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Dish of the Week: Cambodia's Amok

The fish curry amok is regarded as Cambodia's national dish, and so the best place to try it would be Little Cambodia in Long Beach.

At the top is amok as served at Siem Reap, a pan-Asian restaurant that is proud of its "world famous Cambodian food" (but serves mostly Chinese dishes). 

Amok is a fragrant passport to the tropics. It's served in a young coconut shell so that you can scrape the tender flesh into the mixture of fish and light fresh seasonings that include galangal, lemon grass, garlic and turmeric. The leafy green mixed with the fish is Chinese broccoli.

Unlike Thai food, amok is neither spicy nor sweet, at least not at Siem Reap.  But a trayful of condiments includes red chile sauce and sliced green chiles to pump it up to taste, and fish sauce for saltiness.

Deep in the coconut shell, under the fish, is light, clear, coconut-inflected broth. Spoon all of this over rice, and you have one heavenly dish.

First, you'll be given a plate of sweet and sour cabbage mixed with bits of cucumber, carrot and daikon (above) and accompanied by roasted peanuts.

Afterward, head to the dessert table (above) for Cambodian sweets. They include a purple taro dessert and eggy sweets similar to what Thais make. For a perfect combination, choose three--a barely sweet sticky rice cake sprinkled with sesame seeds, a deep gold pumpkin mixture and a coconut sweet with a browned crust.

Eat them together for a blend of textures and flavors that is as heavenly as amok.

Siem Reap, 1810 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach,CA 90813. Tel: (562) 591-7414. 

For Sushi Lovers--Crunch Rolls

These sushi rolls are as crunchy as their name. Panko-coated tempura shrimp are inside, but the real crunch comes from the tiny arare pearls that coat them.

To get these crunch rolls, you'll have to eat at Wazuzu in the Wynn Encore Las Vegas, where they're made by master sushi chef Masaru Matsuura.

Matsuura puts avocado, cucumber and a strip of Japanese mayonnaise blended with masago roe inside with the shrimp.

Then he dips the roll in a container of golden bubu arare (tiny rice cracker pellets), slices it and arranges the slices on a platter.

The sauce alongside is yuzu miso, with dark unagi (eel) sauce in the center. Unagi sauce is like teriyaki sauce, but simmered with eel bones.

Want to make crunch rolls yourself? Then check out Wazuzu executive chef Jet Tila's video that explains the procedure. 

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Vegas' Best Noodles Are Drunk

Well, not really. Wazuzu's drunken noodles don't include a drop of alcohol. They're what you might want to eat when you've drunk too much--something comforting and slithery smooth that goes down easily and feels good. 

If you can still taste, you'll know they're a little sweet, a little spicy and so delicious that they're the top seller at this pan-Asian restaurant in the Wynn Encore Las Vegas. On a busy day, the restaurant turns out more than 50 pounds of jthem.

The Thai name for drunken noodles is pad kee mao. Executive chef Jet Tila, who is Thai, says his version is not like any other. The seasonings are secret, which makes the noodles all the more alluring.

Chef de partie Kam Ho worked with Tila on getting the flavor just right.

Cooking a batch in Wazuzu's kitchen, Ho stir-fried with a vengeance, lifting the wok to let the flames soar over it and impart the tantalizing wok taste that makes the dish so exceptional. The high heat slightly caramelizes the noodles, deepening the flavor.

There's nothing secret about the basics--fresh rice noodles hand-cut into wide strips, egg, a few simple vegetables and large shrimp.

It's the sauce components that make the difference, and I'm not telling, although I saw what went into the wok.

There's some dispute over what the name drunken noodles really means. Should you eat the noodles while you're drinking or later, when you have a hangover?

Probably neither. Cold sober is best when you're eating anything this good. But you will still wind up drunk--with pleasure. 

Paddy Rice Offers Pho and More

Paddy Rice, which opened in June on Melrose Avenue, could be just another neighborhood pho place. But step inside, and you will see that it is not.
 
The look is sleek, minimalist and neutral except for a row of handsome chandeliers and, high on one wall, tall, spare compositions of flowers and branches. That same wall is lined with TV screens above desklike tables that could be work spaces, each with two chairs.
 
The TVs are there to add color, but they make Paddy Rice the perfect place to eat when some major sports event is on. You wouldn't miss a play if you had to visit the restroom. A strategically placed screen is in there too. 

