For a shift of gears, I had an elaborate meal at Waku Ghin -- a 10-course tasting menu heavy on seafood, with local and japanese themes, served at a small bar with just 4 other diners and 2 chefs. The head chef is Tetsuya Wakuda, best known for Tetsuya’s in Sydney, which I ate at years ago and loved. Not that I’m a celebrity chef horse– all that really matters is the food. ...
My favorite chicken rice of four variants tried this trip (this time, with roasted chicken and slices of raw but mild ginger), for a bit over $2 US, back at the Roasted Delights stall in the food court at Bukit Batok Block 109 (which is mainly the food court for the adjacent apartment building):
I had Rojak (lower right) for the first time, as part of a quick lunch: Rojak is Malay for “mixture”, and I hear it varies vendor to vendor, but the one I had was a collection of fried (but still cool and crisp) fruit and crisp watery vegetables (including something that reminded me of jicama), friend dough, and an interesting spicy and sweet sauce that I think was peanuts, shrimp paste, chili, and a little sugar. I liked that it was a bit less in the sweet direction than many sweet and sour sauces. Refreshing, and a good side dish / appetizer. ...
Another success: Yong Tau Fu (less than $3, in a food court at the end of a warehouse full of autobody repair shops and industrial supply stores, and in a stall with a ‘B’ health department rating, which some friends claim is the delicious sweet spot between authenticity and pathogen count): You stock a bowl with whatever greens, fish cakes, tofu, or other ingredients you want: Then you hand the bowl to the person behind the counter, tell them if you want soup or noodles, and they finish it for you. The person who recommended this particular stall said it were good because it’s not all pre-cooked ingredients– if you put tofu in your bowl they take it out and deep fry it for you right then, and certain vegetables they’ll also cook very briefly before tossing them in with the noodles/broth. You top it with chili sauce at the table, of course: ...
I just had Laksa for the first time, for breakfast, and I think I’m in love (I do like a savory start to the day). A spicy broth with coconut milk and chili paste, noodles, sliced fish cake, two hard-boiled eggs, fried tofu, shrimp, rice noodles, some other unidentified chewy bits that I think were seafood, and I’m sure other spices or broth ingredients I didn’t recognize:
Delicious “Sri Lankan Black Pepper Crab” from Long Beach Seafood (their signature dish). No single bite was too spicy, but the peppery butter accumulated in a slow burn… I feel only a little guilty for devouring a 2lb crab myself.
(still good the second time)
I can’t remember the last time I got takeout, but a rainy day and work insanity seemed like a good excuse. And Mission Chinese Food is so cheap, I had to order three side dishes to get up to the $15 minimum. Hainam Chicken Rice (w/ chicken fat, peanuts) Peanuts cooked in vinegar, anise, smoked garlic (amazing!) Pickled cabbage and chili (fine) Hot and sour cucumber with chili, dried shrimp, chrysanthemum (also excellent!) ...
New restaurant in the Dogpatch. Tender, tasty roast Mary’s chicken (though I prefer the skin more crispy), grilled cactus salad, clove soda, and little donut holes on the house (with chipotle powder, honey, pumpkin seeds).
This pulled pork sandwich (marinated in coconut milk, with some jalapeno plantain pickles) by Hil’s Cooking was excellent: The internet tells me she’s going to have a mobile sandwich Airstream in Oakland.
Amazingly delicious Japanese curry in the Tenderloin for $8.50 (Kare-Ken). I got the Katsu curry plate, spicy:
If you don’t want to see pictures of hog butchering, stop reading now. Yesterday I went to a combination beer release party ( Almanac Beer’s Winter Wit, with kara kara oranges, blood oranges, and ginger from local farms– they pointed out that while Wit is typically a summer beer, winter is citrus season in our neck of the woods… I liked it quite a bit, as well as the High Water Brewing No Boundaries IPA), pork dinner (shoulder with some sort of spicy gravy was my favorite, followed by the fatty pork-and-beer sausage and chicharrones), and hog butchering demonstration by Ryan Farr of 4505 Meats. ...
Gelik Atakoy (near the airport, outside the city, though there are two other locations) was another local recommendation in Istanbul, and was probably my favorite meal of the trip (followed by the informal adana kebab in the Grand Bazaar). To start, a sort of rice pilaf with lots of cracked black pepper (excellent – I don’t know if it was fresher or different black pepper, or if there were other spices as well), a salad, some pulped eggplant (in white), and more adventurously (the brownish-pink lump): çig köfte, a sort of meatball of raw ground beef, bulgur, and red pepper. I liked it quite a bit. [ side note: looking up its name later turned up an NIH paper about the antimicrobial effects of chopped garlic in raw meat ] ...
(wrapping up a few food photos from a recent trip to Turkey): On the recommendation of a local, we went to Yüksel Balık, a good fish restaurant right by the ocean, a bit outside the city center. They bring you into a side room where recently-caught fish are laid out on a cold marble slab. You pick one or more, tell them how you want it cooked (they typically fry it), and get charged based on the weight. ...