions — See below
-Nominate a bakers dozen of other Super Sweet Bloggers and let them know.

1. Cookies or cake: what kind of cookies and what kind of cakes? If not chewy chocolate chip cookies, then cake.
2. Chocolate or Vanilla: chocolate 97% of the time.
3. What is your favourite sweet treat? It’s a three-way tie: ice cream, chewy chocolate chip cookie, and mitarashi dango.
4. When do you crave sweet things the most? I actually don’t crave sweet things that often, probably because I always stock up on ice cream in my freezer. 😉
5. If you had a sweet nickname what would it be? Hmm it seems like my nicknames are pretty savory (bánh canh and phô mai (fromage) :-D) and I’d like to keep it that way 😉

My 12 nominees are: (this is hard… and in no particular order)
– Carolyn Jung at Food Gal – She inspires me, and she’s always so sweet in replying to her readers. I’d love to meet her one day.
– Ben at Focus:Snap:Eat – what can beat a chocolate cookie sandwich?
– Oanh Nguyen at Rau Om – love her amazake and lively personality. And her dinner parties.
– Hyunjoo Albrecht at Sinto Gourmet – okay so her blog is all about kimchi but this is about sweet bloggers, not sweets blogs, right? 😉 Btw, kimchi can be pretty sweet depending on how you define “sweet”. 😉
– “Kid Diva” at The Sugar Bar – her blog has not been active since last December, but I still like it, and I first learned about mitarashi dango from her blog.
– Hong and Kim at The Ravenous Couple – so many macarons
– Anh at A Food Lover’s Journey – she’s publishing a baking cookbook, can’t get sweeter than that 😉
– Catty at The Catty Life – Once she had this series of posts about green tea desserts, my second favorite flavor only after taro.
– Jessica at Food Mayhem – I don’t know, I haven’t met her, but she just seems so sweet. 🙂
– Bob Fukushima at Pacific Rim BBQ – a sweet BBQ guy, whichever way you read it.
– Jen Helsby at Where’s the Seitan? – her blog was short-lived, but we have the greatest time over food whenever we meet.
– Ginger from Ginger and Scotch – her stories in Dubai are just fun to read like a chocolate chip cookie that never goes old.

Jya, mate ☆ﾐ(o*･ω･)

Summer Green Roll – avocado, cucumber, kaiware sprout, wakame and hijiki. Alissa scooped wasabi like it was green tea ice cream, but I like this one just as it is: plain, fresh and light.

It’s been a long time since I last either wrote about food or ate anything that I could write about. The occasional rainfalls during the drought of takeout Chinese are so-so hu tieu and com suon somewhere in the Ranch 99 complex, and homemade soups, lovely but no hot news. Vegetable intake has been limited to shibazuke from Berkeley Bowl, homemade kimchi, and toasted seaweed (seaweed counts, doesn’t it?). Before leaving for her trip, Cheryl fed me her black chicken soup, brown rice, tau yew bak (similar to thit kho but with soy sauce instead of fish sauce) and, like a loving sister, concerned looks and advice on how I should feed myself healthy meals. I agree with her one hundred percent, but all planned menus for the next day fluttered their wings away as I run from class to class and get home only wishing to relax. Cheryl is married. I entertain the idea that I live like a single guy. A single guy that could not have looked more forward to a vegan dinner with some old friends.

After much debate we decided on a simple kampyo roll, a big fluffy summer green roll (that we each stuffed into our mouth in one bite to prove our manliness(*)), a Cha-Ya roll, a tempura stuffed eggplant, a gyoza and vegetable soup, and three desserts.

Cha-Ya Roll – avocado, yam and carrots, tempura roll with sweet soy sauce.

Tonchi Nasu – tempura stuffed eggplant with setsuma potato, corn, tofu, hijiki, soybean and carrot

Taku Sui – gyoza soup with tofu, broccoli, zucchini, napa cabbage, snap peas, asparagus, cauliflower, silver noodles and mushrooms in a light broth – I like this a lot!

Yellow Moon – tempura banana with a scoop of soy ice cream, drizzled with green tea sauce and red bean sauce

The Yellow Moon is just the tempura banana, the soy ice cream is listed as a separate dessert, but we shameless girls requested a scoop of ice cream with the banana. The Cha-Ya staff is so nice. 😉 This tempura banana is not oily like the deep fried banana desserts at Thai restaurants, the batter is light and plain. It gives you the impression of healthy foods.

Vegan chocolate cake (left) and Oshikuro (right) – plain white mochi in gooey red bean sauce. The red bean is a bit too sweet, but I like it still. The cake is like a soft brownie, not at all dry and lifeless like normal vegan cakes.

