Don’t Blame Me for the Fried Fish Eaten Alive

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a turtle soup Mark and I made from a turtle we butchered ourselves.  My mother suggested I take down the post for fear that people would think I was “barbaric.”

It wasn’t that she took issue with the manner in which we butchered it or even cared at all about the animal’s welfare and whether or not it was cruel.  She was concerned that people would think I was somehow uncivilized or savage for what I ate.

Yesterday, The Huffington Post (which recently published an op-ed  by Natalie Portman attempting to make a case for veganism) posted a youtube video with the following description:

“Eating “rare” delicacies just got to a new level. In China, chefs have figured out a way to keep a fish alive as it gets deep fried and then waits to be eaten.

Below is the shocking video of a deep-fried fish that’s still living and moving on a plate. Warning, this may be too graphic for some readers.”

It’s pretty clear to me that by posting this, The Huffington Post had no other motive but to be inflammatory. The first tag on the article is “animal cruelty,” which points you in the direction of articles about a puppy that was thrown off a roof and had to be euthanized and a woman whose home is described in the headline as an “animal concentration camp.”

I won’t re-post the video of the still alive, half-fried fish because even as someone who consumes fish very regularly without guilt, I find it disturbing.  How could you not when seeing a fish, whose body is in tatters while his head is completely in tact with one eye looking straight into the camera as it gasps for air?  His gill desperately opening and closing while people laugh cruelly, jabbering away in some foreign tongue while poking the helpless creature in the mouth with chopsticks.

I’m not going to debate whether or not it’s right to eat animals.  You’ve most likely already made that decision for yourself and I’m not going to convince you either way and I’m not trying to.  The debate about whether or not this dish is cruel is not much of a debate.

The issue for me is not the dish itself but how quickly people degenerate into very nasty, flagrant racism. Responses to the video included:

“Asians are evil and have no souls.”

“i am not even going to watch this cause it will make me sick..fucking chinks
its disgusting and so fucking wrong”

“That is horrible!!! Chinese people should be deep fried while still breathing! They are so mean, have no ethics whatsoever!”

Now, of course I’m taking these comments with a grain of salt.  I understand I should be above this and find them ridiculous.  They probably have no idea what they’re saying and how ignorant it is.  But what saddens me is that some people of Asian descent felt the need to express shame for something that had nothing to do with them:

“wow i’ve never been so embarrassed to be chinese. this is f-ing horrible!”

“THAT IS SO F**ED UP!!! omg!!!  torture. why are they laughing? GOD as an Asian person i am ashamed. these people are SICK”

The thing is, if there were a youtube video of a French family eating rabbits for lapin à la moutarde, people would probably object on similar grounds of animal cruelty, but I don’t think an American kid of French descent would be sitting at home thinking, “I’m so ashamed to be French” nor feel the need to apologize on behalf of all European people.

Despite so many enthusiastic talking heads on television proclaiming this a “post-race” era, I don’t have the luxury of individuality.   Because when someone in Hong Kong posts a disturbing video and I know thousands of people think “F*n Chinese will eat anything… dolphins, monkey brain… while the monkey is still alive. Dog, cat… DISGUSTING!!”  I cringe a little inside.

The mystery of the rainbow parasol

I was finally able to stop that guy who rides his bike around Williamsburg with the rainbow parasol, merengue music, and the shiny steel cart hitched to the back. Actually, I didn’t stop him… he was waiting at a red light at S. 4th and Driggs. It turns out he sells Dominican chicharrón for $4 — if you can ever catch him. He uses a giant cleaver to chop the fried pork and serves it on a piece of foil with cassava crackers and lime. I took it home and it was so good. There was more meat than I expected and it wasn’t so crispy that I thought I was going to chip my teeth like at Mariscos Veracruzanos. I have to admit after eating a few pieces I gave in and got out the El Yucateco hot sauce. I’m turning into my cousin, Patrick. He doesn’t eat anything without hot sauce. He actually carries a bottle of Frank’s in his glove compartment.

Au Revoir, Chanterelle

About a month ago, Grub Street broke the sad news that Chanterelle, the grande dame of downtown, closed for good. When it happened, I didn’t have time to bid a proper farewell, but I think it deserves to be remembered fondly. Without the slightest exaggeration, I can honestly say I had one of the best meals of my life there.

