An Effing Foodie

EF Eats Tokyo, Vol.2: Tsukiji Fish Market, Day 1

Good 'ol EST jetlag made snapping up in bed at an ungodly wee hour relatively easy--not that it would have been hard anyway, since Soft-Spoken Feisty Lady and I were about to embark on one of my long-coveted foodie dreams.  We strapped on knee-high combat boots and wellies respectively, and padded out into a barely stirring Tokyo.

Some foodies dream of El Bulli and The French Laundry, of vintage wines and caviar, of green-chile cheeseburger trails, cross-country pie conquests, and sniffing out the most authentic Maine lobster roll.  And while I'm game for any of the above, I wouldn't trade any of them for the 2 mornings that I had at the Tsukiji Fish Market.

Cremebruleed, a dearly trusted foodie who I'd not been in touch with for YEARS, had just moved back to Tokyo, and was all too happy to meet us for our first tryst into the edible aquatic wonderland.  It was her birthday, after all--what better birthday breakfast than the freshest sushi in the world?

Even though it was early, cold and rainy, we 3 were in great spirits, and Cremebruleed laughed aloud as I danced in little circle of fishy anticipation.  Without ado, she yanked us into the bustling, living hive of commerce.

As with much of Tokyo, my noggin was flatly unprepared for the intensity and scale of Tsukiji.  The infamous international tuna auction has been closed to tourists, so we were making a beeline to the heart of the market (rows and rows of seafood and Japanese longshoremen), and working our way to the outer rings (produce markets, pickle stands, kitchen hardware stores, street foods, and minuscule restaurants favored by the longshoremen once they were done with work). 

Basically, if you needed live cuttlefish, a sharkskin wasabi grater, a fresh root of wasabi to go with it, and a giant bowl of spaghetti with fresh Hokkaido crabs, this little city within a city is where you'd go to get it all.

BTW, some haters would scowl at the closing of certain areas of the markets to tourists, but let me tell ya: The market-proper is a full-powered, dangerous place, and if you don't have your wits about you, you'll probably be mowed down by one of a thousand forklifts pinging in a million directions at worst, or catch a face-full of fishy hosewater at best.

NYer walking/dodging/perrying skills definitely helped us from dying or stopping vital business, and even we got annoyed at the congestion-causing telephoto-lensed momos wandering haplessly into certain disaster.

Cremebruleed led our little duckling line through the damp, endless rows of piscine jewels and treasures--crabs of every imaginable size, shape and feistyness:

Bitty rock crabs, alien Hokkaido crabs, Alaskan King--every one alive and kickin'.  If it can't poke your eye out, it ain't fresh.

One fish!

Two fish!

Flat fish!

Group fish! (Group o groupers.)

But you're here for the food, and so were we.  By 9 AM, we'd worked up a hearty appetite sidestepping splatter and gawking at swimmy critters, so Cremebruleed inched us toward the outer ring of the market.  She strolled down a row of tiny sushi places, past all the tourists and nationals waiting in hour-long lines at Daiwa and Sushi Dai, and stopped at the last sliding glass door.

The sushi master greeted us warmly as we inched our way into the clean, lilliputian space; bags went in a rack directly over our heads, bottoms on stools, backs against the wall, knees under the sushi bar.  Scale: Subway car, if that.

With a hot towel and a quick flip of the picture-oriented menu, the 3 of us each chose the 14-piece, 1 roll omakase (3,700 yen, I think...definitely under 4,000, or $40 USD), in which we would choose the last two pieces of nigiri.  SSFL and I were grinning and bobbing like kids on Christmas, and Cremebruleed was smiling like...well, a lady in-the-know at a fab birthday breakfast.

First four pieces of nigiri--(L to R) maguro (lean tuna), toro (fatty tuna), hata (grouper) and tai (red snapper).

Each tuna cut was rich, fatty, and distinct; the grouper was meaty and almost creamy, and the snapper sparklingly saline; all were so clean and fresh that you could practically hear their offers for three wishes melting in the slightly warm rice. 

