How About You Drink China Instead?

One street behind San Diego's pan-Asian supermarket 99 Ranch Market, beyond banners announcing its perpetual grand opening and the all-you-can-eat $18 hot pot, lies Mr. Dumpling, one of my default lunch joints.

I am enamored of Mr. Dumpling's xiao long bao (called on the menu "pork juicy buns" and elsewhere known as Shangahi soup dumplings). The steamed dumplings are little more than tiny pork meatballs and a splash of stock wrapped in a thin caul of dumpling wrapper. The trick to eating them is to bite a small hole at the bottom edge, slurp out the stock, and only then tackle the rest of it. Invariably I dunk mine in a soy/chile/black vinegar concoction I mix at the table. Sure, I'll order other things once I'm there, but those fat little rascals are the reason to go.

Naturally, the staff have come to know me. Small dishes sometimes appear unbidden on our table; pickles, boiled peanuts, little pancakes. One day when eating alone, I was engrossed in Chris Bunting's book Drinking Japan. When the waiter brought dumplings, I set the book aside and he read the title.

"Drinking Japan?" he exclaimed, in (mostly) mock indignation. "How about you drink China instead?"

"Sure, ok." You see, I'm agreeable about these things. "Where can I get Chinese liquor in San Diego?"

"Hmm. Maybe 99 Ranch Market."

"Yeah, I saw their sake and shōchū, but I didn't notice any Chinese spirits."

"They also have umeshu," he offered, naming a Japanese plum liqueur.

"Chinese umeshu?" I pressed.

He smiled, caught. "Yeah, Chinese stuff is pretty hard to find. Maybe it's ok if you drink Japan sometimes."

And so I do.

Mr. Dumpling
7250 Convoy Court (not Convoy Street)
San Diego, CA 92111
(858) 576-6888

[Edit 10.9.12: With a change of staff for both the front and back of the house, the quality of the restaurant has suffered. I can't in good conscious recommend a meal here any longer. Pity. Those were great dumplings]

Goes well with:

• My take on Andrea Nguyen’s excellent book, Asian Dumplings.
• Mr. Dumpling staff aren't the only ones who disapprove of my drink choices. An eerily similar remark came from a TSA agent in Kentucky who took a dim view of my Tuthilltown Spirits bottle as I worked my way through Louisville airport security.

Bookshelf: Thai Street Food

In any provincial town, and in many crowded areas of Bangkok, there is always a place — a corner or two, a few blocks or a square — that is brightly lit well into the night. These are the night markets of Thailand and they are filled with people, food and noise, as flames lick around woks and wood smoke from charcoal grills lingers in the still night air.

~ David Thompson

We’ve come to expect big things from Australian writer and Michelin-starred chef David Thompson, but let’s just get the obvious out of the way. Thompson’s Thai Street Food is enormous. The book is over 13” tall, racks up 372 pages, and weighs almost as much as three liters of good Kentucky Bourbon. It’s big.

It’s also gorgeous. Years ago, my in-laws gave me Thompson’s earlier book, the opus Thai Food, as a birthday present. Although a more manageable height, it, too, was huge. 674 pages. Hell, the introduction was almost as long as my entire book Moonshine. It taught me more about Thai cookery than all the other Thai books in my library combined.

Sure, you could use it in a bar fight as a formidable weapon, but Thai Food’s length is justified by the scholarly and eminently readable copy. Thompson goes into exquisite detail from historical and gustatory angles on how big and complex Thai flavors come together into harmonious wholes. Likewise, Thai Street Food makes sense when you consider the topic. Huge, full-page color photographs by Earl Carter evoke the hustle and bustle of Bangkok markets and street vendors on a scale that isn’t possible with a smaller, shorter book. A guide to Bangkok’s street vendors might fit in your pocket, but it’s not going to prepare you for the vibe of what’s there when you hit the streets.

I’ve been cooking out of Thai Street Food for a few months now and it’s just a stunner. I’ve a soft spot for street- and market- type takeaway in the first place, but when it’s flavored with hits of fish sauce, garlic, basil, chiles, ginger, galangal, bitter greens, coconut, lime, cilantro, tamarind, and more — ah, man, my knees go weak.

