Throwback Thursday: Guan Fu

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on July 30, 2018.

I can't believe the amount of food that I consume when I'm with my friend Daisy. It's as if I sprout a second stomach to hold it all. I liked this place a lot, so of course it closed. :( 

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I have always loved Chinese food and can still remember the taste of my very first shrimp in black bean sauce. I was on a "date" with my Dad. My mother had shooed us out of the house so she could have some quiet time with my newly-born baby brother; this makes me about 5 at the time. I had already eaten plenty of American-style Chinese food by that age, but the piquancy of the fermented black beans was a new flavor to me. And I liked it.

Sichuan food appeared on my table sometime in the late 70s, and though may palate was not yet accustomed to heat, I appreciated that the flavors and ingredients used were a bit different from the usual celery, onions, and starchy sauces used in familiar dishes like moo goo gai pan and chow mein. Though the Sichuan and Hunan dishes I ate in my youth were quite different from the ones I ate as a small child, they were still fairly Americanized.

In 2018, there doesn't seem to be as many Chinese restaurants in Baltimore as there used to be. Certainly no good ones (I am sure someone will be happy to argue that point). I've had a hard time finding even mediocre food in my neck of the woods. Thankfully, there is some really good Chinese food to be had outside of Baltimore. I've spoken here many times of my love for Grace Garden in Odenton, and for Hunan Taste in Catonsville. Asian Court in Ellicott City is my place for dim sum. And of course there are plenty of places in Montgomery County, which is a bit of a hike. Chinese food has gone from being a regular weeknight meal to something for a special occasion, but that makes me appreciate it all the more.

New Yorkers, however, don't have to struggle to find really fine Chinese food from many different regions of that vast country. There's a Michelin-starred Sichuan restaurant in Midtown, for god's sake, not to mention the five locations of Xi'am Famous Foods! Flushing, Queens, a half hour subway ride from Midtown, is rife with Chinese restaurants, which made it a bucket list destination for me.

My friend Daisy knew I wanted to eat good Chinese food when I was in NY, so she took me to Guan Fu, in Flushing. The New York Times gave it three stars, which normally doesn't happen to non-European ethnic restaurants. It had to be good, right?

And it was.

The restaurant is full of dark wood, with large tables to hold ample feasts. There are also comfortable wide chairs--which easily accommodate ample posteriors, like mine. The menu has photographs of every dish, which is nice, but only makes one's choice more difficult. Everything looks great.

Daisy had eaten at Guan Fu before, and had tasted a good deal of the menu. I was happy to let her decide what we would eat. Or over-eat, as the case may be. We ordered five dishes, and did a pretty good job of finishing almost everything. It helped that only two of the dishes contained meat, and only one as the star of the dish, but none of them were small.

Dishes were served family-style, arriving at the table in the order in which the kitchen finished preparing them. The bean jelly noodle salad is served cold, so that came to the table quickly. It was spicy yet refreshing, the gelatinous texture of the noodles holding a chill quite well--much appreciated on a day that had reached 98°F.

The Guan Fu style fried yolk corn was perhaps the most intriguing and unfamiliar dish. It was also the largest. The giant plate contained a mountain of fried corn kernels dusted in dried egg yolk; they were both sweet and salty, with a crisp-tender texture that made them a perfect snack. Except eating this dish was slow going, as chopsticks made it difficult to pick up more than one kernel at a time.

Speaking of chopsticks, Guan Fu has a novel approach to them. Rather than using coarse wooden disposable chopsticks, or plastic ones that require washing, they use chopstick handles with replaceable wooden tips. The tips come in little paper packages, which the diner removes before screwing the tips into place. This way they use much less wood and paper than traditional disposable sticks, and there's no doubt that the tips are sanitary.

We also ordered Chinese black fungus in Guan Fu sauce, a quite spicy (three chile peppers, according to the menu) dish of snappy-textured mushrooms (also called wood ears, commonly used in moo shu preparations) with raw onion and chiles in a clear, ginger-forward, sauce.

Our lone meat dish was a stir fry of chicken with Sichuan prickly ash. Prickly ash is a member of the citrus family, which explains why Sichuan peppercorns--which are actually buds--are somewhat lemony in flavor. Oh, and they have a numbing quality, too, with which those who have tried them are familiar. The combination of Sichuan pepper numbing and chile pepper heat is known as ma la, and this chicken dish was loaded with it--but not in an uncomfortable way. There were also bits of crispy potato and even crispier lotus root in the dish, which added some textural contrast.

My favorite dish was the dumplings, which, oddly enough, appeared in the dessert section of the menu. I have been looking for a dish of dumplings in hot chile oil like the one served at a place called Szechuan Best, in Randallstown. We went there semi-regularly in the 80s, and I had to get the dumplings every time. The sauce was hot and oily and redolent of five spice. I think. It's been a long time, but I would know the flavor if I tasted it again. The dumplings at Guan Fu were not the same, though the delicate wrappers filled with pork seemed somewhat similar. The sauce, however, was its own thing. No five spice, and actually quite mild to my palate, but eminently slurpable. Now that I think back on it, I can understand how their relative mildness (only two chile peppers) might be a relief after eating an otherwise highly-spiced meal.

Overall, I liked Guan Fu. I think it's on par with Grace Garden and Hunan Taste, and I'm happy to have been able to compare them so favorably. However, each restaurant has its own personality. I'd definitely like to go back to Guan Fu and get to know it better.

Guan Fu
39-16 Prince St g01
Flushing, NY 11354
http://guanfuny.com/

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

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Red Pepper Sichuan Bistro

I have long lamented that there aren't any really good Chinese restaurants in northern Baltimore County. There are plenty of smaller American-style Chinese carry-outs, and Szechuan House, which has always been hit or miss. (They deliver, however, so that is definitely in their favor.) When I read in Kit Pollard's Hot Plate column for Baltimore Fishbowl that a new Sichuan restaurant opened on Allegany Avenue, we visited post haste, hoping for the best.

