Week #11 German

Okay, so German food isn't going to win any awards as the world's sexiest cuisine. There's meat, potatoes, meat, cabbage, meat, fish, meat, bread. And more meat. And more bread. And strudels and noodles and bier, oh my! Yeah, I know Germany makes some fine wines, but they're just not the first thing you think of when someone says, "Hey, let's go get some German food."

This assessment is not fair. But it's easy--stereotypes always are (hah! Look at that. I just stereotyped stereotypes--and it was easy!). Germany is made up of 16 states that cover an area that's somewhere between the size of California and Nevada, so a truly representative sampling involves a lot more than one trip to one restaurant in Los Angeles. That's all I have to work with right now, so it's a point of departure, not the whole shebanginenerinenen.

Himself had other plans that night, so I hooked up with our friends Brian and Kevin and went to The Red Lion in Silver Lake. Brian spent his junior year of college in Germany, and this place takes him back to those salad days (although I'm betting salad didn't figure into them very much!). I've also found that a lot of the area's German residents love The Red Lion for the food as well as for the brews and the atmosphere, so I figured we'd get a decent representation of German chow there.

I tend not to like beer I can read through, so I ordered their schwarzbier, which quite literally means "black beer." It's dark like my favorite, Guinness, but slightly sweet. I prefer the Irish stout, but this black lager was still a good accompaniment to the meat, er, the meal. (It's helpful when writing about German food that meal and meat are only one letter off!)

sausage platter: three kinds of sausages with German mustard, pickles & peppers

We started with a trio of sausages, sweet-and-sour pickles, surprisingly hot peppers and a good sturdy mustard. The German sausage most people seem familiar with is the bratwurst, on the right, which is a standard of tailgate parties and backyard events. It's larger and not as dense as its companions, the rich and smoky bockwurst in front, and the knockwurst, the smaller, spicier one to the left. I'm thinking that someday a sausage tour of Germany is in order. Each region has at least a few sausages that are distinct from all the rest, and I wouldn't mind trying them all.

 

detail: This basic white bread was really satisfying. I could have eaten at least two platters of those sausages with a basket of  bread and maybe an additional schwarzbier.

I love highly seasoned food, bordering on herb-and-spice chaos, so the sausages were my favorite item of the evening. I've certainly had more aggressively seasoned food than German sausages, but compared to the entrées, the sausages were spice-happy. As satisfied as we would have been to just order a few more platters of sausage, we knew we had to wade further into the menu.

Beef Rouladen

Kevin's beef rouladen involved two rolls of boiled beef stuffed with onions, pickles and bacon. The generous blanket of gravy helped moisten the boiled meat, which dries out when you cook it in water because all the fat stays behind in the water. The rouladen was dense but flavorful. It was served with potatoes and red sauerkraut, rounding out a hearty meal to eat before you put in a day's physical labor.

 

Schweinebrauten

"Brauten" essentially means to braise, that is, to cook a piece of meat slowly on a low temperature. It's the best way to make a tough piece of meat tender. To my mind, tough meat that's been treated well is more agreeable in flavor and texture than some tender cut you don't have to work with (I'm sure there are parallels to be drawn here with human beings!). Brian and I delved into two different types. My schweinebrauten was two generous slabs of roast pork loin that were blanketed in what seemed to be the same gravy as that on Kevin's beef roulade. Mine too was served with mashed potatoes and a kraut that was only mildly tangy. I always steel my tonsils for sauerkraut, so they and I were surprised--and a little disappointed--not to get that acidy jolt we anticipated.

 

 Sauerbrauten with Spätzle

Typically, sauerbrauten is parked in a strong, vinegary marinade for three to four days before cooking. That didn't seem to be the case here, as Brian's had almost no detectable acidic flavor to it. Maybe they were making concessions to the non-German patrons? I don't know, but the meat was really, really mild. The spätzle, though, was wonderful. Brian said that those delicate little noodles were his own personal German comfort food. I can see why--they're soft and warm and inviting.

