West Coast Gem on the East Coast

Those who know me know that I am always on the lookout for curious and/or incredible eats, and I found just that in A&J, a Los Angeles chain serving Taiwanese food in Annandale, VA.  I do not exaggerate when I claim that this place leaves most other Northern Virginia Chinese restaurants in its dust.

Walking into the small space, the restaurant immediately set off triggers in my mind.  Chinese people eeeeeverywhere.  And not predominantly Chinese-Americans--Chinese.  There were small dishes cluttering every table, with young and old folks alike slurping and chomping away.  The air was cooled but not modified otherwise as an enveloping aroma of good food hit me like a wall.  There was a clamor and sense of urgency to the customers eating and the employees working, giving off a bustling liveliness (热闹).  A lady from behind the counter shouted a question at me and caught me off guard: "两位?" "Two seats?"  She might as well have said "Welcome home."

I went with a friend, and we both ordered noodle bowls, despite the summer heat, and some side dishes.  I ordered a Taiwanese spicy beef tendon noodle soup, picture below.  When they asked us whether we wanted thin or thick noodles, I thought the thin noodles would be too thin so I ordered thick.  Turns out the thin noodles are fairly normal and the thick noodles are thicker than I prefer, but it did not ruin the overall taste.  The thick noodles taste like they were made in-house, but they are most likely made by machine, not hand-pulled.

For side dishes we ordered everything pictured below, in order from left to right:

• Chinese scallion pancakes (葱油饼)
• Steamed vegetarian dumplings (花素蒸饺)
• Spiced spare ribs steamed with rice batter (粉蒸排骨)
• Chicken and mung bean noodle salad (雞絲拉皮)
• Seaweed beansprout salad (芽菜海带)

IMPORTANT: This place only accepts cash.  I highly recommend this restaurant without any reservations whatsoever.  Thanks a bunch to a colleague who suggested I check it out!

There is No American Cuisine, But There Could Be

A friend shared this video with me from the BigThink YouTube channel.  I think it is the beginning of a very curious discussion about what could be an American cuisine.  Every other nation and/or congruous culture has had many hundreds, even thousands of years to develop a cuisine that was heavily driven by environmental factors.  America has existed for slightly over two hundred years.  In this video, Dan Barber starts to get into the idea that the lack of similar environmental pressures in a temperate, bountiful land has created a food culture of excess but no creativity.

Tots, Beer, and Grilled Cheese

A daily rotation of beers on tap, 24 of which are served each day.  Killer tater tots.  Heavenly Grilled Cheeses.  There may not be a better reason to come to Falls Church.

Before a friend in college re-introduced me to the tantalizing world of grilled cheeses, I did not have a very high opinion of these sandwiches.  At that point, my only prior experience with grilled cheese was the nasty chunk of questionable dairy product on bread that American grade schools serve for lunch.  Living in Cleveland for a long time, I did not even manage to visit Melt Bar and Grilled.

But this piece is not about the Melt.  It is about an unassuming 21+ dive bar tucked away between two corporate office buildings in Falls Church, VA.  I am writing about Spacebar.

I have been there a few times now, and each time I visit, there is something new to try.  Of their grilled cheese specialty, they serve 20 different house sandwiches.  If you do not like what you see on the menu, you can customize or put in an order with your own sandwich build.  Below are three sandwiches from the two times I stopped in.  Because the interior is pretty dim, some of the photos are grainy.

Bacon, roasted red pepper with feta and mozzarella on sourdough.

Pulled bbq pork, crispy fried shallot, sharp cheddar on rye.

Roast beef, garlicky sautéed spinach with feta and mozzarella on sourdough.

And of course, the meal would not be complete without beer (not shown) and their amazing tater tots.  Next time, I want to try out their other tots item, tatchos, which is tots with any cheese or ingredient on their menu added on top.

Foray Into the North - Potatoes!

Potato straws?  Shredded potatoes?  How about...Potatoes Julienne?  (When saying that last one out loud, pretend you are announcing the next dinner course to European old money or royalty at a black tie event.)  Or per Google Translate: "Potatoes wire."  This is Tudou Si (土豆丝).

