Our table was finally ready. I walked in the door and the humidity level was electrifying. The kitchen was a glassed-in gigantic space of a room divided in half. A glassed-in refrigerated room for dumpling making on one side, a glassed-in steaming room on the other. More than a dozen cooks, outfitted with aprons looped around their necks, neat hats on their heads, rolled dumplings like a synchronized swim team of the highest caliber. They stuffed these doughy little skins, packing them into well-seasoned racks, some lined with cabbage, some not, some lined with banana leaves, some not. They created different shapes of fish dumplings, shao-mai, which have a delicate little empire waist, pushed up and open-faced at the top. Closed soup dumplings, half-mooned fish dumplings, crab roe dumplings, chicken dumplings, green vegetable dumplings, pickled vegetable dumplings … I’d really never seen anything like it. In the room with the built-in steamers, chefs rotated orders. Dumpling racks were stacked along the wall. A cook would assemble your entire order, rack of this dumpling, rack of that, and then stack them up and steam your order all by itself in its own glorious edible tower. Your entire dumpling and steamed-foods selection would arrive at once, which I happen to love.
When our waitress came to take our order, I simply said, “Bring us one of everything you have.” I think they offered a dozen types of dumplings, plus appetizers, soups, and more, but the dumpling offerings totaled only about twelve different types. She looked at me like I was crazy. I realized that was a lot of food, but there were nine people in our group, with a few of us hungry souls who I knew could really pack it in. She called over her girlfriends, all speaking Chinese, pointing and giggling at me. I asked our Taiwanese crew to please explain to her that I was as serious as a heart attack. I’m on the other side of the world and I want to try everything on the menu. So, finally, after much negotiating, we placed our order.
We ended up putting a pretty good dent in the food, which admittedly made me feel pretty smug. On the other hand, I’ve felt terrible about it ever since, because I must have come across as such a piggish snob. Through our interpreter, I made sure to let them know I had traveled a long distance to be there and I wanted to try one of everything. I promised that if we didn’t eat everything we’d make sure the food didn’t go to waste.
The meal began with small bowls of boiled peanuts, and shredded spicy cabbage pickled with hot toasted dried chilies. We made quick work of those. I love meals like this when you actually get the traditional nibbles germane to a food’s region. These little treats get the taste buds going. Next came steamed chicken soup as well as some braised beef noodle soup. Then came the noodles, one mixed with pickled mustard greens in a very light sauce, and another in a thick sesame-and-peanut-paste sauce—extremely spicy and redolent of chilies and ginger and sesame oil. After we demolished those, out came the dumplings, stacked to the ceiling.
Now, the dumplings there are very, very unique. The most popular dumplings in the place are also the most widely imitated. They are called Xia Long Bao, which literally means “small basket buns.” These are delicate little nuggets of minced pork encased in very thin dough that is a cross between a pasta sheet and a bread dough. If the dough is too thick, they become bready and awkward to eat; too thin and they fall apart. The Xia Long Bao is the quintessential Shanghai-style snack, supposedly invented in a little town called Nanxiang, which is now essentially a first-tier suburb of Shanghai. I have never had a better Xia Long Bao than the ones at Din Tai Fung.
Perfection requires a lot of attention to detail. The refrigerated room is necessary because there is so much liquid in Din Tai Fung’s dumpling mixture. Their dumplings are often referred to as soup dumplings because of the explosive rush of liquid hidden inside. When making many of these types of dumplings, the stuffing mixture needs to be cold and gelatinous, almost solid really, to construct the perfect dumpling. If the filling is kept well chilled, it’s easier for the chefs working with it. But when steamed, the Xia Long Bao literally burst with soupy goodness. You can get a horrible case of burnt pizza mouth on these things if you’re not careful. The key is waiting just long enough for them to cool slightly, but not so long that you can’t chew them well. Unlike certain types of pot stickers, which you can nick with your chopsticks so they can soak up some dipping sauce, soup dumplings need to be eaten whole. And speaking of sauce, DTF offered the typical ginger-infused black vinegar or ginger-and-chili-infused vinegar; sometimes I take a little bit of soy drizzled in—but the sauce at this joint was drinkable, it was so good. The broth used in the making of dumplings here is one of the best-kept secrets in the food biz, but a surprise visit to the kitchen gained me a peek into their soup pot loaded with pig’s trotters and shrimp shells. The gelatin in the pork allows the stock to chill to a solid form, and the pork/shrimp combo is what makes the soup so addictive in its hot liquid form.
