EatingAsia

Misty Water-Colored Memories: A Pork Sandwich Like No Other

Full frontal: the RoliRoti porchetta sandwich

It's painful to write this knowing that it will probably be a year until I'm again face-to-face with this sandwich. 

This stack of slow-cooked love is, as any pork-loving, Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market-going San Franciscan knows, Thomas Odermatt's epic porchetta sandwich, served at farmer's markets in various locations around the Bay Area from a mini fleet of awesome rotisserie-equipped trucks.

Rotisserie master Thomas Odermatt serves up the goods

We first posted on Thomas' porchetta two and a half years ago. His business has grown since then, but we're so happy to report that quality has most certainly not suffered as a result. Eating something you love just once a year can be risky; so often reality doesn't live up to memory. Not so in this case.

It's all about attention to detail. When Thomas builds sandwiches he makes sure that every single one gets a share of the burnished crackling that encases each pork roast.

He slices the seasoned, opulently marbled meat thickly -- just fine, because it's so tender you could cut it with a spoon. Then, wasting not an ounce of porky essence, he sops up the meat juices that have bled onto his wooden cutting board with the soft inside of the bun. (It's an excellent mini white loaf, by the way: lots of wheaty flavor, a crackly crust, and sturdy enough to stand up to a hefty pile of protein.)

He smears a generous blob of the housemade condiment on hand -- fennel jam this day, I think -- onto the meat, and then adds a handful of shrubbery, which also varies by the day.

I once relished a RoliRoti porchetta sandwich garnished with delicate chervil; on this occasion it was arugula, a perfect peppery counterpoint to the almost obscenely -- but never, ever regretfully -- fatty meat and sweetish jam.

Do I even need to add that this is one insanely delicious mouthful?

 

We visited Thomas' truck, appropriately, on the way to Napa to attend CIA's Street Food Conference and arrived -- foolishly -- close to lunch hour. The queue was much too long, and we had to hit the road in order to make it up there in time for the conference's opening.

We reconciled ourselves to forgoing the sandwich, but not a 'hello' to Thomas -- who wouldn't hear of us leaving empty-handed. We stood to the side of the truck as he prepared a sandwich for us then and there.

I'm sure a few folks in line were casting the evil eye our way, and if you were one of them and are reading this I do apologize (and I empathize; I hate line jumpers). But to be honest my guilt pangs disappeared at first bite.

Another satisfied RoliRoti customer

After finishing we stopped back at the truck to say 'good-bye'. In lieu of a handshake Thomas offered a piece of crackling. But only one.

I don't hold that against Thomas. Because I'm pretty sure that piece of crackling was meant to be shared, Dave.

(Thanks Thomas -- we'd love to take you up on your invitation next time we're in town! Many thanks also to Jen Maiser for helping us to coordinate this rendezvous.)

RoliRoti also serves rotisserie chicken and potatoes basted in the chicken's dripping fat, as well as -- be still my beating heart - lamb. But we haven't tried either. That darned porchetta won't let us. All week, all over the Bay Area -- contact them to find out what's on the menu when and where.

Not A Substitute

In the United States soy milk is more often than not viewed as a substitute for 'real' milk, much in the same way that tofu, or bean curd, is subjected to all manner of indignities in the name of rendering it as desirable as a piece of meat. 

This can be attributed to one fact, I think: most Americans have never tasted quality soy milk, or eaten carefully prepared (ie. small-batch or homemade) bean curd -- that is, soy milk and tofu the way they make them  in Taiwan.

Japan's been praised for its way with the little white bean, and rightly so. But Taiwan does pretty well in that department too -- call it just one of many dots on the island's culinary landscape that's long been overlooked by Asian food fans.

One of the joys of time spent in Taiwan is partaking of the morning doujiang (soy milk) ritual. From the wee hours you can hardly walk a block in Taipei without stumbling upon a mobile doujiang vendor or a hole-in-the-wall with a few tables where you can sip in relative comfort.

