Dude, you going to eat that?

Uchi: Sweet endings

2012-02-13T16:19:00.000-06:00

I had gone to Uchi Houston with the express purpose of sampling every dessert item on their menu. I've bemoaned before about the relatively sparse dessert landscape in Houston restaurants, and Chef Philip Speer assembled some rather compelling items in the short dessert section of the menu. Composed, multicomponent desserts are a rare thing in Houston, but I do think that there may be a prescribed formula in the Uchi Houston desserts. See if you can detect the commonalities.

Lemon gelato with pistachio. Brightly flavored, brilliant use of the beet glass, and toasted pistachios.

Fried milk with chocolate semifreddo. Basically, a deep fried chunk of custard. And who doesn't like that?

Keffir lime cremeux, ash sorbet.

Miso apple sorbet, peanut butter semifreddo. I particularly enjoyed the freeze dried apples.

Smoked maple panna cotta, apricots. This was a special menu item; the use of the fried shiso leaf was smart.

All of them a play on texture using various hydrocolloids. Big plus that not one used a foam. Although no cakes were baked, apparently.

Uchi Houston: Detail and Execution

2012-02-09T08:30:00.000-06:00

Disclaimer: Aside from gratuity, thus far, I have not paid for the meals at Uchi Houston. I thank the staff of restaurant for their generosity. And apologize if I sound ungrateful.

Prior to going to eat at the new restaurant Uchi in Houston, I heard quite a bit of hushed excitement - the media even covered the day by day construction of the building (in part because it is built on the site of a former restaurant of some historical significance). Now that it's opened, Uchi buzz is all over the blogosphere and twitterverse.

I was there for the media preview. And a follow up dinner.

For the record, I've never eaten at either Uchi or Uchiko in Austin, the original restaurants that earned Tyson Cole his James Beard award. And perhaps that lack of prior history colors much of my expectations and evaluation of the food in Uchi Houston.

Yokai berry - a fruit/fish salad with dinosaur kale.

Discussing the food with other diners tends to bring up nostalgic recollections of how any one particular dish or "tasting" compared with its incarnation in Austin. I came away with the impression that most of the menu reproduced the Austin versions faithfully - in fact, few could tell what would have been created new for Houston.

Cauliflower tempura

Let me get to the point: Uchi's greatest strengths lie in that impeccable attention to detail, and near flawless service. I sincerely believe that the staff wants only to see happy customers, and that is is very valuable to the restaurant dining experience. Most of the dishes I had were cleanly executed, with subtle flourishes that are the hallmark of precision. Save for a few items (and there were many we sampled, as the kitchen kept flinging complimentary dishes at us) all items were some of the best examples of those preparations available.

The few klunkers:

For a Japanese-themed restaurant, Uchi Houston offers one kind of tea. "Green". Served with lemon wedges. It had a tiny bit more character than hot water.

I didn't particularly care of the "Ham and Eggs" maki roll. The three sauces muddled the flavors, and the piment d'Espellete, a prominently premium spice, was lost in the mix.

These Northeastern oysters were served with a dollop of lychee granita on top, and whole spices (fennel, pepper) in the ice underneath. Whole spices do not release their aroma in cold, so I was puzzled by the use. I suppose it was meant for a visual presentation, but the granita did nothing for the flavor, and the shucking left shards of shell in the specimen I ate. And I found myself preferring Gulf oysters.

The promising:

Uchi uses a strong list of potential ingredients, and a deft hand at execution. The rice used was well cooked, and respect for it showed in separately presented koshi-hikari from sumeshi. The fish was never served ice cold, the rice came somewhat warm. Little details that are treasured in the appreciation of Japanese minimalism.

I inquired about the bottarga found on each prep station, and found out that the restaurant makes its own bottarga. From sea urchin roe. Uni bottarga. But it's only used in one dish.

Mackerel nigiri with shaved bottarga. I like oily fish like mackerel. And the bottarga was a nice salty umami tang to the whole thing.

Unlike many places, an order of nigiri at Uchi is one piece - essentially one bite. But we truly enjoyed this eggplant nigiri. Well charred, the creamy texture offsets the nuttiness from the sesame.

Gyutoro - wagyu short rib, slow cooked for 72 hours to resemble the texture of toro (tuna belly). The acidic soy citrus gelée complemented the fatty beef nicely. But at $10 a piece, it's actually more expensive than toro maguro. And I have to wonder - cooked for that long, did it matter if it was wagyu beef?

I did find that the kitchen tends to be formulaic in some dishes. For example, there's this fondness of mixing fruit and fish (see Yokai Berry above):

Tuna on compressed watermelon, with basil and cilantro. The dressing used thai chiles, which added an aggressive heat in the end - an effect which may be somewhat unpleasant for some. But I appreciated the use of large flake salt crystals that brought out the sweetness of the fruit, and the knife work that produced tuna slices which matched the watermelon in texture.

