Rue Cler - Durham NC

Durham, North Carolina is one of the most deadly cities in America. One is more likely to be shot while walking around in Durham than in the most dangerous neighborhoods of LA or NYC. Knowing that, I find it interesting that it is also a city of glorious restaurants. One such restaurant is Rue Cler, found at the corner of E Chapel Hill St and Rigsbee St:

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The sun was just starting to set as we arrived at Rue Cler, and the slanted beams of dying sun flooded the entrance of the softly lit bistro. We picked a table next to the window, so that it seemed like we were almost sitting on the street; giving us a clear view of passers-by. The restaurant itself isn't decorated in any special style. The main dining room had the decor of a typical modern-looking restaurant, but then there was a perplexing little room next door that served as an extension of the restaurant. It was made to be a rustic boulangerie, quite the opposite of the polished main restaurant. Minus one point to whoever thought that one up. Another thing that was weird about the restaurant were the walls. It really seemed like they just took an old and dying turn-of-the-century store front and put up some Ikea-looking things in it, without caring that the ceiling and walls were VERY unfinished. It wasn't even raw-brick-contrasted-against-glossy-paint chic. It was more like there-are-foot-prints-on-the-unfinished-2-x-2's-nailed-on-the-wall-from-a-construction-worker's-boot. Look above the doorway that leads to the perplexingly rustic boulangerie. You'll find the dusty footprints.

The food itself was not bad at all. For the low price of $25 you can get the 2 course prix-fixe menu of something salad-like and something meat-like. For $35, you can get the complete three courses including dessert. What is a French meal without dessert?

Both Shanna and I got the radicchio salad with candied walnuts and little slices of mandarin oranges. I am definitely not a fan of the bitter radicchio. My French mom used to take away the sting of the radicchio with a sweet mustard vineagrette. The chef at Rue Cler skimped on the vineagre, but the salad was still pretty good as long as you made sure to have either a bite of mandarin orange or candied nuts with each bite of radicchio.
I got North Carolina shrimp with goat cheese and yuca. Yuca is also called cassava, and it is definitely not one of my favorite things. Perhaps I was expecting the familiar savoriness and starchiness of potatoes, but the unexpected crunch of the yuca confused my mouth while it was trying to enjoy the tastiness of the shrimp. I'm not sure that the goat cheese was necessary.
Shanna's second course was devine. The asparagus was cooked just right...tender at first bite but still sufficiently crunchy. The lone egg was a "farm fresh egg," which, as I noted before, is yellower and more flavorful than a grocery store egg. The yellow sauce is hollandaise, the CORRECT sauce to put over asparagus. (ahem....bearnaise is for steak).
Always a sucker for duck and brussels sprouts, I seem to have gotten into a rut of ordering duck every time I go to a French restaurant. The sauce was slightly sweet but mostly meaty, (with the added help of the lentils for body). The duck was barely cooked, still tender and juicy like it is supposed to be eaten. One thing Rue Cler knows how to do is meat.
Shanna got a shepherd's pie with a leg of lamb. Har Har, get it? SHEPHERD's pie and leg of LAMB?!
What is a French dinner with no dessert? Below is a crepe drizzled with chocolate sauce and creme anglaise.

Food Identification

Time to play Guess What This Is! I have always maintained that food is beautiful, not only when you style it, but in general. Are those white blobs not the most elegant thing you have ever seen?Here is a more complete view. Can you guess what this is?




















It's a container of frozen lu stock!(滷汁) Here is the English wikipedia for lu wei. The fat from the stock rose to the top to form beautiful little circles. Kawaii!

Mura - Raleigh, NC

Due to request by some friends who patiently sit through my photo sessions before digging into their meals, I am anachronistically posting photos of my latest food conquest.

Mura is a decently new restaurant in North Raleigh, part of the completely revamped North Hills shopping center complex. I remember North Hills as being a half-abandoned lot back in high school, where store fronts were so cheap that a handful of high schoolers could afford to rent one out to build the decorations for their winter formal. That is not the case today, where Kobe beef at Mura can cost $69.00. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you heard that right. Raleigh - Entree - $69.00. I think we've hit a new high.