Typically, I prefer Southern Chinese food, and I think there may be more to it than me being from the Chinese South.  In America, when many think about Chinese food, common regional names come into play, like who-naaaaaan and seh-chew-on and shaaang-hiiii  (Note: I am mimicking common verbal butcher jobs).  Most probably do not know that Hunan (湖南) and Sichuan (四川) and Shanghai (上海) are Southern Chinese provinces and/or municipalities.  Even Chinese buffet and Chinese takeout represent a cuisine descended and evolved from a very specific style, possibly that of a single ethnic minority, originating from Canton China (广东)--also the South.  Whether it is because of historical ethnic migration patterns into America (more likely) or because the number of mind-blowing Southern Chinese canon foods is truly more numerous than the number of Northern counterparts (less likely, but I will insert my personal bias anyway), I do not know.

And so it is with great joy that I present to you a favorite Northern style dish called Tudou Si (土豆丝), probably something like vinegar potatoes julienne.  This dish is super simple to make because you toss it in a little oil with similarly cut green onions on high heat for no more than two to three minutes.  However, where the impact of this dish is truly decided is in the preparation.  Slicing potatoes to amazingly thin widths takes careful effort, and it is not a quick job.  Even most kitchen devices out there today cannot achieve the ultra-thin cuts that are needed by this dish (there are some German-engineered devices that can get close).  Using five small golden yellow potatoes, it took me ten times more time to prep the potatoes than to cook them.

This iteration, I soaked the potato straws in vinegar water that was too heavy on the vinegar, so the final result turned out slightly more sour than expected though not bad when consumed with rice.  Next time I might try adding some julienned red chili peppers to literally spice up the dish and make it visually more appealing.

Key Lime Pound Cake

In search of inspiration for a seasonal dessert to pair with late spring, I came across this key lime pound cake recipe.  Using both the zest and fresh squeezed juice from key limes, this cake combines the sinful delights of an American Southern dessert with a distinct and refreshing key lime flavor.

Key limes, as I learned, are a tiny hybrid from the Florida keys, containing higher acid content and tasting more bitter than regular limes.  After working with key limes, I like to think of them as the regular lime's evil younger cousin, containing the same amount of flavor in one quarter the size.  Because these limes are so small, it was much more difficult to juice them.  And the key lime scent is so concentrated, zesting them was a religious cleansing experience for my sinuses.

The end result was tasty for a first attempt at pound cake, although I thought the cake became too dry after cooling down.  In addition, the zest and lime juice that went into the cake made no impact at all, and only the lime glaze that I painted on the cake afterward brought any key lime kick to it.

I am not sure when I will make this cake again (seriously, equal portions butter, sugar, egg, and flour scare me), but I will definitely need to think of ways to improve the moisture and the key lime flavor impact.  Also, a more decorative key lime glaze, like the stuff you drizzle over cinnamon rolls, might be worth a try.

A Huang Family Weekend

This past weekend, I took a mildly impromptu roadtrip back to visit my parents for two reasons:

1. To return a dining table they gifted me when I graduated college
2. To be an embarrassment factor at one of my brothers' prom photo session.

Fortunately, the Huang parents are pretty into food like I am.  So you might imagine that this weekend was stacked with copious amounts of delicious food, and that I gained a few unnecessary pounds.  On both counts, you would be correct.

When I got back Friday evening, I was surprised to see Peking duck being prepared complete with roast duck skins, julienned green onion and cucumber, homemade spring pancake wraps (春餅), and the sauce that goes with the wraps.  I have no idea what the sauce is typically called, but it is a bean-based product and an absolute must for any Peking duck meal.

For lunch on Saturday, my mother made ramen from scratch, making her own noodles based on an online recipe and adapting a Japanese acquaintance's recommendation for seafood ramen.  The broth was a duck-based stock (leftovers and bones from Friday night's Peking duck) enhanced with standard Japanese dashi and a little white miso.  Toppings included nori, shrimp, two-layered fish cake, some blanched mustard spinach, and a failed soft-boiled egg.

After sending my brother off to prom, my family came back for a cookout in the backyard.  A year ago, my father took some discarded cinder blocks and put together a really nice makeshift wood-fire grill.  As my father has an affinity for preparing meats, he went ahead and fired up some chicken wings, lamb chops, and steaks for us--far more than we could finish.  Summer is really nice at my parents' house because it is up North and we have a lot of trees on the property, so we enjoyed some beers, red wine, and a nice breeze in the comfort of home.  The vegetables pictured on the red picnic table is Chinese water spinach (空心菜), which is my favorite vegetable OF ALL TIME.

