Noodle Station

Occasion: Pre-pub-crawl snack
Location: Noodle Station at the intersection of Skólavörðustígur (damn - that took 5 min to type!) and Týsgata in Reykjavik, Iceland
Edibles: beef noodle soup (950 ISK or ~$8)

Musings: We weren't expecting much and popped in out of curiousity more than anything. How *is* Chinese food in Iceland?

Pretty mediocre, as it turns out. Neither the beef nor the broth were very good - the former being tough and chewy, and the latter tasting completely artificial and chemical-y. Pass on this one.

Social Eatz

Occasion: Lunch with Meredith and Mike, with lots of ex-Death Star crew
Location: Social Eatz on 53rd between 2nd and 3rd (socialeatz.com)
Edibles: I had the bulgogi burger and fries, and a bite of Meredith's spring rolls and chop salad

Musings: Social Eatz is the new eatery of Top Chef Season 7 finalist Angelo Sosa. It's Asian fusion - not exactly a shocker for anyone who's seen Angelo cook on TV. But I actually like the concept here - Asian-inspired burgers, tacos, etc. Casual streetfood, in a yuppie diner setting. The menu's got some cheeky, fun items like the Imperialist Hot Dog, and some cringingly pretentious ones like the Chili-Kissed Tilapia Tacos.

The shrimp and chicken spring rolls were flavorful, but surprisingly heavy considering the ingredients. The chop salad not a hit with the table - it's a tiny little portion, and the so-called six minute egg was barely cooked long enough to hold together. Meredith rightly avoided the egg; the runny yolk would have completely drowned the small amount of lettuce.

I got the bulgogi burger with a side of fries. First of all, potatoes are dirt cheap, Angelo - your burgers should come with fries. Second, my burger was way underdone. I mean, it was literally half raw. Not rare. Raw. I practically like my steaks still mooing, but that burger was on the borderline of what I'd eat (v. what I'd send back and ask them to cook longer). Another person in our group left her burger patty half uneaten for the same reason. So please ask your diners how they like their burgers.

That said, I think the concepts of the bulgogi burger, bibimbap burger and Korean taco are genius. I love the salt-sweet flavor of the beef, accented by the tart bite of the pickles. I'd come back to try those latter two.

Xi'an Famous Foods, part II

Occasion: More food court explorations with Mom
Location: Xi'an Famous Foods, also in the Flushing Mall food court - 39th Ave off Main St in Flushing, Queens
Edibles: lamb (or possibly goat - it's the same word in Chinese) offal soup; noodles with braised pork and cabbage

Musings: If you're wondering why I'd order such a crazy-sounding soup, let me state for the record that I've had it in Asia and, when done right, it can be awesomely tasty. The key qualifier, however, is "when done right." As it certainly was not, here.

I had one spoonful and that was plenty. All the unpleasant tastes that offal can impart were all there in that one soup - the bitter chemical taste of digestive organs, the iron-blood taste of liver, the general gaminess of lamb. Ugh. My mom had a little more than I did, but eventually even she had to concede that it was just awful. After a few minutes, I actually had to get up and throw it out - even the smell was making me a bit queasy. Epic fail.

The hand-cut noodles with braised pork were better, but also a bit lacking in technique. Some of the noodles were really thin while others were really thick and doughy, and almost all of them were too long to eat in a single bite. The braised pork was yummy, though.

[Note: As unlikely a dish as it is to order in a food court, the steak may be the way to go. A couple sitting nearby had one and it looked great.]

Ay Chung

Occasion: Lunch with my mom
Location: Ay Chung, in the Flushing Mall food court - 39th Ave off Main St in Flushing, Queens
Edibles: cuttlefish soup

Musings: Too hungry to wait patiently for a table at the always-crowded Asian Jewels, we popped across the street to the Flushing Mall food court.

We started with Ay Chung's cuttlefish soup. It's actually pretty good - a cornstarch-thickened bonito broth, lots of cuttlefish dumplings and lots of fresh cilantro. A nice little snack for around $3.

