Boston Restaurant and Food Blog » Chinese

Myers + Chang in Boston – Dim Sum Review

Lingbo Li — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 21:09:15 +0000

Myers + Chang in Boston is not a Chinese restaurant.

Yet I frequently hear it compared to one. Chinese food in the US, as Jennifer 8. Lee would say, is the true American cuisine. It has wooed the stomach of millions. Its takeout vessels have become iconic of American culture itself. It is the gateway cuisine to other Asian foods. Myers + Chang (not Meyer’s and Chang) is the post-gateway restaurant.

Asian food has been pigeonholed mostly as… efficient. There are grease-cheap Chinese food joints that seem minted from a humorless factory line. The only ambience in these outposts is the sparkle of a sputtering neon sign. Then there are the cramped Chinatown places that Chowhound loves, serving regional specialties and packing serious heat.

But as in any major market, there’s room for niche players. Myers + Chang in Boston has angled itself as a pan-Asian restaurant with all the trappings of a hip bistro. It’s menu is self-aware, even preciously trendy (Asian chicken and waffles, anyone?). There are gluten-free options. It has the benefit of nimbleness without the issue of catering to the lowest common denominator.

Entrees are around $11-17. The waiters don’t wear those awful black vests. Food arrives on nice plates. My coke had a pink twisty straw and a lime wedge. There’s an open kitchen, a crimson dragon print on the windows, and airy, uncluttered seating. You could take a date here, not spend a ton, but not look cheap.

Some people might complain you can get more “authentic” food for less money in Chinatown.

I would say they’re missing the point. Even though I love the divey food experience, sometimes you just want the rough edges sanded off your Saturday dim sum brunch, you know? I appreciate atmosphere. Sometimes you have to fight for your food in a Chinese restaurant and that makes me cry a little inside. It reminds me too much of being in China.

Plus, those places don’t make things like fried egg banh mi! Myers + Chang does. (I took these photos with my Canon Rebel XS, for those interested in such things.)

I tried a few dishes off their weekend dim sum menu.

You should skip the congee. It is bland and not very good – go get it in Chinatown to experience its full, creamy glory. The fried egg banh mi is like the lovechild of an Egg McMuffin and Vietnam’s most famous sandwich. (Which is itself a fusion of French and local traditions.) It’s tasty, but could be improved with oozy yolk + more pickled carrots and daikon.

Their tea smoked spare ribs are excellent and fatty. You should pick every shred of flesh off the bones, then lick the rest off your fingers.

Grilled corn on the cob with Sriracha butter is juicy and a bit smoky, better than fourth of July. Anything with Sriracha is fine by me. I also tried a special. I don’t remember what it is anymore, sorry. It’s old age.

The coconut pie is a mini pie shell filled with coconut-flavored pudding, topped with cream, then sprinkled with toasted coconut. It’s serviceable, and probably better than any dessert you could ever hope to get at a Chinese takeout joint.

I saw another table with pork belly buns and got really jealous. I was full by that point, but I tried scowling at them. Pork belly buns didn’t magically appear as planned.

What I’d like to try some other time off their dinner menu: their Asian-braised short rib soft tacos on their dinner menu; chicken and waffles; Indonesian fried rice.

Awhile back, they had soft shell crab banh mi. Sad I missed the boat on that one.

I like this place. I think it has its place in the Asian food ecosphere. Keep doing your thing, Myers + Chang.

Why Chinese Restaurateurs Get Stuck Selling Cheap

Lingbo Li — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 16:04:13 +0000

Egg drop soup, courtesy of Serious Eats’ Robyn Lee

I got an interesting comment on my post about why Chinese restaurants are so cheap about a month ago. (And my friend Sam sent in an excellent post about the culinary fundamentals that work against Chinese chefs.) The reader was Jack Neefus, a Baltimore resident who works in finance and dabbles in cooking and travel. He’s been to China few times, including my dad’s hometown of Heilong Jiang.

I asked if I could repost his comment, so he took an extra step beyond to rewrite it into a thoughtful essay. For space purposes, I’ll recap the beginning and excerpt my favorite parts. (I’m so high on my editorial power. You have no idea.)

