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‘CHEWING THE FAT WITH MAMA (PORK FAT THAT IS)’

I have been faithful to Mama.  Five lunches and dinners in a row there. (I’m beginning to feel a little like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day).  And it isn’t cheap by Penang standards.  A meal at Mama’s costs anywhere between 15 and 20+ bucks.  To put this in perspective, with $20 in your pocket you could eat like a king every night for a week at hawker stalls and have a little money left over.  I go to Mama’s tonight for meal number six.

Yesterday I ate Tau Yu Bak, chunks of pork belly slow cooked in a dark soy sauce mixture.  It is interesting that Mario Batalli several years ago came back from one of his cooking stints in Italy and announced that a discovery –pork bellies would be a staple be on his Babbo menu.  It was immensely popular.  I wonder if he really thought it was a ‘new dish’? 

It is interesting to note that the pork belly is an international dish.  We in America of course slice it up and fry it as bacon.  It has been around for a century, probably much longer, in China and Korea, and likely here too as a Nonya classic.  It also shows up in Alsation, Swiss and German dishes.  The pork belly sure gets around.

When I was seated at Mama’s at lunch today one of the sisters asked me if I would like to try something that was not on the menu.  Hey, she was asking the guy who ate Fish Head Curry and pickled fish stomach soup.   What do you think my answer was?

Out came what she called a traditional Malay breakfast.  There were three rectangular plates.  One contained chicken in a thick sauce.  Another held a small barbecued fish covered in a red sauce (I’ll come back to the sauce later).  The third held two large shrimp that had been cooked in a heavy soy sauce, and two small sardine sized barbecued fish.  When she set the plate of rice before me she said it had been bathed in coconut milk and was high in cholesterol.  I said good, I needed more cholesterol.  Another chuckle earned.

Now for the sauce on the barbecued fish.  It is complex and absolutely delicious. The complexity comes from the mix of red chilis, shallots, fish sauce, sugar, lime juice, lemongrass, shrimp paste, sugar, and tamarind paste.  Spooned thickly on top of the roast fish, this was the definite star of the whole meal.

I think my Chez Greenbrier Nyonya dinner will be chopped meat in spring roll wrappers deep fried and otak-otak (that steamed fish custard) for appetizers.   Soup will be roasted pork and salted mustard greens.   I’ll choose an entrée from a number of favorites.  For dessert it will be the Sago and yam mixture with fresh coconut milk poured over it.  You’ve got experience how that coconut milk brings the dish alive.

I have experienced a number classic Nyonya dishes at Mama’s – Fish Head Stew, Otak-Otak, Kiam Chai Buey, Perut Ikan, Loh Bak, and on and on.  After this sampling I have come to the conclusion the cooking style is unique in many ways.  One simple example is that the sauce in which the meat or chicken is cooked is reduced down to thick quasi paste-like consistency.

In some ways I think of it as a classical style of a bygone era.  The flavors are lovely and well balanced.  They are truly well prepared and very tasty.  Another thing to say for Nyonya cuisine is that no matter how spicy or sour the food, (it is never overpoweringly spicy)  it is very satisfying and ‘sits well on your stomach.’  Some dishes are surprisingly sour, which I like.  For example the Kiam Chai Buey which is a soup made with roasted pork and salted mustard greens sour flavor comes from sour plum.  

That having been said, after dinner tonight it will be time to move on to other Penang culinary experiences.  However, before I depart the topic of Nyonya Cuisine, I am confident that I can make many of the dishes back at Chez Greenbrier. Recipes are already tucked away in a folder on my netbook.

Now, perhaps one of the reasons I'm setting my sights on exploring other foods here in Penang is due to the website Malaysianfood.net.  I highly recommend taking a look at it.  In a few short pages it sums up the influence other cultures have had on the region’s cuisine.  

There is not only the Chinese (Peranakan) influence resulting in Nyonya (the origin of the word - Chinese immigrants in Melaka Malaysia referred to the woman as nyonya and the man baba) , but also Indian, Eurasian, Malay, and even indigenous people of Borneo.  I suspect the sum total of foods in the hawkers’ carts and those prepared in the open air restaurants represent an amalgam of these other cultures’ influences on what is eaten here.

I’ll take just a moment to say that Malaysians in Penang love to eat.  It is a festive occasion, be it at a hawker stall or in an open air restaurant.  The air is filled with the mingling sound of happy voices just as much as it is with the mingling aroma of the food being prepared.

Aside from the ubiquitous hawker stalls, there are countless restaurants that are open to the sidewalk (what I referred to above as ‘open air restaurants’).  They serve an impressive number of varied dishes.  When you walk by, you see not only individual dishes being cooked but an array of fresh ingredients lined up, be they meat, seafood, duck or vegetable, etc. 

You experience the cooking aromas wafting in the air as you walk by and are enticed by the eye appeal of fresh fish or vegetables resting over crushed ice.  It is the lure of these places that has proved to be irresistible during all my trips to and from Mama’s.   

Add to that, each day when I walk to Mama’s for lunch I pass the Prosperus Dim Sum Restaurant with fifty or so patrons sitting at outdoor tables under a large marquee.  I can’t help but notice the small delightful morsels being consumed.  Tomorrow I’ll start sampling foods influenced by some of the other cultures I mentioned above.  Maybe a dim sum lunch would be a good way to start.

