Meaty ramblings

I did some research after our recent discussion on Kobe beef. The Japanese wagyu is indeed type of cattle, but it is the name given to three breeds of cattle that are raised in Japan. Then, there is Kokusan beef, which is beef raised in Japan. Kokusan wagyu then is the beef from wagyu cattle raised in Japan.

Do I think it tastes different?

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......



Yes. But I think the difference in taste is more in the manner in which the beef is prepared than on the quality of the beef itself - or the combination of beef raised to be cooked in a certain way. Seared over charcoal in a wire basket, dripping with juicy goodness, sizzling every so slightly, this beef I had at Kase in Nagoya, Japan, was divine. The tender sweetness of the beef, without a trace of fleshy blood, tasted almost like the richest toro as the beef heated and the fat melted. A dipping sauce, made of various fruits ground up with soy sauce and other seasonings, was provided to add a refreshing dimension.

Would any old beef work for this type of preparation? Definitely not.

Do I think it has to be beef born and raised in Japan? No.

But the cuisine has to match the ingredients. This beef was raised to be eaten like this. It would not go well cooked in butter - prepared like that, it would never match the hanger steak I had in Paris. Local ingredients prepared to maximize its potential - to me, that is the height of culinary arts.

Almost time for a toast-update

I am so close to being done with my second cancer grant, I can almost taste it!!!!!!!!

But, looks like I can't quite party on the 24th as I intended last night... I just got another work commitment for the end of the week, which means this over-worked blogger is going to be running on fume for yet another week after the grants are submitted.

Oh well. It's probably for the best - a glass of wine at home is the best choice sometimes. And I mean a glass, not a bottle. :D

One down, one more to go...

Have you all been enjoying My Spicy Epicurean Debauchery as much as I have?! My big sister's the best!

I managed to squeeze out one prostate cancer grant proposal out the door, so I am taking it easy this week before Project: Breast Cancer begins this weekend...

I was going to blog tonight, but I am very, very, very sleepy and still trying to recover from the massive stress ball that prostate cancer proposal was, so I am just going to do a quick post... Besides, if I write too much, I might lose my most valuable co-writer!

So, instead of a big long post, I leave you tonight with pictures from my last visit to Japan... A stay at an onsen (hot spring) usually includes a dinner and a breakfast. While at Sendai-city, I had the pleasure of indulging at Saryou Souen, an exclusive onsen known for epicurean debauchery...

Here is an example of their exquisite attention to detail. The saying in Japan is that you eat with your eyes first...

The konbu seaweed that wrapped the fish tightly infused the fish with the most delicate yet distinctive umami flavor. I can still feel the konbu unravel in my mouth with dashi dripping umami onto my tongue...

The Japanese consider the careful selection of plates for each dish to be as critical as what is plated. Here's a great example....

Plating a scallop dish on a shell-shaped plate! How fun! And the contrasting textures of the soft scallop with the crunchy vegetables - ingenious!

There's more from this precious night. The height of Japanese cuisine continues tomorrow (unless Project: Breast Cancer gets a kick-start...) - stay tuned!

Spicy Epicurean Debauchery: Sushi Party Combo B

I recall a few months ago, there was a big debate here as to what makes things authentic. I think the big fire finally ignited when people discussed whether or not, in order for certain foods to be prepared right, it needed to be a person from that cuisine’s nation.

To some degree, I agree to this. The less known the cuisine, I think I will trust a person from that nation to be cooking to be more authentic, closer to how it would taste back in whatever country that it came from. I mean....I don’t know if I'll trust a restaurant declaring to be making authentic Egyptian Cuisine, if the restaurant was in middle of nowhere USA, and the chef there was a Mexican person - for example.

But here's my thoughts on the subject....especially when it comes to Sushi.

Since it's gotten so popular, and since most of you non-Japanese people have gotten over, “OMG my food is RAW!! You're feeding me FISH BAIT!” at the sight of a Sashimi Platter Combo A, Sushi has come a long way - making classes within its own.

Supermarket/Deli/Takeout Sushi - we got these in Japan too. They look like sushi, they kinda taste like sushi but we all know it’s only to be eaten when you really want sushi, and can’t find the time or money to go get the real thing.

Adventurous Sushi - or sometimes known as Fusion Sushi. I mean - I think most of you will have to agree that rolling up a stick of Philadelphia Cream Cheese is NOT a very “authentic” Japanese Sushi... But some of the strange contents works. I'm sure there are people out there that will declare the California Roll a legitmate authentic Sushi. (Not to mention, I've had an UBER California Roll in Japan that consisted of very expensive fresh crab meat, and not that "crab like meat product").