Jack makes an economically-driven argument for Chinese restaurant owners’ motives. Chinese restaurants, he contends, are frequently owned by immigrants who view their businesses as a relatively stable form of income, compared to the restaurateur driven by love of cuisine and hospitality.

In his writeup, oversupply and price competition are major issues. One interesting point he raises is that American Chinese food tends to favor cheap, bulky vegetables that don’t require a lot of cleaning or cooking, and maintain volume. Ex. broccoli and onion. He also touches on the commodification of Chinese food, and how it’s now viewed as another fast food category with a factory-issued menu.

I found that his personal experiences (let’s call them abbreviated case studies) added the most value to his argument. He draws on his connections in China as well as Baltimore to make some pretty provocative statements.

Jack also breaks down the variety of niche, higher-priced Chinese foods, ranging from jacking up the decor to regional dish specialization.

If you’re nerdy about food (as I am), this is a fun read. I don’t necessarily agree with all of his logic or assertions, but that’s part of the fun.

Please chime in with your own experiences, thoughts, or rebuttals.

Will Chinese Restaurants Ever Become More Expensive?

by Jack Neefus

Here’s a cross-section from my experience seeing Chinese restaurateurs driven more by economics than culinary aspirations:

1) Tony has run a modest restaurant for years, carved out of a gas station on the Maryland Western Shore. He has been successful enough to set up restaurants in other cities for each of his children. But he is not particularly interested in food per se, and spends much of his week now hiring Chinese day laborers and subcontracting small commercial renovation projects.

2) Wu-Jin has owned seven ordinary Chinese restaurants in Baltimore. She saved enough to buy a small apartment building, and has sold her restaurants to focus on multi-level marketing.

3) Pan came to the US from Fujian without his family seven years ago. He is working class, illiterate, and has never learned to speak English. He opened a restaurant in Florida which netted $70k annually at its peak. He then took on two partners to start a large Chinese buffet in Florida and went bankrupt. Pan now lives New York’s Chinatown and is working construction.

4) Li-Min, my girlfriend’s brother, owned a seafood restaurant in Heilong-Jiang before giving it up in a divorce. Li-Ping has encouraged him to come to America and start a higher-quality, more authentic Chinese restaurant, possibly a hot pot establishment. However, he runs a heating and appliance business with his brother now, does not speak English, and he would see it as a big step backwards to emigrate to the US.

These stories are typical of Chinese restaurant owners and illustrate why the industry has never been a source of culinary innovation in the US. [Ed. note: Pretty strong statement. Do you agree or disagree?]

Attempts to create a higher-end segment of Chinese restaurants are hamstrung by price expectations set by downscale places that rely heavily on takeout. But most restaurant owners would like to be able to charge more.

Is there a potential market for more elite, expensive Chinese restaurants with more accomplished chefs and more authentic dishes?

There are actually several ways this may take place:

1) Inauthentic Chinese Food in Better Surroundings. Strangely enough, one of the few places to have broken through the price wall is PF Chang’s. While not authentically Chinese, they serve versions of American Chinese dishes along with cocktails in a nicer atmosphere in locations where American consumers expect to spend more. PF Chang’s competes with places like The Cheesecake Factory and The Macaroni Grill, and the average bill per customer reflects that.

2) Chinese Specialties that Appeal to American Tastes. Authentic Chinese hot pot or ‘Muslim restaurants’ goes over very well with Americans. It is commercialized in China by chains like “The Little Fat Sheep,” but stateside has only been introduced into California. There’s no reason this segment shouldn’t become nationwide.

Dumpling restaurants are another authentic Chinese category that goes over well in the US. There are a few storefront restaurants, such as China Bistro in Rockville, MD, who offer an expanded range of dumplings as the main draw, but nothing like the establishments in Chinese cities. Ingredients can vary from vegetables to lobster, and presentation can be upscale and whimsical. In the right setting, it could easily become a trendy category.

3) Authentic Haute Cuisine. Americans tend to dislike many authentic Chinese luxury dishes such as shark’s fin or bird’s nest soup, and are unwilling to pay high prices for them. But American foodies tend to like a variety of unusual items on the menu even if they’re not ordered. Having them on the printed English menu, and not just the verbal Chinese menu, may now draw customers rather than repel them. With the huge influx of upper-middle-class Chinese immigrants, the potential to find consumers and not just voyeurs is greater as well.