Truly fresh, well-made soy milk is the perfect am beverage, rich enough to satisfy an empty belly, light enough not to weigh you down, refreshing if taken over ice, supremely comforting if drunk warm. It's not something to serve as a substitute for the 'real thing' in your latte but something to be savored in its own right ... accompanied, perhaps, by a you tiao, or deep-fried cruller, to dip (or not).

 

We drank liters of doujiang in Taipei last May and June, but in deference to our ballooning waistlines generally left the doughy accompaniments alone. Until our last morning.

We'd paid a visit to Fong Da -- the old coffee shop featured in our Taiwan coffee article -- to thank and bid farewell to its elderly owner and his wife and son, and were strolling somewhat aimlessly (and sadly -- it was our last morning, after all) in its surrounding district of Ximending.

Having foregone our usual doujiang in favor of a last siphon brew at Fong Da we kept our eyes out for possibilities, but without much hope. It was already around 9; most doujiang and youtiao sellers begin gearing down around then, as their last customers head off to work.

 

 

Then we caught a faint whiff of frying dough. And lo and behold there, kitty corner from where we stood, was a doujiang bolthole fronted by a cruller maker still assembling and frying his product.

As luck would have it, it was by far the best doujiang of the trip. Served in old-fashioned heavy ceramic bowls, the soy milk was only lightly sweetened, allowing its pleasantly mellow beaniness to come through.

The crullers were simply fantastic -- they couldn't have been any fresher, really, and their dough contained a hint of salt that accentuated its hearty wheatiness. Almost as good were the scallion rolls, chewy sesame-topped baked buns with a swirl of softened, slightly caramelized scallions inside.

 

We drank and ate at one of the shop's two tables, set up in front right by the curb. We watched as a big black Mercedes pulled up; its tank top-wearing, tough-guy driver popped out carrying a white poodle, then got back behind the steering wheel with a bag bulging crullers.

We didn't wish for a donut instead of our you tiao, or glasses of moo instead of bowls of doujiang. What we did wish -- mightily -- was that we didn't have to catch a plane back home in five hours.

Note: For more Taipei street food favorites pick up a copy of this month's Travel+Leisure Southeast Asia, which includes our article on five Taipei must-eat street treats.

Doujiang shop, no. 74 Neijiang Street, Ximending District (almost at the corner of Kunming Street). A bowl of doujiang and a you tiao will set you back all of 28 NTD (about 70 US cents).

Crouching Diner, Hidden Vendor

The joy of eating street food is rooted not only in the flavors, but also in the experience. Sometimes it's more about the latter than the former.

This curious establishment was on the 'hit list' that a friend passed to us before we drove to Hat Yai and Songkhla last June. It resides under a stage erected in the courtyard of a temple smack in the middle of the city's Chinatown. The place is an institution; if you were to ask anyone on the street about 'noodles under the stage' they'd point you here.

The vendor has worked out of her cramped quarters for many years, and her specialty is yen taa fo, a rice noodle soup colored red by a sauce that incorporates preserved bean curd.

 

Hers features a light pork broth and bone-in meat and/or meat balls, a blood cake if you wish it, bean sprouts, and a loose knob of boiled pakbong (kangkong or water spinach).

'Oh, I wish you'd come earlier. She's run out of meat balls,' a local said as we carefully lowered ourselves onto a dollhouse-tiny wooden bench. 'Her pork balls are famous.' The heads of other diners nodded in agreement.

I wish the same. I wasn't too excited about this bowl of noodles, with its anemic broth and incredibly chewy pork. The tongue-singeing, brightly tart homemade chili sauce was its only high note.

 

That said I wouldn't have missed it for anything. Watching other diners (many of whom were much shorter than we -- and most of whom were amused by our bemusement) hunch over to scuttle under the stage and then carefully rise from their chairs, bent double again, to retrieve their noodles made for great lunchtime theater.

(The vendor stays mostly seated, assembling orders and washing and rinsing bowls, chopsticks, and spoons in a couple of pails at her feet. She's got diners busing and wiping their own tables.)

 

Why here? She lives on the temple grounds, she said, and the temple rents the space to her for next to nothing. She'll never be rich, but business is steady and she makes enough to get by.