One of the most memorable dishes was the Butternut Squash “Risotto” with Fresh Sage and Wild mushrooms. Risotto was in quotation marks because instead of making a rice dish served with squash (how pedestrian!), they fashioned the squash into tiny rice-like grains.

But it wasn’t just a smart alecky visual gag to which so many of today’s chefs are prone. It was flawlessly executed and the flavors were simple and incredibly satisfying. The sage was served as a whole leaf, perfectly crispy against the creamy “risotto.”

I asked one of the servers how the sage was prepared. She explained that the leaves were fried. “But it isn’t greasy at all. It’s just perfectly crisp” I said, astonished. “That’s why we’re Chanterelle,” she replied with a smile.

It wasn’t arrogant. It was the truth. What she said made me smile because like all the servers I encountered there, she took tremendous pride in the  dishes and seemed sincerely happy to be a part of the whole experience.

It struck me that Chanterelle’s nearly flawless food was served by people who loved it as much as the delighted customers. People who worked there were chattier than their peers at comparable restaurants. (And I mean that in the best way possible.)

When I asked questions, marveling at certain dishes I found particularly impressive, the servers would get just as excited and share all sorts of things about preparation and ingredients.

I collect menus from meals I’ve eaten and Chanterelle’s was always special because it was hand-written. It said a lot about the restaurant- both elegant and unpretentious.

Día de los difuntos a la ecuatoriana

Everytime I walk down Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights I find something new and amazingly delicious. (It’s where I first spotted mamey sapote.)

Today after work I as walking down the street again and I saw a hand-written sign for something called colada morada for $3. I looked it up on my phone really quick and I found a blog about how it’s an Ecuadorian Day of the Dead drink made out of mortiño (the “blueberry of the Andes”), blackberries, naranjilla (click here for a video of me cutting open a naranjilla), babaco (“champagne fruit”), pineapple, and a mysterious spice called ishpingo.

I walked into the bar that was serving it and there were about 20 men watching a bullfight on TV but the sound was on mute. I ordered one colada morada to go and it was served really hot in a to-go soup container.

It kind of tasted like a liquefied blackberry pie with a little mulled wine mixed in. The only thing I didn’t like was the chunks of pineapple bobbing around. I ate it with some pan de muerto that I bought at the bakery next door to the bar.

Temple Canteen: Dosas to Dream About

Thiru Kumar aka Dosa Man, winner of the 2007 Vendy Award, probably recognizes my face. Like many people who work or go to school near Washington Square, I frequent his stand on the south side of the park.

For $6, you get a dosa, a typical South Indian crepe made of lentils and rice and often filled with spiced potatoes,  a tiny cup of soup and a side of coconut chutney.  I’ve filled many a screening room at NYU with the fragrant spices of my hot lunch.

I will remain loyal to Dosa Man for his friendly demeanor, his excellent dosas and convenient location (I can dash through the park in between classes), but yesterday, my world was rocked.

Mark and our friends Deborah and Nandi and I happened to be in Queens to see an exhibit Nandi curated on Andean textiles at Queens College.  Considering that I hardly ever go above 14th Street, I spend a lot of time in Queens, always in search of different kinds of food (usually authentic, most always cheap).

For Indian food, I normally go to Jackson Heights and follow dinner with a Bollywood movie at the Eagle Theater.  Sadly, I learned the theater has been closed since May because of the Bollywood film industry strike.

But luckily, Deborah, a Queens native, suggested we have dinner at the Ganesh Temple, just a short bus ride from the exhibit in Flushing.  After eating there, I told her it was the best decision anyone has ever made.

Because the canteen’s main purpose is to feed their devotees, the food is very reasonably priced as well as delicious.  Housed in the basement of the temple, it’s a simple cafeteria filled with families enjoying their hearty meals on styrofoam plates and red plastic trays.

The best thing we had was the paneer and butter dosa, followed closely by the spicy hyderapadi dosa.  When we ordered the latter, the man warned us it would be very spicy and asked us what our spice tolerance level was.

We said our tolerance was high.  It turned out to be not very spicy at all and we couldn’t help but wonder if they either cut down on the spice because they didn’t think we could handle it or if they just exaggerated the level of spiciness to warn us, should we happen to be the kind of people unaccustomed to anything hotter than black pepper.

