Friday, June 19, 2009

Alan Wong’s and why I shouldn’t drive


June 19

I am in Hawaii, guest of the O‘ahu Visitors Bureau, which has asked me to come check out the food of the island, home to most Hawaiians. I arrived last night in the Honolulu airport at a little after 5 p.m. and found my way to the rental car companies, where a vehicle was waiting for me. Did I want a GPS? They asked. It occurred to me that, being a terrible navigator, and having never been to O‘ahu before, I probably should go ahead and get one.
I soon learned that GPSes make you stupid. Or maybe it was the late hour; 5 p.m. might not sound late, but 5 p.m. in Hawaii during daylight saving's time is 11 p.m. in New York, and I had been on an airplane pretty much straight — except for a brisk walk in Phoenix from my plane that had arrived from Newark an hour late to the aircraft headed for Hawaii that was taking off on time — since around 10 a.m. (4 a.m. Hawaii time).
So I was a little punchy anyway.
I learned that the GPS gives you some good information (“go .3 miles and turn right on Kalakaua Avenue” although it has no idea which accents to stress with Hawaiian words, making for amusing mispronunciations), but not quite enough information. It doesn’t tell you when the highway is going to suddenly split into three seperate roads, or when you might be trapped in a left-turn-only lane. Normally, of course, when driving you pay attention to those things, because you’re responsible for navigating and you need to focus. With the GPS, I found myself focusing a lot less.
“Recalculating,” the navigational system would tell me when I missed a turn, or when I was shunted by my fellow drivers onto a street I hadn't actually wanted to be on.
“I was trapped in the wrong lane!” I’d tell it, but of course it didn’t care.
After that had happened twice I decided to just relax and enjoy whatever views the GPS and my own ineptitude led me to. So I toured around the harbor a bit (“recalculating...”) until I managed to inch myself past the alarmingly oblivious tourist pedestrians of Waikiki to the Halekulani hotel.
You might have seen the picture of my view from the hotel room in my last blog entry. The picture at the beginning of this entry was, to me, one of the most salient features of the restaurant where I ate dinner, Alan Wong’s. What you see there, illuminated by an oil wick, are two lovely bottles, one containing soy sauce and the other containing vinegar. Those condiments can be seen on many more humble tables in Hawaii and much of Asia. You’d likely see them in dumpling houses in China, for example. Seeing them immediately took me back to the jiaozi, or boiled dumplings, around the corner from my dormatory at Nanjing University, although there the vinegar was dark brown and malty (variations of those condiments are seen in other countries; in Thailand you'd have fish sauce with chiles in it, vinegar with chiles in it, sugar and one of a number of other condiments depending on the restaurant).
Alan has a reputation for being playful with his food, and for incorporating local elements into his cooking, but to me it seemed that his food really exemplified the food of Hawaii’s Asian communities (I’m told about 30 percent of Hawaiian residents are ethnic Japanese), brought together in fine dining style without toning down the robust flavors of those cuisines.
That’s very different from what happens most of the time when Asian influence is brought to bear on fine dining in New York. There, even in 2009, the Asian influence is usually just a whisper, and the intensity of flavors is almost always toned down to appeal to francophiles and wimps.
At Alan Wong’s the Asian influence was front-and-center.
But the food, and the restaurant itself, still seemed to me to reflect Hawaiian realities. Wine director Mark Shishido explained that the Portuguese brought the vinegar that they use to the islands. For them, it was a source of vitamin C. The staff also was a great ethnic mix, ranging from my apparently lily-white head server Rachel to the mostly Asian (and mostly young and hip looking) men who brought out and explained my food to me, to the large and maybe a little uncomfortable-looking Pacific Islander (that’s a guess) who seemed never quite sure what I wanted to do with the lemon aïoli that was served with the bread.
Probably my favorite part of the meal was the coffee list, an extraordinary menu of about 20 coffees from throughout Hawaii — at least one from every major island.
It seemed extraordinary to me, at least. The most advanced coffee list I’d ever seen on the mainland was at Spruce in San Francisco. But Mark said coffee menus were not uncommon in Honolulu.
I guess I’ll find out over the next few days.