Good Sushi - probably made by your local neighborhood Sushi joint you go every other week or so. It's not too expensive and it certainly does the trick when you want Sushi. At times, it's not as good as you'd like it to be, but certainly much much better that Supermarket Sushi. While you might not be able to check out the flown in Akashi-Tako, you'll certainly be able to enjoy fresh catch from your local harbor.

Uber Sushi - You're ready to spend the big bucks. You're really going for that smuggled in Fluke from Japan. You want nothing but the best. It'll cost you as much as airfare to Japan, but since you can't take a week vacation to get there, this is the next closest thing.

In New York, I've seen all sorts of nationalities and races make every level of these Sushis. Although it tends to be that Japanese chefs hang out in “good” and “uber” sections, I've seen some strange sushi's coming out of Morimoto's too. I've also seen non-Japanese person handle the delicate imported items from Japan with as much care as any Japanese chef. So I don't think it needs to be a Japanese person to make a decent sushi.

Then what do I look for when selecting a Sushi place? Does it have to be “authentic” - whatever that definition may be?

NOPE.

It's the result of strange calculations between my wallet and my degree of craving.

Hence a Sushi Party Combo B from a Chinese takeout that morphed into Japanese takeout is usually as real a sushi and as close to authentic as it gets for me on many occasions.

PS> I hope Alice returns to writing soon because I don't have any pretty pictures....... ><

Spicy Epicurean Debauchery: Faberge Lessons

Did everybody have a nice Easter? I’m not very religious, so I didn’t do much. So naturally, there weren’t any Honey Backed Ham or whatever else feasts people have on Easter Sundays.

But I do recall something I did a few years back.

My friends and I decided to take up Extreme Egg Coloring. I mean, we’re talking Faberge Imperial Eggs! Obviously, we didn’t have giant Ostrich Eggs to play with, so it was Extra Jumbo Super Large Eggs from your neighborhood grocer. Yea, we got like 3 dozens of them

With these eggs, instead of doing it the easy way, we decided that we should hallow them out, as in blow its contents out and color them empty. The easy way, naturally, will be to hard boil them. Since these eggs will be “pieces of artwork” so we didn’t want it to be hard boiled eggs (or else it’ll go bad and really stink like rotten eggs, literally).

So we got our Bedazzlers (don’t ask me why we have these handy), hot glue guns, fake plastic pearls, gold ribbons, silver ribbons, lace ribbons, over 24 different paints, patterns, brushes, and set to work.

According to one of my friends, you were supposed to make a pin-size hole at the bottom and top of the egg, and then use the pin to sort of break the yolk. Then with the force to blow your brains out, you blow air through one end and squeeeeeeeze the egg’s contents into a bowl.

After we barely blew through our first eggs, that was that for our Faberge project. We were all light headed, tired, and disappointed. So we had three (cuz one person broke his egg in the process) empty eggs to play with, and 32 hearty gigantic eggs to deal with.

Yea. Now what?

“Oooooo I want those eggs like they make in the hotel for breakfast!” one person suggested.

“Yes!! Those extra creamy scrambled eggs!!”

“yummmm!”

So it was. We have gone from Faberge to Hotel Breakfast Chefs in under half an hour.

But here, we all realized, we really didn’t know how to make those extra creamy scrambled eggs. You know the kind you get when you go to a really expensive breakfast or brunch? The kind that is so creamy, you’d think it was custard? Where the yolks are so rich it melts in your mouth, and as you enjoy the smooth texture and it’s velvety warmth, you fear your waist line? ....but you say to yourself, “well it’s not every day that I have a $14 scrambled eggs” and you wash it down with a $15 Mimosa.

So we broke all of our 32 giant eggs, and declared we should put in Heavy Cream into the mixture. I mean velvety and creamy, almost always means “lotsa fat” right?

In went the Heavy Cream. We declared one table spoon per egg should be sufficient.

After stirring it for quite some time to make sure that the yolks and whites were no longer separated, and triple making sure that the mixture was now one canary colored liquid, we also decided that we needed sufficient butter on the pan. Again, it was that velvety and creamy = lotsa fat concept working here.