In the end, we ordered a feast so large it might have made Henry VIII blush.  Everything looked and smelled so delicious and it was all so cheap, we couldn’t help but go a little crazy.  Deborah said that it always happens the first time.

For more food than we could eat plus drinks, we spent less than $30 between the four of us.  Mango lassis were only a dollar, as was the tasty spiced chai, which I enjoyed at the time but kept me up until 5 AM this morning.

If you make the trek to Flushing for these incredible dosas, be sure to pay a visit to the beautiful and recently renovated temple upstairs.

Temple Canteen
The Hindu Temple Society of North America
45-57 Bowne Street, Flushing, NY 11355-2202
nyganeshtemple.org
(718) 460-8493

Open Daily: 8:30 AM – 9:00 PM

The Turtle Soup that Almost Tore Us Apart

We pride ourselves on being adventurous eaters and cooks, Mark and I. We entertain ourselves with food versions of adolescent games like “truth or dare” or “never have I ever.” (Could you bring yourself to drink a mixture of raw cow’s blood and milk as the Maasai people supposedly do? Did you really eat horse and does it taste like venison?)

For a while now, we’ve been planning to make turtle soup. It all started because Mark found a Japanese culinary student’s flickr page, which featured a butchered turtle.  He put a link to it on this blog and we got an irate response from a person calling herself “myratheturtlefan.”

She wrote: “you ppl r diqusting y would u even eat a turtle how would u like it if the turtle ate u!!!???!!! FYI i am in luv wut turtles!!!!!!!!!!!! obviously turtles will never be in luv wit u!!!!!!!!!!”

It was our first hate mail.  And we didn’t even cook the darn thing.  We figured if we were going to suffer the consequences, we might as well do the deed.  Also, we thought back to Babette’s Feast, the sensual Danish film about a cook who decides to create a real French feast, an extravagant banquet of epic proportions, for her puritanical employers, and the first course is turtle soup.

We had been talking about making it together for weeks.  So finally, yesterday was the day.  Around noon, we met in Chinatown to search for the most important (and controversial) ingredient of the potage à la tortue: the turtle.

Without much difficulty, we found a seafood shop on Bayard and past the rows of fish and shrimp, inside one of the large plastic tubs, was a turtle.  He didn’t seem to be moving much.  Mark wanted one with more “snap” to it, but the man explained it was the last one.  We decided to shop around.

But no other place seemed to sell turtles.  After trying a few other stores, we decided to just go back and get it, however sluggish it was.  But somehow, in the twenty minutes between when we left the store and came back, someone else had decided they also wanted the turtle and bought it.

This was already starting to be more of a hassle than we had anticipated.  While we always  enjoy hunting down rare ingredients, we were hungry and tired and getting irritable.  We decided to have dim sum and come up with a game plan.  We’d go to Hong Kong Supermarket on Hester and if they didn’t have turtles, we swing around on Grand Street in hopes of finding some there.  If there were no turtles on Grand Street, we’d have to just count our losses and try again next week.

But Mark was tenacious and on a mission.  We were going to find a turtle and cook it.  His enthusiasm bolstered mine.  And luckily for us, there was a tank full of turtles at Hong Kong Supermarket.  “Do you want me to kill it?” the man asked?  Mark said no.  It seemed better to keep it alive until we were ready to cook it.  But this proved to be a terrible decision.  Killing turtles is harder than you think.

When we got to my apartment, we spread out some newspaper on my kitchen table and placed the turtle on a cutting board.  Every recipe online seemed to suggest that chopping off its head is the best way to do it.  How to get the turtle to stick its head out so you can actually chop it off was another matter.

One website said that if you give the turtle something to bite down on, it will stick its head out and take the bait.  A wooden skewer didn’t do the trick as we had hoped.  It was completely disinterested.  Ditto for a piece of parsley we were using to try and lure it out. (Who can blame it for having no appetite?  What do turtles eat, anyway?)

Maybe we could use a pair of tongs and gently pinch its head out, I suggested.  Mark needed both his hands to hold the turtle and chop its head, so I would have to pull it out. I was already disturbed by the whole process and only agreed to it because Mark assured me he’d butcher it.

For me, if I buy an uncooked steak or a chicken leg or any other kind of meat, I am removed enough from the living animal it doesn’t bother me for a second.  But seeing the thing crawl around and have to take its life was too much for me.  (Except for lobster. I have no qualms about lobster.)

