Tag: Food
My Twice-Cooked Pork Epiphany
by Julia Ross | 04.23.09 | 10:20 AM ET
Living in Shanghai, Julia Ross wasn't too hot on Chinese food. Then she moved to Taiwan and stepped into Shao Shao Ke.
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Yahoo! BuzzThe Last Taco in Playa del Carmen
by David Farley | 04.17.09 | 10:19 AM ET
Photo by David Farley I was dying for a good taco. I’d been on the tourist-board-branded Mayan Riviera (the coastline south of Cancun) for a few days and had been planted in beachside, tourist-crammed towns where a legion of mediocre restaurants lined the sea like B-grade culinary sentries guarding tourists from the locals-only edible delights off the beaten path.
The last straw came when my wife, Jessie, and I picked the most salt-of-the-earth eatery in Playa del Carmen and sat down, thinking the place might yield something more authentic than what we’d been served so far.
A Room Service of One’s Own
by Alexander Basek | 04.15.09 | 5:18 PM ET
After a terrible-yet-exciting day in the Malaysian town of Johor Bahru last fall, returning to my room at the Hyatt was the highlight of my visit. Malaysia’s second largest city had not treated me well. Worse, I missed dinner. It was late, and I was hungry. So why, even under duress, did I waffle about ordering room service? Don’t worry, I did—and I didn’t hesitate to remove several Tiger beers from the mini-bar while I waited—but I felt guilty about it anyway.
For years, I saw room service as a luxury for people with too much money or not enough inclination to explore the city they were visiting. Why bother to stay in when so many other options were outside the front doors of the hotel? In Johor Bahru, though, I was glad to have it. As my writing career has progressed and I’ve found myself holed up in towns where bringing a laptop outside isn’t such a bright idea, room service has come in handy. It’s never very good, but that’s the price you pay. Literally—food on a silver platter doesn’t come cheap.
So what does room service mean to you? Is it utility food or a time to splurge when getting dressed is too much to ask?
Wine and Dumplings: An Overlooked Match?
by Julia Ross | 04.13.09 | 12:34 PM ET
When I’m out for Chinese food, I don’t think twice about my drink order: it’s almost always a Tsingtao. But cooking school owner/author Jen Lin-Liu says beer doesn’t have to be the default accompaniment every time you pick up chopsticks.
For a piece in the New York Times, she recently convened a group of Chinese tasters and found that semisweet Rieslings were the best all-around choice for spicy dishes with strong flavors, while a Pinot noir paired well with twice-cooked pork.
Eating Penguin with Ernest Shackleton in Scotland
by David Farley | 04.09.09 | 1:02 PM ET
In March 1901, the RRS Discovery set sail from Dundee, Scotland, its crew pointing it toward largely unexplored Antarctica. The ship was a wooden three-masted sailing vessel and, as it turned out, the last of its kind to be made in Britain.
But that’s not exactly what makes the RRS Discovery significant. Ten months later, the crew members definitively found what they were looking for. In fact, the ship was stuck, frozen in ice, leaving captains Ernest Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott with no choice but to wait it out until the spring when the ice would thaw. The next few months were harrowing ones, the crew eventually having to munch on seal liver and roasted penguin (described as tasting like “leather steeped in turpentine”).
IHOP Hits 50 States: That’s a Lot of Pancakes
by Jenna Schnuer | 04.08.09 | 11:13 AM ET
While diners, taquerias, clam shacks, bbq shacks and waffle houses are the unofficial official dining establishments of Flyover America, IHOP deserves an honorable mention. There’s something to be said for the easy comfort of knowing exactly what you’re going to get and, Starbucks aside, no chain does it better than IHOP. It’s a nice thing when you’re on the road for a while (or, let’s be honest, slightly tanked after a night out).
As of the April 7 opening of its South Burlington, Vermont pancakery (our word, not theirs), IHOP is now open in each and every one of the 50 states. We raise our forks—loaded with a heaping helping of Rooty Tooty Fresh ‘N Fruity—in salute.
A Chef’s Travels in China
by Julia Ross | 04.06.09 | 12:04 PM ET
It’s hard to resist chef Martin Yan’s enthusiasm for the innovations of Chinese cuisine in this recent conversation with New York Times reporter and author Jennifer 8. Lee, taped at the Asia Society.
