Eating up Shanghai: the cold dishes

It's my second day in Shanghai, and I've been eating like a starved woman. (Yes my darling J, I will definitely gain weight as you've been wishing and praying!) I guess it's because I haven't had a chance to eat good Chinese food in a long while, and also because I've had to walk a lot in Shanghai. Anyway, here are some of the dishes I've savored in this megacity. Let's start with the cold appetizers (liang2 pan4), shall we?

Jellyfish with cucumber and radishes in soy-sesame dressing (Yi Cha Yi Zuo)

Cold silken tofu with century eggs and preserved vegetables in dark soy sauce and sesame oil (Liu Yuan)

Cucumber skins marinated in rice vinegar (Yuan Yuan)

Minced salted vegetables with tofu (Liu Yuan)

My favorite! Lotus roots stuffed with glutinous rice in a sticky and sweet osmanthus syrup. Da-yum!!! I love it so much I had it for both lunch and dinner (Yuan Yuan and Liu Yuan)

Scone so good it deserves its own post

Anotai's scones are all I crave these days. It's hard to find scones in Bangkok (or even in California) that are buttery and moist like the one above at Anotai. Most scones are just dry and cakey, even those at top afternoon tea places like The Oriental Hotel.

I love the unique flavorings that Anotai use for their scones too, such as lavender, rose petals, blueberry and prune and zest. The one pictured above is infused with butterfly pea petals--violet colored edible flowers commonly used in Thai food and desserts. It's supposedly good for those with greying hair too. My aunt grows her own butterfly peas organically at home, eats about 10-15 raw petals daily, and her hair magically turned back to black. Cool huh?

Oh, and the accompanying jam is also really uncommon (I have a thing for unique/ weird stuffs, especially when it comes to food flavorings and pairings). It's mulberry jam. I don't even know what mulberries look like. I only know that silk worms eat mulberry leaves...or at least that's what I remembered learning while in primary school. Anyway, this mulberry jam has a pretty complex flavor. Neither very sweet nor tart. It's kind of figgish to me actually.

Together, the buttery scone, the airy whipped cream and the gooey mulberry jam melded together into a mouthful of delight, and did I mention that it's totally 'melt-in-the-mouth'? So divine! (And yes I know the cream is not the traditional devonshire clotted cream, but the scones are so rich that they don't need another layer of richness on them)

I can't write anymore...I'm getting so hungry already after writing this!

Anotai Vegetarian Restaurant

976/17 Soi Rama 9 Hospital

Tel: 02-641-5366

My favorite Italian eatery in Bangkok

I love Rossano's. Both the food, the ambience, and the service. I first went there for my dad's birthday last week, and it was so good that I just went back there again for dinner with my dad. Rossano's is owned by the owner of L'Opera--an Italian restaurant in Sukhumvit 39 that has been around since way back when. I have been to L'Opera before, but I wasn't impressed by anything. Neither the food, the decor or the service. So I was pleasantly surprised to see that its sister restaurant has turned out so magnificently.

The private room on the second floor. I love the way the extra long bread sticks in the vase doubled as decorative pieces.

Bronze pots and pans (definitely imported) decorate the high walls. Very creative and adds a nice authentic touch

Rossano's was probably converted from a house, and stepping into the restaurant made me feel like I was stepping into someone's home in Tuscany. The restaurant has a very homey, warm and slightly rustic feel from both its decor and the color scheme of yellow ochre, bronze and dark chocolate.

Anyway, on to the food. The bread basket itself was already impressive. Not just because of the wide variety, but also because of how yummy each of the bread choices was. I personally loved the thin bread crisps the most. They're brushed with extra virgin olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt and thyme, then baked till brittle and crispy.

Next is another one of my favorite salads--Rossano's signature crab meat salad. It's really delicious, but in a very different way than Antonio's rich and creamy mushroom-truffle-gorgonzola salad. This crab meat salad was just very light and bursting with natural freshness from the cherry tomatoes, chilled avocado (the temperature here was the key to making the buttery avocado taste refreshing), and sweet crab meat. The dressing was probably extra virgin olive oil and white wine vinegar. The reduced balsamic vinegar was just drizzled on for an extra kick.

The crab meat salad beautifully plated above. By the way, this was just half the actual serving. My dad told the waitress to divide the salad for us. Imagine if I had to finish the entire salad myself!