So we heated up the pan, melted like enormous amounts of unsalted butter, and poured in ALL of the egg mixture. We don't like sublte, I guess...call us hardcore, even.

well….the result wasn’t creamy or velvety. It was rather gross. Even with all that fat, the eggs turned out waterly and rather dry. Despite it’s scary look, I bravely took the first bite. It was tough and it reminded me of dry sponge.

“o well, it’s only eggs” was the disappointed comment from all of us.

Well this experience made me not like making “hotel” scrambled eggs at home. I somehow decided that I'll leave creamy scrambled eggs to the realms of "hotel breakfasts". If I wanted creamy eggs, I declared that I had to go to a hotel breakfast and pay $14.

I mean, I liked the scrambled eggs of my childhood, which was just eggs with a drop of soy sauce and that was fine. The “soy sauce scrambled eggs” were just literally cooked eggs. It goes well with rice, and it also goes well as the contents of Breakfast Burritos, when made sans soy sauce.

Diners can’t make these creamy eggs for some reason. When I went to diners, I usually ordered Eggs Florentine without the Hollandaise (I hate Hollandaise) and that was fine. Spinach, Ham, English Muffin and runny poached eggs. I despised diner omelets because that too, had the strange sponge like texture, and not the creamy ones I’ve had in hotels.

Then it happened. Alton Brown happened.

In one 5 minute segment of his show, he demystified the creamy eggs. It did NOT require heavy cream, nor baths of butter. What it required was disciplined heat control!!!

DUH!!! Think custard!!!! I said to myself, as I watched the show.

Yep, custard doesn’t require much more than super low heat and egg yolks. And custard is creamy all by itself. So now I can add proudly to my Sunday home brunch repertoire, “$14 Scrambled Eggs” - o, and the "$15 Mimosa" as well.

My Spicy Epicurean Debauchery: Oysters and Food Writing

I read the NY Times often. Not just for the food stuff, but yes, the food section on Wednesdays does make the bump day go faster and better, I might say. I used to read it quite religiously, grasped onto every word written by Ruth Reichel. After her however, I find myself not very interested in the writings of her successors. (I think NYT has gone through 3 or 4 of them) From the rapid turnaround in the reporters, I think many other readers felt the same way that I did about the writings of its successors.

I wondered what made Ms. Reichel so popular, and why I liked her writings. After all, the point is the same - to offer insight into the restaurant under review, to deliver an observation of its services, to allow the reader imagine the taste of the dishes. Being NY Times, the critics that followed Ms. Reichel are all well versed, not only in the most obscure culinary ingredient but also in wines as well. So it's not like the information was vague or incorrect or anything…

What made Ms. Reichel different, to me, was her reference into her own personal memory. Be it her childhood experiences or her recent experience. She had a way of tying in every dish to her own experience - allowing the reader to reach into their own memories too. So instead of just explaining how perfectly the free-range chicken was roasted, she also pulled together a little bit of her own experience, making the explanation a little bit more personable.

With this in mind, allow me to write a little bit about my favorite dish here in New York City (http://www.beaconnyc.com).

Wood Roasted Oysters with Shallots - $16.
verjus and herbs

I love oysters. They come in almost every culinary preparation method possible too! Raw, deep fried, grilled, poached, steamed, they come in various styles with endless condiments. My first introduction to the land of Oysters came when I was about 4. As surprising it is to many, I retain many memories of those days, before my family moved to Rochester, MN, and especially before that screaming little ball called the "little sister" was born.

At 4, I was barely old enough to go to any restaurants, and when we went to eat out back then, it was a quite a family affair, complete with all of my 3 cousins, my aunts and uncles, mom, dad, grandma, granddad. We will get a private tatami room all to ourselves and I had my own booster chair, lovingly named Kerochan. As I sat in the little pink Kerochan, I recall perfectly what the first bite of deep friend Oyster tasted like. Encrusted in crispy panko, it was just barely cooked enough so that a young child can eat it without being overcome by it's brininess. Still piping hot, as you bite in, warm sweet welcoming sweetness of its flesh combines well with the crunch of the panko. I used to eat a whole plate of it all by myself! And for many moons, this was my preferred way of eating oysters. Deep fried, covered in panko crust.

I encountered my first raw oysters………..I don't know. It must've been not so remarkable, as I cannot remember. (I do recall many "firsts" when it comes to pleasurable food experiences…) I've had many raw ones, yet I cannot give you the time when I had the "best". I recall eating a ton of them in New Orleans, as a sad attempt to over come a record set by some other patron. I recall ordering all sorts of different kinds of them in Blue Water Grill in an attempt to tell the difference between them all. But I cannot give you the moment I experienced the "best" raw oyster. And I've had quite a few.

