Margy's Beijing Journal: A Spicy Farewell

For the last meal of her trip, Margy, along with her hosts/culinary tour guides, ate at a place called the Middle-8th, which serves "refined Hunan food."

"Refined" is not how I'd describe that indecent-looking mound of hot peppers; "thrilling" is more like it. Of course, the peppers aren't meant to be eaten. Rather, they're there to produce heat by association, lending just a steady glow rather than outright flames to the fried heads-on shrimp they surround. Margy was generally dazzled by the chile effect in Beijing, saying that the spicy dishes carried the perfect level of heat, a mellow yet persistent tingle that was dialed only one step down from euphoric.

Adding to the pleasant feelings was a refreshing house-made rice wine that Margy described as looking like lemonade. It was served in tall, handleless bamboo pitchers and drunk from glass Mason jars, and Margy just said "I wish I had some now." Me, I'll settle for about 25 of those shrimp.

So there you have it, Margy's Beijing Journal. I hope I get to join her one day should she ever return, but for now I'll just be glad to have her back and to have someone besides myself to cook for.

Margy's Beijing Journal: Korean Detour

After you hit a donkey restaurant, how do you follow that?

In Margy's case, the answer was going to a Korean hole in the wall for some delicious bi bim bob, shredded beef and vegetables mixed into rice. Margy's gang sat at a table that was fitted with an exhaust hose for Korean barbecue, and they had kimchi and a giant scallion pancake before the main course arrived.

That's the server who's mixing the bi bim bob for Margy. How fresh and tasty it looks. One bite... just give me one bite!

Margy's Beijing Journal: What Have We Here?

Tonight, as Margy was finishing up her workday, her friends/hosts asked a familiar question in a most unfamiliar way. Instead of the usual "What would you like to eat tonight?" or "What are you in the mood for now?" they asked, "Would you like to eat some donkey?"

"Sure..." Margy said, not a little timidly. "Is it good?"

Next thing she knew she was whisked off to what seemed like the outskirts of town, where she and her posse drove down a dirt road and arrived at a building that was hopping with activity and aglow from the neon sign out front (Margy says she saw lots of neon on her trip). The sign was translated for her: "Beijing's #1 Donkey Restaurant."

Now that I think of it, I neglected to ask how many other donkey restaurants there are in Beijing.

The place offered its signature ingredient in an array of preparations, and Margy's party chose donkey patties (top right). She said they were quite good, covered with sesame seeds and filled with juicy red meat. (The big pot holds a mountain of tofu, which was eaten with the sauces, presumably nondonkey all, in front of the pot.) I think she understood that her hang-ups -- if, in fact, she had any; I'm not quite sure -- were purely cultural and that hey, this is where you eat donkey, so gimme some. When I got her text message about this swashbuckling dinner, I said to myself, I married the right girl. Of course, then I said to myself, Wait, I've never eaten donkey.

So send me to China and bring me to Beijing's #1 Donkey Restaurant, and I'll do my part. But you know what they say about donkey: It goes straight to your ass!

Margy's Beijing Journal: Chou Dofu

...or, as it is more commonly known, "stinky tofu" -- tofu that's been marinated in a brine of fermented vegetables.

It's the yummy-looking fried stuff on the plate at left. How innocent it seems -- golden cubes of crispy deep-fried food. Fried anything is good -- how strange could this be?

According to Margy, pretty strange.

A few days ago, after correctly pegging Margy as an adventurous eater, one of her hosts started chatting her up about stinky tofu, asking whether she'd ever had it and beginning to prime her for the experience. Was this a test? After all, Margy had two hosts, and the other one didn't want to have anything to do with the stuff. But Margy was game.

She said she took two bites and knew that fermented tofu wasn't the dish of her dreams (okay, she knew this after the first bite, but she wanted to be sure). The smell and flavor were superstrong and a bit too jarring to be enjoyable. The other American at the table plugged ahead a little longer than Margy before he too gave up.

Luckily there were other, more familiar foods going around, like a whole fish with chili sauce. Margy had lots of whole fish in Beijing, and what could be better? Anyway, the only real reason to object to eating whole fish is that dealing with bones can be a drag, and in general Chinese don't mind dealing with bones. Margy's companions used their chopsticks to make quick work of the task.

While the Beijing gang sipped plum wine and noshed on stinky tofu, I was at Rudy's on 9th Avenue having "rehearsal" with my band, which consisted of drinking beer and eating a lousy but free hot dog, which, now that I think of it, might have also been fermented...

