Flavor Boulevard

You know how some dishes just instantly come up when you think of certain places? Those are the dishes that always get served when you go on tours to the region they’re associated with, like barbecue in Texas, crawfish in Louisiana, crab in Maryland, clam in the little island Nantucket of Massachusetts. Well, in the deep south Mekong delta of Vietnam, where there are more rivers and canals than Venice, freshwater fish multiply like crazy and the countryside inhabitants make fish dishes like crazy. But for some reason, the name “Mekong Delta” is always linked with “cá kho tộ” (fish simmered in claypot). Why?

The fish (usually catfish) is cut up into thick sections across the body, skin and bone intact (scales off, though), simmered in fish sauce and caramel sauce until it turns beautifully brown inside and out. The mixed sauce is thick and savory, it’s sweet, it’s salty, it can spike up your senses if you add a fillip of chili pepper. Some might argue that fish can taste good by themselves, but this sauce alone would make every mouth water. I’d take the sauce and the sauce-soaked skin anytime over the flesh.

Then again, I had never thought about eating it when I was in Vietnam. Footless animals don’t appeal to me, footless animals with stinky needle bones ready to get stuck in my esophagus appeal to me even less. Footless animals with stinky needle bones were also too abundant, too cheap, and too easy to get when I was there, that boredom won over appreciation of taste. Pick any little food shack for workers on the streets of Saigon, any family-owned eatery by the side of the highway, any book about Southern Vietnamese cuisine, you’re bound to find two things: cá kho tộ and canh chua. It became trite. Little did I know that one day I’d only find it  again in an expensive restaurant in Berkeley.

A few restaurants in Bellaire advertise claypot fish in their menus, but usually say they’re out when you order. It could just be because the dish takes quite some time to make, and scrubbing away those little clay pots with caramelized sauce and fish isn’t really a desirable job. So I was ecstatic when they actually had it at Le Regal (just one good meal after another). The pot came out hot and sizzling, two slabs of fish steaks snuggled in the bubbling golden brown addiction. Fish had never smelled so good. The order does not come with rice, but plain white rice is a must, unless you want to slowly take in nibbles and licks overpacked with flavors.  Be sure to save a bit of rice to clean the pot after all the fish is gone.

Price: about $12-13. (This menu is completely out of date on the price, and does not have all the dishes currently served, but nonetheless it can give you an idea of what they have.)

Address: Le Regal
2126 Center Street, Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 845-4020

Click here to read Holy Basil‘s recipe of ca kho to.

Although we try to be objective, numerous factors always manage to skew our view in one way or another. Surely there are objective facts, like the restaurant is small or the fries are spicy, but generally the taste can be affected by the conversation of a nearby dining couple, the window seats looking out to a blazing sun, an unusual day at work, or sometimes just the unwillingness to compliment. The mood makes the food. My mood wasn’t particularly bad last time I was at Anzu, but it was particularly good this time I was there, as we were seated in this half-hidden corner. The bamboo curtain half obscured the view, the brown and green room was half sedative. The oksusu cha was half surprising, but fully pleasant.

We didn’t expect to be seated in such nice seclusion, nor did we anticipate an appetizer. But now that it came, two small cubes of fried tofu with honey,we seemed to recall that last time they also gave us something small for taste opening – a couple of gyozas it was. The tofu beats the gyoza. A thin crunchy crust contrasts yet complements the soft-almost-to-creamy inside, same with the bean blandness and the honey sweetness. Tofu can really do wonders sometimes.

For the main course, Anzu offers some good deals with combinations, such as a bento-box meal – like what we ordered last time – or the sushi-udon pair which we got today. The sushi comes in a full roll (6 pieces), with thinly sliced ginger and wasabi for kicks. But really, you don’t need kicks with California rolls, the nori’s salty streaks and avocado’s buttery dollop suffice. I also believe that what we have here was real crab meat, not surimi, because it wasn’t rubbery. It was good.

