Steamed Pork Belly

It's still winter and I've been craving a nice "melt in your mouth" piece of pork for a few weeks now.
So I picked up a piece of Pork Belly from my Asian Supermarket in hopes of recreating some killer Steamed Pork Belly Buns a la Chang (at Momofuku).

I have this great Smoked Sea Salt called "Iburi Jio", from Japan. It's apparently smoked for 3 continuous days with cherry wood and it imparts a bright, very pronounced smokey aroma to the sea salt.
I'm curious to see how this will cook with the belly.

It's currently 4am and I just finished rubbing the Iburi Jio onto the scored fatback of the belly.
I laid out 5 or 6 slivers of ginger and 1 whole head of garlic crushed up to maximize surface area.
Place Pork Belly onto ginger and garlic bed and fill dutch oven with 2 cup of Sake, and 1 cup of Chicken Broth.

Place in a preheated 325 degree oven for 4 hours and let it cool before slicing.

To serve, heat up buns and sliced pork belly.
Spread some hoisin sauce onto the opened buns and place slivers of cucumber and chopped scallions or chives onto the glistening pork.
Fold and eat up.

Armani Food y Chocolates... Seriously...

Seriously Giorgio... Taking a chapter from my macro economics days, Comparative Advantage tells us to never eat at your restaurant.
You are a fashion guru (to some). What makes you think people will take your restaurant seriously?

Here's what I envision:
Food - Mostly really big, bright white plates with a morsel of food in the middle.
Clientele - At the bar, you'll find, tanned, slick haired, tall, thin men wearing designer form fitting 3 piece suits. As for the ladies, I'm sure I'll have "ZERO" complaints. All super hot, but accompanied by really wealthy d-bag cocksmen who think just by going to Armani's eatery, it makes them chic and suave.


(taken from the Strong Buzz)
Giorgio Armani has opened a sprawling new 5,200-square foot restaurant perched high over Fifth Avenue on the top floor of his first U.S. concept store, Armani / 5th Avenue.

He's tapped chef Lorenzo Viani, of Ristorante Lorenzo in the seaside town of Forte dei Marmi in northern Tuscany, to create an authentic Italian menu that's appropriate for those who can still afford Armani. What this means is antipasti like fresh shrimp marinated in citrus in a tomato gazpacho soup ($24), and leek flan in gorgonzola cheese sauce ($14), fresh homemade pastas like paccheri in a light fish ragout ($24), two-cheese ravioli in a zucchini sauce with truffles ($30), and secondi like oven-baked sea bass with potatoes and vegetables ($28), lobster caprese on a celery and lettuce veloute ($45) and T-bone steak with Srana beans and Tuscan olive oil ($35). The chef is also offering several tasting menus, including vegetarian ($60), fish ($70) and meat ($70).

Armani/Ristorante is open for lunch and dinner Monday-Saturday until 11 p.m. and on Sunday until 6 p.m. Lunch service begins at 11:30 a.m. The restaurant is located at 717 Fifth Avenue at 56th Street, 212-207-1902.

Pun Pun Organic Restaurant in Chiang Mai

I just got back from Chiang Mai on a research trip. Who would have known that Chiang Mai is a foodie's dream? Every meal I had in this mid-sized city in Thailand's north was outstanding. Perhaps the most memorable was at Pun Pun Organic Restaurant, which serves local, vegetarian slow food. From their website: Pun Pun Organic Restaurant is a project aimed at supporting local organic farmers, farmer networks, and propagating biodiversity. By producing organic produce on our own farm as well as buying from farmers producing organically, we support farmer’s transition to sustainable food systems. Since we ourselves are a seed center we aim to propagate rare and indigenous varieties of edible plants for the public to reintegrate into their diets, improving our health and stabilizing our environment through biodiversity.



It is tucked away behind a beautiful Suan Dok temple, under a Boddhi tree.



The people at the table near us were eating this seductive egg tofu dish, which we immediately ordered for our table. It was a wise choice.