‘COME TO MAMA’

Mama’s opens at 11:30.  I arrive at 11:15 and am seated.  I am the first person in the restaurant.  I guess Ang Lee got temporarily delayed by that Oscar thing.

I was waited on by one of Mama’s four daughters.  I think over the next 6 or 7 days I’ll probably get to meet the whole family.  First, a little about the menu. 

There is one appetizer and four desserts.  Between those items are 8 fish, 6 shrimp, 4 chicken, 5 pork, 1 wild boar, 13 veggie and 3 soups.  Several of the veggie dishes also have shrimp, etc.   So, the entree count is about 27.  Even if I eat two meals a day there for ten days I could only expect to get through 20 of them.  Time to be selective.

My first meal at Mama’s, lunch today, was Fish Head Curry.  Think fish gumbo without the filet powder.  The curry is very thin and had a soup like consistency.  It is a mixture of lemongrass, turmeric, chili paste, shallots, shrimp paste, tamarind pulp and laska leaves.  I don’t know if we can get the later in the US.  The curry actually resembles a light fragrant mixture you would find in a Thai soup (sans coconut milk)

As Bill Clinton once said, “It’s the economy stupid.”  For Fish Head Curry it’s the soup part.  If you get it right like Mama’s it is a sophisticated blend of flavors.  Think of it as being as smooth as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers gliding across the floor.

Before I headed to Mama’s I stopped at the Gee Hiang Bakery at 216 Macalister Rd.  They must be doing something right because they’ve been in business since 1855 (that’s right, a century and a half).  I told the lady who waited on me that it must be a very famous place.  She said yes, it was over 150 years old.  I replied that she didn’t look a day over thirty.  That got a giggle.

The boxes the biscuits and cookies come in are works of art themselves with many varieties to choose from.  I asked her to choose three different ones for me.  I now have breakfast plus snacks for the rest of the time I’ll be in Penang.

Mama’s at 6 pm for dinner.  I’m the first diner again.  But by 7 the place is packed.  I put in an ambitious order because I am only a party of one and if I eat only one dish a meal I’ll sample just a fraction of the menu.  This would be a good time to be travelling with three other people.  We could all order different dishes and an in only a few days we could work our way through the menu.

So I order the anchovy appetizer, followed by otai-otak, then curry Kapitan, and a dish of vegetables called acar awak.

Out comes the appetizer.  The anchovies used in the dish were the dried ones about an inch or so long.  You can buy a bag of them in an oriental market.   They last forever and maybe just get a little more fragrant as time passes.  I like to take a few out of the bag and sprinkle them over plain steamed rice.  They have a pungent flavor and crispy crunchy texture.

These had been deep fried.   There were a lot of them mixed in with a lot of finely sliced raw shallots and thinly sliced hot peppers.  The seeds had been removed so the dish was only spicy and not hot.  The dressing was on the sweetish side.  I asked if it were sugar and rice vinegar.  The daughter waiting on me said no, it was sugar and lemon juice.  You should try this combo some time.  Make it to your taste.

Otak-otak is a classic Nyonya dish (plus in a childish way, it’s fun to pronounce).  It is basically a custard surrounding a small fish filet.  You first make a paste out of shallots, garlic chilies, lemon grass galangal (oriental ginger), turmeric and shimp paste.  The old fashioned way is in a mortar and pestle.  I’d used a blender.

The custard base is a mixture of eggs, coconut milk, Kafir lime leaves, salt and sugar.  A little rice flour is used as a binder.  The juice of the Kafir lime by the way is a much more flavorful than the one we get in the US.  The leaves are very aromatic and play a role in many Thai, Lao and Malaysian dishes.

You mix the two together, put the fish in the middle, make a banana leaf packet, seal it, and steam it.  Out comes the fish custard surrounding the fish in the center.  It has both a delightful texture and flavor.  We can’t get fresh banana leaves in the US so let’s all put on our thinking caps and think of an alternative.

Chicken Curry Kapitan is another classic Nyonya dish. It is a very very thick curry using tamarind juice, candlenuts (a tree fruit which is available in the US), fresh turmeric root and shrimp past among other ingredients. The chicken is cut up like you get it in China.  A cleaver is taken to the chicken and it is whacked up onto small pieces, bones and all.  So you get these small pieces of irregularly cut chicken and eat the meat off the bone (I think Shira will skip this dish).

I failed Penang etiquette 101.  I ate it with my fingers.  Later I saw diners use their fork and a table spoon to remove the meat from the bones.  I’ll know better next time.

Dessert was cooked sago with sweet potato.  I had to look up sago.  It is the pith of palm stems, and resembles tapioca pearls.  I tasted the combination and found it to be rather bland.  Then I poured the fresh coconut milk that came in a small container over the mixture and tasted it.  What a transformation.  The coconut milk turned it into a luscious dessert.  I know how to make fresh coconut milk from my class at Tamarind in Laos and look forward to preparing this dessert at Chez Greenbrier.

‘THE WAY TO A MAN’S HEART IS THROUGH HIS STOMACH, BUT THE WAY TO MAMA’S DAUGHTER’S HEART IS THROUGH A FISH's STOMACH’

I have been waited on by the same daughter (there are four) at every meal thus far.  Today for lunch was no exception. I ordered an otak-otak and chopped meat which had been rolled in a spring roll wrapper and deep fried.  Those were my appetizers.

