Offbeat
Eating Toro’s beef hearts; Ken Oringer
My snapshot of Toro's sliced beef heart
Thinly sliced beef heart at Ken Oringer’s Toro. My dining partner was a little apprehensive at first, but pronounced the finished product akin to roast beef – I’d say it’s more fine grained. I love how offal can look so innocuous but surprise you with a certain intensity of flavor or texture. Like their sweetbreads – my first, actually. I’ll post pictures of those later.
I got into an interesting debate with a Facebook commenter. See our exchange:
Lingbo Li Ran into tweep @simonepress who was sitting next to me at @tororestaurant – how cool and random! Had the corn, beef hearts, short rib – yum!
Wed at 11:18am via Unnamed App Custom: loading… · Comment · LikeUnlike · View Feedback (11)Hide Feedback (11)Commenter
My stomach just turned upside down.
Wed at 11:36am ·Lingbo Li
It was sliced very thin and put on a slice of bread – it tasted more like roast beef than anything else.
Wed at 11:39am ·
Commenter
Try endangered sea turtle eggs. Not bad.
Wed at 12:11pm ·Lingbo Li
Beef hearts are not endangered… the ethics are completely different.
Wed at 12:31pm ·
Commenter
Well…..it depends the country ur at where the “When in rome” qoute applies. I still get skeeved from the idea of consuming hearts of animals…i can imagine it was once beating.
Wed at 12:33pm ·Lingbo Li
Thinking something is “gross” is not the same as thinking it is unethical – you can think brussel sprouts are gross, but that’s a personal preference, not a ethical or necessarily cultural one. A piece of beef was once moving as well – it’s muscle, just like the heart is muscle. The ethical argument for eating hearts would be that it’s making use of something that would normally be thrown away, meaning less waste and respecting every part of the animal.
Wed at 1:08pm ·
Commenter
Lemme just think ….what would Hannibal Lector do?
So I’ve gotten comments before on the ethics of what I eat. One person criticized me for eating whale steak (it was from the mink whale, which is not endangered), while some of the stuff I eat is just kind of gross. I mean, I don’t expect everyone to spring for calves brains. I do happen to think that eating offal is one the most ethical and delicious things you can do to reduce waste, but the knee-jerk grossout reaction from some people is saddening.
And if you’re curious who this Ken Oringer is, photographer Andy Ryan took a bunch of photos of the Burger Bash and happened to capture some of me. (I’m not BFFs with Ken! I talked to him for about five minutes. And ragged on his Red Sox chefs whites.)
Photos with celebs are interesting – I always feel like they only exist to simulate a relationship that doesn’t exist, a fleeting fame-by-association.
Me with Boston restaurateur Ken Oringer, photo by Andy Ryan, courtesy of Chris Lyons
Tony Maws’ Fried Pigs’ Tails at Craigie on Main, Cambridge
Despite ordering very, very little at Craigie on Main (a cocktail and splitting an appetizer), my dining companion and I were treated like long lost family.
I probably have not been so coddled and swathed in love since I wore Mao-printed onesies as an infant. Despite explicitly only ordering drinks, we sat at a table, had a full bread basket brought to us, and finished off with two complimentary petite madeleines (which were unremarkable, but a nice touch).
Parked with one drink each and their famous fried pigs’ tails ($11), we camped out for three full hours.
If this were my restaurant, I probably would have kicked me out.
This is probably why I don’t run a restaurant.
Craigie, for the uninitiated, is a chef-owned restaurant that focuses on nose-to-tail cooking and local sourcing. The chef, Tony Maws, won Food & Wine’s Best New Chef last year. He worships at a porcine altar. I was told they now serve half a pig’s head. (Mark my words, I’ll be back to eat it.) When I ate there before, we were served a stuffed pig’s foot; a risotto dotted with cocks comb and blood sausage; and cured pork jowls. There’s obviously tamer stuff like a reputedly excellent burger, but for someone who is all about the quirky eats, the menu is my idea of Disneyland. I literally squeal and flap my hands – it can be quite embarrassing for my friends.
