zai jian zao

Just to stick with the Asian food theme, Jukki (who is visiting from LA) and I had lunch at Zao's Noodle at U Village. Though I've lived near a Zao's since college, I've never (I think... maybe once in Vegas...) gone in. And now that I've been, I'll never go again. Food sucked.

So maybe I should change the title of this post since zai jian means 'until I see you again' because I ain't ever going back. So... sayonara Zao.

ooh... need to be home on tuesday...

Marination Mobile

rice cooker

Speaking of Asian food, I just had to rave about having the bestest rice cooker ever. One of many craigslist finds in SF bay area, this sucker cost me a whopping $100. Some may sneer and gag at the thought of spending that much money on a rice cooker, but really, it makes any crappy rice found at 99 Ranch Market edible and yummy. Thank goodness for japanese businessmen who win prizes at golf tournaments and then proceed to sell their winnings on craigslist.

rocking wok

Seattle, for all its Asian population, has terrible Chinese food. Those in the know usually go over to Bellevue for good Chinese food. So it was nice to find that the new owners of Rocking Wok haven't screwed the pooch. I had this craving for 皮蛋瘦肉粥 and while Rocking Wok's wasn't the most spectacular, nor the most authentic, it was decently flavored and not bad for $4.75. It's nice that it's walking distance from home, too.

in n out

Here's a couple of pictures of In N Out. MG and I went twice while in LA. Beats Dick's any day.

brunch!

Ain't it great to have friends who are glad you're home? While MG and I were in LA, VG (nee H) made this scrumptious brunch for a lovely get-together :)

jujube

My parents have a lot of fruit trees in their backyard: two lemons, fig, asian pear, kumquat, peach, guava, and jujube. Of all of them, the last is probably one that most people have not had. But people should! Because jujubes are yummy! The taste is between persimmon and apple. They've got an apple-like texture when ripe, too. Refreshing and portable!

btw...

I've been on vacation. Many of my Los Angeles friends had never met MG before. Last Christmas, I promised a couple of them that they would meet him before this Christmas. So MG and I went to my friend's wedding in the outskirts of LA and met a bunch of my high school chums. And by meet, I mean, we ate with them. Because when on vacation at home and showing someone around, what you're really doing is eating with a bunch of different people. So the next couple of posts will probably center on food... the food that has made me rolly-polly overweight. Really. Fat. FAT.

Starting with the menu for the wedding banquet:
Oh yeah, some very basic Chinese banquet fun facts and some etiquette...
(in order of how they appeared in my head)

• The banquet is usually nine courses of lots of family-style food.
• That lazy susan in the middle shouldn't be spun quickly. And move your tea cup.
• Which way should the lazy susan go? Age and gender. Old grannies always first.
  
• 1st dish: cold appetizer sampler which might include jellyfish (that yellowish gelatinous stringy stuff)
• Do you need to try everything? If you have to ask, chances are you are not at the head table and that lazy susan isn't going to hurl food at your plate. So, no.
  
• Do I have to finish everything my neighbor put on my plate? Sometimes, Asians like to put food on each others' plates (see me putting jellyfish on MG's plate). Don't make a big deal of it, but don't put it in your mouth unless you want to. Plates are changed every few courses, so you won't have to stare all meal at that fish eye that the little grandma sitting beside you put on your plate.
• Why would I need rice/noodles at the end of the meal? The penultimate/ultimate dish is invariably a starch-laden tub of rice/noodles. This is actually not supposed to be finished. Though you may eat it, leave some of it in your bowl. This is an expression of fullness and goes to show that your hosts are good hosts for feeding you until you're comatose.
• At many restaurants, when you see the waiters taking away a half-full plate of lobster, don't despair. Usually, they just want to put it on a smaller plate so that they can fit the other eight courses onto the table.
• Slurping is OK. When you're eating soup in southern China in July, slurping it the only thing that will cool that soup down. So slurp away. Tea ceremonies in southern China also usually include a lot of slurping; it aerates the tea and gives it a different flavor.
  
• The secret to eating rice with chopsticks: put it in your soup bowl. Smaller bowls are OK to lift from the table. Chinese people usually lift the bowl up to their mouths and shovel rice into their mouths with the chopsticks. This trick is very useful when you've got your rice drenched in soy sauce.
• When you put your chopsticks down, lay them down. Do not stick them into anything (like a bowl of rice). If you do, Buddha will come and smack you upside the head. Chopsticks sticking out of a rice bowl looks like incense sticks used to pray, many times for the dead.
• When you're out of tea, unless you're at a REALLY formal affair (black tie gala, or red dress gala in Chinese), lift the lid of the tea pot and set it askew. This is a universal Chinese waiter signal that you need more hot water for your tea. They won't refill tea leaves (which means the next batch will have minimal caffeine in it) but they'll add more hot water to the existing loose tea leaves.

I need to get back to work.

LS on bread pudding

The Wallingford Bakery sells some leftover loaves on the weekends for cheap (like, a buck). So LS was able to pick up a lovely orange zest loaf to make some bread pudding. By the time I heard of the bread pudding, it was a distant memory. So like any good termite (a.k.a. mooching friend), I twisted her arm into making some while we roasted corn and ate peanut butter noodles. It, like the noodles, was uber-yummy and will require further arm-twisting to pry away her recipe. The crust was all caramelized and the center was just the right sweetness... I'll stop describing now to keep myself from drooling all over my keyboard.

peanut butter noodles

Randomly saw LS at the bus stop a couple of days ago. So I invited myself over for dinner. We ended up making peanut butter noodles with bell peppers and shaved zucchini. Topped with cilantro, it was ab fab. I'd post a recipe but we kinda just threw stuff into the sauce as we saw fit. But for a list of ingredients, this recipe comes close. We served it warm but a Taiwanese version is served cold (with blanched chicken and julienned cucumbers... delish, too). We used Hong Kong-style egg noodle but in retrospect, spaghetti would have been better (less absorbent). Not that I am a proponent of spaghetti in Chinese dishes, it's really hard to find the exact kind of Asian noodle needed for certain dishes. Spaghetti just seems better for this particular dish. Yummy no matter what, though.

mango lassi

Easy Peasy Mango Lassi

1 cup mango chunks (frozen from Trader Joe's)
1 cup plain or vanilla yogurt (also from TJ)
1/4 cup water
Sugar to taste

Mix yogurt and water in blender. Slowly add cold (but not frozen) mango chunks. Blend until smooth. Add sugar to taste. Did I mention it was easy?