The prettiest Chinese food I've seen lately appeared Sunday at a conference at UCLA.
Interesting food at an academic gathering? Let me explain. The conference was "Asia in LA 2010," arranged by the UCLA Asia Institute. And the topic was "Creating and Consuming Asian Cuisines."
That morning, graduate students delivered papers on such topics as "Food Practices of the Okinawan Diaspora," "Finding Home in Koreatown Coffee Shops" and "Eating at the Edge of Ulaanbaatar."
Lunch couldn't possibly be as intriguing as these. But then the food appeared--four courses of artful plates designed by Joss Cuisine of Beverly Hills.
The restaurant brought its own waiters and dishes to make the presentation just right.
The lunch, for event sponsors, started with a cold mustard hand shredded chicken salad (at top) with bean sprouts, lettuce, soft rice noodles and a wasabi mustard sesame oil dressing
Next came dim sum degustation. A stack of three tiny steamer baskets, just big enough to hold a single dumpling, contained pea sprout and crab meat siu mai, Cantonese shrimp har gow and dai leung fan quor, a translucent dumpling filled with mushrooms, shrimp and cilantro.
A separate container held char siu bao, a steamed bun stuffed with honey roasted barbecued pork. Thin slashes of hot mustard, spicy red and sesame sauces decorated the rest of the platter.
The next course, a south, north, west provicincial noodle pairing, matched Cantonese shrimp wonton mein tossed with ginger scallion dressing (at left in the photo) with Bejing jia jiang mein topped with chopped mushrooms. In between, a bowl of Szechwan chile garlic sauce held a single crab wonton.
The dessert, green pyramid of sweet rice tsungtuz, was a triangular sweet rice dumpling filled with lentil mousse and paired with a stylish splash of lotus nut sauce.
No fortune cookies with such a feast, but plates of almond and ginger cookies ensured that lunch guests would be well fortified for the remainder of the conference.
Joss Cuisine, 9919 Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90212. Tel: (310) 277-3888.
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