What I ate and drank:
locavore Mai Tai (Mai Tai Rao Ae) with orgeat-like syrup made from macadamia nuts, rum distilled in Maui, Kunia pineapple, organic Paomoho farms limes and Maui sugar


Kalua pig grilled cheese sandwich on a Parmesan crisp, served over red and yellow tomato soup in a Martini glass
seafood cake of lobster, shrimp, scallop and crab over caper mayonnase and tsukemono relish
“poki-pines”: crispy won ton ahi poke balls on avocado with wasabi sauce
2004 Carneros sparkling wine

butter poached Kona lobster (raised on the big island from North Atlantic lobster eggs raised in seawater brought from 3,000 feet below the ocean’s surface) with Honda tofu, nagaimo potato cake and green onion oil
A 2007 Vouvray

ginger crusted onaga with organic Hamakua mushroom, corn and miso sesame vinaigrette
a 2006 German Riesling

Twice-cooked short ribs, soy braised and grilled kalbi style, topped with gingered shrimp and served with ko chu jang sauce, served with a side of white rice in a bowl
A 2008 Gamay Noir from Napa

Haupia (that’s a local coconut custard) sorbet with tropical fruits and lilikoi sauce, and dark chocolate “crunch” bars (no®).
a 2007 Brachetto d'Aqui

A sampling of three coffees:
Kailiawa Coffee Farm from Pahala, Ka‘u (Big Island)
2000 vintage Eddie Sakamoto from North Kona (Big Island)
Waialua Estate North Shore (O‘ahu)



To view all the blog entries about my trip to O‘ahu, click here.

The view from my room

June 19



This is the view from my room at the Halekulani hotel in Honolulu. The picture doesn’t really do it justice, of course, but I thought I’d share anyway.


To view all the blog entries about my trip to O‘ahu, click here.

Okra Stew (Bemiyeh bil lahmeh) - بامية باللحمة


Okra stew is one of my favorite stews. I love its taste when it combines with the tomato sauce, cilantro and pomegranate molasses. Very tangy and full of texture. I follow my mom's recipe, I love the way she makes it. It's a very popular recipe in Lebanon.
Here in the United States I don't always find fresh small okras, so I buy it from the frozen section at a Middle Eastern store or from the local grocery store but they come sliced since they let them grow too big. Small okra is always preferable though.
This stew is best served with rice and vermicelli (you can find how to prepare it if you go back to my recipe of beans stew or fasolia w rizz that I posted before).

Ingredients:
A frozen bag of small okra (about 500g or 15 ounce)
Canola oil (or any vegetable oil) just enough to fry the okra
1 tablespoon of butter
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 big can of tomato sauce
2 cups of diced tomatoes (fresh or canned)
4 cloves of garlic sliced
1 onion chopped
1 fresh bunch of cilantro chopped
1 tablespoon of pomegranate molasses (optional)
Juice of a lemon
Salt & pepper to taste
1 teaspoon of allspice
500grs or a bit more than half a pound of lean stew meat

Thaw the frozen okra, drain and fry in hot oil until golden then transfer to a plate covered with paper towel to drain the excess oil, set that aside.
In the cooking pot add chopped onions, butter, olive oil, salt & pepper. Then add the meat, garlic and allspice. Let everything cook until the meat browns then add the diced tomatoes, once they're cooked add the tomato sauce and some water, cover for few minutes until everything incorporates and cook, then add the okra (don't stir!), let it sink in the sauce and cook slowly. Add the pomegranate molasses, lemon juice and fresh cilantro. Let everything simmer until ready.
Serve with rice.

