Dining on the City of New Orleans

There's something to be said about an overnighter on a train.  Finding your designated room-ette, watching the train pull out of Chicago at dusk, listening to the sounds of other passengers settling in for the night.  And the thing I was waiting for: the opening of the dining car.  Train chugging, I wobbled upstairs, pulled my fair share of heavy compartment doors, and emerged in a little diner.  I was asked to fill the last seat at a four-person table, and the pleasantries began.  Except for the 200-year old man who was hard of hearing and kept barking my last name as a form of address, dinner went as smoothly as the track bumps would allow.  The famed Angus steak failed to appear on our menu, and the iceberg salad was inedible, but the burgers looked good (and tasted good, when I had it for lunch). Feeling over-meated lately, I opted for a vegetarian-tomato-primavera linguine, presented on a blue-rimmed Amtrak melamine.  In spite of one of my companions refusing to leave his safe place of the Korean War and issuing racial stereotypes about me, dining on the train really made the 20-hour journey special.  I could talk about the next day - the stops in Memphis, Jackson, the blur of cotton fields, the backswamps of the Mississippi, but this is a food blog.  Next stop: New Orleans.

New York eat log

Roast duck, Chinatown, Manhattan
Ten Zen bubble tea
Veggie burger and homemade chips in Brookyln Public, near Fort Greene, Brooklyn
Japanese curry dog and barley ice tea at asiadog, Brooklyn Flea
Prosciutto, red pepper and mozzarella sandwich in Italian deli in Brooklyn
Rendang, Hainanese chicken and chendol at Nyonya
Bahn-mii pork and pate sandwich at Hana, Brooklyn
Meat ravioli in a shiitake cream sauce and a Pinot Grigio (Veneto) at Porto Bella, SoHo
Spinach and feta quiche at Cafe Lucca, Brooklyn
Brown sugar and pistachio financier, sweet melissa, Brooklyn

Banana Bean Cafe, German Village, Columbus OH

I don't eat at this lovely little cafe enough. It's Southern US meets Cuban meets French. The calamari is lightly breaded and fresh-tasting -- it's been a while but I remember the chutney as spicy -- the spinach topping was also fried, an unusual touch. Then the omelette that my friend had -- that had everything in there. The shrimp and grits were so savoury -- large, succulent shrimp.

Della Santina, Sonoma, California

I almost didn't order this -- pappardelle cinghiale -- for fear that it would spoil my one experience of a the same dish -- made with wild boar indigenous to the Toscana region -- in a trip to Florence more than 2 years ago. Luckily I went ahead -- and of course I didn't remember the flavor so well after all, although I thought this one to be lighter -- just my imagination?

This was the one restaurant experience I remembered (and was remembered, as my friends will not fail to remind me) for almost going into a fit at the sight of the menu -- real northern Italian, brings back the good 'ol days of living where in a place where such food was so common. I don't care if I never made it to The French Laundry and if this was some run-of-the-mill place that Californians turn their noses up at, or if the town of Sonoma reminded me of a theme park -- for god's sake you people don't know how lucky you are.

Basi Italia

As they say -- the best part is the prettiest little garden you sit in to enjoy fresh, homely, no-fuss Mediterranean food. This was the weekday lunch menu, pecked at by office folks from downtown. The lovely part is the approach too -- for me, a short jaunt in the backroads of the Victorian Village residential estate to a little red-brick road in which the restaurant is (I think) a indicated by a vine-strewn discreet entryway and a little wooden swinging door leading to the garden.

Quan Ju De, Beijing

The art and style of carving duck:The crispy skin is the most precious, but check out the Olympic 5-ring burner it's on:
And finally, where many an Iron Chef sword rally was bitterly fought:

Izakaya Chiri--

Chiri--, an izakaya off the Kawaramachi-Shijo junction and a popular student hangout. And you get student's portions too: pictured here is the house special, the party-sized udon. Wash down with umeshusoda (you guessed! sparkly plum wine!) and a roll-call of oily finger foods: deep-fried octopus legs, agedashi tofu, soft egg roll, stewed beef tendons. Going back there again tonight - what the gut needs after an evening of throwing clay.

Blue Boy Bakery, Uji

There is a little gem of a bakery right here in Obaku, Uji, which happens to be one of the best bakeries in the world. Its existence was conducted to us over lunch at the canteen, and knowing what kind of effect that always has on me, I make it my first stop leaving the university. 'The Blue Boy bakery,' whispers A., 'that's what I call it because it has a little boy on the sign - a blue sign'. 'It's right on the road just after where you would turn in to go to the JR station. It's good'.