If I don’t have ethical problems with eating meat, I should have no ethical problems killing the animal for its meat, I reasoned, but as soon as I touched the turtle’s flesh with the tongs and felt it wiggle, I was horrified.  I couldn’t do it.  Then Mark suggested he just chop it from the shoulders up.  The shell was reasonably soft and we wouldn’t be damaging any major organs but we’d still kill it in one swift blow.

It was very tense.  I started to feel like we were doing something really awful and misguided.  Like we were two steps away from putting a black sack over the poor guy’s head and videotaping the whole gruesome decapitation to send to Al-Jazeera.

I also had horrible visions of turtle blood and guts squirting everywhere.  I decided to hold up a newspaper in case that happened, which had the added benefit of hiding the turtle from my sight like a hospital curtain.  I saw the cleaver rise above the newspaper and a second later, a loud thump.

“I didn’t kill it,” Mark said.  I lowered the newspaper.  There wasn’t even a nick.  The term “soft shell” as it applies to turtles was apparently a relative term.  Bizarrely, somehow, because it was scared or shocked or disoriented from the blow to its shell, the turtle stuck out its head.  Mark immediately went into action and chopped it off.

The worst was over, it seemed.  The recipes we read suggested we hang the turtle to let out the blood, which was shockingly red and mammalian-like.  While the blood dripped out, we decided to watch Babette’s Feast.

When the movie was over, Mark started butchering the turtle, which proved to be extremely difficult and involved using several different knives and occasionally screaming when a claw would wrap itself around one of his fingers. (We were forewarned that turtle body parts continue to move for hours after the animals is dead, but it didn’t make it any less disturbing.)

I played it safe and prepped leeks, garlic and the bouquet garnis and tried not to think about what was happening. Every so often, I’d hear Mark say “Eew!  Gross!” at something he’d find– the internal organs, the way the shell looked when it was separated from the flesh– it all seemed to be disgusting.  I tried not to look as I toasted some bread to make croutons.

Eventually, we managed to make a soup.  It didn’t look very good.  I didn’t even want to take a picture of the finished product.  It tasted… okay.  The turtle meat tasted like a cross between frog legs and chicken, which was… okay.  I looked over at Mark and he had stopped eating.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.   Suddenly everything seemed so sad and awkward.  Mark began to explain that he felt as though he hadn’t butchered the turtle properly and that there might be a chance that we’d get sick from  salmonella and that I had picked up the cutting board for the turtle before picking up the cutting board for the croutons.  He started to point out all the surfaces in my apartment that might have salmonella on them.

I started to get upset because I felt attacked, as though he were accusing me of not taking the necessary precautions to keep things sanitary; that my entire apartment was now tainted and the food I had cooked and eaten was tainted.  I felt disappointed at how anticlimactic the actual soup was and couldn’t hide the fact it felt like the whole day was a waste of time if all we were left with was mediocre soup that might make us violently ill.

He was sad that I was disappointed and wanted me to enjoy the time we had spent together.  He said I was making him seem crazy and paranoid.  He described how unsanitary he felt the turtle’s tank at the supermarket was and I asked him why he still wanted to go through with it if that was the case and he explained that he didn’t anticipate how difficult it would be to kill it.  “You don’t understand because you didn’t have that experience,” he said.

We went back and forth like a married couple dealing with the fall out from a crime we committed together.  He seemed resentful because he had to deal with the guilt of killing the turtle and I didn’t.  “You were the one who was gung-ho about butchering it,” I said.  He promised me that I wouldn’t have to do the butchering and now that he felt bad about it, he was lashing out at me, I thought.  He, in turn, was offended I said he was “gung-ho” because it made him sound like a violent psychopath.

We eventually reached a point where talking wasn’t going to make it better. We had analyzed and discussed everything half a dozen times and were no better off from when we started.  I wiped down everything with bleach a third time, but the apartment still felt like it was crawling with bacteria.  We both apologized for being childish, but things were still weird between us.

“Is the only lesson to be learned from this that we should never make turtle soup ever again?” I asked.  He said yes.  We hugged and he went home.  We both knew that we’d forgive each other and that everything would be back to normal the next day, but we still felt a little strange and somehow defeated.

