intestines, stuffed with fat. aka, yes, five more orders please

this post does not need many words.

only needs a description. 

on the right, intestines, stuff with beef fat. on the left, marinated glands.

no wimps. shot of soju up. 

same same.... but different, aka maggi and sriracha

so we are in the middle of the middle of vietnam. central vietnam actually, da nang.

what do we do? go grocery shopping of course!

we wanted to check out what its like, so with a good lead from a resort staff member we hopped in a cab and get dropped off to what i would describe as a smaller korean style department store. its basically everything from tvs to makeup to prepared foods to a full on grocery store.

although the norebang (karaoke) machines looked cool by the registers (with customers actually singing), we hop right over to the food area.

i hear sriracha green is the new black

interesting. no rooster on the label. maybe its too gimmicky for these markets.

man, could you imagine being the sriracha guy? making a hot sauce thats as common as ketchup in where your from, selling a crapton of it in america, so much so that hot sauce basically means sriracha... well i guess it would be like being mr heinz!

this ones for my pinoys out there

soy bean flavored maggi? thats basically, soy bean flavor soy sauce with msg? interesting

kimhee and kimbap!

they call it the korean wave. all things korean, everywhere over asia. 

ahh crap. travel half way around the globe, stay in city where if you have consistent electricity its golden.... and you still cant get away from the crap they pump out of hollywood. 

luckily, im not the only weirdo that like to do things like this when i travel. bbb cofounder/cio/cto/chairman of the board, she likes it too, grocery shopping in foreign countries that is. 

you never had potato chips like this before, aka myung dong fried potato on a stick

so the myung dong area in seoul is a huge tourist trap shopping dining area. but unlike our our equivalents in the united states, these places actually have things a local would want to visit for.

for me, i love the food there. myung dong has some really amazing places to eat, but some of the best things you will find are from the street vendors.

maybe ive been hiding under a ddukboki tent, but ive never seen this.

fried potato on a stick!

so its real simple. 

but simple things tend to be the best, right?

you take a potato, spiral cut in and insert a long wooden stick. 

fry baby fry

roll it in some mystery seasoning *savory with hints of saltiness and sweetness*

enjoy the simple things

you really cant get more homemade than this

nice laquered tray of love from mom

you really cant get more homemade than this.

the peppers were grown on the "buh ran dah" or veranda or patio for you that dont speak engrish, in korea.

the daeng jjang was made by my mom. she cooked the soybeans, made meji and tada, homemade daeng jjang.

these peppers and kaen neep were preserved in this homemade daeng jjang for seven months.

now i know you can find ban chan at the local korean market.... but this? like comparing local organic milk with powdered milk.... like dominoes artisanal thin crust pizza.

i just had to share this.

i like visiting my mom.

dont be afraid to try something new, turkish sunflower seeds?

so the better half and i were strolling down the aisle at berkeley bowl west.

whats this? turkish sunflower seeds?

i love sunflower seeds. ive always been a fan. toss a handful in your mouth, crack them open. spit the seeds.

prior to my convincing, the gf didnt really understand why people ate them.

after a few handfuls, she was hooked.

so we were walking down the aisle and this reddish silvery bag catches her eye. we had to get them.

glad we did.

these arent like the sunflower seeds you find at your local gas station. first, they arent as small and plump. these are pale in color, long and slender. at first they were a bit harder to manipulate and eat, but you get used to it.

the seed themselves tasted WAY better. not sure if it has to do with the fact that the ones we are used to are mass produced, corporate bad people brand sunflower seeds, but these turkish ones were much better.

and these are WAY less salty.

just goes to show you, trying something a bit different is a good thing. surprise yourself. do something interesting everyday.

handful of genre changing meals, sushi edition

i dont claim to a sushi expert by any means.

i remember when someone told me that eating uni is newer in japan than eating mcdonalds. i guess i really dont know my edomae sushi from deep fried tempura sunshine out my ass rolls covered in spicy mayo sauce.

but i do know what my personal experiences are and i know what i like.

growing up, like most children, i had weird eating habits. my mother is an amazing cook and what i attribute most of my knowledge of all things food to. however, growing up, my mother usually had to make accommodations for me. like when everyone else is enjoying her amazing food, im in the corner eating white rice with nori and tiny bits of american cheese.

and while everyone is eating at a family friends amazing sushi restaurant, im in the corner eating ebi, no wasabi.

i just didnt like the idea of raw fish. ewwwww. but could you blame me? i was like 6 yrs old. what 6yr old wants raw fish for lunch?

of course through the years, i dabbled a bit in "sushi". i had a few "go to" orders of sushi to go along with some "go to" drink orders that made me look like i knew what i was talking about. but it was all just really superficial. no depth at all.

but this isnt what i want to talk about today.

what i want to talk about are the meals that totally changed things for me. im talking about meals where your foundations of all things you knew were shook down to the core and you had to reevaluate things.