The huge lump of fresh crab meat on top of a cute little avocado ball

Our second course was the porcini risotto. Many places make this dish, but few can make it so perfectly. At Rossano, the arborio rice was al dente (yes this rule applies to rice too, not just pasta); the porcini mushrooms were succulent and unbelievably fragrant (not like the porcini filling at Antonio's that didn't smell like anything); and the porcini broth melded perfectly with the starch from the rice to form a rich, adhesive sauce. On top of all that, Rossano's recipe called for 2 extra flavor enhancers: Parma ham bits and linguini-like strips of cheese. The end result was completely satisfying, although I must say that the first few spoonfuls were much better than the ones later...probably because the residual heat made the fragrance of the porcini and parma ham more obvious to my senses at the beginning, and as the heat wore down, so did the fragrance.

The porcini risotto with milky white strands of cheese and too-tiny-to-be-seen parma ham bits. Oh, and also the shadow from my head.

Finally, my dad and I enjoyed a bowl of potato gnocchi with fresh lobster in a stewed tomato-basil sauce. This is my favorite dish because it's so comforting...somehow potatos and most other starchy stuffs (except white rice) tend to have that effect on me. Plus, it was cooked so perfectly. I've had lots of gnocchi elsewhere, and this place seriously makes the BEST gnocchi. They're soft, smooth, and almost fluffy! Most other places would make gnocchi that are rubbery and flour-y (can't think of a better word to describe a dough that has too high of a flour-potato ratio).

I also love the stewed tomato-basil sauce that Rossano's chef paired with the gnocchi. I always found the typical four cheese sauce, or worse, gorgonzola sauce, too heavy and rich to accompany gnocchi. Stewed tomatoes and basil, on the other hand, made for a light and refreshing sauce that both contrasted and complimented these little potato dumplings.

The gnocchi that won a huge place in my heart. Love the fact that they were all irregularly shaped too--an unintentional yet effective way to scream "homemade!"

Can't wait to bring J here soon! I still haven't tried a lot of dishes...so I'll keep you guys updated on the other good eats in my future posts. =)

Rossano's

167 Sukhumvit 21/3

Tel: 02-661-7449

Antonio's--my first visit

I've heard so much about Antonio's. A friend claimed that it's the best Italian eatery in Southeast Asia, and my bro said that it has the best grilled steak in Bangkok. How could I not give it a try, right?

J and I finally made the trip to Antonio's tonight. It's a small restaurant, half-filled with expats, with a very simple and cozy decor. (I like Rossano's decor and ambience much better...and I'll show that in another post.) The service though, was superb. The staff were so enthusiastic and just seemed genuinely happy to serve. If there's anything to give credit to Antonio's, I'd say it provided the best service I've experienced in Bangkok. We were impressed by the staff's huge grin and friendly yet unintrusive chat, as well as their speedy service. For example, we were served with a plate of warm homemade focaccia in less than 5 minutes after being seated.

Homemade focaccia with basil-tomato topping on the side

After that, the waiter brought us a huge plate of the day's special--fresh (as in alive and still kicking on the plate) mud crab from Phuket, scallops from Japan, mushrooms from Chiangmai, clams from the US, etc. Then he went on to recommend how each item should be cooked. We went with his recommendations of:

Mixed salad in truffle-gorgonzola dressing (see the black specks?) topped with mushrooms stir fried with garlic, olive oil and chilli

This salad was really, really yummy. One of the best salads I've had (my other favorite is the tuna nicoise salad at Vanilla). I'd never expected truffle and gorgonzola to go together so well, because I'd thought that the gorgonzola would be too overpowering. But it was just right. The fragrance from the truffle was the first thing I noticed, followed by the slightly salty and creamy gorgonzola. The mushrooms were really flavorful as well, and I think it was made to suit Thai people's taste because typical Italian food I've had tend to be a lot blander than this.

Porcini ravioli with black and white truffle cream sauce

Our second dish was the famous ravioli--the signature dish that was often featured in the restaurant's reviews. The sauce was good, but I guess it lost the 'wow' factor a little bit because I've had something similar before in the salad. The porcini-ricotta filling was ok. I couldn't smell the porcini as much because the truffle scent was quite strong. But I've heard that the ravioli with foie gras filling is to-die-for, so the next time I might order that instead.

The waiter also served us some pieces of bread to mop up the sauce, and I must say that the bread went better with the sauce than the ravioli (oops sorry chef). Our plates were mopped clean.