Walu-walu. A large chunk of cooked escolar, atop a tangy dashi with preserved citrus. Escolar is a forgiving fish to cook with, and this was a pleasant enough dish, if rather mild. And it was a fairly big chunk of fish.

This sushi chef special is a salad of the gyutoro components, with seared fish, sea urchin and citrus segments. A symphony of indulgent flavors.

The other thing in use was a combination of fish sauce and caramel, a familiar enough flavor combination in to the Viet-influenced Houston palate.

Bacon and onions. Perhaps the best thing about this dish are the beautifully fried onions, which tasted like the most ephemeral and intense onion chips imaginable. The salty fish sauce caramel lying beneath was a good counterpoint to the fatty pork belly, and the grilled micro-scallions were an impressive touch.

The staff was proud of the underrated brussels sprouts preparation, which seem to have been glazed in fish sauce and lemons, and then dry heat cooked (fried perhaps) until the leaves get that crispy caramelization. I detected a somewhat lingering bitter aftertaste that was ameliorated by sprinkling on a little salt.

When asked what I thought of the dishes, I responded honestly: I was impressed by the careful execution but thought the flavors where squarely in the safe zone. Inoffensive, classic, playful at most. This isn't necessarily wrong in the Japanese ethos, but I have a feeling that Uchi Houston is gingerly taking its very tentative first steps. Could the need to recapture the familiarity of the Austin Uchi experience be a guiding principle? After all, why mess around with a winning formula?

Jar Jar Duck: Duck, candied kumquats, nasturtiums, served in a jar filled with rosemary smoke. One of the more inventive dishes at Uchi, although at $30, costs a lot more than a whole Peking duck with the trimmings.

Yet, there was something in the menu which I found particularly exciting, and I've reserved that for a separate posting.

Adjectives in menus

2012-02-06T08:11:00.000-06:00

Backyard vegetable curry from Nabi Houston.

All-natural.

Seasonal.

Organic.

Free range.

Hand gathered.

Non-GMO.

Local.

Artisanal.

Authentic.

"Scratch made".

These are buzzwords that are prominently advertised on menus and catalogs. We get them repeated to us by waiters and chefs. Although they say nothing about the quality or taste of the food - after all, something can be all these things, and still taste bad - why is this such a powerful advertising tool?

Romanesco, the fractal flower.

Because our cultural perceptions trump flavor when objectively measured. Something as simple as water, dressed in plastic and advertising, can take on qualities of affluence even labelled as cat piss (in French).

Sensationalist news have a field day reporting the pervasiveness of fish fraud, where restaurants substitute a less expensive fish for a different one advertised in the menu.

But what's the story here, the elephant in the room, is that most people, unless told ahead of time, cannot tell the difference between pollock, tilapia or red snapper, particularly when breaded and fried. Meaning that as far as flavor is concerned, there's very little value in using more expensive white fish - it's mostly a function of manipulating expectations.

This point is further illustrated by the brilliant taste test conducted by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt comparing American high fructose corn syrup sweetened Coca-cola with the vaunted cane sugar sweetened Mexican Coke. The key conclusion here is that it's the label that determines preference - not the subtle flavor difference (and there is a flavor difference - although tasters actually preferred the American Coke in blinded tastings).

Cultural expectations overwhelming objective perception applies to wine, where tasters report better flavors if they're told the wine is more expensive, or start using red wine adjectives when white wine is just colored to look red. It's very human - it extends beyond food and drink: when blinded, expert violinists cannot tell the difference between a Stradivarius and a more modern instrument - even if they own the latter instrument.

So, those buzzword are essentially superfluous as far as the flavor is concerned. The main question of relevance is: Does the dish taste good? Using those adjectives serve to obfuscate this main issue, and perhaps disguise flaws by playing up the expected virtues.

Losing delectables

2012-02-03T15:06:00.001-06:00

Sometimes, it's heartbreaking to see what gets discarded.

Lechon: whole roasted pig

I was fortunate enough to be invited to a party where the main event was a whole lechon , a festive sign that I think should replace the iconic roast turkey. Unfortunately, the animal is carved from the back, meaning that much of the delicious belly meat is wasted (or is it being reserved for the kitchen staff?). But even worse, I see guests cutting off the crispy skin and fat, and discarding them. The horror.

Calamondin: juiced and preserved

Then again, most folks will juice a calamondin, and discard the rest of the fruit. I've found the rind and skin to be quite delicious, and have made marmalade with them. But I am also trying the salt preservation with calamondin akin to what is done with lemons. I'll report back with the results once they are ready.

Raw Uchi

2012-01-31T10:13:00.000-06:00

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the media event leading up to the formal opening of Uchi in Houston. It was a cocktail party, basically, although I feel that perhaps the composed nature of Tyson Cole's food better set in a more serene and contemplative environment. I was fascinated, however, by the selection of ingredients and execution at the sushi bar.