Spätzle was devised in southern Germany, which is the closest part to Italy, from whence all those lovely noodles come. So this is the German take on the noodle (some Germans attribute this particular food to ancient Roman occupation). Spätzle, though, is very eggy and made from a batter, not from a dough, which makes for a softer, more luscious noodle. This is making me want to go mix up some spätzle batter for dinner tonight. Or for right now. It's great tossed with browned butter and garnished with fried fresh sage leaves.   

 Schwarzwalder Kirchetorte: Black Forest Cherry Cake

For dessert we shared a piece of schwarzwalder kirchetorte. It's one of the first desserts I learned to make in culinary school. In fact, I can make it more easily than I can pronounce it. This one was not heavily imbibed with kirchwasser or any other liquor that we could detect, probably because in the United States people tend to frown on their children getting twirly on dessert. Still, chocolate, cherries and whipped cream.....mmmmm..... What's not to love about that combo?

When you think about it, if you grew up on the East Coast, in the Midwest, in the South--actually, most anywhere in the United States--chances are your standard meal included meat, potato, a veg or two and some bread. That's very German, very English. Growing up in the rural South, I ate a lot deep-fried this and that. "Spaghetti" was ground beef and tomato sauce poured over noodles that had been broken up before cooking, for ease of eating. No seasonings beyond salt and pepper. And I didn't have pizza until I was in college. So while the fare we had on this outing was good, it wasn't some new and exciting combination of flavors. While I'm not of German stock, this food had a familiarity to it.

There's one thing to be said for these less glamorous foods--they're more likely to be your comfort food than something pretty and fussy and exotic. While the version of spaghetti I grew up with was in no way authentic--and really quite bland--I can envision times when it would be quite pleasurable to shovel in a bowlful during a time of stress or loss. The same can be said for a plate of spätzle or a slice of schweinebrauten and a mound of mashed potatoes. Sometimes this is really all we need.

Week #10 Chilean

When I think of Chilean comestibles, what comes to mind first is Chile's burgeoning wine industry. One look at the map and you can see why wine has become a staple of the economy--there's all that vino-riffic geography sandwiched between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean where they've been creating wine since the era of the Spanish conquistadors. But what about the food? Time to find out!

Rincon Chileno on Melrose (close to L.A. City College) is one of those mom-n-pop places that local Chileans flock to, so I figured it would be a good place for us to sample the native fare. Himself and I walked in and essentially fell facedown on the buffet. It looked like the locals were doing the same, so we didn't feel out of place at all. However we did stand out, because we were the only people there who, with our blue eyes and fair features, were obviously not from the neighborhood. It's a good sign that you're in an authentic restaurant when you don't look like you could blend in.

I apologize for this unglamorous photo of a rather beastly looking pile of "a little bit of everything," but when you want to get a feel for--and a taste of--a country's cuisine, a buffet is a helpful thing, visual appeal be damned!

A big ol' mmmmessy buffet plate, complete with three presentations of potatoes.

I'll take this clockwise-ish and point out some items of note: At 12:00 is the potato patty, which was filled with scallions and fried. It reminded me a lot of Irish boxty. At 1:00 are camarons, shrimp. At 3:00 is pastel de papas, a ground beef and potato pie that looks like the Chilean take on the English shepherd's pie; at 4:00 is pastel de choclo, a ground beef and corn pie with egg and black olives; at 8:00 are beef and mushrooms in a brown sauce. All three of these were rich and satisfying. At 10-11:00, providing a fresh, bright counterpoint to all the richness was the standard Chilean salad of tomatoes and green beans. In the middle are mussels topped with cheese and a pastry filled with ham and cheese. While everything was flavorful, nothing was spicy at all. Even though we encountered this a few weeks ago with Colombian food, it's still a surprise to me. Silly, but my tummy-mind still believes that if it's a food from south of the US, it must be spicy.

What was NO surprise was finding potatoes in three forms on my plate. Honestly, I thought there would be even more, since this is the part of the world that gifted us with the potato.

 This potato and scallion fried patty reminds me of Irish boxty.

