Midori Korean BBQ Part 2 - Korean Food

(EDITORS NOTE: Midori is under new management. They don't prepare the sushi from the old menu well, but we don't know how they prepare the Korean food. We suspect their own new menu items are probably what's best. However, watch out for any roll with cream cheese in it -- it's whipped and sweet and overwhelms the flavor of anything its in. Ugh!)

The following refers to the food under the old managemet:

As I mentioned, Midori has great Korean food too. (Actually a mix of Korean and Japanese.)

My favorite is the Stone Bowl Bibimbap. You can get this elsewhere. (They make a good version at Korea House, for instance.) But I like it best here.

Bibimbap is a rice dish, originally it was for leftovers of a banquet. The kitchen help would get a bowl of rice, with a variety of foods on top, including an egg. But then in one town (and I don't recall which) restaurants started serving it in polished stone bowls that were oiled and heated to blazing hot in an oven. The rice would crisp up, the ingredients sizzle together, and the egg would cook.

And a maginificent dish was born.

Generally Stone Bowl Bibimbap is served in a blazing hot bowl, with a large scoop of rice, and a little bulgogi (thin sliced, grilled beef -- sweet and garlicky), and various vegetables -- shredded carrot, greens, beansprouts, mushrooms -- and an egg. Some places cook the egg first, but that's unnecessary. Midori cracks a raw egg on top. When you get your sizzling hot bowl, you stir it a little (or a lot, but I prefer not to mix everything up too much) and let the sizzling bowl cook it.

Bibimbap is served with a flavorful Korean hot sauce, and I recommend squirting some around the edge to caramelize just before stirring up the ingredients. I also usually pour in a little soy sauce along the edge. This will give you a couple of different flavors. It will also be too hot to eat, so let it cook and cool for a little bit. The top will cool off enough to eat while the bottom gets crunchy and tasty. Give it another stir every often to get the crunchy bits up from the bottom. (You'll have to let it cool again when you stir it, but it tastes SO good.)

One fun thing about Korean food is the array of side dishes. The fancier the meal, the more you get, usually. For lunch they just gave us three -- the spicy pickled cabbage Kimchee, the refreshing yellow sweet pickled radish, and the tasty fishcakes, cooked in a little sesame oil and garlic. You might also get a sweet and vinegar cucumber or seaweed salad, spicy radish chunks or even a creamy mix of cooked matchstick potato or turnip.

Depending on what you order, you might also get the standard salad, which you get in a lot of sushi places. (But it's really really good here. The dressing is particularly flavorful, and seems to be made partly with Korean dried shrimp.)

Another good, and filling, lunch are the noodle soups. Here pictured is the Tempura Soba -- a soup of buckwheat noodles with fried shrimp stuck in it. This, like the other soups on the regular menu, is a very Japanese flavor. They have a little card on the table, though, that lists some of their spicy Korean seafood soups.

They've got good Chap Chae (also called Jap Chai), clear noodles made of yam starch which are stir-fried lo mein style with a lot of garlic and soy and some veggies. And of course, being a Korean BBQ, a choice of things like Bulgogi -- the sweet garlicky sliced beef I mentioned above -- or Kalbi, the short ribs version. There's spicy pork or chicken. These are all cooked in the kitchen, but served on a sizzling platter with a bowl of rice and various side dishes.

Midori is on the west side of town, in a little shopping mall on Edgewood Boulvard (across from Meijers). Maybe a little hard to get over there for people on the east side, but I'll just remind you that the Goodrich Quality Theaters movie house out behind Lansing Mall is CHEAP, but is also clean and with new seating and equipment. We find Midori and a movie (or Little Panda and a movie) makes for a great combination.

I hope to get to some of the other Korean restaurants soon. In the meantime, enjoy Midori if you can.

Midori Sushi and Korean BBQ, 436 Elmwood Rd, Lansing. (527) 323-7991.

RECIPE: Chocolate Nugget Cookies

(Continuing with recipes for the Thanksgiving week -- I'll get back to restaurants on Monday.)



I invented this ultra-chocolate cookie recipe after going through a whole book of "chocolate cookie" recipes and not finding a single one that was chocolatey enough. They're simple and really satisfying. (And they freeze really well. Which is good because if you keep them in the freezer, you won't be tempted to eat them all in one sitting.)

• 1 stick butter
• 3/4 c. brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup flour
• 2/3 cup cocoa
• 1 tsp baking powder

Cream the butter and sugar together, then stir in the egg and vanilla. Mix the dry ingredients together, and then mix them into the batter. Scoop out lumps a little smaller than a walnut. Bake at 350 for about 13 minutes. Cooking time depends on size of cookie and the variations your oven. I use a cookie scoop to keep the size regular and that helps a lot -- since chocolate cookies don't really brown to tell you they are done. Timing is everything.

These are actually best just undercooked. Once they cool, they take on a fudgy texture - not gooey, but rather a moist cookie that fractures the way fudge does when you break it. Melt in your mouth.

Blatant Advertising:


I love my cookie scoop. I LIVE by it. It really has made my life much easier. As I said above, a scoop is particularly important for this recipe. The ideal size for these cookies is the small scoop by Oxo. (It's also a very good sturdy scoop -- I've had other brands fall apart from over use, but the Oxo is still going strong.) This size is great for small meatballs too. The medium size is good for large meatballs and for a more medium sized cookie. You should be able to find this in town, or you could buy it from my Amazon link: OXO Good Grips Small Cookie Scoop.

Don't Forget Lamai Anniversary tonight!

I can't be there, so I'm reminding all of you: Lamai is having her anniversary bash tonight. According to the sign, she will be having her Thai Sukiyaki. Thai Food From Lamai's Kitchen is at 2033 East Michigan Ave, at the corner of Fairview, several blocks west of Frandor and the highway.

International Market

(NOTE: International Market has moved to the 2800 block of East Grand River in East Lansing. It's in the same strip with Oriental Mart and Fiesta Charra.)