This was the ultimate dumpling feast. Steamed pork dumplings, traditional Xia Long Bao, and assorted round little soup dumplings twisted at the top. We had a steamed crabmeat-and-pork dumpling, which I just adored. Crustacean and pork dumplings are my faves. I love the texture of the lobster or shrimp or crab swimming in the porky soupiness as you chew. Half moons of steamed vegetable-and-fish dumplings, platters of steamed green-vegetable dumplings—usually a trio of mixed greens, some pickled, some just minced fresh, some mixed with pork. You can see the brilliant emerald green through the thin sheeting they come enrobed in. We devoured mushroom dumplings and indulged in the best shao-mai I’ve ever had. Shrimp and pork varieties, about an inch and a half high, pinched in the middle so they look like little nuclear power plants. The night’s specials were over the top in flavor and presentation. They brought us these shrimp dumplings, decorated like a teeny little shrimp replete with tails and eyes. I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else in the world except in some of the dumpling palaces in Xian in the People’s Republic.
The buns came next. We powered through their char siu bao, a light doughy bun filled with barbecued pork, steamed and baked buns filled with mixed vegetables. There were sweet red-bean-and-sesame buns dotted with a teeny circle of filling on the top to distinguish them from the savory varieties. We had a black glutinous rice dish that absolutely blew my mind, it was so dense. It was pitch black and looked as if it had been steamed in banana leaf and unfolded onto the plate—like a power bar of rice. We had plates of sautéed water spinach called on-choy, mixed greens and gai lan bathed in oyster sauce, and sugar snap pea shoots woktossed with ginger and burnt chilies.
Somehow, we found room for the two entrées listed on the menu. One was a chicken steamed over rice and the other one a fried pork chop. They were both admirable dishes, but if you ask me, a waste of stomach space when there are such incredible dumplings to be had. Almost no one orders them. Din Tai Fung is all about the dumplings, created in the male-dominated kitchen, served by giggling girls in short skirts, thick stockings, and clunky high heels. A huge winner.
The only real downer of the evening was the red bean rice cake dessert. I often find Chinese desserts to be disappointing. Quick, name your favorite. See? We had mashed red bean and glutinous rice patties that our Taiwanese cohorts just wolfed down. Me, I just don’t get the sweet bean paste mixed with rice. Not enough contrast in flavor or texture for my taste, but so be it.
Bingyi Yang, Din Tai Fung’s founder, arrived in Taiwan in 1948. He began working in the cooking oil business. Ten years later, his oil store closed. However, Yang remained optimistic and managed to open his own oil shop in 1958, called Din Tai Fung Oil Store. Din Tai Fung turned into a successful oil shop, so much so that he opened another location in the bustling Xinyi Road area. In the 1970s, cheap tinned salad oil flooded the market, leaving Yang’s business hanging by a thread. Taking the advice of a friend, Yang and his wife turned half of the shop into a steamed dumpling operation. They never advertised, but word of mouth brought people in. Eventually, business exploded and they soon stopped selling oil altogether. Locals and travelers alike flocked to their r
estaurant, where everything is made by hand and quality control is job one. These guys do it right, with a refrigerated room to roll dumplings and a hot room to steam them. Sitting at long banks of tables, cheek to jowl with diners not in your party, it’s definitely intimate, but boy, you will not find better dumplings anywhere in the world. If you have never had a soup dumpling with paper-thin translucent skin, dipped into a little bowl of red or black vinegar infused with fresh ginger, and finished with a drizzle of aged soy sauce, you have not lived. When that mixture of soup, meat, and sauce explodes in your mouth, it all marries together harmoniously, which is why I think dumplings are the world’s most perfect food.