Himself's plate: Some repeats, but I wanted to show you that big ol' generous portion of whiting fish stretched across the center of the plate. This was actually one of the smaller pieces!

Also surprising was the casualness with which the fish and seafood were tossed in with everything else. Typically buffets showcase seafood, treat it like royalty and set it off on its own, sometimes even providing a plate specifically for it. I found it rather refreshing that it was included so easily, as if they're saying, "Yes we have meat and veg, but our coastline is so expansive that we have plenty of seafood to share." The bounty was certainly evident in those honkin' big pieces of whiting fish, called merluza frita. It's a meaty fish with a clean taste, rather like halibut, but just a bit lighter.

pan amasado, in the attached bakery next door

Accompanying our meal was pan amasado, a Chilean bread made with lard. It has a smooth exterior and an inside that is flaky like a biscuit. The texture and flavor are biscuity as well. Their size and shape make them the perfect Chilean sandwich bread.

All this and a robust glass of sangria, and you'd think we'd be set for the day. But no, there's always dessert to be reckoned with...

 

 Flan & Brazo de Reina--"Arm of the Queen"

 

 Some desserts to sample later.

Most of the desserts were heavy on caramelized sugar and sweetened, condensed milk. Flan is the best known example of this--it's a pretty standard dessert throughout the Latin regions. The Brazo de Reina, or "arm of the queen" looked like a jelly roll, but it was filled with sweetened, condensed milk that had been cooked down to a thick creamy caramelized paste. Alfajor, the sandwich cookie to the left, is made of melt-in-your-mouth cookies with dulce de leche inside; the other two (I didn't catch their names) are puff pastries such as you'd find in any European bakery. The one in front was topped with jelly. The roll of pastry to the right was filled with dulce de leche, too, similar to the "queen's arm" except that it was made of puffed pastry leaves rather than cake. All were good in that tooth-achy sort of way that sends you scrambling to the dentist!

 

tres empanadas with pebre

We also carried away an array of empanadas, which made excellent lunches this past week. All were baked, rather than fried, and all were savory, no sweets in the bunch. To the right is a spinach and cheese empanada; at the bottom, chicken (my personal fav); and at the left, beef and egg. The substantial crust around them--especially on the beef empanada--reminds me of those on England's Cornish pasties, nifty handles for eating your meal without making a mess. For both flavor and ease of consumption, these put the American fast food and frozen food versions to shame. Every crinkle, every fold was made by hand. Machines just can't put into them what the human touch does. The pebre, a salsa verde, is pretty warm stuff, the only truly spicy element in the entire meal. Our server set a large bowl of it on the table when she brought the sangria and pan amasado. It essentially goes well on anything, except maybe dessert. When the owner boxed up our empanadas-to-go, he gave us a generous supply as well.

I found an item in the news just this week about the spat between Chile and Peru in which both claim to be the birthplace of the potato. My blog entry from the previous week mentioned the Malaysian and Indonesian quarrel over food, so I guess everyone needs bragging rights to something. (I'm from Memphis, and while I know barbecue wasn't invented there, I do think ours is the best!) But when food is such an important vehicle for peace, for sitting at table and breaking bread together, it's a shame to get into a snit over where it came from. If there's going to be a food fight, how about executing it in a much more fun way, perhaps in the style of Animal House?

Week #9 Malaysian

I'm beginning to suspect there's not a cuisine on the planet that is unique, none that exist without the influence of any other culture. It just doesn't happen that way. Not that I'm complaining. The tendency to jettison what's dull in f(l)avor of what's tasty ensures that regardless of where you go in the world, chances are you'll find something good to eat.

Certainly, there's no malaise in Malaysian food. Accompanied by our buddies James and Jeff, Himself and I trekked to Yazmin Malaysian Restaurant in Alhambra, where we ordered an appetizer and four entrées to share and savor. Malaysian is a crossroads of food culture that borrows from Indonesian, Chinese and Indian cuisines, to name but a few. Because Malaysia is predominantly Muslim, you won't find pork on most menus. And among Hindu Malaysians, you won't find beef. But with such a wealth of flavor, there's plenty to enjoy and no feeling of deprivation.