Uchi runs a tight ship, exceptionally clean. I've noticed a low representation of typical Gulf seafood such as shrimp, crawfish or oysters.

Wagyu beef.

Myoga, a relative of ginger grown for the edible bulbs.

Demurely hidden black truffles in rice.

Hamachi, precleaned and ready for slicing.

Atop the refrigerated display cases are the square bamboo sake cups filled with various dry ingredients. I commend the choice of flaked sea salt (I suspect Maldon) which the chef uses to great effect in various dishes. I didn't manage to take a picture of the chunks of bottarga lying out in the cups, ready to be shaved as a final flourish.

Did I actually get to taste anything? Well, yes, I did. And no doubt much of the Houston blogosphere will be abuzz with stories of the experience - I'll defer to that telling to the others for now. But I did find sections of the Uchi menu intriguing, and I look forward to trying it in the future.

Food Preservation

2012-01-29T10:06:00.001-06:00

Candied lemon slice.

Modern media has a remarkable love-hate relationship with preservatives. It's a paradox: on the one hand, we can only consume so much food at any one time, on the other, alarmists condemn food that has been preserved for later consumption. It's a decidedly first world issue: in cultures where starvation is a very real threat, and food availability is a concern, the skills and technology of refrigeration-free food preservation are valued.

You've heard those alarmist claims about how a Hostess Twinkie (or was it a McDonald's french fry?) is so synthetic that it doesn't rot. Basically, preservation involves retarding the growth of micro-organisms for as long as we can, applied right, a sandwich can last two years on the battlefield.

One technique is modifying the physical conditions: remove oxygen, keep the temperature too high or too low for microbes to grow. The problem with these is that it's energy intensive and fragile to keep around. Dehydration is another method, which is more stable, but it changes the chemical properties of the food item (just compare dried cilantro to fresh).

And then there's chemical preservation - but this is where lots of the bogeymen live. The very term preservatives carry some sort of stigma, but most of the claims are overblown. Demonizing nitrates in meat curing continues apace, despite few confirmed scientific evidence to any health effects. And how about those big three chemical preservatives that no one seems to object to: salt, sugar and alcohol.

Those things are so accepted that they aren't listed as preservatives, when in fact, they are in every sense chemical preservatives. High concentrations of salt or sugar dehydrate microbes, preventing their growth - that is how honey can keep at room temperature indefinitely, or how fish sauce is stable.

Or is it that artificial preservatives are the problem? Pure crystalline sucrose (table sugar) doesn't exist outside of human intervention - fitting the definition of artificial. If you call the compounds in a cup of tea by their formal chemical names, you'll come up with a bunch of fearsome sounding words - but it doesn't change their truly innocuous nature.

Big fruit

2012-01-25T14:07:00.002-06:00

Fresh whole jackfruit at Viet Hoa, Houston, TX. How this managed to get imported is a marvel of modern transportation technology. But I wonder who buys a whole fruit at a time?

To balance out the recent discussion of micro citrus, how about we talk about something big. I mean really big. The nangka or jackfruit is the largest tree borne fruit in the world. These things are massive, weighing in as much as 80 lbs, and despite being a tropical fruit, is now readily available in fresh form here in the Houston area. That means that the versatility of the fruit, being cooked as a vegetable in the unripe form, can be showcased in local dishes. The seeds can also be roasted, and served up like nuts.

But, in a pinch, the ripe flesh around the seeds are peeled off, and can be easily purchased canned in syrup. A can of jackfruit, and a can of coconut milk made for some very flavorful ice cream recently.

The tricky thing about jackfruit is that it is very stringy. To prepare it properly, one should cut across the strings to make them manageable.

Jackfruit Coconut Ice Cream

1 can jackfruit in syrup
1 can Thai coconut milk
1 cup milk
2 egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar (preferably brown)

Cut across the strings of the jackfruit into thin slices, and process into a fine puree in a food processor.

Heat up coconut milk and milk in a pot.

Mix the sugar and the egg yolks until smooth - should really dissolve the sugar. Temper the eggs with the hot milk mixture, and return to the pot, cooking into a custard much like a sauce Anglaise. Stir in the jackfruit puree, mix until smooth, and sit the pot in some ice water until chilled.

Process in an ice cream machine. Serve in small scoops with gingerbread.

Creating a memory

2012-01-12T13:52:00.002-06:00

There's nothing quite like watching a chef spread his creative wings and soar.

Steve Marques (formerly of Burger Guys and Yelapa, now executive chef for Tasting Room Uptown) treated some friends and myself to a special dinner. It explored some ideas we had discussed earlier, and a few cultural challenges. And I learned that Steve salivates over the idea of a culinary challenge. With gusto.

Our meal progressed much like a cooking show judging session, with Steve explaining what each course was to be, and began with a sashimi of tilefish, dressed with salt, serrano chile, and heated olive oil. A simple start. Auspicious.

