Sunday, January 11, 2015

Eating on the cheap

I love good food, but there's nothing quite as satisfying as getting a great meal and paying next to nothing for it. My favorite lunch is anything yummy for around 5 bucks.

(One cheap, healthy and delicious meal I have regularly is from Taco Del Mar - a chain notable for NOT being represented in the International District. Getting the a la carte black beans and rice together with an a la carte chips and salsa, plus a large ramekin of jalapeños runs me just over $4.50. Mixed together, it's as much food and just as delicious as a vegan burrito. But I digress...)

Here are my recommendations for eating cheaply in the ID. Let me know if you have found a better meal for a better price!


Fortuna cafe.  

The first time I walked into this hole in the wall, I was impressed by the space. It's small and owner-run like many of the establishments in the district, but the building features a semicircular upstairs balcony with beautiful wooden railings - details that suggest a rich history for the building.

The woman at the register suggested the fresh lamb brisket when I walked up to the register. Very fresh, she told me. Five dollars.

Lamb for five bucks? Yes, a delicious, succulent lamb stir fry with gravy, over steamed rice. For five bucks. I expected a poor cut of meat, but the meat was plentiful and tender with incredible flavor. I'm looking forward to a return trip!


Duk Li Dim Sum
As I've mentioned previously, this is my favorite spot for dim sum in the city, in part because of the value for the price. My usual meal of shrimp dumplings and siu mai - four pieces each - runs me about 4 bucks. The food is freshly made and available immediately. Good stuff.


Dim Sum King
Another favorite, Dim Sum King offers dim sum and noodles by the piece. at 60 cents a dumpling, it's pretty easy to put together a nice nosh for very little money. Some of the best pot stickers in the ID.


Asia Bar-b-que  
If you're looking for a filling meal for less than ten bucks, here's the place to go. I ordered a dish of noodles, steamed vegetables and BBQ pork. For 6.50, I expected a standard lunch portion, but what I wound up with looked like two meals!

As far as the food quality, it was ok. Not a favorite, but the food was acceptable, and if you're looking for quantity, this is the place, for sure.


And the winner is... Nick's Combo
If you're ok with take-away, and you're up for walking a few blocks, here's my recipe for the perfect cheap meal in the ID:

  • First, I visit Duk Li on Weller for shrimp dumplings (about $2)
  • I make sure to stock up on their chili oil and some soy sauce, which I pour directly into the container
  • Second stop is at Kau Kau barbecue for 1/2 pound of BBQ pork (about $3)
  • Finally, I head to Dim Sum King on Jackson St. for 3 or 4 pot stickers (60 cents ea.)
I mix it all together and eat it with the chili oil and soy sauce - best of all worlds! If the weather is nice, you can eat in Hing Hay park and listen to Fred Ji play the erhu.

Spend like a peasant, eat like a King - great work if you can get it!

Eat on,

-N






Friday, July 4, 2014

Noodling around

While I’ve loved noodles of various types for all my life, I didn’t appreciate the subtlety of the art of noodle making until I saw Juzo Itami’s Tampopo (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092048/).  Tampopo’s personal developmental journey as a ramen chef and as a woman, Itami’s random digressions into the twisted obsessive and quasi-sexual relationship between people and their food, and the wonderfully portrayed manga-like characters are some of the reasons this quirky comedy has topped my list of favorite movies for three decades.  Despite having watched it dozens of times, the final soup drinking scene never fails to bring me to tears. 

At least three ancient regions lay claim to the noodle – East Asia, North Africa, and Rome, and historians believe they likely developed this method of preparing grains for storage and travel independently of each other.  In any case, the idea that Italian explorer Marco Polo discovered the mighty noodle in China and brought it to Italy for the first time has been thoroughly debunked (see this article: http://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/07/garden/l-the-polo-pasta-myth-906888.html, or this one: http://www.carlinosrestaurant.com/did-marco-polo-bring-pasta-to-italy/, or this: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10/1012_051012_chinese_noodles.html).