'Does it have bread, baguette? European bread?' I ask because it has been so difficult to find non-sweet breakfast bread of the non-toast variety.

'It's good,' A. only repeats. Her boyfriend J. concurs with a nod. They say no more.

They needn't, because that evening, I find out where it is, and I find out via a carefully-planned stratified sampling scheme that they did good sweet as well as savoury breads, a tough balance to maintain. There is a good-looking crusty bread bowl made of potato flour filled with bacon and grilled cheese. That night, C. fights with me over the last morsel of foccacia but manages to finish the bacon bowl. Luckily, I'd already finished the sweet delicate apple crisp on the train.

Except for the apple crisp, I haven't bought anything twice because there's too much to try. And good thing I can't read Japanese, they must have out-of-this-world names. Today I am munching on a walnut-speckled plum-chestnut pastry with just a bit of adzuki-chocolate-tasting (but is it?) filling.

It is the kind of place people speak of in hushed tones. It is a two-person wide, four-person long store which just has enough room to conduct customers, holding on to trays, in conveyor-belt fashion, the only way to wiggle yourself to the line. No-one talks except for the smiley-friendly-efficient cashiers. In the back you can just glimpse white-cloaked angels zipping around baking tables, chopping stuff, the occasional slap of the oven door and the whiff of something good. The third time I let myself go in, failing to resist in my walks to campus, I meet R., whom I haven't seen in two months.

'Hey! How are you doing? What's up with everything?' then lowers his voice in reverence. 'Did I tell you about this place?'

'No it was somebody else. I've known it for a while'. I am saying as I eye a jam-and-cream confection and reach out to slip it on my tray.

'Careful with those,' R. laughs, seeing I have two sweet things on my tray, and it's only 10 in the morning.

Nishiki Market

I hesitate about posting about the Nishiki because oh my god, my experience with this awesome food-only market has only just begun, and threatens to evolve with every trip. Each time I walk down its long and narrow thoroughfare I am bombarded by different scenes, smells and sounds. If it isn't the pickle seller going Irrashayimasse! it's the samurai-looking young men pounding the mochi at the sweets stall.

My first trip was a sleepy afternoon when sporadic tourist groups roamed; the second was a bustling Saturday noontime frenzy, where it was a jostle through and through, but when I also felt much less shy about trying the different-flavoured mochi or pickles in their little boxes or bowls (above).

If I don't know what to do with 10,000 varieties of pickles, at least I know I'll be visiting Nishiki again (and again) if only for its flowers at wholesale prices, or the purple firmness of a basket of eggplants. Or the odd cuts of meat, the strangest flat fish to be seen this side of Kansai. Or really just for the heck of being there.

Fine dining in Kyoto

What better opportunity to experience Japanese fine-dining than a farewell party for a couple of visiting professors! And the menu, if you please:

1. Stand outside the well-preserved machiya (merchant's house) waiting for the rest of the party to show.

2. Finally venture through the outer courtyard and into the reception area. Remove shoes and place in lockers provided, and find out you could have spent your last 15 minutes seated in comfortable waiting chairs like everyone else, or milling around and admiring the darkening view of the garden.

3. Allow yourself to be led into the inner corridors, where you are shown to an exquisite tatami room with an expansive ikebana arrangement in the center and two long tables on the sides adorned with meal implements and the first course in covered woven baskets.

4. Be the only person to order wine instead of Asahi. Open the basket when the others do, and collectively gasp at the delicate arrangements of sashimi, puddings, compote of sea urchin lying within the basket.

5. Find out that this is only the first course and indulge happily. Feel a bit woeful about the ice-cold red wine, and wonder if you should have ordered sake instead.

6. Receive plate of things to dunk in the hotpot, of soya bean milk.

7. Receive main course - an unexpectedly understated sushi plate.

8. Discover the best thing since air-con: plum wine or umeshu.

9. Arrive at an epiphany. that Japanese fine dining is less about the food than the presentation (the excesses, the impressions), and, as the evening wears on, an excuse to drink a whole lot of beer and lose inhibitions.

10. Tumble with the other inebriated folk through the restaurant's subtly-lit landscape garden in the moonlight on a tour of its mini-bridges, tricking streams, hanging willows, and imported limestone plunge pool. Try to shut out images from the Blair Witch Project. Find out this very fine machiya was built and owned by the man who engineered the canalization of the Kamogawa, the banks on which the house sits.