Americans expect a fine dining experience to include décor, and here too trends are changing slowly but noticeably. China itself has experienced a wave of lavish and artistic restaurants, and some new Chinese restaurants have gone beyond the fish tanks, horoscope placemats, and mountain posters.

Hunan Taste, a new storefront restaurant in Catonsville MD, features hardwood floors, carved calligraphy, and high-end furnishings imported from China. Their menu has items like fish intestines along with spicier and more authentic Hunan dishes than American patrons are familiar with.

If that trend continues, you may one day be able to walk into a restaurant in New York and order bear’s paw or Pao Yu snail in a spectacular setting for the same outrageous prices you used to pay at the Quilted Giraffe.

Lingbo’s caveat

I thought I’d add here as well – just as there are great Chinese chefs who care about their craft, just as there are lackluster American chefs who just want to put out a burger that doesn’t get sent back.

M&T Restaurant in Flushing, NY: a Tsingtao in Qingdao

Lingbo Li — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:18:23 +0000

While in Beijing, I briefly fantasized about taking the train to Qingdao. I knew little about the area, except that it is the home of the eponymous TsingTao beer. (Same name, different romanization system.) There was a beer festival going on, and for some reason, I imagined a malt-hued scene of splendor: TsingTao-branded palaces, wheat-colored fountains, doe-eyed promo models.

A tall, cold one. (all photos by Sam)

I never made it onto the train, opting for lazy afternoons of shopping in the tourist trap of Beijing’s Ya Xiu market. I dropped thousands of RMB thanks to ineffectual bargaining while my culture-shocked nerves were worn down to an irritable jelly. Thankfully, my second chance at travel — a stateside jaunt to Qingdao in the form of a meal at M&T in Flushing — was more pleasant.

My fellow food-loving friend Sam (who wrote about Chinese food and photographed a Seattle food tour) did his Flushing research, so we set off on a heatstroked Sunday to M&T (44-09 Kissena Blvd, (718) 539-4100) for some good eats. As we trekked past Main Street – way past Main Street – my strappy platform espadrilles cut into the lumps of battered flesh called feet.

I wished I were a 5 year old in a carseat. “Are we there yet?” I asked.

“Almost!” Sam replied, in his perpetually cheery kind of way.

We were greeted by the friendly proprietoress who, impressed by Sam’s ability to speak fluent Chinese (no one is ever impressed by my Chinese), helpfully suggested “比较传统青岛菜” (rather traditional Qingdao dishes).

Sam’s awesome pics of our meal after the jump.

The meal was not a spectacular one, but it was a satisfying one with a lot of seafood and an interesting use of spices.

Our free cold appetizer was julienned potato in chile sauce, the potato prepared so that it was all cool, crisp texture rather than flavor. I then ordered a TsingTao for the sake of it – I mean, how often can you order a Tsingtao in a restaurant with food from Tsingtao?

The first dish looked like giant, spicy oysters but turned out to be… squid heads?? They’re listed on the menu as Fish with Cumin and Hot Chili. Okk.

Ones that had been heavily seasoned with cumin. Many ultra-traditional Chinese dishes, like shark’s fin, bird’s nest, and abalone, are inherently flavorless and consumed only for their rare textures. This was an example of that: an unabashed display the Chinese love for texture. It had what the Chinese deem a “qq” kind of mouthfeel, a certain chewiness – plus a pleasant snap and give under the teeth. They were crunchy, kind of like cartilage.

While I enjoyed this squid dish, each bite was so seasoned and so textural that I couldn’t eat much of it.

Another dish the owner suggested was cold bean starch noodles with julienned zucchini and diced carrot, dressed in Chinkiang vinegar and cilantro. To use another Chinese food vocab word, it was very “shuang” – something silky, slithery, refreshing, good for a hot summer’s day. It reminded me a lot of my mother’s home cooking.