Like any foodstuff, noodles are a very personal and subjective thing.  Keep in mind that you can get noodles of some variety at almost every storefront in this district, and most of them are delicious.  Thus disclaimed, here are my favorites:

Noodle Soup

Here I’ll describe the Chinese and Taiwanese varieties of noodle soup.  I will present my initial take on ramen restaurants further down the page.  I’m going to save any discussion of Pho until I have the opportunity to sample the range of restaurants East of I5 in Little Saigon.

Chinese noodle soup is simple, and can be broken down into three components: broth, noodles, and ingredients (Linus: I was going to use this box of chocolate mix…but I changed my mind… after what I read on the side…. It’s full of ingredients! (Charles Schultz)). 

In the I.D. the soups I’ve had are very consistent and in for the most part what I understand is Cantonese style, to wit:

  • Broth:  clear vegetable broth with a distinctive aroma that I think of as “hay-like”.  The best broth is subtle and like fresh hay.  On the other end it can get a bit too strong and reminds me of the scent of horse droppings.
  • Noodles: very thin wheat lo mein noodles cooked “al dente”
  • Ingredients: A variety of combinations of vegetables, meats, and spices.  My favorites are the ones that I think of as distinctively Chinese:  barbecued pork and/or duck, green onions, ginger, and bok choy.


In fact, it’s difficult to make a distinction between Cantonese lo mein and Cantonese noodle soup.  In either case you get the three components above.  The difference is whether or not you put everything into the broth, or eat it on a plate.

And the winner is…

Gourmet Noodle Bowl on 8th (http://www.yelp.com/biz/gourmet-noodle-bowl-seattle).  To me, this is the clear standout in the soup wars.  This place is out of the way – you pretty much have to be looking for it, and it’s easy to be distracted by Crawfish King next door (which I will describe in a different post on a different day).  Once you’re inside, the décor is beautiful and professional, and the food is high quality and delicious.  I’ve had the Shanghai noodle soup and the duck noodle soup and was delighted both times.  The broth is delicious, with only a hint of hay, and the ingredients are fresh.  They use a thicker style of noodle that I typically associate with chow mein.  Gourmet Noodle Bowl is what I would describe as Asian fusion, but they have a strong Taiwanese leaning.  I’m not typically fond of the flavors of Taiwanese cooking, but this place is an exception.

While you’re here, don’t miss the Thai iced tea – here it has a strong blend of spices that cut through the cloying sweetness that overpowers most Thai style iced teas.  To my taste, theirs gets it right in about the same way that Dixie’s BBQ gets Southern Sweet Tea right – try it and you’ll see what I mean.

Other notables


  • Szechuan Noodle Bowl: a local favorite, their noodles are handmade and legendary, but despite good quality, their soup recipes don’t grab me.  I do enjoy their won ton (dumpling) soup. 
  •  A Piece of Cake Bakery and Café: this spot was a real surprise.  Set up like a 1950s-era lunch counter, I didn’t expect much from this place, but the won ton soup was a delicious experience and it’s worth repeat visits.

Lo Mein

Lo mein (“tossed noodles”) simply means noodles that are steamed or boiled, not fried.  Lo mein comes in many varieties, but in the ID it’s usually a thin wheat noodle (thinner than a typical ramen noodle) cooked to a toothy consistency, and served plain with broth and meats and/or vegetables – no sauce.  I’m particularly fond of the combination of fresh ginger and green onion.  As I noted above, there’s not a lot of difference between lo mein and noodle soup, especially for takeaway, where you always get the three components in separate containers and it’s up to you how (or whether) to combine them.

Hint: even though there are specific combinations listed on the menu, you can ask for whatever combination you want.

My favorite?  BBQ pork lo mein with ginger and green onion at Ton Kiang BBQ Noodle House on Weller St.  BBQ pork lo mein is on the menu – I ask them to add the ginger and green onion.  For the record, I put it in the soup.