I didn't fully realize where I was in the world until the moment that 1st piece--maguro--broke apart on my tongue.  It was the reverse of Proust's madeleines, the distillation of the immediate and fleeting, a pulse that slows and gives one rare focus--this tuna, on this birthday morning, could not have happened anywhere as it has happened here.

It was about now that the lovely man handed us bowls of the best miso soup I've ever had.  Maybe it was just nice to be sipping something savory and steaming on a cold day.  Or maybe it was because it was stare-back soup.

But seriously, the amaebi (deep sea shrimp) heads impart a subtle sweetness and tomalley oomph that ups the unami ante to near-infinity.  Cremebruleed translated that we could have as much soup as we wanted, but we practiced restraint and saved room for the arriving feast.

SWEET! Effing Foodie a la Saveur Magazine!

Life is funny.  One lucky day, you're sitting on a beach with your best friend, just eating lunch...

...and a year later, said lunch ends up on your favorite magazine's website.

YEAH!!!

Much love to Alli and Brandon, who led me to this box from Nu'uanu Okazuya, and countless other meals I still dream of.

EF Eats Tokyo, Vol.1: Ginza Mystery Ramen

Hi all! Where the hell have I been? Well...

I've always wanted to go to Tokyo...and in a fit of luck and fancy, Soft-Spoken Feisty Lady and I fell face-first into an incredible last-minute deal.

Could we? Could we?

Of course we could.

So before good sense and practicality could kick in, we found ourselves on a plane to Narita, digging through English-language Tokyo food blogs and guide printouts.

I should be able to find a more elegant phrase for this, but...Tokyo is awesome.  Jaw-droppingly, mind-bogglingly grand.  There is just no way to encompass the scale, the vastness, the juxtaposition of the modern and the sacred, of blazing pop culture and well-ingrained gentility.  I am floored, and only sad SSFL and I couldn't afford to stay longer.

And the food...oooooh...the food.  It's everywhere, in pristine markets and side-street stalls, French bakeries and single-dish mom-and-pop counters, ramen joints and Michelin-starred giants.  New Yorkers fancy themselves foodies, but for the peeps in Tokyo, the phrase is meaningless, because everyone is a foodie. 

The only thing they like better than good eats is waiting for niche good eats in long lines.  (And warm toilet seats.  Tokyoites have decided that it's their God-given right that every john be electrically heated.  Bless them.)

There are department store basement food courts/markets (depachika) that span entire city blocks;  The Food Show in Shibuya makes Bowery Whole Foods look like the Circle K.  (And speaking of Circle K, their convenience stores kick the crap out of ours, too!)  Never in my life have I experienced food overwhelm, but let me tell ya, I did in Shibuya. ("OMG!  We CAN'T GET OUT! I CAN'T EAT EVERYTHING! Heeeeeeeeeelp!!!")  More on that later.

Sooo...let's start at the beginning.  We stumbled off the plane and into our modest lil hotel in Ginza, and went sniffing the streets to fill our jet-addled bellies.

We didn't have to go far.  Not even half a block from us, a friendly young man greeted us warmly, and slid the door open to an empty little ramen-ya.  We let him and the incredible umami fumes wave us in.

Sorry I didn't get a pic of this, but for a lot of these ramen places, you do your ordering/paying right up front on a push-button machine that gives you change and generates your ticket for the kitchen. 

Luckily, this one had pictures, so it was a little bit less of a crap shoot than it would have been with straight-up characters.  We chose 2 bowls and a side of gyoza, and sat at the counter in drooling anticipation.

We looked at a few ramen blogs to vaguely acclimate ourselves with this city's noodle-soup fetish, but honestly, I don't think either of us have a practiced enough palate to distinguish between good Tokyo ramen and bad. 

But I can easily say I've never had any noodles this good in any fancypants ramen place in NYC.  SSFL and I were stunned as we seeped in the steam from our bowls.

Meet Hakata/Tonkotsu ramen: Thin, perfectly al dente noodles, milky pork-bone broth, pork belly, charsiu, menma (braised bamboo shoots), and a custardy slow-poached egg.  Seems simple, but deadly rich, and absolutely savory and comforting.