Paddy Rice is the work of architect and interior designer Kevin Kang. Kang has designed other restaurants and retail spaces but wanted a place of his own. The chef is Bernardo Ruiz, who once worked at Nobu Malibu.
 
The menu is small and focused, just 15 dishes, not counting drinks. But it may expand, because other dishes are being tested. 

The four phos are traditional, the recipes acquired from a Vietnamese chef.  There are five appetizers, two versions of fried rice and four cold rice noodle dishes, including one that you'll order over and over during hot weather. 

It's No. 12, bun paddy shrimp, a bowlful of  good things topped off with Asian basil, mint and cilantro sprigs and a cluster of crisp fried rice noodles. It's Vietnamese, but not completely. The food at Paddy Rice shows Japanese influences as well as Mexican, French and Korean.
 
For example, if you order tap water, you get two chilled bottles (in the photo above), one containing the water, the other Korean barley tea.
 
But back to bun paddy shrimp. The rice noodles sit on a bed of lettuce. And as you poke around, you find not just the grilled shrimp, marinated beef and egg rolls promised on the menu, but fried tofu and a collection of vegetables:  cucumber and carrot strands, bits of shiitake mushroom, rehydrated dried squash, long beans, eggplant strips, canola plant and pickled onion and red bell pepper.
 
If they seem super fresh, it's because Paddy Rice has vegetables delivered daily. Perhaps those in the salad change according to what is available.
 
The sauce on the side is a departure from the usual sticky sweet Vietnamese side sauce. It's a lightly sweetened blend of soy sauce, fish sauce, cilantro and mint.
 
No. 12 is the most elaborate of the cold bun dishes--bun is the Vietnamese  word for rice vermicelli. The others include fewer toppings and one is vegetarian, with tofu-stuffed egg rolls.
 
The idea behind the restaurant is to offer good food in a great environment at affordable prices. Bun paddy shrimp is $7.75, topped only by an "ulti meat" pho at $8.
 
Paddy Rice,  6909 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036. Tel: (323) 634-7423.

Eating Asia's Finest at Wazuzu

I could have a perfect meal with just two dishes, Korean short ribs (galbi) and Indonesian fried rice (nasi goreng). But I would have to eat them at Wazuzu in the Wynn Encore at Las Vegas.

I've already written about the short ribs there, which rival anything in Koreatown in Los Angeles.

Nasi goreng is new on the menu. And it incorporates Asian seasonings in such a skillful way that flying home the day after eating it at Wazuzu, I was sorry that I hadn't asked for an order to go.

Like a melting pot of Southeast Asia, the rice tastes of dried shrimp and Chinese sausages, fried shallots, sweet Indonesian soy sauce, spicy chiles and fish sauce.

Fresh shrimp and fried eggs on top make it all you need for a meal, but there is so much more to taste at this pan-Asian restaurant that you will have to set it aside after only a bite or two.

For a starter, try fried Indian flat bread (roti) with panang curry. Executive chef Jet Tila's creamy, coconut-rich panang was a big seller at the annual Thai festival on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles before he left L.A. for Las Vegas. Fortunately, he left behind the recipe.

If you want to taste something rare, order Hong Kong style typhoon lobster in advance--it's not on the regular menu.

The lobster is cut up, coated with a light batter that includes a touch of sambal oelek and double fried, then dished up with fried chiles and garlic. "You don't find this dish many places, " Tila says. But be warned, eating it is messy work.

A gorgeous dish called Matsu Special surrounds seared tuna tataki with a green rim of scallion oil. 

A tangle of finely shredded red and gold beets and daikon in the center of the tuna sits on a circle of cucumber slices. Sesame-coated slim burdock sticks cross in front. 

Thai food is Tila's specialty, and Wazuzu offers plenty of that. The night I was there, he had put shrimp into tom kha gai (chicken coconut soup) instead of chicken, a small change but a good one. 

And I liked the new drink, Thai Silk, a tall blend of coconut lemongrass sake, ginger liqueur and soda, with Thai basil leaves tucked in instead of mint. 

Ice kachang, the Singaporean concoction of shaved ice with fruit, red beans, sweet syrup and condensed milk, is one of the desserts. But I would opt for dragon balls--glutinous rice dumplings filled with black sesame paste and served in warm, ginger-flavored black tea broth.