(*) In case you wonder, a picture of us is to the right.

Address: Cha-Ya Vegetarian Japanese Cuisine
(North Berkeley)
1686 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley CA 94709
(510) 981-1213
Dinner for four: roughly $90 – Kinda expensive now that I think about it…

One very cold Saturday afternoon in Oakland.

Darren: Normally I don’t like fruit flavored stuff, like watermelon candies you know?
Mai: Yeah, like cherry candies…
Darren: But this mango ice cream is really good!
Mai: It is! I like the green tea the most though, it’s so refreshing. What about you, Kristen?
Kristen: I usually don’t like strawberry flavors, but this strawberry one is so good…

Good thing we each had a different favorite.

When the girl took up our empty sushi plates and asked if we wanted dessert, we were already stuffed, which is a given every time Kristen and I go out together. But we asked the girl what’s on anyway, and she listed, if I remember correctly in my post-food stupor, “tempura ice cream, green tea ice cream, red bean ice cream, green tea cheesecake, seven flavors of mochi ice cream, which includes mango, vanilla, strawberry, green tea, red bean, coffee and chocolate”. We looked at each other for two seconds then at her.

– Can we have the seven flavors, please?
– You want all seven?!
*Looks exchanged*
– Uh… it’s not a thing of seven mochis?
– Well we can make a platter of that too. You want that?
– Yes please. *sheepish grin*

Never turn down ice cream.

Zero complaints on the tempura and the rolls too, they’re Americanized of course and we didn’t do any nigiri nor any of us Japanese. But if you’re American, happen to be near the intersection of Piedmont and Echo in Oakland while hungry for sushi, Shimizu is a sure bet.

Address: Shimizu Japanese Cuisine
4290 Piedmont Avenue
Oakland, CA 94611
(510) 653-7672
shimizucuisine.com

Volcano Scallop ($7.95) – Battered and deep fried scallops with sweet soy sauce

When I’m home, Little Mom pampers me with her food and sweeps me out of her kitchen, except when I open the fridge to snack, because her mind fixes on the idea that if she lets me touch the stove, I only make a mess. She’s right. Not to toot my own horn but when I’m home, I’m a lazy mess. So when I said Mom, let’s make bánh dầy đậu, she threw her hands up, said oh my sky there’s no more room in the fridge, made the bean paste herself, and only let me play with the dough. 😉

The mung bean paste filling is really the most important part of the Vietnamese mochi (similar to the Japanese mochi, but it’s 100% Vietnamese): you want it slightly savory, slightly sweet, and mashed. Little Mom is the queen of seasoning, so that part was flawless. My job was to knead the dough and roll up them balls. At least I didn’t have to pound steamed sticky rice into oblivion. I was kneading while watching TV with Mom. I was kneading when she sectioned her bánh bao dough into balls. I was still kneading when she wrapped the pork and egg inside the bánh bao dough. More kneading makes the mochi skin softer. After kneading, the rest was a breeze.

Bánh dầy đậu (pronounced kinda like |beng yay dou|) – Vietnamese mung bean mochi:

(Make 12 mochi)
– 250 g dried split mung bean (~ 2 cups), soaked overnight and deshelled
– 2 cup sticky rice flour
– 1 cup warm water
– 1 cup sliced mushroom
– salt and sugar to taste

The filling:
After soaking the mung bean overnight, wash away the green peel outside, we only want the yellow seed. Boil the mung bean until it’s tender. Mash the cooked bean.
Set aside 2 cup of mashed bean, let it dry and crumble to make mung bean powder.
Sautee mushroom, add the remaining mashed bean while sauteeing, add salt and sugar to taste. Let cool.
Make 12 small balls.

The mochi skin:
Pour water into the the rice flour while mixing with your hand. You should stop when the mix feels smooth but not liquidy. Add more water if the dough breaks.
Knead for at least 30 minutes.
Divide into 12 balls, flatten each into a small disk.

The complete mochi:
Put the mung bean ball into the middle of the skin, wrap it up, make sure that no bean leaks out. Drop the mochi in boiling water and cook until they float to the surface. Cook for another 2 minutes just to make sure.
Roll the still hot mochi balls in mung bean powder. Let them cool.

Enjoy with a cup of Buddha’s Hand oolong. 🙂

And eat an amazing cream puff. (Cream puffs >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Cupcakes) Click to see my post on the Spring Harvest Tea Party at Teance tonight. We drank some eye-opening teas, literally and figuratively.