It's a living, under the opera stage.

Yen taa fo vendor under the stage, Thanon Nam Ngan, Songkhla town. From 9-ish. She seems to run out of pork balls around 1:30p or so.

Worlds of Flavor 2009: A Small Bite

 

CIA chefs and students rushing to set up for World Marketplace

CIA Greystone's Worlds of Flavor 2009: Street Food, Comfort Food kicked off yesterday afternoon, with several fascinating presentations followed by World Marketplace, a jaw-dropping spread of delicious specialties from around the world.

Andrea Nguyen introduces Singapore's KF Seetoh, founder of Makansutra

After extolling the 'thrilling immediacy' and deceptive simplicity of street food, Rick Bayless took us on a trip to a favorite tacos de cazuela stall in Mexico City. Bobby Chin shared his modus operandi for learning how to cook street food in Vietnam: show up at a stall again and again -- at 11am, 12pm, 1pm, 2pm, and so on. Vendors, he said, don't want to teach their specialty, so learning by observation is the only option.

Roy Choi of Kogi Korean BBQ taco truck fame talked about how running his Los Angeles truck has enabled him to connect with his community, and shared the secret to his chili paste-marinated pork ribs and belly: massage the meat long, slow, and with feeling, and let your soul flow out through your fingers into the meat. (He also wondered -- rightly, we think -- why Korea isn't represented at this year's conference: 'I mean, Korean street food is off the hook!')

KF Seetoh of Makansutra fame introduced us to Singaporean makers of murtabak and roti prata, and Paul Bartolotta talked about Southern Italy's grandmothers as inspiration and took us, with the help of native chefs, into the kitchens of Apulia. Middle Eastern and Mediterranean food expert Anissa Helou introduced her friend, Turkish chef Musa Dagdeviren, who stoked appetites when he (via live feed) slid roasted chunks of lamb from a skewer onto crusty loaves of pita just pulled from a wood-fired oven, and the fabulous Paula Wolfert demonstrated how to make paper-thin warka, a Moroccan crepe, with a paintbrush.

 

In the CIA Greystone kitchen

While all this knowledge was being shared, across the hall, in the mammoth CIA Greystone kitchen, street and comfort foods from all over the world were being prepared by hundreds of resident chefs and students and the events guest chefs.

 

Frying Bolinhos de Acaraje, a Bahian street food

Cred given to the ladies who keep the kitchen in clean pots and pans

Pasta, fresh mozzarella, and stuffed savory pastries from Apulia

After the presentations attendees converged at the World Marketplace, where they grazed on treats from Singapore and Thailand, Italy and Spain, Peru and Brazil -- and everywhere in between.

 

Serving up Caruru, a Bahian steamed dumpling

For us the highlights of the evening were fresh mozzarella from Apulia, a delicious chickpea soup from Tunisa, shrimp ceviche with popcorn from Peru, salt cod salad and white gazpacho (made with almonds, olive oil, garlic, and bread) from Catalonia, and chef Dagdeviren's amazing lahmacun.

We lingered longest at the Bahian table, where we packed ourselves with spicy banana leaf-steamed dumplings stuffed with dried shrimp and fried black-eyed pea fritters tinted red from palm oil, eaten split open, smeared with okra paste and a coconut milk-based spread, and small, spicy shell-on shrimp.

 

Icy pisco sours with a kick, courtesy of Maricel Presilla

Right next door, at chef and South American food expert's table, they were serving strong pisco sours.

 

Turkish chef Musa Dagdeviren slices lahmacun

The queue in front of Musa Dagdeviren's table was crazy long, and it took several attempts to finally get ahold of a piece of his lahmacun, a crusty bread thinly spread with lamb and tomatoes. The wait was well worth it.

Chef Dagdeviren and friends

As I type this Maricell Presilla is talking about Peruvian street food. A long day of learning and eating awaits!

Taipei Mystery Street Sweet

One thing we love about Taipei is that it's so obviously comfortable in its own skin.