My host said the most unusually delicious item was the fried flowers salad. Crispy and light, and unlike anything you can get in New York City. Special thanks to Mike for recommending this place!

Mee Fun Recipe

Felt like a light dinner the other day and decided to make a veggie rice noodle dish (chow mee fun). It was a fun healthy flavorful dish, but it is so much friggin work to prep all the ingredients. However, once your finished, you get a lot of bang for your buck, since you'll end up with a whole lotta food.

Ingredients
1 package dried rice noodle
5 dried chinese mushrooms
1/2 head chinese cabbage sliced
3 carrots peeled and julienned
3 chinese leeks julienned (or scallions)
3 cloves garlic minced
Bean Sprouts
Dried Shrimp
Salt
3 tbsp Soy Sauce
3 tbsp peanut oil
1 tbsp Sesame Oil
1/4 cup rice Wine

1) Cook the rice noodle in hot boiling water according to the package instructions (about 1-2 minutes usually). Rinse the noodle in cold water until cool. Set aside.
2) Put the dried mushroom in a bowl covered with warm water. Microwave for 1 minute and let sit for 5 minutes. This speeds up the softening process and letting it sit removes some of the intense mushroom flavor. Remove and slice into pieces.
3) In a wok, add peanut oil and set over high heat. Add, cabbage and carrots and cook until softened (about 3-5 minutes).
4) Add leeks, garlic, mushrooms, shrimp and cook for another 3 minutes.
5) Add the noodles, bean sprouts, soy, rice wine, and cook until well coated. Taste and re-season as necessary. You can serve immediately or eat it at room temperature.

Crispo - Review

Intro
Crispo - Recommended
240 W 14th St, New York 10011
Btwn 7th & 8th Ave
Phone: (212) 229-1818

Some friends were in town this weekend and we needed to pick a restaurant that had some good vegetarian options. My best bet for vegetarian restos are usually Chinese, Italian and Indian joints. Crispo seemed like it would fit the bill, since I've been wanting to check this place out for a while. Good times, but didn't live up to my expectations. Overall, I give the restaurant an 86/100

My Menu
1) Risotto Balls *
2) Olive Miste *
3) Mozzarella Fritter *
4) Pappardelle with Wild Mushrooms (special) *
5) Roast Pork Shank with Quince and Chilis ***
6) Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies *

Rating System
--- What the F - in a bad way * Good ** Great *** What the F – in a good way

Dish Comments
1) A pretty good arancini. Crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside with good flavor that had some surprisingly al dente rice. Good stuff, but the arancini at bar stuzz still stands out at as #1 to me.
2) Interesting marinade and seemed heavy on maybe a sicilian oregano which I liked a lot.
3) Fried mozzarella sticks, but using better "mutz". Good and tasty with the spicy tomato sauce.
4) For some reason, most handmade pastas in Rome/Amalfi always had this silky texture with the al dente chew going on. I've yet to experience this in NYC. Most handmade pastas in NYC are rolled out super thin, which makes it silky but gives the pastas absolutely no chew. Crispo falls into this category too. Still it was a good pasta dish - just not too down with the texture.
5) A shocking dish. Fall off the bone flintstone sized pork shank with fresh chili's and chili flavor penetrating deep into the meat. I've never had an Italian dish with that much heat before and boy I loved it. The combination of the rich unctuous meat, with the bright chili flavor, and the sweet quince paired perfectly. I detected a slight hint of honey (not sure if it was added or coming naturally from the qunice) which rounded out the flavors nicely.
6) A very crispy chocolate chip cookie with great chocolate flavor. Good stuff, but I lean towards a cookie with more chew...the best of which is done by Mr. Chocolate, Jacques Torres.

Overall Restaurant Experience (86/100)

• Food 8.6/10 – Everything was good and one dish was great. Our guests from out of town enjoyed their food, but some others thought their dishes were just OK.
  
• Service 7.0/10 – Waiter was nice and even allowed my wife to sample the wine. Food did take a long time to come out. We didn't mind so much, since good wine and good conversations make time fly by fast.
  
