“Isn’t it weird how cucumbers don’t have spikes on them anymore?” my partner asked me. “Cucumbers don’t have spikes,” I said, as I picked up a cucumber from the vegetable display at Whole Foods. “Cucumber have never had spikes. I have never encountered a grocery-store cucumber with spikes” “They do,” he insisted. “ Well, they […]
Category: food
Mango Chicken Curry For Wintertime Existential Despair
I’ve spent many years as a sworn enemy of fruit in curries. Too often, adding fruit to a perfectly adequate, flavorful Asian or South Asian dish renders it a sickly-sweet abomination geared towards the kind of people who think garlic powder is exotic. However, I made an exception for this South Indian-ish chicken mango curry, […]
Some Thoughts on Cooking Beef Rendang
There was a time when I was convinced I would become a professional food and cooking writer. I had a food blog through my teenage years, and read lots of classic food writing – M.F.K Fisher, in particular – and figured it was my destined path in life. This all changed at age 18, when […]
Chengdu: The Museum and Some Hot Pot
I woke up in Chengdu and immediately realized I should get a Chinese SIM card, as well as a bus ticket to Kangding. The SIM card seemed more immediately approachable, and I walked out the door in search of one of Asia’s ubiquitous, usually slightly cleverly-concealed cellphone shops. 100 RMB later, I had a SIM […]
Taiwan: Taipei Night Markets
Night markets are likely Taipei’s most iconic attraction, and probably the one most visible to those who have never visited the country before. Food Adventurers like Anthony Bourdain regularly traipse through them with a camera crew following behind, sampling this and that from different carts, beneath a canopy of red-and-yellow lights. Not that I’m going […]
Today I Went to Taiwan
On Monday, I arrived in Taipei. I have gone through the airport in Taiwan many times on the way to Phnom Penh, because it’s a convenient Eva air hub and a nice place to get noodles and beer as you await onward transit. But I had always wanted to properly visit Taiwan, bolstered as I […]
Korean Food at Myung Dong Tofu Cabin – San Mateo, California
Myung Dong Tofu Cabin 2968 S Norfolk St, San Mateo, CA 94403 (650) 525-1484 Website I love California strip malls. Well, allow me modify that: strip malls of a particular variety and tone. The sort I’m talking about aren’t populated with dollar stores and sporting goods marts. The sort of strip mall I like functions […]
Huong Lan Sandwich – San Jose, California
Huong Lan Sandwich 1655 Tully Road San Jose, California It’s hard not to love banh mi, as any Californian with sense will inform you. I tend to subsist almost exclusively on these sandwiches when actually in Vietnam, enjoying both the comically low price point and the delightfully variable flavor — every small stand manned by […]
Pancho Villa Taqueria – San Francisco
Pancho Villa Taqueria 3071 16th St, San Francisco (415) 864-8840 Website Whenever someone comes to visit me in the Bay Area, I am duty-bound to drag them to a taqeuria at least once. Decent tacos are one of the birth-rights of the Bay, up there with eery white Google buses, microclimates, and people who want […]