Writing With My Mouth Full

Islands

803 Washington Avenue between Eastern Parkway and Lincoln Place, Brooklyn
718/398.3575
about $40 for three dishes, without drinks, with tip
♥

No roti today? I wanted to make sure I heard correctly. I was so excited to eat at Islands after hearing favorable reviews on places to eat around the Brooklyn Museum, but eating goat curry without fresh, warm roti to wrap the meat and sop up the yellow sauce with just about killed the experience.

We craned our necks to climb the steep and very narrow stairs to sit where the air conditioning was working properly. With our goat curry, we ordered the Jamaican staple of jerk chicken and the oxtail stew. Whatever disappointment I harbored because I was unable to show off how roti tastes to my friend, who came all the way from New Jersey to hang out with me, disappeared as soon as I had a taste of the oxtail. The meat separated from the large bone right away, with only a slight pull using my fork. I scooped up some of the red orange sauce onto my rice and ate heartily. The chicken was not as jerky as I would like it to be, but we devoured the meat down to the bone. The goat was salty, without the roti and all, so it was barely touched. I would have taken it home if we didn’t plan on being out all day because there’s something about leftover curry that I like.

Walk down Washington Avenue and you’ll see a few more places to while away your time after a visit to the museum or the botanical garden, including Franklin Park beer garden off St. John’s Place, but do yourself a favor and eat island food that will keep you going all day.

Beef Burgers with Blue Cheese

Burgers are burgers, right? It’s summer and you’ve gone to your fifth barbecue this season and yet, you really haven’t had a decent burger. There must be something you can do to make it more than just a burger. Over the weekend, the Dr. and I invited several people to upstate New York where we rented a house. We drove the night before bringing with us a cooler full of meats I ordered from my CSA share, or Community-Supported Agriculture. I ordered them ahead of time from Lewis Waite Farm in Greenwich thinking of the lamb chops, pig’s trotters and beef burgers we could grill for us and our friends.

Cameron volunteered to make patties out of the grass-fed ground beef with smoked Gouda cheese and the prerequisites: garlic, onions, parsley. Two days later, I couldn’t help but recreate them at home. I used my grill pan and turned the vent on high to absorb the smoke and the smell. Instead of smoked Gouda, I used the blue cheese I’ve kept fresh in the fridge using Press’n Seal. The flavor is more fierce than the ones Cameron made because of the cheese, but man, did I have an excellent dinner for a Monday night.

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
a small chunk of blue cheese, crumbled
1 medium red onion, finely chopped
half a bunch of parsley, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 red chile, seeded, finely chopped
oil, salt, pepper

1. Combine all ingredients, except the oil, in a bowl with a dash of salt and pepper. Form extra large golf-sized balls with your hands to help them stick together and then gently flatten them out with your palms to form patties.
2. Heat some oil on a grill pan over medium-high heat. When almost smoking, add the patties to fry. I was able to fit 3 of the 5 patties I made. Using an iron grill press, put on top of the patties to weigh them down. Remove press and flip the burgers slowly using a heat-resistant spatula. Replace the press to cook the other side of the patties. Each side can be cooked medium-rare in about 3 minutes. Remove to a plate and finish cooking all the other patties.
3. Serve sandwiches in toasted buns with some hot pickles and mustard.

Where to eat in Vancouver, Canada: Japa Dog

Walk around downtown Vancouver and you’ll come across several hotdog stands flocked by a diverse group of people. I come from a city where there is a hotdog stand on every other block and where a Japanese guy stuffs his face with Nathan’s every Fourth of July, so I’m not new to the Japanese-hotdog combination, but the hotdog from Japa Dog is definitely one of the most satisfying snacks I’ve had in a very long time.

We’ve been walking all day and the last thing the Dr. wanted to hear was my request to keep walking towards the other direction to buy a hotdog. I tried to explain that the hotdogs have a Japanese flair to them, but there are plenty of days when a Korean boy just won’t listen. I spotted the line of Japanese girls across the street before I realized we were finally on Haro Street. We crossed and joined the queue for the first hotdog drawing that caught my eye.

The Oroshi is a bratwurst sprinkled with grated daikon and finely chopped scallions with a “special” soy sauce. I was halfway into finishing it when the Dr. finally asked for a taste. I tried to deter him from sharing it with me by telling him, Eh, it’s just a hotdog, but my eagerness to finish it didn’t help. The last bite made an impression on him and he encouraged me to join the queue again to buy another one. This time, I chose the Terimayo: hotdog with mayo and fried onions in teriyaki sauce and nori. If dinner wasn’t in the next hour, I could have eaten another. And perhaps another.

I pretty much rested my case with the second dog. I might make you walk miles for your food, but most of the time, the work is worth it.

Japa Dog is on Burrard Street on the corner of Haro in downtown Vancouver, Canada. For five Canadian dollars, you can join the others who have come before you: Ice Cube, Anthony Bourdain, and oh, “that Asian guy from Lost“.