Same went for a very homestyle dish of stir fried tofu, eggs, greens, and miniature shrimp, which used humble ingredients and employed meat for flavor. This was the kind of thing you ate in a Chinese family’s kitchen over a bowl of white rice, CCTV humming in the background. Nothing showy or unexpected, just belly-filling and good.

A heavy hand with spice popped up again in fried shrimp, which deep fried a handful of Szechuan peppercorns for a uniquely aromatic, slightly citrus-floral flavor and numbing, sizzling effect. The brilliant orange color of the shrimp was set off with fiery-red chiles – more for show than heat.

Finally, the kitchen sent us fried taro cakes for dessert, which looked but did not taste burned. They were fine, filling. I didn’t get through much of the Tsingtao. I felt like much of the meal – particularly the bean starch noodles and the tofu/shrimp dish – could have just as easily been eaten at home, but for you, that could be part of the charm. There’s an off-the-beaten-path intimacy and warmth to it that’s unmistakeable.

All Chinese [parties] look alike

Lingbo Li — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:00:00 +0000

Chinese gatherings are all alike; every other party is unique in its own way. Chinese parties, by and large, contain several essential elements: a gut-busting family-style meal, dishes with ingredients cut into small pieces, heart-wrenchingly awful karaoke (because this is the socially acceptable way to display emotion), rice liquor and/or Chinese beer, possibly crappy wine. And Chinese people. These are not optional.

growing up at the table

At the advanced age of 21, I finally seemed to have graduated to the Big Kids tables at these kinds of gatherings. Someone offered me alcohol, but I realized I wanted no part of tipsy festivities. “Your Chinese is superb,” another guest complimented me after I said the equivalent of, “I interned in Shanghai this summer.” I accepted the compliment ungraciously.

red-cooked pork, lined with a sunburst of halved hardboild eggs.

After munching through red-cooked pork and and thousand year old eggs, I realized the real party was where I could speak my unabashed dialect of sarcastic English. I shifted to the kitchen, where the high schoolers were.

A ton of homemade Chinese food porn after the jump.

crab meatballs that were more paste than crab

The elementary school set were enjoying themselves on the XBox. (Possibly converted to karaoke later.)

There was another guest my age, except she was a Real Chinese Girl attending grad school in the states. She introduced herself to the group of high schoolers and myself. Then I began talking and immediately felt how incredibly loud and arrogant my speech sounded in comparison. She smiled politely and did not bare her teeth when she talked, which wasn’t often – her English was slow and accented. The rest of us cheerfully went on a gossip rampage – high school teachers divorced, teachers pregnant, students hooking up in the parking lot/dark room/auditorium, etc. Good to know nothing had changed.

“Don’t do drugs,” I advised the high school freshman. I expected he would eventually attend MIT, Caltech, or in a pinch, Cornell.

The dishes ranged from a thinly sliced beef, a stir fry of thick seaweed strips, cabbage, and cilantro, crab meatballs that were more paste than crab, red cooked pork (topped by an inch of luscious fat), boiled peanuts, celery, and carrots, chicken and chopped lotus root, and my mother’s steamed rolls, with grainy, sweet sesame paste lining its insides. For finicky kids, one mom prepared a dull, overcooked penne tossed in some pesto.

Chicken with chopped lotus root

my mother's steamed rolls, with grainy, sweet sesame paste lining its insides

A Western holdout - penne tossed with pesto

A distinctly Chinese dish of “pi dan” (thousand year old eggs) tossed with soy sauce and soft tofu chunks was also served. What do they taste like? Well, the outer shell is a translucent brown-black, like a firm jello, and doesn’t have much of a flavor. The yolk, a variegated gray, is indescribable – pungent, a little fetid, definitely an acquired taste, but not insurmountable. I ate a few pieces successfully, and felt like I had fulfilled my immigrant duty.

thousand year old eggs

Anyway, I enjoyed the aforementioned gut-busting family feast. The food had its moments, although overall, the spread didn’t rise about mediocre. But it carried connotations of nurturing, of home, of tradition, and sometimes, food is not about what it tastes like, but the people you eat it with and the places you eat it. Then I went home and carved into a carton of coffee ice cream.