The sansai udon was also a delight. Thick wheat noodle in vegetable broth, it tastes far more interesting than it sounds. The stock is so pure and yet so relishing, with a profound taste of shungiku (Garland chrysanthemum, or rau tần ô). There was also an unsolved mystery: the pickled “bean sprouts” (translucent strands at the left corner). They look like bean sprouts, but only from a distance: close circumspection revealed rectangular cuts.  They also taste starchy like some kind of root. I incline to say turnip, as such texture is midway between the porous crunch of jicama and the granulous dense of potato. Whatever it was, it had a great companion – some kind of pickled radish in ruby color. It was like a sour candy, all different tangy levels sang a song in unison, the song is called “The Best Pickle I’ve ever Had”.

Yes, this visit was full of cute little surprises. What can I say, subjective factors aside, some restaurants are like a bunch of grapes, you wouldn’t stop eating the bunch just because the first grape you picked out happens to be a bit sour. Anzu at Berkeley is such a place, and this time, the grape was perfect.

Dinner for two (free appetizer, 1 California roll, 1 udon, 1 tonkatsu): $15.04

Anzu Japanese Cuisine at Berkeley
2433 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 843-9236

P.S. Anzu also has an excellent salad dressing made of peanut sauce, mayonnaise, and a bit of seasoning. The salad comes with the entree, no extra fee.

Update: the “bean sprouts” are actually kohlrabi (German turnip, or su hào). Thanks to my mom who knows every ingredient upon hearing the description of the texture!

When Mother is a good cook, too often she’s also a dainty diner. Her standard of a good outie consists of a spotless floor, a high ceiling, white table cloth, classy customers, and fine china. So when it comes to taking Mother out for dinner, I have to be extra careful. French is always a safe choice. A French restaurant in the City of Trees is even better, as the rows of Eucalyptus loftily overlooked us driving through, bringing her back to memories of Saigon’s Duy Tan Street. The good mood was set. We arrived at La Boheme in the midst of a sun-bathed afternoon Farmers’ Market, white tents made the variegated crowd all the more picturesque. A step into the open-doored restaurant and the ambience transformed into cool air, quietude, and refined elegance.

Seeing that it was past noon, we skipped the appetizers. The benefit of having company is the ease of trying out different categories in a menu: from land to sea to bakery, from duck confit stew to pan-roasted salmon to sandwich la Bohème.
It would be almost contrived to go about describing the taste. The look says it all. Tenderness shows on the lustrous russet hue of the duck skin, succulence is embedded in the creamy tone of “ground apple” purée, garden’s and oven’s crisps join harmonically in vibrant colors. Perhaps the only setback was the acrid zest of dijon mustard on the sandwich, a taste I have yet to acquaint.

Like a palette with no fixed sets of color patches, this pâtisserie does not have a fixed dessert menu all year round. The business goes by daily creations, but the mousse and the mille-feuille are as irresistible to the chefs as they are enticing to the diners: the window counter cannot lack their beauty, nor can the palates refuse their luscious embrace. Just this once I actually let go of the wicked craving for chocolate and chose the fruity mousse, every morsel of which I adored. Indeed, nothing can beat the citric acid’s touch of delight.

Was it the drowsy sunbeams that made this cafe more removed from its neighboring reality and closer to some distant realm one can only find in books and old movies? Two ladies in their late 60s and wide brim hats softly sipped the afternoon away at a nearby table. Their presence furnished the luncheonette with a whiff of Chez la Père Lathuille – minus Manet’s humorous romantic air, of course, and plus a few walls.

La Bohème Café & Pâtisserie

1425 Burlingame Avenue
Burlingame, CA 94101
650-347-3331

Lunch (and dessert) for Four: $81.94

Two hours north east of Kingwood is this town Woodville. So peaceful is the thirty-some-mile long hilly road from Livingston to it, a thin ribbon through the verdency. Every year mom and dad find it rewarding to make the drive to eat chicken and dumpling at a local restaurant there, when the wind turns cold and the sky is covered in mesmerizing gray. But this year the pilgrimage took a different turn. We missed the chicken dumpling by half an hour, and starvation is not easily appeased with only a tranquil landscape. We drove further to downtown Woodville, found Jack in the Box and Z’s Fillin Station. It was God’s will? We pulled into Z’s Fillin Station.

Long menu. The hostess waited patiently for our order, but exhaustion showed on her face. She was also the cook. The host, big and friendly like any countryman of Texas, eagerly checked on us and was happy when we cleaned our plates. A few men in cowboy boots swaggered in, nodded hi to us. This part of Texas is rural and secluded, but it’s nice precisely because of that. People here are home-folk like the land they’ve settled on. The food, too, is bawdy.

