Explore Culinary Asia

I’ve just returned from the East Coast. Even though I grew up in the South and lived in Singapore for a dozen years, I forget how hot those places are. After an overlong hike in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a snow cone tasted really, really good.

It took me back to my ice kacang days in Singapore and Malaysia where my mouth dropped when I was introduced to this snow cone on steroids. It literally means “red bean ice” and always features asuki beans whole or as a paste. Then you begin to add your favorite toppings, which for Singaporeans include corn (yep, you read right) nuts, pineapple and the famous/infamous durian. I treated myself several times on my last trip to Singapore but refused to let my local friends goad me into durian. Someday I am going to have to hold my nose and try it again so my friends will stop telling me I act like an “ang mo”, their term for Caucasians.

Today I read a review in the NY Times, featuring the Spanish version of ice kacang. Called raspados, one id sweetened with agave and boasts vanilla bean, nutmeg, star anise, another is piled high with blueberry-pomelo and lemon zest. For me the piece de resistance featured a variety of chilies and fresh ginger.

So in the waning days of summer, I’m going to try whatever combinations of toppings I can put my hands on and let it drip off my chin.

What’s your favorite international snow cone experience?

One of my most visceral images of Asian street food involved a stroll across the street from our flat in Singapore to the intoxicating smell of spicy fish grilling. I never knew whether my first experience with Otak-Otak was the best I ever experienced. Maybe it was that the wraps were inhaled sitting under a tropical moon, washed down with a couple of Tiger beers and bathed in the smiles of the Malay cook and his family, that made it so memorable. Same thing since food is all about the setting!

I was intrigued by the banana leaf wrapper but quickly found out that these oversized green beauties were the aluminum foil of Asia. “Cool”, I thought ” much prettier and definitely more environmental.”

Back in the US, there was the elegant dinner I attended where the chef whipped up the Lao version of the banana leaf encased fish mousse, mok pa fok, with its delicate infusion of lemongrass and lime leaves. The surprise here was that the chef was also the guest of honor at the dinner, Prince Somsanith, who could have made his fame as a chef but instead is dedicating his life to passing on the art of the gorgeous royal art of gold thread embroidery.

Then I discovered the Lao recipe in Saveur. They suggested the shiny side of the banana should be next to the ramekin or shallow dish for cooking. That was a new one for me, but it seems to make sense.

And yes, it’s possible to grow these lovelies in the almost always chilly Pacific Northwest!

Would love to hear about your cooking/savoring adventures with banana leaf wraps!

HELP PUT THE “LIFE” BACK INTO THE “CITY OF LIFE”

Like everyone else who loves SE Asia, I have been concerned about the recent violence in this peaceful kingdom and have been encouraging people to hold off their travels to Thailand for a while.

A Bangkok journalist, Imtiaz Muqbil, who I hold in very high regard, has a different perspective. He and thousands of other Thais as well as expats and visitors hit the streets starting five days ago to help with the massive clean up and make a statement. Here’s what Imtiaz reported in his newsletter.

By 24 May 2010, Bangkok, the “City of Life” was back in business. With a few exceptions, everything else is functioning normally. This is both an appeal and plea by the Travel Impact Newswire editorial team to all supporters and friends of the Thai people to make a beeline to Bangkok — in droves. The longer it takes to return to full normalcy, the easier it will be for the red-shirts to make another bid to destabilise the country. This is not a paid advertisement. It is a passionate plea from the hearts of those who love this country and its people.

I stand with Imtiaz. And if you want to join me on that magnificent tour we have designed to southern Thailand and Laos, I’ll be excited to be your guide.

All of us who cross enough time zones to choke a horse when we travel internationally know it’s smart to pre-condition the body in order to reset our internal clock.
I make it a point to have low calorie meals as well as avoiding caffeine and alcohol for 24 hours before departure.