The first thing you see when you walk into the International Market on Grand River in Okemos, is a wall of baskets, each full of candies. Unfortunately the wrappers on the candies are in Russian, so it's a pot luck purchase. But it's kind of a treasure hunt too.

The candies are odd and fun, but the rest of the store is a great little font of eastern European foods with a Middle-eastern flair. They don't have a lot, but they have a good variety of what they carry -- various rices and lentils, and a case of cheeses and cured meats and sausages. Not to mention Teas. (My mother has been yearning for an Earl Grey tea she got at a Russian tea room in LA. I found her a good substitute here.)

There's also a wall length refrigerator-case full of good stuff. I purchased some Labna -- a thickened creamy yogurt that is a lot like cream cheese. It is high fat for yogurt (though I haven't compared it to cream cheese yet -- might be a wonderful substitute for your bagel spread).

Labna could be used as a substitute for sour cream too. I'm considering experimenting with a salad dressing or dip that could be a variation of wing sauce for those who don't like bleu cheese. Heck, next time you have hot wings, just try dipping them in straight labana! (I will be posting a recipe Sunday for an easy treat I call Buffalo Shao Mai. I tried one with some Labana and it was heaven.)

International Market is located in the 2800 block of East Grand River in East Lansing. (Same building as Oriental Mart and Fiesta Charra.) (517) 853-8400.

RECIPE Mandarin Pancakes

You're going to have left over turkey this weekend. Why not have fun with it? Make Peking Turkey!

I love making Mandarin Pancakes (aka Peking Doilies or Lotus Pancakes). They're fussy and fun, and really not that hard. And this is the same dough you use for potstickers and green onion pancakes. This recipe makes 16 small (4 inch) doilies.

All you need is:

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• a little sesame oil (plain salad oil will do in a pinch, or any other fat, for that matter)
• 1/2 cup more flour for rolling the pancakes out

For the filling:

• Hoisin Sauce
• Green Onions
• Leftover Turkey (or chicken or pork -- don't forget this is a good use for the skin! For vegetarians, I have made fake duck skin out of dried bean curd skin -- moisten it, and then fry it until the surface is crispy.)

I also recommend a covered plate or some tin foil -- in which to keep the cooked doilies warm and moist while you roll and cook the rest. Oh, and you'll need a ROLLING PIN (or something that can be used as such -- you could try a tortilla press, but I don't know what effect that would have on the layers).

Boiling water dough is sweeter and more tender than most doughs, but mixing in the very hot water is a trick. A friend got me a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer this year, and I love it for this -- you can pour the boiling water in as the thing mixes (be sure to use a dough hook!). No problems holding the bowl, the spoon and the container of hot water. However, you can make it just fine with a bowl and a wooden spoon. Just pour the boiling water in all at once, and then start stirring. It won't look like it wants to combine right, but have faith. Lumps don't matter in this dough.

Eventually, as you stir, everything will come together into a sticky ball. Scrape that onto a sheet of plastic wrap (...oh yeah, you'll need plastic wrap, or something like it), along with any loose bits left in the bowl. Wrap it tight, and let it sit for a while -- anywhere from ten minutes to a full day. This step is essential. It not only allows the sticky gluten to "rest" (which makes it less sticky, and more pliable), but it also gives the water a chance to soak more evenly through the dough. (I told you lumps don't matter. Although if you ended up with a bunch of hard lumps, you'll probably want to let it sit longer than if you didn't.)

While you wait, get your other stuff ready -- chop the green onions, shred or slice the meat, get out your bottle of hoisin. If you want to be really fancy, you might mix up a sauce to taste with hoisin, sugar, oyster sauce and water, but plain hoisin will do. And if you want to go whole hog and make scallion brushes, you have to cut a 2 inch piece of scallion, cut little slits in each end to make the "brush" part, and then stick them in ice water to make the brushes curl up.

Now, get out a covered plate or a big sheet of tinfoil in which to keep the cooked pancakes. Get out your rolling pin, and put a scoop of flour onto the surface where you'll roll out the pancakes.



When you unwrap the dough, it should be sticky, but firm enough to hold its shape. Just scrape loose anything that sticks, and pat a little flour onto the surface. You don't need to knead it. Just pat flour onto sticky bits so you can handle it. It is easiest to divide this evenly by rolling it into a tube shape, and then cutting it in half. Cover half with the plastic for later so it won't dry out, and then divide up the remining bit into eight peices. (Just keep rolling the snake out thinner and cutting it in half and in half again.) You want to try to get the pieces all the same size, but if you can't, that's okay. You just want to remember to use littl pieces with little pieces and big with big.


Take two pieces. Pat them into disks. Pour a drop or two of Sesame oil on one of the disks and spread it around to cover the surface -- this will allow the two pieces to be separated later. Stack the dry disk on top of the oiled one, press them down a little flatter, and start rolling them out as a two-layered pancake. Pat the sticky bits with more flour as necessary. When they are as thin as you can reasonably get them (about a four-inch tortilla), it's ready to cook.

Have a pan already warmed up on medium to medium-low heat. A dry pan, no oil! These won't stick to a dry pan. After a minute or so, the dough will start getting translucent. Flip it over. The other side should have formed some white spots that were just beginning to turn brown. A little bit of brown spots are okay, but if you get big brown spots you cooked it too long or too hot (probably both) -- and if you do that, it will be hard to pull them apart. It is okay if you under cooked it a little, because you can always flip them over again. While cooking the second side, you'll start to see the pancake puff up -- that's a sign it is done, although it's good to let it puff more for a minute, as long as you aren't burning it.

Put the cooked pancake in a covered container -- in tinfoil or under a lid -- until you've cooked more of them. By the time you're done with all (or if you're impatient, with half), they should be just cool enough to handle, and you can start pulling them apart -- just remember there still might be some HOT steam inside the freshest ones.

The edge where you can pull them apart won't be as obvious as in the picture, but it's kinda like opening a plastic vegetable bag at the market. Just keep teasing the edge until you find a seam. If it starts to tear, back off, work it along the other direction, or try to get your fingers inside and separate them from the middle. (The edges are where they are cooked together, after all.)