• Atmosphere 7.8/10 – Definitely dig the atmosphere. Brick wall and feels like a cave in the heart of Chelsea - similar feel to Peasant wine bar. Difference is the crowd here was packed with older couples and families. We were seated in a corner area with a bunch of girls that were crazy loud - very difficult to talk. Booked a reservation for 5 on a Saturday the same day. Took a while to get seated though.
  
• Price 7.5/10 – Pasta's seemed a tad pricey for the quality, but the pork shank was a spectacular value (bout $22). I was incredibly happy with the value of my meal.
  

Closing Comments
I would definitely go back and order the shank again and maybe check out the dry pastas and some other antipastis. However, my wife mentioned she didn't necessarily need to go back based on her pasta dish.

2009 Pastry Competition Winner

The winner this year at the 2009 Pastry Competition at the International Restaurant and Foodservice Show at the Javits Center is

Ajith Saputhanthri of Russo's on the Bay
(Howard Beach, NY)

Congratulations!
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2009 International Restaurant Show NYC

Come check it out this coming Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
International Restaurant & Foodservice Show at the Javits

Tough on Food

There's a new letter grading system being put into place (2010) that will display a restaurant's cleanliness for all to see from outside the establishment. It's probably a good thing.

following taken from the NY Times
- “I’m Inspector Williams from the department of health, and you’re going to have your inspection today,” said Corey K. Williams, holding out badge No. 3042

- Mr. Kim, 62, like thousands of owners of food-service establishments, lives in fear not only of fines and their effect on his thin profit margin, but also of being shut down immediately and forced to post the dreaded yellow closing notice. “They are so strict,” he said. “They cost me, $2,000, $3,000, easy, each time they come.”

In July 2010, the stakes will be even higher, with the results posted for customers to see: a blue A, a green B or a yellow C on an 8-by-10-inch inspection placard.

- Some restaurateurs tentatively endorsed the plan. “I think the letter grading is probably a good system,” said Bobby Flay, proprietor of Mesa Grill and Bar Americain in Manhattan. “But if a restaurant gets a bad grade due to a paperwork technicality, the consumer will be misled.”
Paranoid Bobby probably wasn't an "A" student in school... LOL

for the full story, click here.

Shady Japanese Joint

Even though this incident happened in late 2007, it's still pretty common.
But common or not, it's just damn embarrassing. On so many levels.

From Dept. of Health to Dept. of Corrections

The New York Sun is reporting that the operator of the midtown Japanese restaurant Naniwa has been arrested for trying to bribe a city health inspector in order to avoid a summons. Kazuo Mitsuya allegedly tried to slip the inspector $200 to make the restaurant’s violations just go away. Presumably offended by the low sum offered, the inspector got on the horn with the Department of Investigations, who sent in an undercover officer posing as a health inspector and arrested Mitsuya when "Mr. Bribe" – wink, wink – appeared again.

We called Naniwa this afternoon; according to the hostess they are open for business. She insisted that she not heard about any arrests or the Sun article, but refused to put the owner on the phone because he was “making the food.” The scandal follows a recent smorgasbord of Department of Health restaurant closings, all part of the enduring legacy of Rat Rodeo ’07.

But really, two hundred lousy bucks? Considering how much a restaurant like Naniwa stands to lose in revenue and bad publicity from a DOH shutdown, the bribe seems laughably low. Then again, Naniwa promotes itself as an “authentic” Japanese restaurant; perhaps in Japanese culture modest bribes are a sign of respect?

Photo from BigPru's Flickr. http://gothamist.com/2007/11/23/from_dept_of_he.php

A good deal's a good deal

For those of you who know me, you know I'm pretty picky about my food. 
Especially if I'm paying for it at a restaurant. 
So it's understandable to be picky about who I plug or recommend as well. 
Well, Jean Georges has won me over with his take on the recession specials. 