We took advantage of the great weather to sit outside, but unfortunately it made for poorly-lit pictures. For that, I apologize. Dinner started off with VERY lightly seared tuna marinated in ponzu sauce, served with a sriracha paste. When I've had tuna before, you could see at least 1/8 inch of cooked edge. At Mura, they try to only cook the surface. I was extremely impressed with the pile of orange paste that presented itself, enough so, that I flagged down our waiter and asked him "what is this and why is it so good?" According to him, it is a puree of crab, shrimp, and daikon, mixed with sriracha. Some food purists might say the spiciness ruins the subtle flavors of the tuna, but I say it was brilliant!
left: TNT Crunch - shrimp tempura with spicy mayo. I made him bring out more sriracha because it lacked the TNT that was promised. If you order the TNT Crunch, make sure not to get it "mild."
center: Ebi Maki - Shanna's choice. Soft shell crab with asparagus, avocado, topped with wasabi dressing and spicy mayo. Very good.
right: the Mura Roll - basically a ton of fish rolled inside of rice, nori (seaweed), and thinly sliced daikon. I wasn't particularly a fan of the daikon on the outside, and the roll is much better without the cilantro in the middle overpowering all the other flavors.
I am sort of bewildered by the tackiness of the logo, "Mura" embossed on the dessert plates. I tried to obscure it with the tiramisu. The tiramisu torte looked a little like a bench. I must admit I am not used to the ladyfingers being on both edges of the dessert. Sauces from the inside, out: dulce de leche, caramel, dark chocolate, enveloped in raspberry syrup.
Shanna's choice of dessert, a chocolate torte with ice cream. Now that I think of it, the weather was perfect for ice cream!

Sappho, Taipei

Sappho technically isn't a restaurant, but I ate some food there that ended up in my camera, so here it is on the food blog. It is located just off of An He Lu (安和路), between Shin Yi (信義) and Ren Ai Lu (仁愛路). The bar is underground, announced by a small sign and a subterranean garden. The interior is dim and mod, and on most nights, you'll find at least a handful of expatriates mingling with the locals. The window in the background opens up to the garden that is below street level.
The bar is known for its live jazz (the bands are often made up of non-Taiwanese performers as well). On the particular night when I was there, we were treated to the fusion of a professional aborigine singer and a back up jazz band. I would equate Taiwanese aborigine singing to yodeling, as they share vocal fortitude and profound lung capacity as well as the status of being a folk art that is slowly disappearing into the memories of older folk.
They serve bar food like any other bar in any other part of the world. Salsa? Nachos? Pizza? What is this? Why are there 2 sprigs of endive sticking out of the salsa? That being said, the salsa was pretty good, and the tortilla triangles were adequately crispy.
I went back once more to Sappho to watch the finals for the World Cup (yeah, back in 2006. I'm way behind on life), and due to the time difference, emerged to see Taipei 101 glowing with the first light of dawn.
This view is taken outside of Sappho, looking from the alley to the intersection with An He Lu.

E-coffee, Taiwan

E-Coffee is as ubiquitous (double click on the word for a dictionary definition) in Taiwan as Starbucks is in America. The difference is that E-coffee has had a relatively successful streak with incorporating other foods and drinks into their business than Starbucks. With a drink menu of 40+ different espresso drinks, blended drinks, icees, teas, shakes, you can expect to find something to your taste while you type away at your next blog post. Par contre, in a recent NYTimes article, Starbucks is reportedly scaling back their "big evil empire" by cutting back on the breakfast sandwiches and other stuff they have started selling in addition to coffee.

Many of the posts on this blog happened in an E-Coffee. What else can you ask for in Taiwan during the summer?
Free internet? Check.
Air Conditioning? Check.
Beverages? Check.

I think this is a mango blended ice. The coloring doesn't look like mango at all, but that's because it didn't taste like mango at all. It tasted mostly like ice. Not a good experience with the blended ice drinks. I recommend getting something related to coffee.

Fresh Eggs From the Farm

Ever since one of my patients raved about the significant difference in taste between fresh eggs and grocery store eggs, I've been meaning to try eggs straight from the hen's butt. I drive through the rural back roads every day to come home from work, passing by a random driveway that always has a cardboard sign propped up against their mailbox that says, "Fresh Brown Eggs." So far, I haven't consumed any fresh eggs, because I always fly past the driveway, or am too intimidated to pull into some random person's house. I woke up this morning at 9am and went to the farmer's market, where eggs are twice as pricy as they are at the grocery store, and thought I'd give their fresh eggs a try. The old farmer man let me take a picture of all the eggs. They are technically "brown" eggs, but it's more like an easter basket than "Brown."In my dozen, there are brown, light maroon, green, even speckled tan eggs!
I am not sure if Latta is the name of the farm, but the old guy had special cartons for his eggs.