O, don't get me wrong. I do enjoy them, and I do have occasional craving for them. The taste of the sea as they dance in your mouth. The sweet taste of its flesh as you slurp it down. I even enjoy the never ending routine and mandatory debate I usually have with my eating companions on Ponzu vs Yuzu vs Momiji Oroshi vs Lemon vs Horse Radish vs Cocktail Sauce as the perfect condiment. (Horse Radish & Yuzu for me, thx) But I don't have a perfect raw oyster moment.

Until I met this guy: "Wood Roasted Oysters with Shallots".

I've always thought that when done right, for certain seafood, a little heat can make already wonderful ingredient magnificent. I prefer flash grilled Toro over a completely raw one, for example. Heat can bring out more complex flavors, while eliminating some of the more unpleasant textures and scent of its raw form. So when I saw this on the menu, I immediately ordered it while most of my companions went for the raw version.

The 6 roasted oysters came all laid out pretty in a bed of extra coarse salt, just like the raw ones would come in a bed of crushed ice. The aromas raising from the open faced shells, brought memories of Robata Yaki and Tsuboyaki Sazae I used to enjoy when I was a little girl. "You like the food of a drunk!" my grandpa used to say - and I can hold quite a bit of alcoholic beverages as an adult.

The oysters were flash grilled, setting comfortably in its juices, slightly decorated with roasted shallots and chives. The plate came with wedges of lemons, but before I spared them with the lemon, I had to try it "au natural". I poked one with my fork, and was delighted to find out that they were roasted "shucked". I didn't have to worry about tearing thru its delicate flesh. "Be careful, they are hot" said the waiter. I looked at him like, "what, like my asbestos hands can't handle little oysters?" and proceeded to pick them up.

They were everything and more than I expected. It's flesh pudgy from the heat, let go of that good sweetness that only comes from being roasted. Since it was flash roasted, it also retained enough briny scent of the ocean, yet not as strong as the raw ones. Just enough to make me nostalgic and recall the pink Kero-chan booster chair. The roasted shallots and the white wine bath they relaxed in gave me a little kick, as if to confirm that I have moved on from my childhood's simple deep fried versions to rather sophisticated "wood roasted" versions.

As I finished the last warm treat, as the last crystalline sweetness evaporated into another part of my memory, I declared this as my favorite dish in NYC.

Launching My Spicy Epicurean Debauchery

Hi. This is Alice’s sister. Yep, the boring one that has a non-high profile desk job. But you know what? I live in New York City. The Epicurean Debauchery town of sorts.

I’m taking over for a bit. I’m going to be writing stuff to keep this little blog from dying.
While my sister's style of writing is more eloquent with focus on how the food actually feels in her mouth, how aromas work through her memories, and the visualization of the effects it has on her, my style of writing is more blunt. Simple. Well…ok, I’ll give you poorly written.

So if you can bare with my writings as more of a pseudo-interesting TV commercial with target-marketing, played in between your favorite food show, perhaps it may be of some entertainment - while you wait for the real thing to come back.

First off, is a topic that has been bothering me for a while now:
Food Branding.
Living in New York these days, I see all sorts of Japanese Restaurant and Neo-Japanese Restaurants going up. Buddakan, Masa, Morimoto, Megu, Nobu57, Matsuri, just to name a few.

What really got me was this:
A lot of these places goes through great means to get everything from the right Binchotan (a type of Japanese coal) to the freshest catch from the Tsukiji Market. Then the master chefs at these location do their thing, and voila, a dinner at these places can leave you $1,000 less than when you started.

No doubt, it's good food. But…between you and me, I can spend $800 on a cheap ticket back to Japan, and have better meals. Cheaper. And more of it.

At one of these newer Japanese restaurants, I overheard one of the "foodies" admiring the Maguro excitedly exclaimed, "This says it was flown in from Tokyo! It's Kinkai Toro!!" Well…In Japan, we like the Kinkai Maguro (Near-Sea Tuna) because it means it was fished in the waters around Japan, and it wasn't frozen - it was fished that night, sold in the morning, on the plate the same evening - it's a rare item, and hence pricier than Tuna that was caught in the Indian Sea and flash frozen. But this is New York. If it really came from Tokyo and wasn't frozen… I'd be kinda scared to eat it.

