Carefree Carpacio

Though Nigella Lawson's Salmon with Ginger, Soy and Rice Vinegar from Nigella Bites does not mention that this dish is essentially a carpacio, it is. She regards it as a starter to a dinner for 8, but I ate it for lunch! ;) It's just a nice, simple dish with a delicious flavour combination from the short ingredients list of soy, rice vinegar, ginger and sesame oil plus a scattering of scallions. I decided to use sashimi grade salmon as I just don't feel comfortable "cooking" less than prime fish with an acid. As good as this dish is, I did find that it became too salty if left in the sauce after the vinegar has "cooked" the salmon so in a way, this was much tastier used almost like a dipping sauce to sashimi. For fun, I broiled up the leftover pieces in the sauce which turned out quite good. I was not able to eat all of it in one sitting so I figured cooking it would prevent me from giving myself a good dose of food poisoning as surely I would somehow figure out a way to do that. ;P

Double Whammy...of Salt

After all that pulled pork, I had about a 3 lb piece of pork butt left over- the perfect size for making a slow simmered pork by Ken Hom. Though his recipe for Red Pork with Chinese White Radish called for pork shoulder, this hunk would do just fine. While it slowly stewed away into melt-in-your-mouth tenderness, the aroma of star anise, cinnamon, soy sauce and other nasal delights permeated the whole house which only served to increase the anticipation of dinnertime.

Alas, it was oversalted. I'm sure one source of the problem is that the meat I had was not as thick as a whole chunk of shoulder so there was no need to cook it so long. Plus this piece was deboned which meant there were sections that were on the thin side. Again, it was not a huge hunk o' meat. Unfortunately, the radish offered no balance to the dish. Instead, it too was unbearably salty. Though I had removed the pork from the pot while reducing the sauce, I should have done the same for the radish. In the end, the radish had to be thrown out. The recipe did not mention removing either while reducing the sauce, but I was suspicious from the dark color. Having never made a dish like this, I was not sure how far I could push the pork before it hit the point of too salty. Now I know! ;P Otherwise, my family enjoyed the flavors... but with a lot of rice and fresh vegetables to counter the intense saltiness.

Of course I had to continue the meal's theme of salt. The dish for me was quite salty as well, but knowingly so as the recipe called for the addition of rice into the sauce mix. I didn't bother with that step as I wanted to pour the Ginger Shrimp with Scallions over my rice (better control). The recipe is from Carol Gelles' Ultimate Diabetes Cookbook, and in reading the recipe, I knew it would be boring. Nevertheless, I had to satiate my curiosity. Indeed, it was as expected: salty and boring. Basically, it was just shrimp with garlic, scallions, hoisin and some soy. I never trust western recipes for eastern food. I have yet to come across a good one but I always hope it'll actually be good. Fortunately, the dish was edible, though not worthy of being photographed.

Magnificent Maggi Muck!

In looking for some tasty and interesting treats for an extended road trip to Canada, I came across some sweet, no-cook porridge cups at an Asian market. The logical part of me screamed for me to stay away. The curious part of me was eager to discover whether it would taste just as bad as it looked and to subject my travelmates to this misadventure. As usual, my curiousity won the better of me. I chose two flavors: chocolate for my travelmate (you can't go tooo wrong with chocolate, right?) and coconut & corn flavour (ooh, sounds weird).

Fortunately for my travel companions, we never had the chance to try these out even though I brought along means to boil water. They were also lucky in that I was not successful at pawning it off on them either. See, they know better. I do too but I don't listen to myself. About a week after my return home, I had the munchies and decided to try one out. Let's go mundane and so chocolate it was.

But chocolate it wasn't. According to the ingredients, it was chocolate, but it was the most foul tasting, artificial chocolate wannabe flavour I've ever encountered. The overabundance of sugar (clearly, the source of energy as proclaimed on the packaging...just wait for that crash after the rush, right?) didn't help one bit. To top it all off, the texture of this fake rice porridge was chewy and just plain artificial. I had to do a doubletake to assure myself that I wasn't eating shredded styrofoam peanuts. I tossed it after forcing myself to eat 5 spoonfuls. I was hopeful that I merely had a bad first impression.

A few weeks later, I still haven't thrown out the other flavour and again, I have the munchies. I spy it out of the corner of my eye and decide to subject myself to more torture. This time, I didn't add as much water as the last version was incredibly watery. After the instructed 3 minutes had elapsed, I dug in! Ah, no better. That's not true. At least this coconut and corn flavor doesn't taste as disgusting as the chocolate. The artificiality of the coconut makes it taste like some coconut candies I've had. Unfortunately, due to the decreased amounts of liquid, this cup was at least twice as sweet. I only ate two bites. The second bite I just had to do in order to find the corn. I took a while of scooping around to get one kernel that looked as dehydrated as before the addition of boiling water.

When I subject myself to these instant meals/snacks in a cup, I wonder how it is possible that people would a) actually buy it b) buy it again and c) enjoy it. I've had some pretty awful (and not cheap!) ramen in a bowl that looked fancy and had many packets for the soup (more is better, right?) yet tasted worse than the 25 cent ones. Despite this, they remain on the supermarket shelves year after year here stateside. I can only imagine the shelves in Japan not only fully stocked, but stocked with other flavours and other brands that do an equally poor if not worse job. I shiver to think such horrid thoughts of malnutrition and tastebud torture.

To each his own, but this will be my last foray into Maggi's instant products...for now.

Gobo Restaurant NYC

My friends decided to take me to Gobo in NYC being the token vegetarian around. They'd gone before and really enjoyed it so it was high time I tried it out too. Many years ago, we'd also gone to Angelica Kitchen, but not all of them liked it. I liked it and other friends I dragged there did too but of course it's not for everyone. Ultimately, you can't really compare Gobo and Angelica as they're just completely different takes on vegan/vegetarian food, both of which I enjoy. =9~

Gobo though appeals to more people because it is based around the fake meat idea, but done really well. Over the years, I'd tired of the fake meat products out there whether in the supermarket or in restaurants. The soy protein products out there were just getting worse and worse, saltier and just plain unhealthy for anyone. Even TVP was never my favorite, but it was easy and convenient. I've always preferred seitan which Asians in general have eaten for a long time so it's not concocted in a lab. I've made it at home before!

Anyhow, Gobo was very tasty and the chef balanced the flavors really well to create dishes that never seemed to be "missing" meat. Texture-wise, there was none of that rubbery soy protein stuff either which is supposed to mimic meat. I don't know about you, but I've never eaten rubbery shrimp. Gobo enhances the experience of dining on dishes where vegetables shine like this Salt & Pepper King Oyster Mushroom Fritter. Mushrooms never tasted so good and different!


My impression is that the chef purposely stayed away from soy protein because of many reasons including those I mention above. I don't recall seeing it on the menu. The use of seitan though is far wiser as it is versatile and easily flavored for different dishes. It also does not have that rubbery texture of TVP variants which I think made it easier for the chef to work with for the textural component. I enjoyed everything we ordered except dessert. I think 98% of the menu is vegan while all the desserts are vegan. Because the owner is Taiwanese, many of the dishes have an Asian touch to them. Here is what we dined on:


Smoked Italian Eggplant Spread & Whole Wheat Pita


Smoked Beijing-Style Seitan With Chinese Broccoli and Kabocha

Seitan in Ginger Marinade


Gingerbread Soy Ice Cream.

We also ordered a pudding which was much better. I look forward to returning here!