But on my recent 19 hour flight from Seattle to Singapore, I got upgraded to business class. Lucky me, but maybe not. It’s easy enough to turn down or pick at the meals in economy and the wine, to say nothing of the coffee is mediocre at best.

I found myself contentedly stretched out and pleased with myself in business class when the parade of temptations begins, quality wine, really lovely Asian food, you know the drill.

So was my jet lag worse when I arrived in Singapore? Hard to say. I had a massage at the airport on arrival (reputed to help our wacked out bodies adjust), avoided alcohol for a few days and made certain I stayed awake until bedtime in Singapore. But my personal theory is that inhaling tongue scorching Peranakan food my first night in Singapore seared by West Coast biorhythms to settling into my new time zone. Works for me!

This woman is Singapore’s #1 Foodie

Violet Oon, the official global food ambassador for Singapore, consummate professional, warm unassuming passionate foodie, is even better in person than her reputation. She demonstrates the best of entrepreuenrship, finding multiple divisions for her thriving businesses. Her cooking school quarters (across the hall from her lovely apartment are perfect for those who want to truly experience Singapore food in all its glorious diversity.

And Violet is doing more than lamenting the demise of Singapore’s legendary “hawker centers”, now being pushed aside for the airconditioned, overly santized shopping center approach. She has purchased a hawker stall for serving her signature dishes but also as an additonal cooking venue for students where they get to try their hand at oversized woks in a vintage Singapore atmosphere.

Here’s a sample of Violet’s comments on cooking a nature that exemplifies who she is.
I had started on my quest for earth’s gifts to us as an emotional exercise triggered off by an interview on why foods served ON and wrapped IN leaves taste so much better than foods served on metal, porcelain or plastic.

Close encounters with nature have always been a part of my life – after all as a food critic, as someone who loves to entertain and as a cook I work with the fruits of nature constantlyI love working with leaves – the pandan, bamboo, lotus, banana, coconut all make wonderful food receptacles, wrappers and plates.They are the original disposable tableware of nature, biodegradable, eco-friendly and best of all, imparting a natural fragrance to food.

Big thumbs up for Violet! I can’t wait to introduce her to foodies traveling with me on a tour I am plotting. It’s the Double “S” — two foodie heavens Singapore and Seoul where you will be immersed in distrinctly different Asian food cultures. Bring it on!

One of the joys of being in Singapore is that everyone wants to take me to experience their favorite food, assuring me we are headed for the best, always with the exclamation “die, die, must try”. So when my friend Lai Fun insisted that I absolutely must try Thunder Tea Rice, I jumped at a new for me food adventure.

Even with Saturday evening traffic jams and crowds at the food court, it was worth it. This fresh, gently aromatic dish goes down oh, so easily and makes the tummy applaud. And who knew until later that it is a cold herbal soup that is poured like over the heaping rice and vegetables?

Turns out it is a Hakka dish usually eaten on the 7th day of Lunar New Year. I can’t imagine limiting this dish to one day a year! When I get back to my own kitchen, I intend to create my own version and keep it on hand, perfect for a light meal after yoga or a late night snack.

The rice salad is made with finely-diced ingredients such as tofu, long beans, ground nuts, pickled radish, dried anchoves or shrimp mixed into cooked brown rice and served with tea made from tea leaves, basil and mint (plus a fist full of other herbal goodies) all steeped in hot water.

Originally the process was more complicated (and probably tasted even better) when the tea leaves and herbs were ground in a handmade earthen vessel with scored markings on the inside. A guava tree branch, chosen because it is hard and non-poisonous, was used as a pestle.

From checking out blogs and the reaction of Lai Fun’s husband Tom, the dish isn’t always top of the list for males. One Singapore blog referred to it as a “chick dish”.

Stay tuned and I’ll share with you my kind of recipe – one I create by experimentation. Here’s to Thunder Tea Rice and to your very good health!.

