Viet World Kitchen

What is Modern Asian Cuisine?

I ponder this on a regular basis. Doesn't something become modern the moment you prepare it because you can't exactly replicate the experience of the past? Also, modern approaches for me mean using cooking implements like food processors and maybe reducing the amount of fat, salt, or sugar in dishes. However, it doesn't mean letting go of or forgetting the past.

Simon Bao sent me his observations from watching recent episodes of Top Chef. As usual, Simon's acerbic wit makes for a terrific read. Take a look and let us all know your thoughts:

What is Modern Asian Cuisine?  Well...  I'm confident that there are a few chefs out there who do actually have a meaningful definition of that.  As there once were meaningful definitions of Fusion and Pan-Asian and Pacific-Rim.

But...  you KNOW what happens with these phrases. 

Let me give you a fast run-down on the most alarming Modern Asian Cuisine that the American public will have seen all year.  Read this when you have a few free moments, you'll really want to catch what happened.

Three chefs were on one team, and all three have backgrounds in "Asian Cuisine."  One, Dale Talde, is a sous chef at Buddakan.  Another, Spike Mendelsohn, was chef de cuisine at Mai House and claims to have studied Viet cuisine for 2 years.  (He's the guy who made the Apples & Fish Goi Cuon.)  Another, Lisa Fernandes, has worked in NYC at Asia de Cuba, Rain, and Public.

So for the Restaurant Wars challenge, those 3 decided to name their (one-night-only) restaurant Mai Buddha, and to feature their best takes on "Modern Asian Cuisine."

For appetizer, Dale Talde came up with Butterscotch Miso Scallops.  Some seared scallops sauced with something made from caramelized sugar, scotch whisky, butter, and buckets of blond miso paste.  With lots more miso paste right on the plate.  People thought it was disgusting, and was a major reason he was eliminated.  The scallops were plated with some pickled long beans.

Lisa's starter course was a Spicy Coconut Laksa with Grilled Prawns & Vermicelli.  It almost looks like a usual Laksa except...  she made the broth from the carcasses of smoked chickens.  Just sniffing the aroma of the soup was compared to sticking one's face over a camp fire.  I've asked around, whether there are any forms of Laksa that are ever made with a smoked chicken broth, or broth from any kind of smoked animal, so far no one has said they've heard of that.  The smokiness almost got Lisa eliminated.

There were bitter disputes over the entree, Braised Short Ribs with Pickled Red Cabbage & Apple Basil Thai Salad.  Spike took credit for it, Dale disputed that, Spike said well it was his recipe, Dale said he did all the work.  In any case, it was short ribs braised in a not very Asian liquid, served with almost none at all of the non-Asian pickled red cabbage, and a salad that turned out to be just julienned Granny Smith apples and chopped Thai basil.  That's it.

Lisa's dessert offering was Thai Mango Sticky Rice with Toasted Coconut, and it almost got her sent off in disgrace.  They didn't use Sticky Rice for it, Dale found something on a supermarket shelf and handed it to Lisa, telling her "Here, they use this for dessert."  No one knows what kind of rice it was, but it wasn't Sticky Rice.  The liquids used in cooking and plating the rice, garnished with toasted coconut, caused one diner to say it was like "Baby vomit with wood chips."

Dale Talde's dessert was a Filipino green avocado Halo Halo with Cantelope.  There were no great complaints about that, except that he'd put in avocados with extensive brown, spoiled areas on them.

So, that's what Modern Asian Cuisine is.  People surrendering to the temptation to always make the proteins the centerpiece and overwhelming majority of what's eaten.  General neglect of the vegetables, neglect of the salad plate or fresh herbs.  A missed opportunity to present diners with even just a little black rice or red rice as the bed for that braised beef.  No notion of plating the beef with a fast stir-fry of (pre-blanched) "Vegetable Medley" to at least represent the cuisines they're drawing from.

So, the Mai Buddha team lost, there were recriminations and accusations all over the place.