Poh Piah (or popiah in Taiwan--if you're writing about food there and getting paid by the word, it's best to use the Malaysian spelling!)

We started with poh piah, spring rolls that are fresh, not fried. The ingredients are cooked but not the wheat-based skin in which they are rolled. These were filled with ground beef and veggies and served with a hot dipping sauce--if you zoom in on this photo, you'll see enough red pepper seeds in there to set the entire neighborhood to crying. Whew! Poh piah is a major street food not only in Malaysia but throughout Southeast Asia. Note the platter: While most Malaysian meals I've had included at least one banana leaf used as a serving dish, the platter beneath the poh piah is actually made to LOOK like a giant banana leaf. At this restaurant I guess they opt for reusable dishes over the disposables. Of course, banana leaves are the ultimate in "green" dinnerware, so I guess this one's a draw, huh?

Beef Rendang

The French have boeuf bourguignon, the Irish have beef and stout, and in Malaysia they have beef rendang. Instead of braising their beef in wine or stout, Malay cooks use coconut milk. The result is similar: a tough cut of beef that is cooked slowly on low heat until it is fall-apart tender. Only the flavorings are different, to reflect what is available locally. It was redolent with garlic, ginger, lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime, star anise, cardamom, cinnamon and cloves. We ladled it over steamed rice, but it would have been just fine on its own. This stuff was heady and rich and wonderful.

Claypot Chicken Curry with Mango

I also fell in love with the claypot chicken curry. See all those chunks of mango in there? They added a rich sweetness to the chicken stew. It was wonderfully fragrant, with cumin and coriander, coconut milk and a hint of peanut. And some chiles, of course. Let's not forget the heat! This dish fired on all cylinders. Yeah, I hid some steamed rice under this, too.

Vegetarian Char Kuei Teow

This char kuei teow, or fresh rice noodles, was served with tofu and greens. If it reminds you of chow mein, that's the Chinese influence showing. Since we already had two chicken dishes and a beef dish, we opted for the tofu and vegetable version for the sake of variety. I admit, compared to the other dishes, this one seemed a little uninspired, but on the other hand, it provided a counterpoint to the more aggressively seasoned dishes. This one wasn't made with eggs, but as with chow mein, it's not uncommon to find them stirred in during the cooking.

Curry Laksa with Chicken

Laksa is to Malaysians what chicken soup is to Americans--a bowl of warmth, nourishment and comfort. But laksa has much more complex flavors and ingredients that make it a richer and more satisfying meal. They simmer a broth base of coconut milk with an array of seasonings, then add in noodles, chicken and seafood. While this was a simpler version, I've had many bowls of laksa dressed with fresh raw ingredients on top, to stir in, for more flavor and varied textures.

That's rambutan in my fruit juice, not eyeballs, thank you very much! To the right is the outrageous Pandan Cendol.

While I had fruit juice with pineapple-stuffed rambutan in it, Himself got pandan cendol to drink--a party in a glass, I'd call it. This wildly colored drink was actually listed in the dessert category--and in fact is a particularly beloved dessert in Malaysia, but I don't think he noticed that when he ordered it. It's made of coconut milk--if you're counting you'll know that's the fourth item on the table with coconut milk--with long noodles made from pandan leaves (that's what looks like green worms in the bottom of the mug), and beans. Yes beans. Sweet, sweet beans, lovely, ruddy azuki beans in this case. The Asian cuisines know how to sweeten beans and use them in myriad ways we've never pondered in the West. But we should. They're surely healthier than some things we snack on and indulge in.

We said "hold the shrimp" on all the dishes, since James is allergic, and we didn't fancy hauling him into the emergency room. But in spite of this omission, each dish still held a bounty of flavor and texture.

From what I'm seeing in the news, tensions are rising between Malaysia and Indonesia, as each is accusing the other of stealing their culture. But let's face it, they're all interlaced, and their cuisines, like their cultures, are more alike than they are different. Looks to me like politics raising its ugly head, and that's a shame. I'd much rather focus on the rich and diverse cultural aspects of this region--of any region.