The saying, "the most expensive thing in a restaurant is an empty table", couldn't be more evident. 
Take a look at his recent blog entry and you will see what I mean. 
He's trying to fill empty seats during specific hours by giving perks. 
And quite frankly it's a great reason to give his flagship restaurant a try. 
For the quality of ingredients and level of cooking you get, the price is fantastic. 

5 Tables and a Plywood Wall

Spice'n'Hot (India) - Highly Recommended

Malden, MA 02148

Open Everyday

We used to go to a little Indian place when we lived in Connecticut: small, family-owned, amazing food, and prices so low I wondered how they paid the rent. It has been a while since we moved to Boston, and most of the Indian food we've had could not hold a candle to our (now closed) little favorite. 

Two years ago we moved to Malden, just North of Boston. We noticed a very small Indian store when we were following the moving truck... "huh, could buy spices there" we thought. It wasn't until we were unpacking our last box (2 weeks later!) and going out for a bite to eat, that we noticed that the door next to the Indian store was an oddly named restaurant: "Spice'n'Hot (India)." Very weird... why the heck is "India" in parentheses? We ordered some samosa and two dinners for $17 bucks and took it back to our new place. It was great on flavor, but the sauces were kind of thin; the samosa, however, were amazing, crispy-but-not-oily and with a deliciously-rich potato center that was not heavy. We weren't blown away.  It was OK, and we could walk to it. 

Flash forward two months: we stop in to get another few samosa and a bite to eat... whoa, he has gotten better. Sauces are rich but not fatty; they are smooth and layered with complex flavor. This is the kind of Indian food that I imagine fits the bill as "home cooking." The best part is that we are watching the training and development of this man's skill and ease in the kitchen. His demeanor is always warm, his unwavering dedication appreciated, and his specialty of the house, samosa chaat (2 samosa covered with a chickpea saute, sweet chutney, fresh onion, and cilantro), is a must order. 

One man, great food, 5 tables and a plywood wall.  

Jersey Fresh Tomatoes

Went to Whole Foods looking for some canned tomatoes and stumbled upon the Jersey Fresh brand...insert joke here. Watching America's Test Kitchen, they always preach using tomatoes that aren't packed in tomato puree, sauce, and preservatives. Surprisingly, this brand was the only one I found that listed tomatoes and salt as the only ingredients. Most were packed in puree, juice or sauce.

So, I brought this bad boy home for a test run and the first thing I always do is to eat the tomatoes right out of the can. These were delicious and had a great bright tomato flavor with a good amount of sweetness. It really tasted fresher than most canned tomatoes.

It was a shocking revelation and I always used to go for the famed San Marzano tomatoes. I need to do a side by side comparison, but my initial reaction is the Jersey tomatoes tasted fresher, fuller, and were much better. This revelation was like finding out there was no Santa Claus. I always bought into the belief that the volcanic ash from the region made the San Marzano tomatoes superior to all others. That maybe the case in Italy; however, Italian canned tomatoes in the US are always packed in puree which may give it a more cooked flavor. This is done to avoid some US import tax.

Any who, rocking the Carmellini sauce with the Jersey brand yielded a completely WTF moment. The sauce is full of rich tomato flavor, still retaining it's brightness and has a nice sweetness to it. It definitely will be my go to canned tomato when making da sauce. Another bonus in this tough economy is they're $2 versus the $5 or 6 for the San Marzanos.

Ice Breakers - Raspberry Ice Tea

If you are tired of minty breath mints, give these a try.
I believe they come in a variety of flavors (peach, raspberry, lemon, etc...), non minty.

And although you need a PhD in chemistry to pronounce let alone know what the ingredients are, these little nickel sized suckers are mighty tasty and refreshing.

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Sunday Bloody Sunday...

Met up Porthos and another buddy with the wife. What was to be an innocent relaxing afternoon turned into food chaos...completely expected when hanging with the dudes.

BBQ Chicken - Highly Recommended
26 Saint Marks Pl
Between 3rd and 2nd Ave
New York, NY 10003
Phone: (212) 982-9616‎

An east village fast food fried chicken joint that originated in Korea. The gimmick is they fry everything in extra virgin olive oil. Super crispy, moist chicken. The best was the BB wings - a sauceless juicy hot wing that is packed with flavor...me thinks there's ton of MSG in the batter. A tad pricey at $8 for 10 wings, but still worth it for me.

