World to Table

Balut, an Asian delicacy popular in the Philippines, is a fertilized egg with a nearly-developed embryo inside that is boiled and eaten in the shell. It is traditionally made with duck eggs, but balut also comes in the chicken variety. While I have an undeniable love for eggs — fried, boiled, scrambled, cooked any and every way, I had never considered eating an embryo until my Filipino friend Louie sang praises about balut. The idea of slurping a duck fetus straight from its shell both intrigued and frightened me. Sadly, during my summer in Asia, I never got to try any balut. But all of was not lost. My chance arrived two years later, in an email from Chef King of umi NOM. I clicked open the email and read:

“Duck Balut tonight @ umi nom!!!”

And just like that, I was headed to Brooklyn.

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Back from London and tired from bland British food, Hope had only one request when I asked her where she wanted to go out for lunch. “I need some SPICE!”, she pleaded. Somehow I managed to convince Hope and Davis to wake up early on a cold winter day and venture away from the comforts of Manhattan out into the inner depths of Queens for a taste of Sichuan cuisine.

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I’d typically be brining and prepping a 10 pound flightless bird right now, but this year my parents made the executive decision that our Thanksgiving dinner will be a sans turkey endeavor. I know, this is quite sacrilegious for a holiday where the turkey usually plays a starring role. But, rather than wrestling with over-sized poultry, our efforts will be spent preparing a meal with a smattering of international fare, including Hainanese chicken, Scallops with Tomato-Onion Relish, Hamachi tartar, Cauliflower and Leek Soup, and a slew of Mark Bittman’s 101 simple Thanksgiving dishes, especially prepared by yours truly. Will these whirlwind of flavors work or will it be a Thanksgiving catastrophe? A full post-Thanksgiving progress report is to come, complete with accompanying recipes, so hang in tight.

In the meantime, while you lucky ones are wrestling with your turkeys at home, I recommend taking a break from basting to watch a few episodes of Posh Nosh on Youtube — a British TV program on BBC recommended to me by Elsapeth, the nicest bonnet wearing, bespectacled lady and owner of Podunk, a homey little nook of a tearoom in the heart of the East Village.

Podunk is where butter is used unsparingly and cookies are sprinkled with love..and sugar. Like a cross between an antique store and a cozy country house kitchen, a varying assortment of tea pots and children’s books populate the shelves, which sit beside the brightly painted wooden furniture and a sundry of knickknacks. Entering the tiny tearoom, I was transported from the dark, rainy streets of New York City into a warm, familiar place.

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Typically when I make Spaghetti Alla Marinara, it usually involves roughly chopped tomatoes, garlic, random vegetables from the produce drawer, and a handful of Barilla pasta —all thrown together in two pots and ready to eat in 20 minutes. When my friend Josh suggested that we make spaghetti for dinner, I had no idea I was in for an authentically lengthy Italian experience.

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After reading the rave reviews about Di Fara pizza in Brooklyn, my sister Kelly and I prepared our descent to Brooklyn and brave the hungry lunch crowd. We were going to go witness the painstaking arugula-cutting and finally get a taste of Dom DeMarco’s legendary pizza. We set a date, penciled it in our calendar, and eagerly waited for our anticipated afternoon of pizza.

The next day, while my cousin Wesley was over at my apartment, we told him about our grand lunch plans. “So, why are you going all the way there to get pizza?” he asked. Kelly then went on to explain, concluding with “…he then slowly cuts the arugula with his scissors. Want to come?” We didn’t have to do much more convincing after that; the three of us set our lunch date. Later the next day, while reading some more reviews online, I stumbled across an online review titled “Sink Your Teeth Into $14 Motorino Pizza, Skip Brooklyn Commute”. The title alone challenged the need to venture deep into Brooklyn for pizza. We did our own investigating, and upon evaluating the time it’d take to commute to Di Fara’s in Brooklyn versus Motorino in Manhattan, our trip to Motorino would require less transit time. After extensive deliberation, we made the executive decision to go to Motorino. Did Motorino live up to the glowing review? Well, we won’t know until our trip to Di Fara. In the meantime, here’s an idea of what you can find at Motorino if you’re hungry in the East Village on a weekday afternoon.