For the main course I ordered Perut Ikan.  It is a classic Nyonya dish made with pickled fish stomach.  What the hey?  I got past the head yesterday for lunch, why not this?  The daughter shook her head and said ‘foreigners don’t like’.  I replied ‘I’d like to try it’.  How many times have you gone into a restaurant to order and the wait staff said ‘hey, you really don’t want to eat that’?

When it was set before me it was with a bit of trepidation that I lifted the first spoonful of Perut Ikan to my lips.  Well, I actually sniffed it first before I took a taste.  To my pleasant surprise it turns out to taste like a weak kim chee.  Not as hot and not as spicey, but with that distinctive sour taste you get from the fermented cabbage. 

I proceeded to eat all the otak-otak, two sausage rolls.  And, there was nothing left of the Perut Ikan but the bottom of the bowl.  When I went to pay the bill the daughter was positively beaming.  She said ‘you are the first person (gringo implied) to eat a whole bowl.’ 

I think I’m scoring points with the family.

 iang

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‘WAGING GUERILLA WARFARE AGAINST THE NEW YORK TIMES TRAVEL SECTION’

Bee Yin Low is a wonderful person no doubt.  She started a great website several years ago called RasaMalaysia.  Take a look at it sometime.  It’s a great source of info.  In 2009 Bee and I emailed back and forth.  I was planning on going to Penang to take Nyonya cooking lessons.  She was very helpful in her emails.  Unfortunately my trip got cancelled for some reason I can’t recall.

So I emailed Bee a week or so ago and asked for her insights into cooking classes and where to eat.  I got the equivalent of a robo-email that said, sorry, Bee doesn’t have time to answer individual emails.  Hey, so she does have over 42,000 likes on Facebook compared to my 6.  But consider the fact that you are dealing with a self-centered bumbling foodophIle (yes, I just made that word up) who thinks everyone and anyone 

should take a little time out to help him.

And even Pearly Kee, the Godmother teacher of classic Nyonya cuisine, who taught at home before the Times touted Penang as the world center for foodies in 2009, now only works one day a week at Tropical Spice Garden Cooking School.  You can pay $65 bucks (probably half that price before the NYT article) there for a 4 hour class to learn how to make three dishes. 

That may be fine for the happy honeymooners who want to take a culinary memory home with them to Sheboygan.  But for a government pensioner who will slave over a stove to try and make interesting dishes for his sweetheart and friends?  Give me a break.

I just re-read the above paragraphs.  Sometimes I think I am channeling Andy Rooney.

Now the Times has done it again.  Read what they said today:

“NY Times Travel Guide – February 25^th 2013

Frommer's Review of Mama’s Restaurant

Those who crave Penang's most famous culinary style of Nyonya food (or Peranakan) have to visit this cozy family-run restaurant in Abu Siti Lane. Ruby, one of the four sisters who run the place, learned her cooking from her mama, hence the name. It's authentic, as Mama keeps a watchful eye on her protégés, although she no longer cooks. You'll see her there every day, though, lending a helping hand with all the painstaking detail required for this kind of food. You might encounter some of her famous clients, including Malaysia's own international shoemaker, Datuk Jimmy Choo, or Hong Kong director Ang Lee. All the favorite Nyonya dishes are on the menu -- try tau eu bak, purut ikan, Nyonya fish head curry, and otak otak. Look like a tourist, and someone will help you negotiate the menu.”

I figure I have about 10 days to eat at Mama’s before a horde of Americans descend on the restaurant trying to get a glimpse of Ang Lee or some guy wearing fancy shoes.

I tell you it is the New York Times and ‘Go to Argentina’ all over again, except now it is Penang.  Hey, guys, you already did it to Penang in 2009.  Why not give the place a break?

So, here are my guerilla tactics.  Pearly and the Tropical Spice Cooking School can do without my attendance.  I’m going to Mama’s to eat every chance I get.  I’ll note what I eat and then look up the recipe.  (I’ve already checked and located many recipes for specialty Nyonya dishes.)

The Tropical Spice Garden lists its class menus for a three month period.  I’ll take each of the dishes Pearly teaches and find the recipe for it.  By the way, Pearly cites three restaurants that serve authentic Nyonya cuisine in Penang, and Mama’s is one of them.  I plan to make my eating rounds to all three.

As I eat over the next week and a half, I’ll compile a recipe book of the foods I have eaten (plus some more to boot).  Hey, I’ll even buy a copy of Pearly’s cookbook just to show you that I’m a sport.

Right now, I have to start putting some of that camouflage paint on my face and head to Mama’s.

‘SCOTTY, I’VE BEEN BEAMED TO ANOTHER FOOD PLANET!!’

In a matter of hours AirAsia took me from Vientiane to Kuala Lumpur and then on to Penang.  A taxi ride of 18 kilometers brought me from the airport to the city of Georgetown.  I am booked into the Hotel Sentral for the next 10 days.  But, before I start on a third cultural cuisine, I’m going to try to answer a question Bev posed.  What is the difference between Laotian and Thai food?

This might be a little like the group of blind men describing an elephant because I have only touched on a small portion of the foods served in the two countries.  However, since I can’t recall an instant in my past where I was reticent to express my opinion due to such an inane reason as having only a little knowledge on the subject, here goes.