Gumbo. In this case, oyster and mushroom gumbo, incorporating three kinds of mushrooms (including the meaty maitake), and served with an expertly prepared potato salad. Yes, potato salad, not rice. Turns out, this is actually more traditional, and works beautifully. The creamy tang of mayo, the sweet snap of pickles, and the dusky heat of the gumbo combine in a very satisfying manner. I have to add that the textural range of this dish was very much on point, from the lovingly caramelized roux, to the contrast of the mushrooms, to the barely cooked oysters and then the al dente potatoes - this was a knockout.

"Kare-Kare" Or, rather, an interpretation of it. Kare-kare is a Filipino dish of stewing meat (nowadays mostly oxtail, but any number of parts can be used what benefit from a long braise) cooked in annatto, ground peanuts, and toasted ground glutinous rice, and served with steamed vegetables and bagoong (fermented fish or shrimp paste). Steve's version braises high quality beef short ribs for 22 hours, in a jus containing the annatto, peanuts and glutinous rice, served alongside a packet of short grain rice steamed in a lotus leaf. That package (an homage to the Chinese zongzi) contained bits of tripe and vegetables and more toasted peanuts.

The Cheese Course. Two quenelles of house made ricotta, spiked generously with lemon peel, and covered with two different kinds of honey, accompanied with glasses of port wine. The one in the foreground is rosemary honey, the other is chestnut honey, each displaying remarkable differences in flavors, but both complementing the creamy ricotta admirably. I loved the herbal notes in the rosemary honey, but there are others who preferred the more robust chestnut honey by a little bit more. Just a little.

The Best Chocolate Ice Cream in the World. Steve credits learning to make this ice cream to Fergus Henderson and reveals that one secret is the use of duck egg yolks. But there's so much going on with this ice cream - a dark chocolate profile that lingers on the tongue, accompanied by the tang of dried cherries, and crunch of pistachios. And the herbal complement of the fresh thyme. Strangely, I think a touch of fleur de sel would just finished it nicely, but that's splitting hairs.

All told, an incredible edible milieu. Returning briefly to the "kare-kare" course - Steve asked me if he successfully captured the memory of kare-kare, having never had it himself. The tender short rib carried flavors and textures that were reminiscent of kare-kare - but it didn't capture the memory. That's not a complaint, though - it's inherently a significant challenge to recreating and reinterpreting a cultural memory from the just having it described. One can be inspired and create something delicious - as this was - but it isn't the same thing. And for many, once you attempt to evoke that memory, matching that archetype becomes the goal. Experiencing the different dishes and cultures are part of the maturation of a chef, and as close as Steve got to the real thing speaks volumes about his repertoire.

Though not quite kare-kare, this dish, in and of itself, is good. Instead of capturing a memory, it is creating a new one - one that a group has chosen to remember and describe for others.

Disclaimer: Dinner was provided gratis. Many thanks to the chef and to The Tasting Room Uptown for a wonderful dinner and experience.

Spot the difference

2012-01-09T10:12:00.000-06:00

In a previous post, BBQDude asked how to tell the difference between a kumquat and a calamondin. For one thing, the two fruits are texturally quite different, you can tell just by feeling them. Let's take a look at them up close.

Looking at a calamondin and a kumquat.

Kumquats have these very large cells on their rinds, which contain the aromatic oils characteristic of citrus fruit.

The cutaways are even more revealing: the calamondin is full of soft juicy pulp. Note the relative size of the seeds - although these fruits are quite small, the seed size nearly match those of the much larger lemon or orange.

In contrast, a kumquat has almost no pulp to speak of. In fact, what is prized for the kumquat is the rind, which is, peculiarly enough, quite sweet. And gets sweeter with extended chewing.

Playing the ice

2012-01-04T13:55:00.000-06:00

Making the Alinea prescribed mango soy wafer on a home-made anti griddle. A little ~~molecular gastronomy~~ modernist cooking with BBQDude.

In the last post, I tried to explain how salted ice can serve as way to freeze ice cream, because it'll draw the heat (energy) out of the canister as the salt dissolves. Dissolving stuff in water - salt, sugar, proteins, alcohol - all serve to lower the freezing point of water, and the higher the concentration, the lower the temperature will have to be to freeze. That's because as water freezes and forms crystals, the water molecules line up in an orderly fashion. Dissolved molecules interfere with ice molecules interacting with itself, and thus, prevents the whole from solidifying.

But, eventually, it freezes, right? Sea water, for example, freezes to form sea ice (not to be confused with ice bergs that are actually chunks of ice from land). Well, not really. When the temperature is dropped slowly, some water molecules will find each other and form a chunk of ice - but that means that the number of water molecules in the liquid phase went down. Meaning that the concentration of salt there just went up - so the temperature has to be even lower to freeze that. Microscopically, sea ice is made up of fresh water ice with small droplets of saturated brine encased therein. Given enough time, the brine should drain out, leaving behind unsalinated water.