Almond Doe Fu

If you know anything about being Asian, you know that almond tofu not anything novel. I think my mom used to make it as a dessert every time we went to a church potluck or get-together when we were younger. Although some people might actually use very silky soft tofu to make almond tofu, the "tofu" part of the name usually refers to the texture of the gelatin. My mom makes it with milk and Jell-o. Sometimes you put maraschino cherries (gross!) or other chopped up canned fruit in it, and chop the jelly part into small cubes. I really only like the almond milk and the almond-flavored cream based jelly. What is new and notable about this set from Yu Ji is that you get the juice separate from the jelly part, and both parts seriously are melt-in-your-mouth delicious.On the left is the packet of juice. You pour it separately so it doesn't make the jelly part any less jiggly during transport and storage.
Then, you have the option to slice the jelly part into smaller pieces and eat it like a soup; or, you can scoop up big slices from the entire mass. Which ever way you choose to do it, Yu Ji Shing Ren Doe Fu is the best! (于記杏仁豆腐) There is one at Tong Hua Street (通化街) and Guang Fu Street North (光復北路). I don't know where the other ones are, but their addresses are below.
光復店:2756-5395 台北市光復北路5號之一
衡陽店:2370-1998 臺北市衡陽路101號
通化店:2378-1889 台北市通化街109號
樂華店:3233-3933 台北縣永和市永平路168號(樂華夜市內)

Gordon Ramsay's Maze at The London Hotel

Let's take a detour from the usual Taiwan food and give you a glimpse of what Sunday afternoon was like during my last trip to New York, shall we? My flight left JFK at 6:30pm, which meant I needed to leave the city by 4:00pm to make it through security in time. Originally, the plan was to go to New Jersey to see my best friend's tail-less, meow-less cat who wears a pink sweater, but the transit time to and from there would have been quite a stretch on my already-tight last day. It was fortunate that I canceled those plans, because Elizabeth (one of the 4 filles who went to Dijon in 2003) called and wanted to get lunch somewhere midtown, close to the Port Authority, from which her bus to Boston was leaving. Not being familiar with any restaurants near Times Square (midtown west) that didn't try to serve up a side of consumerism with your entree of tourist, I went with good ol' nymag.com to help me narrow down a decent restaurant that wasn't astronomically priced. I originally started out narrowing down my choices by neighborhood, then cuisine, then price, but I wanted to do something different than the Hispanic or French cuisine I had had all weekend. I chose the "London Bar" because I thought it would remind us of London, and since it was a bar, food would come quickly so Elizabeth and I could make our respective modes of transportation. The number I called turned out to be the common line for "maze," a silver and teal toned, less formal restaurant by Gordon Ramsay in the London Hotel. I had heard of his name before in culinary circles, but had not made the connection that this was the guy who has a show on the Food Network.

I think it worked out well that we landed at such a posh restaurant. If the 3-course lunch was a steal at $35, (2 courses were $25, but who would reject a Gordon Ramsay dessert?) I can only imagine how expensive food normally is at maze.

Elizabeth's elegant white cowl neck sweater went well with the sterile-looking silver and teal of the restaurant. All the dishes were the purest of white, and there were nifty little holders of silver for your silverware.
I was impressed by how the waiter poured my coffee. Usually I just pour a bunch of coffee and fill the rest with milk, unable to control how much cream goes in the cup of coffee. He poured about half of the cup of coffee, then added the amount of cream I wanted, and topped the cup off with some more coffee. In the oval container to the right are actual lumps (not cubes, not crystals, LUMPS) of brown and white sugar.
The first course for me was the hand-dipped sea scallops seared with a coating of curry salt. The dish is garnished with a slightly sweet plum sauce and bernaise sauce. I don't know what the two little crispies in the corners are, but they were delicious. I have a suspicion that they are made with the same type of batter as gougeres.
Another view of the scallops. Each was as big as my cellphone.
Despite having lived in Dijon for a semester, I did not actually taste the complexity that is Coq Au Vin. Coq au vin est un plat bourguigon (dish from Burgundy) that is one of the classics in French cuisine. It is characterized by the red wine sauce (usually a burgandy wine). Here, the coq au vin is served with three small bits of baby carrots (very tender but not mushy), on a bed of salty cabbage. The cabbage is like a sauerkraut that itsn't sour. The buttermilk colored sauce to the left is foie gras veloute. A veloute is a creamy sauce that is not creamy. I can only describe it as velvety - not rich, but not watery, if that helps.
They only coated the top section of the chicken with the thick wine sauce. I think it was a brilliant move, because the flavor would have been very overpowering had all the chicken been drenched in sauce. The sauce actually juxtaposes itself perfectly with the crispiness of the skin of the other two pieces of meat.
For dessert, I went with the blackberry lemon cheesecake. It's only a cheesecake in the loosest of senses. The crust, instead of being at the bottom, was a light dusting of crispy crumbs. The top layer of cream is less dense than a regular cheesecake, and is separated from the richer bottom half (that was flavored with lemon) by a thin layer of blackberry confiture (jam). There is a small surprise at the bottom tip of the glass, in the form of pleasantly tangy lemon custard.
Peanut brittle and chocolate truffles with caramel centers finish off the meal.
By the time we got to the petit-fours, nobody had space to eat anymore, so they gave us this nifty little box (about the size of a lipstick holder) in which to pack the petits-fours.