The voluble Yan discusses his travels into China’s far corners, doling out praise for hand-pulled noodles in Shenzhen, the spice markets of Xian and Taiwan’s night markets. In recent years, many Western-trained Chinese chefs have returned home to introduce a new fusion cuisine, he notes, including pizza-like dishes in the north, and recipes making liberal use of eggplant and tomato, ingredients not traditionally associated with Chinese cooking.
Among Yan’s favorite Chinese comfort foods: the doughnut twist (with soy milk) you can find on just about every street corner in Taipei during morning rush hour.
Invasion of the Hungarian Pigs
by David Farley | 04.03.09 | 12:15 PM ET
There are several different types of pig species (or, if you will, sub pigs). The bearded pig is one I’d certainly hate meeting in a dark pig pen. The Indo-Chinese warty pig is another ominous-sounding swine. In all, there are over two billion pigs on the planet right now (and if they’d ever join forces with monkeys, we’d be in big trouble). Most of the pork we eat comes from the generic domestic pig (or sus scrofa domesticus) and, thanks to mass breeding, its offerings have taken on rather bland notes. Not that we’d know it unless we began eating another species of swine. And, in fact, some restaurants around the country are letting diners do just that.
Jamie Oliver to G20 World Leaders: You’ll Eat British and Like It!
by David Farley | 04.02.09 | 4:13 PM ET
In the 1970s and ’80s, Great Britain had a reputation for bad teeth and even worse food (I wonder if there’s a connection?). Dentists were finally imported from parts of the erstwhile empire while British chefs began looking outside Britain for influences. They found it in France, the Mediterranean and even Southeast Asia. The results, however, were anything but British. Nonetheless, it helped bring England out of its culinary cellar. Five years ago, Gourmet magazine proclaimed London to be the best food city on the planet. This wasn’t a surprise to those who had been paying attention to global dining trends, but most people were caught unaware of London’s “new” prowess in the dining sphere.
Help for Hungry Travelers Who Can’t Handle Gluten
by Jenna Schnuer | 04.02.09 | 11:15 AM ET
Having grown up with a sibling who has a major food allergy, I give a huge thumbs-up to anybody who helps ease the way for food intolerant folks on the road. Fellow travel writer (and friend) Hilary Davidson does just that on her Gluten-Free Guidebook. Her latest piece discusses Philly tourism’s online guide to gluten-free restaurants.
Know of other online guides for allergic eaters around the U.S.? We’d love to hear about them.
Pateley Bridge, England
by World Hum | 03.30.09 | 11:17 AM ET
REUTERS/Nigel Roddis Shopkeeper Kirsty Shepherd cleans the window of The Oldest Sweet Shop in England, in Pateley Bridge, northern England.
The Thrill of Gel and Other Disappearing Edible Delights!
by David Farley | 03.27.09 | 1:30 PM ET
Grant Achatz, the avant-garde Chicago chef, went to Madrid to attend Madrid Fusion, a congress of 50 of the world’s best chef, and all he got was a crappy food-stained T-shirt. Moreover, in this article he penned for the Atlantic, Achatz bemoans on a grander scale by wondering if molecular gastronomy is dead. Most of the world’s population didn’t even know that it had been born. But Achatz sat there during the meeting as chef after chef took the mic and felt pangs of emptiness:
“Where were the culinary fireworks? The introduction to the next ingredient that was going to enable us to turn oil into powder, serve a gelled liquid hot, or thicken an infusion by simply blending in a magical white substance? Where were the explanations of new techniques? Like the ones used to create raviolis with skins made from themselves, making pasta from stock, and aerating food to produce sponge-like textures?”
Raviolis with skins made from themselves? Aerating food to produce sponge-like textures? Sheesh. And he wonders why people may be losing interest in it.
Tradition, Change and the Fate of the Irish Pub
by David Farley | 03.26.09 | 4:16 PM ET
Island Eats: Mango Smoothies
by Pam Mandel | 03.26.09 | 1:52 PM ET
I’m an extremely addicted coffee drinker, but I have a guilty confession to make: I didn’t find the coffee in Hawaii all that great. That’s why, given the choice between a less-than-satisfying cup of joe and a big orange slurp of calorie-laden deep orange-yellow lusciousness, I went with the mango smoothie every time. I’m sure mangoes are full of things that are way better for me than caffeine salvation, but that’s not why I made the switch during my island time. Nope, it’s because mango smoothies are seductively, amazingly delicious. And at least as revitalizing as a poor-to-middling cup of coffee.