Puerto-Ricanischetag

June 19



Last Sunday, when 2,000,000 other people in New York were attending or participating in the Puerto Rican Day parade, I was at Seäsonal, stuffing my face and drinking wine — mostly Grüner Veltliner, of which Seäsonal offers six varieties by the glass.
Seäsonal is not a good name for this restaurant on 58th St. Sure, they use produce that’s in season (much of the time, I did have quark with strawberries there in the winter), but what restaurant in New York doesn’t? Its main distinguishing characteristic is that it mostly features the cuisine of Austria and southern Germany, under the watchful eye of co-executive chefs Eduard Frauneder and Wolfgang Ban. That’s Ed in the picture, looking on with satisfaction as I polish off the vegetables accompanying a fish dish.
I’m not sure what my dining companion Sandra Fowler is thinking. It looks like she’s thinking “Good lord, Bret, have you never seen food before? Slow down.”
But she seems a bit more generous of character than that.
Sandra had suggested we meet for brunch at Seäsonal (that umlaut is, of course, the only indication of the restaurant’s cuisine), so we met there around 2 and then spent the next eight (8!) hours chatting with Glenn the bartender while Ed and Wolfgang fed us. We had non-traditional things like scallops with beets and horseradish, and really traditional things like Wienerschnitzel, and upgraded versions of traditional dishes, like braised veal cheek goulash.
The title of this blog entry is my own fractured version of German, a language I don’t speak. It’s how I hoped you might say Puerto Rican Day in German, but my friend Clark Mitchell, who speaks German, says they’d probably just call the day Puerto Rico Tag.
That, however, would not be a good title for a blog entry.
Apart from eating, Sandra and I drank a lot of different types of Grüner Veltliner as well as some Blaufränkisch and Pinot Noir and Chardonnay (Sandra’s a Californian and so it’s important that she drink Chardonnay often), and just a little bit of grappa that had recently been dropped off by a liquor merchant.
I had meant to do laundry that day for my trip to Hawaii. But we didn’t leave until 10pm, so that was out of the question.
Sandra suggested I eat at Alan Wong’s while I was in Honolulu. I had actually interviewed Alan some years ago, when Nation’s Restaurant News inducted him into our Fine Dining Hall of Fame, and it seemed like I should, indeed, try his food. So the next day Sandra e-introduced me to Leigh Ito, Alan’s publicist (Sandra is a very hard-working networker), and dinner was arranged.
And that makes for a good prelude to my trip to the Hawaiian island of Oahu, which I’ll begin documenting with my next blog entry...

To view all the blog entries about my trip to O‘ahu, click here.

Dua Film di satu CINEMA



Eh tau gak sih, ternyata nonton adalah rutinitas orang pacaran nomor satu? *pura-pura baru tau*
Terbukti, kemarin hmm tanggal 18 Juni 2009, anak-anak 65 banyak banget yang melipir ke salah satu mall di daerah jakarta barat yang bisa dihinggapi dengans eragam sekolah, yaitu puri mall. (tau kan?)

Terutama banget yang berpasangan, seperti shinta dan pacarnya, rhyrye dengan pacarnya, nita dan gerry, rusli dan citra, dan beberapa yang enggak sama pacar (ada yg ga punya).
Niatnya pada nonton. Terutaamaaa yang pacaran tentunya.

Kasian para panitia 65 cup ini, gara-gara sudah mendekati hari H jadi pada kekurangan waktu bercengkrama dengan sang pacar. (Sabaar ya ro! Buat pacarnya roro, jangan ngambek dong, tanggung jawab nih. hehe)
Apalagi si indah udah 2 minggu enggak sempet ketemu beruangnya (ampuun ndah!) demi kesuksesan acara ini.
Pengorbanan besar.

Back to the topic, nonton.
Dalam cinema ternyata tontonan yang didapat lebih dari sekedar film yang sedang di putar.
Tapi ada film "live".
Yahh untuk para aktrisnya tentu itu adalah hal yang sangat menyenangkan and out of your bussiness lah.
tapii buat para penonton, apresiasinya berbeda-beda.
Ada yang merasa terusik, ada yg terhibur, bahkan ada yang lebih serius nontonin film "LIVE" dari pada film yang diputar di big screen. OHMAIGOOT!

Film "LIVE" yang gue maksud adalah...
Action pertarungan bibir dan pergulatan tangan (you know laah)
Ciuman seru! yihaaa.
Kadang enggak cuma sekedar ciuman dan peluk-pelukan doang, tapi ini masih aga tabu untuk diucapkan gadis innocent kaya gue (hueeeekss ciih!)
Sebenernya ini sih biasa aja, sudah lumrah, malah jadi tradisi.
Ya kan? Ya kan?

Nah enggak lepas dari teman-teman gue, mereka pun menyaksikan film "LIVE" diantara film yang sebenernya juga memuat banyak adegan kissing. Tapiii lebih menarik yang LIVE bukan? yeaah!

Sebenernya salah enggak sih? Menurut gue enggak.
Tapi gue baru sadar, kadar keingin tahuan dan kepo *ikut campur*nya orang Indonesia tuh tinggi banget!
Jadi yaaa, yang seharusnya biasa aja kalau dapet nimbrungan perhatian dari orang lain jadi aga enggak enak yaaa bo.

haha. makin lama makin ga penting deh gue. hahahah.
yang jelas saya berpesan, tontonlah keduanya selagi bisa dengan seimbang.
Film yang di bigscreen dan film "LIVE" action di seats audience. hahaha.
Enjoy!