J mopping up his sauce even before tackling the ravioli

Our main course was again, another famous dish here: angel hair pasta with olive oil, garlic, and chilli, as well as one whole mud crab (that I saw moving its legs earlier)! While this dish was good, it reminded both J and I of stir-fried Chinese noodles (mee sua with crab meat) that we could get at Ah Yat at half the price. We both prefer tomato-based sauces much better, so next time we'll give this a pass and try something else.

The mud crab pasta came with lots of crab roe, all of which I gave to J. The massive amount of cholesterol irked me

J and I will definitely come back here to try other dishes. The chefs here flavor their food well, so we just need to experiment with the rest of the menu to find our own favorites. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's the best Italian eatery in Bangkok though. Three dishes are barely representative of a restaurant, right?

Antonio's

59/1 Sukhumvit 31

Tel: 02-258-4247

Thai style vegetarian at Anotai

I've written about the food at Anotai before, so I'll just show you guys some of the food pics in this post =)

Seaweed-wrapped agedashi tofu with wasabi-mayo dip and papaya slaw

Mizuna salad (some organic veg I've never heard of) in lemon-sesame dressing, mixed with lots of dried cranberries

Unpolished red rice. My bro said that it's the kind of rice that prisoners used to eat until the health craze hit Thailand. Now this type of rice is pricey!

Stir fried sweet gourd (texture of bittergourd but very sweet) with egg and carrots

Eggplants and tofu in a basil-fermented soy beans (dou jiang) sauce

Anotai Vegetarian Restaurant

976/17 Soi Rama 9 Hospital

Tel: 02-641-5366

Butler's--haute desserts in Bangkok

J and I went to Gaysorn for lunch today. I read about a new dessert-focused cafe called Butler's in BK magazine last week, and I've been bugging J to go with me ever since. The chef/ co-owner, Tim Butler, is a CIA grad who is a well-known pastry chef from several New York restaurants such as Aquavit, Alto and L'Imperio. I think what brought him to Bangkok must be his Thai fiancee, who graduated from the French Culinary Institute (how cool!) and was a sous chef at L'Imperio.

Butler's was very chic--a cafe on a platform that sits atop a fish pond, surrounded by flowers and green shrubs. The color scheme was dark chocolate and deep purple, which reminded me a bit of Le Notre cafes in Bangkok. I really like the staff uniform there: crisp long-sleeved shirt in light brown (like cafe au lait) and a dark chocolate colored necktie tucked into the middle of the shirt. Cute!

For drinks, J and I both ordered a refreshingly delicious Iced Tea Mojito--limeade with muddled mint leaves and brown sugar, topped with iced tea. It's so good that I think it deserves a big picture tribute here:

We loved the complimentary bread and butter at Butler's too. Crusty, warm French bread served with the best butter I've had in Bangkok. I said 'best' because of a really simple touch--adding a light layer of sea salt on top of the compounded butter. I love my butter salted, and this saved me the need to sprinkle salt on my buttered bread. A lazy girl's dream come true. =)

I wanted to save my stomach for dessert, so I ordered a very light lunch. A 'simple' salad to share (that's really the name of the salad), and pan-seared scallops with taro puree and frisee for main course. J had orecchiette pasta with sundried tomatoes, thyme and clams.

The salad was simple alright--mixed salad with cherry tomatoes and lightly dressed in reduced balsamic vinegar and olive oil. However, there were some unique elements to this salad. First, it had a generous amount of fried shallots, which I guess is an homage to Thai cuisine. Second, there were paper-thin slices of fried taro, so thin that they were almost translucent (see top-right picture above)! I loved these taro slices...very crispy, salty, and also packed a potent punch of black peppers.

The main courses were good, but not great. My scallops were nice and big, and perfectly cooked. They were caramelized on the outside yet still juicy and jiggly on the inside. All they lacked was a natural sweetness that I guess only comes with super fresh/ sashimi-grade scallops. As for J's dish, it was well-flavored, but the pasta was not al dente, and J complained that there was too much oil. I guess my health-conscious streak did rub off on him after all.

Then finally we had desserts. I was so looking forward to this, and when the plates arrived, I was not disappointed (at least presentation wise). We had two beautifully presented desserts: Poached pineapple with pandanus cream and sake granite, and chocolate ganache with chocolate ice cream, topped with orange segments and caramelized cashews.

The sake granite was to-die-for, and it went really well with the pineapple. However, the pandanus cream was just too rubbery. I expected it to be creamy or mousse-like, but it was almost as tough as marzipan. As for the chocolate dish, the ganache was kind of like a flourless chocolate cake, which went well with the cashews but not so much with the oranges. I couldn't really taste the orange flavor, and if they had wanted to accentuate 'orangeness' they should have added some orange zest into the chocolate ganache. The chocolate ice cream though, was fantastic. We could tell that it was made from high quality dark chocolate, and it was only a tad sweet. Yum!