What Dinner Looks Like

What dinner looks like if you don't make it yourself, pictures taken at my aunt's friend's house in Taipei. They live in one of the high-rises on the side of the mountain overlooking Taipei City, where the celebrities live. I wish my computer wasn't Linux, so I can mount my old external hard drive and get the nightscape pictures of Taipei 101 that I took from the giant window of their apartment. It's about the most amazing image in the world. Sorry kids.

Considering this picture was taken indoors, I am quite proud of the photo quality of these two wine glasses and the grain of the table surface.For starters, Dong Gua Tang (winter melon soup) with oysters. For hot summers, this is a light but tasty soup that won't weigh down the rest of your meal.
Foreground: calamari pasta with shrimp. Background: anchovy and bamboo shoots with spicy red peppers
Beef with bell peppers, something we make at our house as well. The picture isn't so good because I forgot to take a picture of it until it was plated on my plate.
Tofu in red sauce. I can't remember what the red sauce was made from, but it wasn't spicy at all.
For dessert, the trend of the moment, mille-crepe with mango stuffing.
Almond nai lao (milk pudding gelatin thingy) with blueberry.

Danshui

A fun and popular daytrip destination, if you're visiting Taipei, is Dan Shui [dan shuay]. On the MRT (Taipei equivalent of subway), take the red line all the way up until you hit the seaside. The interesting thing is that the red line is above ground all the way to Dan Shui, so you can see the city passing by, from super packed urban to slightly more pastoral suburban. The ride reminds me a lot of Tokyo, actually.

Dan Shui boasts of amazing views of mountains and the sea juxtaposed against each other, peri-colonial architecture and historical sites, and most importantly, FOOD. The small town was first settled by aborigines, then inevitably invaded by a variety of Europeans, ranging from Dutch to Spanish to perhaps Portuguese. The location was very popular with the Europeans because even though the water was shallow, it was where Dan Shui river emptied into the sea, providing a key look out spot and fort location. They left a fort (Hong Mao Chen, or, fort where the red-haired people hang out) withing walking distance of the now-touristy wharf that is now a museum worth seeing. On the way to Fort Santo Domingo, I passed by a troupe of random teenagers from Minnesota, singing bad Christian pop to some passers-by, in the courtyard of one of the old churches or houses where George Mackay used to live/work. It's funny that they should choose that deserted area of Dan Shui for their ministry, because it seemed like all the foot traffic was out by the wharf, where the food is, and where pop concerts are often held (the concert du jour was the MRT's promotional 2-day new bands festival).
One of the distinctive things about Dan Shui is that the streets still have an old-timey feel to them, and stores lining each alley sell toys and treats from an era almost forgotten. Note the use of umbrellas as parasols.
Sometimes the food stands come up with innovative ways of selling normal food. The "toilet ice" is one such novelty. Basically, it is soft-serve ice cream in a pink styrofoamy-textured cone that is shaped like a toilet. Notice that it is shaped like the toilets that you stand over, not the western kind on which one sits. I guess the name, "toilet ice" would make little sense to visitors.
The beach is not very appealing, if you're used to the clear blue waters of the Bahamas or something. Dan Shui literally means "shallow water." As you can see, the water really is very shallow, making for a very wet sandbar more than ocean.
Right off of the boardwalk, fishermen sort and count the giant shrimp they just caught. The "fruits de mer" are served right in the restaurants on the other side of the boardwalk.
Steamed crab with a salty broth in the green bowl.
Giant shrimp, seasoned with just salt. Delicious and super fresh (see above photo of fishermen).
A very large scallop with a few chunks of onion. The red-orange part is the egg, I think.
Fish balls in a light broth with green onion.
The notable Dan Shui A-geh. "A-geh" is actually the Taiwanese pronounciation of it, but I don't think anybody pronounces it in normal Mandarin. It is uniquely made and served in Dan Shui, uniquely Taiwanese. The most basic Dan Shui A-geh is made up of ja yo do fu (or fried tofu), hollowed out and stuffed with mi fun (rice vermicelli). The hole where you stuff it with vermicelli is sealed with a fish paste, which solidifies into a plug very similar to the fish balls once it is steamed. The steamed unit is then served in a sweet and spicy sauce.
Here you can see the fish paste plug, the vermicelli, and the pink sweet-and-spicy plum-based soup in which it is immersed. Like any food in Taiwan, there are a million variations to it. You can have all sorts of fish paste plugs, any sort of flavors of vermicelli, any sort of soup or sauce.