Getting fat again

Lingbo Li — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:44:44 +0000

So I use “fat” in a tongue-in-cheek way. But I definitely spent the last few weeks watching what I ate, which meant no crazy banquet dinners, dinners of scrambled egg whites and vegetables, and the occasional helping of cheese dip, heaped high with guilt.

As a result, my stomach became a cast iron tank. My collarbone and ribcage took greater prominence. When I lay down, I marveled at how my skin stretched over my gently jutting hipbones. It felt like a lesson in skeletal anatomy.

So on my first day back on Planet Girl, I felt totally free to go on a carb-and-calorie rampage. I was going to eat EVERYTHING and ANYTHING I could possibly ever want to eat. I was going to ignore stomach pains. I was going to consume whatever was put in front of me, especially high in simple starches, sugar, and fats. I was going to try to undo whatever I had done to myself.

The night before, I’d made good work of a ginger-and-scallion lobster dish, a beef/pepper/pineapple stirfry, and a salt and pepper fried squid at Peach Farm in Chinatown. The verdict: the cooking was a bit rushed, and the quality suffered as a result. My dad commented on how slapdash the dishes seemed to be put together, although the beef stirfry was meltingly tender and delicious. Then I topped it off with a half a red bean bun as I stalked around on my 5 inch clear heels, bronzer still caked on my stomach, legs, and arms.

I went to bed with a horrible stomach ache.

I woke up in the morning and ate a bowl of cereal with milk, pistachio muffin, and orange. I was just getting warmed up. For lunch I had a tray of salmon maki from the Greenhouse Cafe. It was horrible – the rice was gummy and hard, the fillings nearly flavorless – but I downed it all anyway. During section, my TF brought in a bag of chocolate squares. I had two – dark and caramel.

Afterwards, I headed to the North End to return my wonderful stylist’s hair straightener, then went on a “best of” spree, informed by the folks at Chowhound.

First there was a chocolate chip cannoli at Modern Pastry...

Then tiramisu at Caffe Vittoria. Tasty, but nothing transcendental.

My favorite!!! An incredible slice of Pizza at Express - incredibly gooey, salty, cheesy, with the perfect cheese-sauce-crust ratio. The only downside - they refused to serve me free water. WTF.

Then I had a carnitas burrito with guacamole from Qdoba.

I don’t even normally eat burritos when not on a diet. But I felt like it was a nice finishing touch.

I had a horrible stomach ache again after all of this. I’m working on this fat thing. It’s hard, though.

Gourmet Dumpling House in Boston’s Chinatown

Lingbo Li — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:57:20 +0000

Gourmet Dumpling House is the kind of Chinese restaurant that you hope for when you stroll through Boston’s rather small enclave of all things Asia, with a focus on that mysterious Middle Kingdom. First of all, it’s very, very busy. That’s always a good sign.

I declared “two people” in Chinese at the front desk, and I may have imagined it, but I think we were seated more quickly than other people waiting. Finally entering the fray was like trying to crowdsurf: you just kind of dive in and hope for the best, with no romantic buffer between you and your meal. First of all, there’s wasn’t much ambiance to speak of. It was all naked, glaring light and diners packed in like sardines, seated at tables so tiny that they struggle to hold more than two dishes before the waiter starts stacking plates on top of one another. My friend Taylor and I basically had dinner with the couple jammed up next to us, a friendly Chinese couple who lived in the area – the husband was Harvard College class of 1975, and a former Quadling.

It’s funny how Americans come to expect semi-bad service and lack of ambiance as a hallmark of a good Chinese restaurant. I’m theorizing here, but I think part of it is because Chinese food has become such a commonly accepted cuisine that in order for it be more exotic and exciting of an experience, bad service and decor is appealing in the same way secondhand bohemian togs grace privileged bodies.

That being said, the service was surprisingly good, and I worked out a little bit of my Chinese that I picked up over the summer. My foodie friend had recommended the Szechuan fish stew and salt and pepper fried squid, as did our waiter. He also declared the soup dumplings (named “juicy dumplings” on the menu) as tasty, so we threw those into the mix as well.