(it is probably a good time to do this because my first impression about Malaysian cuisine in Penang is that it is very different from Laotian and Thai.  So later in my trip I can really confuse everyone when I try to distinguish the difference among the three)

The type of rice eaten in the two countries is very different.  Thai generally eat Jasmine rice.  Laotians eat a glutinous form called sticky rice.

Many Lao prefer to eat their meat raw (buffalo, etc,) Not so in Thailand.

Soups differ significantly. Many Thai soups have seafood.  Also many use coconut milk.  Lao soups tend to be clear and have little seafood.

The base of many Thai dishes is a curry (red, green, yellow, massaman and penang).  Laotian dishes do not use this form of curry.

As there are differences there are also similarities. You will find many ingredients common to the two cuisines – lemongrass, chilis, fish sauce, (although the Lao version involves rotting fish in a brine for a year) soy sauce, garlic, shallots, spring onions, salt, pepper, chicken granules, kafir lime leaves, cilantro, mint, and galangal.   Also, eggs are commonly used in both cuisines.

Woks are used to prepare many dishes in each country and both use grills over charcoal, especially street vendors.

I think Thai foods tend to be spicier, but there are those who might disagree with that.  Everyone/anyone, feel free to weigh in on the differences between the two,

Now for the start of the ‘Penang Adventure’.

My first step was literally out of the hotel around 6 pm and down the block to Jalan MacAlister (one of Georgetown’s main streets).  Across the street I could see the start of street vendors (Hawkers) carts lining either side of a small street.  This turns out to be a well known street hawker location in Penang.  Gee, just think, it’s only a 4 minute walk to get there!

The carts extend for about 100 feet or so on either side of the street.  As a rough tally, I made about 40 different vendors.   Here I was walking down a gauntlet between cooks tossing things into woks which I had no clue about, and fragrant soups being ladled out of large pots and garnished with several different sauces.  In short, I thought I had died and gone to culinary heaven.

I made the trip down the street and back and scoped out the items on offer.  i started with a stir fry dish that included noodles, beansprouts, crunchy bacon, shrimp, a few other items, and lastly an egg cracked over the entire contents.  I ate it with chopsticks and would have licked the plate if I weren't in the midst of well over a hundred fellow diners.  As far as I could see, I was the only gringo in there.  That must say something when locals flock there to eat.

I asked the wok wielder what the name of the dish was.  He said it was a very famous Penang dish, and told me the name, which I promptly forgot.  I think that’s a very good reason to go back there this evening and have it all over again.

Next, it was a stop at a vendor selling a fragrant soup laced with noodles and some strange red cubes.  I was starting to get the hang of things.  Many carts had the name of what they served printed on the top.  This one said Curry Mee. The soup was rich, filled with noodles, seafood, and some red cubes on top.  Later I did a little research and found that ‘The basic bowl of Curry Mee comes with ingredients of cockles, cuttle fish, pig jelly and taupok in rich gravy’. 

Pig jelly by the way,( now don’t get squeamish on me) is congealed pig blood.  You and I are going to be eating some pretty strange things in the next week and a half.  But, we will still be a far cry from what Andrew Zimmerman puts down his gullet.

Lunch today was a trip.  I went to two Nynonya restaurants but found out that they are closed on Monday.  So I went to a very busy restaurant that fronts Jalan MacAllister several blocks from the hotel.  I went there because the place was packed with diners (no gringos, or, whatever we are called here in Penang).  I waited for a table, finally got one and sat down.  A waiter came over and I asked for a menu.  He used up his six words of English in explaining that I was to go to the front of the restaurant which fronted the sidewalk to get my food. 

I went and milled around shoulder to shoulder with other patrons putting food on their plates.  However, I didn't having a clue what I was supposed to do.  I was helplessly eying fully 16+ different entrees.  Finally a nice fellow showed me where to get a plate, put rice on it and then pick out what I wanted to eat.  I had noticed what other patrons were eating as I made my way past their tables to the where the food was in large deep trays, much like a cafeteria would use. (Looking at fellow diners food was a trick that came in very handy in China). 

I picked out a fish that seemed to be very popular.  It had been broiled over charcoal and was stuffed with a mixture of shallots, garlic and herbs, all bound by a tangy red sauce.  This mixture was delicious over the rice as was the fish.

This post has gone on long enough.  More on my plan of attack on Nyonya cuisine tomorrow.  Also, I have some photos on Flickr but am not happy with how they are accessed.  Maybe I’ll pick a new site, but whatever, there will be photos manana.   

ANOTHER MOVING DAY

Last night I chose L’Adresse de Tinay as my final meal in Vientiane.  I had eaten there three nights ago and enjoyed a cassoulet of confit of duck (remember that layer of garlic infused sweet cream on the plate?   It was so delicious that I returned for a repeat performance. 

This time I stayed with the duck but chose a different half liter of wine,  Montipulciano.  Montipulciano is one of my favorite wines.  But it can be fickle.  Good one year and not so good the next.  Even among vineyards of the same year there can be quite a variation.  This one was delicious, velvety smooth and well balanced.

After I finished the meal and paid my check I asked which Montipulciano it was.  I was amazed when the proprietress pulled out a cardboard box that had previously held a 5 liter pouch.  I had heard that boxed wines have improved considerably over the past few years.  This is proof in spades.

I don’t know if it is available in the US.  Be on the lookout for Coni Degli Azzoni, Marche Russo Cantalupo.  This one makes me think a group of us should have a ‘box wine tasting’.  We’ll need a large group.  Can you imagine a table with several 5 liter containers lined up on it?