Margy's Beijing Journal: Hot Pot

Tonight was Margy's introduction to Mongolian hot pot. (I don't think it counts that we've visited the dreadful J.P. Lee's in Millburn, NJ, a Mongolian barbecue place that's like a less fun version of a hibachi restaurant.) The joint was hip and classy, and parties could seal themselves off from the throng by closing what Margy described as a shower curtain around their table.

Legend has it, Margy says, that Kubla Khan brought hot pot to Beijing from Mongolia, though tonight I believe someone else delivered it to Margy's table. A big pot of broth was set over a burner in front of the diners, and Margy and her companions used chopsticks to grab a slice of meat from a tray and then swirl it around the broth for a scant minute until it was cooked. After the meat came a plate of dumplings, which were bathed in the broth in the same way. To the left of the broth is a bowl of tripe.

Me, I had Vietnamese food on Baxter Street in NYC -- not bad, but hardly a trip to the Forbidden City followed by a hot-pot feast.

Margy Goes to China!

Please forgive my absence. I've been eating bad takeout in New Jersey while Margy's been off frolicking in Beijing.

Okay, I exaggerate. She wasn't only frolicking; she was working very hard too. Alas, it just wouldn't have been practical for me to join her on this tightly packed business trip, so I held things down at home and wished for her quick return.

Margy's first taste of Beijing's many culinary delights was in the courtyard of the Huajia Yiyuan Restaurant, after she'd endured a full day of traveling and didn't know which end was up. (Though conveniently, with Beijing being twelve hours ahead, she didn't have to change her watch.)

But if Margy's body and mind had no idea what was going on, her appetite knew exactly what to do, and she had a great first meal, which was ordered by her two gracious and knowledgeable hosts and washed down with Chinese beer. Just look at those greens! As I imagine what they tasted like, I kind of feel like a fool for not finding a way to share this exotic trip with my beloved world traveler. Sigh. In the foreground is a plate of tofu on top of mushrooms, and at right is another assortment of mushrooms (or so Margy guesses). She loved it all, and then came the Peking duck. Sigh.

Celery Soup, It Ain't

Margy and I were at Juilliard to see a theater workshop directed by our friend Essho, and after the show we were starving and there was no time to waste. We passed a few anonymous-looking pizzerias and Mexican joints, and then across the street we saw a Chinese noodle shop, Bos.

There was a recent Time Out endorsement hanging in the window, and we walked in, sat down, and ordered some shrimp toast and a couple bowls of noodles. The shrimp toast was excellent, but the noodles were a bit of a letdown. The noodles themselves were al dente, but the broth was bland and the pork was chewy. I ate enough to satisfy my hunger, but on those few occasions when I'm not excited by my meal it's hard for me to go the distance. I was mortified when the waiter came by and with a puzzled look asked us, "You're done?" I hate not pulling my weight. But one thing I cannot do is force myself to eat when my heart's no longer in it.

The bygone Cafe Le Wok on 35th made a much better noodle soup, and they never got attention from any local magazines. What a shame -- if they had, the place might still be there today.

Boil and Eat

When we got back from our shower jaunt, we were looking to have the simplest possible dinner. Luckily, a few weeks ago one of my mom's English-as-a-second-language students had dropped off two bags of frozen homemade Chinese dumplings, one for my sister and one for us. Mom's student had heard my sis was a big dumpling fan, so the larger bag was for her. But when sis rolled through town from Vermont and stopped by for her stash, she took one look at the enormous supply intended for her and said, "I'm taking the small bag."

Where's the Capital of New Jersey?

For weeks we'd been hearing, through my mom, that there's an even better Asian market in the area than the one we usually patronize.

This information came from two of Mom's Chinese students. We heard about better products, superior produce, a finer seafood counter. We had to find the place. We set out on one of New Jersey's most "Jersey" roads, a tricky-to-negotiate east-west extravaganza peppered heavily on both sides with Pier Ones and Home Depots and White Castles. We were looking for a place called Capital, and our eyes were peeled.

We found nothing of the sort.

We drove through town after town, and I was pretty sure we had somehow missed the place. And then we saw a big sign: Asian Food Market. As I pulled in, I noted to Margy the absence of the word Capital, but then again there were a few Chinese characters on the sign, and maybe they said Capital.

