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10 Top Tastes of 2009

Choosing 10 top tastes from a year filled with good food would be ridiculous. These are just a few dishes that come to mind when I think of what I ate in 2009. They're all from the Los Angeles area. 

1. Chicken Mangalorean at Surya Indian Restaurant.

It's sad that Surya is getting ready to close. This means there's only a short time left to taste its signature dish, chicken Mangalorean, on the premises.

Owner Sheel Joshi modified a recipe that he obtained from Mangalore on India's southwestern coast, and it quickly became Surya's most popular dish.   

Spicy, creamy with coconut milk and studded with fried curry leaves, chicken Mangalorean is something you won't find anywhere else.

Surya Indian restaurant, 8048 W. 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA. 90048. Tel: (323) 653-5151. The restaurant will close by mid January.

2. Garlic eggplant at 9021Pho.

Chef Kimmy Tang grills long, slim eggplants, coats them with Vietnamese vinaigrette and piles alongside golden brown fried garlic, shallots and peanuts for a vegan entree.

Tang says that this is a simple home style Vietnamese dish, and my New Year's goal is to learn how to make it.

9021Pho, 490 N. Beverly Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90210. Tel: (310) 275-5277.

3. Oaxacan tejate.

This foamy drink of ground nuts, seeds and exotic components such as cacao flowers turned up at a Oaxacan fiesta in south Los Angeles.

Tejate is easy to find at markets in Oaxaca, but the water used there might not be safe to drink. At the fiesta, there was no risk, and the drink was so popular that its maker, Soledad Lopez of Guelaguetza Palms Restaurant, is thinking about  offering it when her restaurant reopens in 2010.

Guelaguetza Palms Restaurant, 11127 Palms Blvd., Los Angeles, Ca 90034. Tel: (310) 837-1153.  The restaurant is temporarily closed for reconstruction.

4. Tempura som tam at Thailand Plaza Restaurant. 

 Like a beautiful dream, this unusual version of northern Thai green papaya salad appeared only to vanish. Composed of crisp fried green papaya, carrot and shrimp with a som tam dipping sauce, it was prepared by chefs from Thailand who cooked for a few weeks at Thailand Plaza Restaurant in Hollywood. Their tenure has ended, but the tantalizing memory lingers. 

Thailand Plaza Restaurant, 5321 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90027. Tel: (323) 466-9009.

5. House special som tam at Sri Siam Cafe.

The tempura somtam may be gone, but Sri Siam fills in the gap with its own unusual som tam.

In addition to green papaya and carrots, the salad is packed with such surprising ingredients as fine noodles, bits of Thai eggplant and fresh lime, long beans, pink Thai pork sausage, peanuts and, on the side, pork cracklings.

Sri Siam Cafe, 12843-45 Vanowen St., North Hollywood, CA 91605. Tel: (818) 982-6161.

6. Kibbeh labanieh at Skaf's in Glendale.

These oval dumplings composed of ground meat and fine bulgur wheat swim in creamy yogurt sauce flavored with garlic. This is Lebanese comfort food at its best, just what you need to sooth away holiday fatigue.

Skaf's Lebanese Cuisine, 367 N. Chevy Chase, Glendale, CA 91206. Tel: (818) 551-5540.

7. Rizogalo at the Astroburger.

Containers of this rich, cinnamon-topped Greek rice pudding are always on display at the Astroburger's order counter. That is fortunate, because I go back repeatedly to buy them.

Owner Cosmas Kapantzos, who is from Athens, worked diligently to perfect the formula, and he has done a masterful job.

Astroburger, 5601 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038. Tel: (323) 469-1924.

8. Tarta de ricota at Carlitos Gardel.

If you're lucky, you'll eat at this Argentinian restaurant when the tarta is on the menu. It's an occasional special, a cheesecake that is wonderfully light and delicately sweetened. The swirls of dulce de leche around it and the powdered sugar over the top provide all the sugar that you need.

Carlitos Gardel Restaurant, 7963 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046. Tel: (323) 655-0891.  

9. Cecconi's panna cotta, chocolate and toffee coppa. 

In March I tasted this devastating layered composition of caramel sauce, chocolate panna cotta and whipped cream, accompanied by a pitcher of chocolate sauce and crunchy candy crumbs to sprinkle over it all.  It was the richest dessert I had all year.

Cecconi's, 8764 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90069. Tel: (310) 432-2000.

10. Algarrobina mousse at Mo-Chica. 

I could only find algarrobina desserts in Peru until Ricardo Zarate opened his  Peruvian restaurant in the Mercado La Paloma in downtown Los Angeles. 