Second bowl...my best guess is that it was Kumamoto/Toroniku ramen:

She had a lighter-looking broth, but it was tricky--there was a good 1/4-inch of pork fat/garlic oil on top of that lovely soup.  Topped with raw cabbage, charsiu, more pork belly and menma, soft egg and a few wonton skins, this blonder bowl was a force to be reckoned with.

Each bowl was (I think) about 700-800 yen, so just about $7-8 USD.  HELL yes.

To our shame, neither of us finished, but not from lack of desire.  We looked mournfully at the remaining noodles, conceded defeat, thanked the sweet ramen-men profusely, and made our way down the street. 

A most fortuitous beginning to our trip!

Being gaijin, I'm not sure of the name, but here's 'tis on a map:

View EF in Tokyo! in a larger map

Happy hunting! Will be back with the edible aquatic wonderland, better known as the Tsukiji Fish Market. Stay tuned!

Roundup, 2009: Brekky at Crepes No Ka 'Oi, Kailua, HI

Good GOD.  HOW can it be December???
In an effort to tourniquet the spurting wound of neglected content, I'll be tossing up short hit-and-runs of things that were just too pretty or tasty to be swept into a 2009 archive folder and forgotten. If I'm too abrupt, give a shout-out in comments and I'll be happy to fill in any gaps.

---------------------------

Back in May, when I was happily top-browning in the Motherland, there was a sparkling morning where I had nowhere to be, a big bad-as*ed borrowed '95 Buick LeSabre, and lingering jetlag that worked in favor of finding brekky before the crowds did.

The brunch favorite in Kailua is Boots and Kimo, but as I cruised the Big Green Buick past, there were already clusters of patient pancake fans dotting the entrance.  Waiting in line for pancakes for one?  Mmmmm...no.

But a couple of doors down, there was a sparkling space boasting happy crepe eaters:

Why not?  Crepes No Ka 'Oi was sunny and bright--I settled myself into a tall bar seat that faced a mirror, and tried not to make faces at myself as my crepe was bring made.

The older I get, the more I've come to enjoy the occasional solo meal out.  It was hard not to feel contented and mysterious as I sipped my illy coffee (PROPS!).  The only drawback was that I had to choose a sweet or savory crepe rather than sharing both with a like-minded eater.

Savory won out (doesn't it always?)--I went with the Basic Breakfast Crepe ($7.50):

(Because I was feeling vacation vegetable guilt, I had them add some spinach, too.)

The slight sweetness of the honey ham, the still-soft scrambled eggs shot through with jack and cheddar cheese, the green and gold whole enveloped by a light, crispy crepe...whatever alarmingly smarmy smugness I was already feeling about being alive and eating breakfast in Hawaii quadrupled as I tucked into the melty mass. 

Lord knows, I don't know when I'll be back.  So to the folks back home, go quickly and often!  And if you go alone (which I recommend) nut up the way I now wish I had.  Get a savory AND a sweet one.

Baroque-O Loco Moco!

A non-Baroque-o Loco Moco

What happens when you put a hamburger, 2 polarizing meat products, fancypants gravy, rice, tree sap and 2 LA stoner/chef/surfers together?

Baroque-o Loco Moco!

Animal opened in June 2008 [in Montauk, NY] and has been packed since — one of the breed of gleefully carnivorous restaurants to flourish in recent years. Its giddy, sophisticated-stoner sensibility is best represented by the Foie Gras Loco Moco, a riff on a Hawaiian surfer dish. It consists of a hamburger, a slice of fried Spam, a wedge of seared foie gras and a quail egg, all teetering on a bed of rice and topped with teriyaki sauce, maple syrup, bordelaise and Sriracha.

            - NYT (links and emphasis mine)

Torn, I am.  Teetering.  I wouldn't kick it out of bed...but could I live with myself if I paid $35 for a loco moco?  COULD I???

Props to Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo for shoving pig nethers into East Hamptonians and Los Angeleans, of all people!

They don't mess around: Pigs ears, belly and cheeks, sweetbreads, chicken liver, poutine, head cheese, kimchee, foie gras, Spam, and a chocolate/bacon dessert all commingle into one gutsy (harhar) weed-out-the-weak menu of rare depravity.