And I despair of what viewers are going to think of "Asian Cuisine."

:-)

Oh, and it may or may not be connected, but after his incredibly dismal performance on Top Chef, Spike Mendelsohn is no longer chef de cuisine at Mai House.  Rumors fly of harsh and ugly words on the sidewalk, high drama, anger and bitterness vented in public, between Nieporent and "Chef Spike."

Oddly enough, Lisa Fernandes of the smoky Laksa and baby vomit sticky rice is now chef de cuisine at Mai House.

Troi oi. [OMIGOD in Vietnamese]  :-)

Top Chef Season 4 -- Nouveau Summer Rolls

I've been out of the country and upon my return, Simon Bao notified me that Top Chef contestants in season 4 are putting interesting twists on Vietnamese culinary concepts. Perhaps with Hung's win last season, the door is opening up to incorporating Viet ideas into the food.

Recently, contestant Spike Mendelson and Manuel Trevino make this little ditty:

Summer Roll with Black Vermicelli (see recipe)

Let me make a few points, and I suppose I'll get my aggression out first and then you're free to weigh in...

The name "Summer Roll" -- What's with calling these hand rolls summer rolls? Is it versus Chinese spring rolls? These Vietnamese rolls are a year round food. Chinese spring rolls are literally called that in Chinese, and they're a traditional food that's enjoyed during Lunar New Year. I translate the Viet rolls as salad rolls because their original name goi cuon is literally salad roll since most of the common elements of a goi (special event salad) are cuon (rolled up) in a sheath of rice paper.

Now, there's a bit Chinese garlic chive that gets tucked in there and that's a summer veggie. Is that why they're called summer rolls by so many English-speaking people? Because of the seasonality of the chives?

The other name that I've  often seen is "fresh spring roll." Is that opposed to an old one?

In Saigon, there's now a restaurant dedicated to rolling stuff up in rice paper. It's a roll-your-own joint called "cuon" because that's the generic name for these rolls -- rolls.

This is a global issue that I've noticed for years and no one has been able to answer the question for me...what's with "summer roll" and "fresh spring roll"? Do tell if you have a hunch!

As for the specific recipe presented on Top Chef, it seems to have been rather creative. I like the Chilean Sea Bass (which frankly shouldn't be used because it's a no-no fish on the overfished list; see the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch page for information on sustainable seafood) .  Catfish, regular seabass, trout, or butterfish would have been nice. As for the black vermicelli (bun), I've seen that pricey product at the Asian market so it was a good, trick to use.

The odd thing was with the dipping sauce, called Apple clam -- which I mistook for a kind of mollusk. Lo and behold, it's a sauce make with -- ahem... fish sauce, apple soda, apple cider vinegar, lime juice and chiles. I suppose that was to match the apples in the roll.

I often feel that cooks take modern/nouveau twists on sushi and roll it up in rice paper. Nothing wrong with that, as long as it tastes good.

I'm not sure if this tasted good -- especially on the bed of chard. I guess it wasn't great since one of the chefs was eliminated...

Any insights from you all?

Andrew Lam's Journey Home to Vietnam

Award-winning author and noted news commentator Andrew Lam just let me know of the release of his PBS program on journeying home to Vietnam in 2002. Many of us left in haste and going back is always difficult, sometimes shocking. But as a Saigon cab driver told me a couple of weeks ago, "Sister, the more times you return, the better it will be." And he's not just talking about improving my Vietnamese!

Andrew is a very considerate, insightful, thoughtful person with lots of observations and analysis that spans many of our experiences -- whether we're Vietnamese or not.

Peruse his story and video diary at this site:

PBS website - about Andrew's story and the series, the links are to a video diary

A documentary style program is accessible via this page:

YouTube links - click on one of the links to access a sement

Andrew's work is included in this PBS program on identity, race and ethnicity because it was among the select winners of the America, My Home multimedia essay contest.