Just looking at this picture again makes me salivate, thinking about the tender slices of flounder and cabbage steeped in a scary-looking (but only moderately spicy) red oil, giant handfuls of whole chiles, all perfectly paired with a bowl of slightly sticky white rice. Fantastic. They don’t use “numbing hot” spice, which is surprising considering it’s Szechuan style, but I guess it’s hard to get your hands on the real thing stateside, or maybe the flavors are just too unusual. Anyway, despite the lack of tongue paralysis, a supremely satisfying bowl that easily feeds 4-5 for about $13. What a deal.

We need a closeup to emphasize how delicious this is.

They also hit it out of the park with the salt and pepper fried squid, which might also be deemed “salt and pepper fried crack” or something similar. You just cannot stop eating this stuff – it’s crunchy, it’s salty, it’s bite has just the right amount of bounce and give coated by the tastiest breading known to man. It’s served superfluously on a bed of chopped pale greens. Anything – even the toes of babies and the flippers of fetal baby seals – would taste good prepared this way.

Unforch, the juicy dumplings (“xiao long bao”) disappointed. These are eaten with a spoon: you bite a small hole as you balance it in your soup spoon, then slowly suck out the burning hot juice inside which is actually a block of melted gelatin/fat that’s been placed prior to cooking. The flavor was a bit off and I felt it should have been sweeter, but the skins were supple and they were served satisfyingly at a dangerous temperature.

We opted to get a dessert across the street at Great Taste Bakery. They had run out of red bean paste and pineapple buns, and in fact, any kind of baked good that a Chinese bakery makes well, so Taylor made the ill-advised choice of getting this almond cake.

“Chinese cakes suck,” I told him very baldly, hoping to spare his tastebuds. But it was all of like, 70 cents, so no big loss when my premonition turned out to be correct.

Not only was it just… bad, it was also kind of stale. Dry, spongey, flavorless cake with stiff, flavorless, frosting that felt like watered-down chilled margarine. Oops.

Find it!

—————

Gourmet Dumpling House

52 Beach St (between Harrison Ave & Oxford St)

(617) 338-6223

Great Taste Bakery

63 Beach St (between Oxford St & Ping On St)
(617) 426-8899

—————

The Chinese Food Truck on Oxford St

Lingbo Li — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:36:09 +0000

I first spotted Yang’s after my (baller) Sociology of Organizations class with Professor Ager. “A Chinese food truck!” I exclaimed and did one of my strange, gleeful flails – I kind of flap around my arms as if I’m trapped in a tiny bubble and make high pitched noises. So after class today, I gave it a try.

There were a lot of Chinese people in line. After being removed from the Middle Kingdom for a month, hearing Chinese again was kind of novel and comforting. It brought up no urges to yell at ineffectual service people – instead, I suddenly felt a bit safer and comforted by the sing-song tones of Mandarin. “What’s the best dish?” I asked the Chinese people in front of me.

“They’re kind of all the same,” one man in a stripped button down said.

The woman behind me suggested the crispy fried fish. “It’s very tasty,” she said, using a Shanghainese adjective for “very.” She confirmed she was from Shanghai, but when I tried to volunteering my cultural background and summer work experience, I saw that I lost her. “So you grew up in the United States?” she said afterwards. Oh. I felt too embarassed to switch to English – there is a kind of intimacy that evaporates in that act.

Click on the picture for a full-size menu.

I eventually ordered what the two people ahead of me ordered – shredded pork with Chinese pickle. When I opened up the box, my first reaction was aesthetic. This is a dish that never looks particularly great; the photos here are better than in real life. Chinese pickle – “zhacai” – is a variety of mustard that is commonly used in Chinese dishes, particularly hot and sour soup, and is often served with congee. The flavoring here, despite being such a Chinese dish (I doubt anyone used to American Chinese food would order this) was milder than my mother’s cooking. The saltiness, as well as the sour notes, had been toned down. The vegetables were cooked to a softer texture as was the meat, and there was more cornstarch used. It was overall satisfying, but didn’t really completely hit the spot – the rice wasn’t very sticky. I think I’ll try one of their more American standard dishes like Kung Pao chicken next time.

Find it!

——————

Yang’s

Oxford Street

Parked outside of Maxwell Dworkin (walk through the Science Center, past Peabody, then up until you hit the engineering building.)