Bags of sweet chile sauce (photo: Earl Carter)

The book is broken down into three main sections following the arc of the day and the street foods one might find sold then; Morning (with breakfast and morning snacks as well as some noodle dishes), Noon (lunch, curry shop, snacks and sweets, and more noodles), and Night (made to order, Chinatown, and desserts). For those unaccustomed to Thai cookery, an appendix includes ingredient and basic technique descriptions.

Recipes cover the expected such as Pat Thai (even if Thompson’s ambivalence about this ubiquitous Thai restaurant dish — invented for a WW II-era noodle recipe contest — is obvious) and mangos with sticky white rice. But don’t shy away from sour orange curry of fish, banana rotis, deep-fried dried beef with a chile-tamarind sauce, prawns and chile jam, sour pork sausages, barbecue or roasted pork, and…well, all the recipes I’ve tried simply work. Don't shy away from any of them.

One of Thai Street Food’s strengths is Thompson’s consistent hand-holding for those unfamiliar with Thai ingredients or techniques. This isn’t some best-hits collection of Thai restaurant favorites, but clearly a work of someone who has eaten and cooked these dishes time and again and understands the variations that can come into play and why one might choose to do one thing over the other.

Thompson is not adamant that readers use unfamiliar ingredients, but describes them in a way that certainly makes me want to. Take, for instance, his description of maengdtaa fish sauce that goes into the above chile-tamarind sauce. Now, I like fish sauce as much as the next guy, but blink and you may miss what makes this one special: “I like to use maengdtaa fish sauce (made from rice roaches, bugs that scurry through the paddy fields), for its haunting aroma, but any good-quality fish sauce will do.” Out came my shopping list: M-A-E-N… No luck so far finding it in San Diego, but I still look.

Muu Bing (photo: Earl Carter)

We’ve taken a shine to Muu Bing, simple grilled pork skewers akin to Indonesian or Malaysian sate. Thompson calls for using an optional pandanus brush, so some explanation is in order. Pandanus (also called pandan, duan pandan, rampe, bai toey, lu dua, or screwpine) has been called the vanilla of Southeast Asia, but perhaps only for its ubiquity; its flavor and scent are all its own. Fruits and flowers of some species are edible, but recipes that use the plant more frequently call for the long, thin, green leaves. Torn or crushed and tied in knots, they are not generally eaten but are removed after cooking much like knots of lemongrass. Fresh leaves are scarce in the US, but  may be found frozen in many Asian grocery stores.

Muu Bing (Grilled Pork Skewers)

Thompson writes “I am addicted to these.” Try them; you’ll see why.

300 g (9 oz) pork loin or neck

50 g (2 oz) pork back fat (fatback) — optional

MARINADE

1 teaspoon cleaned and chopped coriander roots

Pinch of salt

1 teaspoon chopped garlic

½ teaspoon ground white pepper

2 tablespoons shaved palm sugar

Dash of dark soy sauce

2 tablespoons fish sauce

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

12-15 bamboo skewers

3 pandanus* leaves (optional)

about ¼ cup coconut cream

Slice the pork into thinnish pieces about 2 cm (1 in) squares. Cut the pork fat, if using, into small rectangles, say 2 cm x 5 mm (1in x ¼ in).

Next make the marinade. Using a pestle and mortar, pound the coriander root, salt, garlic and pepper into a fine paste. Combined with sugar, soy sauce, fish sauce and oil. Marinate the pork and the fat in this mixture for about three hours. The more cautious can refrigerate this but, if doing so, then it is best marinated overnight.

It’s a good idea to soak skewers in water for about 30 minutes. This prevents them from scorching and burning as the pork grills. Some cooks like to use a brush made out of pandanus leaves to baste the pork. To make a pandanus brush, fold each pandanus leaf in half then trim to make and even edge. Cut up into the trimmed ends four or five times to make the brush’s “bristles.” Tie the pandanus leaves together with string or an elastic band to make a brush. Of course a regular brush will do too.