So we bought some stuff like ginger candy, Chinese eggplant, Japanese cucumbers, and, of course, shrimp with the heads on, one of my favorite staples of the Asian seafood counter. The squid looked nice, so I got two of those as well. Margy saw some heat-and-eat udon in the refrigerator case and suggested we grab a package. A meal was beginning to take shape.

Inspired by last weekend's Japanese feasts, I thought I'd whip up a bowl of dashi, the broth made with kombu seaweed and bonito flakes that is the foundation of so many different Japanese dishes. It might be blasphemous, but I threw some shrimp heads in with the seaweed just to let some of that nutty flavor seep into the stock. I left the heads on about twelve shrimp and peeled the rest. I cleaned the squid -- something I hadn't done before -- and I have to say I enjoyed the process. It was much more pleasant than cleaning, say, a chicken. The little quill just popped right out, and the guts were quite innocuous. I opened up the bodies and cut them into large pieces, which I scored with a knife on both sides so the pieces would stay more or less flat on the grill.

I marinated the squid and the heads-on shrimp in soy sauce, sake, and sugar, adding a blast of chili sauce to the squid for a change of pace. Then I grilled it all. Meanwhile, I had the stock strained and simmering, and a few minutes before serving I added the peeled raw shrimp, the squid tentacles (all two of them), and the udon noodles. Once the shrimp were cooked through, I ladled broth, noodles, shrimp, and squid tentacles into bowls and arranged the grilled shrimp and squid on top.

I'll admit I felt proud of myself. The precooked noodles left something to be desired, but the rest was pretty magical. The smokiness of the bonito flakes in the broth was bolstered by the char on the grilled shrimp, and the tinge of heat from the squid was a fun little surprise now and then. We might not have found Capital, but the Asian Food Market proved a worthy substitute.

Postscript: But where is Capital? It doesn't exist. I did some serious detective work, starting with Google results that suggested there's no market by that name in the area. Then, after calling my mom ("You went to the wrong place, but I've never been to Capital, so I can't tell you exactly where it is") and getting even more frustrated, I found out that the place I was looking for is actually called Captain something-or-other, and I'm almost certain Margy and I passed that one on our quest. Next time, we'll be stopping in.

Chinese Cook-Off?

I've mentioned that my mom teaches English as a second language a couple of mornings a week, and that she has two Chinese women in her tiny little class who can be a bit competitive at times.

Well, Mom took the ladies out for lunch a few days ago, and this morning her two Chinese students came to class bearing edible gifts to show their gratitude. It was more food than my folks could handle, so they shared the wealth with Margy and me. Which was great, since I had a rehearsal looming, along with zero dinner ideas.

One student made dumplings, the other noodles. (Me, I made broccoli.) Both contained chicken. I think. I mean, I know the noodles did, but I'm not certain about the dumplings -- the filling might've been pork. Dumplings are obviously best eaten fresh, but these were perfectly tasty even reheated. The noodles had just a bit of shredded carrot and sliced shitake, and were flavored mildly with sesame oil.

Both hit the spot. Anyway, I'd never take sides -- Margy and I want the food to keep on comin'.

Shrimp Share the Spotlight

I used to use stir-frying as an excuse to throw everything I had into the pan -- meat, shrimp, four kinds of vegetables.

But I began to notice that good Chinese restaurants keep it much more simple, and I started paring down the ingredients in order to focus on one or two main items. For the most part I would relegate the green vegetables to a separate pot.

I get lazy, though. And I want to experiment. So tonight I just par-boiled lots of string beans and threw them right in with the shrimp in black bean sauce. It wasn't a disaster, but the crunchy beans dominated; if the dish were on a menu it would be called string beans with shrimp and not the other way around.

None of this, of course, was lost on Margy, who ate well enough but suggested I cook the beans separately next time. She knows her stuff. It shall be done.

Chicken Soup, East

I stored the remaining steamed chicken in its wonderful broth of soy sauce, sesame oil, and wine, and when it was time for leftovers, I cooked some capellini and poured the chicken and broth over the pasta for an almost souplike concoction. It was incredibly flavorful (the aroma didn't really linger this time), and a dusting of chopped toasted peanuts gave the whole thing a bit of crunch.

One-and-a-Half-Cup Chicken

I had a dilemma: After shopping all weekend for the Mother's Day extravaganza and then cooking all day to prepare for our guests, we wanted tonight's dinner to be easy and not require a trip to the store.

One out of two ain't bad.