Red Pepper Sichuan Bistro is a rather expansive restaurant with a soothing decor and not particularly comfortable, unpadded, Chinese-style wooden chairs. The kitchen is also large and visible through a plate glass window at the back of the restaurant. Continuing the size theme is the menu, a glossy tome featuring not only lists of available dishes, but also helpful photographs of nearly all of them. Another theme of Red Pepper is spicy, which of course one would expect to find in a restaurant specializing in the cuisine of Sichuan province. My kinda food.

I'm always attracted to spicy wontons, so we had to order the Sichuan spicy wontons in red oil. I'm forever chasing the flavor of a similar dish I had years ago in a restaurant in Randallstown called Szechuan Best. There, the red oil was as aromatic as it was spicy. Red Pepper's rendition is very good, with nicely tender pork-filled wontons, but the sauce didn't have the kick that I was looking for. Still, it was pretty tasty and I'll order it again.

One of our two favorite Chinese restaurants is Grace Garden in Odenton, and one dish we always order there is the Sichuan pork belly, a dish of thinly sliced pork belly stir fried with chiles and leeks. We thought the Fried Salty and Dried Pork with Scallion at Red Pepper would be similar. It was, and it wasn't. When tasting the dish in the restaurant, I did notice that the pork was indeed salty, but it wasn't until I ate the leftovers at home three days later that I noticed the pork had also been smoked. Saltiness aside, the dish was quite nice, and as it was not spicy, somewhat of an antidote to the following dish.

We used to get a dish called "beef on toothpicks" at our other favorite Chinese restaurant, Hunan Taste (which appears to have closed permanently). Literally fried slivers of beef impaled on toothpicks, the meat was flavored with cumin and chiles. Red Pepper offers both beef and lamb with cumin. The dishes seemed similar enough despite the lack of pointed wooden implements, so we tried the latter. Baby, it was hot, but also redolent of the promised cumin. I can dig the heat of dried red chiles, which to me doesn't last as long on the palate as that of fresh green chiles, and is much easier for me to tolerate. However, Mr Minx found it a bit incendiary.

Another way to beat the heat of the lamb dish was to take bites of Shrimp with Rice Crusts. The menu describes the dish thusly: "When rice crust is combined with beef or pork, it tastes spicy. With shrimp or fish filet, amazingly, it changes to sweet and sour." The rice crusts - squares of crisply fried rice - are presented on their own in a large bowl, with the topping poured over at tableside.  Rather than some mysterious alchemical transformation, the shrimp and fish versions are simply presented in a somewhat brothy, lightly sweet and tangy sauce that is absolutely nothing like the ketchup-and-pineapple juice sweet-and-sour that Americans are used to (thank god). I imagine that the beef and pork versions have a spicy sauce, which we will have to try at another time.

The shrimp were plump and sweet, and there were a nice amount of vegetables. The rice crusts themselves have a nice roasty flavor, and I'd love to nibble them on their own. I am torn about their texture once deluged with sauce.

Finally, we tried the Stir-fry Green Beans, which I loved. The beans were still a little crisp, garlicky, and salty. Mr Minx likes them a little softer, and preferred the reheated beans a few days later. Still, a very good rendition of a favorite dish.

After this first visit to Red Pepper, we determined that we need to go back again, and often. The food was very good. Amazingly good for Towson. And while it might not be at the top of the heap for us just yet, we will put Red Pepper into our regular dining rotation and hope to taste most of the menu (might skip fish maw though) in the not too distant future.

Red Pepper Sichuan Bistro
11 Allegheny Avenue
Towson, MD 21204
http://www.redpeppermd.com

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

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Hao Noodle & Tea

I normally go to New York 2-3 times a year. A few years ago, I had the great fortune to make a friend with whom I share several things in common; number one on that list is food. When I visit the city, we get together for at least one dinner...and one supper. Yes, they are both on the same night, Hobbit-style.

Though there are places I might like to try, I always bow to her dining expertise. She had spoken highly of Via Carota, so we decided to meet there at 8pm one very rainy Sunday in December. I had Mr Minx with me, and he was looking forward to a dining adventure. Unfortunately, Via Carota takes no reservations and was packed. We were told to expect a wait that would last until 9:30. Weary and wet, I texted Daisy to tell her the bad news. She didn't believe the wait would be that long, but suggested a different restaurant near her present locale, a modern Sichuan place called Hao Noodle & Tea. We're always up for good Chinese food and agreed to meet her there.

The rain and cold had made us cranky, my feet were soaked through my shoes, I had to pee, and I didn't want to figure out how to turn ourselves around and find this place. Daisy stressed that it was only a few blocks away from where we stood, but we could call an Uber if we didn't want to walk. My Uber app didn't want to cooperate, so I called a Lyft instead. I should have known better. It's a rare occasion when Lyft doesn't do a bait and switch. They'll post one price when I summon the car, and then charge twice as much at the end of the ride. So while taking a Lyft to go the equivalent of 4 blocks was an outrageous idea to begin with, it was maddening to have them overcharge me yet again. Fuck them.

Damn good thing the food was good.

Until I got a cocktail, I was still a bit grumpy so let Daisy take over ordering for us. She had been there before, and everything she recommends is worth eating at least once and usually twice.

Food came out as it was ready, so cold dishes came out first: Lu Beef; Spinach in Ginger Sauce; and Le Shan Sliced Chicken in Szechuan Peppercorn and Chili Oil. Also known as bobo, bon bon, or saliva chicken (because it makes one's mouth water), the latter dish was incredibly tasty combination of cold steamed chicken, chili oil, black vinegar, sesame, and peanuts. Long after the chicken was gone, I was slurping up spoonfuls of the chili oil and peanuts.