Prepare the grill. Meanwhile, thread a piece of fat, if using, onto the skewer first followed by two or three pieces of the marinated pork. Repeat with each skewer. When the embers are glowing, in fact beginning to die, gently grill the skewers, turning quite often to prevent charring and promote even caramelisation and cooking. Dab them with the coconut cream as they grill. This should make the coals smoulder and impart a smoky taste. Grill all the skewers.

On the streets, they are simply reheated over the grill to warm them through before serving, although this is not entirely necessary as they are delicious warm or cool.

David Thompson (2010)

Thai Street Food: Authentic Recipes, Vibrant Traditions

372 pages (hardback)

Ten Speed Press

ISBN: 158008284X

$60.00

Bookshelf: Drinking Japan

When I first arrived in Japan, I used to walk around looking for “pubs” on the theory that I knew what they were. It is not as simple as that. In Japan, the word “pub” can refer to various types of drinking establishments, not all of which serve reasonably priced drinks. There are “English pubs” and “Irish pubs” offering exactly what you might expect but there are also “sexy pubs” that sell something else.

~ Chris Bunting

Drinking Japan

Living in California where sushi joints are as common as coffee shops and devoting no small portion of my life to the study of distilling and drinking, I have some familiarity with Japanese whisky, shōchū, and sake — but only as an American understands these things. That is, I drink what I can get in the United States. Consequently, the breadth and depth of drinking choices in Japan itself has been a matter of trawling for hearsay, quizzing bartenders and distillers who have visited Japan, and reading.

For the last several months I have been trying to remedy that with a crash course in Japanese spirits and cookery.

One of the most useful books on drinking alcohol in modern Japan to come across my desk is, appropriately enough, Drinking Japan by Tokyo-based journalist Chris Bunting. Subtitled A Guide to Japan’s Best Drinks and Drinking Establishments, Bunting’s book is something of a revelation.

As with all guidebooks, some of its information — hours, addresses, or staff, for instance — is bound to be obsolete by the time it lands in your hands. Accept it and move on. The rest is a meaty mix of history; tips to avoid cultural misunderstandings (that extra charge on your bill isn’t sneaky thievery — it’s there on purpose and everyone at the bar but you understands this); suggestions for dealing with unfamiliar drinking environments; warnings on harsh penalties lashed out to drunk drivers (and passengers of drunk drivers); pronunciation guides; detailed guides and maps to bars, distilleries, and liquor stores; and profiles of Japan’s noteworthy alcoholists.

With so much of Americans' focus when it comes to Japanese drinking on sake and, to a lesser degree, whiskies, it was a surprise to me that Japan has a robust craft brewing scene. Obviously, Japan has breweries, but in California, I have known only light and, let’s face it, undistinguished brands such as Kirin and Sapporo. Bunting devotes an entire chapter to what he calls the “glories of Japanese beer” and breaks down where to get it and how to drink it.

One of the more engrossing chapters for me concerns awamori, an Okinawan distilled rice spirit that can be traced clearly to the early 1500s, but in all probability is older even than that. Awamori was, from its earliest days, an aristocratic drink. Bunting writes “Only forty individuals were given permits and all distilling was done under royal patronage; the stills and the ingredients were owned and loaned out by the kingdom and all of the liquor had to be returned to it, save for 5.4 liters left as payment with each maker. Unlicensed distilling brought the death penalty and transportation of the culprits family to a prison island.”  This, naturally, suggests that moonshining was enough of a problem that draconian laws were put in place to stem the flow from illicit stills (or perhaps a little side action on those royal stills when nobody was looking). Awamori had its ups and downs since the 18^th century — not unlike American moonshine — but modern distillers seem to understand that the success of the class is anchored in quality product.