Week #8 Armenian

 It seemed like a good idea at the time, ordering a feast, and we really thought we were up to the challenge. But the morning after our Armenian adventure, I'm so full that I'm tempted to just post pictures of the meal without writing about it. I'm afraid it'll only make me feel fuller.

Missi and Casey accompanied Himself and me to Carousel Restaurant in that section of Hollywood where Little Armenia and Thai Town flow together and interweave. If you're ever hungry and stranded in Los Angeles, this is the BEST neighborhood to be in. It's jam packed with restaurants of these two entirely different cultures, both of which excel at laying out a generous spread of amazingly good food.

We decided that we were game for the Hollywood Feast, so-named because of the restaurant's location. Our server's eyebrows headed toward the ceiling. "Are you SURE?" she asked. "Yes!" we affirmed in our blind optimism, figuring that if it was on the menu then it must be doable. And if we were going to overdose on food, best that it be really tasty--and reasonably healthy--stuff. But then a tidal wave of dishes began to flow over our table. Every time our server set something down, she warned us that more was on the way.

I counted 23 different items, 25 if you include the lavash and olives--okay, 26, since there were two types of olives. The idea was to enjoy a bite or two of each item and take the rest home, which we did. But the food was so tasty that we couldn't stop after just one bite of each. Fresh and flavorful were the keywords for everything. I'm sure there wasn't a can stashed anywhere in their kitchen, or a boxed mix or anything frozen.

I'm meze-crazy! Clockwise, starting from 12:00:
muhammara, mutabbal, tabbulleh, & hammos

There were the standard meze: baba ghanoush and dolmas--which Armenians call mutabbal and warak enab--hammos, tabbulleh and fattoush salad, all of which were exemplary. We could have made a meal off of these, along with our olives, pickled turnips and lavash.

Fattoush Salad: tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, bell peppers, parsley, mint & pita chips, tossed with a spicy lemon dressing

And the amazing meze just kept coming! Clockwise from 12:00: labneh with peppers, beef liver with tomatoes & onions, sarma & shanklish)

Muhammara is a mixture of ground walnuts, pomegranate syrup and aleppo pepper paste. When that heats you up, you can dive into the labneh, to cool you off, a delicious compensation. The shanklish is a flavorful salad made of spicy cheese, tomatoes, onions and fresh mint leaves.

While I'm not a huge fan of beef liver, this liver was seriously good--good enough that, yes, I'd order it again. It was well-seasoned and cooked with lemon juice, which helped lighten that thick organy-ness. And they didn't bread it, so it wasn't unnecessarily heavy.

 

Fatayers & Kebbeh

Then we had several types of fatayer, that is, lavash filled with meat, eggplant and cheese (some grilled and some baked), and fried kebbeh, which looked like footballs filled with beef. The rest of our food was and heavy on vegetables--and nothing else was breaded or fried--so we munched the kebbeh and the super-thin breads with minimal guilt.

Maaneh

The maaneh, tiny lamb sausages, were tasty and aromatic--almost perfumed. The other sausages were larger and looked and tasted a little like elk, but I'm not sure just what they were. My ID'ing skills on that one are: 1. It's meat. 2. It's tasty.

Kebbeh Nayyeh

Speaking of tasty, the kebbeh nayyeh, or steak tartar, was amazing. Creamy and rich with just the right balance of seasonings, onion, tomato and parsley.

lovely, lovely roasted meats with lavash

Then a platter of roasted meats arrived--beef fillet, chicken and lula kabab, all possessing just the right amount of char. To some major-league meat eaters, this might not look like enough meat for four people, but with the other meats and all the other forms of protein we'd already had, we were full by the time this arrive. Still, we had to sample it all. And did I mention the rice and bulghur pilafs? Yes, I'm feeling full again, just typing these words--yet hungry at the same time. How does THAT work?!

Himself and I began to feel like amateurs in the eating department. Missi, who had put in a good run that morning, more than replenished what she'd burned off that day. Even Casey, who leads a super-active life in the great out-o'-doors climbing mountains and scouting wildlife, began to slow down at this point. We may have we hit the wall, but at least it was in a good way. It's like being a happy tired.