Algarrobina is carob, and my kitchen is packed with bottles of algarrobina syrup that I brought home from Lima. But if I want a really good algarrobina mousse, I just go to Mo-Chica.

Mo-Chica, 3655 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90007 (inside the Mercado La Paloma). Tel: (213) 747-2141.

Oaxacans Hold a Special Fiesta

It was like any sunny Sunday in the zocalo of Oaxaca city. Bands played. Dancers in indigenous costumes stomped, tapped and whirled through dances from the seven regions that make up Oaxaca state. Families relaxed and chatted, and teenagers eyed each other as they spooned up ice creams in such exotic flavors as mamey, tuna (cactus fruit) and leche quemada (burnt milk). 

But this wasn't Oaxaca. It was Los Angeles. And it wasn't a zocalo but the parking lot of St. Cecilia Catholic Church on south Normandie Avenue. 

And it wasn't just any Sunday gathering, but one of the most significant events of the year, a fiesta honoring Oaxaca's patron saint, La Virgen de la Soledad (The Virgin of Solitude).

It started with Mass, celebrated with dancers and band music. Then came a procession to the parking lot led by marmoteros--men who transport the enormous fabric balloons called marmotas that are essential to fiestas in Oaxaca.

Priests, dancers and the faithful followed, bringing a large portrait of the Virgin, which they placed in a white tulle frame. 

Then the dancing began, continuing for hours as folkloric groups and bands took their turns.

A Mixe dance started somberly, then erupted into action. In La Flor de Pina from Tuxtepec, girls danced with pineapples balanced on their shoulders. 

Interludes of saucy banter punctuated another sequence, provoking laughter from the audience, and a boy and girl flirtatiously charged at each other as if they were a bull and bullfighter.

Dancers swayed to the nostalgic "Cancion Mizteca," a song of longing for the homeland, and boys in tall headdresses performed the Zapotec feather dance as if they were energetic young warriors from centuries past.     

Of course there was food, prepared with enthusiasm because the purpose was to support the dance groups and bands.

If restaurants were involved, as was the case with Guelaguetza in Palms, they were identified only by the name of the group they wanted to promote. The eating began long before the ceremonial procession arrived.

Women patted out masa to form memelas and  bean-stuffed huaraches. Or they flattened the masa into tortillas by hand or with a wooden press.  

Fried quesadillas with such fillings as mushrooms and papas con chorizo (potatoes with chorizo) were slathered with black beans, then topped with lettuce, cheese and Mexican crema. 

Tortillas con relleno (above) were lined with black beans to form the base for a layer of nopales, a freshly grilled black Oaxacan chorizo, lettuce, cheese and salsas.

Tlayudas (right), large masa rounds topped with beans, meat, cheese and other savory ingredients, were so large they had to be folded in half to fit on a plate.

There were tacos, tortas filled with Oaxacan cecina, tamales verdes (with green sauce), tamales with mole, hamburguesas and drinks such as ponche, champurrado and brightly colored aguas frescas.

Soledad Lopez of Guelaguetza (right) served plates of barbacoa de chivo (goat), barbacoa tacos and chicken taquitos smothered with lettuce, cheese and avocado salsa.

And she brought the prized fruit tejocotes, which look like tiny yellow apples (manzanas) and so are also know as manzanitas or manzanillas. These are essential for the holiday drink ponche, but she had cooked them in cinnamon-flavored syrup (they're in the pink bowl below).

A pile of handpainted, bowl-shaped jicaras at the front of her stand were containers for tejate, a frothy prehispanic drink. Making it is dauntingly laborious, and a mixer or food processor can't do the job. Lopez stirred and swirled the mixture, first with her arm, then with her fingers, until it began to bubble and foam.

The ingredients included mamey seeds, cacao, cacao flowers, peanuts, almonds and dried corn boiled with cenizas (ashes) to make it easy to peel. Corn for masa is cooked with cal (lime), but this would taint the drink with a chemical taste, Lopez said.

Diluted with water, the ground mixture was not sweetened, but servers spooned a little sugar syrup into each jicara as they filled it. The nutty flavor was concentrated in tiny granules called florecitas that floated on top.

Typical Oaxacan ingredients were on sale too. There were fresh chiles de agua, smoked dried Mixe chiles, the string cheese called quesillo, chapulines (grasshoppers), tasajo (dried meat) and breads such as pan de yema and pan amarillo brought from Oaxaca.

A stand of religious goods offered framed portraits of the jeweled, black-robed Virgen de la Soledad, whose basilica is one of the most important sites in Oaxaca city. 