An almost heart-wrenching section — that is, from a drinker’s point of view — describes the utter destruction during World War II of awamori stocks that were well over 100 years old. After a bombardment by the battleship USS Mississippi annihilated the center of awamori making in Okinawa, “[S]tocks of black kōji spores necessary for making awamori destroyed. After a desperate search, a straw mat with traces of kōji on it was found under the rubble of one distillery and, after several failed attempts, the mold was successfully cultured.” Kōji (Aspergillus oryzae) is not much used in the West, but the fungus is essential for converting starches to sugars in several traditional types of Japanese fermented food and beverages.

Awamori Distilleries from Drinking Japan

At the time of printing, Bunting noted only 46 awamori distilleries remaining. Fortunately for the curious traveler or Japan-based drinker, he profiles a number of bars that specialize in the spirit. One of these days, I will get to Japan and I will sample awamori in situ. And Japanese whiskeys. And sake. And shōchū.

Until then, I have Drinking Japan to help me plan where and what to drink when I get there.

Cheers, Mr. Bunting, for the read.

Chris Bunting (2011)

Drinking Japan: A Guide to Japan’s Best Drinks and Drinking Establishments

288 pages (paperback)

Tuttle

ISBN: 4805310545

$24.95

Goes well with:

• My take on Izakaya: The Japanese Pub Cookbook, one of the first books that made me really want to get to Japan.

Bookshelf: Izakaya: The Japanese Pub Cookbook

Ever since Japan’s triple disasters earlier this year, I’ve been getting in as much as I can about Japanese cuisine; this new direction is reflected, predictably, in a growing accretion of books and bottles.

To my pile of books, I recently added Mark Robinson’s Izakaya. It’s a few years old now, but the book is so engrossing that I read it cover-to-cover on a flight to Salt Lake City. The future of Japanese whisky in the wake of this year’s tsunami originally sparked my interest in that country’s distilleries. That initial concern has grown into a broader interest in Japanese eating and drinking habits — in which I am far from expert.

It’s not that I am wholly unfamiliar with Japanese food. After all, friends live in Japan and we have a handful of Japanese markets nearby. But I lean to big, bold flavors and would rather eat any number of Vietnamese, Thai, Lao, or regional Chinese dishes than yet another Southern California sushi roll. Of course, Japanese cuisine is more than sushi, sake, and Sapporo — but it’s a pity we don’t have more authentic izakaya to help us understand the bigger picture.

Robinson is an Australian journalist based in Tokyo. He clearly has spent considerable time in izakaya (pronounced roughly ee-ZAH-ka-ya), small Japanese pubs that are as much about food as they are drink. In fact, he offers “pub” only hesitantly as a translation. Here he sets the scene for one of his favorites and the first of eight profiled in the book:

Every neighborhood deserves a Horoyoi.

Amid the babble of nighttime Ebisu, in southwestern Tokyo, among the mind-numbing array of flashy restaurants dueling for customers, their touts playing the streets, this diminutive semi-basement izakaya has been a fixture in my life since the early 1990s.

I never consciously made it so. Indeed, it was years before I realized that Horoyoi had grown on me — or I had grown into it — to the extent that I relied on it as much as the average Japanese might his or her own “local”: as a modest, welcoming place that came instantly to mind whenever I was arranging to eat and drink with friends and colleagues; to casually celebrate birthdays and New Year’s; to entertain relatives; or to introduce newcomers to izakaya. Over time, I found that it had transcended its status as an occasional destination to become a regular venue for marking some of my life’s milestones: a personal repository of good memories. With minimal décor, reliable, simply seasoned food and cool-headed service, it was a place where I felt at the same time comfortably well known and sufficiently anonymous to be completely myself. I could bring whomever I please, stay as long or short as I wanted, ask questions about the menu, be gregarious, or simply sit and observe. And that’s what the best neighborhood izakaya should be.

He goes on to give about a dozen recipes from Horoyoi and about as many again from each of seven other spots. The recipes range from almost down-home comfort food to a handful of more complex dishes. It would be a mistake, however, to describe any of the recipes as particularly complicated. Pork, noodles, clams, tofu, and potato salad (yes, potato salad) are almost old hat to Western eaters. For ingredients that may not be so familiar, Robinson includes photos and descriptions — wood ear mushrooms, gardenia fruit, yuzu, daikon radish sprouts, wagarashi (Japanese hot mustard), shichimi spice powder, lotus root, and more.

