Hampton Chutney

"Air" Yoshida is smaller than her dinner.

I really don't understand how anyone could have anything negative to say about Hampton Chutney. I first discovered it in 2003, and learned that only a small percentage of people that I spoke about it with had ever heard of it. So I thought I was privy to a moderately-unravaged little gem of a cafe. I had a meal there last week, and after talking about it to my friends, about a handful of people mentioned that they don't like the joint. I'm still baffled. It's not often you get a meal about the length of your arm.

The highlight of the meal is the chutney, basically like an Indian salsa. If you're like me, at any Indian restaurant, you're full before the meal comes because you've just consumed that whole plate of thin bread, scooping out the trinity of standard chutneys they typically provide for you. Hampton Chutney realizes that more often than not, condiments make the meal, and they've whipped up some house specialties. I've found that the cilantro and peanut chutneys are far superior than the others (they have mango and pumpkin - two normal Zach faves that don't quite translate into an Indian dip). I find myself always eating the residue chutney even after the "vehicle" is gone. The dosas (a thin sour-dough crepe filled with different ingredients) are pretty nicely packed, soft in the middle and good and crispy on the outer ends, where you can choose to break off the jagged edges and dip them alone in the chutney. I got the smoked turkey, jack cheese, spinach, and balsamic roasted onions. The dosas are on the tame side, to really provide a nice open canvas for the chutney to do it's thing.

In other news, I'm starting to be able to distinguish exactly which tastebuds certain kinds of sushi hit the hardest, and I just found a pretty intriguing-looking Mediterranean Kebab house on Lex. The future looks bright.

Spicy Tuna & Banana Tempura Roll

Umi, you never cease to amaze me. Yesterday, I was in the mood for something simple (relatively for me at least). Normally, I rock out two rolls, but I was already kind of full, yet I still wanted to kick it at the sushi spot during my lunch break. I was looking at the menu for the rolls I don't normally munch on, when the Spicy Tuna Banana Tempura roll caught my eye. That's:

and

It's done standard inside-out roll style with some tempura crunch in the center. Now I, too, was wary how banana and fish would taste.

When you put something in your mouth, and you can distinctly distinguish two very different flavors, but you don't get repulsed, does that mean it's good?

I don't know. The roll alone (with no garnish or seasoning) -- I had to sit, process, and ponder the chunk of funk in my mouth. When you throw ginger into the mix, it's alot better. Ginger definitely ties it together. It brings the familiar association with your typical sushi dining, but its sweetness really meshes well with the banana. Yet, the addition of soy sauce sways the whole experience back into that iffy mode.

The moral: Ginger and ginger alone is the great equalizer!

It;s Not Even 11:45 AM...

... and I've already eaten takoyaki (octopus balls) and a huge bagel with 2 eggs, cheese, tomato, and onion.

Spicy Mango Sauce

As much as I love food, I don't have the funds to eat something post-worthy every day. Once I find something good, I'll just eat it on a routine basis until I get obsessed with something else. Hence, I'm eating Umi for lunch like everyday, so I'm not going to repeat myself. And certainly, if it's not the gastronomical bomb, it's not going up. Simple as that. That's why you might not hear from me from days at a time.

I had a nice thick meal at Chin Chin last night. Now, as far as Chinese joints go in NYC, CC is a good place. Just good. I mean, their mixed dumplings (seafood + veggie) are surprisingly better than most, and their peking duck (alone on the bone, not in the wrap) is worth seconds, but the meal than just gets pretty predictable once you hit your main courses. I'm a Shun Lee man myself.

Anyways, let me put you on to something easy. I'm always happy to post about derivation. Y'all know that I am the king of stir-frys. But you can always add something new.

Miss Koco hooked me up with this:



It's a sauce she got in the Cayman Islands for me. Big Black Dick's Spicy Mango Sauce. That's what it's called. I'm not going to even try to Google it.

Normally, I'm throwing some Asian sauces on my dishes, but I wanted to use this finally. A straight hit of it out of the bottle is remarkably spicy, totally outweighing the traces of a sweet, fruit taste. I threw it on some pan of leftover bok-choy, mushrooms, and brocolli.



At first I went real light, sauteeing the veggies in the spicy mango sauce and letting them soak. To my surprise, the more I heated up the sauce, the less spicy it became. I don't know the physics behind it is, but I didn't care. I was free to add more. I was kind of aiming for a skeletal, subtle taste of mango. When complete, I wanted it to be a clean, white bowl of moist vegges, with only a slight glaze of a mango coat. And that's what I got. I did a small bit of Otafuku, like 3 dabs, just to give it some immediate, superficial flavor. But I let the mango soak and hit me afterwards.

So a smooth, restrained simmer in a spicy fruit sauce, or chutney if you're shopping near 6th street, will totally haunt your dinner and leave you content.

Blends & Mash-Ups

Last night, I got hooked up with a pretty sweet blender. I was all psyched to start whipping up some of my favorite sweet hybrids. Knowing me, people won't be surprised if I start blending some kimchee-cucumber shakes, or start living on a liquified pad-thai diet. Nonetheless, I'm starting out small, and throwing together a peanut-butter banana smoothie, basically the Chris Paul of non-alcoholic beverages (it does it all, but itsn't seen as mature).



Now the key is ratio. I used to work at Peanut Butter & Co. (that is still embarassing)., and I was poetry when I used to make these smoothies, but that's because their was a pretty standard system using the ridges on the cups to tell how much milk and ice to toss in there. I'll be damned if I'm about to start buying cups to make these, so I had to use this oppurtunity to feel out this blender. I hadn't created one of these in years, and I definitely added too much ice and milk, totally diluting the PB&B taste. And now I'm sipping on a pretty shitty smoothie.