The beef had been stewed in a spiced soy sauce and was extremely tender. The spinach was cooked until it was no longer astringent and dressed in a flavorful ginger and garlic sauce.

As the restaurant specialized in noodles we ordered two dishes from that category, much to the delight of Mr Minx. The Hand-Pulled Noodles Mixed with Braised Fresh Lamb was rich, yet somehow lighter than the pulled noodles with lamb I have eaten elsewhere. It also contained braised carrots, which I thought was unusual.

Dan-Dan Noodles involve a spaghetti-like noodle in a dry sauce of ground pork, preserved mustard greens, chili oil, and Sichuan peppercorns, topped with peanuts. I felt the seasoning was well-balanced--spicy but not too, a little sweet, a little numbing--making this best version of the dish I've tried yet.

There were still more peanuts on the Crispy Shrimp Saute, along with enormous dried chiles that had been cut into chunks. Nestled within the spicy-looking pile were lightly battered shrimp that were juicy and perfectly crunchy. Along with the familiar flavors of ginger and garlic was rosemary, which combined with the fried peanuts made this dish absolutely addictive.

Thought I didn't get to eat at Via Carota--at least not this time--I was pretty happy with our dinner at Hao Noodle that night. First dinner. We had dessert and pizza afterward. More on that in next week's post.

Hao Noodle & Tea
401 6th Ave
New York, NY 10014

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Guan Fu

I have always loved Chinese food and can still remember the taste of my very first shrimp in black bean sauce. I was on a "date" with my Dad. My mother had shooed us out of the house so she could have some quiet time with my newly-born baby brother; this makes me about 5 at the time. I had already eaten plenty of American-style Chinese food by that age, but the piquancy of the fermented black beans was a new flavor to me. And I liked it.

Sichuan food appeared on my table sometime in the late 70s, and though may palate was not yet accustomed to heat, I appreciated that the flavors and ingredients used were a bit different from the usual celery, onions, and starchy sauces used in familiar dishes like moo goo gai pan and chow mein. Though the Sichuan and Hunan dishes I ate in my youth were quite different from the ones I ate as a small child, they were still fairly Americanized.

In 2018, there doesn't seem to be as many Chinese restaurants in Baltimore as there used to be. Certainly no good ones (I am sure someone will be happy to argue that point). I've had a hard time finding even mediocre food in my neck of the woods. Thankfully, there is some really good Chinese food to be had outside of Baltimore. I've spoken here many times of my love for Grace Garden in Odenton, and for Hunan Taste in Catonsville. Asian Court in Ellicott City is my place for dim sum. And of course there are plenty of places in Montgomery County, which is a bit of a hike. Chinese food has gone from being a regular weeknight meal to something for a special occasion, but that makes me appreciate it all the more.

New Yorkers, however, don't have to struggle to find really fine Chinese food from many different regions of that vast country. There's a Michelin-starred Sichuan restaurant in Midtown, for god's sake, not to mention the five locations of Xi'am Famous Foods! Flushing, Queens, a half hour subway ride from Midtown, is rife with Chinese restaurants, which made it a bucket list destination for me.

My friend Daisy knew I wanted to eat good Chinese food when I was in NY, so she took me to Guan Fu, in Flushing. The New York Times gave it three stars, which normally doesn't happen to non-European ethnic restaurants. It had to be good, right?

And it was.

The restaurant is full of dark wood, with large tables to hold ample feasts. There are also comfortable wide chairs--which easily accommodate ample posteriors, like mine. The menu has photographs of every dish, which is nice, but only makes one's choice more difficult. Everything looks great.

Daisy had eaten at Guan Fu before, and had tasted a good deal of the menu. I was happy to let her decide what we would eat. Or over-eat, as the case may be. We ordered five dishes, and did a pretty good job of finishing almost everything. It helped that only two of the dishes contained meat, and only one as the star of the dish, but none of them were small.

Dishes were served family-style, arriving at the table in the order in which the kitchen finished preparing them. The bean jelly noodle salad is served cold, so that came to the table quickly. It was spicy yet refreshing, the gelatinous texture of the noodles holding a chill quite well--much appreciated on a day that had reached 98°F.

The Guan Fu style fried yolk corn was perhaps the most intriguing and unfamiliar dish. It was also the largest. The giant plate contained a mountain of fried corn kernels dusted in dried egg yolk; they were both sweet and salty, with a crisp-tender texture that made them a perfect snack. Except eating this dish was slow going, as chopsticks made it difficult to pick up more than one kernel at a time.

Speaking of chopsticks, Guan Fu has a novel approach to them. Rather than using coarse wooden disposable chopsticks, or plastic ones that require washing, they use chopstick handles with replaceable wooden tips. The tips come in little paper packages, which the diner removes before screwing the tips into place. This way they use much less wood and paper than traditional disposable sticks, and there's no doubt that the tips are sanitary.

We also ordered Chinese black fungus in Guan Fu sauce, a quite spicy (three chile peppers, according to the menu) dish of snappy-textured mushrooms (also called wood ears, commonly used in moo shu preparations) with raw onion and chiles in a clear, ginger-forward, sauce.

Our lone meat dish was a stir fry of chicken with Sichuan prickly ash. Prickly ash is a member of the citrus family, which explains why Sichuan peppercorns--which are actually buds--are somewhat lemony in flavor. Oh, and they have a numbing quality, too, with which those who have tried them are familiar. The combination of Sichuan pepper numbing and chile pepper heat is known as ma la, and this chicken dish was loaded with it--but not in an uncomfortable way. There were also bits of crispy potato and even crispier lotus root in the dish, which added some textural contrast.