For those of us who have had experience drinking box wines you know that as you pour it from the spout the Mylar pouch shrinks so the remaining wine is never exposed to air and stays fresh for a very long time.

I am sitting at the airport writing this post.  In a couple of hours I’ll fly into Kuala Lumpur.  I was going to spend two days there before I headed on to Penang.  But, I’m anxious to experience the tremendous variety of food in Penang so I arranged a connecting flight for later this afternoon and I will be in Penang before night fall.

I plan to be there for a week.  I hope you will follow along with me during the coming days for a mix of cooking classes, eating varieties of street food, and sit down meals at restaurants.  From what I've read I think I am in store for tasting food with different textures and flavors than those of Thailand and Laos.  Plus I'll have some photos up on Flickr to look at tomorrow.

LIGHTS OUT IN VIENTIANE

I awoke this morning not to the sound of the room air conditioner, rather the absence of it.  No lights. Nothing.  No electricity at all in the hotel, so breakfast was out since every dish they serve has eggs.  It was a sign from Providence to go to la Banneton for the ‘best croissant this side of Paris’.

I discovered when I left the hotel and began my walk to the restaurant that the lights were out on the street.  That discovery led to another one when I turned the corner to walk along one of the main streets.  The lights were out in all of the area.  Fortunately, I could buy a croissant, but not enjoy it with a steaming cup of Lao tea, which has become one of my favorite teas. 

It is a glorious morning.  The heat has taken refuge somewhere.  It is cool and a light breeze makes itself known on the fine hairs of my arm.  It is a perfect morning to sit outside and enjoy a croissant.  The waitress brings it out to my table.  I pick it up and am immediately struck by how light it is for its size. 

I’m no croissant connoisseur.   All I can tell you is that it has a buttery flavor, a light texture inside, and a fine flaky crust on the outside.   The structure of the croissant is very interesting.  The paper thin dough seems to somehow have been spun in spirals leaving part of the inside hollow.  Now, I guess I’ll have to eat one in Paris to make a comparison.

Ah ah.  I hear music coming from somewhere.  I go inside the restaurant and discover that the lights have come back on.  To celebrate I order a cup of hot tea.  However, my croissant is gone so a pinwheel shaped pastry with pineapple and mini chocolate chips in the center follows me out of the restaurant and back to my table.  This pastry is tasty, but the croissant was really the star.

This is my last day.  I have ticked off on my list some of the finer restaurants in Vientiane but a couple are left.  One is la Belle Epoque.  It vies with Le Silapa for the priciest place in town.  I don’t feel like eating a rich dinner there and then getting up at the dawn of crack to make my flight to Kuala Lumpur so I choose la Belle for lunch.

The restaurant itself is set in a five star hotel.  The menu lists some French dishes, but also, lamb, steak, salmon, etc.  The review did say it caters to both the French and Western diners.  I try to stay with the French theme I set four days ago and order eggs poached in red wine topped with bacon, their version of a salad nicoise, and a cheese plate.  I also asked for all the dishes to be served at the same time. 

Out they came.  The eggs, being the warm dish, would be the first to be eaten.  They were lightly poached sitting atop bread which had been trimmed of its crust.  The sauce was a red wine reduction with mushrooms.  Bacon adorned the top.  It was tasty. 

I started working on the very large salad nicoise next (it was served on a dinner plate).  The star of the salad was six plump sun dried tomatoes with oil still clinging to them.

As I worked on the salad I kept eyeing the cheese pate.  There was a slice of brie and one of bleu.  I took a bite of the bleu cheese and discovered that it was so rich that I had to alternate eating a small bit of the cheese and then a couple bites of my salad to cut its richness.  I have never eaten a bleu cheese this rich.  Working back and forth between the two plates, I finished them at them same time.

The bill came to $35.  A pricey lunch for a couple of poached eggs, salad, and a couple slices of cheese and a small bottle of mineral water.  Even though the butter came from New Zealand and that delicious bleu cheese made its way from Auvergne France, for $15 more I had dinner at Le Silapa and enjoyed foie gras, a large glass of wine, and veal brains.  From my limited experience at the two restaurants, Le Silapa gets my vote.

It is time to bid adieu to Vientiane.  Looking back it feels like it was a hectic four and a half days, with somewhere around $300 invested in restaurant food.  I consider money well spent and a lot of fun to boot.  

A considerable amount of research went into the restaurants here to make my list of the top ones to eat at.  I think I ate at eight of the best.  In reality you could eat here for a couple of weeks trying a couple of new restaurants every day if you wanted to cover other well regarded French and Laotian restaurants, as well as Italian, Japanese, Bakeries, coffee shops, etc. etc.

I passed a Swensen’s Ice Cream parlor a couple days ago.  It turns out they are going global - not only in S E Asia but India as well.  Who knows?  My Vientiane farewell dinner just might be another Reueben followed by a hot fudge sundae. 

Cooling My Culinary Jets

(Be prepared for a long post.  It covers yesterday and half of today)

Maybe in my twenties or even thirties, perhaps my forties, a large plate of frogs’ legs, foie gras, veal brains in a rich broth, and wine to wash it all down with during a day would have been a piece of gateau.  At the age of 71, it is a different matter.

