Archives for October 2009
Mission of Burma
Today I finally got to Burma, the DC Chinatown restaurant known for both its lack of atmosphere and its great Burmese food. In keeping with their low rent theme, they do not have a web site but here is the google maps profile of the place.
The restaurant is easy to miss as it is upstairs and only a small sign on street level says, “Burma Upstairs.” What follows would scare off anyone who had not heard about the great food: a neglected staircase with peeling bright yellow paint that has the feel of a garage staircase and then, on the second floor, a sign on a door that has a window protected by steel bars: Enter Burma. It has the feel of entering a prison, not that I have done that, but I can imagine.
The place was busy at lunchtime and I got three dishes to go. Two were good and one was bad. The good were the pork with mango and the beef curry. The bad was the tamarind fish, which had no trace of tamarind and was, well, fishy. Overall, I think the place is overrated and would not go back. But I do love that they call it Burma and not Myanmar.
Papaya Riots in Cuba
Cuban farmers must sell most of what they produce at state mandated prices. But after they meet their quotas (typically about 70 percent of their output) they are free to sell the rest at farmer’s markets, or agros. At the markets, prices are higher, but there are plenty of choices and the stalls feel abundant compared to the often-empty shelves of the state groceries:
At one such market this week, a chalkboard read “there are potatoes,” meaning spuds could be purchased with Cubans’ monthly ration cards. Besides that, a single produce stand sold only plantains, taro root and onions.
“They want to make all the markets like this. Sad,” the lone vendor said.
Price controls on food come and go in Cuba, with the state permitting market mechanisms in times of extreme scarcity, but then cracking down again once things get better:
Producers, sellers and customers said they heard from party officials that new price controls were set to begin Nov. 1 — but were postponed until January after a public outcry unheard of under the totalitarian government….
The agros [farmer's markets] first appeared in the 1980, when food shortages forced a reluctant Fidel Castro to allow farmers to sell produce at prices driven, at least in part, by the free market. Castro shuttered them six years later to improve foundering state agricultural production.
“They closed them for some of the same things we are talking about now: the black market, middle men making all kinds of money, the government unable to control the market, the food supply,” Messina said.
But the small dose of capitalism returned in 1994, when Cuba was again forced to allow more free-market enterprise to keep its people from starving after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which gave Cuba billions in annual subsidies.
The state takes 6 months to pay farmers for official production, so many farmers are tempted by the agro truckers, who generally bribe the police to turn a blind eye and pay farmers in cash upfront. Raul Castro is threatening to crack down.
The whole AP story is worth reading for a good sense of the background on this issue and what’s going on right now.
Via Crispy Reader and new food blogger Annie!
Semi-crossposted at Reason.com.
Meat for me, but not for thee
Lord Stern of Brentford, the UK’s climate chief, hath spoken. And he sayeth, “‘Tis not meet for thee meat to eat, for you should not have it. But I have meat and I can it eat, so step aside you’re noshing on my roast and polluting the planet.” Lord Stern is, of course, not a vegetarian. He is , however, an economist.
Whenever I think I should, or in fact do, reduce my meat consumption, something like this comes out. Then I regret having contributed to both global warming and general idiocy by having had beans for dinner, and I go buy a steak ( which, incidentally, is supposed to be a deal now.)
Lord Stern, this steak’s for you!
“Some hae meat and cannae eat
Some would eat that want it
But we hae meat and we can eat
Sae let the Lord be thankit!”
HT: L. Coyle.
A New One
I thought I had heard all varieties of eating weirdness: “vegetarians” who eat poultry and fish, cheesatarians, etc. But this doesn’t make any sense.
Mrs. Kuhl and her BFFs have been taking a series of wine-tasting classes where they get together, drink wine, giggle, gossip about boys, talk about tampons — you know, the stuff chicks do. At last night’s class, a rogue male was present and the ladies struck up a running conversation. The instructor pairs the wine with food, and with one particular vintage he served pepperoni, which the male refused. When asked why, he replied that he only ate meat that wasn’t prey.
When pressed, the male said he once read a tale of high-seas cannibalism featuring shipwreck and pirates, which the Juris Doctorates among the group realized was a mongrelized version of Regina v Dudley and Stephens. How this rationalized his eating habits was unclear.
Was he serious? I asked Mrs. Kuhl. He only eats meat that isn’t prey. How does that work? He dines exclusively on wolves and alligators? The Burger2? Wife said the man went on to describe an incident in which he witnessed a chicken peck a frog to death, thereby justifying his consumption of chicken. OK, but something still eats the chicken, therefore it’s still prey. Does he eat the species as punishment for the aggression of an individual?
After trying to bend my mind around that I eventually returned to my time-tested conclusion about the world: People are crazy.
Photo courtesy of Heather.
In Poland, Rabbit Shoots You!