No critter is safe.  MUAHAHAHAHA!

What the World Eats: The Nonburger of Samtaeseong Diner (Pyongyang), Indoor Rain at Mercado San Miguel (Madrid), Spam Fries at Wild Oats (Singapore)

It's a red-letter day at Samtaeseong Diner, Pyongyang, where North Koreans have been granted the privilege to blow half a day's salary on an All-American Hamburger.

So long as you don't use the word "American".

Or "Hamburger".

Instead, patrons of the Samtaeseong diner, which opened in Pyongyang last month, have to order a suspiciously similar "minced beef with bread".

The isolated Communist state has long banned what it calls Western or US "imperialist influences" on its people. But there was only so long it could hold out against the temptations of fast food. (Telegraph)

Hold out against the evils of imperialist fast food?  We understand.  It lacks the cleansing totalitarian virtue of tree bark and grass.

Silver lining: All the unbranded fascist minced meatpucks come draped in complimentary kimchee!  Woohoo!

                                    *        *        *

Half a world and happier circumstances away sits Mercado San Miguel, the gorgeous, newly remodeled marketplace in Madrid.  Originally built in 1916, this wrought-iron palace to food boasts the spoils you'd expect of Spain: Technicolor produce, barely-dead meats and seafood, cheese aplenty, bakeries, tapas counters.

From Druidabruxux on Flickr

This gustatory sensory overload is trimmed with urban twists and comforts--a kitchy cookbook store, an oyster and champagne bar, and even 2 AM closing times on Fridays and Saturdays. 

There's even a vegetable mister for people: "In a nod to living green, instead of air-conditioning, the air is infused with water droplets; every few minutes shoppers are bathed in a blast of micro-rain." (NYT Travel)

                                    *        *        *

And last, but not least...a topic close to my Hawaiian Ex-Pat heart...Spam.

Not just Spam...but Spam FRIES.

Yup, luncheon meat chopped up into long skinny fries, fried until they’re crispy on the outside, and served with one or more dips. Disgustingly, sinfully, ridiculously good. I had these with some friends one night over drinks at Wild Oats, the bar owned and run by Willin Low, and I just about fell off my chair. (Chubby Hubby)

<Wiping the corners of my eyes, speechless.>

Hats off to Willin Low, luncheon meat visionary!

EF Eats Honolulu, and FINALLY Eats Ono's Hawaiian Food

I tend to get tactical with my meals on my rare trips home.  Don't judge!  There are a finite number of meals that a lady can consume, and they must be devoted to things that I've contemplated selling my soul to get mid-winter in the Empire State.

Witness!  (Simply a numbered list, not ranked by importance, thank you!):

1) Zippy's Mini Chili and Chicken Plate: Check! 

<-- Eaten at Koko Marina, my favorite branch.  Perfectly juicy chicken thigh with a bayside view? YES please!

(Zippy's has a thigh-only policy with their fried chicken.  GENIUS!)

Hana hou!  Anything worth doing is worth doing twice.  This one met its end on a blanket at Kaka'ako Beach Park:

2) Breakfast at Likelike Drive Inn: Check!

Left to right: Portuguese sausage, rice and eggs; rolled guava jelly pancakes.

3) Late night nosh at Liliha Bakery: Check!

 

L to R: Hotcakes; loco moco (that's rice with a hamburger patty, gravy and a fried egg).

4) Okazu (starchy food favored by field workers in the Hawaiian plantation days, nowadays sold in deli-like okazu-yas, evolved to reflect a meld of Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and Portuguese influences) lovingly selected from Fukuya:

 

Clockwise, starting from top left corner: Shiso musubi (rice ball), miso tofu, chow fun, potato hash, sweet potato tempura, nishime.

Check!  Rinse!  Repeat!  This time selected from Nu'uanu Okazuya (a first for me!):

Clockwise, from top left corner: Chow fun, potato hash, furikake musubi, pumpkin stewed with dried shrimp, furikake chicken, wakame roll.

...devoured with BFF Alli and her husband, on our favorite beach:

(Sometimes, life is all gravy.)