This phenomenon of water only crystalizing with itself in solution is exploited as a way of dehydrating and concentrating certain solutions. For example, ice wine. To make ice wine, grapes are harvested and pressed when frozen. This results in a more concentrated juice, as the ice crystals left behind are entirely water - and the more concentrated juice results in the distinctively more intense flavor of the wine. A second form of ice wine (and to some degree, ice beer) comes from partially freezing the wine after fermentation, and sieving out the ice crystals - again, concentrating the liquid.

Frozen Science

2012-01-03T07:30:00.000-06:00

Although most folks nowadays buy ice cream, nothing really quite compares to home made ice cream, where you have control over the composition and flavors. Not to mention the freshly frozen confection has the best mouthfeel, as the longer it keeps, the crystals tend to grow (unless you have a commercial scale freezer).

Before there were machines, making ice cream was a messy affair - the cream had to be frozen while being agitated in a mixture of salt and water. This works due to the colligative properties of water - basically, even though pure water will freeze at 0°C, when something is dissolved in it, that freezing point will drop, such that even lightly salty water will remain liquid at 0°C. And the more concentrated the solution, the lower the freezing point will be.

Trivia fact: Water freezes at 32°F because Fahrenheit calibrated using a salt/water mixture. And he got it wrong a couple of ways.

So, when salt is added to ice, it begins to melt - but the energy to liquify the water has to come from somewhere. If you stick a thermometer in there, it will read colder than 0°C because heat will be drawn out of the thermometer into the liquifying ice. And if there's a canister of liquid cream in there, it'll start freezing, so start churning.

Now, hypothetically, if there's some way to hold this in a perfectly insulated vacuum, adding salt to ice will not allow it to melt as no additional energy can come into the system.

Incidentally, milk and cream is also basically a water-based solution, and thus, ice cream is actually held at a temperature lower than the freezing point of pure water - so why doesn't it cause frostbite? That's a story for another time - but it has something to do with the air that is incorporated when the confection is churned while being frozen.

Small fruit

2012-01-02T11:08:00.001-06:00

Sadly, this year I didn't get to cook with BBQDude in his new Eastern household, but looks like the Dude spread was delicious and the tradition stands. I'll have to make it up to the Boston area soon to make up for the lack.

A necessary byproduct of cooking is, well, food - and the necessary posse of people to consume it. I didn't cook as much this year as I didn't have the crew to eat it all. But I had a chance to play with a bounty of micro citrus.

The calamondin (Citrofortunella microcarpa) is a citrus plant that grows pretty well in Texas, and is often grown as decorative plants. The bright orange fruit contrasts nicely with the dark green foliage, and look like really small oranges.

Don't confuse them with kumquats, though, as these are really tart. Kumquats will have to be a fruit discussed in a different posting.

In Southeast Asian cooking, calamondin plays a major role, being squeezed over fried foods to brighten up flavors, or used in drinks. It's a floral acidity unlike lemons or limes, and is gaining popularity with chefs. I found that the rind, however, doesn't get much appreciation. The ripe calamondin peel has a nice subtle sweetness to it, and is relatively thin. So, I made calamondin marmalade. It's actually really easy to make, except for the part of deseeding the fruit. Despite the size, each calamondin has a good number of fairly large seeds in them, and removing them can be a long chore.

After deseeding, I cut up the fruit roughly, tossed it with about a third as much by weight in sugar, and threw the whole mess into the oven for the next hour or two (I was doing other baking). No additional water added.

And this emerged.

Calamondin marmalade

Delicious over fresh waffles, pound cake, ice cream, etc. There's plenty of pectin in citrus, so this should work with just about any citrus fruit. I just stored it in the freezer, forgoing the trouble of canning it - although that will work as well.

Favorite food experiences of 2011

2011-12-28T10:24:00.000-06:00

Writing a blog is often akin to the modern diary. One is able to look back and see how things changed. 2011 was quite an interesting year in food, both in travel and domestically. Even late in the year, I continued to experience some notable culinary items. I share my remembrances of the most notable restaurant experiences I had, as we all look forward to what 2012 offers. These are the dishes that I would be happy to return to, and have again. I hope you'll get a chance to try them, too.

Miso Butter Ramen, Cafe Kubo, Houston. Rich, flavorful, and not what most stereotypically think of Japanese food in Texas. The pat of cold butter that melts as you mix the hot broth up is key. It is comfort food, with just a touch of the exotic.

Taiwanese Lucky Cake, Six Ping Bakery, Houston, TX. Salted duck egg yolks, raisins, and pork fat combine in a riotous combination of flavors and textures. This is one of the pricier options in this otherwise inexpensive bakery, but well worth getting. Also, it's seldom labelled in English. Don't miss out on the quail egg bao, though.