Price range: $5-6 for a very large carton of rice and one entree, about $3 for appetizers.

—————–

Photo of the Day: Beijing Roast Duck at Quan Ju De

Lingbo Li — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:08:51 +0000

BEIJING – You bite into the skin of this baby. The universe around you dims; the re nao din of the restaurant fades; there is only this gorgeous, golden piece in your mouth that seems solid until your teeth sink in. It melts. It slides, as sensual and full-bodied as a glass of wine; you gasp.

“This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten,” you hear yourself saying.

My mother’s cooking

Lingbo Li — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 04:49:18 +0000

A stew of beef, bamboo shoots, and vermicelli noodles

whole fish, delicious

typical vegetable dish

the family feast

So one of my favorite things in the world is my mother’s cooking. I’ve grown up on a blessed repertoire of Chinese comfort foods like sticky rice cake and inventive stir fries. I’ve been spoiled with ribs and fried rice and homemade dumplings. The best (and probably only) part of going home to the suburbs is eating a mother-created feast, one of those wonderfully Chinese family-style spreads of 6-7 dishes for our small family, where the kitchen just keeps magically churning out dish after dish after dish. I’m never sure how she plans these meals or where her recipes come from, but I’m happy to be on the receiving end.

I had a really good bowl of potato leek soup at Crema Cafe today, too. I think I might post it to 3 Buck Bites. Then I took a picture of me with my spoon since I am trying to have clever food-related self portraits.

Darwin’s sandwiches, strawberry eclairs, fish fragrant aubergines

Lingbo Li — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 04:53:12 +0000

From Taste of China in Tarrytown, NY

From Darwin's

Harvard University Dining Services, sometimes you just get it right.

Eating faces

Lingbo Li — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 02:07:43 +0000

I’ve never quite understood why people can’t take their fish with a face on it. I’ve grown up in a family where my mother talk rapturously of fish eyeball and fish cheek, and when I expressed curiousity over what fish brains would taste like, she picked up the translucent skull and cracked it opened between her teeth. So that’s when I tasted fish brains. I have to say, pretty gross… a lot like a light cod liver oil.

This particular fish is from Zoe’s Chinese restaurant in Somerville, which was a bit of a disappointment. The “Mao style pork” (actually red cooked pork, hong shao rou) was nothing to write home about, nor was the tea-smoked duck or the fried taro appetizer. The fish, however, was great. Which goes to show simple presentations with that delightful combination of ginger and scallion, that culinary hallmark of Chinese cooking, plus fresh ingredients turns out a winner each time.

Zoe’s is supposed to do good Szechuan, so I tried their ma po tofu, hoping it would be appropiately spicy and laden with bits ground meat. No such luck. The search continues.

If you know where to get really good, uber-”ma la”-spicy ma po tofu, let me know…

Flushing, Queens

Lingbo Li — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 04:20:58 +0000

So each time I go home, I cannot resist the dirty siren call of Flushing, Queens, where the streets are stickier and the sauce spicier, where the tiny, steaming kitchens are filled with slurping patrons and the rhythmic slap, slap of hand-pulled noodles.

“Wouldn’t it be great,” I asked my dad, “if you could just eat all day? And never be full? And never get fat?”

“No,” he said. “It would be expensive.”

But that’s the thing – here, a giant bowl of noodles costs you around a fiver and kebabs a mere dollar. You can sample baked goods for even less than that. At my favorite sorta-ghetto clothing shop, Pretty Girl, which sells women’s clothing and accessories at wholesale prices (t-shirts for $3, dresses for $8-15, jackets $10) I picked up a surprisingly ladylike ruffled, floral print shirtdress. I imagined myself walking through Harvard Yard, oversized sunglasses, pneumatic of lip and balancing on 4 inch high espadrilles, coursebooks swaying at my hip. $13. Yes.

So it was off to the Flushing Mall again, which was featured in an earlier post for their shaved ice and takoyaki. I have to say, I enjoyed the shaved ice at JoJo Taipei in Allston more since the ice was more finely grated and my waitress had been kind enough to do an everything-but-the-kitchen sink piling of toppings. This time around, you can see the szechuan dumplings ($3.95) (the Chinese name for them is “red oil dumplings”) with a healthy dose of garlic and dan dan noodles ($3.95) (my mother criticized them as inauthentic – the noodles were flat, not round). Sadly, neither of these were spicy in the leastest. And I even ordered in Chinese, so not sure what the problem was there.