5) Shave ice from Waiola: Check.

Melona, lychee and watermelon syrup, with ice cream at the bottom.

6) Absurdly outsized meal at Side Street Inn: Checkity-check-check. 

 

Top: Fried pork chops; Bottom, L to R: Kim chee fried rice, kalbi special (made with ribeye?).

Above: Korean fried chicken; Below: Chinese-style steamed moi special.

Plus/minus a gaggle of lychee martinis. 

Number of people eating: 3.5, if you count welcome relief from a latecomer.

7) Poke, every time the opportunity presented it self: Check!

 

Above: Limu Ahi Poke from Foodland.

Super-Expressive Foods: Manapua Monster, Mango Custard Malasada

Where've I been?

Well...'twas time to go to the Motherland, wherein I was greeted with beautiful weather, great friends, and a bevvy of mui-expressive foods of the pastry-kind.  Chekkit!

BLARGH!  Manapua Monster menacing hapless Half-Moons!

Manapua Monster was the quintessential Hawaiian char siu bao: HUGE, and crammed with BBQ pork of the leaner, shredded variety (think less saucy, more red-pulled-porkish).  He and the Half-Moons (stretchy-glutinous skinned, filled with minced water chestnuts, pork and dried shrimp) play out their ancient battle every day at the Island Manapua Factory.

Yepyup, I like Char Hung Sut better, too--but we were on our way to Manoa Falls, so convenience won out over dimsum particularity.

No visit home is complete without a (few) visit(s) to Leonard's.  Call me old-fashioned (go ahead, it's not something you'll be able to say very often!) but I don't really care for the baroque new malasadas, with the addition of cinnamon sugar, stuffings of various custards, etc.  A fresh, just-fried-HOT Portuguese doughnut tumbled in sugar is an untinkered thing of beauty, and no one does them as well as Leonard's.

That said, lovely BFF Alli has always been one to try new things, so she bravely sampled some of the newer malasadas--one filled with pina colada custard, and another with mango custard.

>MMMfph<  Mango HORK!

"Tastes like sunscreen," sayeth Alli (of the pina colada one).  As for the mango?  "Tastes like...mango sunscreen."

No worries, we had standard malasadas at the ready for her, just in case.

EF Eats SF (The Cheapies): Pho Tan Hoa, Yank Sing, Dojima-An

There is a lot of justifiable grumbling about the economy nowadays, but one of the fringe benefits is that right now, travel is ridiculously cheap.  And I've never been a gal who can pass up a great value, an excuse to escape, or free shared accommodations from a dear, dear friend.

So, I was off to San Francisco as the roving foodite compass for said dear friend and MILF-y maven, the sweet-toothed Sugar Momma.

Sugar Momma presented a few golden opportunities for an always-ravenous wanderer like myself:

1. She'd never been to SF before (or California, for that matter). 
2. As much as Sugar Momma loves food, there was a laundry list of eats that a gal raised in upstate NY had never tried before. 
3. Sugar Momma is no wuss.  Even if she's sure she'll hate it, she'll still try it.

That in mind, I crammed as many firsts and technicolor noshing into 5 days as any sane pair of chickadees could manage.

Let's start with the cheapies, shall we? 

I found Pho Tan Hoa on Yelp!, and figured it was a good place to pop Sugar Momma's Vietnamese food cherry.  She looked a 'lil worried as I lead her into a vaguely sketchy bit of the Tenderloin in pursuit of lunch, but she relaxed once the harried (but amazingly efficient) proprietor set fragrant bowls of pho and bò kho (Vietnamese beef stew) in front of us.

I know pho is old hat for a lot of you readers, but I was psyched when SM emerged from the bowl with a grin and a thumbs up, unfazed by the thin sheets of rare filet cooking in the piping-hot soup. 

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of bò kho, it's served with nicely crackly baguettes to sop up the slightly curried, anise-spiked jus as you work through the fall-apart chunks of beef, tendon, and carrots.