This traditional Chinese dessert doesn't look like much--I didn't even try to take a photo--but the subtle tastes and chewy textures are wonderful. 

Speaking of Chinese, Wazuzu's vibrant red walls and the Swarovski crystal dragon that undulates across the back look like Chinese New Year every day, so it's a lucky place to be, whether you've done well at the tables or not. 

Wazuzu, the Encore at Wynn Las Vegas, 3131 Las Vegas Blvd. S., Las Vegas, NV 89109. Tel: (702) 770-5388.

Santa Lands at Thai Town

Traffic outside obscured the sound of Santa's sleigh landing on the Thailand Plaza Restaurant Sunday afternoon. But all of a sudden in he popped with a sack of gifts for the little kids who were waiting.

Parents brought them up to sit in his lap while dads and friends took photos. It wasn't an entirely happy occasion. The littlest ones screamed with rage and fear. Who was this devil in a red suit who didn't speak Thai?

Not in the least disturbed, Santa did his job and with a ho ho ho sleighed off to some other engagement while families stayed behind to eat.

Throughout the holidays, Thailand Plaza is featuring the green papaya salad som tam as prepared by visiting chefs from Thailand.

Winners of a national som tam contest, they have devised such creative versions as a som tam hamburger (actually, a chicken burger with Thal seasonings accompanied by som tam sauce) and tempura som tam. In this one, shrimp and strands of papaya and carrot are batter-coated, fried crisp and arranged around a bowl of som tam dipping sauce. 

Too bad Santa didn't have time to try either one, but the rest of us can still get a taste.

He'll be gone by Christmas Day, but the guest chefs will stay on until  New Year, when their big jet-powered sleigh takes off for Thailand.

Thailand Plaza Restaurant, 5321 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90027. Tel: (323) 466-1804.

A Lot to Taste at Tasty Duck

Why else would you go to Tasty Duck in San Gabriel but to eat its famous Peking duck?  However, there's a lot more on the menu. and lunch the other day was like a tour around China.

The guide: Theresa Lin Cheng, chef, Chinese cookbook author and organizer of the Taipei Food Festival for the Taiwan Tourism Bureau.

If you saw the Ang Lee film "Eat Drink Man Woman," you may have seen her hands. They appeared on screen briefly, because Cheng was on the set as executive food designer.

Cheng had ordered a duck in advance--that's the policy at Tasty Duck. It had been carved carefully so that the skin was free of fat and every shred of meat had been extracted, enough for three courses.

First, we ate  duck meat and skin wrapped with shredded green onion and cucumber in thin pancakes smeared with dark, sweet, fermented flour paste.

Next came stir-fried bean sprouts with slivers of duck and then duck bone soup with tofu and nappa cabbage. A tour de duck to be sure.

But on with our tour of China. Two of the dishes came from Sichuan. A hot pot filled with fish and beef (Sichuan surf and turf)  was smothered with enough red chiles to set the coldest heart on fire.

Sichuan peppercorns contributed their fragrance and helped to numb the pain, and there were deeper flavors from vinegar, soy sauce and sesame oil.

Kung pao chicken was  less excruciating--lots of chicken, lots of peanuts, but a sensible amount of chiles. 

We had worked up to these strong flavors with bland, soft sea cucumber, a northern dish and expensive to prepare. Good for the health, we were told.

And we relaxed before and after with a couple of sweet dishes: sticky, syrupy Shanghai style spareribs and Cantonese honey-glazed shrimp, meaning shrimp (and pineapple) buried in fluffy mounds of mayo sweetened with honey.

The candied walnuts that come with this dish have to be eaten quickly before the luscious goo softens their crackly finish.

Cheng is from Taiwan, and so we tasted a Taiwanese/Fujian dish. That was eel marinated with teriyaki seasonings, barbecued and placed on top of steamed sticky rice in a bamboo container lined with dried lotus leaves.

A cold seaweed gelatin and cucumber salad was flavored Beijing style with sesame. Our vegetables were Chinese water spinach with fermented tofu sauce and sliced Chinese white yam with tea tree mushrooms and red goji berries. I couldn't help but think of holiday dinners when I saw that combination. 

What wine could possibly match such diverse flavors? Cheng chose a 2008 Villa Farnia di Farnese Montepulciano, which stood its ground surprisingly well. 