I decided to continue simmering the soup for another few hours after he left.  Anyone who’s ever made a soup knows that the longer it cooks, the better it is.  So throwing caution, paranoia,  disappointment and resentment into the wind, I tasted a spoonful.  It was delicious.  I texted Mark to tell him how good it was and asked him if he wanted me to save some for him.  And of course, he said yes.

Koy-bas: Kazakh style boiled sheep’s head

Andrew has been in Qazaqstan for a whole month now and I still haven’t posted about the sheep’s head we made for his going-away party back in August. Koy-bas, the boiled sheep’s head, is served as one of the dishes of the Central Asian besbarmak feast.

We bought the head at a halal butcher in Dearborn, Michigan and then boiled it in a makeshift kasan.

We ate every part of that sheep’s face except the the brains (which we left inside in order to avoid spongiform encephalopathy).

Where’s the Beef? In Search of the Perfect Argentine Steak

When you think of Argentina, a few things instantly come to mind: tango, wine, sexy polo players (is that just me?) and beef. I recently spent a week in Buenos Aires and finally got to sample the world-famous steaks.

The first parilla (or grill) I visited in Buenos Aires was Juana M. It was recommended to me by my dear friend Ezequiel, an Argentine with impeccable taste.  His opinion is to be trusted in all matters related to books, wine, women and meat.  If he says it’s good, then it’s good.

The best thing about Juana M and what separates it from other parillas in Buenos Aires is, shockingly, the salad bar.  In Argentina, it’s easy to feel as though you’re consuming nothing but beef and you start to long for leafy greens in a sea of steaks.

The salad bar comes with your meal and you’re invited to visit as many times as you wish.  While the idea of an all-you-can-eat salad bar reeks a bit of T.G.I.Friday’s or a dorm cafeteria, the term “casual elegance” could aptly describe Juana M with its restrained decor and hip, austere atmosphere.

But of course, you don’t go to a parilla for the salad.  When it comes to steaks, the best cuts to go with are the bife de chorizo (sirloin, nothing to do with the spicy sausage) or bife de lomo (tenderloin).

Unfortunately, even though I asked for medium rare, my bife de chorizo arrived well done.  Perhaps they saw that I was a foreigner and did what they do at Indian or Thai restaurants when you tell them you want spicy, which is to give you what they think you really want because they don’t  believe you can handle what you asked for.

I like my steaks pretty bloody.  In fact, I judge people who ask for their meat well-done with the same derision I reserve for vegetarians, those who don’t eat “ethnic” cuisine and people who hate cilantro.  And I’m sorry, but with such amazing grass-fed cattle, it’s a crime and a bloody shame to turn a beautiful piece of meat into jerky by cooking it all the way through.

So I did what I hate to do, which is to send my food back.  I’m not a picky eater, but there are certain things that will compel me to ask (very politely) if I might have something else and cutting into a steak with not even a hint of pink is one of them.

The waitress was very understanding and immediately took my plate back into the kitchen and returned a short while later with a steak that was almost blue on the inside.  (I guess they overcompensated, but I was much happier.) The amazing thing about steak in Argentina is that you wait for them to bring you a steak knife and then you realize that they never will because you can cut into the meat (even when it’s overcooked) with a butter knife.

Ezequiel assured me that Juana M would not disappoint and I fairly agree.  It wasn’t perfect, but it was very solid and a perfect date spot.  But I wasn’t on a date, thankfully, so I felt free to slather my meat with the excellent, very garlicky chimichurri sauce.

Juana M
Carlos Pellegrini 1535 (basement)
At Libertador, across from the La Recova area, Recoleta
Phone:  11-4326-046

La Cabrera, the second parilla I visited, was highly praised by both my friend Steven, who returned from Buenos Aires a couple days before I left, and a myriad of guidebooks and websites.

To start, we ordered a lovely salad with tomato, avocado and the biggest hearts of palm I’ve ever seen with Russian dressing.

Of course, we were there for the steak and heard so much about it, so we got the bife de chorizo for two, which comes on a single platter and is served with a delightful assortment of condiments and little side dishes.

The steak was good.  I had the slight misfortune of starting at an end that was a bit tough and fatty.  The closer I got to the center, the better it was, but I couldn’t shake the initial disappointment.