Chow Mein

Continuing our basic education in the Chinese language, we come to Chow Mein (“fried noodles”), also known as Yakisoba (“fried noodles”) in Japanese.  Unlike the lo mein, which I usually see served in the spare Cantonese style, I like my chow mein Szechuan style – fried with fresh meats and vegetables and as spicy as possible.  Chow mein some places is done crispy, but in Seattle, it is invariably soft and in the best restaurants the noodles are handmade on the premises.

I’ll offer three favorites in this category:

Sichuanese Cuisine. 

I first became familiar with the Redmond branch of this restaurant, where I made it a regular stop.  I used to be torn between the pork chow mein and the dry string beans until I hit on the idea of asking them to add string beans to the chow mein.  Now I’m a one-dish man:  pork chow mein with string beans and green onion. For my dollar, these noodles are nearly (equally, maybe) as good as Judy Fu’s.

I’m not sure why, but in Redmond the peppers they use are not very hot, so my attempts to get them to make me a spicy enough plate of chow mein resulted in a nearly black plate which was still not very spicy.  I made it standard practice to get the noodles plain and add my own dry crushed red pepper from Safeway across the street.

In Little Saigon, where their Seattle restaurant is located, on the East side of Jackson in a crappy little strip mall, their peppers are adequate, but if you’re a pasty Caucasian like me, you need to plead to get it hot enough.  “Do you want me to make you cry?” asked the hostess on my last visit.  “Yes, please,” I replied.  Finally, perfection.  You won’t find a better plate of chow mein anywhere in the city.

Szechuan noodle bowl


On a lucky visit, you’ll see the proprietors of this hole in the wall making their hand-shaved noodles at one of the tables nearest the kitchen.  This place is small, cash-only, and reeks of authenticity.  As I mentioned above, I’m not a big fan of their flavor combinations, but the noodles are rightfully famous.  Don’t miss the green onion pancakes!

Pacific Café

At the other end of the district, in an easily missable spot on 5th, you’ll find this Hong Kong style joint which warrants further investigation.  Looking them up online, I find that they have a great reputation for their Hong Kong style food.  I come here for the Black Pepper Beef Yakisoba, which is good enough to make me think of it randomly and fondly at odd hours of the day and night.

Ramen

There is not much in the way of ramen in Chinatown, and I look forward to trying the ramen houses on the other side of Jackson in Japantown, but a commentary on noodles would not be complete without a brief mention here. 

There are two ramen contenders South of Jackson, very different from each other:

 Samurai noodle is a hip crowded place which has the atmosphere and cool college age staff that I’d expect from a ramen house.  However, I was not impressed by my Tampopo ramen, and while I enjoyed chatting with the hostess, she lost a few points by not being familiar with the film that inspired the dish.  Overall, Samurai, which is a local chain, feels like a local chain.  Choose Samurai if you’re hanging out with a few rowdy friends and you want a casual atmosphere. 

Fu Lin restaurant, by contrast, comes across as a serious craft restaurant, and they take their ramen seriously.  From their large menu, I’ve tried the soy sauce ramen and the Tonkatsu Charsiu ramen, both lovely.  The Tonkatsu particularly, with its thick creamy white pork gravy base, was like heaven in a bowl.  Definitely recommended if you’re in the mood for great food.  Fu Lin was also my choice for best pot stickers, so a double recommendation for this China-Japan hybrid restaurant.


 Bon Appetit!

Monday, June 9, 2014

(tapioca) Pearls of Wisdom

For me, one of the great joys of visits to the ID is boba tea (aka "bubble tea").  My introduction to this Taiwanese confection is immortalized in a track by my band Cats Cradle Robbers entitled Mille Boba.  (you can read the description here).  That first experience was at Gossip Espresso and Tea, which has been in its lifetime a popular karaoke TV bar and is now a bright and airy boba tea joint presided over by the lovely and gracious Emmerline Wu, who has managed this establishment for some time.  Gossip has recently expanded its offerings to include espresso, pastries, and snacks.  The floor to ceiling windows overlook Hing Hay park, and help to make this my favorite boba tea joint in the district.