Later that night, my mother showed me how she makes Chinese red braised pork, as a follow-up to my attempt at making the same dish last month.  I thought I did a nice job with my pork, but comparing both dishes, it is clear my mother is far, far ahead of me in skill.  The flavor was much better, bringing out the best in the pork and helping it complement the flavors of caramel and dark beer.  Red braised pork is definitely an easy dish to learn, but without a doubt it will take more practice for me to make it anywhere near what a seasoned cook is capable of doing.

Finally, it turns out that my parents have gotten into homemade yogurt recently.  So I tried some, and it was tasty, as yogurt should be.  For the yogurt, whole milk was used with a dash of honey to take the edge off the acidity.  In true "fruit-on-the-bottom" fashion, a fruit jam was prepared in parallel to combine with the yogurt white.  Apparently, mango jam turns out the best, but I settled for strawberry-peach jam since we did not have any mangoes handy.  To complete the snack, I sprinkled some crushed cashews for enhanced texture and morsels of nutty flavor.

I also baked a new dessert while I was at home, which I will save for my next post.  This baked item was a new type of cake that I have not tried to make before, so I am excited to share it next time.

Chinese Red Braised Pork (红烧肉)

Red braised pork is a classic of classics in authentic Chinese cuisine, and it hails from somewhere in Southern mainland China.  Nobody knows for sure where it originated, but legend has it that the founder of the current Chinese government, Mao Zedong, demanded that chefs in the capital--all the way up in Northern China--be able to make this dish in the style of his Southern home province, Hunan.  (And when your dictator makes demands of you, you probably want to comply.)

I wanted to make this dish because 1) I have been craving pork belly lately, and 2) being a foodie from Southern China, this is a good dish to have under my belt.  For my first try, I think it turned out pretty well, with a few personal critiques.

The meat was a great consistency and the fat almost melted on the tongue.  The skin was very soft after the dish was done, and I thought the color was pretty spot on.  In terms of flavor, notes of sweet, salty, and savory all combined into a nice little package due to brown sugar, two types of soy sauce, a bottle of American lager, and some spices (minced garlic and star anise).  I ultimately enjoyed the dish, although there were three enhancements with which I would like to experiment next time.

1. How to make the dish slightly more red than brown.  Some suggestions I have heard include increasing the alcohol to soy sauce ratio, melting the brown sugar on lower heat and for a longer time period to allow for greater caramelization, and trying red wine instead of an American lager.
2. How to make the fat melt more easily on the tongue while making the skin more chewy (personal preference).  This one is a tough conundrum that I may not be able to solve so easily.
3. Starting off with less cooking oil, the final product will probably be less oily, containing only the natural oils of the pork belly.

Overall, I am pretty happy with the results, although I would love to get feedback from a connoisseur of fine Chinese dining from mainland China.  To make this dish, I cobbled together this recipe on Shanghai-style braised pork, my mother's recipe, suggestions from friends, and a few things I thought made sense.

Here is how this dish differed from the linked recipe:

1. When blanching the pork, I added four medium chunks of ginger to aid with removing pork's pungent stench.
2. I used brown sugar instead of regular sugar or rock sugar.
3. Minced garlic (5-6 cloves) and two small chunks of star anise were added spices.
4. Instead of Chinese cooking wine, I used an entire bottle of lager sitting in my fridge.

Youkoso Daikaya!

Painted in large characters on a ceiling panel near the back wall, the title of this piece is borrowed from just one of many aesthetics that adorn the small interior space of Daikaya.  The phrase is a warm welcome to all guests who come in to slurp up some heartwarming Sapporo style ramen.  Pictured below is their mugi-miso bowl with an extra sheet of (wakame) seaweed and three chunks of special-of-the-day pork belly.

Daikaya is, at the moment, my favorite ramen joint in the metropolitan DC area for three reasons (in no particular order).

1. Distance - they are the closest to my home in Northern Virginia.
2. Broth - each of their five broths, including a vegetarian variety, offer deep flavors and full bodies.  While all their broths are put together in Sapporo style, each broth is distinct in inspiration and flavor, almost as if they were five brothers and sisters from the same family.  For me, that means five trips to Daikaya is the bare minimum.
3. Noodles - their noodles have the best consistency that I have tasted in this area.  They are just springy enough without being hard, and they easily pick up the flavor of the broth as you slurp.