La Cabrera
Cabrera 5099, Palermo Soho
Phone: 54-11-4831-7002

The thing about the steaks I had at Juana M and La Cabrera, while very reasonably priced and quite good by most standards (I could pay three times as much for a worse steak in New York), I wasn’t blown away.  I expected my world to be rocked, my socks to be knocked off and well, I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that I was missing something.

Was Argentine steak just another overhyped phenomenon like Brazilian butts or Italian shoes? Or was all the hoopla rightfully deserved as in the cases of Brazilian butts and Italian shoes?

I just wasn’t convinced about Argentine steaks, but we left the city and took a day trip to an estancia (ranch) in San Antonio de Areco, about two hours outside of Buenos Aires and I was amazed.

We were greeted with empanadas, cold cuts, cheeses and wine.  The empanadas were the best empanadas I’ve ever had or will probably ever have.  Instead of a thick, dry, doughy crust, the crust on the empanadas at Estancia La Porteña were flaky, buttery and thin enough to give way to the savory ground meat  in perfect blissful bites.

I could’ve eaten a dozen on the spot.  I was held back (just barely) by normal social etiquette, which dictates that stuffing your face with all the empanadas while other guests are politely chatting is not the thing to do.

After the snacks, we were invited on a tour of the estate, where everyone from the writer Jorge Luis Borges to the tango singer Carlos Gardel and randomly, the chess player Garry Kasparov, have stayed over the years.

After the tour, we sat down for lunch.  While I could go on for ages about the empanadas that still haunt my thoughts and dreams, the best part of a día de campo (day in the country) is the asado (barbecue).

All the Argentine steaks I’d had up until that point were like going on dates with people who are for all intents and purposes attractive and intelligent but there’s just no spark.  Your friend sets you up with them and you really want to like them, but something isn’t quite right and you’re not sure if it’s just you.

But biting into that meat was like falling deeply and madly in love for the fist time.  So, this is what it is.  This is what everyone has been talking about.  It really is incredible.

I sometimes have this wonderful moment, when, just for a second, my whole mouth goes numb with pleasure and then a surge of intense happiness rushes through me and I start giggling with glee.

I couldn’t stop laughing.  I felt like an infatuated teenager in the first euphoric flushes of puppy love.  I wanted to declare my love for the meat to everyone I saw.  I wanted to shout my love from the rooftops.  It sounds like I’m exaggerating, but I’m really not.  It really was that good.

The meal began with the thick parts by the ribs.  The server went around the table serving generous pieces from a sizzling platter.  The meat was incredibly tender and infused with the rich, savory marrow taste  of the bones.  Even the fat was soft and flavorful enough to make you want to spread it on a piece of bread and eat it.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, the server came around with the choicest cuts of meat.  Tender isn’t enough to describe how buttery the texture was, the disbelief that a piece of red meat could be so supple.

The side dishes were simple and done well  (a potato salad, shredded carrots, sliced tomatoes lightly coated in oil and vinegar) and let the meat, the real star of the show, shine.

After lunch, we went on a long horseback ride with one of the gauchos.

When we returned from our ride, we had afternoon tea and lovely desserts.  My favorite was a bread filled with membrillo (quince paste).

While we enjoyed our tea and sweets, a man performed traditional songs for us.

The total cost for this amazing day in the country?  $85 USD per person.  I would’ve paid that much just for the lunch alone, for one taste of that incredible steak.

Estancia La Porteña
Phone number : + 54 9  11 56267347
Movil Argentina   011 15 5626 7347
Email: laporteniadeareco@gmail.com
Skype:laporteniadeareco
Página web: www.laporteniadeareco.com

Din Tai Fung

I’m way behind on my giant backlog of things I want to share from this summer’s gustatory adventures. Please bear with me as I dig up the best food from the past couple months before I get too busy to eat, much less blog about it.

During my stay in Taipei, many of you will recall how I spent weeks extolling the virtues of Din Tai Fung, the famed dumpling mecca where people line up around the block like it’s 1977 and they’re trying to get into Studio 54.

I’ve already said that every dumpling I have from now on until the day I die will be compared to those dumplings and I stand by that statement, but rather than keep writing about them, I figured I owed you some photos.  Feast your eyes on this:

There is always plenty of sliced fresh ginger and exceedingly polite, attractive young servers to offer you more should you start to run low.