After viewing the materials, feel free to comment here and I'll get Andrew to weigh in!

Parsi Kitchen Story on NPR

For those of you interested in Asian food culture, tune in to National Public Radio's Morning Edition on March 20 for an interesting story on a dear friend of mine -- Niloufer Ichaporia King, a botanical researcher, cooking teacher, and author of My Bombay Kitchen, which is about Parsi cooking. What's neat about Niloufer is that she is curious and understands how ingredients and cooking methods crosses cuisines and cultures. The woman has 3 kitchens in her house and regularly prowls 6 farmers markets in the Bay Area! She's also a fabulous cook.

The quirky and ever delightful Kitchen Sisters are featuring Niloufer on their public radio program this month, so don't miss out! If you do miss out, you can listen in online at the NPR website.

By the way, they've done a great piece on Vietnamese nail salons in the U.S. too! Check the archive and then click on the Past Stories to open a window that gives access to the piece.

Lobster Pho a la Emeril Lagasse

Miko from Seattle worked very hard to make an authentic pho noodle soup of his own last year. He was aghast at a lobster pho recipe presented on an episode of Emeril Lagasse's show that airs on the food network.

The recipe has you simmer broth ingredients for about 15 minutes and though there's star anise, there are also lobster bodies. Strain the broth and serve over rice noodles with lobster meat. Miko says on the show, there were some sliced cooked pork and Chinese sausages too but no bean sprouts. In the online recipe I saw no Chinese sausage (lop cheung/lap suong) but the sprouts were there. It's like a quick noodle soup that he made, and not a pho. But he had to frame it in some manner that fit the episode, which was called "Lovin' Lobster" and orginally aired in 2006.

Strange... there are many kinds of inventive pho that feature seafood but I've never seen one with lobster. I don't think you'd get a big bowl for less than $20!

I've held you in suspense long enough. Here's a link to the recipe:

Emeril Lagasse's Lobster Pho

What are your reactions?

Bobby Chinn - Hanoi-based chef, Asia Cafe show host

Bobby Chinn, a New Zealand born Chinese-Egyptian chef and restaurateur based in Hanoi has been stirring up trouble in Vietnam since 1994. Along with Frenchman Didier Corlou who was at the Metropole Hotel and now has his own restaurant Verticale, Bobby was one of the first foreign chefs to come to Vietnam.

He's opened and closed a number of restaurants in Vietnam; doing business as a foreigner has it's many ups and downs. His current eponymous eatery called Restaurant Bobby Chinn remains steadfast. It's located in the Hoan Kiem District and offers interesting takes on Vietnamese food. Like many chefs, Bobby's cooking reflects who he is, where he's been. He used to live in San Francisco so his interpretation is California-Vietnamese, which means there's a bit of the Pacific Rim, France, and the Mediterranean too, along with fresh, seasonal organic ingredients.

In late October at the Asia Society in New York, I met Bobby as we were both on a Vietnam food panel. With a background in finance and stand-up comedy, he's smart, funny and energetic -- a savvy entertainer. He's full of self-deprecation when he describes how he had to invent his own version of Vietnamese since it's a hard language to master. Listen to his Vietnamese on this YouTube trailer for a new television travel/food show, World Cafe Asia. He's got a bit of Anthony Bourdain's sincerity and brashness and sounds a bit gravely/serious like Anderson Cooper on CNN:

"Who is Bobby Chinn?" - World Asia Cafe trailer on YouTube

At the Asia Society event, Bobby prepared a take on a Vietnamese pho cuon -- hand-held rolls comprised of the pho beef and herb garnishes wrapped up in a fresh rice sheet. It's retro food that's come back in full force in Hanoi for the past couple of years. Bobby's version had duck gizzard confit and Japanese shiso, a stand-in for Vietnamese tia to, which is hard to get in New York these days. Freshly made Cantonese haw fun from Chinatown was the perfect, supple rice wrapper. 