Spread on some hoisin sauce, drop in some meat, and sprinkle generously with onions, wrap it up, and voila! You have a fun and delicious treat.

***

Midori Korean BBQ Part 1 - Sushi

(EDITORS NOTE: Midori is under new management. They don't prepare the sushi from the old menu well, but we don't know how they prepare the Korean food. We suspect their own new menu items are probably what's best. However, watch out for any roll with cream cheese in it -- it's whipped and sweet and overwhelms the flavor of anything its in. Ugh!)

The following refers to the food under the old managemet:

I'm not exactly a purist when it comes to sushi. I adore the big bright flavorful "fusion cooking" rolls, especially when they come with a Korean flair. I'm not so hot on the slab of raw fish on a ball of rice. Not that I have anything against raw fish, and I can appreciate simple elegance. But most Japanese sushi is just too pure for me.

As a result I cannot say how Midori stacks up among the top classic sushi places. (I suspect they're pretty good, as the sushi is always prepared with great care.) But I can say that my favorite place for sushi is Midori Sushi and Korean BBQ. Their flavors are vibrant and textures varied. (I also love their Korean food, but I'm leaving that for another review.)


Here are a few of my favorite rolls:

The Spicy Shrimp Tempura (pictured in the center) is the richest and most irresistible roll they have, imho. Inside is shrimp rolled in the milder darker Korean hot sauce. (Koreans have a wide variety of hot sauces, with a lot of different flavors -- some fruity, some straight spicy, some blazingly hot.) There's also cucumber and cream cheese, all wrapped in rice and nori. Then the whole roll is lightly battered and quickly deep fried. It's then cut into slices and a dot of a different hot sauce is on each slice. The flavors all melt together with the cream cheese, but there is the very crunchy outside, and the fresh crisp of the cucumber inside. You can eat each piece with two bites, but I recommend trying to get it in one. The gestalt of all the flavors and textures is heaven.

Another fancy large roll is the Caterpillar -- a spicy tuna roll which is draped with avocado slices on the outside. (Pictured at the top.) Depending on the chef and the presentation possibilities of your overall order, they may present this in a snake along your platter, with markings and scallion anntennae so that it looks like a big caterpillar.

The other big roll we like here is the Futomaki (pictured on the Right), which I understand just means "Big roll". At a lot of places, this is served as a selection of fishes, but here it is filled with crab, cucumber, avocado, kampyo, egg, and the crisp, sweet radish pickle that they serve as a side dish for many of their Korean dishes. This roll is lightly sweet flavored, and a good respite for some of the heavier rolls.

We usually order a big roll per person, and then fill in the rest with smaller rolls, like an asparagus, or avocado roll. Maybe a plain spicy crab or tuna. In the picture, I believe that's a Spicy Crab along the left, and Asparagus roll between the Caterpillar and the Spicy Shrimp Tempura, and a Cucumber and Avocado roll at the bottom of the picture above.

Below is what the tray looked like moments after serving. (It was completely empty soon after that.)


I hope to have some pictures and do a review of the Korean food at Midori soon, especially the Hot Stone Bowl Bibimbap, and maybe the noodle soup with shrimp tempura in it. In the meantime, just remember you can get good Korean food there. (And for great mom and pop Korean food in East Lansing, you can't beat Korean House in the Trowbridge shopping center. )

Midori Sushi and Korean BBQ, 436 Elmwood Rd, Lansing. (527) 323-7991.

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Recommended Links:
Much as I love Korean food, you'd think I'd have more blog links. But alas, right now I only have one. My Korean Kitchen. Although Zen Kimchi really looks promising.

Roma Bakery, Grocery and Deli

Roma Bakery is a specialty grocery and bakery, located a little bit north of Oldsmobile Park on North Cedar. Anything you might want in a mediterranean cuisine, they have. Oils, vinegars, a whole wall of bulk spices. Dozens of varieties each of special ingredients like capers. Their deli case has Italian cured meats and cheeses. They even provide frozen dough in the dairy case for when you want to make your own pizzas at home.

But they are also a deli, and their sandwiches are small but hearty and, well, just really good. The subs are made with REAL BREAD -- crusty sub rolls they make themselves. I really like their #2 sandwich: prosciutto, lettuce, tomato and olive oil, but the prosciutto is pretty salty and I'm often burping it up for the rest of the day. So I usually opt for a #13 Lugnut Special(pictured above): ham, turkey, lettuce, tomato and mayo. But they have a great variety of other fillings, from Italian favorites like cappicola, pepperoni and salami, to plain old ham and swiss.

You can also get a small selection of salads and pastas by the pound, or slices of pizza or Greek spinach pie.

Their bread is good Italian stuff. Unlike many of the yuppie bakeries in town, this bread has crust! And unlike Paneras, it also has substance. While I do like Zingerman's bread a little better, Zingerman's has to be trucked in and is expensive.

Their pastry case is filled with sweet treats of every kind imaginable, from biscotti to strawberry tarts. (It's hard to escape that counter, and you have to approach it to get the bread.) They also do cakes and cornucopias for banquets and weddings. In March, they are famous for their Paczki (Polish jelly donut/pastries traditionally eaten for Mardi Gras).

Roma Bakery. 428 North Cedar Street. 517-485-9466. Their website is mainly geared toward catering and wedding cake customers.

Suria Malaysian Restaurant

(Editor's Note: Suria is closed. There is no place in town that I know of to get Malaysian food anymore. Sigh.)

I've mentioned Suria before, but I didn't have time for a full review, and they have changed their menu a bit in the new location. (The biggest change is that they no longer seem to have the big bowls necessary to serve the soup-style dishes, although they will try serving it on a large plate if you request a favorite dish from their former restaurant.)

Malaysian food has a lot in common with Indian, Chinese and Thai, and yet it's entirely it's own cuisine. A lot of curries and noodles, and can be very very spicey. They also serve Chinese food for the more timid, but I can't tell you how good it is because I always get the Malaysian food. Another great thing for the uninitiated: they have pictures of the dishes on the menu, which helps you remember what you had last time.