11. Realize that drinking on a Monday sets a really lousy precedent for the rest of the week.

Fast food fast pay

The well-travelled visitor to Japan must have seen countless of these things, but I'm still fascinated at coin-operated anything, including this intriguing machine that swallowed C.'s payment for his dish of rice-and-curry in one of the fast food establishments in Sanjo.

Lipton Tea House, Sanjo, Kyoto

Lipton doesn't conjure up visions of splendour and dining ecstasy, but the Lipton Tea House in the arcaded maze of the Sanjo shopping district in downtown Kyoto is a pleasant well-lit coffee/tea parlour. I cannot be happier at the Japanese passion for pastries and baking. I let myself go today with Lipton's torte of the day, a matcha pudding on a sliver of cream and sitting on a rich chocolate fudge tart base. It was an unmatchable (pun intended) welding of bitter-sweet flavours.

Lunch in Kibune

We heard the thing to do in the village of Kibune, just 20 minutes by train from Kyoto, is to dine at one of the many restaurants perched precariously over the stream that runs through the town. We found this little restaurant, the cheapest of the lot (some set menus started at $60!), but almost didn't get to sit and eat over the stream because the day's only slight drizzle was starting. Luckily for us the drops faded, so we were allowed to sit under the cover of straw and have our late lunch next to a tiny waterfall. We had the gomoku (vegetable) and also the tori (chicken) kamamesi, a pot of rice steamed in the respective broths. The soup contained the strangest little bit of plant specimen, some sort of root or tiny branch that was covered in a gelatinous goo. The meal was just about enough to energize us for the walk down to the station to train it back to Kyoto, but it was quite something to dine with the soothing sound of running water.

Tea at Foster's Holland Village

Smoked salmon and buttered tea sandwich, hot freshly-baked buttery scones, rich tea cake. The tea: A creamy Earl Grey.

Late lunch at Ananda Bhavan's

(Plus my first masala thosai since coming home.)

Fast-food for a late lunch, opposite Mustafa's, with a new jazzed up for the well-to-do jewellery-buyers, while us proletariats shimmy over to the side door entrance. Glad to see that part was unchanged. Picked up a few good old MDF masala mixes for the wintering in Japan.

The airplane gourmand

To say that being upgraded has a certain thrill is a massive understatement. If I'd always looked forward to Economy Class food times (nowadays just for the heck of something interesting happening in the 14 long hours), Business Class mealtimes were even more special. I wasn't expecting anything spectacular, but oh what a refreshing thing smoked salmon is to have on the plane, accompanied by not-third rate cold sliced ham and just a delightful little quarter of grilled portobello topped with brie. Having spent most of my life in avoidance of salads, I could not identify the vinaigrette, but it was delicious. Even the Caesar dressing did not disappoint. I was surprised at the decent Chilean white that went with the meal.
The main course sent me back to earth. Of course the Japanese Bento had already been pre-ordered, pre-flight. What I got was a tough rock of a fillet mignon posing as meat, terribly overmicrowaved. The menu described the hunk of beef as wrapped by a slice of 'apple-smoked bacon'. I couldn't even tell if it were bacon, let alone apple-smoked. To add fuel to the flaming fillet was the accompaniment of insipid green beans. It was probably forgivable if not for the fact that I had already developed an aversion to them after eating dinner at a West Virginia truckstop.

Oh what the hell. I'll be critical just for the heck of it - who's really complaining when you're in Business Class heaven? :)

Due Amici

Black Pepper Fettuccine with Shiitake and Sundried Tomato Cream Sauce

67 East Gay Street, Columbus, OH 43215-3103
Phone: 614-224-9373

It's one of those places reeking of bourgeois hipness, but so irresistable: high ceilings, industrial-modern red-brick-meets-steel, simple but exemplary contemporary Italian food without the clashing of tastes so often found in American cuisine. And here's the weird part: it doesn't cost as expensive as it looks, with pastas at $9.99 and wines starting at $5 a glass. The list of Italian wines is well thought-out and extensive but not overwhelming. The service is iffy: I've had relatively good service but it's pretty inconsistent: the staff isn't too well-versed in the wines, at one point recommending a fizzy Frascati over more well-bodied types suitable for the entree, and another time committing the travesty of dispensing a different wine into half-full glasses of a previous wine for our table of six. Otherwise, the decent prices and experience of a wonderful Friday night out have kept me recommending it to friends. For some reason conversations always tend to flow as fast as the wine. And I've never ventured beyond my favourite of the black pepper fettuccine with shiitake and sundried tomato cream sauce. The bread, always hot, comes with a dish of fresh-grated parmesan and black pepper in olive oil.