A collection of communist shop windows provides a reminder that there are worse problems than an excess of “hyperpalatable” food and consumer goods (Via BoingBoing).
(Although, I quite like the rabbit target as potential kitchen decor. Where do you think I might be able to get my hands on one of those?)
Semi-crossposted at Reason.com
This Week in Bacon
This isn’t just any This Week in Bacon post . . . this is the Week of Bacon post! That’s right . . . for Crispy readers in the Washington, D.C. area, Restaurant 3 in Clarendon is celebrating this fatty delicious treat by offering bacon-related plates for seven days, starting tomorrow, October 21st. We Love D.C. reports:
Each day for the duration of the week of bacon, the restaurant will offer a daily Bacon Happy Hour, where bar guests can feast on bacon bites such as bacon on a stick & bacon-wrapped shrimp and wash it all down with $3 craft beer draft specials. Not only can you stop by for bacon and beer, but Restaurant 3 is offering a Bacon Tasting Menu priced at $30 per person. I was lucky enough to preview a few of the Bacon Week specials, and let me tell you. It’s impressive.
Bacon and cheap drinks — what more could you want in a happy hour? And, you can even stay for dinner and get the full experience. So work out an extra day, take a Pepcid AC, and celebrate the Week of Bacon.
Adventures in Providence
A weekend in Providence, RI to experience the season’s next-to-last WaterFire brought this post by Jessica to mind. There are good, independent restaurants out there but having been chased into the deep forests by development, restrictive liquor laws, and urban planning, they must be carefully stalked. Providence is a city where the restaurants are like shy and furtive orangutans.
We stayed near downtown to be close to the hullabaloo and thought we’d have no problem finding places to eat. Wrong-O. A quick walk looking for lunch became an hour-long odyssey as we roamed the area trying to find an open restaurant. What amazed me was that we were on top of RISD, with Brown just beyond, and yet there weren’t even any bars. (This same situation always left me scratching my head about Cornell: 14,000 students and yet only three or so bars outside the gates. I eventually determined Cornell partying revolves around the frats; apparently Cornell girls like their beer with a rape chaser).
Providence may be the second largest city in New England but even New Haven beats it for eating. Though more populous and denser than the Elm City, the two are comparable for numbers of restaurants according to my unscientific metric. Another stunner was that the locals seemed to think they had it good. When asked for recommendations, both the hotel concierge and passers-by directed us to the monolithic Providence Place Mall, which dominates the downtown like a cinder block.
“I don’t want to eat at The Cheesecake Factory,” replied Mrs. Kuhl.
We did eventually find good local places to dine though they were spread far apart. There’s a Little Italy west of I-95 and a small cluster on College Hill by Brown but downtown is a wasteland. Now I understand why H.P. Lovecraft was malnourished.
This particular WaterFire was to raise money for breast-cancer awareness (that’s the capitol building lit up in pink above). It was fun and worthwhile. At the end of the night, as we slogged back to the hotel with our exhausted Monchhichis, we passed by the mall. Its cornerstone was a glowing Cheesecake Factory.
I asked Mrs. Kuhl, Did you know beforehand the mall had a Cheesecake Factory?
No, she said. I just assumed.
Jamie Oliver Is On a Mission to Save America From Itself
British food celebrity Jamie Oliver has taken on a new mission. The NYT article headline says it all: “Putting America’s Diet on a Diet.”
So Jamie has a plan for America. He starts in Huntington, WVA, which serves a 15lb burger, as if this is at all representative of the US diet:
On his first day in Huntington, W. Va., Jamie Oliver spent the afternoon at Hillbilly Hot Dogs, pitching in to cook its signature 15-pound burger. That’s 10 pounds of meat, 5 pounds of custom-made bun, American cheese, tomatoes, onions, pickles, ketchup, mustard and mayo. Then he learned how to perfect the Home Wrecker, the eatery’s famous 15-inch, one-pound hot dog (boil first, then grill in butter). For the Home Wrecker Challenge, the dog gets 11 toppings, including chili sauce, jalapeños, liquid nacho cheese and coleslaw. Finish it in 12 minutes or less and you get a T-shirt.
Do you, like I, get a sense that Jamie has no idea about American food?
[Disclosure: I had a very negative experience with Jamie on a flight from DCA to West Palm B each when we were both in first class. He had two servant-like women around him and when the flight attendant very nicely asked him for his autograph he practically spitted at her, "No, and can you get lost." Wow.]
Mona Lisa Meets McDo
Bas-reliefs and big macs. That’s the plan for the world’s most famous museum — the Louvre. It was announced this week that a McDonald’s will be added to the Carrousel de Louvre, the museum’s underground food court:
French culture and American convenience will come together in December — thanks to plans by the McDonald’s restaurant chain to hang its shingle in the shadow of the Louvre.
[...]