The most amazing thing is the appetizer Roti Canai (ROE-tee CHEN-eye) a stretchy, flakey flat bread which seems to me to be a cross between Naan and Croissants. I've been trying to make Roti at home, and though I think I've done pretty well on the Indian version, the ultra-thin layers of the Malaysian version are inhumanly impossible. (Well, okay, maybe superhumanly possible, kinda like my grandmother's pie dough.) This is melt-in-your mouth stuff. It comes with a little bowl of hot curry sauce to dip, that's just perfect with the buttery bread. (Note, you get one piece of bread with an order -- be sure to ask for a piece for everyone in the group, because you'll all want your own.)


My favorite dish is Panang Fried Kuey Teow. (Shown above.) Kuey Teow (pronounced KWAY Ti-ow) is a freshly made rice noodle -- chewy and creamy, and often large. It's stirfried (like fried rice or lo mein) with shrimp and chinese sausage, onions beansprouts, soy sauce and spices. It's really good, but it is intense and greasy. If you're not sure, you could ask for it not so spicey. This is one dish that has so much flavor, leaving out the spice would not hurt it. (The Beef Hor Fun is similar, and not hot -- but it also doesn't have the mellow flavor of the Chinese sausage.)


Another interesting noodle dish, that's unfamiliar but good for western tastes, is the Mee Rojak, which is a plate of egg noodles with shredded cucumber and bean sprouts. Over the top is the meat of your choice (shown here with shrimp), some fried tofu pockets, and a sweet sauce that reminds me a little of bbq sauce, garnished with ground peanuts. This one used to come mild, but the last time we had it, it was hot (and listed as hot on the menu). Again, they're happy to make something mild.

The other common sort of dish is a curry or meat on the side of a little formed ball of flavored rice (usually coconut or ginger rice). I love their chicken curry, but it is cut up, Asian style, with the bones in, and can be slow eating for westerners. The Nasi Lemak is something like a national dish of Malaysia: chicken curry, a mound of coconut rice, cucumbers, a boiled egg, and a little pile of fried spicy anchovies. If you're not quite up to the anchovies, the Chicken Curry is just fine. The BBQ Pork is very good when they have it, though a little sweeter than the Chinese BBQ Pork it resembles.

They also have a selection of dim sum on the appetizer menu. I've never got around to trying it, because I'm always too hungry for the Roti Canai. I've also never tried the Malaysian drinks and desserts.

Suria Malaysian Restaurant. 5025 S. Cedar St., Lansing. (517)887-8168.
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Recommended Links:
Lily's Wei Sek Hong is a blog written by a Malaysian American. A lot of the recipes are American or of other ethnicities, but she has a lot of Malaysian recipes in her long list on the right side of the page.

Recommended Reading:
My favorite Malaysian cookbook so far is The Food of Malaysia: Authentic Recipes From the Crossroads of Asia (Periplus World Cookbooks) , but it's out of print. The other major book I use is the Wei Chaun cooking school book Singaporean, Malaysian & Indonesian Cuisine.

Drive-by: Lamai Anniversary, Nov 19

Lamai will be celebrating her anniversary on November 19 this year. That's a monday. She usually has special dishes for that, and sometimes has her Thai Sukiyaki.

(Another review coming tonight -- Probably Midori, although I don't have the pictures I want. BTW, I 've added pictures to the Sultan's review.)

Peking Duck Feast at Peking Express

Peking Duck was originally just a little treat at an Imperial feast, a lovely little burrito of duck, hoisin sauce and spring onion. This little treat took days to prepare.

Three days before the banquet, the duck would be quickly blanched in boiling honey water, then set to dry, then blanched again, and set to dry again. And again. This would go on for days until the skin was tight with honey, and had rendered out much of the fat. Then the duck would be roasted. The point of all this was to get the perfect crispy skin. The skin is the only part of the duck that is actually supposed to be used in Peking Duck. The rest of the duck should be prepared in another dish.

Peking Express knows how to serve the duck right -- as two dishes. But back to the duck....


So the luscious, crispy caramelized skin would then be cut up and served with a steamer full of lovely Mandarin Pancakes (aka Lotus Pancakes or Peking Doilies). These are very thin but tender and glutinous flat breads -- thinner than a tortilla, and when done right, more moist and tender. They should be made with boiling water dough (similar to pot sticker dough) and when made by hand, you put some sesame oil between two layers so you can roll them out extremely thin, two at a time.

You also get a bowl of hoisin sauce -- a salty sweet sauce with a number of spices it in -- and a pile of scallion brushes. Use the scallion (or green onion) to brush some hoisin on the pancake, throw in the onion and the skin, and wrap it up. Delectable!


Peking Express doesn't do the extra thin pancakes, but unlike any other place in town, they do use the right kind of dough. (Other places basically use a very very thin tortilla.) And they give you the actual scallion brushes, when most places give you just a few slivers of green onion and a pile of shredded cucumber.

It's a great dish for a celebration or banquet. We had such a banquet this weekend. The duck and doilies came first, as they should be. They're a great appetizer, but if you have less than four people, you could very well fill up on just this. (Heck, once the duck is gone, it's tempting to ask for more pancakes and just keep gobbling them with the sauce and onions.)

As for the rest of the banquet, the duck is enough to feed two or three people, so be careful how much more your order. Peking Express in particular tends to give you a lot of food for each dish, and we ended up ordering too much. (If you're sharing dishes, as you should at a Chinese banquet, figure the duck to be three dishes, unless you have some really hearty eaters, or you want leftovers.)


After the skin, came the rest of the duck, prepared in a stir-fry with slivers of vegetables and a bright flavor of five spice. (Five spice tends to be a mixture of anise, cinnamon, licorice, hot pepper, and any of a number of other spices -- fennel, cloves, ginger. There may well be more than five spices in there. It's just that five is a lucky number, so that's what it's called.)