Ash el Sarayya

Our beverages ranged from the salty tun, a plain yogurt drink that's wonderfully refreshing on a hot day, to the super-sweet jallab, a grape molasses and rosewater drink topped with pine nuts. I think the jallab would have made a good dessert. Believe it or not, we were brave enough (yeah, brave is the word I'm going to use) to order dessert, although the four of us shared ONE item, and we didn't quite finish it. Ash el sarayya is a honeycake topped with thick cream and ground, toasted pistachios. It's actually lighter than this description would lead you to believe.

The cuisines of the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean overlap to a great extent. Aside from variations in spelling of the dishes and slight differences in seasoning and cooking methods, the primary difference I find between Armenian food and the region's other cuisines is its bread. While the pita is ubiquitous throughout this region, lavash is the bread of choice on the Armenian table. A super-thin, unleavened bread, lavash is used for dips, sandwiches and wraps. (Pitas may be flat, but they still require yeast to achieve their cushiony texture.) There's something really satisfying about the texture of lavash. It's soft, smooth and delicate but becomes wonderfully crackly when you toast it.

Typically, when I ask someone in a Greek restaurant, or Lebanese or Armenian or Persian or Turkish what makes their food distinctive from those of their neighbor countries, the response is usually, "Ours is the best!" I've eaten many meals from this region of the world, and I've yet to be disappointed. These folks are serious about their food. Our Armenian feast is one of the best meals I've had yet. And the leftovers were just as good.

Doing a Julia?

Over dinner recently, our food-n-cocktail pal Chuck revealed yet another of his myriad talents: He did a dead-on, fall-down-funny impression of Julia Child.

Aside from making my stomach muscles ache from laughing so hard, Chuck's impression got me thinking about an early George Carlin routine on impressions. He said that absolutely everyone could do an Ed Sullivan impression, and that what you needed in order to do a good one was to come up with an off-the-wall variety of acts you could announce using Ed's particular vocalisms and posture. I think this could well be replaced with a Julia Child impression. What would distinguish your impression would be warbling a variety of bizarre dishes and preparation methods using your best Julia voice and posture.

"I'm going to show you how to cut tenderloins from this freshly-killed wildebeest (make a wild gesture, hoisting a large animal carcass high above your head with one hand). Then I'll give it a nice bath in a marinade of red wine, herbs and cigar tobacco, and I'll char it with my trusty blowtorch (fwooot! of the trusty blowtorch). We'll enjoy it with some fluffy mashed potatoes into which I'm going to stir some yak's milk butter and these lovely, fresh lawn clippings.

Today on the French Chefff...!"

Well, they DO say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I hear Julia loved Dan Aykroyd's impression of her in that legendary Saturday Night Live sketch. I wonder how she'd feel about getting the Ed Sullivan treatment?

Week #7 Cambodian (Khmer)

Asian food and I are old buddies. I've had plenty of Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese, Malaysian, Japanese and Korean food, but never Cambodian. Not until now.

We trekked out to the San Gabriel Valley, the stronghold of many of LA's Asian populations, in search of a cuisine that most people don't think of first when they think of Asian food. We saw only one other Caucasian during our visit to Battambang in San Gabriel, which is always the sign of an authentic restaurant outside of the West. The menu was immense--it would take us months to sample everything, so we had to do the best we could with just the two of us. This is definitely a place we want to return to and bring a group of friends. The large round tables with giant lazy susans in the middle certainly encourage parties and sharing food.

All the dishes arrived simultaneously, which is the custom in Cambodia, an overwhelming sight. There's no easing into the meal with the beverage and then the appetizer and then the salad. It's Ta-da! time in rapid order.

 Bánh He

 Our appetizer was Bánh He, a plate of fritters filled with rice and shallots, deep fried and served with a sweet-hot dipping sauce. The combination of shallot with the sweet sauce in the rich fried coating make this the perfect food to order in large quantities with a pitcher of beer. Seriously, Bánh He should make it onto bar menus. It would be a great alternative to jalapeno poppers and those overdone fried-onion monstrosities.