The music drifted from the church into the neighborhood, and families sat outside to eat, drink and listen until the fiesta ended as light faded. 

A Place Where Cats Eat Too

If you love cats, there is one restaurant in Bangkok where you must eat. It is P Kitchen on Soi 18, which branches off Sukhumvit near the Asok exit from the sky train (BTS).

There is actually a tiny 4 after the P, so I suppose the correct name is P.4 Kitchen, but I never heard anybody call it that.

P.8 might be a better name, because that is how many cats I have counted while eating there. The cats are not in the restaurant, which is open-air (I felt a few sprinkles of rain one night), but next door.

A fence comes right up to the tables, and this is where they assemble. As you eat, they stare at you, and a cat who wants food knows how to exude devasating appeal. If you're heartless, you'll ignore them. If not, you'll toss a few bites over the fence.

The reason they are so determined is that the food at P Kitchen is very good. A small, family-run place, it turns out dishes that would cost a lot more, and perhaps not be as well prepared, at more pretentious places.

Western tourists eat there because they stay in the neighbohood, as I did, but the food has not been altered to please them.

One of the best dishes of my entire trip was P Kitchen's yam pak boong grob, or crispy morning glory with minced pork and shrimp.

Pak boong and morning glory are names for a long-stemmed green that crosses cultures in Asia. In this dish, it is lightly coated with lacy batter, like tempura, and fried until the batter becomes crisp. And it stays crisp, no matter how long it takes you to eat.

The minced pork and a few whole shrimp are in a bowl of spicy sweet sauce for dipping.

With this, I drank the fresh juice from a young coconut, then scraped out the tender flesh for dessert. The price for both was a little over $3.

Another time I had asparagus stir-fried with shrimp. Cut into short lengths, this Thai asparagus was slim and crunchy, nothing like the fatter spears in California markets. I also ordered crispy catfish salad.

Can you imagine such a fresh and interesting seafood dinner for $7? And this included fresh limeade (nam manao) and rice.

I've attempted to copy another P Kitchen dish that I liked very much, pork in lemon (actually lime) sauce with garlic and chile.

The pork was served like a salad over raw cabbage with lettuce underneath. Thais usually add a dash of sugar to such dishes, but this was not sweet, just fragrant with fresh lime juice balanced with fish sauce.

I stir-fried the pork, but I suspect the P Kitchen cook might have boiled it and then added the seasonings. That's what I'll try next time.  

P.4 Kitchen, 11/3 Sukhumvit Soi 18, Bangkok, Thailand 10110. Tel: 02-6634950. Open 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Closed Sunday.

PORK WITH LIME, GARLIC AND CHILE
Adapted from P.4 Kitchen, Bangkok

1 pound lean pork
1/2 small head cabbage
2 leaves lettuce
5 tablespoons lime juice
3 tablespoons fish sauce
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon thinly slivered fresh red chile or 1 serrano chile, thinly sliced
White pepper
Mint sprigs

Cut the pork in very thin strips (less than 1/8-inch-thick) that are 1 1/2 to 2 inches long.  This is easy to do if the pork is partially frozen. Set aside.

Cut the cabbage in half lengthwise and remove the core. Now cut crosswise in 1/2-inch slices. Separate the cabbage layers. Line a serving plate with the lettuce leaves, then top with the cabbage.

Combine the lime juice, fish sauce and sugar in a small bowl and stir to dissolve the sugar.

Heat a wok over high heat. Add the oil and heat until very hot. Add the garlic, then immediately add the pork and stir-fry until cooked through and no pink color remains, about 5 minutes depending upon the heat and thickness of the meat.

Stir in the red chile, then add the lime juice mixture. Cook and stir about 1 minute, until the meat absorbs the flavors. Taste, check the seasoning and add more lime juice and/or fish sauce if needed. The taste should be bright with lime and not overly salty.

Sprinkle lightly with white pepper and turn out onto the cabbage. Garnish with mint sprigs.

Makes 4 servings.

 

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.

Ngwanlee: It's The Same as Ever

Soi Langsuan has changed so much I hardly recognized it on this trip to Bangkok. The street is much more upscale, lined with smart residences, spas and restaurants. LeNotre is there, and so is Starbucks.

Instead of the restaurants I remember, among them Pan Pan, which was always crowded; the Hot Shoppe, Old World and the Bee Z Pub, I saw the Yaki Ten Japanese Bar and Restaurant, Le Pre Grill, Air Plane Restaurant and Cafe, Forlente Italian restaurant and The Ninth Cafe, which puts out Thai, Italian and fusion dishes.