The dish the owners always recommend for a banquet at Peking Express is the Giant Oyster Mushroom with Assorted Seafood. Oyster Mushrooms are a nice mild, chewy shroom, and the sauce is a mild garlic gravy. The seafood is shrimp, scallops, and yes...squid. The thing about squid is, if you cook it more than a minute, or less than an hour, it's tough. It doesn't taste bad, but it can be like chewing rubber bands. I'm happy to say that last night, the squid was NOT overcooked. It was a little chewier than the mushroom, but not bad.


The delight of the night was the Eggplant in Hot Pot. This is a gorgeous dish: purple eggplants and colorful sweet peppers baked in a hot clay pot in a sweet soy and wine sauce. I'm really beginning to get over my dislike of eggplant. There are just too many places in town that make good stuff out of it. The liquid in the hot pot keeps its temperature up, so be sure you don't burn yourself on this one.


Lastly we had a dish we've gotten before and we always forget it's not what we expect. Turbot Fish with Baby Bok Choi in Black Bean Sauce has dried salted turbot in it -- the fish is more of a seasoning than a major ingredient. It's tasty, but it's salty. If you want just some nice green veggies with the other dishes, you might try their Pea Greens in Minced Garlic Sauce. Those are really tasty in a light gravy. Chinese Mushrooms with Chinese Green is also a good vegetable dish, but heavy on the Mushrooms (nice plump whole black mushrooms.)

I love Peking Express. (They're one of the few places in town to serve good tea, which is ironic, because dim sum houses are supposed to be about good tea, but alas, ours just don't get it.) It is by far the best place to get Peking Duck. However, in fairness, I should say that Chinese Gourmet Village in Hannah Plaza puts on a nice feast too. I don't have a review for them yet, but here's a link to their site and menu.

All of the dishes mentioned above, by the way, came from the chef's special menu, which is an insert in the regular menu. If your insert gets left out, don't settle for the General Tsao's Chicken and Beef Chow Mein. Get the good stuff.

Peking Express, 611 East Grand River Ave, East Lansing. 351-0533.

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Recommended Reading:

I have a really good book on Peking Style cooking from Wei Chuan cooking school. Chinese Cuisine: Beijing Style The only problem is that Amazon lists this book as being in Chinese. Most Wei Chuan books are in both Chinese and English, and I have a copy of this that has everything in both languages, so this is probably in both, but be prepared if you order it.

On the other hand Chinese Cuisine: Shanghai Styles is another great Wei Chuan book with similar flavors and styles, and Amazon even says it's in English.

Dim Sum Primer, Pt 3

Continuing on with Part Three of the Dim Sum Primer. If you want to know where to get this stuff locally, check out the "Where to get Dim Sum in Lansing" post.


Fried Sweet Rice Dumpling. This thing has a lot of names, and the names often sound like other kinds of dumplings. At Little Panda, they're now calling it something like "Meat Filled Dumpling". But it's so much more: The wrapper is a thick, chewy sticky dough made of sweet rice (or sticky rice) flour -- which is used in a lot of desserts. However, in this dish, it's wrapped around some seasoned ground pork, and then deep-fried. I had a variation in L.A. filled with chicken and cilantro. In either case, something about the sweet and the crispy chewy fried crust makes the flavor of the meat inside POP. You really should have this with the hot sauce, though.


Hot Sauce. At Golden Wok, they put the sauce on the table when you arrive. At Little Panda, you have to ask for it. It's made up of chili flakes soaked in oil, and may be seasoned with ginger or garlic as well. The oil here is not as hot as the flakes, and it carries all the flavor, so if you don't want it too hot, you can just dab your dumplings in the oil, or you can drizzle it on the food.


TurnipCake. This is another item that goes well with the hot sauce. "Turnip" Cake is generally made with a large sweet Daikon radish, rather an an actual turnip. The batter is made with rice flour and water, mixed with various flavorful ingredients, usually including Chinese sausage, mushrooms and dried shrimp, along with the grated turnip. This is then steamed -- more like an English pudding than a cake -- and then sliced and fried. Little Panda tends to have more flavorful fillings. Golden Wok sometimes has a variant of this with a Taro Cake - which looks almost the same, but is slightly purple. Taro is sweeter and pastier.


Chive Dumpling. This translucent dumpling is shaped kind of like one of those round rubber coin purses that you squeeze to open up. (Flat, round, with a coiled top.) They are almost always filled with seafood and chives. At Golden Wok, they have shrimp. We've seen them with clams, and I've heard of them offered with greens or cilantro inside too. (Little Panda doesn't offer them.) The wrapper is a slightly tougher version of the clear Har Gow wrapper, and the dumpling is pan-fried after steaming.


Steamed Ribs. These are not BBQ ribs, but rather little chunks of bone, meat and gristle which have been steamed with garlic and black bean sauce. (Black beans are fermented, salted beans used as a seasoning -- and they are really great with pork or beef in particular.) The thing is, even though you have to suck the tiny bit of meat off small bones, these are really good, especially at Golden Wok.


BBQ Pork Pastry. These are almost too rich.... Okay, forget the "almost". They are too rich. Tender, flakey pastry wrapped around sweet hunks of Chinese BBQ pork. Melt in your mouth, heart-attack-on-a-plate. Yum. (Only available at Golden Wok.)

Shrimp Balls. Sorry I don't have a picture of these. They are basically just a meatball of pure shrimp, coated in crumbled rice noodles and deep fried. When I want shrimp, I prefer a little more texture and variety of flavor, so I don't often order these -- but they are great for somebody who just wants shrimp. Add a little sweet and sour sauce or hot sauce, and they are a treat.

Next time I'd like to get to some of plated dishes, congees and desserts. (I don't have as many pictures of those yet, though.) But before that, I have a few restaurant reviews to get to, and a Peking Duck banquet.

Where to find Dim Sum in Lansing
Dim Sum Primer, Part 1
Dim Sum Primer, Part 2
Dim Sum Primer, Part 3
Dim Sum Primer, Part 4

Los Tres Amigos Taqueria

Okay, this is really good. A wide range of very authentic flavors. The menu is very different than their main place out by Lansing Mall, which has more familiar dishes. (The East Side is now officaly swimming in great Mexican food.)