I limped through a baguette, butter, jam, and fresh fruit this morning for breakfast.  At 1pm I still wasn’t hungry, but off I went to Makphet, the number one TripAdvisor rated restaurant in Vientiane.  I went there because they serve Lao food which is considerably less rich than French cuisine.

I ate a plate of lemongrass chicken and washed it down with a 660 milliliter bottle of beer.  To save you the effort of putting that into ounces, it is about an ounce and a half shy of two bottles of beer in the states.  In hindsight, I probably should have stuck with water.  The beer made me lethargic, and I found myself sitting down to rest a bit to break up my walk to the hotel some 20 minutes away.

Speaking of hotels, whoever drew the map of downtown Vientiane must have been related to those folks who during WWII shifted around road signs to confuse the invading Germans.  You know, at the T intersection the road to Beaune goes to the left, so move the sign around and it points in the opposite direction.  Either that or it was a local project in a nut hatch to keep the inmates busy.

Repeatedly, and let me repeat that, I have gone in search of a restaurant shown at a location on the map only to find it two blocks away.  It is great for exercise but truly frustrating.  Take today, for example.  I am switching hotels.  The Villa Lao did not have a vacancy for the entire time I was to be here, so I booked in at the Sinnakhone for the rest of my stay. 

I spent a long time this morning locating the Sinnakhone on the aberration called a map.  I then went to that location and spent 40 minutes wandering about, finally stopping in at two other hotels to ask directions and, lo and behold, arrived at the doorstep of the hotel some six blocks away from where it was shown on a map.  What do these people smoke over here?

By the way, I am thinking about dredging up all my emails from prior trips, polishing them up, and publishing them in ebook form.   I think the title will be ‘Whining and Dining around the Planet’.  That reminds me, I thought about writing a book about our experiences over about our seven years in Argentina as vineyard owners.  That one was going to be titled ‘Don’t Make Me Cry Argentina.’ [Bryna’s title suggestion was ‘You Make Me Cry, Argentina.’] But, life moves on.

Where was I?  Oh, yes I was going to tell you about dinner.  I swore at lunch, actually after I awoke from an hour’s nap after lunch, that dinner was not to be.  I would rest my stomach.  

I moved to my new hotel late in the afternoon.  It just happens to sit in the heart of the restaurant district.  At about 7pm I went for a walk.  Four minutes later, I strolled by a restaurant that was in my top ten list.  As The New York Times review put it:  “FRENCH FANFARE: The French left more than half a century ago, but their legacy remains in the city’s stellar cuisine.  An intriguing newcomer is the casually chic bistro L’Adresse de Tinay.”

My stomach followed my nose into the restaurant .  Not two minutes later, a bubbly young woman appeared at my table to explain the menu.  She turned out to be the wife of the chef.  They are partners in the restaurant.

I needed no explanation.  During my first time through the menu, I had decided on the salade nicoise and the duck cassoulet.  And, of course, wine.  

An amusing bush was served first.  It was a shot glass of thick pureed gazpacho with crusty pieces of bread for dipping. 

Then came the salade nicoise.   It was a ‘pyramid affair’.  On top was  a rolled anchovy stuffed with a ripe olive tapenade.  That sat atop on a piece of tuna that had been seared but was still deep red on the inside.  The tuna sat on top of the greens.  The salad was ringed with quail eggs and cherry tomatoes which had been halved.

I savored the salad, and shortly after I had finished it, out came the cassoulet.  It consisted of a duck leg and thigh ‘confitted’ atop a mixture of beans.  Before these items had been plated, about a half ladle of sweet cream infused with garlic had been put on the plate, then the duck and beans placed over that.  A Gallic sausage rounded out the dish.  More crusty baguette and the rest of the carafe of wine helped finish the meal. 

The wife is made for the restaurant business.  Attentive to all the clientele, she runs a tight ship and has more energy than a three year old.  Sometime during one of her passes by my table I complimented her shoes.  She returned the compliment with a glass of lemoncello at the end of the meal.

Before going onward about food, I'll take you back to a chat I had at breakfast with a Frenchman yesterday who was spending several weeks in Laos on holiday.  He told me of two women discussing the types of books they liked to read.  One said she adored romance novels.  The other said she usually read books that started out with great anticipation but ended in disaster.  Her friend asked what types of books were they. Cookbooks, she replied.

Now, on to more eating.  Lunch today was at Bistro 22.  It lies outside the epicenter of Vientiane by 14 blocks or so from where most restaurants are located.  Nevertheless, it is strategically located because it is only a block and a half from the French Embassy.  Employees have a walk of but a few minutes to enjoy ‘home cooking’.

Lunch began with a chilled gazpacho soup redolent of lemon basil.  The slices of whole wheat baguette and delicious butter served as a nice accompaniment to the soup.

Next was the duck salad with pears.  A roasted duck breast was sliced and then the slices were laid upside a mound of greens.  Slices of poached pears ringed the mound of greens and duck slices.  The greens were dressed with a glossy mix of honey and other things I could not define.  The honey was so well balanced with the other dressing ingredients you knew it was in there only from the hint of sweetness.

After the salad (which I could not finish and it now sits happily in the fridge in my room) was poached Tilapia on a bed of rice.  Sounds fairly common doesn’t it.  However, the rice and fish sat in a large pool of sweet cream that had been infused with part of a vanilla bean.  And, the flavors get more complex.  The rice had raisins (or perhaps currants because they were very small) and tiny cubes of mango.  The mango was semi ripe so it had plenty texture and a bit of bite to it.  This is another dish I can’t wait to make when I get back.