Later, I ran across some adorable cakes, which I obviously had to photograph. I am always a sucker for food shaped like animals. And tiramisu. This version, $3, was had at Yee Mei Fong Bakery. The thick layer of cocoa powder on top made it a bit messy to eat. It was just prepared just as Chinese like their desserts – mostly a light cream, a suggestion of cake, not much else.

Scenes from Boston’s Chinatown

Lingbo Li — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:09:44 +0000

their beady eyes were watching me

Carbs carbs carbs

better than a dollar menu.

Vegetarian beef: it's what's for dinner.

Spiny crabs?!!

“Like a barnyard in your mouth”: JoJo Taipei in Allston

Lingbo Li — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 18:50:32 +0000

It’s funny how your original goal (to introduce Dan to Chinese shaved ice) can morph into something utterly unrecognizable. In an epic rock-paper-scissors battle, it was decided that the spot would be JoJo Taipei in Allston. And when I saw pig intestines on the menu, how could I resist?

Actually, pig intestine showed up in 2 of the appetizers and 3-4 of the entrees. There was pig intestine in “fire casserole” (unclear), pig intestine in you noodles, pig intestine fried, pig instead steamed. It was a heaven of porcine entrails.

But that left many more options, since it would be hard to make a meal entirely of intestine. The waitress dropped off our complimentary roasted peanuts and pickled cabbages (delicious) and I did the ordering in Chinese. She seemed determined to speak Chinese, actually – usually waitresses pick up that my language skills are a little rusty, and switch over to English, but Dan only got a few quick admonitions to use his spoon and I did the ordering.

“We’re not very hungry,” I explained, requesting some suggestions.

“Ok, I’ll bring over stinky tofu and ‘xiao long bao’ (soup dumplings) then,” she replied immediately, already writing down our order. I was relieved to not have to make any decisions.

My camera crapped out after one picture, so dear blog reader, you will be treated to a far fancier camera this post.

Stinky Tofu

Stinky tofu arrived first. As soon as she set it down, the eponymous stink immediately hit you – like a breeze had blown over a manure pile. The dish itself was pretty disappointing – dry, with a the texture of a delicate sponge, and flavoring came only from a thin chili sauce that refused to cling to the fried surface of the tofu. Dan took one bite and made a face. “Like a barnyard in your mouth,” he said. I found that subsequent pieces didn’t have the same effect. You get used to the smell very fast.

Pig Intestine

Here is the pig intestine, with a nice peanutty dipping sauce and stuffed with chives. It reminded me a lot of the meat found on pig’s feet, with the same chewy, gelatinous quality.

Xiao Long Bao - soup dumpling

Our waitress brought his over, along with soup soons. I was confused on eating technique and just popped the whole thing in my mouth and struggled not to let a boiling mouthful of soup and pork overcome my physical capacities. Definitely something you have to eat hot. The skin of these buns are unleavened, so they have a thinner, translucent quality.

Bao Bing - Shaved ice with toppings

Finally, dessert time. It said to choose 3 toppings, but the waitress just smiled and said she’d put everything on a large shaved ice for us. It arrived on an enormous platter, every bit as bizarrely and richly satisfying as I remember – kidney beans, mung beans, red beans, tapioca pearls, condensed milk, some kind of sweet syrup, soft, mealy peanuts, all haphazardly lobbed onto a fluffy, finely grated bed of ice.

A worthy finale to an adventurous meal.

Tapioca pearls, peanuts, other kinds of goodness

Trinity: Duck, chocolate creme brulee, cooked blood.

Lingbo Li — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:44:51 +0000

Slow roasted duck, braised escarole, roasted fingerlings, Sicilian olives (Rialto, The Charles Hotel)

Blood with scallions - probably duck or goose blood. (Somewhere in Flushing, Queens)

Chocolate creme brulee, Cafe of Love in Mt. Kisco