My favorite was, hands down, the one from that guy in the Maunakea Marketplace Food Court in Honolulu’s Chinatown. That fruit stand on the way back from Hana, its weren’t bad either, though I was sure one of those stoner kids was going to lose a finger at best, an entire limb at worst, swinging that machete around while high as a kite on one of Maui’s other abundant crops. I skipped the bicycle-powered blender, also on the Hana Highway because I was having an uncharacteristically un-Hawaiian moment of impatience. But I swerved to a halt at the first fruit stand on the way towards Volcano on the road from Kaleakakua Bay. “Large, please. Mango. Mahalo.”
Free-Range Squirrel and Other Appalachian Delights
by David Farley | 03.26.09 | 11:33 AM ET
Ever wonder what Appalachian cuisine is? I haven’t either, but Eat Me Daily is running a four-part series on it. Part two, in which the intrepid journalist (in this case, Kathleen Wilcox) goes on the hunt for fried squirrel, is a great read. And before you wrinkle your nose, think about this: that squirrel is not only natural, it’s free range.
The Great New York Nacho Fail
by David Farley | 03.25.09 | 10:58 AM ET
These aren’t nachos, I thought to myself as I stared at a plate rimmed with neatly placed tortilla chips, each one gently topped with chicken, blanketed in cheese, and, for good measure, crowned by one single jalapeño slice. I might expect something like this if Jean-George Vongerichten put nachos on the menu at this eponymous eatery on Columbus Circle. But I was at a hole-in-the-wall eatery in Brooklyn bedecked with all the trappings of a salt-of-the-earth Mexican restaurant. Dressing up each chip as it were a microcosm of the usual mountain of nachos seemed unnecessary. And just plain wrong.
Rats! The DOH Are Here!
by David Farley | 03.19.09 | 11:58 AM ET
The guys at the sushi restaurant across the street from my apartment in New York’s West Village were always friendly. Except for one time about a year ago when I stopped in at lunch to pick up a take-out order. There was only one other person in the restaurant—a guy typing away at a small laptop—but the two employees were short with me, acting as though the place was packed. As I tossed out requests—extra wasabi, for example—the sushi chef nervously nodded back in that officious anything-you-want manner as if I had been pointing a semi-automatic at his family. Then I noticed what was printed on the back of the jacket of the other customer: Department of Health (DOH).
Kim Jong-il’s Bizarre Pizza Quest
by Julia Ross | 03.17.09 | 12:02 PM ET
This just in from the parallel universe known as North Korea: the country’s first-ever pizzeria has opened in Pyongyang. The Guardian reports that Kim Jong-Il’s longtime obsession with pizza—and a decade-long campaign to train North Korean chefs in making the perfect pie—has culminated in the launch of a restaurant that flies in wheat flour, butter and cheese from Italy.
In any other country the opening of a pizza joint would be unremarkable, of course, but given that millions of North Koreans have died of famine since the mid-90s, the only word I can muster is: tragic.
Interview With Ferran Adria: Spain’s Super Chef
by David Farley | 03.17.09 | 9:04 AM ET
REUTERS/Victor Fraile Superlatives and Spanish chef Ferran Adria seem to make the perfect pairing. His restaurant, El Bulli, located north of Barcelona, is often referred to by foodies, travelers and restaurant critics as a culinary heaven. The best restaurant in the world. And, as a result, nabbing a reservation is like winning the lottery: 100,000 requests for reservations per year come in. If you’re lucky enough to get one, you arrive in Spain hungry.
Adria spends six months out of the year in his Barcelona workshop, creating a menu (some have dubbed it “molecular gastronomy”) that is so avant-garde that it’s hard to find anything else like it (unless, of course, a chef is copying Adria—and many are).
I recently exchanged emails with Chef Adria and asked about his interest in travel—and I tried to be extra nice in the hope he’d grant me one of those impossible-to-get reservations.
The Forbidden Kebab in Tuscany
by David Farley | 03.16.09 | 1:33 PM ET
I once interviewed a chef whose Michelin-starred restaurant is tucked in the hills of eastern Lazio; when I asked what he thought of fusion cuisine, he said—without blinking an eye—that he liked it: using tomatoes from the Campagna region and basil from Genoa was great, he remarked. My question had broader ingredients in mind, but I got the point. Lucca, a walled medieval town in the northeastern part of Tuscany, made headlines a few months ago when the right-wing-leaning city banned ethnic foods from its historical center. The city claims it has since received mountains of letters from around the world supporting the ban.