Finally two crepes folded in quarters and bathed in caramel sauce with a dollop of whipped cream rounded out the meal.  I was so excited about the crepes it occurred to me only after they were half gone to take a picture of them.

Vive la France!

Dinner at one of the Most Expensive Restaurant in Vientiane

(or, how I became an organ recipient)

A couple of things before I get to the dinner.  When I was cooking at the Tamarind School I struck up a conversation with a young woman who was cooking next to me.   You ask the usual questions- how long have you been in the country, where are you going next, where are you from.

She explained that she, her husband, and year and half old daughter were all travelling together and that they had lived in London for a couple of years or so.  However, they were going to move back to the states shortly.  I asked where.  She said back to Arlington Va.  Small world.  We chatted about Arlington and I said there was only one grocery I really liked to shop at for S E Asian foodstuffs.  Before I could name it, she said Grand Mart.  Now this is truly a very small world.

I can’t wait for them to come back and come over for dinner.  It will be like ‘old times’, the two of us cooking in the kitchen.  We’ll have to make the menu around dishes we learned at Tamarind.

Now, almost on to my dinner.

A hot dry wind blew constantly all day today and into the night.  Although the temperature was 91 and was supposed to feel like 95 the dry wind immediately wicked away any moisture from perspiration.  Consequently, it felt much cooler than it was.  It was also a day to drink a lot of water. 

One more item.  I got clipped today, literally and figuratively.  My haircut cost almost 9 bucks.   I decided to get my beard trimmed too since I was headed to a fancy restaurant.  That bumped the price up to 15 bucks.  That comes out to about 10 cents a hair.  Now on to the topic of food.

The Le Silapa menu is not all French cuisine,  It has some other great items from around the world -  Australian lamb, John Dory, certified angus, etc.  It is nicely appointed, with linen table cloths, cloth napkins, a candle on the table, etc.  The staff is very attentive and service is superb.  So what do you order?

I started with foie gras.  The lightly seared liver was richer than the CEO of a Wall Street Investment Bank.  It was so soft and rich it literally melted in my mouth.  It was also served with a piece of foie gras mouse which had been laced with cognac, spoonfuls of port wine jelly, and a chutney.

Then came veal brains in a casserole with diced vegetables and mushrooms, and a beautiful side salad.  The brains were bathed in a light rich sauce.  In fact the dish was so rich I could not finish it.

I kept sipping my full bodied glass of French red wine to help cut the richness of both the foie gras and the veal dish.

Needless to say I left the restaurant a very happy camper and walked all the way back to the hotel so I could burn off 2% of the calories I had consumed.

This business of trying to cover many of the top restaurants in Vientiane is proving at least one thing – the Universe and I are both expanding.

‘The Siege of Vientiane’

Since cooking schools are out for my four days in Vientiane, I need to develop an alternative strategy.  My new plan is to ‘lay waist to the city’.

(One definition of laying waste to something is ‘1. To use, consume, spend, or expend thoughtlessly or carelessly).

Now, I can see ‘use’, as in using my money to eat at the best recommended restaurants in the city.  ‘Consume’, that certainly fits into the program as in consuming fine food.  ‘Spend’ – definitely. 

Finally, ‘expend thoughtlessly or carelessly’, that’s the one that will make me do all the work of digging through restaurant reviews, etc. to come up with my list of top shelf restaurants in the city which I shall devote my gourmand activities to over the next four days.

What resources do I use to come up with my list?  The TripAdvisor website lists over 2,600 reviews of the city’s restaurants.  The New York Times has weighed in with its recommendations.  However, the Times I must give a black mark to at the outset. 

They tout a place to go in their Travel Section because it’s a ‘great deal’.  Many people read it and go.  The folks at the destination say ‘hey lots of gringos are coming here.  Let’s raise our prices to an astronomical level.’  So, for example our favorite hotel in Mendoza, the Argentino more than doubled its prices during the year after the Times said to go to the city.

However, one shortcoming of the newspaper industry is that they never look back, never follow up.  Did they ever print another story later that says ‘hey don’t go there anymore because the locals went crazy raising their prices and it it’s no longer a good deal?  Of course not.

I am reminded of a quote by John Kenneth Galbraith ‘Nothing is so  admirable in politics as a short memory’.  If I correctly remember basic logic  they taught in school, I think that means that politicians and newspapers  are of the same ilk.  But let me not go ranting off on a tangent.  I’ll focus on the food.

What I thought would be a relative easy task – picking the top restaurants in the city has turned out to be a five hour  research project.  I’ve gone through the 165 Vientiane restaurants listed in TripAdvisor, those touted in the NY Times, Lonely Planet, Travelfish, and several independent articles. 

I have a list of ten restaurants.  Three are Lao.  Seven are French.  These are heavy duty restaurants for dinner.  I might possibly knock some of them off for lunch as well.  However, very hot weather is not conducive to enjoying a heavy lunch and then going out later for a rich dinner.

I skipped over several highly recommended Italian and one Japanese.  I also, for the sake of whittling down the list, skipped highly touted bakeries, pizzerias, etc. which ranked highly on TripAdvisor.  However, I am using a list of bakeries and great breakfast spots for the first meal of the day.