In the end, I opted for easy and go-to-store over time consuming and no store. I recalled having a delicious, falling-apart chicken at the home of one of my mom's Chinese students (Mom teaches English as a second language), and thought I'd give it a whirl. She called it 3-cup chicken, and she told me how to make it: Put a big piece of ginger in the bird's cavity, then steam the thing over a mixture of one cup each of soy sauce, sesame oil, and Chinese wine.

I ran out to grab a chicken, and five minutes after I got home the dish was steaming away. However, I found I didn't have enough sesame oil or soy sauce to get a cup of each, so I improvised and made one-and-a-half-cup-plus-a-little-water chicken.

I steamed my three-pounder for about an hour. Next time I'll check it after forty minutes, because it was slightly overdone. But hey, my first steamed bird was a total revelation, and Margy and I were buzzing with excitement. It was one of the simplest meals I'd ever made, and the flavor of the steaming liquids was all there.

Yet something was lost in translation. My mom's student's version was deep and dark, while mine was pale. I remember noting the rich color and asking her if the chicken should sit in the sauce, and I remember her saying no. So clearly some follow-up questions are in order.

Oh, and there was one more thing: the smell. While the bird cooked, the house filled with a nutty and inviting aroma that only made us hungrier, even after an hour. But sesame oil is potent stuff, and that aroma did not go away. All night, we had visions of sesame seeds and soy sauces. Each and every time I awoke in bed, that half cup of sesame oil was right there next to me. I could taste it. Putting on my jacket the next morning was like wrapping myself in one big sesame seed.

But it was worth it. I'll just do a little spraying next time.

Rice Rush

I was desperate for ideas, so I forced the issue: Instead of eating rice at a natural pace and letting leftovers accumulate, I boiled a batch specifically for fried rice.

This is tricky. A night in the refrigerator prepares rice to be fried, letting some of its moisture evaporate and steeling it from soaking up too much of the oils and flavorings that it's about to meet in the pan. A soft, fresh grain will stay that way: soft.

I did put today's rice in the fridge for a few hours. Yet as I later scooped it into a hot pan full of onion, garlic, ginger, and, of course, bacon, I felt like I was pushing the baby bird out of the nest before it was ready to fly.

The texture was off a bit, but the flavor was there (thank you, bacon). Margy didn't complain. Plus she'll have leftovers for lunch -- hopefully by then the rice will be more al dente.

Now with Even More Pork!

Red snapper wasn't all we bought at the Asian market. I also seized the opportunity to pick up ground pork, fresh tofu, green long beans, and the ginger candies that Margy and I like and everyone else can't stand.

Using everything but the ginger candies, I made pork with tofu and leeks in black bean sauce. The dish is quickly becoming part of our heavy rotation. It's quick, it's delicious, and it's relatively light. Tonight, in fact, it was light enough that I could get away with slipping more pork into the side dish: long beans with garlic, basil, and... bacon!

I don't know, it was just late-breaking inspiration. I felt like the beans needed some pizzazz, so I chopped a tiny bit of slab bacon and let it work its magic. I will keep this in mind for the future as a surefire way to get Margy to eat her vegetables.

An Appetizer Breakthrough

This is a turnip patty, from our new favorite Chinese restaurant, Cathay 22.

Wow, is it good. First of all, it's fried, which is always fun. It's crispy and flaky outside, and the sesame-seed coating adds nutty flavor and a little crunch. Inside, there's creamy pureed turnip and tiny dried shrimp.

I can tell I'm going to conjure up any reason to be "in the neighborhood" so I can get more of these. Two to an order, eh? Margy and I split an order tonight, but I envision matching sets the next time around.

Our Favorite New Stir-Fry

A stir-fry of ground pork, leeks, and tofu is becoming one of our staples. It's irresistible, if not exactly photogenic. The sauce is a mixture of fermented black beans, chicken stock, sake, hoisin sauce, and sugar. The whole dish takes no time to prepare, and it's great left over. Tonight I served it with brown rice and broccoli.

I worked with tofu from a cardboard package rather than the superior fresh tofu in water. The packaged kind is fine, but it's a little soft (despite my using the "firm" variety) and fell apart while cooking, even when I stirred very gently. There was one unexpected bonus to this: A thin layer of tofu coated the bottom of the wok and turned into thin, crispy pieces that were delicious and texturally divine.

A Nice Jersey Duck

I've done my share of complaining about Chinese restaurants, and I'm sure there's much more to come. Overlong menus that don't allow a place to highlight its strengths, anonymous gloppy sauces, lack of culinary nuance -- the list of offenses is vast. So imagine my delight to have a terrific meal at a little restaurant in north Jersey called Cathay 22.

