Cooking is both an art and a science, a connection that has been highlighted by by the meteoric rise of molecular gastronomy. Taking this into account, Harvard introduced a series of public lectures last fall on the intersection of Science and Cooking. The series was overwhelmingly popular and included talks by culinary heavyweights like David Chang, Wylie Dufresne and Grant Achatz. Lucky for us that don’t live in Boston, all of the lecturess are now available on iTunes.
Nearing the end of 2010
Hope everyone had a nice holiday full of lots of delicious food. We got a pizelle press for Christmas, so we plan on going on an Italian cookie bonanza in the next few weeks. Also – Thanks to Gapers Block for the shoutout. We will be posting a recap of our 2010 Eatign adventures in the next few days – it was quite a year!
Filed under Note
Happy Holidays from the Past
Thought everyone might get a kick out of this crazy 19th-century British postcard entitled “A dead heat for the plate,” found through the Liverpool National Museums Blog. Happy Eating!
Chinese food on the rise in India
More tasty transcultural food flows – Chinese food is on the rise in India – according to an article in the Wall Street Journal.
Filed under Links
Breton Crepes in San Francisco: Ti Couz
Ti Couz
3108 16th St
San Francisco, CA 94103
Of all of the places to get a crepe – the Mission District of San Francisco is probably not the first place that comes to mind. But truth be told we were not really feeling a burrito – so crepes it was. We arrived at Ti Couz just as the rain was about to fall, and were instantly welcomed in by its warm, cozy wooden interior and candlelight.
We have to say, Ti Couz is proud of its Breton heritage! The signs are in Breton, and there are pictures of old Breton ladies in their signature white starched hats (coiffes) everywhere. The menu at Ti Couz is primarily crepes – especially the heartier buckwheat crepes from Brittany. We each, naturally, got crepes – one mushroom with chipotle crème fraiche ($6.25), and the other with cheese ($4.5).
The crepe itself was notable for being a thicker, square buckwheat crepe, native to the region. These aren’t any flimsy paper-thin crepes. Once our orders were taken, we sat back as our crepes were prepared right out front, and arrived at our table, piping-hot in no time flat. The mushroom crepe was delicious and light, while the cheese crepe oozed a blend of mozzarella and gruyere. For those so inclined there is also an ample list of sweet crepes. For an after-meal treat Breton hard cider “cidre” is also sold by the bowl “bol” or pitcher “pichet.” Ti Couz is an eclectic gem in the Mission, perfect for a relaxing lunch when you don’t feel like wolfing down a burrito.
Filed under Reviews
Sweden: Lussekatter for St. Lucia’s Day
Little known fact: One of the Eaters is partially Swedish – and though we are not particularly keen on Swedish food – there is no denying the appeal of the delicious cookies and pastries served on St. Lucia’s Day. One of the most traditional are the Lussekatter – saffron sweet rolls. The name means “Lucy’s Cats” – but these leavened yeast rolls are figure-8 shaped. And here are even some Gluten-free versions of traditional St. Lucia items – something for everyone.
Filed under Holidays, World Eats
The Origins of Pad Thai
The ever-impressive food journal Gastronomica published a history of the origins of Pad Thai. While considered THE quintessential Thai dish by many Americans, Pad Thai’s origins are significantly murkier, and is much less common in Thailand itself than in Thai restaurants in other countries.Within Thailand we had our only Pad Thai experience on Khao San road, an area notorious for its amounts of European and North American backpackers. The Pad Thai vendors there were definitely catering to an audience! The full name of the dish, Kway teow pad Thai even indicates Pad Thai may even have Chinese origins. Check out the Gastronomica article for a full history of Pad Thai.
Our picture of some stateside Pad Thai
Filed under Reviews
Argentina and Italy: Il Pollaio
Il Pollaio
555 Columbus Ave
San Francisco, CA
The eaters are Italian – so we pretty much avoid Italian food out unless it is something special. We heard that Pollaio’s chicken was indeed special. We headed up to North Beach, a long-standing Italian enclave that borders Chinatown in SF. The signs literally turn from Chinese characters to Italian in the course of one block. The streets are lined with Italian and Italian-American Trattorias and Cafes catering to locals and a fair share of tourists.
We arrived at Pollaio on a Friday night with no reservation (potentially dangerous) – but were welcomed right in. The ambiance is that of a cozy neighborhood cafe, and the service should not have been friendlier. It is truly a mix of Argentine and Italian in there (not surprising since many Argentines have Italian heritage) with Italian advertising and Argentine soccer paraphernalia.