SAWA SUSHI... SUNNYVALE CA CIRCA 1999

if you liked sushi and were around the silicon valley during the time when people got bmw z3s for signing bonuses, if you were worth 10 million dollars at one point but you live with your parents now, if you thought you were going to retire at 35 because your stock portfolio was going through the roof because you owned hella shares in companies that gave free deliveries for items that weighed 100 pound but only cost $5...... then you must have eaten at sawa sushi.

i was in college at the time and was surround by paper millionaires.

i was fortunate enough that one decided to take me to sawa sushi. he was a regular there so i didnt get the whole sushi nazi attitude from him that the chef/owner is known for.

all i got was an education in sushi.

by this point, i was regularly frequenting all sorts of restaurants. i was also trying my luck cooking things to varying degrees of success. however, i was your typical kid. i thought i knew everything about everything. i had built up a repertoire of all kinds of sushi... well, at least i thought i did...

little did i know that going to the places your parents go to eat doesnt make you an expert in sushi. memorizing a laminated sushi menu doesnt make you an expert.

the omakase meal that was served at sawa that day was mind boggling good. although i may be a bit more knowledgeable now, back then, i really didnt understand why the hell was everything so damn good. what the hell is that? why does this taste so good?

this was not the sushi i ate when i went out on dates in college. wtf was going on?

this meal made me realize real quick, i dont know shit.

KURE... GANGNAM GU SEOUL SOUTH KOREA CIRCA 2001

a family friend wanted to take me to dinner. he asked if i liked sushi. mind you, beyond the korean style "hwe" sushi, where you get super fresh (usually either just caught, or pulled from a live tank) white fish and eat it with a spicy dipping sauce and/or with leafy green wraps, i have never eaten sushi in asia.

needless to say, i was pretty excited.

i knew things were going to be a bit different from the usual meals i would eat. this is the first time i have eaten at a place where the chef proudly presents for all his diners to see all sorts of plaques, degrees, certifications on the wall..... well actually i take that back. my korean barely passes for literate. my hiragana and kanji? even worse. so even though my dinner companion and the chef both said those were meaningful documents, it could have said proud finger painting graduate for all i know.

even though the chef was pretty much silent to the rest of the customers, when i asked a question or two, he let a small grin escape and answered, yes, i find all my fish every morning. no, we dont have any of those dreadful american style makis here. yes, these knives are very sharp. i think it was somewhat funny for him to have a diner so innocently interested in what he does. by korean standards, i was a grown man at that time and shouldve acted as the cold, emotionless, joyless ahjushi diner who should eat, talk business to my companion and leave. (well until you got drunk later in the night at another place. then you can belt out some crazy korean love songs at the norebang, with your neck tie tied around your head)

i dont think the chef was used to a young man that was really interested in his art. but he happily answered all questions i had.

apparently the chef was born in japan. he was a jae il kyopo, a japanese born korean. he grew up there. he learned his art from a young age. he earned his stripes there. he opened up his own place in seoul. he seemed happy to see an american born korean taking an interest in what he did. he explained that it took years for him to learn how to make the rice just right. the cooking, the seasoning and equally as important, the smacking and forming of the rice to make the vessel for the fish. this was the first time i was ever taught that the rice is equally as important as the fish you are serving.

and the fish that was served? it was a rainbow of delights. local white fish with just enough chewiness and bite to make you remember you are eating sushi in korea. treats from all over japan, fishes with names i can hardly remember but i still remember the taste. this was also the first time i learned that "tuna" isnt just tuna. theres different species, different cuts, but most importantly, different grades of tuna. fish from a few time zones down, to the left to the right... all masterfully presented on perfected rice.

a chef took his years of experience, knowledge and crafted for us our orders. i delightfully ate it all up.