The other two dedicated boba tea bars in Chinatown (Ambrosia and Oasis) are also very popular and each has its fans.  I've had tea at each, and frankly, the drink itself seems to vary very little in quality from vendor to vendor.  Where Gossip stands out is the wonderful bright atmosphere they've worked to achieve.

My favorite drinks are the Jasmine and Rose milk teas (with tapioca pearls, of course), but they have a wide variety of drinks on the menu, including a delicious fresh watermelon slush, and a very popular purple-hued taro milk tea.  For something a little bit different, try the wheat tea (like a sugary drink of Cream of Wheat), or augment your drink with pudding or jellies rather than tapioca.  If you're a beginner, you can't go wrong with the Gossip milk tea - that was my first taste after all.






Monday, June 2, 2014

A Feast of Dumplings

Let's start at the beginning, why don't we?  As I've noted previously, the impetus of my quest to survey the many culinary pleasures available in Seattle's Chinatown was a peckish desire for Dim Sum.  Dim Sum is much more than dumplings - the Chinese equivalent of Tapas, Dim Sum is simply a way of expressing the idea of "small plates."  The words "Dim Sum" are widely reported to mean "touch the heart" (whether that expresses a deep and sincere love of food, or is a wry and prescient statement about what is frequently a high calorie, high-cholesterol meal, it certainly makes a statement).

To me, Dim Sum is all about the dumplings.  Never mind your bok choy spears, your congee, your chicken feet, your hum bao and green onion rolls, I'll go straight for the greasy little gluten envelopes full of pork, seafood, and vegetables every time.  I'll admit, while I've been told that pot stickers (fried, rather than steamed, dumplings) are the least authentic version of dumplings and are shunned by true aficionados, they have always been a favorite.  In short, I'm a food lover, not a food snob.  What follows is my very personal skew on the best Dim Sum in the ID.

The Three Types of Dim Sum Restaurant

I classify Dim Sum joints in three ways:
  • By the piece: order dumplings one at a time from a sweating chef behind a counter, who often has big steaming bins of fragrant dumplings pouring steam into their face.  The dumplings go into a container for transport home.  My favorite by-the-piece restaurants are a couple of small holes in the wall in San Francisco, where I made a slight detour on my walk to work at Expedia in the financial district a few years ago.  I'd walk in, order a few shrimp dumplings, and some shu-mai, and have them placed directly into a plastic bag.  I'd dump some hot chili oil and soy sauce directly into the bag and eat them with my hands while I walked.
Without copious amounts of chili oil and some soy sauce, it's not Dim Sum.  I'm not really a Sriracha person - give me straight-up crushed chili peppers in oil, please.
  • Off the cart: I think of this as the "used car salesman" version of Dim Sum.  Waitstaff roll carts full of steaming bins from table to table, each cart housing its own specialized assortment of dishes.  The staff aggressively push dishes onto you - you spend more time saying "No, thank you.  No.  No, I don't want the Bok Choy, thank you very much." than you spend eating.  It's an essential part of the Dim Sum experience.
  • Tick the card: There's a small sheet with cryptically named dishes and a small box to tick off how many of each you'd like.  The waiter picks up the card and brings back your dishes in some random order of their own devising.
And of course, there are some places where Dim Sum is just an ordinary part of the menu, or as I call it, boring.

My Dim Sum Home

I first started getting dim sum in the ID one day during my first batizado at Capoeira Malês in SoDo.  I needed a quick nosh, so I headed to the first place I found on Weller Street: Duk Li Dim Sum.  This soon became a habit, and soon I was introducing friends to the place as well.  Why does Duk Li qualify as my favorite?  Four reasons:

  • Price:  I once attempted to eat enough food to make the ten dollar credit card minimum, and I could barely waddle out the door.  If you want to risk such a feat, bring two people.
  • Food:  Very consistent, homey, and delicious.  You will always get what you expect, and while it's not everybody's favorite, I love the gooey greasy down home Chinese Diner quality.  And of course, they have the right kind of chili oil!  There are no surprises.
  • Atmosphere: Never crowded, never a wait, and the place is comfortable like my living room.  I can come in with a big disorganized group of people who arrive and leave at random times, and they take everything in stride.  
  • Schedule: Duk Li is open every day from 7 AM to 7 PM, no exceptions.  Christmas, New Years, National Cheese Day, even Leap Day - they are open, smiling, and ready to serve you yummy stuff.
What I order:  shrimp dumplings, shu mai, salt and pepper chicken wings, mushroom rice roll.  This is a traditional joint, so no pot stickers - steamed dumplings only.  For those keeping score, Duk Li is a "tick-the-card" joint.

Best pot stickers

Japan and China each have their own version of the fried dumpling - in China, dumplings are called jiaozi, and in Japan gyoza.  There are several places to get wonderful fried dumplings or "pot stickers" in the ID.  Here are the ones that stood out to me:
  • Fu Lin restaurant.  Quite aside from the crispy style that typifies most commercial gyoza, these were soft and very delicate, with a wonderful flavor.  By far the standout fried dumpling in the ID.  
  • Dim Sum King. The only "by-the-piece" restaurant in Chinatown, DSK has very flavorful and moist pot stickers with a nice ratio of pork to vegetables - the pot stickers were heavier on the celery than I usually have, which was a pleasant change.
  • Fortune Garden. 
  • Harbor City

Most Authentic

If you want a really authentic homemade dumpling experience, you can't do better than Ping's Dumpling House.  I've been here alone as well as with co-workers, including a number of first-generation Chinese immigrants who speak highly of Ping's food.  This is one of the few places in Seattle where you can get authentic soup dumplings - plump steamed wheat dumplings filled with delicious hot soup - a challenge for the uninitiated to eat and remain clean and dry, and a delicious treat.  I don't personally enjoy Ping's as much as some of the other favorites listed here (my native American palate has not developed the taste), but I can attest to the quality and the authenticity.

Best and most unique Dumplings

For the most part, the selection of dumplings in the ID is very consistent - shrimp, shu mai, pot stickers, the occasional chive dumpling - but there are only a handful of restaurants that have unique and delicious dumplings that stand out.  Two dumplings that really stand out are the barleygreen dumplings at Shanghai Garden - delicious pork and vegetable dumplings wrapped in a bright green wrapper of barleygreen dough - and the fresh crab dumplings at Jade Garden.  Jade Garden is typically vaunted as the best dim sum in the ID.  While it's popular (and thankfully draws the crowds away from the restaurants I prefer), I'm not particularly impressed except by the unique and delicious fresh crab dumplings, which are worth braving the crowds for at least once.  Or, do what I do and get them to go! (if you're eating in, know that Jade Garden favors the cart style of serving)  Another nice twist on a standard favorite is the Siu Mai with Chinese Mushrooms at Honey Court.  If you are a fan of Taiwanese food, you can enjoy a Taiwanese skew on dumplings at Henry's Taiwan.  And of course, Ping's has a number of dumplings you won't find anywhere else (such as their Lamb and Carrot offering). 

Sunday, May 11, 2014

50 Meals

Why

I first had dim sum in Toronto, at a restaurant at Dundas and Spadina that I remember being called the White Elephant, in 1981 when I was 18, traveling through on a bus visiting friends the summer I graduated high school.  I didn't make it a regular thing until about 2007.  Living in the 'burbs East of Lake Washington, there's not many opportunities to enjoy good dumplings, but a short-lived establishment in a strip mall near my building at Microsoft pulled me in and got me hooked.

A little over a year ago, I did a job move and started commuting into Seattle.  Stuck in the new and decidedly uncool neighborhood of South Lake Union, I withered under the corporatized culinary disasters in the general vicinity (does anybody really prefer to eat at Veggie Grill or Specialty's or, god forbid, my company cafeteria?), until I discovered a company shuttle from my building to the light rail station on King Street, right at the edge of the International District.