During our three hours, our waiter doted on us like the kindest and most selfless of grandfathers.
“Do you like your drink?” he asked, looking concerned. I had finished perhaps a quarter of it. It was very strong.
“Oh yeah, it’s fine,” I replied.
“I noticed you haven’t drank very much of it,” he remarked. “Just want to make sure…” Then he offered to make something else if this one didn’t tickle my pathetically-unable-to-imbibe fancy.
I said something about having the alcohol tolerance of a malnourished toddler.
Fried pigs' tails
Those famous fried pig tails? Each bite was unnerving. I hadn’t realized that a pig’s tail is mostly uh, fat. Think of it like a petite, very fatty version of a chicken drumstick or a spare rib – a small bone encased in a rich, lip-smacking casing of fat that leaves you feeling a bit stickier for the wear. Pile them up like ruby jewels, top them in a crown of delicately sliced onion rings, and sauce them in fine ethnic fashion (Vietnamese – garlicky, a bit of a chili kick), and you have what Food & Wine declared one of the best dishes under $12 in the country. I think the dish could have benefited from some extra dipping sauce on the side for the condiment-obsessed. It was the kind of thing where you would want to knaw endlessly on one tail, probably no more. I love fat as much as the next human being, but really, I wasn’t kidding when I said these babies just seem to dissolve into a fatty uber-substance upon mouth contact. I began slowing down around pig tail #4.
When we finally left – it was around midnight – I walked out in a kind of golden haze. Part of me wonders if my blogging ways might have accounted for the superlative treatment. (It turns out that an acquaintance actually works there.) I’ve done a proper meal of a tasting menu there when I just started blogging and had great service, but I’m curious to know what your experiences have been.
Which doesn’t take away from the fact It was a magical evening that utterly overdelivered on service. Which makes up for all those times elsewhere when I sulked into an improperly dressed salad, or tried to flag down an errant waiter.
Hospitality industry, you redeem thyself.
International food porn – Quails on sticks, donkey meat, prawns.
Some underwhelming prawns at Private Kitchen 44 in Beijing.
Donkey meat in Beijing at Noodle Loft… like beef, but with a gamier, greasier mouthfeel.
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The Harvard Final Club punch bowl
Sometimes these all-male organizations have parties that serve some kind of mysterious jungle juice that should never be imbibed.
Actually, it looks like someone mistook the sink for the toilet… FML.
Ok, now back to blogging about chocolate and braised bunny rabbits.
Capsule Review: Yak Butter Tea
Based on a tip by the City Weekend dining editor, I sought out something really exotic for a quick cafe break: yak butter tea. I already had warm and fuzzy feelings attached to yaks since a good friend from high school interned at Shokay, a social entrepreneurship startup that sells luxury goods made from yak down. I wondered if the strangely adorable creatures produced tasty beverages as well.
Tibet Cafe, on the famous strip of hutongs called Nanluoguxiang in Beijing, shines like a cheery orange beacon amidst the trendy boutiques and popsicle stands. I arrived around a slow lunchtime, so I took a seat in a deserted cafe. One cup of the stuff was 20RMB ($3-4), pretty damn steep for a drink, especially in Beijing.
I was pretty excited. Until I took a sip. I immediately cringed. It was like drinking salted curdled milk. It smelled like a pungent whiff of cheese, not necessarily a bad thing, but the flavoring was so strong that even when I went in for a third – and fourth – attempt, I couldn’t force it down without feeling kind of sick. The presentation in a solid black mug with the drink’s foamy white head was comforting, as were the Tibetan tapestries and bright color palette, but I just couldn’t force this stuff down. I held my breath and took a giant gulp or two, paid my bill, and left feeling kind of embarassed.
I guess there’s something for all tastes.