ZUSHI PUZZLE... SAN FRANCISCO CA CIRCA 2010

by this time in my life, i have spent years and years eating, cooking and learning about food. though i wouldnt say im an expert by any means, i have spent a good majority of my time eating and enjoying food.

when it came to sushi, i had gotten pretty deep into it now. i even understood many aspects of the distribution channel for the majority of fish bought in my area. i knew that most restaurants got all their "fresh fish", as many have written in their yelp reviews, from pretty much the same place. there were, according to the all knowing mind of me, a handful of chefs that took the effort to seek out their own fish sources.....

i also knew there was a ranking system you could put pretty much all sushi places in....

worst were the chinese sushi places. this is what you would call the high school sushi eaters joint. cheap fish. cheap bento boxes. barely passable.

then came the korean owned sushi places. some were decent. some were great. most, so so. enough quality to there to justify a certain price point so the owners can lease their s class mercedes.

on the top were japanese owned places. locally, in san francisco, they were the murasakis, the kiss, the okinas.... the few handfuls of small restaurants that the chefs took real care in presenting you a meal....

in my all knowing mind, hell, with my all knowing knowledge of everything like ike jime, distribution chanels.... i gotten pretty jaded (and perhaps a bit too cocky) as an eater.

roger at zushi puzzle smacked that back around to a place that my quest for knowledge should be at. basically, he shut me up. eat your food and enjoy it.

wait, this a chinese sushi chef/owner place? wait, this place is in the marina? (a predominantly white, two polo shirt wearing, sorority girl cackling neighborhood)......

i was wrong on all fronts.

does it matter what nationality the chef is?

does it matter who the patrons are?

what matters is the food.

i dont know when nor why it started, but as my knowledge of food slowly rose, so did a certain level of arrogance. it really didnt matter how much i learned about sushi. sure i came a long way. sure i knew more than the majority of diners. sure i knew more than most sushi joint owners....

but did i know enough for me to be so smug about it? was i going to stop and call it a life?

no.

sometimes you need a wake up call.

roger spends the time to find interesting, different, delicious fish. he doesnt go through the normal channels. that would be boring. he finds his own. he puts his twist of fun and humor mixed with his love for the art into his dishes.

i walked away from the sushi bar with a new appreciation for things. sushi did not get boring. i did. i let myself think to know what to expect. i barely scratched the surface of things and i let myself get stagnant. roger and my meal at zushi puzzle help me snap out of it, find my way again and once again, eat with a passion.

YOHEI... HONOLULU HI CIRCA 2010

this was special.

like really special.

i found this place on handy dandy yelp. a few of my friends who i trust when it comes to these things spoke very highly of yohei and even though it was miles from tourist beach where we were staying, it was worth every last drop of gas getting there.

random strip mall in the middle of what looks to be an industrial area. walk in, plain simple. basic. nothing fancy. a bunch of old folks, locals looks like. staff, old japanese folks. we take a seat by at the bar.

omakase.

what happened next was a barrage of flavors, taste and texture that put a smile after every bite. the chef didnt speak much english but he spoke the language of food. local, inventive, skilled. thats how i would describe this meal. there was no pretension. there was no fluff. there was an old japanese dude, a simple hole in the wall restaurant and amazing food.

this enforced my opinion that food does not have to come with white table cloths. great food comes from people who put the love and care into it.

this meal enforced my opinion that great chefs dont have to be the one with a restaurant empire.

this meal enforced my opinion that food is a common bond and that it crosses all borders.

when the chef presented young locally caught abalone with uni and a shiso leaf... he couldve been a deaf mute for all purposes. i understood what he was saying. we learned to communicate because i was listening to what was being said.

i was coming into my own. i was getting comfortable with sushi. my journey so far brought me to a point that i could sit at a sushi bar, an ocean away from my home, with a chef thats doesnt speak my native tongue, and hear what was being said.