Margy and I went with my mom, who had moved out of one kitchen but had yet to move into the next, and my sister, who was in from out of town putting her singular organizational skills to very good use at my parents' new home for a few days. Sis wanted duck. Who am I to argue?

This is the Peking duck, cut from the bone and arranged on the plate roughly in the shape of a very wide, very flat bird. The presentation wasn't what I would call gorgeous, but the meat was tender and flavorful and the skin was crisp yet moist with bits of tasty fat. We ate some duck in pancakes with scallions and hoisin sauce, and some by itself. The crunchy legs were of particular interest to me.

And then we had tangerine prawns and baby bok choy. The prawns were big and succulent, coated in a light batter and served with garlic and pieces of tangerine rind. The tangy sauce was so spicy that my mom and sister gave up after a while and let Margy and me finish the prawns. For the two of us, the lip-smacking heat level was just right.

The question is: Will Cathay be this good the next time? Please let it be so.

Eat Drink Men Women

Two mornings a week, my mother teaches English as a second language to a small group of women. Over the years that she's done this she's developed a wonderful rapport with her students, two Chinese women in particular. Once Mom let it drop that she likes Chinese food, the containers began to appear. She'd come home from class with tubs of dumplings, jars of noodles, even a box of fiery little shrimp to be eaten whole, head, legs, and all. Frankly at one point a few years ago, before things calmed down a bit, I think the two students saw themselves as embroiled in a cook-off, duking it out to earn "Teacher's" favor. ("Enough!" my dad was heard to report, after forcing down his umpteenth dumpling.) But of course my mom loves all her ladies and doesn't play favorites.

Can you see where this is going? Yup, #1 son got involved. Margy and I actually live right near one of these students, who's the cook for a family in the neighborhood. From time to time she invites my folks and some of the other students over for a home-cooked meal, and at some point I -- lucky me -- got added to the list. In fact, sometimes I get my own special delivery of a round of dumplings or a container of noodles, to Margy's great delight.

Today we had quite a banquet, as you can clearly see. There were six of us -- my mom and dad, the chef extraordinaire, my mom's other Chinese student and her husband, and me. I hung my head a couple of times when asked where Margy was. "She's working," I said sheepishly, feeling like I should be working too. Little did I realize I'd soon be punching the clock -- that is, eating absolutely as much as I possibly could.

Did I say this was lunch for six? Well, the food you see here was about half of what was served. We ate slowly and chatted and lingered and ate and laughed and lingered and ate, and there was still tons left on the table. Clockwise, from the lower left:

* Fried spare ribs
* Whole fish with leeks and red bell pepper (the Chinese among us didn't know the English name of the fish but described it as "yellow flower fish")
* Spicy dried beans with leeks (I had a hard time imagining what the beans look like in their natural state -- green beans? black beans? chickpeas? -- and wasn't quite able to find out)
* Those legendary dumplings
* Clam soup, in the very small bowl -- wonderful!
* Fried tofu with a spicy soy-garlic sauce -- divine!

Not seen here:

* Not one, but two whole steamed chickens, both falling-apart succulent, one in a light ginger-scented broth and the other, called "3-cup chicken," in a dark and delicious potion made with a cup each of soy sauce, Chinese wine, and sesame oil
* Steamed crunchy greens that our host likened to Chinese lettuce
* Red-hot kimchi made with broccoli stems (I sort of got the recipe and have stems drying in the fridge as I type)
* Tiny slices of beef on toothpicks, flavored with hot red pepper and cumin seed
* Something surprisingly similar to Margy's Asian pot roast; our host said it contained radishes but my mom and I agreed they were turnips
* Sweet sticky rice with raisins and dates

And I seriously think I forgot something. Frogs' legs? No, that was last time (yum). Hmm...

Our host was a tad forgetful too -- she had made so many dishes that some of them never came out. In fact, the kimchi was presented just after dessert (which was a huge bowl of fruit with scoops of mint chip, dulce de leche, and butter pecan on top). It was just in the nick of time for us to try it before digging into our ice cream -- but the Chinese man in the group loved the kimchi so much that he kept snagging bits of it in his chopsticks between bites of mint chip. Now that is a good eater.

After a meal like this, I would've expected night to have fallen. But I staggered home in strong daylight, full to the gills and loaded down with plenty of food for Margy's dinner.