In the last two weeks, I have managed to visit Daikaya twice, which is a much higher visit count than normal for me.  Since I have known about Daikaya for almost two years now (probably) and have not yet written about it on my blog, what better time than now?  The second bowl shown below is their spicy miso bowl with a soft-boiled egg, an extra sheet of wakame (seaweed), and extra char siu (slices of Japanese-style roast pork) buried in the broth.

On one of these trips, I also got to sit at the bar and watch the chefs ply their trade.

18 Reasons Why I Adore My Cultural Cuisine

On this blog nearly nine months ago, I set out to document adventures with, thoughts on, and experiences in food.  I put up quite a few posts in the initial months before trailing off.  Here are some of the things in the last seven to eight months that never quite made it to the blog, though I think they are still worthy of mentioning.  If you have some affinity for Chinese food and are in need of stimulating your appetite, this is for you.  Enjoy!

Creative steamed bread (馒头) my mother made.

My mother's steamed bread is usually pretty tasty, and with these she decided to up the game by making cute designs.  There are little piggies, daisy flower designs, rose flower designs, fun swirls, and other appetizing breads.

  

Homemade Lamb Dumplings!

Back when I went on a weekly dumpling-making craze, I tried a lamb filling one week, and it was a huge success.  Looking as I may need to go back on a dumpling-making craze soon due to financial reasons, I am really looking forward to more experiments.

Autumn Stir-Fry Medley

A colorful autumn stir-fry medley I made a few months ago that included lamb, zucchini, red bell peppers, orange bell peppers, and onions.  In this photo, it had been refrigerated overnight and reheated in a microwave so some of the color has degraded, but it was still tasty!

Siopao From Southeast Asia

A while back, I got together with friends for drinks, merriment, and making siopao.  Siopao, a named derived from Hokkien, was a new experience for me because it is a Southeast Asian take on the very prevalent Asian steamed bun.  We made it together from scratch: dough, filling, and all, even starting from a slab of pork shoulder instead of ground pork!  Pretty proud to have been part of the tasty end product.

Longan (龙眼) or Dragon Eyes, One of my Favorite Fruits

In America, fruit triples as a refreshing snack, a great source of sugary drinks, and a moniker used in juvenile shaming rituals.  In China, people name their fruits after the eyes of dragons.

Asian Eggplant Pork Stir-fry

Eggplants are one of the most versatile vegetables out there, to say nothing specific of the long Asian variety.  Here, I made a simple stir-fry with ground pork, ginger, green onions, and a little cooking wine.

Mai Style Homemade Ramen

My friend Mai made some ramen noodles from scratch and put it together in a bowl of well-prepared vegetables, soup stock, and beef stewed overnight.  The flavor was top notch, and my only complaint was that the noodles were cooked longer than preferred, which we discussed over dinner.

Pho Sate

Yes, another Asian noodle soup, this time from the Southeast.  I ventured to Pho Sate based on a friend's recommendation for their sauce, and the sauce did not disappoint.  The soup was flavorful although the cuts of meat were lacking in comparison to my favorite NOVA/DC joint, Pho 75.

Salmon Steak with Snow Peas Dinner

One of the simple preparations my mother taught me when I was first learning to make food without burning down a building was baked salmon steak.  Here, the salmon has been marinated with honey, ginger powder, coriander, paprika, old bay, dried parsley flakes, and a touch of Montreal steak seasoning.  The snow peas are simply stir-fried with garlic and a light sprinkling of salt.

Steamed Pork Belly Rice Cake (粉蒸肉)

This was a neat salivation-inducing cake the neighbors brought over for Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' home.  It is a cake made from rice and pork belly marinated overnight in a special sauce and then steamed in its cake form with carrots, mangoes, and a few spices.  I may have to try making it in the future!

Hearty Steamed Bread (馒头) To Go

This is a special steamed bread my mom experimented with over Christmas and New Years where she combined wheat germ, almond meal, cashew meal, corn meal, and ground chestnut into the dough, making for an extremely hearty bread bun that I would totally carry with me on a hiking trip.  This beats trail mix or granola bars any day in my book.

Miso-Glazed Eggplant Round 145

This is actually a returning guest from a past dish I tried to make, matcha infused rice with miso-glazed eggplants, inspired by Blue Apron.  By the elongated shape, you can tell these are Asian eggplants, and they are so good that I have made these again and again on nights when I am in need of an easy dinner.