Mmmm... my mom's meatballs

Mom's Meatballs

1 lb of ground pork
1 egg
sesame oil
soy sauce
rice wine (I've substituted vodka in a pinch)
scallions, finely chopped
ginger, grated (I use a rasp)
salt and pepper
1 tbsp cornstarch for the meat + 1 tsp for the cornstarch slurry
water
cooking oil (not olive)

As you can see, there are a lot of ingredients in common with the dumpling filling recipe. In fact, you can season 3 lbs of pork and split off 1 lb to make meatballs to save some work. The difference between the two recipes: NO shrimp or napa cabbage in the meatballs; NO cornstarch in the dumpling filling. They have all the other ingredients in common.

Once you've marinated the meat for a while with the seasonings, add 1 tbsp of cornstarch and enough water so that the meat mixture is almost soupy, but still firm enough to hold a shape. Start with ¼ cup of water, then add more if it's still dry-looking.

To make the meatballs: First, heat a skillet with about half an inch of cooking oil on medium heat. (I like canola but you can use something else. Just don't use olive oil - the smoking point is too low.)

Make some cornstarch slurry - just 1 tsp of cornstarch dissolved in 3-4 tbsp of water. Dip a metal soup spoon in the slurry, then scoop out a spoonful of the meat mixture. Using the spoon and the palm of your opposite hand, form a nice smooth meatball. No harm if it's not perfectly spherical - in fact, if you've got the texture right, it'll flatten out slightly when you put it in the pan.

Gently place the meatballs in the hot oil. Fry until brown on one side, then carefully turn over and repeat on the other side. This step is just for developing some flavor from the browning - don't expect to cook the meatball through. When browned, remove to a cookie sheet to cool.

At this point, you can put the meatballs in plastic containers and freeze them. I drizzle in a little of the oil they cooked in, along with any browned bits - it gives extra flavor to whatever dish you use the meatballs in. They'll keep about six months in the deep freeze.

Otherwise, you can go ahead and finish cooking them in a number of recipes. In my family, we usually have them in a soup made of chicken stock, napa cabbage, tofu and shiitake mushrooms. You can throw together a makeshift pho with wide rice noodles, chicken stock and cilantro. These meatballs will also work in a marinara sauce, over spaghetti. They're generally a good resource to have on hand.

Alternative preparation: We do a few "crunchies" at the end, as a sort of cook's treat. These are about a third the size of the regular meatballs, only about 1 tbsp each. Fry them until they're very brown and crisp on the outside, and cooked all the way through.

Mmmm... "red-cooked" tilapia

"Red-Cooked" Tilapia

a fresh tilapia, about a pound and a half
⅓ cup soy sauce
⅓ cup water
4 scallions, cut into 2-inch pieces
3-4 slices of ginger
2-3 cloves of garlic, cracked with the flat of your knife but not chopped
1 tbsp sugar
a splash of cooking wine
3 tbsp oil

I'm so happy to have found several sources for fresh tilapia in New York. In the city, there's the Chinese supermarket on Elizabeth (near Hester). Both of the big stores on Main Street in Flushing have it as well. I emphatically cannot guarantee any worthwhile results with frozen fish - my mom attempted to make this dish with a frozen tilapia from Whole Foods once, and it tasted terrible and stunk up my apartment to boot.

The fishmonger should have cleaned and scaled the fish for you. Give it a quick rinse and blot, and go over it with an angled paring knife to catch any scales they might have missed.

In a large skillet or wok, heat up a few tablespoons of cooking oil. When it's nice and hot, give the scallions, garlic and ginger a quick toast. Slide the fish in. Dissolve the sugar in the soy sauce, and add it, the water and a splash of cooking wine to the pan.

It takes about 10 min per side on medium heat (so the liquid's bubbling gently). Use two spatulas to turn it - very carefully, so it doesn't fall apart - halfway through cooking. Decant the whole thing onto a large platter, deep enough to hold all the sauce. You can't eat the ginger but the scallions and garlic are quite tasty so pile them on top.

If you have any leftovers, cover and refrigerate. The next day, you will notice the sauce is jellied - that's the natural gelatin from the bones in the fish. To revive it, pour some Chinese black vinegar (or balsamic is a fair substitute) over the whole thing and eat at room temperature. I actually like it this way so much that I usually try to talk my mom into cooking an extra fish to set aside for this express purpose.

Enjoy!