Fish Heaven
Finding Perfection in
a Ginza Basement
lthough it has yet to achieve the everyday normalcy hot dogs and donuts have in this country, sushi is perhaps the most popular food in the United States, possibly in the world. Over the last five years, hundreds of millions of Russian and Chinese middle-class consumers came online, joining the legions of global sushi nuts. Demand increased so drastically that the prices high-quality fish were able to garner at wholesale fish markets around the world hiccupped forward almost overnight, responding to and then reigniting a giant sea change in demand.
Oligarchs, dictators, Mafiosi, supermodels, and food freaks—anyone with deep pocketbooks—scrounge for reservations not at French tables of gastronomy, but at the handful of high-end sushi restaurants around the world. A food that was originally thought to be peasant fare (pickled fish) ended up having rice and nori applied to it as a way to keep gamblers from marking their cards, dice, and gambling debts. Later it became the ultimate Japanese snack food, captivating the imagination of hundreds of millions of consumers around the world.
I remember going out to Montauk on Long Island to go bluefish fishing with my dad when I was six or seven years old. We were going out on one of the big party boats that left from in front of Salivar’s Dock. Later that afternoon when we returned from our day on the ocean, we saw these giant 300- or 400-pound beasts being slung on derricks from the docks, then hoisted into open-air dump trucks wheeled up to the water’s edge. I asked my dad where these big fish were going, lying in the bins on the backs of these trucks. We found out that these behemoth fish were being driven mid-island to a cat-food factory for processing. My, how the world has changed.
Those same fish now regularly garner $150,000 a pop at Toyko’s Tsukiji Market, where they are flown fairly regularly. The boats that catch the primo tuna will actually have graders flown out to the vessels by helicopter. They’ll inspect the fish, pull it into the helicopter’s belly, and whisk it away to an international airport. Fifteen hours later, it’s auctioned off at Tsukiji Market. Sadly, in the food world today, the currency of the realm is expensive fresh fish, the very thing customers in Japanese restaurants, and a host of other styles of eateries, crave the most.
I remember when Japanese food was essentially a handful of little yakitori-style restaurants in Manhattan. I was probably eleven or twelve when my friends, the Wakabayashi family, began taking me to Tenryu on a weekly basis. Invariably, one of our appetizers was a large platter of assorted sashimi and sushi. Around the same time, I began accompanying my dad to lunches and dinners at the old and long-since-closed Edo Restaurant in the West Forties. Like most sushi newcomers, Tekka-maki was the first thing I fell in love with, those small chunks of tuna rolled in rice and nori. I eventually graduated to eel, freshwater and saltwater; hamachi; then to geoduck, known in Japan as mirugai. This gigantic saltwater clam soon became my favorite.
The first time I tried uni, or raw sea urchin, was at Hatsuhana. The liver-y and softly textured creamy roe of the sea urchin isn’t for everyone, but I adored its one-of-a-kind saline and minerally flavor profile. This was the place to eat sushi and sashimi in the late seventies. I would sit mesmerized for hours as I watched the brigade of sushi chefs with long, thin blades turning four-inch chunks of cucumber into paper-thin sheets. They would make their thin cucumber paper, rolling it around in thin warm slices of unagi, then slice it thin, creating little eel and cucumber pin-wheels, one of their first signature dishes.
I love sushi and sashimi, and I’ve eaten some great fish in my day. Still, to my mind, one of the great experiences in my food life was getting up at oh-dark-thirty and heading over to Tsukiji Market to watch the fresh and frozen tuna auctions. Participants still dress up in the ancient uniforms, march into the auction room, and barter away for some of the most beautiful fish you’ve ever seen in your life. I’ve had the honor of escorting 300-pound fish from the market floor at four in the morning to a dealer’s booth. This wholesaler cut up the fish, dispensing pieces to sushi restaurants around the greater Tokyo metro area who had placed orders with him that day. I watched the cutters take six-foot-long samurai swords and divide the fish into panels, separating the chutoro from the otoro and the toro from the guro. He weighed the different cuts of tuna, wrapped it up, and sent it on its way.