Bobby is a very nice person who respect Vietnamese people and their cuisine. He also loves to joke around. "You know what my name means in Vietnamese?" he asked me. I was trying to botch "Bobby Chinn" in Vietnamese but didn't get the joke. "Bop chim, bop chim, " he barked. "That means strangle the bird. I do my best Foghorn Leghorn  whenever I hear that."  (Foghorn Leghorn is an American cartoon character based on a rooster.)

His show airs in Asia on Discovery's Travel and Living channel. If you watch it, post your thoughts!

Hung Wins Top Chef

Okay folks, 29-year-old brother Hung won last night's final Top Chef competition! Rocco DiSpirito was his sous chef. There was a pork belly melt down by one of the other contestants. Hung admits that getting told by the judges that his food had no soul hurt him -- like getting hit by a truck.  Maybe that was a good thing.

He stepped things up and came through with this menu:

1) Prawns, Palm Sugar Coconut Glaze, Cucumber Radish Salad and Ocean Scented Rice
2) Hamachi, Potato Chips, Tomato Vinaigrette & Olive Oil Powder
3) Duck with Truffle Scented Broth & Mushroom Ragout
4) Chocolate Cake with Raspberry and Nougoutine Tuile

For more:

• Top Chef site on Bravo TV
• Baltimore Sun's blow-by-blow write up
• Nguoi Viet coverage (in Vietnamese)
• E! News quick round-up
• What is national identity blog posting on Hung and race/ethnicity

Hung on Top Chef

For a round up of how brother Hung did on Top Chef this week, take a read of:

• Jane McGivney's posting on the Huffington Post
• Baltimore Sun's take on the competition that took place in Aspen
• What Entertainment Weekly had to say about Hung's bitchery ways
• The scores he's getting on Blogging Top Chef
• Bravo's official Top Chef site . . . decide to Top or Chop Hung

They're stringing us along. That's good TV.

Pho in Oxford Dictionary

Cuong Le, an Australia-based friend who curated  "I love Pho" -- a wonderful, multimedia exhibit on pho noodle soup that's touring globally, tracks practically every related to Vietnam's national dish. He just emailed that pho has been officially added to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (SOED). The SOED is just a scaled down, two-volume version of the Oxford Dictionary.

Rachel Ray got EVOO in there a little while back so why not pho? I usually have to put pho in italics but now that it's officially part of the lexicon, I don't have to any more. Yippee!

Now, I'd love to get the word Viet in there . . . 

For more words that were added, read the Associated Press article by Kate Schuman

Food For Thought -- Canadian Radio Interview

Last week I spent several glorious days being introduced to Vancouver, British Columbia. It's an extremely exciting city filled with terrific food and friendly people. My friend Nathan Fong, a food writer, stylist, and radio and TV-show host, took me on a tour of his hometown.

The first stop was Vancouver's Chinatown, which is filled with sweet old buildings. We poked around a Vietnamese-Chinese grocery store with one of Nathan's best friends -- Don Genova, a food journalist and host of Food For Thought, a weekly radio program that airs on CBC Radio One in Vancouver (690AM).

Don wanted an introduction to the essential ingredients for Vietnamese cooking.  We walked up and down each aisle in the market for a good 45 minutes. The market has a banh mi sandwich counter at the back and whipped up 3 fresh ones for us to sustain ourselves. Talking about food makes you hungry!

Don recorded our conversation for a radio documentary, which he recently aired this week. It's always strange to listen to yourself on the radio (stranger yet to watch yourself on TV) , but Don did an excellent job of editing. I tend to talk a lot when it comes to Vietnamese food and cooking.

To check my claim that Vietnamese food is easy to make at home, he went home and prepared two easy recipes  from my book, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen -- the cucumber and shrimp salad (goi dua chuot) and grilled chicken (ga nuong) -- and deemed them delicious and fantastically simple.

To listen to my talk with Don and to obtain the recipes he tested, visit his website Food For Thought.