Where to eat in Vancouver, Canada: Tojo’s

We were escorted by the maitre d’ to the sushi bar as soon as we walked in for our 7pm reservations at Tojo’s in Vancouver, Canada. While I was trying to hoist myself up on the tall bar seat, I immediately recognized Chef Tojo because Anthony Bourdain sat and ate at the same sushi bar for one of his No Reservations episodes. The chef fucker that I am, I was thrilled that Chef Tojo will be the one preparing our food for the night.

We didn’t have any concrete plans for our weekend stay in Vancouver, but I made sure that we had a spot at Tojo’s bar for our last night in Canada. When Chef inquired where we came from and we said New York, he asked us if we knew “Mistah Boh-dain.” That man drinks and smokes too much, he said, while pretending to chug and smoke with his hands. When Chef Tojo smiles, his eyes get smaller, and you can’t help but love the cheery old Japanese man in him.

I promise you that everything you taste here, you’ve never had before. It was a big challenge and we were up for it–armed with an empty stomach and a credit card to swallow the equal exchange rate between the American and Canadian dollars.

We started off with the albacore tuna with puréed Japanese yam and micro greens. I’ve had the yam before at Sobaya off St. Marks back in the city and really love that consistency which reminds me of the okra goo. It was an excellent start: the tuna was tender yet buttery. There was a subtle trace of ponzu sauce that was just enough to make you want more.

Just the day before, we were at the Granville Island public market where we salivated over morels that were priced significantly less than in New York. (I suppose everything is.) I would have smuggled them across the border if I had the balls to, but I don’t, so the morels stuffed with scallops on a bed of dandelion greens and sprouts just had to do.

Crunchy and toasty, I felt sad that I can’t afford to buy morels in the United States to try and replicate this dish at home.

The next dish put a smile on my face: octopus salad with one of the tentacles’ suction cups and a small edible flower to perhaps sweeten the initial reaction that most people have upon seeing an alien-looking part in their food. Right under the slivers of octopus were julienned daikon and cucumber. I’ve never had octopus sliced this way before; its thinness gave it a slithery texture and I had to slurp each piece down before it had a chance to escape my mouth.

The next dish was a nice surprise because we definitely never had it before. You know when you eat at a restaurant and you’re offered one dish that makes you think, “This is it!”? That’s how I felt about this one. It had Chef Tojo’s signature all over it. Wrapped in paper, our bowl had a sablefish inside cooked in a broth I can’t even begin to explain. When we unwrapped our bowls, a faint smoke escaped and you just had to close your eyes to catch a whiff of the sophisticated smell. It was one of those dishes that looked simple, and yet tasted so elegantly that you know a lot of thought was put into it.

Deconstructed, the smokiness of the fish remained and even through the skin, the broth tasted pure and clean. The burdock root and asparagus held the dish together with their crunchiness. I could have ended here and shaken Chef’s hands, but alas five more awaited us.

The geoduck was referred to as the giant clam. I suppose only a few of us would like to eat anything pronounced “gooey”. It was a typical Japanese roll with mayo and I hardly tasted the clam because of it.

It seemed that our dishes got more simpler as we progressed. The tamago, or egg, roll with herring roe was nothing new.

Probably my least favorite was the crab meat with avocado and pineapple roll. I just thought I’ve graduated from rolls with fruit.

The inside-out broiled salmon skin roll was very delicious, but how about more of the stuff I haven’t tasted before?

But we finally reached our limit, so I just asked for something with uni to end our meal. Ask and you shall receive at Tojo’s–I received a roll with uni inside. Nothing less, nothing more.

For dessert, we picked the pineapple ginger sorbet with a black sesame seed cracker. I like pineapple as much as the next guy, but I don’t know what it is about me that can’t deal with too much sweetness in her life. You are what you eat?

All in all, Tojo’s has its good dishes but very few that elicited a reaction like the sablefish did. It’s like we got the promised VIP performance, but halfway through, we got the same show that everyone else did. Would I go back? Absolutely. Tojo’s is still one of the best places to get sushi in Vancouver, Canada.

Tojo’s is on 1133 West Broadway, Vancouver BC V6H 1G1. Call 604/872.8050 and reserve a spot at the sushi bar. Be prepared to spend New York City prices, only converted to a stronger Canadian dollar.

Garlic Scape Pesto

This season’s prettiest produce is definitely the garlic scape. I’ve received eight stalks so far from my farm share this season. If it weren’t for the garlicky smell, I don’t think its identity would have been obvious to me.

Garlic scapes are the flower stalks that shoot up from the garlic bulb. They curl up when they’re long, but they’re usually cut off for the garlic bulbs to grow bigger. I’ve used them like minced garlic cloves and I’ve also sliced them thinly to add to breakfast omelets. Pesto, though, is the way to go if you want to use them before they dry up. After a couple of servings of this garlic scape pesto on toasted bread and on gnnochi, I returned the rest of it to the food processor and added fresh basil leaves to tone down the garlicky flavor.

Ingredients:
8 garlic scapes, chopped
a handful of pine nuts
1 cup Parmiggiano Reggiano, crumbled
lemon juice
olive oil
salt, pepper

1. Pulse garlic scapes, pine nuts and cheese in the food processor until puréed. Slowly drizzle a little bit of olive oil while pulsing. Add lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste. Store in an air-tight jar in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.