And since this was our first meal in SF, I was stupid about pacing, so I got a totally unnecessary order of Summer Rolls as well.  Super-fresh, the soft mung bean wrapper perfectly packaging sliced shrimp, vermicelli, and herb salad, these babies were a great value (four of them to an order, at just-around $5), and SM loved them, so no regrets. 

(Only bloat!)

Another lunch of firsts for Sugar was dim sum at Yank Sing, another find off of Yelp!.  I know, there is dim sum in NY, and some of it ain't half-bad.  But I want to live a life where dim sum is BETTER than ain't-half-bad DAMMIT, and CA will always ROCK the Empire State in this respect.  Check out these soup dumplings (Xiǎolóngbāo):

 

See how sultry-thin those skins are, so skimpy that the whole thing is slumped with soup that you can actually SEE???  GORgeous.  That's how it should be, and I'm glad that Sugar's very first one was a great one, bursting with nuanced soup and a tender pork-and-crab filling.  The black vinegar wasn't even necessary on these gems.

The barbecued pork buns (charsiubao) were a proud example of their kind, sweet-savory steamy treats:

Also toothsome were the crispy-on-the-outside, creamy-on-the-inside, pork-filled taro puffs (woogok) made with a light hand and a properly hot deep fryer (I've had some Gawd-awful greasy ones in NY); the shrimp-and-chive dumplings (gauchoygao) were kind of a non-event.

We managed to save some room for sweets; meet happily gelatinous and creamy mango pudding (before being doused in evaporated milk) and the ragged half of a shamelessly flaky custard tart (dantat):

 

Sometimes, serendipity intervenes--our last budget-minded lunch came from a homey little Japanese joint that I'd noticed one night on the way back to our hotel.

Dojima-An is not unlike places you'd find in the East Village, or even back in Hawaii, and for good reason--the appeal of well-made starch is universal, and Japanese comfort food cures what you didn't even know was ailing you (namely, taste-bud fatigue). 

Sugar Momma scored herself a bowl of hot soba with lacy vegetable tempura:

...and I tucked into udon with stewed chicken, eggs and sauteed onion.  A hug in a bowl!

I love Cali.  Even in a tiny, homey place like this, the quality of the fish was better than it had any right to be.  We each treated ourselves to a piece of spanking-rosy hamachi nigiri (yellowtail tuna), beloved by sushi-snobbypants and sushi-novice alike:

 

Like buttah.  I had to hold back from having sushi for dessert.

Patience, I told myself.  Finite space, and all that!  Tune in next post for the fancier vittles!

(Oh, and if you're keeping score, Sugar Momma has dug everything she's tried so far.  SO proud of her!)

EF Eats DC: Founding Farmers, true food and drink, Foggy Bottom, DC

 

Dos Mattys, The Bombshell and I giggled a little when we walked into DC's cheekily named Founding Farmers.  Most of the places in NY that tout themselves as crafty farm-fresh tend to be smaller, softly lit, seemingly hallowed cloisters to pig.

Not so here.  It's a huge space, two floors, mostly modern with rustic flourishes--a big restaurant with a big menu crammed with big, unabashedly American flavors. (And lighting that behooves opportunistic bloggers to boot. Hooray!)

And the thing is...it works! Who can hate on a menu that has chicken pot pie, chicken and waffles, lobster rolls and french dip?

Take, for instance, our appetizers:

Puffed pastries filled with pimento cheese--a pinky-up version of the old-school packaged cheese-and-cracker snacks (y'know, with the flat red rods for faux cheese smearing?).  Classy and brassy, gone before anyone could blush.

Deviled eggs! We opted for the "classic" (there's a more baroque "Combo" egg platter, with seafood-decked eggs); eight halves to an order, besprinkled with chives, a straightforward, two-bite treat (and a STEAL at $4!).

Steamed mussels with chunks of chorizo and bounteous bread for sopping the magical marriage of seafood and pork juices; not to be outdone, a platter their bivalve counterparts, raw oysters from the west and east coasts.  There was mollusk carnage EVERYWHERE as we licked our briny chops.

Fried green tomatoes!  I've never been a fan, but they were a gloriously crunchy delivery module for the tasty green goddess (foreground) and blue cheese dressings.