Pork broth, chunky style

Among the dishes on our table was a large bowl of pork broth. We didn't order it, but apparently this is as standard to a Cambodian meal as salt, pepper and sugar would be on most Western tables. It was quite literally pig juice, with three large bones in the bowl, and some shallots and cilantro leaves stirred in. We enjoyed a sip of this broth after every few bites of food--a great digestive aid.

Fish Curry

Himself ordered a fish curry that we ladled over a bed of jasmine rice. I could have made an entire meal off this--it was fishy-salty, with some heat on the back end. No doubt, it was made with prahok, a salty fish paste that's used a lot in Cambodian cooking. I can imagine this being a great thing to eat the morning after a night out on the town. Satisfying and rejuvenative. I could use these words to describe everything on the table. (If we'd been there for breakfast, this fish curry would have been served with a baguette, a culinary holdover from the French colonial period.)

 Beef Luc Lac on a bed of jasmine rice, with pickled veggies on the side

My Com Bo Luc Lac, a.k.a. "shaken beef" was really good, too. I kept expecting to find a sweetness, but that didn't seem to be too prominent in the array of flavors we sampled. The richness of the meat was tamed by the tang of the accompanying pickled vegetables and lightened by the jasmine rice. (By the way, the method of cooking, by agitating or tossing the beef in the wok is what makes it shaken.)

An assortment of cool, green veggies: cucumber, cabbage, lettuce, green beans and one I still can't identify--the one in the top middle of the photo with all those peppery seeds.

In addition to the pickled vegetables, we had a plate of assorted raw green veggies to crunch along with our rich, cooked foods. We were surprised by the melon-looking vegetable that tasted smooth and cucumbery, but that contained seeds that were quite peppery when we bit into them. This item remains a mystery, even after questioning, cookbook perusal and internet research. It was difficult to ask too many questions, since the amount of English spoken by those working there, including servers, the manager and a busser--all of whom tried to help us--was quite limited. Even if we could speak a little Cambodian, it would probably be confined to "hello," "good-bye" and "where's the bathroom?" Questions like "What kind of bones are in my soup?" and "What is this vegetable called?" don't typically show up in basic language courses, either Cambodian OR English. Still, such mysteries are great fun. I felt like we were in good hands, so it didn't bother me at all that I couldn't identify everything I ate.

Pennywort Drink

Himself blanched when I suggested ordering the durian drink (I'm sure he'd have been able to smell it from across the table), so I opted for an intensely green beverage made of pennywort leaves. It wasn't bad but then it wasn't exactly scrummy, either. I think that if you boiled, puréed and strained a big bag of iceberg lettuce, then added sugar and green food coloring, you might have an idea of what it was like. I did a little research on pennywort and discovered that it's also known as gotu kola, which you find in abundance at health food stores as an ayurvedic remedy. It's supposed to be good for curing leprosy and helping opium addicts kick the habit. That's good to know, should my life ever change in ways I don't anticipate.

Unlike in Thailand, where dishes contain a balance of salty, sweet, sour, bitter and spicy, Cambodian food is either salty, sweet, sour or bitter, with various hot condiments that you can add as you wish. They don't typically blend these four flavors--instead, you get a separate dish with each component of the flavor spectrum.

Cambodian food reveals simplicity and adaptability. There aren't a lot of what you'd call traditional dishes in their repertoire, because culinary evolution (among other things) has suffered in this country that has been savaged and ravaged by a succession of invading armies. But the food is good, and the hospitality in abundance. We'll be back, and we'll take friends next time.

Week #6 Irish

I forge into this particular blog entry with some trepidation, because I've spent a good deal of time in Ireland over the years, and I get really annoyed by pretend-Irish food on the menus of faux-Irish pubs in the United States. Much of it is basically the same pub grub you'd find in fern bars and chain restaurants with lots of polished brass and fake Tiffany lamps (those places Anthony Bourdain refers to collectively as T.G.I. McFunster's).

