Food Travel - - Page 26

by gansie

Cheese in the Far East

Even though I’ve been home from Japan and Korea for about a month, I’m still seeing different friends for the first time and telling travel stories. I’m often asked what my favorite meal was or what country’s food I liked better or what was the craziest thing I ate. Often I mention the one instance 80 and I tasted cheese in the Far East as one of our best dishes.

We were shopping and strolling in the area near Seoul Women’s University. It was drizzling. Kinda chilly. Comfort was in need. It became our ritual to walk in, sit down and then leave restaurants if we couldn’t maneuver the menu or waitstaff. Because sometimes even hand gestures get lost in translation.

My co-worker Sherry told me about her sister’s views on Korean food while she lived in the country. The sister wasn’t fond of Korean food but enjoyed the country’s take on Italian food. 80 and I really did, for the most part, dine on each country’s cuisine. But at this moment, with seventy-five percent of our trip past, we needed something a tinge familiar. We needed cheese.

We walked into an Italian restaurant but then quickly left. We couldn’t communicate and weren’t up for the long batter of guesses. We snuck out. And instead we found college grub. Fusion college grub.

This place would fucking kill in the US. Huge bowls of hot rice, options of kimchi, veggies, chicken, whatever, then topped with melted mozzarella. Stir together with metal chopsticks. Awesomeness. Spicy, gooey, stomach-coating. Perfect drunk or hungover food. Plus, this place serves a side cup of broth to start. God I miss broth at every meal.

(PS–I hated Korean chopsticks: metal and thin. Hard to hold, become slippery easily. )

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by ML

How To: Becoming an Alcoholic in Myrtle Beach

I know it isn’t as exciting as India or Japan, but if you want to take up casual alcoholism in the United States, move south. To celebrate summer’s start, here are my best recommendations for getting drunk in public without breaking the bank. Gone are the days of $10 martinis and handcrafted cocktails. This is Myrtle Beach — If the drinks are more than $6, you’re probably paying too much.

Liberty Tap Room
7651 North Kings Hwy
Thoughts: Eat here and stay for trivia at 8pm on Thursdays. Appetizer, dinner, all-night-drinks for four — $105. Even better? We came in 2nd in trivia and had $25 taken off our bill as a prize. The bar is off the parking lot of the local Food Lion, so you can play with the carts when you leave. Trust me, it’s better than an amusement park.

The Streets
Anywhere and everywhere
Thoughts: Although I witnessed two men being arrested for public drunkenness, there are no apparent open container laws being enforced. Everyone walked around with beers and sometimes vodka in plastic cups.

River City Cafe
208 73rd Avenue North
Thoughts: Burgers, wings, beer and complimentary peanuts on every table. The only beer on tap is Natty Light (win), and is one of the most expensive at $4 for a huge glass. Free souvenir cups with purchase of soft drinks, but your server will be easily convinced to give them to you for your beers. These came in handy for street drinking (see above).

by Russell Warnick

The World Cup of Food

Image Courtesy of Nestor Cerami

We couldn’t let soccer’s 2010 FIFA World Cup go by without throwing in our two cents — which as you might expect, has less to do with our feet than with our mouths. So while serious sports fans spend this week debating which squads got the crap draw and which teams are most likely to make the second round, foodies can put all that aside and take a look at our 2010 World Cup Food and Drink Rankings, in which we’ve ranked the 32 participating nations from worst to best, based not on soccer skills but on the appeal of each country’s most iconic dish.

For the record, I offer no apologies for the dishes or the order in which they are ranked—I had many discussions with my international friends when researching these and they have disagreed with me on many—for that, you can leave your opinions in the comments.

#32. Australia – Vegemite on Toast

Usually when there is a petition on Facebook in support of something, you know it’s a desperate plea, and Vegemite on Toast is no exception. This isn’t one of those love-it-or-hate-it kind of foods, this is simply a hate it kind of food. Yes, there are nearly 111,000 facebook users on the record as supporting it, but I’m pretty sure that’s roughly the population of Australia, right? Let’s hope for their sake that the Aussie lads find something better to chow on before their matches in South Africa.

#31. Ivory Coast – Kedjenou

Factoid: the current coach of the Ivory Coast team is former England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson. I’m sure old Sven has some tricks up his sleeves planned for the field, but you’ve got to admire the Ivory Coast’s cooking tricks, too. Kedjenou, like many other West African dishes, starts with some tough old chickens and basically cooks the shit out of them ’til they’re edible. It may not be the quickest way to make a meal taste good, but it sure as hell beats Vegemite.