My favorite dish was the dumplings, which, oddly enough, appeared in the dessert section of the menu. I have been looking for a dish of dumplings in hot chile oil like the one served at a place called Szechuan Best, in Randallstown. We went there semi-regularly in the 80s, and I had to get the dumplings every time. The sauce was hot and oily and redolent of five spice. I think. It's been a long time, but I would know the flavor if I tasted it again. The dumplings at Guan Fu were not the same, though the delicate wrappers filled with pork seemed somewhat similar. The sauce, however, was its own thing. No five spice, and actually quite mild to my palate, but eminently slurpable. Now that I think back on it, I can understand how their relative mildness (only two chile peppers) might be a relief after eating an otherwise highly-spiced meal.

Overall, I liked Guan Fu. I think it's on par with Grace Garden and Hunan Taste, and I'm happy to have been able to compare them so favorably. However, each restaurant has its own personality. I'd definitely like to go back to Guan Fu and get to know it better.

Guan Fu
39-16 Prince St g01
Flushing, NY 11354
http://guanfuny.com/

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Flashback Friday - Sichuanese Cookery

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on July 22 2009.
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Mr Minx and I went to H Mart last week to pick up some needed staples: Kewpie mayo; dark soy; noodles; Mexican chorizo. I also wanted to pick up some chile bean sauce to use in Sichuan cookery. You see, after reading Fuchsia Dunlop's excellent Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper, I bought her Sichuan cookbook, Land of Plenty.

The first thing I attempted was "ants climbing a tree," or, vermicelli noodles with ground pork.

I had eaten an excellent version at Grace Garden and wanted to recreate it. Unfortunately, this recipe didn't do the trick. My noodles were spicy and salty and that's about it - missing any nuance of flavors found in Chef Li's version. I kinda had an idea that would be the case, so I also cooked up a stir fry of scallops, langoustine tails (advertised as such at Trader Joe's but they sure taste like crawfish to me), oyster mushrooms, and gai lan (Chinese broccoli) in black bean sauce to go with. I love how gai lan is both bitter and sweet at the same time.

Next time I have a hankering for ants climbing a tree, I'll try this recipe. Or this one.

The second recipe I chose from Land of Plenty was for a family favorite, kung pao chicken. It was scrumptious, and my house now smells like a Chinese restaurant - sweet, meat, and garlic. I didn't use the "generous handful of dried red chiles" called for because 1) I didn't have them; 2) I like spicy food but I didn't want to hurt myself; I used cayenne instead. I'll definitely make this one again, maybe with shrimp next time.

Kung Pao Chicken (adapted from Land of Plenty by Fuchsia Dunlop)

4 chicken thighs, boned and skinned, cut into small cubes

2 large cloves of garlic, minced, and an equivalent amount of fresh ginger, cut into thin slices

5 scallions, chopped, white and green parts separated

2/3 cup roasted unsalted peanuts

cayenne to taste

Sichuan peppercorns

for marinade

1/2 t salt

2 t light soy sauce

1 t Shaoxing rice wine or medium-dry sherry

2 1/4 t cornstarch

1 T water

for sauce

3 t sugar

1 1/8 t cornstarch

1 t dark soy sauce

1 t light soy sauce

3 t Chinkiang or black Chinese vinegar

1 t sesame oil

1 T water

1. Place chicken in a bowl with marinade ingredients, set aside.

2. Combine sauce ingredients in small bowl. Add minced ginger. Set aside.

3. Heat a large skillet and add 2 tablespoons of cooking oil. When hot but not smoking, add chicken and after chicken cubes have separated, add ginger and white part of scallions. Stir fry until the meat is cooked through. Season with cayenne and, if you have it, ground Sichuan pepper.

4. Stir the sauce and pour into the pan, continuing to stir the meat. When the sauce is thick and glossy, stir in the peanuts and remove from heat.

5. Garnish with scallion greens and serve with rice.

Serves 2 - 4, depending on appetite and side dishes.

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Flashback Friday - Mission Chinese Food

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on July 26, 2013.
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Korean-born, Oklahoma-raised Danny Bowien is one of the hottest properties around. In 2011, Mission Chinese Food, in San Francisco, was named one of Bon Appetit's best new restaurants, and now he's featured in the July 2013 issue of Food & Wine as one of the country's best new chefs.

The New York branch of Mission Chinese Food opened in 2012, and I've read nothing but raves. (Ok, there have been some bellyaching on Yelp, but that's to be expected.) On my recent trip to New York, I planned to be in the vicinity (SoHo) and thought it would make a great spot for lunch.

Turns out lunch is the best time to visit Mission Chinese Food. I got there a few minutes before the opening time of noon and there was already a short line. (At dinner time, the tiny restaurant's line, and, consequently, the wait, is far longer.) After a brief amount of time, I was taken to the dining room and, as I was a lone diner, given a seat at the bar, where all of the servers were incredibly nice and attentive to my needs.

Mission Chinese is famous for their spicy "Americanized Oriental food" with dishes like kung pao pastrami and thrice-cooked bacon. Both of those entrees have two flame symbols next to them on the menu, which according to the legend means "very freakin spicy." It was very hot and humid in New York and I had already done my fair share of sweating, so I figured one-flame spicy was about as hot as I wanted to go. I ordered two dishes from the hot appetizer section of the menu, the shaved pork belly with soy caramel, garlic, and Sichuan pepper, and the salt and peppered soft shell crab with buttermilk ranch dressing.

The menu suggests that the pork belly needs an accompaniment of a la carte rice, so I shelled out the additional $2 for a bowl. I suppose that was a warning to me that the dish was very spicy, but I chose not to heed that warning, instead putting faith in the fact that the dish had only one flame symbol. Dummy.