"Blarney wings?" THAT'S Blarney. They're Buffalo wings with an Irish moniker. If you find them on a menu in Ireland, it's in a place that caters to American tourists (we once stumbled into one of those by accident. Gak!). And corned beef was embraced by Irish immigrants to America who settled in around the Jewish neighborhoods of Boston and New York City. They had to make do with corned beef because they couldn't get their beloved pork loin from their local Jewish markets. You'd be as hard pressed to find corned beef in Ireland as you would pork in a kosher deli.

All this to say I'm picky about food that claims to be Oirish.

So Himself and I went to Finn Mc'Cool's in Santa Monica, which features traditional Irish fare on its menu, along with an all-day Irish breakfast. I selected this place because the chef/owner is from Northern Ireland, and I figured that if she's not cooking Irish, no one is. Granted, they make a number of concessions to American tastes and expectations (they must, since they're in the middle of a major party zone), but they offer more Irish food than any other place I've found around LA, many of which are Irish in name only (you can spot those right away because they're decorated with shamrocks and leprechauns and such). And I appreciate that Finn Mc'Cool's doesn't try to glam it up in a SoCal sort of way.

 

a full Irish breakfast (well, maybe not the Guinness!)

I had the full Irish breakfast (a.k.a. the full English breakfast) of eggs, sausage and bacon with black pudding, mushrooms, tomatoes, boxty and soda bread (okay, the last two are Irish). Eat all of this first thing in the morning and you're ready to spend the day farming, fishing, cutting peat ... You get the idea. It's more or less a relic of an earlier time. While there are plenty of people in Ireland performing physical labor, the majority these days work in offices, shops and the like and live much more sedentary lives. Toast and tea usually cover them just fine until noon. I normally opt for the full breakfast when I'm in Ireland, because it fortifies me for a day on the go, so that I don't need to eat again until evening. And it's usually included in the price of my lodgings.

detail of the black pudding

Puddings (we call 'em sausages around here) are made from the internal organs of pigs and sheep. Black pudding includes animal's blood, while white puddings look essentially the same, except for the color. Depending on the region you're in, your pudding may have spices and barley or oatmeal mixed in. These appeared not to have any grain in them. They were dense but good in their organy fashion. Soda bread is heavy--it's hard to get around that--but with plenty of butter (not margarine) and jam, it's a satisfying accompaniment to the meal.

Here are a couple of packages of pudding I just pulled out of my freezer. You'll see that the black pudding contains beef blood. Both contain oatmeal and spices, as is common in the south and west of Ireland (these come from County Cork). Some puddings contain breadcrumbs or flour.

 boxty filled with Guinness beef stew and champ

Instead of admonishing their children to eat their boxty because there are starving people somewhere in the world, Irish mums have traditionally sung to their children:

Boxty on the griddle,
Boxty in the pan,
If you don't eat your boxty
You'll never get your man. (some versions say "a man.")

Hmm. Well, Himself had a large, thin boxty (the potato pancake you see here) filled with champ and Guinness beef stew. (The small potato cakes you see on my plate are boxty, too). The champ, mashed potatoes with green onions mixed in, along with potato-laden stew inside of a potato pancake means you have not one, not two, but THREE forms of potato in the same dish! This tripling of the starch is common in England as well. I once sat down to a plate of college cafeteria food in London that included rice, potatoes and pasta--along with bread.

If your local Irish pub menus are filled with caesar salad, jalapeno poppers and hamburgers, try making a bacon loin. While you can't just breeze into any chain grocery and pick one up, it's worth seeking out a proper butcher and asking if you can special order one. And try your hand at making soda bread, too. I'll provide the recipes if you'll give 'em a try.

Here's our spread from a visit to Bord Bia (clockwise-ish, starting from the left foreground): bacon loin, white soda bread, cabbage, colcannon, whole grain soda bread, and beef & Guinness stew. Bord Bia was established by the Irish Parliament to educate both the Irish and their guests about indigenous food.

P.S. When you run "boxty" through the spellchecker, it suggests "booty." Now that's a very different blog entry!