The core of the menu here are the tacos, burritos and tortas (sandwiches) with a variety of fillings. But they also have various authentic soups, and antojitos (literally "little cravings" -- taquitos, enchiladas tostadas, etc.) and Mariscos, which are seafood dinners -- mainly choices of tilapia and shrimp.

We had Tacos for our first visit. And our second. My favorite is the al Pastor, which has spicey barbequed pork with onions and cilantro, athough I sure liked the Carnitas, which is another variety of pulled pork with pico de gallo. (Both pictured above.) And then there is the fish taco (Tacos de Pescado) which is a fried whitefish filet, broken up and served with cabbage, pico and a drizzle of a creamy dressing that's like a Mexican tartar sauce. (Fish taco pictured below.)



The tacos themselves are small -- tiny corn tortillas served double for each taco or a regular sized flour tortilla -- but they are stuffed full and worth the $2 price. They have fine chips, and a good mild salsa (hot sauce both on the table and at a little dressings bar by the cash register), and good guacamole.

(Note: since this time, we've tried a few more flavors. The chicken tacos come in two varieties, grilled or shredded. The grilled is served with pico de gallo, and is very flavorful, and will probably become my regular request, along with the Pastor, but the shredded -- which were served with lettuce and cheese, gringo style, had a surprising hit of black pepper, and a great salty Mexican cheese. My friend reports that the shrimp tacos were really good and will probably become her regular order.)

They also serve juices from big glass barrels of ice and sugar. The pineapple is a little too sweet, but the Tamarindo is just about perfect.

They are located just north of Frandor, on North Clippert, in the same shopping strip as Baskin Robbins and Medawar Jewelers.

Los Tres Amigos Taqueria, 730 North Clippert St, Lansing, 48912. 324-9600.
***
Recommended links:
The Great Taco Hunt is one man's journey to find the best taco stand in Los Angeles.

Recommended Reading:
Gringo's Guide to Authentic Mexican Cooking (Cookbooks and Restaurant Guides)

Dim Sum Primer, part 2

Here's a continuation of my guide to dim sum dishes. You can learn about where to get dim sum in Lansing here, and read the first part of the Primer here.


Spring Rolls. More delicate than eggrolls, these crunchy treats are meant to resemble gold bricks and bring you good fortune. Little Panda in particular has wonderful Spring Rolls on dim sum weekend. (I don't know if their weekday spring rolls are the same -- for some reason I don't think so.) Cabbage and a little chicken or pork, lightly seasoned with five spice that just opens the flavors wide.


RiceRoll. This is a tender, slippery rice flour sheet, steamed and wrapped around beef, shrimp, or sometimes bbq pork (only at Golden Wok in town). I like the beef best, at least at Little Panda, where it has been seasoned with a little tangerine peel. All variations have a sweet taste and a slippery texture. I advise sliding it onto your plate and cutting it up before attempting to use chopsticks on these.


Pork In Bean Roll. Bean Curd Skin may not sound that appetizing, but it's a wonderful chewy wrapper for a number of Chinese dishes, and often used to simulate chicken skin in Buddhist vegetarian dishes. It's wrapped around something, then fried, and then steamed in a luscious garlicky gravy. It is actually most wonderful when filled with vegetables, but you can't always get that. And I find that Golden Wok often forgets the steaming and the garlicky gravy for this dish -- especially when serving it off the menu. And it's really just not good when it's only been fried. (Although if you take it home and pour on a little chicken broth and garlic it's just fine -- so sometimes I'll get this as takeout.) Little Panda always gets it right, but they only serve the pork version. Which is fine with me. Pork is good.


Stuffed Eggplant. There are actually several items you can get prepared this way -- tofu, mushrooms and green peppers are all popular -- but a friend of mine turned me on to the eggplant, and even though I'm not normally an eggplant fan, this is too good to pass up. We always get it. Generally it's a little sandwich of eggplant, stuffed with shrimp and deep fried. Then, like the bean rolls, it is steamed with the garlic gravy. (Side note: this dish comes out of the kitchen sizzling HOT, so be careful or you may burn your mouth. Other side note: Lamai has taken to making this dish and sometimes has it on her Friday fish and shrimp buffet.)

Where to find Dim Sum in Lansing
Dim Sum Primer, part 1
Dim Sum Primer, Part 2
Dim Sum Primer, Part 3
Dim Sum Primer, Part 4

Sindhu Indian Cuisine

I love Indian tandoor ovens. They are beehive-shaped, searingly hot, and roast some of the most wonderful breads, meats and even veggies. We've been lucky that the major Indian restaurants in this area have all had tandoors, but maybe that's what makes them so great. (Unfortunately, this town doesn't seem to be able to support more than one or two Indian restaurants at a time. Right now we've got Sindhu and India Palace. I encourage all to support them both.)

Sindhu Indian Cuisine, in the Hannah Plaza off Hagadorn south of Grand River, has been around the longest, and seems to have weathered the ups and downs of business in a college town best. Lunchtime (as it is with India Palace) is buffet time -- and that is a great way to eat Indian food. The dishes are varied and flavorful, and you really should eat a sampling of many dishes rather than just one or two. Besides, it's a great way for the uninitiated to figure out what they like best.

The buffet always has a few vegetarian dishes, several curries of various flavors and various heat levels. They always have Naan, the glorious flat bread cooked on the walls of the tandoor, and Tandoori Chicken -- the bright red, marinated and dry-roasted chicken. Tandoori Chicken is not hot, but rather is lemony and seasoned with more aromatic spices. Served, fajita style, with roasted onions and peppers. Usually some Dal (which is like a thick, spiced lentil soup) and Idli (little pillows of bread made of rice and lentil flour). Sometimes they have Masala Dosas, crispy crepes which you can fill with spiced potatoes and onions. (At Taj they used to set these on the table when you sat down, like bread sticks.)