Fish Tamales, Hugo's, Houston, TX. Takes guts to put something as delicate as fish into the robust masa package of a Mexican tamale, but Hugo dares.

Crispy fried intestines, Mala Sichuan Bistro, Houston, TX. At the moment, Mala is the focus of quite a bit of foodie buzz, and well deserved. The young restaurant has already tweaked its menu with some unique offerings, and is quickly introducing the Houston public to the maddening pleasures of the Sichuan peppercorn. Though I've tasted some amazingly well seasoned dishes here, from duck to konjac, the intestines surprised me with its delicacy and texture.

Mangalitsa pork chop, braised fennel, blue cheese mash, Max's Wine Dive, Houston, TX. A special creation by Steve Marques, then sous chef at Max's, he has since moved on to Tasting Room Uptown. By combining all the components in a bite, the melange elevates beyond the sum of its parts.

Spicy Spinach, Peppersoup Cafe, Houston, TX. We may be encountering a growth of African cooking in Houston, spearheaded by idealistic entrepreneurs wanting to evangelize the cuisine. While I enjoyed the fritters and signature pepper soups here, my mind remains on the spinach. Humble in appearance, it packed a flavor punch the stands up to the heat of the feast.

Crispy beef cake, Yummy Kitchen, Houston, TX. Fetishists of Taiwanese cooking tend to focus on stinky tofu (chou doufu), and Yummy can deliver on that front. In fact, newcomers are often alarmed by the acrid aroma usually not associated with freshly cooked food. Those that persevere, however, are awarded with some delicious creations. Don't overlook the funnily named crispy beef cake, which layers braised seasoned beef and scallions in crispy fried thin pastry. A savory creation, it affords the textural and flavor diversity that is addictive and substantial.

Sadly, I don't have much in the way of desserts to report in the Houston area. It's a plight that I am not alone in bemoaning. But did have a couple of notable sweet items this year outside of the city.

Burnt marshmallow and nutella liquid nitrogen milkshake, Flipburger, Atlanta, GA. The use of liquid nitrogen was pretty much just eye candy (and this photograph has superior eye candy already), but the flavor combination of nutella and burnt marshmallows is enlightening.

Pinoy flavor macarons, Bagoong Club, Manila, Philippines. The restaurant scene in Manila has ballooned, and truly great fusion concepts converging in the megalopolis. Flavors here included ube (purple yam), tablea (raw chocolate), calamansi, and toasted coconut. The texture was spot on, and the flavors bright and sparkly.

I do have a couple of beverages to share with you. I think these are under appreciated gems. Move aside, champagne.

Mint tea service, Casbah Couscous Grill, Houston, TX. Perhaps the last remaining Moroccan restaurant in Houston, Casbah serves up a traditional mint tea, poured with a flourish from tea pots. One finds oneself unable to stop drinking this stuff, shared among friends, wiling away the time over tagine and couscous. It's hospitality captured in a cup, refilled over and over again.

Drinking Chocolate, Cafe Luz Houston. The scientific genus of the cacao plant is Theobroma, which is Latin for "food of the gods" - and the smooth, subtly sweet concoction holds true to that appellation. Using single source chocolate that is locally roasted and ground (very local - in nearby Spring), the different batches reflect the complex personalities of the beans and methods chosen. Chocolate with character and depth - what better way to welcome hope for the year to come.

Pet Peeve: Healthier

2011-12-22T11:18:00.000-06:00

As we roll into the thick of the "festive" season, not only are people eating with greater abandon, but the backlash with regards to nutrition is building. And this question of "healthier" eating picks out pariahs and saints of food.

I've witnessed parents pick out Gatorade(TM) and other "sports drinks" as "healthier" to drink for their children over soda. But this stuff was formulated for athletes under high exertion. Many who quaff the artificially colored salty sugar water is doing sports mostly through TV console avatars.

But what's missing here is the issue of amount and circumstance. Very few things are universally "healthy" - the question of nutrition and how it affects health is a dynamic one, and can be influenced strongly by lifestyle choices.

Packaged pre-sliced apples. Healthier? Depends. More expensive? Absolutely.

In general, though, omnivorism, encouraging inclusion of a diverse definition of food, maximizes the options of what are available to the diner, depending on the particular circumstance. A self-imposed restriction, particularly if it subscribes to a community, outsources the responsibility to choose.

Canned vegetarian "choplets".

Science proceeds apace. We know now that a little bit of sugar helps establish dietary satiety, and some fats provide cardiovascular protective effects. And at the end of the day, whether something is healthier for you is a question of taking personal responsibility, to take the item in context with your life.

But sodas, most supplements, alkalized water, and "organic"? Waste of money.

What ever happened to them?

2011-12-16T13:51:00.002-06:00

Here's a blast from the past:

The guys from Eepybird were among the first internet video pioneers, who hit upon using the propulsive force of putting the rough textured Mentos candies into carbonated beverages to make kinetic and performance art.