The dish was served cold, rather than hot, but that did not detract from the flavors and textures of this dish. The shavings of pork belly were meltingly tender. The sauce was a darkly-flavored melange of garlic, caramelized soy, maybe some Chingkaing vinegar, with some raw garlic on top for good measure. And it was full of the sensation the Chinese call ma la - numbing and spicy. There was so much Sichuan peppercorn in the dish, my nose went numb after a few forkfuls. What was worse, the dish was firey as I was eating it, of course, but when I attempted to put out the flames with the rice, it only served to fan them even higher. So the rice was a big bomb. What I needed was a glass of milk. If I drank milk.

The soft shell crab was much milder, provided I didn't eat any of the slices of green chile pepper scattered on top. It was a tad too salty though. I can't fault the crisp texture of the crust, or the ranch dressing, which tasted like tartar sauce, if tartar sauce were made with buttermilk.

There was a large party at the table next to the bar and they ordered a great many delicious-looking dishes. I heard several times, "this is really spicy," and have to wonder why restaurants make food hot just for the sake of making things hot. Some of us enjoy a nice bit of heat, but we're not all "chile-heads."

Senses completely overloaded, I headed out once more into the incredible humidity, in search for something cooling, like ice cream.

Mission Chinese Food
154 Orchard St
New York, NY 10002
http://missionchinesefood.com 



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Flashback Friday - Ma Po Tofu

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on November 9, 2012.

Mr. Minx here. It's been a while since I've reported on one of my weekday dinner adventures, so Ms. Minx thought this would be a good time for me to attempt a recipe she found in Fushia Dunlop's book, Land of Plenty. It's a Sichuan dish called ma po dou fu, or ma po tofu for us uncultured sorts. A spicy concoction using tofu and ground beef, the dish looked like it would fulfill our desires to have something healthy and flavorful. To add to the healthy nature of the dish, we replaced the ground beef with ground chicken.

At this point, I think it is important to bring up an issue that has daunted me since I started preparing our evening meals Monday through Friday. That issue is timing. Minxy takes the bus home from work, and the bus system is notoriously unreliable. Just when I get used to my beloved walking through the door at a certain time for several days in a row, she will unexpectedly be 15 minutes late. Although not necessarily a big deal in the vast scheme of things, it can be lethal for the taste and quality of a stir-fry or pasta dish. Therefore, I've taken to getting as much prep work done as possible before she arrives home, and then starting the final assembly after I've kissed her hello.

When I looked at the recipe for ma po tofu, it was clear there was a lot of quick sauteeing with the overall cooking time amounting to a scant 10 minutes or so. I decided to be clever and do all my chopping and measuring of ingredients first, and then wait to do the actual cooking. Setting about the prep work about a half hour before the expected cooking time, I ran into my first snag. The recipe called for leeks and, as anyone who's cooked leeks knows, they have to be thoroughly washed because they can often be filled with sand. Sometimes I get lucky and the leeks are pretty clean. This was not one of those times. I chopped the leeks into rings and soaked them in a bowl of cold water. Once the sand settled to the bottom of the bowl, I drained the water and washed them again. And again. And again. I had just started, and I was already falling behind.

I started assembling the other ingredients. The recipe called for fermented black beans. After scouring the pantry, I came up empty. Then I remembered that I had purchased a container of Korean fermented black bean paste a while back which I was going to use for some undetermined experimentation at a later date. This seemed like as good a time as any, so I guesstimated how much paste might equal the required quantity of black beans. Another crisis averted.

Next step was to cook the ground chicken. This is when I realized that I hadn't thoroughly defrosted the meat, which had lingered in the freezer waiting for some good use. I decided to start cooking the meat right away and hope for the best. The meat is supposed to be crisped up over a high flame, but a chicken popsicle doesn't exactly crisp up; it stews in its own moisture and becomes a crumbly soup. I tried not to panic. I figured I still had just enough time to cook it. Then I hear the Minx walk through the front door 15 minutes early.

Seeing that I was clearly in the weeds, she jumped in to help, but I could sense her disappointment in my lack of planning. Anyway, we forged ahead. Although the recipe is not exactly complicated, there are several steps, adding each ingredient separately and allowing them to cook for short, but specific amounts of time. Chili bean paste, black bean paste, ground chiles, tofu, and leeks are all added to the meat and cooked for short intervals. Fine if you know what you're doing, but a little crazy for me as I ran back and forth to the cookbook, fumbling with my reading glasses, trying to make sure each step was properly executed.

In the end, the ma po tofu turned out to be a wonderful dinner choice. The tofu, ground meat, and black beans provided sufficient heartiness, while the clean spiciness so prevalent in Sichuan cooking made it seem somehow light. I'm sure the use of ground beef would've given it a more savory flavor, but the ground chicken worked just fine for my palate, and I could feel better that is was less fatty. It's a dish I would like to attempt again when I have more time and properly thawed ground meat.



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Flashback Friday - Ma Po Tofu

We love, love, love Fuchsia Dunlop's books on Chinese cuisine. We own all three, and use them pretty regularly. If you want to try cooking Chinese food at home (it's not difficult if you have the right ingredients), then get yourself one or more of her books.

--Kathy

This post was originally published on November 9, 2012.
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Ma Po Tofu

Mr. Minx here. It's been awhile since I've reported on one of my weekday dinner adventures, so Ms. Minx thought this would be a good time for me to attempt a recipe she found in Fucshia Dunlop's book, Land of Plenty. It's a Sichuan dish called ma po dou fu, or ma po tofu for us uncultured sorts. A spicy concoction using tofu and ground beef, the dish looked like it would fulfill our desires to have something healthy and flavorful. To add to the healthy nature of the dish, we replaced the ground beef with ground chicken.