SUSHI ZO... LOS ANGELES CA CIRCA A FEW DAYS AGO

this isnt the holy grail of sushi.

though during the meal, i just might have thought so.

another hole in the wall restaurant in a random ass strip mall. next to a taco shop, next to a coin laundry, next to a vons.

i couldve drove by this place a thousand times before i would have tried it.

bare bones interior. theres really nothing but tables, chairs and a sushi bar.

there were super standouts like cold raw squid noodles with uni and a touch of truffle salt... and yes, it was amazing, but what struck a nerve with me here were the "plain" dishes. a simple king salmon with a slice of kelp. a piece of aji.....

slight side bar here, one of my all time favorite restaurants is a place called ad hoc. their approach is simply make a dish with the best ingredients you can find and prepare it in the best possible way. its quite simple really. thats the beauty of it.

sushi zo. a simple king salmon. it made me reevaluate what i know about good food. for some strange reason, i had blown off salmon as an ingredient for quality sushi. it was thrown in with the world of over sauced, over fried rolls... and yes. a majority of places, this will hold true and i should be aware of it, but i should also be aware that you still can make amazing things with it. just because everyone else was doing poorly with it, it doesnt mean you have to.

even though i was continually evolving my idea of what food is, perhaps every so often, out of habit, out of routine, out of what i considered to be truths, i hit a speed bump.

the chef here reminded me, if you put the care and love into something, into anything. it will show. even a lowly piece of king salmon.


NOW WHAT?

so its 2011, im a 30 something year old. ive tried sushi in a handful of countries, at hundreds of places. my tastes  and approach have been evolving mostly for the better and sometimes for the worst. what now?

my journey in all things sushi, my journey in all things food has been a direct analogy for my life.

the way i thought of and appreciated sushi/food was directly tied into the person i was. but was the way i saw food influencing the way i thought about life or was it the other way around?

i dont think that mattered. they will be forever tied together for me.

writing all this down, i see my journey as a person.

i will make mistakes. i will adjust. i will learn. sometimes i will stall. sometimes i will accelerate.

sometimes, i just need a slap in the face to realize whats going on and where i need to be.

i dont know everything. not even close. i dont think i ever will. but that doesnt mean i wont try to keep learning. its not really the end result thats important. we all have our own end. its the way we get there thats important. there will be important figures along that journey that will shape the journey itself. thank them. appreciate them. there will be important lessons. remember them.

so what now? im going to keep learning.

(that means im having lunch)

fiddlehead ferns, aka wtf do i do with this? learn a technique, cook a million things

waaayyyyy back when, when i was in sunday school, one of the first parables i learned was about jesus teaching someone to fish or something like that.... wait i got that so wrong. ok. i can give you a fish or i can teach you to fish. thats it..

one second on religion. i dont care if you are religious or not. here are the most important things you should get out of any religion. first, know that religion killed faith. humanity and its shortcomings and faults made faith into something its not. whoever the higher being may be, they are up there facepalming going, i cant believe you morons. i left it so simple but you ruined everything. second, its a guidebook to make your life better. its not a guidebook to tell someone else how to live.

anyways, sorry about that. it had to come out. probably because im bitter because im still on this god forsaken earth after the rapture. damn its may 21st 2011 and im still here with you assholes. greeeeeaaaat....

well similarly to the fish and fishing analogy, you can read a recipe and follow it step by step and learn to make a dish. thats great. nothing wrong with that. but i have an alternative, something i always talk about. learn techniques and you will exponentially grow your cooking vocabulary.

here we go.

so i was at berkeley bowl the other week and i noticed something interesting in the produce section. fiddlehead ferns? now i had a few years of my life where i was knee deep into horticulture. my handy dandy pacifc guide to trees and shrubs was always in my backpack and i would randomly identify things by their leaf patterns, fruits and flowers. when i saw fiddlehead ferns in the produce section i was, ummm stumped. you eat fiddlehead ferns? interesting.

of course, my foodcentric friends.. .no more than a couple days later, a buddy had a picture of a dish she made with fiddlehead ferns!

i picked some up the other night. had to try it myself.

now do i know anything about cooking fiddlehead ferns? not really. how do i approach this?

so heres something i learned awhile ago. you grab some basic ingredients, heat up some oil, add some aromatics, toss in some oyster sauce, add your veggies and its tada! its delicious. almost any green veggie will work. this is simple technique to make literally hundreds of dishes. you just need to adjust it slightly for the veggie youre using.

ok so i grabbed some basic ingredients i had in the frig. some firm tofu from hodo beanery, garlic, onion and green onion.