In France and elsewhere, McDonald’s is emblematic of U.S.-driven globalization and the homogenization of cultures. However, the fast food chain’s chief executive, Jim Skinner, said in an interview published Monday that the reason McDonald’s is such a hit in France, where it has over 1,000 outlets, is that “we are perceived as a French enterprise.”
The McDonald’s on the famed Champs-Elysees Avenue is the most profitable in the world, he said. The interview was published in the economic daily Les Echos.
Somehow, it just doesn’t seem right, mixing happy meals and high art. All I can say is, greasy fingers + centuries-old artworks = trouble.
New Study: Menu-Labeling Laws Make People Eat More Calories
From today’s NYT (emphasis mine):
A study of New York City’s pioneering law on posting calories in restaurant chains suggests that when it comes to deciding what to order, people’s stomachs are more powerful than their brains.
April Matos, 24, bought a Happy Meal at a McDonald’s for her 3-year-old son, Amari, and a Snack Wrap for herself. “Life is short,” she said. “I started eating everything now I’m pregnant.”
The study, by several professors at New York University and Yale, tracked customers at four fast-food chains — McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken — in poor neighborhoods of New York City where there are high rates of obesity.
It found that about half the customers noticed the calorie counts, which were prominently posted on menu boards. About 28 percent of those who noticed them said the information had influenced their ordering, and 9 out of 10 of those said they had made healthier choices as a result.
But when the researchers checked receipts afterward, they found that people had, in fact, ordered slightly more calories than the typical customer had before the labeling law went into effect, in July 2008.
All this makes the stand of the upscale (and very good) Houston’s chain against New York City’s menu-labeling requirements all the more excellent.
More from the NYT here. When I interviewed the fantastic Brian Wansink, a professor, author, and former USDA official, for Reason.com earlier this year, he noted that menu-labeling laws and other such meddling have
“…either been ineffective or disturbingly counterproductive,” he says. “All the data we’ve seen about menu labeling doesn’t show a consistent answer at all.
“Trying to change capitalism is a lot of work,” he adds, “and it won’t work.”
Indeed it won’t. Hear that, Ezra? Hear that, Mr. Brownell?
Did Somebody Say “Cauliflower Soup”?
Noodle Nannies in L.A. (Not D.C., Yet)
The L.A. Times reports on a posse of health inspector bend on turning handmade Chinese noodles fridge brittle:
For 25 years, the Lucky K.T. Noodle Factory in El Monte has been making fresh rice noodles for hundreds of Asian restaurants and supermarkets in Los Angeles and around the country.
But a state law requiring manufacturers to refrigerate the pasta instead of allowing it to be stored at room temperature threatens to alter a long-held Asian tradition, said factory owner Tom Thong….
[Restauranteur] Yee said there have been no reports of illness from eating Asian noodles and that independent tests have verified that the traditional preparation is not harmful.
And, because everything is better with an analogy:
“If we refrigerate the rice noodle, it becomes hard and brittle,” [a city food importer] said. “It’s like bread. You sell bread on the shelf. It’s not refrigerated. If it is refrigerated, you know it’s not fresh.”
We have out own handmade noodle guy here in D.C., visible through the shop window of Chinatown Express in Chinablock:
Look at the stretchy goodness. You better believe that guy isn’t refrigerating those babies.
It’s World Vegetarian Day & National Vegetarian Month! Let’s Have a Contest
In honor of October 1 being World Vegetarian Day, which kicks off National Vegetarian Month, we here at Crispy are holding a contest. But first, HSUS on the celebrations:
National Vegetarian Month is kicked off on October 1st by World Vegetarian Day. In response, The Humane Society of the United States—the nation’s largest animal welfare organization—is encouraging consumers to try delicious meat alternatives that are not derived from the routine abuses billions of farm animals endure. The HSUS is also providing recipes for healthy, mouth-watering vegetarian meal ideas.
We here at Crispy would also like to raise awareness about vegetarianism and vegetarian cuisine. To kick off our efforts, we’re urging Crispy readers to try a delicious assortment of meat-alternative alternatives. (Namely, meat.)
We also want to get on the recipe kick. But instead of sharing, we’ve devised a contest in which we ask you, loyal readers, to share your least vegetarian-friendly recipes. Entrants must be in one of two categories. The first consists of some food you have personally consumed. For the second category, we’re looking for (meaty) pie-in-the-sky ideas on what hypothetical dish would be most reviled by vegetarians. Be creative. While cheeseburger = boring, CAFO-aged crate veal in a horsemeat & baby seal reduction = more like it.
We’ll announce our favorites at the end of October. Winners will get some prize of indeterminate (but undoubtedly little) value.
Submit your recipe here in comments or here.
One final note… If the photo above looks mysteriously like a very crispy Santa’s Little Helper to you, I’m with you on that.