At this point, I think it is important to bring up an issue that has daunted me since I started preparing our evening meals Monday through Friday. That issue is timing. Minxy takes the bus home from work, and the bus system is notoriously unreliable. Just when I get used to my beloved walking through the door at a certain time for several days in a row, she will unexpectedly be 15 minutes late. Although not necessarily a big deal in the vast scheme of things, it can be lethal for the taste and quality of a stir-fry or pasta dish. Therefore, I've taken to getting as much prep work done as possible before she arrives home, and then starting the final assembly after I've kissed her hello.

When I looked at the recipe for ma po tofu, it was clear there was a lot of quick sauteeing with the overall cooking time amounting to a scant 10 minutes or so. I decided to be clever and do all my chopping and measuring of ingredients first, and then wait to do the actual cooking. Setting about the prep work about a half hour before the expected cooking time, I ran into my first snag. The recipe called for leeks and, as anyone who's cooked leeks knows, they have to be thoroughly washed because they can often be filled with sand. Sometimes I get lucky and the leeks are pretty clean. This was not one of those times. I chopped the leeks into rings and soaked them in a bowl of cold water. Once the sand settled to the bottom of the bowl, I drained the water and washed them again. And again. And again. I had just started, and I was already falling behind.

I started assembling the other ingredients. The recipe called for fermented black beans. After scouring the pantry, I came up empty. Then I remembered that I had purchased a container of Korean fermented black bean paste a while back which I was going to use for some undetermined experimentation at a later date. This seemed like as good a time as any, so I guesstimated how much paste might equal the required quantity of black beans. Another crisis averted.

Next step was to cook the ground chicken. This is when I realized that I hadn't thoroughly defrosted the meat, which had lingered in the freezer waiting for some good use. I decided to start cooking the meat right away and hope for the best. The meat is supposed to be crisped up over a high flame, but a chicken popsicle doesn't exactly crisp up; it stews in its own moisture and becomes a crumbly soup. I tried not to panic. I figured I still had just enough time to cook it. Then I hear the Minx walk through the front door 15 minutes early.

Seeing that I was clearly in the weeds, she jumped in to help, but I could sense her disappointment in my lack of planning. Anyway, we forged ahead. Although the recipe is not exactly complicated, there are several steps, adding each ingredient separately and allowing them to cook for short, but specific amounts of time. Chili bean paste, black bean paste, ground chiles, tofu, and leeks are all added to the meat and cooked for short intervals. Fine if you know what you're doing, but a little crazy for me as I ran back and forth to the cookbook, fumbling with my reading glasses, trying to make sure each step was properly executed.

In the end, the ma po tofu turned out to be a wonderful dinner choice. The tofu, ground meat, and black beans provided sufficient heartiness, while the clean spiciness so prevalent in Sichuan cooking made it seem somehow light. I'm sure the use of ground beef would've given it a more savory flavor, but the ground chicken worked just fine for my palate, and I could feel better that is was less fatty. It's a dish I would like to attempt again when I have more time and properly thawed ground meat.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Roasted Shrimp

I order head-on shrimp at a Chinese restaurant (especially at dim sum), but I really don't like to eat the heads. To me, they taste funky in a bad way. However, I do like the way they look. So when I saw head-on shrimp for sale at the local Asian grocery store, I bought some. You have to admit, the sinuous curve of their pink bodies paired with the frilly heads and black eyes is quite ornamental. Sadly, they can't be put into a vase or left on the table in a bowl. (The smell would get unbearable pretty quickly.)

Even without any real idea of what to do with the shrimp, I decided they needed to be oven-roasted, whole, rather than pan-fried. Since we were also going to finish up some leftover Chinese-ish soup with the meal, I incorporated Chinese flavors into the shrimp by tossing them in a sauce of black vinegar and chile bean paste, using more of that sauce as a dip.

Eat the heads and shells, or peel them off before dipping. Either way, they're pretty tasty.

Roasted Shrimp

1 lb head-on shrimp
Vegetable oil
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons soy
2 tablespoons black vinegar
3 tablespoons doubanjian
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon ground ginger
Sesame seeds
Handful of torn cilantro leaves

Preheat broiler.

Toss shrimp with a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper. Place in one layer on a foil-lined baking sheet. Broil shrimp for 8-10 minutes, turning once, until pink and cooked through.

While shrimp are roasting, combine soy, vinegar, doubanjian, garlic, sugar, and ginger in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil. Turn down heat and cook for a minute or so, making sure sugar is dissolved.

When shrimp are cooked, put them into a large bowl. Pour over half of the soy mixture and toss well. Pour remaining soy mixture into a ramekin, to use as a dipping sauce.

Arrange sauced shrimp on a plate. Garnish with sesame and cilantro, and serve dipping sauce on the side.

Serves 4.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Grace Garden

We've posted about Grace Garden many times here on Minxeats. It's also the answer I most often give to the question, "what is your favorite local restaurant?" Truthfully, my favorite restaurant changes from day to day, depending on where I've eaten most recently and what I  might be craving at the moment. But Grace Garden remains a favorite, and on days when it's not #1, it's definitely firmly in second place.

A hole in the wall in a strip mall in Odenton isn't always the first place one thinks of for a Chinese feast, but there it is.

We visited in September for my brother's birthday (an annual tradition) and the place was slammed. Thankfully we had made a reservation this year. (Last year we were yelled at for not doing so and urged to hurry though our meal so someone else could get our table. But as far as I can tell, they don't actually keep track of reservations.) There were still several tables available when we arrived, but the carry-out orders were stacking up. One group of three chicks ordered ten items. A father came in with his two noisy children. The kids didn't seem to want anything, so I imagine they'd be enjoying chicken fingers and microwave mac and cheese while Dad chowed down on fish noodles and XO chicken.