Not so surprising that I have been in Singapore, the foodie haven of Asia, for a week with no time to blog until today. It’s been business lunches {gratefully, Singaporeans, unlike we Americans, have the good sense to honor relationship building and better digestion by not talking about business.} and those glorious evenings of food under tropical velvet blue skies.

At one of those lunches, we journeyed to a non descript row of shop houses and entered a plain little restaurant called Bistro One Zero Three. And then the real surprise. The Mediterranean-themed menu looked great and tasted superb. I had Spinach & Ricotta Sorrentino with prawns and sun dried tomatoes. It is competiting very successfully with all the Asian goodies I have consummed since (more on that later)

So if you find yourself in Singapore with a yin for some other world food, this little bistro is highly recommended.

Expect some spicy hot posts over the next two weeks from that mecca for foodies – Singapore. I’m ostensibly heading there on business, but Singapore being Singapore, business is often conducted over food. If Singaporeans aren’t eating it, they are debating the destination for their next food communion.

Still local on Saturday afternoon, I strolled on a five star day through Wallingford, one of Seattle’s urban villages. A sign at a service station made me laugh because it’s so me. The sign announced that “a balanced diet is chocolate in both hands”.

I’ve already packed my chocolate quota for the long haul across the Big Pond including a precious few from my dwindling stash of Debauve & Gallais, the only Royal French Chocolatier for more than 200 years.

With a bow to the French and a special thank you to the friend that gifted me with these superb chocolates, off I go to Singapore to rediscover what’s new on the food scene along with revisiting some old favorites in the company of my proudly food- addicted Singapore friends.

Does life get any better for a foodie?

Is Nancy on her soap box? Yep, but bear with me. This is easy, good for your health and the environment.

I started carrying my own eating utensils when I began traveling the backwaters of Asia as a precaution against picking up some pretty yucky germs. Nothing spoils an otherwise perfect travel adventure like being flat out and cursing your body for failing to protect you.

Now we know that it’s also good for the environment. Each year in Japan alone, chop sticks in land fills waste 90,000 tons of wood. And in the US, we are not only heaping our land fills with disposable food items, one environmental group has noted there is a garbage patch the size of Texas floating in the North Pacific.

Can you make a difference? You bet. Wrap a set of eating utensils and a collapsable cup in a bandana, toss it in your day pack and your’re ready to roll.

Doing the small things helps. More important, it empowers you to do more than the small things.
So with your own reusable eating and drinking tools, you’re now free to enjoy all that amazing Asian food!

Diving into Burmese Food Did It for Me

As it happened, Burma was the last of the Mekong countries I explored.

I had done enough research to know that fish sauce was uber popular with the multi-influenced Burmese food culture, influenced by the diverse populations who arrived when Burma was a vibrant trading hub and decided to make it their home.

After surviving the pungency of visiting Vietnamese fish farms, the smell of fish sauce didn’t bother me. I just wasn’t as wild about it as what I considered the more refined subtle experience of kaffir leaves and lemon grass.

By the time I arrived at mystical Inle Lake in northern Burma, I was so blissed out that anything would have probably tasted heavenly. After two weeks in Yangon, and a cruise on the Irawaddy, a lust for the Burmese salads gripped me and wouldn’t let go. Who knew this Burmese fast food could make me quiver and at the same time, be truly healthy?

The ubiquitous salads seemed particularly fresh, robust and nuanced around Inle Lake, where the peacefulness and magnificent scenery must have had its influence. Fish paste was just part of the spice blast. Burmese also use lahpet, which is a pickled tea I am still trying to master in my own kitchen.

You’re probably getting the drift for why I am so passionate about the culinary tour I will be leading to Burma next February. Check out the highlights.

Contact me for more details. I get such joy in talking about the tours I have created with people like you who love food, are fascinated by Asia, with a sense that the most immersive memories will be the amazing stories you experience beyond the place.

Now I’m getting the siren call from my kitchen to whip up a Burmese salad, knowing that I’m only a year away from slurping the exquisite charm of the real thing. Let’s experience it together!