this fiddlehead fern is NOT a leafy green. it wont cook very fast in a pan while your stir frying everything. so what did i do? well first i trimmed of the thicker end of the fiddlehead ferns. then i blanched it in boiling hot salted water.

then i put it under cold water to stop the cooking process while i worked on the rest of the dish.

i added some olive oil to a hot pan and seasoned some tofu chunks with salt and pepper and started the cooking process for these.

why am i cooking this tofu first? well hodo beanery firm tofu is FIRM. this wont crumble up while cooking like other tofu you may have worked with. this is really tofu steak.... i really love hodo beanery products GOOD stuff. and i also like a nice sear on the firm tofu. it builds flavor and adds a nice texture.

i take this slightly seared tofu out and put it on a plate while i address the rest of the dish.

i threw in the aromatics, the onion and garlic. a little sesame oil here, some salt there , some black pepper..... ooh i had some shichimi on the counter so i tossed some in. why not? i let this sweat for a bit *basically cook a bit under med heat*

and the binder that make this technique work for all things green leafy veggie? oyster sauce. i toss in about a table spoon.

oh wait, did i have some left over ground turkey? might as well toss that in to. its not like this is a recipe or anything.

i heat everything threw and i put in on a plate while i worked with the fiddle heads again. at this point, the fiddlehead ferns are trimmed, blanched in hot salted water and chilled to stop the cooking process under cold water. now its time to get them cooking again. i heat up the pan again, add in some sesame oil, toss the fiddlehead ferns in and season with salt and pepper.

now i finally add back all the other ingredients, including some green oinons i was saving for last and heat and toss around for one final time.... and this dish asked me to splash in some ponzu. i obeyed.

then tada!

this is the first time i ever cooked fiddlehead ferns. i used a simple asiany technique to try out this interesting veggie. what do i think of fiddlehead ferns? they are very interesting indeed. texture like okra, flavor similar to aspargus.

what should you take out of this? well, never be afraid. you build up your cooking vocabulary. when you see something you dont know too well, adapt it to something youve done already. this technique will work great with snow pea leave, pea srouts, green beans........ its a helpful tool to learn something new, try something new and keep building up that cooking vocab of yours!

anything you can do i can do better

not to be out done by her little snot nosed offspring, mama patiently listened to her grown ass boy as he went on and on about this awesome salad mix from a farm thats down the street from her house. with the love only a mother can know for her oldest and youngest and only son, she looked at his excitement with pure joy...

then like your typical asian mom she smashed it and stomped on it and let him know whos boss. she busted open her subzero frig (that i paid for of course) and pulled out this plastic bag of winning.

DUDE, is that minari? *korean watercress* whoa. i see it once in awhile. ive seen my boy big willy style had some growing in a bucket before... otherwise, its very hard to find stateside. american watercress is used in place of minari at most korean restaurants... but then again, i dont like to eat at most korean restaurants.

DUDE, is that puchu? *chinese chives* i know EXACTLY what im making tonight with this. puchu pajun. chinese chives mixed into a simple batter, pan fried. make a simple dipping sauce. tada. instant, healthy(ish) snack food... great with magul li or soju or beer.

fyi, magul li, soju, beer...not healthy(ish)

both the minari and puchu looked so healthy, so vibrant, so green and smelled incredible. you can smell the care that went into growing these.

DUDE... ok wait... ok nm..... i have no idea what this is. looked like frisee, but tasted a bit more nuttier and bitter than the usual frisee you find. it started off like a nice simple green, but the finish was a bit ummm different than what im used to. any ideas what this may be?

yeah, so back on point, not to be out done by her son, mama grabbed a bountiful harvest from a backyard farm somewhere in the san bruno mountains. apparently, she knows someone that has a huge backyard garden farm filled with all sorts of hard to find korean veggies. when i asked her where it was, she said, oh, its somewhere, dont worry. yeah. i get it mama. its your thang. go on with your badass self.

if you want the best, you need to find someone that puts the care and effort into it. your local megalomart is not the place to find something like this. you find cheap and although you can find good things on the cheap and there are hidden treasures there and of course, there is a time and place for your local megalomart, if you want the best, you tend to have to find people passionate about what they do. you need to find people who go above and beyond. obviously, this mysterious urban farmer puts some care into their work.

as for myself, im going to fence off a little area in my small urban patio, making a small urban farm. i am passionate about this. it will show. 

stay tuned!