What's funny is, on the cab ride home carrying this new blender, the cabbie got really into it and he and I were talking shop about blending. While he had some good suggestions (freezing mass amounts of chopped fruit for easy access, and the use of nuts and granola), this dude was REALLY into blenders. He started talking about wattage and horsepower of blenders (he's like "Yo, pick up the UltraMix 1200" or something), and talking about stocking up on insane vitamins from health food stores and basically never eating anything solid for the rest of my life. I wanted to tell him that I only intend on using this for beverages that will give me heart attacks and for insane alcoholic concoctions - I just know I'm going to make some kind of Amaretto/Fudge/Icing monster.

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Jews with Salmon

I postulated a theory last night that salmon is the food (the) God(s) intended just for me to enjoy. It's a staple ingredient in at least two rather opposite cultures. My whole life, anytime anyone else begins discussing my selection as one of the Chosen People, it is normally including a mention of bagels and lox (and in my world - gobs of cream cheese, sliced tomatoes, and sliced onions). I really have no qualms with that. To be identified with a food ain't that bad. These days, for no apparent reason aside from the fact that homeboy is German, I am always commenting to the roommate Merlin about keilbasa.

Anyways, salmon also flips the script on ya, being a key element so some bomb-ass sushi. As well as it goes with bagels and acidic creamed cheese, it fits right in seaweed, rice, soy sauce, and wasabi. I was probably Miyamoto Musashi in my past life, because I've always had a jonesing for the Japanese funk.

Or maybe I was a fish.

I'll take either.


By the way, I got a whole post planned about Fried Green Tea Ice Cream. I just haven't snapped a picture of it. But it's all written in my head, so keep your pants on.

Huitlaroche

Trieu-Bear asked me what huitlaroche was. I gathered that it was some type of fungus that was cooked with corn and rice. Didn't sound too crazy. Mushrooms are fungi, right?

Well, this dude's got brass . I'd like to think I would do this, but I like my food pleasant. I don't even fuck with olives. Stupid olives.

Stir-Fry ThrowDown: 1

Eyo, real quick, I'ma learn you something about homemade stir-fry.

The fellas used to rag on me during my days of boiled broccoli and Thai peanut sauce.

Oh, someone learned to cook! Thanks to Puja and Miss Koco for the kitchen tutelage.



Whatchu wanna say now, fellas?

Vegetable Oil

Garlic

Baby Portobello Mushrooms

Carrots

Bok Choy

Broccoli

Tofu

Soy Sauce

Tempura Glaze

Spicy Peanut Chilli

Sesame Seeds

Black Pepper

Seseame Ginger Vinegarette

Otafuku -- the sauce that my girls at Otafuku (the joint with the condiment name) douse their octopus balls in

Then I work my precise simmer technique:

Then I got a fat steaming bowl of:



My roommate Merlin walked into the apartment last night and said it smelled like a Chinese restaurant. Then I died happily.

Luna Bars

Could someone please explain to me why these things are marketed to women only? They don't stop pregnancy or make you smell any better or anything. But goddamn, they are delicious! I think I have tried two other flavors besides Nutz Over Chocolate (the double entendre I just got literally as I typed that). Maybe a bar that was Lime and some peanut butter concoction. Both were not too good. But the N.O.C. hits the spot. The more I eat it, the more mechanized and manufactured it tastes. Still, it's got a nice, crisp hippie taste. Here are some ingredients:

Roasted Soybeans

Brown Rice syrup

Cocoa

Organic Peanut Butter

Organic Oats

Green Tea Extract

Throw that in a blender with some bananas, Fluff, and milk, and you got a nice twist on a Horchatta. Man, I need to buy a blender tomorrow.

Itzocan Cafe + Umi Sushi

Itzocan Cafe might be the best restaurant in New York. Here's a little thang I wrote about the last meal I had there. I've only been there twice, but both times have been showstoppers.

(I'm trying to create enough samples for hopeful food critique work, but I imagine what I write is too florid. Nonetheless, I don't give a ferk. The food's the muse, kid!)

The first thing you need to do is look at the pumpkin seeds atop a slab of snapper, a slab of snapper atop another slab of snapper, the other slab of snapper atop a mound of mushrooms and huitlacoche. Yeah, I observed the mountain in front of me, but I aimed my fork immediately for the chardonnay-tomatillo sauce sinking into the plate below. It’s a bright, lemony flavor that I didn’t expect, as chardonnay shouldn’t be so funky and cherries shouldn’t have that much zing. The mushrooms that bask in it adapt really well and act as a platform to the bright flavor, a familiar diving board of sorts. In a spoonful, the consolidated blue flavor of the huitlaroche and rice pellets work a perfect chi with the lightning sauce, like a Mexican yin-yang circulating in my mouth. A nice chunk of hidden mushroom adds a surprise texture. The snapper, freshly cooked, is lightly weighed down by the pumpkin seeds, with a little crunch and even less sweetness added to it. The fish’s warmth is beautifully realized with intermittent sips of a Rioja wine from Spain, a deep, grape-ish red that begins to fizz towards the front of your mouth after you’ve already swallowed it. I return to the dish and squirt some lemon on the layers of snapper and pumpkin seeds. Think about pumpkin and lemon -- together. The new flare carries the previous taste even higher. The motherfucker is cirrus. The snapper is glowing with various delicious acidic flavors, and then is buried under an avalanche of typically warm, soft chocolate cake.

Also, to all you Eastside-Mid-Towners corporate employees, I eat at this sushi spot Umi Sushi on 31st between Park and Lex at least 3 times a week. The sushi is superb, and dig the lunch deal: $6.95 for two solid rolls, soup, salad, and tea. Unbeatable. My life has improved threefold since making that my official sushi joint.



crunchy spicy salmon roll and snowcrab avocade roll