At dinnertime you order off the menu. We usually try to get enough people to go along so we can share dishes, but if you want a lot of variety on your own, you can fall back on their thali, full dinners with appetizers and breads and a curry and vegetable dish. We usually can't resist their specials, such as the Chicken Reshami Kabob (pictured above). The chicken, marinated in cream, yogurt, chickpea flour, herbs and spices, is roasted in the tandoor, and served on a sizzling bed of onions, peppers, carrots and lime slices. It gives an amazing burst of citrus and spices.

To go with that, you can get creamy dishes, like the kormas or hyderabadis, or sharper curries and masalas. There is a wide variety of vegetable dishes, as well as meat dishes. "Medium" is nicely zippy, although some dishes, like Vindaloo, really need to be had "hot". If you get something spicy hot, I recommend accompanying it with one of the creamier dishes served mild for contrast. (What's a Vindaloo? It's a meat and potato curry with extra mustard and tamarind flavors. Great with lamb, but the shrimp vindaloo here is very nice too.)

And, of course, don't forget the Mango Lassi for a refreshing drink to clear the palate between the other intense flavors.

Sindhu Indian Cuisine is at 4790 S Hagadorn Rd, East Lansing, MI 48823. (517) 351-3080.
***
Recommended Links:
Malabar Spices (This blog hasn't updated in a month, but go looking in the archives. Wonderful Kerala home cooking.)
Salt and Pepper (A wide variety of foods -- from all over.)
Vindhu (A large index of recipes and links)

Recommended Reading:
Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Cooking is my favorite Indian cookbook. It is a classic.

Drive-Bys, October 16 2007

*El Oasis is open again, relocated a few doors down, right next to Lam's Sweeper Service. This is on Michigan Avenue between Kipling and Frances Streets, west of Frandor and the highway.

*Los Tres Amigos is opening up new locations on the Eastside, and in East Lansing. One location near Frandor is already open. A friend says they have a unique menu (different than their other location, last she saw). Fish Tacos, and various grilled meets. It's located in the old Linsing place at 730 N. Clippert St., near the Baskin Robbins. (Between Saginaw and GrandRiver/Oakland.)

Dim Sum Primer, part 1

For the uninitiated, "Dim Sum" is a Chinese tradition for brunch -- tea and little plates of delectable and beautiful snacks. The words translate literally as "touch the heart." Or "touch of heart" depending on who you ask.

If you ask me, dim sum is a form of worship. It is as close as a food geek can get to God. (It's SO important, that I think I may start a separate blog just devoted to Dim Sum. But for now I will confine myself to a couple of postings about the wonderful practice of tea lunch.) There are two houses of worship...er, two places to get dim sum in town, as mentioned in my previous post.

A traditional dim sum house is usually a large banquet hall. You sit down, you get tea, and the host slaps down a blank bill on your table. Ladies with carts full of food rove around the room, and you point out what you want. They mark on the bill the number of dishes you take.

Of course, smaller places don't have room for the carts, nor the kind of kitchen that can produce hundreds of separate delicacies. So a lot of places have fallen back on a modified version of the bill that acts as a menu. (Kind of like what you see in a lot of sushi places these days.) You mark on the menu what you want, and then they bring you the food later.

In either case -- carts or menu -- it helps to know what you're ordering. Here are a few basic dumplings that are most popular. (I'll follow this up with a more expanded list of common dishes next week.)


Har Gow (Ha Kow, Shrimp Dumplings). These are delicate, tender, richly flavored dumplings that often symbolize dim sum. The translucent wrapper is made of wheat starch with a little tapioca starch to give it body. They are tender and sweet, with richness absorbed from the shrimp inside. Inside you might have pure shrimp, or you might have shrimp with shreds of bamboo shoot, to give it a little extra texture. Unless you hate shrimp, these are a must have.


Char Siu Bao (BBQ Pork Buns). Chinese barbequed pork, in a sweet rich sauce, inside a sweet white steamed bun. There are a lot of variations of Bao out there, but when you see these white, ruptured forms, you have that basic bun that pretty much everybody likes. There is also a baked version, which looks like the smooth, brown roll.


Green Onion Pancake. This is layered dough (usually the chewy boiling-water dough used for homemade potstickers and stretched noodles) rolled with green onions, then pan fried. A lot of places get this frozen, and fry it up in the restaurant. This usually results in an okay, thin crispy pancake. But Little Panda makes their own hearty dough, which makes for good thick crust of bread. This is really good for sopping up the sauces and juice on your plate.


Siu Mai (or Shao Mai) are an open topped dumpling with a meatball inside. They're meant to look like overflowing money bags. At a lot of Japanese and Korean places in town you will see an appetizer called Ebi Siu Mai - which is a shrimp version. The common Siu Mai is filled with pork, with a tiny shrimp on the top. At Golden Wok, the cart ladies push these hard on beginners, and with good reason. They are very tasty, and generally friendly to picky eaters. At Little Panda, you have a choice of two varieties, pork or beef. The beef version used to have a sweet orange peel tang. (There was a period when they got pretty plain, but I think they've returned to form. It's worth trying anyway.)


Pan-fried Dumpling, (Pot-sticker, or "Peking" dumpling, or Kuo Tieh). These are so popular they are usually on the regular menu. A steamed dumpling that has been panfried on the bottom. At Little Panda, they are huge, fat pork filled dumplings, and an order from the regular menu is a meal in itself. They also serve it with this wonderful sweet soy dipping sauce that is almost addictive. Golden Wok doesn't have a dipping sauce, but theirs is filled with a flavorful mixture of pork and shrimp and so just a little plain soy will do.
(NOTE: I didn't have a picture of any in-town pot-stickers right now. I took this picture at a wonderful place called Luscious Dumpling in Alhambra California.)

(I'm sorry this post took so long. I'm using Blogger's "easy" interface, which doesn't make it so easy to figure out how to put multiple pictures in a post.)

Next week, I'll get into the greater variety of dim sum.

Where to find Dim Sum in Lansing
Dim Sum Primer, Part 1
Dim Sum Primer, Part 2
Dim Sum Primer, Part 3
Dim Sum Primer, Part 4

Where to get Dim Sum

For those of you who don't know what Dim Sum is, I'll post more information on the next rock this weekend. For those who do know:

We are so lucky that this rusted out burg has no less than TWO dim sum places that could hold their own in any big city on the coasts. (Not world class, mind you, but respectably delectable nevertheless.)