Mmmm... homemade dumplings (jiaozi / gyoza)

Mom's Dumplings

2 lbs of ground pork
½ lb of shrimp, shelled, de-veined and chopped
1 - 2 napa cabbages (a.k.a. Chinese cabbage or bok choi), finely chopped
2 eggs
sesame oil
soy sauce
rice wine (I've substituted vodka in a pinch)
scallions, finely chopped
ginger, grated (I use a rasp)
salt and pepper
~300 dumpling wrappers

The flavoring is highly, highly subjective. I personally like a lot of ginger, sesame oil and pepper. My mom likes it more delicately seasoned. One thing to consider is that you'll want to salt it on the heavy side, as salt leaches out during the boiling, and what tastes a bit salty when freshly made will end up just right.

Pork: Season with some splashes of sesame oil, soy sauce, rice wine, the ginger and scallions, and some salt and pepper. (If you're not comfortable seasoning without measurements, take it easy - you can always add more after testing it.) Add the chopped shrimp. Crack in two eggs as a binding agent. Let the pork mixture marinate a bit while you deal with the napa cabbage.

Napa cabbage: Fair warning, if you chop the cabbage by hand, it will take a bleeping long time. We discovered that the cross-cut blade on a mandoline works great - you just hold the whole cabbage by the base and grate the whole head. Don't try to do this step in a food processor - it will pulp your vegetable too badly.

When it's all chopped, salt it generously to draw out some of the water (regular table salt will do here - no point in wasting your nice kosher or sea salts). Give it a bit of a massage to work in the salt, and after 5-10 minutes, squeeze out as much water as you can, one small lump at a time in your hands. If you have a potato ricer, it's perfect for this task. Mix the dehydrated cabbage with the pork.

Testing: Make a small patty out of the filling and fry it in a small skillet until fully cooked. Taste for seasoning - correct as needed. Make another test patty if you were pretty far off the first time; no need if you just did a little tweaking.

Wrappers: For our semi-annual dumpling-making enterprise, my mom brings fresh wrappers from Vancouver. (There's a shop under the Granville Bridge that makes fresh noodles that makes them.) They're fantastic: just the right thickness and really resilient and elastic.

You can get frozen wrappers from any Chinese grocer. Be sure to get the round, white wrappers. (The square, yellowish ones are for wontons.) We've experimented with a few brands, but found them all to be somewhat substandard - on the thin side, very dry and brittle. But you can make do with them.

As a final option, you can make your own wrappers. The dough is just flour and hot water. You want to knead it a fair amount to develop the gluten. It'll be a hard, dense texture, far stiffer than bread or pasta dough. The tricky part is to find someone who's handy with a rolling pin to roll out small rounds about 4 inches in diameter. This option has a fairly high degree of difficulty and I wouldn't recommend it for beginners. You would definitely have a head start if you're an experienced baker with a good "touch" for doughs.

The amount of filling in the recipe above will make about 300 dumplings. (It's not as much as it sounds! They go quick!)

Assembly: Place about a tablespoon of filling in the middle of the wrapper, wet the edges of the wrapper with water, fold over and seal. The clumsiest seal is just to press the edges together, flat. My dad starts at one end and makes little pinch-pleats until he gets to the other. My mom pinches the wrapper together in the middle, then seals up the two open ends in a gentle crescent shape.

Place line them up on a cookie sheet (in a single layer) and freeze for one to five hours. Then you can put them in plastic freezer bags for long-term storage. Make sure they're pretty solidly frozen before you move them into bags or they will smush and fuse together under their own weight and be very hard to separate later. The dumplings will last about six months in the deep freeze.

Cooking: Bring a big pot of water to the boil. You want plenty of water for them to swim around in, or they'll stick horribly to each other. You want to stir the water gently and continuously from the moment they go in until they start to float on their own. If they sink to the bottom of the pot and stay there, they will also stick horribly and you will rip the wrapper and boil all the flavor out of the filling. Suboptimal, after all the work you went through to make them. They're done a couple of minutes after they're all floating on the surface.

It obviously takes less time too cook a fresh dumpling the day you make them than one that's been frozen solid. If you're unsure how long to boil something of this size so it's definitely cooked all the way through, best give it a few extra minutes just to be sure.

To eat, I like a simple dipping sauce of either sesame oil and soy sauce, or Chinese black rice vinegar and soy sauce. My mom adds a good squirt of sriracha. If it's for a meal, I'd say portion about 15 per person (though it can be up to 30 or 40 if you're feeding a bottomless pit of a teenager).

There's a Chinese custom to pour some of the cooking water into whatever sauce you have left over, and drink it as a soup. I do it once in a while myself, but this part is most definitely optional.