Some of the highlights include asparagus and pork tempura rolls, soy-flavored spareribs, chicken gizzards, cucumber pickles, duck breast with ponzu sauce, miso-cured tofu, steamed and grilled pork with salt, deep-fried tilefish, and the bizarre —but no less intriguing — Raclette-stuffed deep-fried tofu. There’s not one single thing in this book I wouldn’t eat.

This year’s tight travel budget means I have no immediate plans to visit Japan, but I am laying plans to come drinking and learning what to eat with those cocktails I’ve been hearing so much about the past few years.

From the Tokyo izakaya Buchi, sweetened glazed walnuts take on the fermented tenor of the esteemed aged Chinese tea, pu-erh. No pu-erh? Robinson suggests substituting Earl Grey.

Pu-erh-Glazed Walnuts

8 oz. (230g) walnut halves
5½ oz. (155g) granulated sugar
⅓ oz. (8g) pu-erh tea
Vegetable oil for deep-frying

In a sauté pan, lightly toast the tea over low heat until fragrant. Pulse to a powder in a food processor. Bring water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Blanch the walnuts for one minute and strain. Toss with sugar while hot.

In a large saucepan, heat the oil to 430ºF. Have ready a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Deep fry the walnuts until the sugar caramelizes, about 4-5 minutes, then transfer to the baking sheet. While hot, sprinkle with the tea powder and toss well. Separate the walnuts and let them cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Mark Robinson (2008)
Izakaya: The Japanese Pub Cookbook
160 pages (paperback)
Kodansha USA
ISBN: 4770030657
$25.00

Bookshelf: The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook

Want to cook Asian food at home, but aren't quite sure which cookbook to get? Got one for you: The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook.

Pan-Asian cookbooks exist and some are great starting points to explore recipes or learn about ingredients. But in the end, many are disappointing because they are little more than catalogs of recipes from diverse cultures sometimes thousands of miles apart. Patricia Tanumihadja's book also draws from widely separated cultures, but anchors recipes to specific grandmothers and great-grandmothers whom she profiles in succinct little oral histories. It's these stories and their ancillary headnotes in the various recipes that really make the book shine.

We learn, for instance, about Kimiye Hayashi from Bellevue, Washington. Born in Pueblo, Colorado to Japanese parents from Hiroshima, she lived in Southern California at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. When Japanese Americans were being rounded up for relocation camps during the war, she fled to an abandoned farm, but was eventually put into an Arkansas camp with her family. Tanumihadja writes that while Mrs. Hayashi cooks hamburgers, fried chicken, and other typically American foods, she also scoured Japanese cookbooks — especially those from church groups — for recipes. "You want to eat something you want," she says, "you just learn how to do it."

She's hardly alone. Asian-American grandmothers from Thai, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, Burmese, Lao, Indian, Nepalese, Indonesian, and other cultures contribute recipes for dishes that are representative not only of their ancestral homes, but of the American influences in their families' cooking. Somen salad, for instance, isn't traditional Japanese cookery, but the noodle dish with shredded lettuce and barbecued pork is a popular at many Japanese American gatherings. Then there's the leftover Thanksgiving turkey rice porridge.

The familiar and the tantalizing are there, too: Thai basil pork (pad gkaprow mu); chicken adobo; potstickers; caramelized pork belly braised in coconut water; marbled tea eggs; lumpia, lechon, and sinangag; there's shrimp toast, shiu mai, and (my personal weakness) the Shanghai soup dumplings known as xiao long bao; mulligatawny soup from India; and sai oua, a Lao pork sausage with cilantro, culantro, lemongrass, chilies, garlic, etc. — perfect for grilling.

There's banquet food, appetizers, comfort food, and more. I'm lukewarm about the recipes in so many cookbooks, but nearly every one in the Asian Grandmothers Cookbook makes me want to change dinner plans and fix that.