They have since secured sponsorships (from Coke and Mentos, of course), and gone on to making additional kinds of art, but there's something truly mesmerizing about that explosive fizz of adding Mentos to the bottle.

Their latest? Human propulsion. I think gas is still cheaper for the mileage.

Be Distinct

2011-12-13T12:01:00.000-06:00

More often than not, prepared food is reviewed on the basis of archetypes. Most restaurant reviews and subsequent discussions center are dishes that can be found in common - hence never-ending hairsplitting over minutiae of the ideal steak, hamburger, banh mi, spaghetti, pizza, General Tso's chicken, pad thai, brisket, burrito, or California sushi rolls. In a vicious cycle, restaurant proprietors feel trapped within these archetypes, and seldom venture out to producing items distinct and unique for fear of disconnecting with prospective customers.

Thus, discovering dishes of distinction is a phenomenon to be celebrated.

Cup of awesome. Drinking chocolate from Cafe Luz.

I've written before that what most people call hot chocolate is actually hot cocoa. Fact is, hot drinking chocolate is a very rare thing to find most places in America, much less in our little corner of Houston. For the colder months, Cafe Luz is offering drinking chocolate, and it is very much the real thing. Rich, thick, and wonderfully restrained in sweetness, this is the sipping beverage that warms the soul and calms the mind. Treated this way, the complexity of the chocolate blooms, and one appreciates the multitude layers of flavor with every sip. Don't quaff this, take your time.

About the only thing that would complete the experience would be some hot churros.

As a bonus, I learned that the chocolate itself was roasted and prepared in the Houston area. Tejas Chocolates are based out of Spring, and are not (only) chocolatiers, but also chocolate makers. They import beans, roast and process them here to make their single source bars (also sold at Cafe Luz). I don't subscribe to the "local for local sake" ideals, but I do agree that the time is ripe for artisanal attention to chocolate preparation. Chocolate making joins in synchrony with the passion of the emergent artisanal coffee movement, the burgeoning craft beer brewing industry, and the mature cheese and wine industries. Surely, a market for the possible range of possible flavors, textures, and applications for distinct chocolate products can develop in Houston and beyond.

European Chocolate

2011-12-12T12:14:00.000-06:00

When you hear the phrase "European Chocolate", what country do you think about? Belgium comes to mind easily, as does France and Switzerland. Spanish chocolate carries a somewhat different connotation.

However, many other European countries make chocolates - including those not conventionally thought of as chocolate makers. I took a sampling from four locations, and conducted blind taste tests. I chose bars that were specifically just labeled dark chocolate, no inclusions, and were sampled at room temperature with sips of water. Tasters came to remarkably similar conclusions.

Wedel, from Poland. Dark, rich, complex, this chocolate's flavor evolves as it melts on the tongue.

Ülker, from Turkey. More bitter notes suggest the inclusion of coffee, but surprisingly enjoyable.

The Polish and Turkish chocolates were consistently ranked on top, often changing spots depending on the taster, but they definitely were considered head and shoulders above the other two.

Dorina, from Croatia

Laima, from Latvia - a remarkably sweet bar for being dark chocolate.

The lower ranked chocolates, from Croatia and Latvia, were not inherently poor chocolates, but when tasted alongside the other two, highlighted their poor notes. Laima, in particular, was chided for tasting almost like milk chocolate.

These bars are usually more affordable than their more famous Swiss or Belgian brethren. Enjoy - Poland, in particular, has a long history of chocolate making, with competition between the Wedel and Wawel factories.

Skirting the bottle

2011-12-07T15:06:00.001-06:00

America has an addiction to the bottle. Well, the other bottle: bottled water. In some situations, bottled water is justified - you're off someplace with no tap, or maybe you're in the desert. But to most people, bottled water is just a luxury item, a marketer's weapon used so glibly on an obliging public. Leave it to Penn & Teller to spell it out in entertaining terms (watch for the serving of Agua de Culo - they didn't translate that one).

The travesty of bottled water is documented in multiple ways since, not only as an economic issue but potentially an environmental hazard as well. No matter, though, as the allure of bottled water is its luxury cachet.

How would you like VERY expensive bottled water under the tree this holiday season?

Bottled water with its exorbitant premium over regular tap water is also a cash cow for some retailers. Some establishments refuse to even offer tap water, forcing patrons to purchase bottled water (although I understand this is against regulations). But the backlash against the ubiquitous plastic water bottle is slowly afoot.

From the cooler at Pete's Fine Meats.

Boxed water, anyone?

Two little fishies

2011-12-06T10:41:00.001-06:00

Exmoor Toasts, Feast, Houston,TX

I've read about the Exmoor Toasts at Feast in Houston. People wax rhapsodic about the combination of anchovy, clotted cream and toasted bread, and I was eager to try them. I've eaten at Feast before, although I didn't get to try Exmoor Toasts back then. But I had great hopes - the unconventional combination (which is potentially kosher if pork fat was excluded) seems promising.

