noodsletter #.0027
In the ChefSteps office; b-b-b-b-bun bo hueeeee.
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Book Bit
And really it was a wonderful tea. There was a nice brown egg, lightly boiled, for each of them, and then sardines on toast, and then buttered toast, and then toast with honey, and then a sugar-topped cake. And when Lucy was tired of eating the Faun began to talk. He had wonderful tales to tell of life in the forest. He told about the midnight dances and how the Nymphs who lived in the wells and the Dryads who lived in the trees came out to dance with the Fauns; about long hunting parties after the milk-white stag who could give you wishes if you caught him, about feasting, and treasure-seeking with the wild Red Dwarfs in deep mines and caverns far beneath the forest floor; and then about summer when the woods were green and old Silenus on his fat donkey would come to visit them, and sometimes Bacchus himself, and then the streams would run with wine instead of water and the whole forest would give itself up to jollification for weeks on end.
—From The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.
Started reading this to our kid, and I was wondering who in the forest is canning sardines? Is it the fauns, the nymphs, the dryads who live in trees? Or are they a holdover from the (presumably) human hunters, feasters, and treasure-seekers from Narnia’s lost summer? I guess it could be the wild Red Dwarfs, or the two gods. I can’t remember if this little bit of fishery is covered in the other books.
Seattle
I visited Seattle last week to meet my new colleagues at ChefSteps in person—I’ll be working remotely, but jetting in once every several months. It was my first time in the city, and I’m glad I’ll be able to go back; I didn’t have all that much time to walk around and explore.
The ChefSteps office is in Pike Place Market, which everyone described as Seattle’s Times Square, an apt comparison in that there’s a constant stream of tourists doing touristy things. I rubbernecked with the other rubberneckers by the famous fish mongers who throw fish around (I didn’t really see anyone buying all that much fish, and the ChefSteps chefs all noted, correctly, that you shouldn’t really buy fish from guys who toss their fish around); I tried the touristy fare, like the clam chowder (very good) and some salmon sinigang from a Filipino stall (pretty good, much better after adding some fermented hot sauce), and I was thoroughly disgusted by the bubble gum wall. It’s more like a bubble gum alley, really, and it’s kind of shocking to see it in the current pandemic, with the general heightened sensitivity to diseases communicated by aerosolized spit.
The office itself is pretty much as it appears in ChefSteps videos, if you’ve seen them. It’s a remarkable space. I’ve been in several test kitchens and studio kitchens, but tthis one is crazy. ChefSteps is owned by Breville, which also owns PolyScience, so there are sleek, powerful gadgets everywhere, both high-tech and low-: They have a commercial dish pit and dishwasher, for one, but they also have a bandsaw, and if you poke around in the non-kitchen areas you’ll stumble across totally normal stuff like great big canisters of liquid nitrogen and a freeze-drier that looks a little like a super-sized Eve robot from Wall-E. They also have Control Freaks, Joule ovens and sous vide circulators aplenty; it’s like a wonderland of high-end equipment in a tight, efficient, and clean professional kitchen. It’s amazing.
And the work the chefs were doing was equally crazy, not just the stuff they were producing, but the volume and intensity of the testing; I’ve never seen anything like it. Here’s a couple of things I ate while needling the chefs with remedial, irritating questions:
While there, we were working on the finishing touches for the first installment of a package of mariscos recipes developed by Jonathan Zaragoza. I love everything about it—the big swing on raw and near-raw seafood, the photos, the recipes themselves—and Jonathan is clearly very talented and also happens to be an incredibly nice guy. We made two of the recipes free for everyone—an aguachile verde and a cóctel de camarón—and the rest are exclusive to Studio Pass members. Do check them out: I’ll be making the aguachile verde1 and the ceviche negro very soon.
While I didn’t have a lot of time by myself to run around and eat stuff, I did a little due noodle diligence. I got a bowl of pho from a location of Than Brothers, a mini-chain of pho shops, and it was better than 95% of the pho in New York City. The tendon was particularly memorable, as were the sadly thick-cut red onion slices, although for opposite reasons.
I asked for recommendations from my Instagram followers and a lot of people insisted that I try the bun bo hue at Pho Bac Sup Shop. Pho Bac has a couple locations, but the Sup Shop was apparently the one to go to, and that location’s thing is bun bo hue. I’m a little uncomfortable talking about bun bo hue since I have very limited experience with it, but my understanding is it’s typically a beef broth noodle soup, seasoned with shrimp paste, and the noodles are cylindrical rice noodles, like mixian or like rice-noodle spaghetti. (I use bun bo hue noodles all the time for quick-ish—they take a while to cook—noodle soup lunches.)