At Megu, the cheerful waiter gave me a little book. Megu’s Menu is 13 pages long, complete with a list of ingredients.

New York Magazine wrote about it too: [the Menu] “Trumpeting more than 100 dishes characterized with such florid descriptions as “exquisitely composed masterpieces of rare extravagance,” plus a 63-item glossary and a map pinpointing locations for the best ingredients in Japan”

A dinner at Megu will probably set you back as equally as Masa. Three cubes of Kobe Style Beef Sate grilled over Binchotan Coal, placed on hot river rock, wrapped in authentic Japanese washi paper, will set you back by like $28. Add the $13 Edamame still stuck on the vines, some sake and more of the Kobe Style stuff, and there you go. Very easy to blow a small fortune.

True, it takes a lot of effort (and middlemen) to get the authentic ingredients from Japan to New York. To top it all off, unlike your authentic Huitlacoche, the stuff in Japan is already rather pricey to begin with. So perhaps by stating the origins, it makes it easier for the diner to swallow the price and the $10 cube of beef.

Ahhh but while you're enjoying it's soft velvety texture, as you enjoy the beefy juices exploding in your mouth (do I sound like Alice now?) it’s not real Kobe beef. The United States prohibits the importation of beef from Japan due to the Mad Cow fiasco. So for a few years, US restaurants have been calling pampered US cousins of Kobe Beef, as Kobe Beef. However, a recent beef industry & FDA led crack downs have strictly restricted establishments from calling their pampered cousins “Kobe Beef”. Now the semi-official word to describe them is “Kobe STYLE Beef”.

Interesting, isn’t it. They still want to put in “Kobe”. To what? Authenticate? To get some justification, a legitimate claim to “soft fatty beef”? Why aren’t these lovely American cows being marketed as something like “Midwest Velvet” or “Royal Midwest Beef”? Why Kobe? Because Kobe Beef would’ve justified the $10 cube, but Midwest cannot?

I am not sure if there are any other cuisines that are out there that is this hung up on legitimizing the origins of its ingredients. I’ve been to the “old school” French “institutions” in New York. From Ducasse to Lespinasse (closed now). None of them comes with an item glossary and a map, nor do they boast that their Filet of Dover Sole came from Dover Sea, carefully fished by small village fisher, Jean-Pierre and it had arrived this morning (maybe it did, but they never say).

I see little hints of the in places like Per Se and Craft. They like to put in the names of the upstate New York farmers. But only very recently - as if to mimic the Japanese restaurants.

Why this effort? Why are these places doing this? To better educate the dining public? To make an elitist out of the dining public? (I can hear it already, “O dear, you mean your coal isn’t Binchotan?!”) To legitimatize the $13 edamame?

While I do agree fresher and well taken care of ingredients do result in higher quality of the food, I am not sure branding of food as if they were some posh designer dress is a good idea. You ever wonder why a cotton Versace T-shirt is $80 and a cotton Gap T-shirt is $19.99? Sure, the Versace T-shirt maaaaaay have higher thread count but does it really legitimize the $80? Short of tailor made, hell no.

Humph! This is why I don't like to eat Japanese food outside of Japan. I can go to a Yakitori joint underneath the tracks in Shinbashi and have a fantastic non-designer Yakitori and a good cold Sake for $40. No, I don't want to spend $400 on an over explained Binchosuperme-Shamu-Jidori-wrapped in authentic handmade soft ancient Washi, no matter how rare and exquisite it may be.

I will leave you today, with one last thought.
My local Chinese takeout joint recently started Japanese take outs as well. Same storefront, different counters to take out from - one half of the joint is Japanese style the other, the Chinese. Menu for Chinese food is in it’s usual red and black ink, while the Japanese menu comes in full color. You order with the same person for both sides of the store. When you call in, you can order from both menus.

Steamed Salmon and Japanese Vegetables from the Japanese Menu: $12.99.
Steamed Salmon and Steamed Chinese Vegetables $9.99.
For the hell of it, I ordered both. One had Broccoli. The other had Bok Choy. I still can’t figure out which was supposed to be which.

Gawd

268 posts later, I am finding it so difficult to find my words.

It's almost midnight and I am almost ready to find my footing again...except I can't find my words. Totally exhausted from head to toe, I can't remember when I was last excited about eating!

One grant proposal deadline on April 18th and another on May 23rd... I wonder how much weight I will manage to lose by then...

Sniff.

Will you guys all be there when I come back in May???????