I’ve learned more about tuna from spending a few days at Tsukiji Market than I ever did eating and working in restaurants. I’ve prowled the market extensively, hopping booth to booth, tasting tuna brought in from different parts of the world. I’ve had wholesalers lead me by the hand to the carcass of mammoth blue-fin and yellowfin tuna, where they’d run a spoon along certain bones or along the spinal cord, collecting scrapings of particularly fatty or noteworthy bites to educate me on what to look for in terms of fat content, flavor, and texture.
I’ve eaten some of the most world-renowned sushi. I’ve been lucky enough to dine at Nobu Matsuhisa’s restaurants many times. I’ve probably visited eight or nine of them globally, often getting fed by the Master himself. I didn’t think anything could top having Nobu Matsuhisa himself prepare uni, raw scallop, a selection of toro, and more for me, standing behind the sushi bar at his restaurant one night in Los Angeles. This was the thrill of a lifetime—until I got a chance to eat with him in the kitchen of his Tokyo restaurant a year later. If you’ve never eaten poached octopus eggs cooked in dashi and mirin, accompanied by some fresh fried frog, I implore you to get on a plane and head to Tokyo immediately.
And speaking of frog, not in my wildest dreams did I ever consider eating frog sashimi. They serve it in Japan at a little getemono bar called the Asadachi, which hysterically translates to “morning erection.” Tokyo’s getemono bars are notorious for serving food-forward, psyche-challenging dishes, so if you’re jonesing for a grilled lizard, that’s where you go. Businessmen flock to these little restaurants to eat for sport, usually as a way to celebrate the closing of an auspicious business deal. Eating frog sashimi involved more audience participation than I’d anticipated. I actually selected my live frog from a basket. The chef then took a penknife and ripped its skin off. He served me paper-thin slices of the frog’s flesh with a bit of soy and lemon sauce for dipping, along with a separate bowl for the still-beating frog’s heart.
On several occasions I’ve found myself at Jewel Bako’s sushi bar in New York City. One of the greatest things about frequenting the same sushi bar is building a relationship with the chef. I often turn the ordering over to Yoshi, one of the great sushi chefs in the city, who hand-selects cuts of fish for me, like teeny filets of melting silver needlefish flown in from Tsukiji Market. He scores the skin with the sharpest of knives, finishing it with a blowtorch to char the skin. The flesh, still cold, is placed on some of the best vinegared rice I’ve ever tasted. If you’re really up for a challenge, try Yoshi’s live lobster sashimi washed down with a hot and comforting bowl of lobster miso soup.
I am not, by the way, in the business of animal cruelty, and the debate can rage on for decades about whether or not a lobster has “feelings,” but there are many cases (oysters, clams, to name a few) where lively freshness is imperative when dining, and frankly, in most cases I am very content being ensconced firmly at the top of the food chain. I would also say that many of the more extreme examples of my din
ing on live animals falls into the experiential category and not into the everyday-habit category. That’s not supposed to make you feel better if you are against this sort of thing, but it makes me feel better.
I’ve dined several times at Nozawa in Los Angeles. At the turn of the millennium, when Nozawa was the king of raw fish in Los Angeles—a city unrivaled in its passion for sushi—he turned out some of the most incredible food that I’ve eaten in a sushi bar: freshly steamed Dungeness and king crab in two separate hand rolls, flesh still warm, plucked from the shell by his wife and his assistant, who help him run the tables. I remember those crab rolls like it was yesterday.
Nozawa’s reputation for phenomenal food is almost eclipsed by his ironfisted approach to serving sushi. He’s not far off from Seinfeld’s infamous Soup Nazi when it comes to personality profiles. He plates the food, giving you the portions that he believes you should have. You do not ask for seconds. You do not over-order. If a dish is not accompanied by soy sauce, pickled ginger, or wasabi, it is not an oversight. He wants you to eat a certain piece of fish without it. This man isn’t looking for you to have a pedestrian experience. If you challenge him, you run the risk of being kicked out.
The Bizarre Truth Page 17