As previously stated, Pollaio specializes in chicken, so we barely had to hesitate with the menu. I suppose you could order other things, but WHY would you?!? We ordered a whole chicken ($13) along with a side order of fries. The chickens, which seemed to account for most of the orders in restaurant, came out of the kitchen quickly. The whole chicken that arrived at our table had an amazing char and a delicious but not overpowering flavor of garlic and oregano. Even the white meat was tender and juicy. These people were truly experts. M and I polished off the entire chicken – save one drumstick. The fries were good, but paled in comparison to the chicken.The entire meal topped only $20, and we were really pleased with our meal. While Pollaio may not be a single menu-item restaurant, it might as well be one since it does this single item so well!
Filed under Reviews
Advent Calendars on the Cheap
IKEA has chocolate-filled calendars for $2.49 – it’s not too late!
Filed under Holidays
The Rise of Single-Item Menus in NYC
Just yesterday we were extolling the virtues of the single menu-item restaurant (Chicken Kalbi) – a trend that is apparently well-established in NYC – with the success of shops selling only chocolate cake, mac’n’cheese and rice pudding (among others). We figure that if you’re only selling one thing to get by – chances are that one thing has to be pretty good!
Filed under Links
Koreatown LA: Chuncheon Dakgalbi [now Stone Grill]
Chuncheon Dakgalbi [Same location, now called Stone Grill]
703 S Vermont Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90005
Though we consider ourselves open-minded eater, we have not had good luck with Korean food, so we had kind of crossed it off of our list of “try-again” cuisines. Fortunately our fortunes have turned and we were introduced to some amazing Korean food on our Californian adventure. Our friend K lives in K-Town in LA, known to have some of the best Korean food anywhere, so we were excited to try one of her picks for Korean BBQ.
The sign outside the restaurant proclaimed “Chicken Kalbi” – in pink neon – which was a good sign for us since we love love places that specialize in a single dish. With this auspicious beginning we embarked on our chicken kalbi adventure. This restaurant itself was pretty trippy, and looked more like a nightclub. It has glossy black walls and, I kid you not, multicolored disco strobe lights. The music playing throughout the night was just as eclectic – a mix of K-Pop, Taylor Swift and Michael Buble (whatever!)
When we were greeted upon entry – the server proclaimed she needed to find the English menu – which, humorously enough, did not even contain any English. Our friendly English-speaking server was very helpful, walking us through the Kalbi process. We ordered 2 orders of the regular Kalbi and one order of the “fire chicken” especially for M, who is, as we know, a fire-breather. As is the tradition in most restaurants specializing in Kalbi, the dish was cooked in a giant hot plate right on the table in front of us. It also came with a small assortment of banchan (side dishes), including radish wraps, cole slaw and seaweed.
M proclaimed that the fire chicken was one of the best spicy dishes he had ever had (but of course it was not TOO spicy). The “regular” chicken kalbi was also stellar, and the sauce was a perfect mix of sweet and spice, and came cooked with scallions sweet potatoes and rice cakes. After the meal was (mostly) over – the ends of the kalbi were mixed into fried rice right in the hot plate by our server. After the meal was completely over we got a tiny cup of tangy frozen yogurt (a la red mango). We were definitely impressed with our meal, and were completely stuffed. With our LA experience we officially re-introduced Korean food into our cuisine rotation.
Eating San Francisco
The Eaters are in San Francisco! Looking forward to some delicious eats – and then onto LA for even more culinary adventures.
Filed under Note
Recipe Archaeology at Finley’s Good & Bad Taste
I recently discovered an amazing Tumblr, Finley’s Good & Bad Taste, which focuses on retro recipes and ephemera from cookbooks of years past. There is some crazy stuff in there – a lot of loafs, jellos, icebox cakes, etc, and also a few retro “world cuisine” recipes, which are definitely intriguing. Check it out!
Filed under Links
Dia de los Muertos and Sugar Skulls
Sugar Skulls for Sale in San Francisco by Digiyesica
Today is the 2nd day of the colorful, delicious holiday of Dia De Los Muertos! One of our favorite parts of Dia de los Muertos are the colorful sugar skulls. While in previous years we have bought our pre-made there are also many ways you can make your own – with the help of a special sugar skull mold. If pure sugar’s not your thing, you can go the ultra-edible route with chocolate skulls. Another typical treat made for this holiday is Pan de Muerto an anise-flavored bread traditionally placed on ofrendas.