#30. Slovenia – Buckwheat

I task you with something — Google “Slovenia” and “food.” Whatever the result is it’ll surely include buckwheat. Buckwheat, buckwheat and more buckwheat. Could you be any more boring, Slovenian cooks? If you must have a Slovenian soccer dish, I sifted through the ES archives and stumbled upon this tasty dish, vegetarian too — Wilted Greens with Buckwheat Noodles (and an egg).

in Food Travel / Trends 30 comments

by 80 Proof

Fishing for a Good Title

Just a taste of what was available at the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo. Gansie and I actually missed a lot of the good stuff, as they were shutting down when we arrived at 10:30 am. Gansie blamed us for being late, but they don’t let tourists in for the good stuff anymore until after 9 am…so I blame other annoying tourists. After the market, we ate at one of Tokyo’s hard to find, yes, hard to find sushi joints. Best sushi (fine, nagiri) ever. No pics of that however, sorry.

in Fish / Food Travel / Photos 2 comments

by gansie

Stalling On the Way to the Kitchen

In case you haven’t noticed, 80 and I took a two week vacation to Japan and Korea. In those glorious days of no work I didn’t cook a damn thing. In fact, it shocked me how much I didn’t miss the kitchen.

But now we’re back. I spend my days tapping on slate colored keys, knowing exactly what I’m doing and where I’ll be. I no longer need Lonely Planet guiding my days. Outlook dominates my hours once again.

Because I must get back into, well, being back, I bought something that would force me into the kitchen, but also force me to experiment with the flavors I found so delicious. I bought a big tub of miso paste. (Actually, it’s the only thing in my fridge at the moment.)

I’ve never played with miso paste before, but I have a feeling I’ll be able to find a billion uses for it. At this point, though, I’m very unclear on what those uses are.

Before we left for vacation, 80’s mom sent me Japanese Food and Cooking by Emi Kazuko and Yasuko Fukuoka, to prepare me for the craziness ahead. I’ve spied a few recipes I’m excited to mess around with—Fried Aubergine with Miso Sauce, Pot-Cooked Udon in Miso Soup (with a broth-poached egg!), Broccoli (stem only) and Cucumber Pickled in Miso—but I also want to try a clean miso soup. If anyone knows where I can find: dried wakame, second dashi stock, shichimi togarashi or sansho – let me know!

And if you have other, less terrifying miso included recipes, comment here please.

in Food Travel 11 comments

by gansie

There Are Eyes in My Miso

There are fucking fish everywhere. At my last meal in Japan at the Narita airport I knew that I had to ask if the vegetable udon soup was vegetarian, because there’d be a good chance it wasn’t. It could easily contain slices of pork, but this soup instead was based in a fish stock. That just wouldn’t happen in the United States. A menu reads vegetable soup, it’s made with vegetable stock.

I still was shocked, however, to see these dark, circular eyes peering out from my miso soup. It’s not that I overlook miso in the US, I just don’t think much of it.

Broth is always rewarding, so warm and comforting. But when I’m on a sushi bender, I’m concentrating on the raw fish, not the accompaniment (although sometimes tempura battered vegetables steal some of my attention0n.) In Japan, though, broth is the first thought. So even while I’m letting tuna melt on my tongue, the salty liquid is on my mind. Not because I don’t want to choke on prawn’s head, but because of the dimensions of this not so simple side soup.

in Fish / Food Travel 4 comments

by BS

Swallowing the Bone

I’m not known for leaving food on my plate. Or, when it comes to meat, on the bone. Whether it’s a fried chicken drumstick or a hearty pork chop, I can always be counted on to clean those bones clean before sending them back to the kitchen. But apparently, this is no longer good enough. Now you’ve got to eat the bones, too.

Not sure how many of you made it all the way to the end of our most recent epic comment of the week, in which reader Niki suggested this fun, very un-veggie snack:

ALSO, If this is something that interests you, some good fish bones fried are equally delicious! Find a good quality fish and clean/filet it. Leave some meat on the bones, then fry it as you would the shrimp! Mmmm…

I might not have given this a second thought, except that it happened to be the second time in a few weeks that I heard mention of chowing on fried fish bones. A recent edition of Tasting Table NYC noted that fried fish bones are posed to become the city’s latest haute snack du jour:

in Fish / Food Travel / Trends 0 comments