Philly cheese steak, crawfish poboy, and grilled catfish all came in good portions. A hearty meal with good grease and good salt, with black pepper and bell pepper, with half-boiled broccoli fighting an uphill battle against cheese and butter. But at the end, although the food was absolutely life-saving on that day and quite delectable in its earthy nature, it wasn’t the memory-trigger for me about this “filling station”. What did it were the painted wooden bird houses, the doorbell connected to an iron weight by a rope and a pulley, the collection of car plates from all over the States – some dated back to the time Texas needed only three letters to identify a vehicle. It’s the pure romance in the rust. This place preserves a part of time for those who will not change no matter how the world transforms.

Address: Z’s Fillin Station
307 N Magnolia
Woodville, TX 75979
409-283-5300

Price: Lunch for 3 – 36.64

And here it is, I finally got a chance to blog about the chicken and dumpling joint that we missed.

The French colonizers brought many things to Vietnam – Catholic churches, potatoes, veston, coffee and rubber tree plantations, to name a few – but perhaps their baking recipes have left the sweetest memories. Some of those recipes were modified, like the baguette with extra leavening became the crisp and light banh mi, or the croissant with extra butter which is crisp at the two horns (to match its Vietnamese name – “water buffalo’s horn”), golden and shiny at the bottom, more substantial inside, subtly salty, and smells delicious from several feet away. Some names have mysteriously disappeared from the world wide web of delicacies and can only be found in Vietnamese conversations, Vietnamese bakeries, and Vietnamese food blogs – the pâte chaud falls into this category. But many stay true to their origin, like the choux à la crème, the gâteau, and the buche de Noel.

There’s the frosting. It can be white chocolate, coffee, hazelnut, even durian flavor, but the traditional dark chocolate ganache is best in my opinion. There’s the middle layer to resemble tree rings, chocolate again is great but pineapple jam if you like it fruity but not too sweet. There’s the layer of spongy génoise, soft, light, plain, a levee to keep the palates from a sugar flood. As for decoration, powder sugar would make a good snow, meringue mushroom to look more botanical, a couple of icing roses, branches, or pine trees to be Christmasy, some fresh raspberries for a little tart.

The Vietnamese keep the tradition of a strictly European réveillon even after the French left, no member of spring rolls, rice noodle, sticky rice, sweet bean paste and the gang are allowed, but goose is extremely welcome and buche de Noel is a must. Then we crossed the sea and here in America although Christmas desserts are overwhelming – fruitcakes, gingerbread, pumpkin pies, mince pies, banana bread, candies and cookies – la buche de Noel doesn’t exist. Why is that? We brought over the turkey, the ham, the Christmas tree, even the actual Yule log to be burnt in the fireplace, why is the edible and delicious Yule log left behind?

Anyway, our little homesick craving has been found in a Vietnamese bakery northwest of Houston. Made by preorder, each log costs $29 at Xuan Huong.

Address: Xuân Hương Bakery
13480 Veterans Memorial Dr. Suite D
(in the same shopping center with Hong Kong Market #3)
Houston, TX 77014

(281) 895-6553

Drop the ingredients into the boiling stock, let ’em bob up and down while you watch and chat, tak’em out and whack’em on top of a wad of noodle, pour a ladle of broth, and inhale the sweet steam… So what constitutes a good hot pot? Well, the stock is of course the key, then it’s common practice to have some meat, seafood, vegetables (some kind of leafy greens and mushroom), some noodle for the starch base. But there is no set rule. Whatever you want in your mouth, you can put into the hot pot. We opted for the half-and-half stock: Vietnamese lau and Japanese shabu. The two are quite similar, but the Vietnamese lau has tomato and is slightly more seasoned. Both stocks contain green onion and sweet onion, the taste is neutral, neither too salty nor too sweet, just downright savory. In increasing order, you can add more tomatoes, pineapple, or tamarind to make it sour, and any kind of chili pepper until your eyes water.