Our Menu
Teri-Gold Wings *
BB Wings **
Olive Nuggets *
Hot Ginger Bubble Tea **
Hot Taro Bubble Tea **


Momofuku Noodle - Highly Recommended
171 1st Ave, New York 10003
Btwn 10th & 11th St
Phone: (212) 777-7773

After our amuse bouche at the chicken joint, we met up another friend at Momofuku Noodle. As my wife mentioned, this is a completely different noodle bar from the one that originally opened way back when - noodles are their weakest food item. They're doing some fun things here, but the place is a mob scene. Not sure I would necessarily wait like some of these people - some were waiting an hour plus to get in. Also, the food was a tad pricey, but still 100% worth it - bout 70 a head. The standouts were the whole fried chicken - crispy, moist and topped with a flavorful garlic, ginger, scallion combo. Also, the pork belly roll in the ramen was a big time wtf moment...definitely something I would get alone. And finally the shitake bun, which surprisingly is better than the pork bun which was a tad dry.

Our Menu (Porthos ordered everything, so this is a guess of what we had)
Soy Sauce Egg *
7 Spice Potato Chips *
Raw bar- Oyster celery gelee, oyster with spicy fennel *, scallop with enoki *
Raw sliced fluke
Mackarel (special) *
Hamachi Collar (special) **
Steamed Pork Bun *
Steamed Shitake Bun **
Sliced Beef Tongue **
Bouchot Mussels (sausage, kale, and fennel) **
Momofuku Ramen * (pork belly roll was a ***)
Fried Poulet Rouge **
Banana Soft Serve Ice Cream *

What the world needs now...is SPAM!

No, not the email kind, but the edible kind...ok, I guess that's debatable also. Looks like in this crazy economic world we're living in, sales of Spam is going on strong and helped Hormel report a higher-than-expected profit.

If you're one of the people buying this product, here's a spam recipe that the new prez enjoys...

Building Like A Dude

Americans have embraced recycling; at least outside of the south. Recycling is a good idea, it reuses the raw materials from bottles and paper etc. and turns them into another product. The problem with this solution is that it takes energy to convert one thing to another. The humble beer bottle however is finding its use without the costly recycling process.
To recycle a beer bottle it is color sorted, crushed into cullet and then melted down, molded, coated and processed into new bottles. In some areas of the world this costly process is not possible and there have been rebels in the last 100 years that want to simply reuse the item. Which is why I was overjoyed when I saw that the Buddhist monks from Thailand's Sisaket province had taken ecological responsibility to a new level. It turns out that the new Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple is built entirely of beer bottles. Now that is a religion I can get behind!

Yes we can roll

Probably the coolest roll to hit the sushi bars since the California Roll was invented in 1968.

Prosciutto + White Castle Cheeseburgers

Pretty awesome combo.
I picked up some White Castle Cheeseburgers at A&P and brought them home to nuke and chow.
They definitely aren't as good as having them from the eatery, but non the less, it's pretty satisfying.




















I had some prosciutto in my fridge and had a Joey Tribbiani moment.
Cheeseburger = Good
Prosciutto = Good
I put them both together and it totally worked!

Valentine's Day Dinner 2009

I had visions of grandeur when coming up with the Valentine's Day menu for the wife, but she requested simple so I decided to go more for the comfort food. Below is what I made.

Oyster Stew
I was craving oysters and thought an oyster stew would be nice to start. A had a simple recipe from the Oyster Bar in NYC, so I decided to give a try with some slight tweaks. It's very rich and intensely flavored. The double boiler method yields an uber plump and juicy oyster. The chervil looks really pretty as one leaf, but using a few more brings a nice subtle fresh flavor. Chipotle powder yields a wonderful smoky flavor to the stew.