Order The Ninth's stir-fried spicy spaghetti with basil leaves and you can finish with a slice of double chocolate cake, tiramisu or pannacotta with raspberry sauce. 

But the soi still has street food and sidewalk tables where office workers eat lunch. And Ngwanlee is still there, at the far end where Langsuan deadends at Lumpini Park.

Unlike its upscale surroundings, this Chinese/Thai restaurant is as plain as ever. But you go there to eat, not to look at a fancy dining room.

The best time to go is night. If it's not raining, the restaurant will be open to the stars. But this trip I went for lunch, which is served in a barracks like air-conditioned room with tinny tables, a linoleum floor and a gruff waitress.  

The food, as always, was wonderful. Three dishes and a rich tasting nam manao (limeade) with a touch of salt came to $10, plus a tip for the gruff but efficient server.

The plates were Chinese style, meaning my lunch would have served two or three. But I wanted all of the fried shrimp with garlic and pepper for myself. The tender, very fresh shrimp were butterflied and fried, then sprinkled with pepper and topped with golden flakes of fried garlic.  

Fried fish noodle would be noodles with fish, right? Well, not exactly. In Ngwanlee's version, the noodles are the fish, cut into pale, thin strips and mixed with bean sprouts and yellow chives in a light, broth-based sauce. This delicately seasoned dish is the opposite of the fiery food one expects in Thailand. 

For old times sake, I had to have a favorite from the past, pak boong fai dang, which means morning glory vegetable stir-fried in a red hot wok (fai is Thai for fire and dang is red). The greens come in a Chinese style brown sauce with good-sized chunks of garlic and a scattering of fermented soy beans.

The menu is long, and Ngwanlee has a thrifty way to adjust for rising costs without reprinting it. A disclaimer reads, "The price may be changed. Must be sorry here." But whatever the price, you will not be sorry that you ate there.

Ngwanlee Langsuan Restaurant, 101/25-26 Soi Langsuan, Patumwan, Bangkok, Thailand. Tel: (02) 251-8366

The Party was Freezing but Fun

The night was bitter cold--bitter for Los Angeles, at least. And the party was outside, but no one suffered.

It helped that the guests were ringed by food trucks, as if pioneer covered wagons had formed a circle, and that red hot cooking was happening at booths set up by popular L.A. street food vendors.

It helped too that many people came, crowding together in the tented parking lot behind Travelers Bookcase on West 3rd Street.

They were there for the launch of "Eat: Los Angeles 2010" (Prospect Park Books, $19.95), a guide to restaurants, wine shops, markets, caterers, roving trucks and neighborhoods.

Those that bought it got their money's worth. The new edition incorporates about 240 more restaurants than last year's, drops those that closed or weren't worth recommending again and adds more neighborhoods.

It was so chilly that Sue Moore, co-founder of Let's be Frank, said she wished she could invite guests to warm up inside the cozy truck. But they were happy outside, eating dogs plain and spicy. 

Nina's Catering Service, a Breed Street fixture, assembled Mexico City style huitlacoche quesadillas on the spot, starting with pressing out the wrappers on a wooden tortilla press. Deep-fried, they were almost too hot to touch, which was a good thing.

The Grilled Cheese Truck passed out welcome cups of tomato soup, sacks of Tater Tots and trays of melted cheese sandwiches, ranging from plain cheese melts to a harvest melt with Gruyere, toasted butternut squash, fresh thyme and agave and balsamic syrups.

Mac and cheese sandwiches pushed the envelope a little, but so what. The night called for carbing up.  

Next to Nina, "Heidy" from Jakarta served skewers of succulent sate babi manis (sweet pork), fresh from a sizzling hot grill.

D'Amore's, the pizza spot on the block, acted like a good neighbor by bringing in a couple of thin-crusted pizzas that disappeared in a flash. 

For dessert, those who didn't mind getting colder could have an ice cream sandwich from the Coolhaus truck, choosing from assorted flavors to put between cookies or brioche. 

There were artisanal beers and Portuguese wines. And one of the book's co-authors warmed up with coffee she brought from Joan's on Third across the street. Not a bad idea, because the temperature was in the 40s, and as the party ended, it was heading steadily downward.    

The Answer to a Guessing Game

A few weeks ago, I posted a Thai guessing game. The idea was to guess the identity of a Bangkok restaurant's variation on one of the most popular Thai dishes in the United States.

Only one person got it right (congratulations, Anjali).  It was rad na. Here, that means soft wide rice noodles topped with Chinese broccoli and a thick, Chinese style gravy. 