Canadian style thin egg noodle went well with everything. As for the add-ons, we also picked the moderate route, with beef rib eye, beef meat ball (hidden behind the Napa cabbage), broccoli and spinach, fish ball and tiger prawn, a garlic sesame oil sauce (suggested by the waitress but did little to enhance the flavor). Opinions split about the fish balls: Mother and Mudpie like their soft, almost gummy texture, while the rest of the crew voted for the firm and definitive beef balls, which I believe contain ground bits of tendon.

We forwent beansprouts and mushrooms to make room for the yau ja kwai (or dau chao quay, Chinese deep fried bread sticks, usually accompanying soups and porridge). Its misleading name in the menu, “Chinese donuts”, gave the impression of sugar glaze, perhaps even rainbow sprinkles and chocolate? Asian cooks are inventive, but we are not that Picassoesque. No, they are just simple crispy oily sticks of dough to jazz up yet another texture in the variety. Their fluffiness soaks up the broth, delivers it to your mouth packaged and speedy. I remember dau chao quay in Saigon are a tad more salty and less flaky than those served here. The owner of this restaurant is Chinese, so perhaps he prefers it the original way.

Address: Hot Pot City
8300 W. Sam Houston Pwy
Sugarland, TX 77478
832-328-3888

Price:
1 Half-n-Half soup base for 6: 8.95
3 Noodle: 3 x 3.50
+ beef rib eye slice, beef meat ball, fish ball, tiger prawn, napa cabbage, spinach, broccoli, dau chao quay, garlic sesame oil sauce
= total +tax: 57.72

The bill is softer (~$35) if you order the pre-selected combinations and let the kitchen surprise you with what goes into your bowls. Either way, hot pot might just be the easiest solution for a small gathering, as everyone can pick their favorite ingredients, cook and enjoy at the table in their own way without the worries about preparation and post-party cleanup. It can be problematic if a member has some hard feelings against soups or anything cooked in liquids. They would then have to enjoy the posh fractal designs on the walls and Lady Gaga’s rhythmic gnarling in the background, since the menu here offers nothing but hot pot.

It was 7 PM in Houston. Cold winds crept up the rustling trees. We were in the mood for kolaches. No kolache store was opened. (I would be surprised if I could even find some right after noon, it’s usually sold out by 9 AM at any local Shipley Donuts.) Desperate as we were for something small and meaty, we pulled into this backyard parking lot on a dark little street of Montrose. The name is cute, but… “Go Horns”?!*

A few years ago I would have shy away from any place resembling a shady, fuming pub with TV screens blasting out a football game, hoards of muscles with beer in one hand, cigarette in the other, and a gigantic burger streaming cheese and lard in front of the mouth. That’s what Little Big’s looks like from the outside. But the patio was empty. And so were our tummies.

Inside, it was a tamed ambience with three or four rows of long tables and high stools. It has a TV, and football was on, but no attentive enthusiasts screaming at the screen or banging mugs on the table. There was little room between the door and the counter to stand looking at the overhead menu, but luckily we had an expert of the area with us to quickly order and moved out of the way. Everyone walking in here seemed to know exactly what they were hungry for. Not that there are much to choose from on the card.

This joint doesn’t have mayonnaise out for a squeeze. I was in great despair, considering the array of mustards on display. Although the special house sauce was white and good, I thought I felt a tidbit of jalapeno or something equally mordant; besides, it lacked the creamy consistency of mayo. My worries quickly diminished, though. It was instant love at first sight between me and the sliders – baby burgers that can fit snuggly in your cupped palm and come in herds of three. Each herd will set you back by 5.79, an addition of cheese constitutes another 69 cents. Who needs the busy shebang of tomato, lettuce, and those of vegetable origin that keep falling out embarrassingly every time you take a bite? The beef patty admits a layer of rich, juicy grilled onion, and the fried chicken breast was comfortable with a slice or two of pickles. (As Katie put it, Chick-fil-A knows their stuff.) But that was it. A slider epitomizes the way to eat a burger: if you want one, don’t let guilt cover it up with skimpy fresh bits of greens. There is no such thing as a tasty healthy burger, beside one that is only savoured by the eyes.

*Texas A&M was the only school I applied to, so I consider myself a pure bred Aggie.