Tasty Duck's owner, Liya Shi (in the photo at the top) is from Shandong. She's a chef too and made the dessert, a whole pear coated with caramelized red wine sauce and sprinkled with tiny yellow osmanthus blossoms.  

Could we eat more? We managed, because there was no way to resist Shi's soft, sweet little cakes of kabocha squash and her sticky rice flour cake filled with red bean paste and cut into bite-size strips.

Tasty Duck Restaurant, 1039 E. Valley Blvd., #B 102, San Gabriel, CA 91776.  Tel: (626) 572-3885. Open daily from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.  

L.A.'s Best Burger May Be Thai

If you like Thailand's green papaya salad som tam, then run, take a tuk-tuk or fly to Thailand Plaza Restaurant in Hollywood.

Not even in Bangkok would you find anything like the som tam the restaurant is serving now.

This dish is so prized in Thailand that a national contest was staged to explore its potential. Culinary students in each region competed in two categories, sweet and savory.

The regional winners went on to finals in Bangkok. And the champions are here now, preparing their prize dishes at Thailand Plaza.

Even if your fantasies run really wild, you'd probably never dream up a som tam hamburger. But Bucihta Sudsenphom, a culinary instructor from Surin in northeastern Thailand, did. And it could be L.A.'s best burger of the moment. 

It's a crisply browned chicken burger, speckled with shredded kaffir lime leaf and served in a bun with tomato and lettuce.

A martini glass on the plate holds sweet, spicy som tam dressing, which just might beat out catsup as a burger partner

And if you think tempura is only Japanese, imagine tempura som tam, each strand of papaya and carrot coated with fluffy batter and arranged with tempura shrimp around a bowl of som tam dressing.  It's a handsome plate, decorated with fried Thai basil leaves.

There's also a shrimp and salted egg som tam.  In this one, the shredded papaya looks like traditional som tam, accompanied by crisp raw cabbage to munch on between spicy bites. What makes it different is the salted egg.

And when the restaurant can arrange for a suitable oven, there will be a som tam cake--yes, a dessert made with som tam.

The winners cooking at Thailand Plaza along with Sudsenphom     (center) are Suchada Manyu from Surat Thani in the south (left) and Anooth Saenghuachang from Nakaornpathom in central Thailand.

If you can't get to Thailand Plaza today, this week or next, don't worry. Their stay has been extended to January l. 

Thailand Plaza Restaurant,  5311  Hollywood Blvd. (2nd floor), Los Angeles, CA 90027. Tel:  (323) 993-9000. Call first so that you don't go when the visiting chefs have a day off.

Nirvana's Surprise: Great Food

I never intended to eat at Nirvana. Although I love Indian food, I avoided this place because it was said to be a singles scene, a bar hang-out where liquor profits ruled, not food.

Even worse was its cutesy kinky image. The drinks include a Kama Sutra cocktail. The menu lists appetizers as "Foreplay."  Entrees are grouped under "Loss of Innocence," and the bar is furnished with exotic square beds.

Not promising. But I went anyway the other night. And what a shock. The people in there weren't hipsters on the prowl but regular souls--one guy even wore a Hawaiian shirt.

Still more startling. the food was the best I've had since New Delhi, not the same hohum tandoori meats and curries cloned throughout Los Angeles.

I say New Delhi because Chef Ramanuj Sahai is from that city and cooked for seven years  at the legendary Bukhara restaurant in the Maurya Hotel there. 

And so right here in Beverly Hills, you can eat Bukhara's famous tandoor-roasted leg of lamb and the slow-cooked dal that is as renowned as the lamb.

I really appreciate this, because I missed the lamb when I ate at Bukhara, which specializes in northwest frontier food.  The person I was lunching with ordered tandoori prawns and spicy chicken seekh kebabs instead.

Nirvana's sikandri raan is so tender the meat virtually falls off the bone. Even more important, at least to me, it is marinated overnight with Old Monk, a dark Indian rum that I bring back from every trip for my summer rum sours.

Bukhara's dal cooks gently for 20 hours over a warm tandoor oven, or so they told me. At Nirvana, the same long slow cooking produces a lush creaminess that might make you want to push away the rest of your food and eat just this, with rice. The restaurant uses urid dal (black-skinned lentils) for this dish.

Chef Sahai is a dedicated food sleuth and once worked two months at a restaurant in Lucknow just to get the secret of its iconic lamb kebab. The galouti kebab at Nirvana combines finely ground lamb with rosewater, cardamom and other spices. The meat is moist and the flavor subtle. A stolen pleasure to savor.