There are two dishes we order every time we visit Grace Garden, as the four of us, my picky father included, enjoy them: vermicelli with pork and pepper, and Sichuan pork belly. This occasion was no different. And despite having to wait nearly half an hour for our food (about 20 minutes longer than usual), and hearing the normally mild-mannered-seeming chef yelling in the kitchen (I could actually see him from my seat, and he seemed pissed at something or someone), there was no change in the quality or flavor of his food. Now that's consistency.

Sichuan pork belly with leeks, bell peppers, Sichuan bean paste

Vermicelli stir fried with ground pork and chiles

We also normally order the salt and pepper squid, big slabs of roughly chopped squid coated in a eggy-tasting batter, aggressively seasoned with salt and pepper and topped with fried shallots and slices of raw jalapeno. This dish did suffer a bit from the kitchen chaos; it tasted fine, but it was a bit oily.

Salt and pepper squid

We're always pleased to see new dishes added to the menu. A few years back, we ate some marvelous lamb chops served with lemongrass and scallions at a Chowhound Chinese New Year dinner and made a special request for them from time to time. The last time I called for them, I was told that it's too expensive to make, since they basically have to buy a case of the chops and then can't sell them. Instead, they used the same preparation on some pork ribs and put it on the regular menu. It's basically a variation of the salt and pepper squid, with a crispier batter and lots of deep fried lemongass bits. Yummy.

Pork spare ribs with lemongrass and fried scallions

Another new dish we tried is the house special chili pepper chicken. They do two versions, one a stir fry, the other with deep fried chicken. We chose the latter, which came to the table buried in a mountain of fried chile peppers and a big handful of stir fried Sichuan peppercorns. Pretty much everything on the Grace Garden menu is spicy, and to the newbie, probably incendiary. We don't notice so much anymore. But this dish was crazy spicy. Not so much hot--I didn't really get much impact from all those chiles, but the numbing quality of the Sichuan peppercorns was off the hook. Not really peppers, the dried berries of the prickly ash have an unusual floral flavor and might be off-putting to people not used to them. I normally don't mind them, but this dish was a little over the top. Just as I'd bite into a morsel of lovely fried chicken thigh, a peppercorn would assault my tongue. Eventually I grew tired of fighting and gave up.

Chili pepper chicken

No matter. There was plenty of other delicious items on the table to choose from.





Posted on Minxeats.com.

Mission Chinese Food

Korean-born, Oklahoma-raised Danny Bowien is one of the hottest properties around. In 2011, Mission Chinese Food, in San Francisco, was named one of Bon Appetit's best new restaurants, and now he's featured in the July 2013 issue of Food & Wine as one of the country's best new chefs.

The New York branch of Mission Chinese Food opened in 2012, and I've read nothing but raves. (Ok, there have been some bellyaching on Yelp, but that's to be expected.) On my recent trip to New York, I planned to be in the vicinity (SoHo) and thought it would make a great spot for lunch.

Turns out lunch is the best time to visit Mission Chinese Food. I got there a few minutes before the opening time of noon and there was already a short line. (At dinner time, the tiny restaurant's line, and, consequently, the wait, is far longer.) After a brief amount of time, I was taken to the dining room and, as I was a lone diner, given a seat at the bar, where all of the servers were incredibly nice and attentive to my needs.

Mission Chinese is famous for their spicy "Americanized Oriental food" with dishes like kung pao pastrami and thrice-cooked bacon. Both of those entrees have two flame symbols next to them on the menu, which according to the legend means "very freakin spicy." It was very hot and humid in New York and I had already done my fair share of sweating, so I figured one-flame spicy was about as hot as I wanted to go. I ordered two dishes from the hot appetizer section of the menu, the shaved pork belly with soy caramel, garlic, and Sichuan pepper, and the salt and peppered soft shell crab with buttermilk ranch dressing.

The menu suggests that the pork belly needs an accompaniment of a la carte rice, so I shelled out the additional $2 for a bowl. I suppose that was a warning to me that the dish was very spicy, but I chose not to heed that warning, instead putting faith in the fact that the dish had only one flame symbol. Dummy.

The dish was served cold, rather than hot, but that did not detract from the flavors and textures of this dish. The shavings of pork belly were meltingly tender. The sauce was a darkly-flavored melange of garlic, caramelized soy, maybe some Chingkaing vinegar, with some raw garlic on top for good measure. And it was full of the sensation the Chinese call ma la - numbing and spicy. There was so much Sichuan peppercorn in the dish, my nose went numb after a few forkfuls. What was worse, the dish was firey as I was eating it, of course, but when I attempted to put out the flames with the rice, it only served to fan them even higher. So the rice was a big bomb. What I needed was a glass of milk. If I drank milk.

The soft shell crab was much milder, provided I didn't eat any of the slices of green chile pepper scattered on top. It was a tad too salty though. I can't fault the crisp texture of the crust, or the ranch dressing, which tasted like tartar sauce, if tartar sauce were made with buttermilk.

There was a large party at the table next to the bar and they ordered a great many delicious-looking dishes. I heard several times, "this is really spicy," and have to wonder why restaurants make food hot just for the sake of making things hot. Some of us enjoy a nice bit of heat, but we're not all "chile-heads."

Senses completely overloaded, I headed out once more into the incredible humidity, in search for something cooling, like ice cream.

Mission Chinese Food
154 Orchard St
New York, NY 10002
http://missionchinesefood.com





Posted on Minxeats.com.

Ma Po Tofu

Mr. Minx here. It's been awhile since I've reported on one of my weekday dinner adventures, so Ms. Minx thought this would be a good time for me to attempt a recipe she found in Fushia Dunlop's book, Land of Plenty. It's a Sichuan dish called ma po dou fu, or ma po tofu for us uncultured sorts. A spicy concoction using tofu and ground beef, the dish looked like it would fulfill our desires to have something healthy and flavorful. To add to the healthy nature of the dish, we replaced the ground beef with ground chicken.