I don’t know that I’ve had many bowls of noodle soup that have been as impressive. There’s just a ton of stuff going on in it; a hulking braised (boiled, really) beef short rib, pork and shrimp meatballs, beef tendon, pork blood cake, a bunch of vegetal matter. Everything was cooked very well, exquisitely, even. (A couple of people have commented to me that the short rib isn’t as well-cooked or seasoned as it could be, but I disagree; it serves its purpose really well! And the broth is super salty, which makes up for any lack in seasoning.)
The standout part was the tendon. I love tendon like most people love tendon, I think: for it’s wobbly texture. But this tendon was cooked to an incredible consistency; perfectly solid even when warm, but as soon as you chomp down on it it kind of bursts like a bubble of liquid gelatin, coating your gob. A sip of soup to chase it down and it’s the best “bite” of food I’ve had in a long time, although it’s a little like that deranged instant noodle soup ad where the guy constructs a noodle soup directly in his face holes.
As to ramen, I tried one spot. It’s got a lot of rave reviews, but I wasn’t a fan. It was particularly disappointing since they have bottles of Takesan kishibori shoyu displayed prominently all over the place, and I love that stuff.
“News”
French manliness is a climate problem: “We have to change our mentality so that eating a barbecued entrecôte is no longer a symbol of virility.”
But it’s chill, global warming will turn Alaska into one big farm.
Is the dinner party over? I don’t particularly like cooking for other people, so I say: Good. But it also seems odd to me that there was a time mid-pandemic when the dinner party was “back”? Take the gifts the pandemic god gave you.
Profile of Jonathan Nunn, the most interesting and funny food writer working today.
I honestly don’t understand the appeal of fine dining, part 23523: Alinea.
Great NY Noodletown reopened. I haven’t eaten there since I stopped working the neighborhood in 2007. (It’s just okay!)
How Queen Elizabeth affected…zzzz
A DoorDash driver ate the food he was supposed to deliver because he was broke and hungry and the story does numbers on social media prompting a story in The Hill. Everything wrong with our society in one short story.
Intrigued by this new Japanese multi-spot in Greenpoint!
Commemorative silver Haribo gummy bears?
An entertaining J.J. Goode piece on the oft-repeated recipe instruction “salt to taste.” The main problem as I see it is people are very bad at reconciling the fact that restaurant food tastes delicious because it’s quite salty, and their home cooked food is not as delicious because it’s under-seasoned. I suffer from this, too: My noodle soups are decidedly less salty than restaurant noodle soups, and they’re correspondingly less good. I know it, and yet I don’t do anything about it. (And my noodle soups aren’t as under-seasoned as most people’s chicken piccata, if you know what I mean.)
The best restaurants in the US, NYT edition.
The best restaurants in the US, BA edition. (Cafe Mochiko! The one ramen restaurant in the country I’m dying to try.)
The NYC foie ban has been paused. I don’t eat much foie gras, but the ban is terrible policy. The two duck farms in NY State are models of animal husbandry, and they’d be replaced by industrial chicken farms if they have to shut down. (My city councilmember, Justin Brannan, was the originator of the legislation, and I called up his office and was told bare-faced lies by his legislative director when I complained about the ban. Lies!) (I’ve probably related this story before, because I’m still hopping mad about it.)
“The Real Story of Curry.” Maybe it’s because I grew up in India, but a lot of the discussions about “curry” in food media seem overwrought. It seems less like an imposition by British imperialism than an imposition of the English language (which is widespread because of British imperialism, sure). Insofar as it is a descriptive term, it seems pretty useful, even if it’s vague, like “quick breads.” After all, as the piece notes, Indians also use it to describe a vast category of dishes.
Beyond Meat COO Suspended for Biting Man’s Nose. Horrible, for sure, but also…lol?
No one is making Nyquil chicken. (Sure! But the FDA warning seems like what the agency is supposed to do?)
But if you do make Nyquil chicken, this is what happens to your body.
The hyped pandemic fried chicken has a Brooklyn brick and mortar. (I’ve heard it isn’t good???)
I’m partial to the argument made from a point of value in this Sietsema v. Sutton review, but I also find the language Sutton language uses entirely unconvincing.
This piece about restaurant reservations is beyond parody:
A SE alum double whammy: Kenji’s buldak pizza, with a cameo by Sasha Marx (his buldak is real good!).
Alison Roman’s new cooking show (is back).
Sort of weird to see a thing about foraging mushrooms framed as an e-commerce post for affiliate revenue?
Sort of weird to see a thing about eating appam framed as an e-commerce post for affiliate revenue? (No issue with appam: they’re the best.)
I actually made this last night, with tuna. It was absurdly good...and easy?