The famed xiao long bao (steamed pork soup dumplings) are obviously a must, but the dessert dumplings are surprisingly tasty.  My favorite was the soft, creamy taro.  And of course, the mashed sweet red bean, since dessert isn’t dessert in Asia unless it’s stuffed with red bean.  It’s like chocolate over there.

Taro dumpling

The original shop on the corner of Xinyi Road and Yungkang Street is still the best, but one of the other outposts in Taipei has an open kitchen so you can catch a glimpse of the specially trained chefs  painstakingly creating each of the decreed number of folds (18 to be exact) by hand.  Rumor has it that the chefs must train as apprentices for an entire year before they’re allowed to make a single dumpling for customers.

Showing some love to Bao Zai, the Din Tai Fung mascot. He's a giant dumpling who has no problem serving his own kind to be eaten. Disturbing but delicious.

Evergreen Restaurant in Taipei: Where Vegetarian Food Isn’t Gross

I really only have three major deal breakers when it comes to men. I could never date a smoker or someone who doesn’t want children and I could most certainly never date a picky eater.  And I’m sorry to say, but I’ve always considered vegetarians a subset of picky eaters.

I know you may have ethical or religious reasons for being a vegetarian and I respect that, I really do, but food and the experience of eating it at home, in restaurants, on the street, in different countries is far too important to me to be with someone who puts such large restrictions on what they eat.

Ironically, I happen to be working on a film in which a man, separated from his true love for 40 years, decides to abstain from meat as a sign of his devotion and a tribute to the purity of his love and ends up becoming a vegetarian chef.  I think the significance of all that requires some cultural context that I’m not quite qualified to give, but it seems like a romantic notion.

It was hard for me to unthink my stereotypes about vegetarians and the restaurants that cater to them.  Aside from maybe Pure Food & Wine or Dirt Candy (which I have yet to try), vegetarian food in New York seems mostly limited to healthful slops of mung beans and kale shoveled down by animal rights activists, NYU undergrads or self-satisfied yoga practitioners.  The same sort of people who don’t seem to actually enjoy food and  in fact, give up eating altogether for weeks at time in the name of “cleansing” parts of their anatomy that were never really meant to be clean. 

In Taiwan, however, vegetarian cuisine is elevated to something of an art.  Earlier this week, my family friends took me to Evergreen, a bi-level vegetarian restaurant that has a  casual buffet downstairs and a more elegant dining room upstairs.  Unlike most restaurants in Taiwan, which serve food “family style,” there is a tasting menu with several courses, which are served in individual portions.

We began with what I think was the best part of the meal: a juice that was made from yam leaves, apples and lemon.  Though the drink had absolutely no sweeteners (natural or otherwise), it was amazingly sweet and really rather delicious.  It tasted incredibly fragrant and fresh and we were told to drink it immediately because the ingredients would begin to oxidize after a few minutes.

Other excellent dishes included a bean curd skin dish that had just the right crispy layers outside and juicy, chewy center that might almost make you forget you’re not eating meat:

A mock shark’s fin soup that had bamboo shoots, mushrooms, scallions, cilantro and taro.

Sauteed yam leaves with fresh ginger in some sort of delicious sauce

A hand roll, which appeared pretty pedestrian when it was first placed in front of me, but ended up being surprisingly tasty.  My mother’s friend didn’t know the English word for those beige wirey things that gave it a fantastic crunch, but whatever they were, they were yummy. 

Some sort of vinegar non-alcoholic digestif, the only beverage I’ve had in Taiwan that was served with ice. 

I’ve started to really enjoy drinking vinegars and had pinapple and rose-flavored ones at a different restaurant.  Just don’t make the same mistake I did, which is to down it like a shot.  Apparently, it’s meant to be sipped and is supposed to aid in digestion.

Our dessert course was you tiao, deep-fried bread sticks commonly eaten at breakfast, whose name literally translated means “oil sticks.”  Despite the rather unappetizing name, they’re very tasty (like a denser, chewier churro without the cinnamon and sugar.)  They were served with hot almond milk.

  

I must say, I was impressed by the flavors, the presentation and the excellent service and must concede that it was more than I imagined vegetarian cuisine could be.  But I think I’ll stick to being an omnivore and maintain my hard line stance against dating vegetarians.  Is it so much to ask for a man who eats everything? 

Evergreen Vegetarian Restaurant
38 XinSheng North Road,
Section 2, Taipei
台北市新生北路二段38號
Tel: 2511-5656