Ingredients
8-10 oysters, shucked (you can buy shucked oysters)
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 cup clam juice
1 1/2 cup half and half
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 tsp worcestershire sauce
pinch chipotle powder
salt and pepper
toasted ciabatta bread

1) Add a bunch of water to a small pot and set over high heat. Place a metal bowl on top of the pot making sure the water does not contact the bottom. Ta da...you have a double boiler.
2) Add garlic, butter, worcestershire, and clam juice to the pot.
3) Once butter melts, dump in the oysters plus their juice and the half and half.
4) When the mixture gets warm, taste and season with salt and pepper to your liking
5) In a soup bowl, add the ciabatta bread to the center. Add oysters on top and add the cream mixture around. Top the oysters with a pinch of chipotle powder and chervil leaves.


Wagyu Yakiniku Style Beef, Tomato Sauce, and Scrambled Eggs Served over Rice
This is a hodge podge of memories I had as a kid. For some reason, my uncle and aunt used to serve steak and ketchup and eggs and ketchup. Oddly enough, they tasted hella good with white rice, so I decided to recreate this using better ingredients. The combo of the wagyu beef, tomato sauce, onion, and eggs are killer with white rice. And, like all great dishes, the steak and eggs tastes phenomenal in the morning even without the rice.

Ingredients
3/4 pound wagyu beef (yakiniku cut)
6 organic eggs
1/4 cup half and half
Tomato Sauce, tomato juice reserved (warmed)
1/2 cup Soba Tsuyu
2 chinese leeks thinly sliced (scallions would do just fine)
1 clove garlic minced
1tsp ginger minced
1tbsp oyster sauce
2 yellow onions sliced
peanut oil
cooked white rice

1) Add 1/2 cup tomato juice, 1/4 cup tsuyu, garlic, ginger, 1/2 the leeks, and oyster sauce in a bowl. Add the wagyu to the bowl and cover in the fridge for 30 minutes.
2) Remove the wagyu from the fridge and let drain in a colander for 15 minutes. Reserve the marinade. Dry the wagyu with a paper towel.
3) In a nonstick pan, cook the onions for 2-3 minutes. Add 1/4 cup of the marinade plus another cup of tsuyu. Cover and simmer for 3-4 minutes - should be soft. Remove from the stovetop and remove the onions and the juice in the pan.
4) In a stainless steel pan, cook the wagyu beef until browned on both sides. About 1-2 minutes per side on high heat. Be careful since the wagyu can get burned quickly since the tomato juice and oyster sauce have some sugar. Remove.
5) Beat the eggs, rest of the leeks, and half and half well. Season well. Set nonstick pan over high heat with oil. Drop the egg mixture in.
6) Using a nonstick spatula, pull the mixture back and forth slowly - this will yield bigger curds which I like. When the mixture starts to set a little (still very moist though), pull the pan off the burner and throw the reserved onions in.
7) To serve, add white rice to a bowl, a small amount of tomato sauce (maybe 1tbsp), eggs, onion juice, and beef. Garnish with more sliced leeks.

Valentine's Cheese and Wine

For our Valentine's Day dessert, we had some cheese, wine, and Japanese pastries. All were really flavorful and fun to eat. Good thing me and the misses are married, since these cheeses have some crazy stank to them - definitely not first date food.

Grayson ***
The Grayson is a soft stinky cheese that has a complex intense flavor with the ash providing some texture. Definitely a WTF cheese.

Raclette **
The Raclette is also stinky and soft, but not as complex and having a slightly sweeter flavor. Unfortunately, after eating the Grayson, the Raclette is almost a little bland.

"Braida" - Brachetto d'Aqui 2007 **
A sparkling red dessert wine that had the right amount of sweetness without being disgusting. A nice refreshing drink with a hint of cherries.

Alma Rosa 2007 - Chardonnay *
A nice buttery wine that paired well with the egg, rice dish that I made. It seems like most wine connoisseurs don't like wine with a lot of oak, but I do.

We also had some nice had a red bean flaky pastry and an incredibly moist condensed milk pastry. Great stuff.