Back then we used to take a break from Fortran coding, cross the street from the old Physics building to McDonald’s to refuel at midnight. Now having moved up the ladder, we have little unpretentious Chinese and Japanese down the block, though certainly they don’t open 24/7. A vegetable tempura is much lighter and less savory than a chicken nugget, but many of them would do. The batter is a mere coat for earthy cuts of sweet potato, squash, onion rings, and broccoli. The flavor does not go beyond steam pockets eagerly exploding and crumbled flakes scattering like confetti. Like sushi, Japanese tempura standing alone sans sauce is food for the eye, not quite the taste buds.

The same thing holds for beef teriyaki. Dark red grilled complexion topped with sesame seeds beautifully masks a rather dry and sinewy texture. The clear, thin dipping sauce needs some more ingredients to balance its salty lonesomeness. If you order teriyaki at Anzu, don’t expect the commercialized, Americanized, sauce-logged beef and chicken teriyaki in a Subway sandwich, it’s simply not the same.

The katsudon saved the day. Short for tonkatsu donburi (deep fried pork cutlet rice bowl), the concoction has the sweetness of egg-coated onions, the tenderness of breaded lean pork, the moist of gooey white rice. Each spoon was filling and satisfactory. Maybe I’ll eat this again before my next exam.

The trophy of Simplest Delicacy that day must belong to a tie among the miso soup (I suppose this is shiromiso (white miso)?), the edamame (boiled green soybeans in the pod), and the red beans which I have searched everywhere to no avail (but to find this colorful assessment on pickles in Secrets of the City). A miso soup this simple is more or less a salty version of herbal tea, you warm your hands with it, you gulp it down, no spoon, no vegetable, no meat, no chewing, just tiny white dusts of fermented legume forming vortices and clouds in a translucent dashi (vegetable and seafood stock). Then you squeezed a firm, crunchy soybean out of the pod, preferably with teeth and tongue, to taste a hint of salt on the fuzzy case. The red beans with their complimentary sweetness and a very, very quiet pickling sensation were just pure joy. We found these at Berkel Berkel too, any idea what they’re called?

Update: Anzu revisited

Anzu (in Berkeley, not to be confused with Anzu in San Francisco)
Dinner for 2: $24.58
Address:
2433 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704
510-843-9236

When asked about Vietnamese food, Americans usually think of phở busily churned out in small noodle houses crowded with plastic chairs and formica tables. Naturally, since most immigrants gather in their community, the variety of traditional food can only circulate in specific areas. A small fraction of the people have settled in a predominantly American neighborhood long enough and are acquainted with the system enough to set up a business, but they often target the young customers with adventurous taste. Meanwhile, most young customers can only afford low price, hence phở and other easily-made noodle dishes make their way to the top.

Careful circumspection would show that pasta alla carbonara requires no more effort than bún thịt nướng, so is it just a matter of gaudy names, flashy advertisement, and aging familiarity that brought one into fancy menus but not the other?

By no means do I want to sound like a snob, but every now and then I get cravings for a nice dinner in a restaurant aptly labeled “restaurant”. Ladles of this melting cheese and mounts of that grated cheese just no longer light the candle. A retouch of Far Eastern eloquence was much needed to make the aesthetic night.

The price is a little steep, but here are clothed tables, warm lights, an all-English menu, little to no disturbances from foreign chattering in the kitchen and among customers. A middle-aged woman, busy like a humming bird, scampered from kitchen to tables with plates in one hand, orders and bills in the other. For a restaurant with a fair size like Le Regal, one-person play seems a little overwhelming. But it works, our food was served within the time it took for us to make a few glances at the decor and exchange some daily news.

Fried rice is an easy dish, if you throw in some meat, some egg, some legumes, some salt and soy sauce, it can be called well done. Its volatility allows the cook to break free from shackles of recipes, and the eaters to relax from judging its missing-this or extra-that. There’s no fixed list of ingredients, no fixed standard other than appealing to the mouth, hence no objective criterion to rank a plate of fried rice among others. But if we were to nitpick, creativity would pump this one fried rice on top of all other Asian concoctions I’ve had, simply because of the addition of pineapple. There were only a few wedges in that mount, but pineapple is not one to be bullied by other ingredients, its tamed acidity seeps through every grain of rice, sweeter and more thorough than a squeeze of lemon. It helps lowering the guilt of consuming chicken, shrimp, scallops, pork, fried egg and zillions of molecules of saturated fat in frying oil. The rice also made tasty leftover for the next day.