Confident enough of its 21st century-ness that it's not driven to clear the streets of food sellers to prove its standing as a 'modern' city, Taipei is a metropolis in which skyscrapers and upscale eateries happily coexist with itinerant vendors, often on the same block.

In Wanhua District we bumped into a vendor peddling, from a hand-pushed two-wheeled cart, a mysterious sweet that we'd encountered nowhere else on the island -- chewy bite-sized squares chilled underneath blocks of ice,

 

and tossed in ground sesame seeds before bagging.

 

It was a warm day and the chilled marshmallow-ish pillows, lightly toasty and not too sweet, hit the spot.

The gent was decidedly nonplussed by Dave's camera and resisted my attempts to conduct an informal interview. He did, however, tell us how long he's been plying his trade on the streets of Wanhua: 50 years, give or take a few.

Update 12/11/09: Mystery solved -- this is a traditional Taiwanese treat made of sweet potato (sometimes green bean) and rolled in plain flour, toasted. Apparently the vendor, known to folks in the 'hood as Ah Bee, is a bit of a local celebrity. If you can read Chinese, further info awaits here.

Thanks much to K, a font of info on all things Taiwanese (especially food)!

Chewy sweets vendor, somewhere in the vicinity of the intersection of Guiyang and Xitang Roads -- maybe -- in Wanhua district, Taipei. He says he's there everyday, public holidays excepted.

Oyster Omelette, Redeemed

Oyster omelette, fresh oysters fried with beaten eggs and usually bound with some sort of starch solution, is an Asian street food staple.

I had my first taste in Hong Kong about 15 years ago -- the dish's flavorless bivalves and strangely gummy texture left me underwhelmed. Since then I've sampled -- usually at the goading of well-meaning local gourmands -- various versions, from Shanghai (mushy oysters) to Penang (nice char, but an awful lot of grease), and I remained unimpressed.

Until last June, when we ate our way around Tainan, Taiwan's unofficial xiao chi ('small eats', ie 'snack') capital.

On Guohe Jie, a narrow lane alongside Yun Le Market that's lined on both sides with food stalls, four or five oyster omelette vendors ply their trade side by side. Deciding which stall to order from was easy; the stools in front of this gentleman's counter were consistently occupied when others sat empty.

The quality of eh-ah jian, as oyster omelette is known in Taiwan, rests firmly on the quality of its main ingredient. More than three weeks of grazing along the island's west coast showed us that its seafood is among the best in the region. And Tainan proper sits near the coast, so the freshness of this vendor's oysters was never in question

 

To make his omelette, he heats oil on a well-seasoned griddle and adds about fifteen plump specimens. While the oysters sizzle he breaks a couple eggs (duck eggs are available on request) to their side, piercing the yolks with the corner of his spatula. After sprinkling bean sprouts, shredded lettuce, and bits of pork crackling over eggs and oysters, he drizzles a third of a spatula of starch solution (sweet potato starch mixed with water) over the lot.

A large lid placed over the griddle firms up the eggs and the binder,

 

and then he folds the four sides of the 'pancake',

to make a neat egg and oyster envelope.

The eh ah jian is served alongside a pool of sauces, one a bit sweet and salty like fermented bean paste, the other tasting like a cross between hoisin and oyster sauce.

I could do without the sauces, frankly, and the next time I dine at this stall I'll ask the vendor to leave them off my plate.

Otherwise, his forty years of oyster omelette-making experience manifest themselves in hands down the best oyster omelette we've ever eaten, a lightly charred egg pillow spilling briny, barely cooked oysters and crispy sprouts and lettuce and sporting barely a hint of grease that made me do a one-eighty on this street food specialty that I'd long scorned.

The key here is the omelette maker's light hand with the starch solution: there's enough of it to pull the other ingredients together, but not enough to create that gumminess that I find such a turn-off in other versions.

Oysters at 8am? If they take the form of this gent's oyster omelette, why not?

Oyster omelette, Guohe Jie (second stall from the corner, right next to a popiah vendor), Tainan, Taiwan. Early morning to 3pm-ish.