Cooked leftovers: Keep them on a plate, so that they're not touching. Cover with cling film and refrigerate. The next day, you can put them in a skillet with a little oil and make potstickers. (Note that you can't make potsickers directly from frozen so you might want to boil some extras on purpose.)

Happy Beef Noodle House

Occasion: Post-US Open (Sharapova def Benesova; Djokovic def Petzschner) snack with Yining
Location: Happy Beef Noodle House on Prince between 38th and 39th Ave in Flushing, Queens
Edibles: noodles with stewed beef and tendon

Musings: Generally speaking, a very good effort and hard to beat for the price. The highlight for me was the stewed beef. My mom couldn't have done it better, and that's saying something. Really flavorful and falling-apart tender.

Some minor critiques: 1) the tendon could have had a bit more bite to it, i.e. not been cooked quite so soft; 2) the noodles aren't as good as Lanzhou - if only they could combine their powers; 3) the broth was a little thin for my taste, though Yining liked it fine.

On the way out, we also discovered an interesting-looking food truck. There was a yummy-looking chop I thought was pork, though their menu only listed lamb chops. A mystery. We were both stuffed and sadly unable to sample the goods. Next time, next time....

Xinkaiyuan Hotel

Occasion: Dinner before the Zhang Yimou West Lake show

Location: Xinkaiyuan Hotel in Hangzhou, China (newkaiyuan.com)

Edibles: Our second Chinese feast of the day! Drunken chicken; marinated jellyfish; stewed bamboo and pork; spicy cauliflower; black wood ear (a type of edible fungus); raw crab; a sort of Chinese chowder; baby shrimp with vinegar; chopped spinach; baby peas; braised pumpkin

(click to enlarge - isn't Picasa Collage Creator great?)

Musings: A place clearly targeting tourists. Instead of a menu, they have photos or display versions of all their dishes. Just point and give them your money.

Dinner was a bit of a food flurry but a couple of things stood out. I thought the below dish deserved special mention. Yes, it is a dish consisting entirely of cured pork belly or as I call it, Chinese bacon. I could subsist on this dish and white rice (and maybe a vitamin supplement to ward off scurvy) for months.

Honorable mention goes to the spicy cauliflower stir-fry, garnished with chives and julienned Chinese bacon - it's the one in the silver wok. I can't think of the last time I was suprised by a cauliflower dish. It's a pretty boring vegetable but this recipe really makes it shine. (I think it's doable at home. Stay tuned for my recipe-testing shenanigans.)

[Postscript: Zhang Yimou's "Impression West Lake" is AMAZING. They built some crazy infrastructure into the lake so the performers all look like they're walking on water. A tragic love story, really interesting lighting effects, great costumes, great music. If you find yourself in that part of China, I highly recommend you check it out.]

Grandma's Kitchen

Occasion: Lunch after touring West Lake Park
Location: Grandma's Kitchen in Hangzhou (it looks like there's multiple locations on the business card, but they're all in Chinese so I can't make out any specifics)
Edibles: (from left to right, top down) sautéed baby shrimp; spicy marinated tripe; fish stew with a tomato broth; chicken gizzards; sliced pork; bean sprouts; marinated eggplant; fried tofu rolls with sweet and sour dipping sauce; spinach with dried shrimp; teriyaki beef with an egg

Musings: A 12-course feast, for about $15 USD per person. Can't beat that. The clay pot chicken (not pictured) was the highlight. We saw one on just about every table we passed, and for good reason. The chicken was moist and flavorful and had a great crispy skin - yeah, don't know how they managed that in the clay pot.

This is the kind of meal I wish I could feed to people who say they don't like Chinese food. I think what they're really saying they don't like the dreck that's served in those crappy Chinese takeout places.... which is about as far from Chinese cuisine as Taco Bell is from real Mexican. Yes, there are some challenging items - tofu products, offal - but they're prepared with skill and confidence, and taste pretty darn good. All you have to do is keep an open mind.

Mmmm... Yangcheng hairy crab

As if the almost psychotic level of hospitality he'd already shown us wasn't enough, my uncle produced a massive platter of these suckers at dinner. The Chinese mitten crab, a.k.a. the Shanghai hairy crab. Although they can be found all along eastern Asia, the best specimens are supposed to originate from Yangcheng Lake. Bourdain ate some of these crabs in his Shanghai episode, No Reservations Season Three. They're considered quite the delicacy - my own grandfather would sometimes fly to China for a weekend during the height of the season, just to eat them.