Fresh Shiitake Mushrooms

This is not a dish in itself; rather it is clearly a raw ingredient.  But I wanted to include these because of my boundless love for mushrooms.  There are so many different mushrooms and fungi that have found their way into cultural cuisines all over the world, and it makes me happy to know that there is a whole world to be explored in food based on fungi.  One of my favorites so far is wild mushroom hotpot from Yunnan province in China.

Taiwanese Shortcakes

The world of Asian snacks is also a vast world with many hidden gems as well as many duds.  One of those gems lacking a proper English name better than "shortcake" probably originated in Taiwan.  The most common variety are made from a pineapple paste, but as you can see below, there are also cakes with melon-flavored paste, mango-flavored paste, and green-tea flavored paste.  So much goodness.

Siam Cafe in Downtown Cleveland

While visiting my parents recently, my mother took us out to Siam Cafe, which is an old favorite of mine in the Cleveland area.  One of the cool things about there not being as many Chinese folks or authentic Chinese restaurants in the Midwest is that the Chinese communities are a little more close-knit.  Case in point: I found out my mother is a friend of the manager/owner of this place, in addition to the other Chinese restaurant owners with whom I know she is friends.  Pictured below is lobster, hot iron beef, and a tofu-vegetable medley, Chinese style.  Not pictured: we also ordered frog that day.

Homemade Lamb and Tomato Sauce with Rice

I was feeling lazy recently and decided to make a home-made meat sauce with ground lamb, tomatoes, and green onions.  Below is the end result served with rice in the style of a Japanese curry.

Chinese Home Fried Rice

Every Asian culture and every household has their own preparation of fried rice.  I made the one pictured below in a large batch when I found myself needing to feed one of my brothers who visited me for a few days.  This rice contains bits of scrambled egg, beef, zucchini, carrot, and green onions.

Chinese Soup Mochi

I have no idea where mochi originally came from, but to my knowledge, all three Northeastern Asian cultures (Korea, Japan, China) have their own version of it.  A traditional Chinese preparation for mochi is to cook it in scented water or sweet rice wine as a light, palate-cleansing, soothing dessert.  When using scented water, I have typically had mochi in ginger water, so it was a pleasant new experience for me when my mother brought back sweet osmanthus (桂花) flowers from China for scenting the water.

 

If you read through all of that, I hope you enjoyed it and are now one-step closer to ravenous desire for some amazing Chinese food!

Kogiya: Limited Options but a Lot of Heart

Best word(s) to describe barbecue at Kogiya: fatty, fatty, fatty.  How fatty?  See photo:

Kogiya is touted as one of Northern Virginia's finest in Korean BBQ, and who am I to disagree?  Kogiya gives you two great all-you-can-eat selections!  Plus, 1) I have no idea how a Korean foodie would think Korean BBQ should be and 2) I have only had it twice in this area and no more times in my life than I can count on both hands.  In contrast, I submit my experience with Chinese food.

So with this caveat, I judge Kogiya to be "extremely" two things: tasty and limited in options.  Kogiya does a great job with taste because they prepare their marinated meats with phenomenal flavor.  Of course, it helps when the only cuts of meat you serve on the grill are the fattiest cuts, but that is not a demerit on taste.  That is, however, illuminating with regard to the breadth of Kogiya's options, or lack thereof.  With option A, you get unlimited quantities of five types of meat, of which only chicken is "lean."  The other four option A selections are fatty beef brisket, three-layer pork belly, miso pork belly, and spicy pork belly.  With option B, you get to tack on small intestine, large intestine, and tripe.  So in two words: deliciously fatty.

From a business standpoint, I thought this makes a lot of sense because these all-you-can-eat options easily stand at the intersection between customer satisfaction and satiating even the most voracious appetites with a "less is more" approach.  Of course the fattiest cuts are going to be the tastiest morsels sizzling on a grill, so why not load up on just those cuts to the pure delight of every dinner guest?  And let's be honest, folks eating out at KBBQ are giving themselves a freebie on any sort of diet.  With respect to the "less is more" approach, what better meat is there to fill up bellies quickly than the fattiest, richest cuts?  Lean meat just would not do the same job as three-layer pork belly.

What did I order?  Option A, because while I love tripe, I am not a huge fan of intestine, small or large.  The meal was more than satisfying, and I recommend it to anybody looking for a change of pace in Northern Virginia outside of Honey Pig.  Which would I pick by default if given an option: Honey Pig, because of vastly more choices.