I'm glad new eateries like this are opening up in Bangkok. It's a great place to hang out with friends for desserts in the afternoon after a tiresome round of shopping. Now if only something like the Brunch Club in Hong Kong could expand to Thailand.....

Butler's

Gaysorn Plaza Lobby Floor

Creole cravings

In my college days, my TV was constantly tuned to the Food Network. I loved the Barefoot Contessa and Everyday Italian the most, but oftentimes I'd find myself watching Emeril Live at around 6 pm while cooking dinner. His constant 'Bam!' was annoying, and I really wondered if he could cook all that well--he seemed more like an entertainer than a super chef.

Regardless, Emeril had embedded in me a curiosity for Creole/ Cajun cuisine. I must have heard him talk about gumbo, etouffee, andouille sausages, jambalayas, and blackened chicken for thousands of time! So despite having left the US for more than 2 years, I still remember these names and even know of the top off my head how to cook each of them.

I've only tried Creole/ Cajun cuisine twice I think...at Nola's in Palo Alto. Once with a good friend T, and again with fellow McK BAs from Stanford. I don't remember much about the food there, so I guess it wasn't spectacular, but Nola's got me hooked on corn bread--slightly sweet, gritty, and with sprinklings of sweet corn kernels. I've always had a weakness for corn; there was one point in my college years that I literally had bags and bags of Safeway frozen corn that I would just microwave up and eat while watching TV, sometimes eating nothing but the corn all day (and I wasn't even dieting =P).

Anyway, for some weird reason, I had a super strong craving for Cajun/ Creole food like corn bread, crab cakes and gumbo while at the hospital post-appendectomy. I also really missed chicken pot pie and meatloaf--the classic American comfort food that brought back memories of dorm life at Frosoco. But being continents away from the US, I didn't expect to find any of these dishes in Bangkok restaurants. So I browsed through recipes for chicken pot pie on Paula Deen's web site and emailed it to my lovely J, telling him that I'd love him a thousand times more if he made a pie and brought it to visit me during my 1 week house arrest. =)

Fortunately for J, I found a restaurant in the heart of Bangkok called Bourbon Street that specializes in Cajun/ Creole cuisine of Louisiana, as well as classic American favorites! It's been opened for 22 years by a Louisiana native. I heard that the restaurant was in a sketchy area (right behind a Cabaret club) but I had to satisfy my cravings, so J and I ventured to well, a pretty nasty area, just to get a taste of Louisiana cookin'...

The area was sketchy alright. It was lined with beer bars, lounges and massage parlors catered for tourists/ expats with rows after rows of scantily-clad women. But the food did not disappoint. We ordered crab cakes, meat loaf, shrimp gumbo, jambalaya, blackened chicken, corn bread and collard greens (I had a serious craving, evidently).

Super moist meatloaf with creamy mashed potatoes and stewed veggies. Lots of gravy!

Gumbo topped with rice--the dark color is from the roux, a caramelized mixture of flour, butter, celery, carrots, and onion (i.e. the trinity)

My favorite dishes were: meatloaf, gumbo, blackened chicken and collard greens. Sadly though, the corn bread here was kinda blah. I would have wanted it to be a bit sweeter and less dry.

Even though we were super full, we decided to order a dessert, and chose Grandma's warm pecan pie with vanilla ice cream. My inspiration for this choice: I had just watched an episode of Martha in which she was a judge at a local pie competition in upstate New York, and the winner came to demonstrate his pecan pie recipe in her show. Unfortunately, Bourbon Street's pie was only covered with pecans on top of the pie, instead of having it all over the filling like the one I saw on Martha (must be expensive to buy pecans here at imported price). Plus the crust was soggy, so I bet it wasn't blind-baked before the filling was poured in. Another turn off was the orange tone of the vanilla ice cream. Could it get any more artificial? Oh well...here's a pic anyway.

Would I go back to this place? Well, only if I have another bout of serious craving. While the food was quite good, J and I felt very out of place in the restaurant. We were surrounded by expats/ tourists, and almost all of them had Thai female escorts, if you know what I mean. It's the unfortunate and ugly side of the Thai tourism industry, which totally ruins the image of Thai women.

Bourbon Street Restaurant & Oyster Bar

Washington Square, Sukhumvit 22

Tel: 02-259-0328