A close-up of my victim. A pretty cute little guy, about the size of my palm.

Now deconstructed:

It takes about twenty minutes and a lot of patience to really pick one of these guys clean. The meat is extremely fine-grained, with a subtle, delicate flavor. Good enough to eat completely unadulterated, or accented with a quick dip in some light Chinese rice wine vinegar.

While very yummy, I don't quite understand the whole to-do over these crabs. I think my west coast Dungeness (cheaper, meatier and extremely tasty all in all) could give them a run for their money.

Song He Lou

Occasion: Lunch after touring the Humble Administrator's Garden
Location: Song He Lou (The Pine and Crane), 198 Shantang Street in Suzhou (which is, confusingly, just a city and not a province)
Edibles: yin yang spinach and tofu soup (pictured above); lots of small dishes (pictured below left to right, top to bottom) - an unidentified vegetable, sautéed; another indentified vegetable, chopped, with mushrooms; honey-braised pumpkin; sautéed baby shrimp; marinated jellyfish; rice cakes with sweet and sour sauce; Chinese broccoli with soy sauce; bok choi with cured ham

Musings: As is common in the area, the meal started with a fantastic assortment of cold dishes. Mystery veg #2 (the bright green one) and the pumpkin were my favorites.

We came in at the tail end of their lunch service, after the head chef had already ended his shift, so they could only produce a limited selection of their hot dishes. I thought they over-sauced the rice cakes but I loved the bok choi, which was topped with the Chinese equivalent of bacon. Mmmm... bacon...

I enjoyed the meal and thought the food was pretty good. My folks, with their more educated Chinese palates, deemed it decent but rather primitive and rudimentary. I guess that averages out to about a "B"?

Mmmm... lotus seeds

Location: The Humble Administrator's Garden (a UNESCO World Heritgage site)

While touring the garden, we saw this lady paddling around in what looked like a wooden bathtub, selling lotus seed pods to the tourists. Of course, I had to get one.

The pod is fist-sized, and you pry the seeds out the spongy, leathery pod. Once extricated, you peel off the pale green skin and eat the white seed inside, avoiding the bitter sprout in the middle. The seed is mostly flavorless and tastes sort of like a chickpea.

This is the lotus plant: leaves, flowers and pods. It's an aquatic plant that grows like wildfire if you let it. For the eagle-eyed, one of the pods is visible in the lower left corner of the photo (click to enlarge). Incidentally, the word for "showerhead" in Chinese comes from the lotus seed pod.

Congee Village

Occasion: Comfort food takeout
Location: Congee Village on Allen between Delancey and Broome (sunsungroup.com/congeevillage)
Edibles: Five Spices duck; pork and preserved egg congee; fish congee

Musings: Cold weather + a touch of the sniffles = Congee Time! I can make the plain version for myself, using a short-grained Japanese rice. But today I was craving the savory Cantonese version, which has an altogether different texture. (OK, it's not unlike a bowl of paste. But be open-minded - oatmeal and grits are in the same goopy family.)

The pork congee was fine but the fish one had tons of little bones in it - I found one in almost every other bite. I think they used trimmings, or parts near the belly. Poor form there. The duck was not roasted, as I expected, but rather braised in a salty soy sauce-based broth. Didn't come close to matching Hing Won's.

Can't argue with the prices - $2.95 for a quart of the pork and $3.95 for the fish - but it will obviously take some more trial and error before I get the hang of their menu.

Shun Lee

Occasion: Jill's birthday!
Location: Shun Lee on 65th between W Central Park and B'way (shunleewest.com) [Note: there's another location on the east side, but they don't seem to be very closely affiliated and their menus are quite different]
Edibles: a mixed appetizer plate with a xiao long bao, cold sesame noodles, a fried shrimp ball and a pork (I think) and veggie lettuce cup; a mixed main course plate with orange beef, stir-fried prawns, some kind of chicken and a bowl of fried rice with Chinese sausage

Musings: First, happy birthday Jill! I'm glad we got to see you to celebrate before you jetted off for your beach vacay!

As for the restaurant... My impressions of Shun Lee previous to this visit were that it was a moderately nice Chinese restaurant, if slightly overpriced. They used to have a very good tea-smoked duck (not on their menu anymore) that I would occasionally treat myself to if I was in the neighborhood.