At this point, I think it is important to bring up an issue that has daunted me since I started preparing our evening meals Monday through Friday. That issue is timing. Minxy takes the bus home from work, and the bus system is notoriously unreliable. Just when I get used to my beloved walking through the door at a certain time for several days in a row, she will unexpectedly be 15 minutes late. Although not necessarily a big deal in the vast scheme of things, it can be lethal for the taste and quality of a stir-fry or pasta dish. Therefore, I've taken to getting as much prep work done as possible before she arrives home, and then starting the final assembly after I've kissed her hello.

When I looked at the recipe for ma po tofu, it was clear there was a lot of quick sauteeing with the overall cooking time amounting to a scant 10 minutes or so. I decided to be clever and do all my chopping and measuring of ingredients first, and then wait to do the actual cooking. Setting about the prep work about a half hour before the expected cooking time, I ran into my first snag. The recipe called for leeks and, as anyone who's cooked leeks knows, they have to be thoroughly washed because they can often be filled with sand. Sometimes I get lucky and the leeks are pretty clean. This was not one of those times. I chopped the leeks into rings and soaked them in a bowl of cold water. Once the sand settled to the bottom of the bowl, I drained the water and washed them again. And again. And again. I had just started, and I was already falling behind.

I started assembling the other ingredients. The recipe called for fermented black beans. After scouring the pantry, I came up empty. Then I remembered that I had purchased a container of Korean fermented black bean paste a while back which I was going to use for some undetermined experimentation at a later date. This seemed like as good a time as any, so I guesstimated how much paste might equal the required quantity of black beans. Another crisis averted.

Next step was to cook the ground chicken. This is when I realized that I hadn't thoroughly defrosted the meat, which had lingered in the freezer waiting for some good use. I decided to start cooking the meat right away and hope for the best. The meat is supposed to be crisped up over a high flame, but a chicken popsicle doesn't exactly crisp up; it stews in its own moisture and becomes a crumbly soup. I tried not to panic. I figured I still had just enough time to cook it. Then I hear the Minx walk through the front door 15 minutes early.

Seeing that I was clearly in the weeds, she jumped in to help, but I could sense her disappointment in my lack of planning. Anyway, we forged ahead. Although the recipe is not exactly complicated, there are several steps, adding each ingredient separately and allowing them to cook for short, but specific amounts of time. Chili bean paste, black bean paste, ground chiles, tofu, and leeks are all added to the meat and cooked for short intervals. Fine if you know what you're doing, but a little crazy for me as I ran back and forth to the cookbook, fumbling with my reading glasses, trying to make sure each step was properly executed.

In the end, the ma po tofu turned out to be a wonderful dinner choice. The tofu, ground meat, and black beans provided sufficient heartiness, while the clean spiciness so prevalent in Sichuan cooking made it seem somehow light. I'm sure the use of ground beef would've given it a more savory flavor, but the ground chicken worked just fine for my palate, and I could feel better that is was less fatty. It's a dish I would like to attempt again when I have more time and properly thawed ground meat.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Grace Garden Dinner to Celebrate the Year of the Rabbit

Is it terrible that since we've found Grace Garden, we eat very little Chinese food? Once a quarter or so, we venture out for dim sum, but Grace's lip-smacking offerings have really spoiled us for dinner-time dining.  Odenton is a 45-minute haul for us, so sadly, eating Chinese food has become a special occasion. And what more special an occasion to celebrate at Grace than Chinese New Year? Mr Minx and I really enjoyed last year's feast, so I made sure to sign us up as soon as the first chatter started on the Charm City Chowhounds list.

A few of the ten courses served for the Year of the Rabbit were identical to those we ate to celebrate the Year of the Tiger - the soup, the amazingly plump and delicious lamb chops, the 8-treasure sticky rice-stuffed duck - but the rest offered new taste experiences.

This is the much-vaunted Sichuan Triple Treasures that I had read about on so many other food blogs - beef tongue, tripe and tendon mixed with spicy Sichuan sauce, scallions & peanuts, served chilled. Despite the amount of praise, I had never tried this particular dish because every time we've eaten at Grace Garden, my peanut-allergic brother has been with us. (I don't even risk eating at Five Guys if I'm going to see him later in the day.) Also, I figured I was probably the only one at our table adventurous enough to eat tendon and tripe. Turns out, it earned every compliment. The three types of beef offal in this dish of fuqi feipian, also  known as "man & wife lung slices," are sliced wafer-thin, cooked until very tender, and are seasoned with a lively sauce of chiles and Sichuan peppercorns. Even compared to nine other outstanding dishes, Mr Minx declared this one to be his favorite of the evening.

Another dish that was created for the occasion was a variation of GG's famous fish noodles, this version being topped with a spicy sauce containing bits of more fish. It was quite good, although I think I prefer the austerity of the original version.

The whole fish this time was mostly unsauced, the meat arranged on its own deep-fried carcass of delightfully crispy edible bones, which are almost  tastier to eat than the fish itself.

We also had two vegetable courses this time around, one a stir-fry of Chinese chives that taste a bit like a cross between asparagus and scallions, but better (and stinkier), and one of a green vegetable with caramelized garlic cloves. There was some discussion over the type of vegetable in the dish; one diner was pretty sure they were snow pea shoots, but I believe they were more closely related to choi sum or another member of the brassica family.

Finally, our dessert was better, but no less-odd than last year's: the chef's version of a Jell-O salad, made with lime gelatin, pineapple, and cream. Better than bean jelly, IMHO.

I'm already looking forward to next year's feast.