At Patara, the ingredients are the same, but the preparation is radically different. There, sheets of fresh rice noodles are cut into squares, deep-fried and stacked, looking like crisp layers of filo pastry. Thin strips of beef and chunks of gai lan in a delicate sauce are spooned over the top.

Like this surprising rad na, Patara's food raises Thai cooking to a level that I hadn't seen before--traditional, yet imaginative and modern. 

Some of the dishes came from the first Patara, which opened in London in 1990. The Bangkok restaurant is in lively Thong Lor, far up a lane that branches off Sukhumvit 55.

The building is a refurbished Thai house. Inside, the look is contemporary but accented with antiques and Thai touches such as the Thai style day bed in the bar.

That bar produced the best cocktail that I had in Bangkok, the Lychee Pirinha, a blend of lychees, lime juice and rum. The long list of bar specialties includes a green mango margarita and a Bangkok martini infused with lemon grass and kaffir lime.

The Lychee Pirinha came from London, as did skewered lamb with panang curry sauce. That dish was introduced  to Bangkok with trepidation, because lamb isn't favored in Thailand. It turned out to be a hit, nonetheless. The taste brings to mind India, but the curry sauce is Thai. 

Stir-fried lettuce, new on the menu when I was there, was as simple and distinctive as the rad na. Placing a cover on the  intensely hot wok held in smoke that gave an edgy taste to the lettuce. 

Tiny appetizer dumplings were tinted with natural colors. Pork satay came wrapped in betel leaves. And soft shelled crab topped a green mango salad.

Big river prawns that looked more like small lobsters were speckled with green peppercorns and fried garlic, a different  interpretation of garlic pepper shrimp from others I saw in Bangkok, and very different from anything I've had at home.

And I had a rare chance to taste Thai primrose blossoms in a sweet and spicy salad. This dish is seasonal, and very few restaurants serve it, said Vitoon Sila-On of S&P, the restaurant group that includes Patara.

Founded by his mother, Patara Sila-On, S&P has grown to 100 or more restaurants and 200 bakery shops. Patara is expanding too. The latest branch opened recently in Beijing.

S&P food is more traditional than Patara's. In an S&P branch that looks out on the Chao Phrya river, I had very good green curry with beef, fried fish in sweet and sour mango sauce, garlic pepper spareribs, Chinese broccoli with salted fish and sticky rice with durian.

Patara is more upscale and innovative, as in dessert the night that I was there--young coconut ice cream with such typical Thai toppings as millet, lychees, jelly cubes and beans. In the midst of these sat a chocolate square with the restaurant name.

Only a small lighted sign on Sukhumvit 55 indicates the lane that leads to Patara.  My cab driver made several turns before he found it. To solve this problem, you can take the sky train to the Thong Lor exit, and the restaurant will send a tuk-tuk to pick you up.  

Patara Fine Thai Cuisine, 375 Soi Thong Lor 19, off Sukhumvit 55, Bangkok, Thailand. Tel:  0-2185-2960-1. Open for lunch and dinner daily.

Both S&P and Patara have published cookbooks. Patara's "In the Mood for Thai" explains how to make such dishes as the lamb with panang curry and the primrose salad and has an excellent section on Thai ingredients.  

One of the simpler recipes, easy for western cooks, is salmon steamed with black bean topping. 

PLA SALMON NUNG TAO SEE
Salmon in Black Bean and Fresh Ginger Crust
From Patara restaurant's cookbook, "In the Mood for Thai"

1 tablespoon Chinese black beans
1/2 cup warm water
3 tablespoons oil
1 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped ginger
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
1 tablespoon finely chopped small hot chiles, or to taste
3 tablepoons vegetable or chicken stock
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 pound salmon steaks, lightly dusted with flour
Parsley sprigs and fine strips of red chile for garnish

Soak the beans in 1/2 cup warm water for 10 minutes. Squeeze out and reserve the water, then chop the beans.

Heat the oil in a wok. Add the ginger and garlic and cook until fragrant. Add the chopped beans, chiles and the stock. Continue to stir-fry.

Stir in the sugar, pepper and 2 tablespoons of the bean soaking liquid. Cook until reduced and thick.

Place the salmon on a heatproof plate lightly coated with oil. Spoon the black bean sauce over the salmon and coat thoroughly.

Place on a rack in a steamer over boiling water. Cover and cook 7 minutes, or until the salmon is cooked through.

Remove the salmon from the steamer. Divide into 2 portions and place each on a heated  plate. Garnish each with a parsley sprig and red chile strips.

Makes 2 servings.