Tonight, I think they took advantage of our group inertia to play fast and loose with a "prix fixe" menu. What we should have done was: A) ordered wine by the bottle; B) each picked one entree (ranging from about $18 - $30) and eaten family-style. Instead, for the okay meal they picked out for us, the bill was an absolutely ASTRONOMICAL $80 per person. I felt especially bad for our one vegetarian, who had a plate of tofu stir-fry and paid the same as the rest of us.

This is decidedly not the economic environment to be pulling this kind of stunt, Shun Lee - shame on you. I will not be back.

Mmmm... Oscar party snacks

Occasion: My annual Oscar party (Go Kathryn Bigelow and Hurt Locker!)
Edibles: chicken satay and crudités; chow mein with bok choi

Satay Dip
(based on Ina's more complicated recipe which you can find here; her product pictured below)

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp dark sesame oil (it's pretty strong)

2 tbsp red wine vinegar

¼ cup brown sugar

2 tbsp soy sauce

½ cup smooth peanut butter

In a large bowl, dissolve the brown sugar in the vinegar and soy sauce. Whisk in all the other ingredients. Can also make in a food processor.

For the chicken, I just pan-fried boneless, skinless chicken thighs in some olive oil. Season with salt and pepper, and splash in a little white wine. When cooled, slice and put on bamboo skewers.

Chow Mein with Bok Choi

⅓ cup Chinese barbeque sauce (the Niu Tou "Cow Head" brand is best)
1 package of fresh pasta, cooked and drained (can substitute dried pasta)
2 lbs of baby bok choi, the ones with the green stems, washed and chopped
a splash of soy sauce
[optional: 1 steak, sliced]

In a wok or large sauté pan, give the bbq sauce a bit of a toast until it's fragrant. [If you're using the steak, put it in here and give it a quick fry.] Throw in the bok choi and stir-fry until mostly cooked - don't overdo it, it's nice to still have a little snap to them. (If you're up for it, put in the stems first - they take longer to cook. But it'll be just fine if you dump in the leaves at the same time.)

Add the cooked pasta, splash in a little soy sauce and toss everything together. Done!

This chow mein has very few ingredients, cooks up quickly and is great for a crowd. If you have leftovers, just stick it in the microwave the next day - the greens will not be as crisp [and the beef will be slightly tougher] but it'll still be good.

Baohaus

Occasion: Afternoon snack with Yining
Location: Baohaus on Rivington between Norfolk and Suffolk (baohausnyc.com)
Edibles: the Chairman Bao (with a special request for a lean piece of pork); a special Kobe beef bao; an order of bao fries with sesame sauce

Musings: Not a big fan of Bauhaus architecture. But pork buns - that I can get behind!

As it was just an afternoon snack, Yining and I split two bao and an order of the bao fries. I'm generally pretty easy to please when it comes to fried stuff but I found the bao fries underwhelming. I like the denser texture of man tou better for something like this. Also, the sesame sauce is a somewhat disturbing speckle-y grey color.

I am, however, a big fan of the bao. I'm really glad the guy behind the counter overheard my concerns about overly fatty pork - yes, there is such a thing. He very helpfully offered to find us a leaner piece, and it was perfect. The pork was tender, flavorful, and the bao had a bit of surprise from the cilantro and ground peanut garnishes. I'm not sure they're strictly authentic, but they are delicious.

I also quite liked the Kobe special bao, though I didn't think it was twice as good as the pork at twice the price. The skirt steak (which they were out of) is worth considering at $4.50. For variety's sake, you know?

Bottom line: very yummy, and great for a pick-me-up if you're in the area. Yining and I are considering the feasibility of our own little private delivery service. I'll let you eastsiders know if that works out....

Mmmm... pantry fried rice

Even when my cupboards are next to bare, I can cobble this dish together. A good one to throw together on the weekend - the leftovers microwave up great for lunch on Monday.

Pantry Fried Rice

10 strips of turkey bacon (lasts in the freezer forever; defrosted, it cooks in 1 minute in the microwave)
½ cup frozen corn (Trader Joe's sweet corn, if you can get it)
2 cups of cooked rice, hot or cold
a splash of soy sauce
4 eggs
oil

Cook the turkey bacon and give it a rough chop. In a fine-mesh strainer or colander, run the corn under some hot tap water and leave it aside to drain. Crack and beat the eggs. Have everything prepped and ready, because this dish cooks up in about three minutes once the oil hits the pan.