New Delhi style butter chicken--strips of meat in a tomato and butter sauce--is very good. Baingan ka bharta (eggplant), a standard  at every Indian restaurant, is well-presented. And crisp fried whole okra avoids the unpleasant texture associated with this vegetable.  

Appetizers worth noting include slightly crusty mushrooms filled with paneer cheese and tandoori aloo--tandoor-grilled potatoes stuffed with nuts and raisins.

Basil and rosemary naans sound interesting, but the restaurant is especially proud of its light, crispy whole wheat paratha. I've never had one like it. 

Desserts are headlined "Sensuous Pleasures--Sins Committed and Quickly Forgotten." The best is mango Napoleon, sliced fresh mango layered with soft cream and filo pastry, the top layer finished off with crackly sugar. I would forgive myself quickly if I had two of those.

Nirvana is open only for dinner. A long open-air courtyard with a fire blazing at the back would be ideal for warm nights. The inner dining room is dark and quiet.

Owner Deep Sethi told me that the "Slumdog Millionaire" post-Oscar party took place at Nirvana. Those people knew where to go, but I certainly didn't. The restaurant opened about five years ago. I'm sorry it took me so long to get there.

Nirvana, 8689 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90211. Tel: (310) 657-5040. Open from 5 to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday; from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. Friday through Sunday.

 

Touring Artesia's Little India

What better way to start a tour of Little India than by eating at a restaurant where the tables look like the Taj Mahal?

The materials may not be as precious, but Rajdhani's gracefully patterned tabletops do call to mind the ornate inlaid walls of the Taj.

More than 20 of us sat down to a Gujarati style vegetarian lunch there before taking off for the shops along Little India's main street, Pioneer Boulevard in Artesia.

The visits to jewelry stores, a sari shop, a market, a craft, fabric and furniture shop, an ice cream parlor and a Bollywood dance class were arranged by the Los Angeles Mumbai Sister Cities Affiliation as a benefit for projects in India.

Soon the shiny steel thalis at each place were filled with breads, rice, snacks and curries, an astonishing amount of food that was replenished repeatedly, beyond anyone's capacity to eat. Amazing that such a gargantuan repast cost just $13.99, including dessert and chhas, a yogurt drink.

First came little yellow squares of steamed dhokla to eat with mint and tamarind chutneys. Meanwhile, papads, rotis and puris were piled on the thalis, and the small steel cups set inside the trays were filled with delicious mixtures--garbanzo and potato curries, tomato with green beans and khadi, a thin, yogurt-based curry.

The Gujarati taste for sweet was apparent in sweet nuances to the curries and in dal as thin as consomme in which floated peanuts, not lentils. 

As we ate, servers brought vegetable pakoras and golden brown, sesame-topped squares of baked handwa. There was no need to choose between plain rice and yellow mixed rice. We could have both. 

To spice up the food, there were fried green chiles and chile-dusted onion strips; for cool relief, mango puree and yogurt.

Gujarat's irresistible shrikhand made choosing among the six desserts easy. Both tangy and sweet, this soft pudding is composed of thickened yogurt flavored with cardamom and saffron and dusted with finely chopped almonds and pistachios.

More dessert and chai were waiting at the last stop of the tour, the ice cream parlor Saffron Spot.

The flavors there were as colorful and exotic as the sari fabrics and gem-encrusted jewelry that we had admired earlier.

Jackfruit, chikoo, rajbhog, pomegranate, lychee, saffron silk, fig, guava and more beckoned from the display.

Tipped off by restaurant critic Jonathan Gold, I made sure to try the most exotic of them all--meetha paan (sweet paan), which is modeled on the seasoned betel leaf packets that one chews as a digestive after meals in India.

It was extraordinary, an herbal, almost minty, totally Indian blend of tastes that I hadn't experienced since I was last in India itself.

Rajdhani Indian Cuisine, 18525 Pioneer Blvd., Artesia, CA 90701. Tel: (562) 402-9102.

Saffron Spot, 18744 Pioneer Blvd., Artesia, CA 90701. Tel: (562) 809-4554.

To learn about activities of the Los Angeles Mumbai Sister Cities Affiliation, go to www.lacity.org/sistercities/mumbai.