As much as the cook was generous with the protein and the starch, they also gave us enough veggies for ten. At other Vietnamese restaurants, a small plate of sprouts topped with some basil is the usual allowance. Here came a basket of mounting garden goodies. I hadn’t seen any bunch of greens this big for years, especially since we weren’t asking for phở. Not sure what to do, we made lettuce wraps with bean sprout, a couple of leaves of basil and mint, and grilled beef from the other dish we ordered. Dipped in nuoc mam, the wraps were rad.

I’ve blogged about bánh hỏi thịt nướng before, so instead of blabbing about the lacy texture, I’d just say that this was delicious. Now clearly it’s a bit disproportionate, nowhere in Vietnam would you find so much meat accompanying so little banh hoi, the rice vermicelli must be the base. But the food pyramid seems to be upside down in America, where meat is vital in keeping you thin and at all cost one must say no to starch. The cook also went bizerk with deep fried shallots and crush peanuts, but those are easily brushed off if you’re not into contaminating grilled beef with relatives of vegetables.

Together with Tomatina, Alborz, some Mexican eatery, and Top Dog, Le Régal makes Center Street a road of international cuisine, of course an addition of kangaroo ragout and kitfo would be nice.

Bill before tip: $26.23 – dinner for two and leftover lunch for one.

Address:
Le Regal
2126 Center Street (between Oxford & Shattuck)
Berkeley, CA 94704

There are three free things the Bear Transit has to offer (when the buses do come): a ride to and from campus uphill (free for those with a UCB ID), a lively chat between the bus driver and his or her favorite passenger (feel free to eavesdrop – even if you don’t want to, you have to – they’re loud), and a tour around downtown Berkeley, also happened to be the part cluttered with everything from restaurants to food trucks (if you have a free eye to wander). This last offer led to my finding of Azerbaijan Cuisine.

Although Alborz was shy of making the list of ubercmuc’s favorites, I thought I should give Persian food another try. After a winter shower, Fulton Street was sparkly clean. The trees shed another layer of their bright foliage. The breeze was quirky but not too cold. It was the perfect weather for a hearty meal in a nice restaurant. Like Alborz, Azerbaijan Cuisine shows great effort in designing an attractive, spacious interior. Plain white light bounces off mahogany surfaces and crystal wine glass, giving a delicate coziness that makes you smile softly and talk with care. But unlike Alborz, Azerbaijan Cuisine gives you house-baked pita bread for appetizer. It’s unevenly crunchy, light and mildly sweet, promising a satisfactory affair.

To make sure that we would go home with at least one full tummy, Mudpie pulled the safe card and ordered a serving of ground beef kabob accompanied by saffron rice. The chargrilled tomato on the side was arguably the most flavorful item on the plate.

As usual I opted for the most obnoxiously meaty choice on the menu – the Koofteh tabrizi (full description: “jumbo lamb meatball stuffed with dried plum, barberries, boiled egg and fried onion in tomato broth served with fresh berbs and bread – 14.95”)

Whoever made this must have dreamed of eating dinosaur eggs. I probably should have expanded my cavity as much as the frog in La Fontaine’s fable had swollen hers in order to store this gargantuan loaf of fare. Although the colors were inviting, if you’re not into bland food, this wouldn’t cheer up your palates. It was the first time I ever had to use both the herbs and the salt shaker on the table in a restaurant, with much liberty, still I couldn’t help but relating myself to a cow savoring golden bales of hay. Persian folks, being landlocked, seem to have built an appetite for meat-rich, sodium-poor diet. A strong cardiovascular system they must have.

To end on good terms, the dessert menu looks quite interesting. Perhaps one day I’ll come back for the bastani and the palloodeh. Ice cream doesn’t need salt, does it?

Dinner for two: Koobideh (12.95) + Koofteh tabrizi (14.95) = $30.62

Address: Azerbaijan Cuisine (part of Eclipse Cafe)
2175A Allston Street (the corner of Allston and Fulton)
Berkeley, CA 94704
510-704-1718

Update on August 9, 2010: This place is closed.