Filed under Holidays, World Eats
Hong Kong: Sun Wah BBQ
Sun Wah BBQ
5039 N. Broadway
Chicago, IL
When you see a restaurant with whole roast ducks hanging in the window you know you’re in for some good food. The updated Sun Wah space is a veritable palace of meat, with Peking duck window-dressing and a freakishly large menu pushing everything from Chilean Sea Bass to Pig Intestine. Upon entry there was already a massive queue in front of the takeout counter, but ample space to sit down inside.
You know you will be getting huge quantities of meat at Sun Wah, but the prices are even more killer. There is an entire page of meat combos that provide you with a choice of two of the following: duck/pork/beef/chicken with various sauce permutations on top of a mountain of rice. To start out with we ordered a bowl of Hot n Sour Soup ($4.25). The bowl was gargantuan and arrived in barely a few minutes. In quick succession the rest of our meals arrived: Salt and Pepper Chicken and BBQ Pork ($5), Roast Pork and BBQ Chicken ($5), BBQ Duck ($5).
The salt and pepper chicken was unfortunately a little “mystery” for us and contained what looked like a quarter of a chicken hacked into cubes, bones and all. The pork dishes were more successful, and the roast pork had a delicate flavor while the BBQ packed a sweet and sour punch. The duck came with a generous portion and was absolutely roasted to perfection.
One warning though: come for the food – but hang on to your plates. Before we got to shovel in even half of the hot and sour soup – it was unceremoniously removed from our table by the waitress who did not seem to respond to our desperate cries of “WAIT.” Even sans soup we still ended up with another full meal out of our leftovers. We were totally impressed by Sun Wah, the food was amazing, at any price, but seriously, hang on to your plates!
Sun Wah by VXLA
Food as Art: The Work of Robert Festino
The visual aspects of food are some of the most appealing to me – who could deny the awesome colors and textures. One art director that has caught my eye is Robert Festino, who does work for Bon Appetit. I found more information about his work through DesignWorkLife. Who could resist these colors?
Filed under Design and Photography, Links, Note
Bloggers are food writers, too
The prestigious Beard Foundation journalism awards are for the first time not distinguishing between online and offline in terms of food writing. This makes sense to me, especially since there is so much overlap between online and off, but I am actually surprised they took this step – so kudos!
Filed under Links
A taste of Mexico at Maxwell Street Market
Birria, Huraches, tostones, pambozo, tacos, Canela Tea galore! Are we in the Distrito Federal? More like Maxwell Street Market. Maxwell Street Market is basically an open air food court of Mexican cuisine, combined with a totally eclectic outdoor flea market. Despite having lived in Chicago for a long time neither of the Eaters had ever been to the Maxwell Street Market (currently in its 3rd incarnation in its 100+ year history, on Des Plaines).
Maxwell St. Market by Lobstar28
Though there are sports jerseys, knockoff sunglasses powertools and tchotchkes galore, we really came out for the food and produce. M could not resist hitting up the mobile truck, Churro Factory, which sell, unsurprisingly only churros. When we arrived at 11:30 they were already out of chocolate churros, unfortunately. Even as a second choice, M thoroughly enjoyed his vanilla cream-filled churro. However, the “out of food” saga continued to haunt us throughout our visit.
Churro Truck by Edsel Little
You know it’s a popular time (and that fall has arrived) when the champurrado (a thick, spiced hot chocolate made of masa) is clear sold out at not one, not two but THREE locations. We were jonesing for some choco-cinnamon goodness so we kept looking. We ended up at La Paz, a food vendor that had a long line forming (which we took as a good sign) where they had only enough champurrado left to fill one cup, which we figured was better than nothing! Turns out we were not disappointed.
Estilo DF by Stu Spivak
Along with our awesome Champurrado ($2) that was perfect for the slight chill in the air, we ended up ordering a Huitlacoche tortilla ($3.50), one of our favorites, and usually rather difficult to find in many Mexican restaurants. There was no room to sit at La Paz so we hunkered down under the kitschy pop art signs that marked the market’s presence on Des Plaines. On our way out we also picked up some purple tomatillos and cilantro for salsa fixins. We can’t beleive it too us so long to get here – but we’ll definitely be back!
Maxwell Street by JosEnrique
Filed under Reviews
They Draw and Cook
Though it is not exclusively world eats, I have really been enjoying They Draw and Cook, a blog where artists illustrate their favorite recipes. And by illustrate I really mean illustrate! Check out this recipe for Lof, a Belgian/Dutch endive dish.
Filed under Design and Photography, Links
Eating The World 