Sadly, to my own palate, the toasts were ... nondescript. The oily fish, combined rich clotted cream, lost its flavorful punch, while canceling out the distinct luxurious notes of the cream. As my dining companion quipped, it may as well have been cheaper cream cheese. Only the crispness of the toast provided any counterpoint. A bit of parsley and lemon would have brought the dish forward. Not that it was a bad dish by any means, I simply found it serviceable and unremarkable. Which is only a poor point given the exalted expectations.

In contrast, a recent visit to Friends' Kitchen (9889 Bellaire) yielded this comparably priced plate of fried female capelins. The smelt, many pregnant with roe, where crusted with rice flour, and seasoned with a melange of chiles and sichuan peppercorns. The fish were eaten bones, fins and all, and each bite was redolent with a punch of mala and a riot of textures from crunchy to meaty. The fish was as addicting as popcorn, and substantial enough to be a meal.

The food that tastes you back

2011-11-28T19:10:00.001-06:00

Tongue usually counts as one of those exotic organ meats people automatically develop some pyschological aversion to. Maybe it is the strange texture: after all, the tongue is unique among skeletal muscles. Most of the muscle eaten as meat are attached to bone and under voluntary control; all the muscle fibers are oriented in the same direction as the original muscle only needs to move in one axis. Thus, there are optimum ways of carving meat like a skirt steak, to cut through the fibers and make it easier to eat.

The tongue, however, moves omnidirectionally, thus, the muscle fibers there run in all sorts of directions. There really isn't an optimum cut, and the whole thing needs to be cooked until tender. On the other hand, there's no bone to contend with.

Here in Houston, (beef) tongue is often encountered as lengua in tortas and tacos, but that tongue meat has been shredded into unrecognizable bits. Tongue can also be found sliced thinly in delis for sandwiches.

In Mexico, I encountered right proper Mexican lengua stew. The tongue is stewed in tomatoes and spices, and then cut into generous half inch slices. It was delicious with freshly baked telera bread. Now that's the way to enjoy this unique cut of the cow.

Guess the product

2011-11-26T09:01:00.000-06:00

I spotted this in a market in Jalisco, Mexico. Care to guess what little brown particles in the bag are? Hint: it's not coffee.

Legislating Tomatoes

2011-11-16T14:40:00.001-06:00

Tomato carpaccio

The distaste Americans have for vegetables extends into adulthood - to make it easier to conform to the letter of the mandate to get children to eat more vegetables, Congress is passing a bill that effectively allows a slice of pizza to be counted as a serving of vegetables. The justification? That the small amount of tomato paste on the pizza suffices as vegetables.

Preposterous.

Because, of course, a tomato is really a fruit.

Or is it? Enter another piece of legislation: in 1893, the US Supreme Court declared it a vegetable. What is with all this legislation trumping science and common sense anyway?

Fact is, we are skirting around the true mission: to expand the nutritional and culinary repertoire of our youth. Unfortunately, a lot of money is riding on profiting from keeping things monotonous - makes for a dependence on easily industrialized food systems. Our school systems waste good food as it stands - these arcane regulations only open the avenue for gaming by lobbyists who don't have the health of children in mind.

And I'll bet that pizza was prefrozen and tastes like cardboard.

Savory Starch redux

2011-11-14T13:37:00.001-06:00

Here in Houston, one of my favorite bakeries (well, there aren't really that many) makes a rice pudding empanada. But who's to say that the starch in starch combination is unique to Houston?

A popular street food item in Japan is yakisoba pan. Yakisoba are basically stir fried noodles. These are in turn stuffed into a long roll, and behold - a noodle sandwich. It's actually quite good when done right, and I should the perfect portable carboloading bullet for your marathon run.

Yes we have bananas

2011-11-07T14:42:00.002-06:00

You've heard the stories, right? About how the banana is doomed for extinction. Because all bananas are clones of each other, and because of the Panama fungal blight, the monoculture cannot evolve resistance. Well, truth is, that's only for the Cavendish banana, which turns out to the most imported fruit into USA. There are many varieties of bananas, although and infrastructure that matches the processing, shipping, and cultural acceptance of the Cavendish will take a while to redevelop in the aftermath.

So, what do some of these other banana varieties look like?

The "saba" - a cooking banana.

The thinner skinned latundan.

The lakatan.

The lakatan has a distinctive yellow flesh, and a floral aroma.

By the way, the "seedlessness" is the consequence of triploidy. But you knew that already.

Best kind of flattery

2011-11-01T13:55:00.003-05:00

Something looks really familiar about them.

I spotted a Colombian chocolate milk drink in the supermarket last night. Something about it seems awfully familiar.