Litte Panda has better food and prices, but they only serve dim sum on the weekends at lunch. They don't have carts, and you may have to ask for the dim sum menu if you don't look Asian. They're on the west side of Lansing, at 5439 W Saginaw Hwy, across from Lansing Mall in the Target shopping area. (517) 323-2450. (They do have a few dim sum items on their regular menu for those evenings when you just HAVE to have the best and heartiest potsticker or green onion pancake in town.)

Golden Wok, on the other hand, serves dim sum for lunch every day. And on the weekends and on holidays, they have the carts (and each week they seem to have newer and better varieties). The ladies who push the carts are much better tempered than those in your classic Chinatown dim sum house, but they are still free with their opinions of your choices. Golden Wok is in East Lansing, at 2755 E Grand River Ave. (517) 333-8322. (At the corner of Northwind Drive, across from Oriental Mart, and near the E.L. Food co-op.)

(NOTE: Golden Wok has changed significantly. I think they are under new management. They no longer have carts on Sunday, and the new chef does not seem to be able to handle the translucent starch dough used for Har Gow or Fun Kor. Their pastries seem to be still good, and they are the only place to have "Bread Stick in Rice Roll" which is really good.)

Everyday Restaurant in East Lansing has a good, authentic, dim sum buffet on Sundays and I think Saturdays as well. (You may want to call first if you go on a Saturday.) Their new chef is a great Cantonese chef, and there are a lot of excellent other dishes on the buffet both on dim sum weekends an the regular weekday buffet. Some dishes don't take to the buffet style as well as others. The Fried Taro Ball is the best in town. Everyday Restaurant, is at 1375 East Grand River Ave, East Lansing. (517) 337-1882.

Dim Sum Primer, Part 1
Dim Sum Primer, Part 2
Dim Sum Primer, Part 3
Dim Sum Primer, Part 4

Altus Ethiopian - Great food, fun dining experience

Altu's Ethiopian Cuisine, on Michigan Avenue, tucked in right next to the Silver Dollar Saloon (at the very border of Lansing and East Lansing, just west of Frandor).

Ethiopian food not only tastes great, is very filling, and provides great options for both meat eaters and vegetarians, but it is one of those unique dining experiences that makes the whole thing extra fun...because at the end of the meal you eat the napkins and table cloth! (Okay, that's because what looks like a rolled napkin and table cloth is really the spongey "injera" bread that is unique to Ethiopia. More on that in a minute.)

Ethiopian food consists mainly of various kinds of stews. There's a lot of ginger, onion, garlic, tumeric and lemon here. And there's a lot of hot pepper in the spicy dishes. The meats are all stewed with tomato and onions until the meat is tender and sauce has blended itself all together with the meat. Beef, Lamb, Chicken -- and you can get them all either spicy or mild. We usually get something spicy and something mild. While everything is good in spicy mode, lamb and chicken are the best mild choices. (Note, while the Chicken is really tasty, she uses drumsticks only, which means the proportion of meat is smaller. The "Breast Chicken Strips" may be a better deal, but I haven't tried them yet.)

The vegetarian entrees consist of various legumes -- lima beans, lentils, pinto beans, chickpeas -- cooked in variations of similar seasonings. (Though not tomatoes.) While a lot of people really like the spicey lentils, I think the Lima Beans are the star of the show here. They are mild, creamy, stewed in lemony ginger and tumeric. And they're the perfect complement to Spicey Beef (or Spicey Lentils if you are a vegetarian.)

On the side, you always get a small, sharp peppery salad, and a scoop of stewed cabbage with a little potato. You can also order collard greens (and on Wednesdays, there's a special greens with coconut dish).

All of this is served on a large platter with a sheet of injera -- a flat bread made from a tiny whole grain called tef. The batter is fermented, like sourdough, which is what gives it the spongey texture, and a sour/salty flavor. Injera is extremely healthy - one of the few whole grain products that taste really good. But if you prefer, you can also get dishes with a big plate of seasoned rice instead.

The restaurant has a number of regular booths, as well as small Ethiopian tangine tables -- stands you can gather around and dig in as a group. Ethiopian food is meant to be eaten by hand -- just tear off a piece of bread and scoop up the stew. But Altu provides forks too. (And for some people, this might be a good choice. All of the food has tumeric in it, a lovely yellow/orange spice that stains. Don't wear white silk unless you are a very neat eater.)

If you like iced tea, give her tea a try -- it's spiced and tasty. Otherwise, she has a selection of regular softdrinks. Prices are just under $10 for vegetarian dishes, and just over for meat dishes -- but you get a LOT of food. Closed Sundays and Mondays. She also has live worldbeat music on Saturday nights.

Check out the menu and music schedules at her website, Altu's Ethiopian Cuisine, 1312 Michigan Avenue, East Lansing, (517) 333-6295

Lamai's Birthday -- Thai Sukiyaki

Lamai is having her birthday event on September 18th (that's this Tuesday!)

She will be serving Thai Sukiyaki again, and this time she will have more strainers. Here's a link to last year's reveiw, if you want to know more about Thai Sukiyaki. Another thing she's had more often lately is meat on sticky rice -- carmelized shreds of pork or beef, served over a bed of sweet sticky rice. This is a long time favorite of mine, and I'm so glad that she's serving it again.

Thai Food From Lamai's Kitchen, 2033 E. Michigan Avenue, Lansing. (517) 267-3888.

Drive-by September 1, 2007

Mexico To Go has shut down their East Lansing Location at the corner of Trowbridge and Harrison. Rivi's Deli has a sign in the window that they are moving in. I've never eaten there, but the deli (originally in the downtown Lansing Farmer's Market building) is known not only for deli food, but for the cook's Korean specials. (And now they're rigth next to Kim's, the Korean market.) It would be hard to beat Korean House (in the Trowbridge Shopping Center across the street) but since this sounds like home cookin', I expect they'll have their own variation to make it a different experience.