So, this morning I set out to have one of the world’s best croissants this side of Paris at Le Banneton.  That would be followed up by lunch at Le Central for their ‘salade landaise. This duo of terrine and pan fried foie gras sits atop a bed of super-fresh greens, accompanied by quick-blanched asparagus, thinly sliced duck breast and crispy apple slices’.   I have yet to decide on where to go for dinner, or, even if I’ll go.

“The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley – Robert Burns”

Or, a more recent translation – the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

On the way down the steps this morning from my second floor room in the hotel to put on my shoes and head for le Banneton (you commonly remove your shoes before walking into many hotels, etc. in Thailand and Laos) one of the ladies who books tours for the hotel asked me if I had eaten breakfast.  I said no. She was persistent in suggesting breakfast at the hotel since it was included in the room rate.

I acquiesced and was led to a lovely pavilion and seated.  To save room for lunch I ordered only bread, butter, jam, and tea.  Out came a baguette that could double for a Texas sized hoagie roll.  It was tender, warm and fragrant.  I fell in love with the tea and will find out what it is, buy some, and bring it back with me.  An 'unordered' plate of fresh fruit arrived.  Who can resist that?

Finally, later that morning it was off to Le Central for that much anticipated salad for lunch.  After a long search I found the restaurant, or rather what was left of it.  The sign was still up on the building.  But all I could see when I peered through the windows was dust and debris.  I found out later that the owner had retired over a year ago and closed the restaurant.

So, I pulled out my restaurant crib sheet, studied the city map for a moment and it was off to Le Provencal.  It is a small restaurant with both indoor and shaded outdoor seating on a fairly quiet street downtown.  I chose a seat outside within an arc of oscillating breeze pushed by a huge fan.  Le Provencal.  What else to order but frog legs Provencal?

The pleasant aroma of garlic announced the dish well before the waiter set the plate before me.  It was accompanied by a green salad dressed in a tangy French dressing, slices of baguette, and pomme frites (my first since I left home almost two weeks ago).

There were six plump frogs that filled my plate.  Forget Colonel Sanders ‘finger lickin good’.  I think I licked my fingers more often than I wiped them on the napkin before I was done.  The meal would have made a nice small lunch for two.  Needless to say  felt I would be remiss if I left even one succulent morsel on my plate. 

Once lunch was dispatched I rinsed my hands in the finger bowl with lime slices, paid the bill, and waddled a short distance to get a tuk tuk ride back to the hotel.

I am now resting up and contemplating whether I should have dinner and tick another restaurant off my list.

Well, perhaps a nap first.  This eating business is really hard work.

I Have Arrived  (it seems in more ways than one)

My scant 30 minute flight (thought it would be longer) arrived in Vientiane at 2 pm this afternoon.  Sometimes things go just right for a veteran independent traveler (and sometimes nothing goes right).  Within 30 minutes on the ground I had taxied to my hotel, checked in, scoped out the cooking class offered by the hotel (too rudimentary), got a city map, directions to the Full Moon Café, and was off).  I had contacted the Café earlier by email and they told me to stop in the afternoon to book space in a cooking class.

Then I spent the next 30 minutes going in the wrong direction from my hotel and turned a twenty minute walk to the cafe into an hour long trek in high nineties temp.  In fact the last time I remember being in such hot and humid weather it was in Australia somewhere well above Sydney near the Great Barrier Reef.

But, at last, the Full Moon Café came into view.  I checked with a waiter and then the young woman behind the cash register about their cooking class.  It was full tomorrow but open the next day.  I asked about what dishes they fixed in the class and she became confused because of her limited English and my nonexistent Lao.  Just then by happenstance an English speaking, actually Englishwoman, came to meet me. 

It turns out she is teaching English at the International School here and is working with the restaurant to help them develop the cooking school.  I asked what they fixed in the classes and explained the reason I was asking was because I had already prepared a number of Lao dishes in other classes. 

She asked which dishes.  I began my recitation with the more complicated ones and worked downward.  Half way through she said “no need to take the class because I was far above what they taught to prepare”.  In fact, from her reaction to the dishes I had learned in my lessons, I thought she wanted to bestow the Lao Cordon Bleu on me.

It appears the next level for me is to find a private cooking lesson.  Or, another option is to explore the best restaurants – both Lao and French for the next few days and leave the cooking to someone else.

I told her I was disappointed that I would not be taking the class and asked her if she would recommend some very good French and Lao restaurants.  She did.  Then she said that I looked like I was an adventurous eater (what? Do I have a sign on my back?).  She recommended that I eat some varieties of street food from stalls on this particular street in the evening.  I thanked her for her help, ordered a big bottle of beer (and a bottle of water too) and proceeded to work my way through the suds.

A few minutes later I found myself in conversation with a couple at an adjoining table.  He is from the States living in Thailand with his Thai wife who is some 3or 4 decades younger.  It turns out he and I were both born in November 1941 and he is 9 days my senior.

He and I chatted for a half hour or so about food and life in SE Asia.  Somewhere in there he told me about Restaurant Joma which was nearby and sold, among other things a mean Reuben. 

They left so the wife could buy some material at a nearby store.  I finished my beer, took my water with me, and you guessed it.  A half hour later I was eating my first meal in Vientiane – lean corned beef, sauerkraut, and Russian dressing on delicious dark bread, no less.