FB, internet, and me




ok. mmg da addicted dgn FB.

of course sbb nak stay in touch with friends.

and, just having some fun with the quiz.

play pet society as well --> LOLA ~!!!!


lola time muda - mudi.
i'll show his new pic later.

and ok. facebook telah kecikkan dunia yg besar nih.

i mean like...sgt bnyk connection~!!!

example(s)

1 - nabilah - kwn d melawati & also blogger.
hadi - kwn kpd TTM yg sy rapat jgk.
teha aziz - kwn d mrsm dlu kala

tibe3... nabilah & teha main comment2 blog memasing..
ok. mereka kenal~ cammm..err?
then baru2 nih. sy nmpk. hadi tegur nabilah plak d FB.
ok... mrka 1 U. mereka kenal. grrr~ terkejut.


2 - ayong, hawa, ruzanna - kwn blogger n FB
fitri ariff - junior 1 sem d kolej
dettol - cyber friends since form 2 x silap

ayong, hawa n ruzzana kenal dr blog asalnye...
n mereka sdiri da kenal masing2 x silap. sy yg tibe2 muncul...
fitri ariff junior sebaye, adalah kwn kpd ayong n hawa. ok~~~
and....dettol. baru terjmpe dkt FB. skali kenal ayong???
cammm...ok. mrka 1 matrix. wahaha... dettol plak.
and ade lg connection lain.

fine. gile. eh silap. keciknye dunia.
ok ok. dunia besar. luas. tp...internet kecikkan.

and tah bape bnyk kes lain lg yg serupeee~~~



In Over My Head?

As the old adage goes, you learn something new everyday.

Yesterday I learnt three things. Did you know, for instance, that the greyhound accelerates to 45 miles per hour in a single second from a standing start? Zero to forty five in a second? Amazing. It is the second fastest land mammal on earth.

The other two factoids I gleaned through empirical, hands-on research and part of me wishes I was still in a happy cloud of blissful ignorance. Here we go: the brain of a pig is surprisingly small. Tiny, in fact. About the size of a duck’s egg.


['Two squeaks, or not two squeaks? That is the question']

The second? There is a wonderful nugget of meat that sits just below the eye socket behind the cheek bone, only accessible with an adventurous finger after the head of a pig has been simmered long and slow. It falls away in a rather satisfactory fashion, a neat little piece of tasty pork.

I know this because of Project Napoleon.

Project Napoleon, named after the Stalin-esque character in Animal Farm, began quite by accident.

I’d had a request to cook (and eat) brain for the Nose to Tail Tuesday feature (thanks for that). With calves’ and lambs’ brain still illegal, it was up to the reliable old porker to provide the means by which this terrifying prospect could be realised.

I put in a reluctant request with my butcher and received a phone call on Wednesday: ‘I’ve got a pig’s head here for you? Do you want the whole thing or just the brain?’



The question was a no-brainer (ha ha ha – sorry). The head is a culinary challenge I’ve been keen to take on for quite some time: a real test that separates those who merely profess a predilection for the holistic approach and those with genuine gastronomic fortitude.

Why does the head divide the cooking fraternity so? It’s about emoting. As humans we have evolved to read faces, to try and glean as much information as possible from them. The slightest movement can give away a secret, a feeling or an emotion.

Presented with the head of an animal, there is a near certainty that we will lean towards anthropomorphosis. And pigs, even deceased and decapitated ones, look like they are smiling. They look content. Happy even. So turning it into food is difficult.



Once this hurdle has been leapt over, the rest is easy.

One option for turning this insanely cheap meat (this one cost just under three pounds) into a viable foodstuff is to make a tête de fromage, not a uniquely male medical condition but a rustic pâté also known as brawn.

Here the entire head is simmered gently for three hours in water and stock vegetables. Once cooled, the meat, fat and skin is stripped from the skull, the stock strained, reduced and turned into a jelly into which the meat is set.

Yum.

Or not.

I wanted something more refined. I’ve always believed that true culinary skill lies in turning the ridiculous into the sublime. The drab into the delicious. Here was a challenge.

Driving home from the butcher’s I started putting a menu together, one that would showcase this unusual ingredient to its full potential.


Head Over Heels


So, here is the plan – to be served to adventurous dinner guests, just as soon as we find some. Any takers?

Pre dinner drinks with pork scratchings and ears Ste Menehould

Deep fried brain on toast with champagne

Sour Apple amuse

Pea & Bacon Soup made with ‘head stock’ with homemade bread

Refined brawn pâté with sage

Confit cheek with apple jelly, candied bacon and summer leaves

Dessert

Cheese and port

Let’s see just what this head can do…