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Early last week, I was lured into the French Culinary Institute in SoHo by sweet promises of freshly sliced sashimi and a chance to witness a masterful dissection of a tuna. Curious and hungry culinary students and professional chefs evidently fell for the bait too, filling up the seats in the small auditorium to witness the artful slicing and deconstructing of Kindai tuna by Chef Toshio Suzuki of Sushi Zen, Chef Noriyuki Kobayashi of Megu and Chef Kazuhiro Sato of Poke.

Kindai tuna is born and raised at Kinki University in Higashi-Osaka, Japan. Born in the laboratory and hand fed wild catch, they are raised in better conditions than other farm-raised tuna and offer a more sustainable alternative to wild bluefin tuna.

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Hello World (to-Table fans). My name is Kelly, and I’m writing to you from my home away from home, Poughkeepsie, NY. My real home is actually in an apartment with my sister Veronica, creator of this blog. But I currently live with three friends in a house near Vassar College, where I am a student.

That’s enough about me. What about FOOD? Like my sister, I have acquired quite a refined palate, which is a blessing and a curse, as the dining hall that “nourished” me for four semesters is not cutting it anymore. Good-bye meal plan and hello kitchen!

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I’m usually not big on sweets, but I can never turn down pastries and cakes from Cannelle Patisserie. Here’s a little something I wrote for LIC Bites, a food column in a newsletter for my fellow condo residents in Long Island City, Queens:

If you don’t have time for a summer getaway, or you’ve just got a craving for something sweet, take a trip to Queens, where you will find that the pastries of Paris await you. Cannelle Patisserie is a French bakery hidden deep within an unassuming mini-mall in Jackson Heights. The inviting aromas of coffee, buttery puffed pastry and French baguettes will reel you in upon entering. Inside you will find artfully decorated cakes behind the refrigerated display, shimmering tarts and quiches, and freshly baked pastries piled in woven baskets.

Jean-Claude Perennou, Pastry Chef and Proud Owner of Cannelle Patisserie

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Last Thursday, I went to King Phojanakong’s new Brooklyn restaurant Umi Nom for a friends and family night to try some of King’s new dishes before it officially opens to the public. Occupying a space that was previously a laundromat, the restaurant is hidden amongst small local Mexican eateries and modest neighborhood bodegas. You have to be willing to walk a little further (up the stairs in the case of Kuma Inn, or on the subway for Umi Nom) to get a taste of King’s food, which takes a tapas-style approach to dining, but it’s worth the few extra steps.

Umi Nom is a long, narrow restaurant, with a dark wood bar, exposed brick walls, and Edison light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. Some of the Asian-themed design accents in the restaurant include the funky bamboo lighting above the bar and white ceramic wall decorations with small dotted lights running through what resembled the cross-section of bamboo.

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Last Saturday night Kian of Red Cook invited me and my family to his Late Spring Chinese Dinner at his home in Harlem. Fellow dinner guests included Kian’s partner Warren, their fellow food enthusiast friend Ed, Shelley Menaged from the James Beard House and Iron Chef judge and food writer Akiko Katayama.

When I asked Kian how he had accumulated such a wealth of knowledge about Chinese cooking and cuisine, he told me, “I do lots of research. I read Chinese cookbooks, go online… the online forums are very helpful.”

Over the course of four hours, Kian bustled back and forth between the dining table and the kitchen, meticulously prepping and presenting us with course after course. Meanwhile, we shared stories about gritty pizza joints, trips to outerboroughs, and our passionate love or hate for durian fruit, all between bites of food.

We gathered around Kian as he was finishing prepping his first course, waiting with eager anticipation for the ten-course marathon to begin.

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