Heat a wok or a big sauté pan. When it's nice and hot, in quick succession, pour in a generous puddle of oil, pour in the beaten eggs and immediately dump in the rice as well. Stir / toss vigorously with a spatula, breaking up any large clumps of rice. Ideally, you want to coat the grains of rice with egg. What you do NOT want is large chunks of unincorporated scrambled eggs.

Fling in the turkey bacon and corn. Splash in a little soy sauce. Keep stirring / tossing. If you started with hot rice, you're pretty much done. If you started with cold rice, you'll want to give it another minute. Voilà!

Variations: If you happen to have scallions or shallots or parsley in your fridge, the first two can be flash-fried in the oil before the eggs go in and the parsley can be a garnish at the end. Instead of turkey bacon, use any salty meat - sausage, ripped-up prosciutto, ham, even smoked salmon can work. Leftover veggies from the night before? Throw those in too. Anything goes.

Sha-lin Noodle House

Occasion: Post-figure-skating-practice and pre-women's hockey lunch
Location: Sha-lin Noodle House on W Broadway between Cambie and Ash
Edibles: stir-fried cutting noodles with tofu and vegetables; xa jiang dragging noodles; potstickers, half pork, half vegetarian (with a cabbage and carrot filling, like a cooked coleslaw); sautéed bok choi with garlic

Musings: Love this place!! Fresh noodles are among my favorite things to eat, and they do a really good variety of styles (and corresponding textures) at Sha-lin.

Cutting Noodles: The chef takes a block of refrigerated dough and uses a special triangular knife-tool thing to shave off noodles, shooting them straight into a pot of boiling water. Sort of like how you make spätzle, but with a much firmer, denser dough and much larger noodles. I really like the heft of these noodles, and they're excellent for stir-frying. The oily, fried noodles can be slippery little suckers - tricky to eat with chopsticks.

Dragging Noodles: The chef REALLY develops some gluten by repeatedly stretching the dough, and then twisting it back on itself. Sort of like how pulled taffy is made. The noodles themselves are made by doubling up one fat rope of dough, stretching it out (thus reducing the thickness by half), and repeating until the strands are about the thinness of spaghetti. The trick to this method - not that I've mastered it or anything - is getting a really good, elastic texture of dough, or the strands will break before they're thin enough. I like these noodles with a ground meat and bean sauce known as xa jiang. (Sha-lin does a nice sauce, but my mom's version with Chinese pickles and diced shiitake mushrooms is truly spectacular.)

Pushing Noodles (which we did not have): The chef rolls and folds up a sheet of dough, and cuts the noodles by hand. Similar to the soba method, but the chef cuts away from himself instead of slicing, hence the name.

The potstickers were a real hit with Karen and Josie. Sha-lin makes theirs with a yeasty, risen dough, and develops a nice crispy, golden brown crust on the bottoms. The quality of the fillings could be improved, but it's hard to complain when you're in the middle of chowing down on a piping hot plateful.

If memory serves, four dishes plus two beers apiece came out to under $25 a person. Good stuff!

[Note: This will be the only other Vancouver post. I also took Karen and Josie to old favorites Sun Sui Wah and Tapastree, and met up with Emily at Adonia to pass off some extra hockey tickets, but you can check out my old reviews using the links. Back to NYC for the next post.]

St. Germain Bakery

Location: Oakridge Shopping Centre in Vancouver, among others

Best loaf of bread in the city.

I remember when there was only one out-of-the-way location (on Cambie, I think) and we would go especially for the bread. The three of us kids would eat half the thing in the car, ripping chunks off the fragrant, freshly-baked, sometimes still hot loaf. My mom would grumble about crumbs, but then even she would succumb and ask for a corner.

You now have to special-order a full loaf of their unsliced white bread, a weighty, ponderous column almost the length of your arm. (You can get smaller portions of pre-sliced bread any time.) It has a silky-fine crumb and is chewy and substantial in the mouth, yet somehow avoids being dense. When sliced thickly, toasted and slathered with butter, it's a superb breakfast. Or afternoon snack. Or a bite for whenever you happen to wander through the kitchen.

(They also do good repertoire of Chinese cakes and pastries.)