Pretty soon, I was making it a habit to grab a shuttle for lunch, get some dumplings to-go, and shuttle back to eat beautiful spicy greasy bundles of unpretentious joy at my desk.  At first, I stuck to my regular joint - Duk Li Dim Sum on Weller just East of Maynard - but after a while I decided that I would branch out.  In fact, I decided to try every dim sum restaurant in the ID.  A month or two into this quest, it occurred to me that I wasn't being very egalitarian, and I resolved to try, not just every Dim Sum restaurant, but every restaurant of every kind in the district.  I recently completed a tour of every restaurant in Chinatown, an even 50 in all (see below for the specific criteria I used).

Pretty soon co-workers got wind of this and started asking me for recommendations.  One suggested I post my findings someplace where others could get the benefit of my trial and error.  The result is this blog.

How

The ID is traditionally divided into three sections:  Chinatown, Japantown, and Little Saigon.  Jackson street and interstate 5 divide these sections geographically, as you can see in this map from http://seattlechinatownid.com/


Seattle's International District













Unlike the Chinese cultural neighborhoods in other major cities - Vancouver, Portland, San Francisco, for example - there is little about Seattle's version to suggest the streets of Hong Kong or Shanghai, other than a single ornate gate at the West end of King street.  The ID looks very South Seattle - dirty, industrial, and nondescript.  However, hiding on every block are culinary treats waiting to be discovered.

The Ground Rules
In order to put some structure around my quest, I focused on Chinatown, specifically the blocks bounded by Jackson street to the North, Dearborn to the South, 5th Avenue to the West, and Interstate 5 to the East.  Since I was pursuing this adventure on my lunch breaks, I further confined my exploration to restaurants open at lunchtime, and that offered food to go - actual entrees, and not just bubble tea or baked goods.  Finally, I excluded the handful of booths in the Uwajimaya shopping center food court.  There are a handful of exceptions that prove the rule - these will come out in the course of my writing.

Target area (in blue)



















I didn't know how many restaurants there were in this 19 block area when I started, but I knew that restaurants come and go.  In fact, by the end of my tour, two new restaurants were on the verge of opening, but contrary to my worries, no new restaurants opened and no restaurants closed over the course of 50 meals, one to three times a week.

The Fifty

(Alphabetical order)


  • 663 Bistro
  • A piece of cake bakery and cafe.  
  • A&B cafe.  
  • Asia Bar-b-que.  
  • Bun 
  • Canton noodle house.  
  • Crawfish king. 
  • Dim sum king  
  • Duk Li Dim Sum
  • Eastern Cafe.  
  • Fort st. George.  
  • Fortuna cafe.  
  • Fortune garden.  
  • Fu Lin restaurant.  
  • Gourmet noodle bowl.  
  • Green Village.  
  • Happy times bistro.  
  • Harbor city 
  • Henry's Taiwan Plus 
  • Ho ho seafood restaurant.  
  • Honey Court seafood restaurant.  
  • Hong Kong Bistro.  
  • House of Hong.  
  • Jade garden 
  • Joe's bar and grill.  
  • Kau kau restaurant.  
  • King noodle.  
  • Kings BBQ house.  
  • Mike's noodle house.  
  • New Hing Loon restaurant.  
  • New Hong Kong restaurant*
  • Ocean city.  
  • Pacific cafe 
  • Phnom Penh noodle house.  
  • Pho bac.  
  • Pho Hoa.  
  • Ping's dumpling house.  
  • Purple dot cafe 
  • Samurai noodle 
  • Shanghai garden.  
  • Sichuanese cuisine*  
  • Sub Sand.  
  • Sun ya
  • Szechuan noodle bowl*  
  • Tai Tung
  • Thai Curry Simple.  
  • Ton Kiang Bbq House.  
  • Tropics Thai.  
  • World Pizza.  
NOTES:

* these three restaurants were outside the target area
I have not yet visited Bush Garden, since they declined to prepare food to go