Well done, Ms. Tanumihadja. This one's a treasure.


Patricia Tanumihadja (2009)
The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook: Home Cooking from Asian Kitchens
368 pages, hardback
Sasquatch Books
ISBN: 157061556X
$35.00

Goes well with:

• Want to get in touch with Ms Tanumihadja? Visit her website. She claims, and there's every reason to believe her, that she'd be happy to hear from you.

Bookshelf: Asian Dumplings

I have lost count.

I have simply lost count of the number and variety of potstickers, lumpia, shuijiao, shaomai, mandu, har gow, and ridiculously tasty xiaolongbao I’ve devoured since Andrea Nguyen’s book Asian Dumplings showed up at the Whiskey Forge this summer. That last one, known sometimes as soup dumplings, Shanghai soup dumplings, or even cryptically as juicy pork buns, is one of my all-time favorite Asian dumplings. The little steamed pocket of dough holds not just pork, but a small puddle of rich soup. Bite a small hole in the bottom, slurp out the soup, dip the rest in a chili sauce, and down it. I knew in theory how to make them using a gelatin-rich stock, but the particulars had escaped me…until now.

With thousands of food books around the house, some inevitably are used more than others. After spending a week plucking through Asian Dumplings, I knew that if I had to trim down to 100 cookbooks, this would be one of them. In fact, it’s one of maybe five cookbooks I use in the kitchen. I try to keep it clean, to keep it away from splatters and spills, but like a good knife, this a tool, not an heirloom for future generations. If future generations want to make dumplings, they can find their own damn copies. This one is mine and I’m guarding it with my good knives.

Pork dumplings at the Whiskey Forge

It’s true that there are a half dozen different dumplings in my freezer, all made with my own hands using Nguyen’s straightforward directions. Her master shapes sections show clearly how to make crescents, half-moons, pleats, and other common shapes. Some get slightly more complicated, but nothing harder than tortellini. Those dumplings I made following her instructions are for when I want to make a quick and easy dinner.

But I’ve been going out, too, using Nguyen’s book as a sort of field guide, ordering trays of dumplings at area restaurants. As a child growing up in the Midwest, the range of Asian dumplings available to me was limited — egg rolls, potstickers, wontons, and sometimes spring rolls. My tastes, budget, and exposure to new foods have evolved, but I still learned new styles and names from Nguyen. After reading the book, it’s reassuring to enter a new restaurant, review the dumpling offerings, and know exactly where to start.

Fry them? Why would you not?

Both Asian and dumpling are defined broadly in the book, so we have the expected wealth of Chinese pan-fried, deep-fried, and steamed dumplings, but also samosas and moong dal vada from India, Filipino lumpia, Spring rolls, and Indonesian lemper ayam (spiced rice and chicken wrapped in a banana leaf). There are snacks from Malaysia, Singapore, Nepal, Japan, Mongolia, and Korea — stuffed buns, pastries, various rolls, and sweet dumplings. Eat them plain or dip them in the flavored oils, sauces, chutneys described at the end of the book.

The recipes represent a transcontinental dim sum feast from India to Japan. Whether you follow Nguyen’s recipes to the letter or use her clear techniques and line drawings to develop your own fillings, folds, and doughs, there is enough inspiration here to last months. Or, in my case, years.

Come over and have dumplings if you like. Shoot, have a seat and help me make a few dozen, but if you want the book, you’ll have to get your own copy.


Andrea Nguyen (2009)
Asian Dumplings: Mastering Gyoza, Spring Rolls, Samosas, and More
240 pages, hardback
Ten Speed Press
ISBN: 1580089755
$30.00

Goes well with:

• Asian Dumpling Tips, Nguyen’s website and blog. Also check her out on Twitter: @aqnguyen
• Perfectly Edible's take on those little Shanghai soup dumplings I love so much, adapted from Asian Dumpings.  
• Caring for Old Cocktail Books — Why taking a book into into the kitchen is a big deal for a collector like me. Nguyen's is so good I don't mind if it gets destroyed. Just gives me a reason to get another copy.