EatingAsia

Well, Hello There!

Last Thursday we made a foray to Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown to re-map a food walk**. It felt like our first visit in years.

In some respects we've been away from KL. Beginning in late 2009 we started a routine of a month here, a month away, a month here, a month away. And so on. Last year was Dave's first freelancing full-time and right off the bat we pretty much took any job we could get. Wherever, whenever. A week in KL, 4 days somewhere else, home for a week, away for two more. And so on.

By the end of 2009 we were exhausted. We figured we could boost our energy and productivity levels (and just generally get more out of traveling for work) if we took fewer, longer trips. A month away to work, a month here to write (and sort and label photos). That's pretty much what we did from January until we returned from Turkey in early July.

But that routine has its downsides too. When we were here we were working, only working. Hard to justify taking a day to tool around KL discovering new spots or revisiting our old when we had all that writing and sorting and labeling to do.

After Turkey we thought, let's just stop with the traveling for a wee bit. We're now into our longest stretch in Malaysia since the big change: 8 weeks. For the moment, other than some time in Sichuan in mid-September, we have no ex-Malaysia travel on the docket. We have some interesting editorial work lined up, but it's all in-country. And in early October we'll begin work on a project in Penang that will see us bouncing back and forth between George Town and KL for four or five months. (More on that to come.)

For the foreseeable future (well, for the next few months, at least) we'll mostly be here. And that's a nice thought.

We're still figuring out how to best arrange this life that we chose 20 months ago. What works and what doesn't. What's tiring and what isn't. What's rewarding and what's not. What keeps us inspired and gets the creative juices flowing (Travel), and what's just a big old pain in the *ss (Travel). 

So, Chinatown. We went back this afternoon to do a double-check on opening hours and off days for a few stalls, and made a diversion to the steamed bao (bun) stall that we featured 4 1/2 years ago (!) ago in this KL Chinatown-focused post.

They're still there (20 years, or something along those lines). And they recognized us, even though it was probably our first char siew bao in 18 or more months. It's still a darned good bun: smoky, with chewy nubs of pork, not drowning in char siew sauce, and the sort of dough we like -- China-style (wheaty and substantial) rather than Hong Kong-style (super white and fluffy).

We'll be back. And it won't be in another 18 months, either.

Bao stall, mouth of an alley of Jalan Sultan between Jalan Hang Lekir and Jalan Hang Jebat, 230-530pm. Also: big bao (pork, chicken, hard-boiled egg) and dim sum.

**EatingAsia food walks in Kuala Lumpur and sometimes, George Town (Penang). Email us for details.

Photography Walks in KL and Beyond

Assembling dumplings in a Chinatown alley, Kuala Lumpur

EatingAsia's photographer David Hagerman has begun offering photography walks in Kuala Lumpur and -- when we're there -- Penang. The above is an image he shot while walking a photographer around Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown last week.

If you're interested in improving your skills, trying new techniques, and/or getting feedback drop him a line. Walks are private and tailored to your interests (markets, hawker food, street photography).

For a look at more recent photos from Chinatown and to contact Dave, hop over to his photo blog Sky Blue Sky, here. His work is also viewable on his not so up-to-date professional website and on Photoshelter (links are at the top left of this page). Dave's not one to toot his own horn, so allow me to: he's shot food and non-food pieces for, among other publications, Wall Street Journal, Travel+Leisure, Saveur, and the New York Times.

And oh man, does he love to talk photography. He'd love to hear from you.

Come for the Kaymak, Stay for the Kebab

 

We were one hundred percent on vacation when we drove into Mardin, Turkey in early June. But a chance encounter led us to a story. Our article on this ancient southeastern city's bid to become the region's capital of art and culture was published in last Sunday's New York Times Travel Section; you can read it here.

Mardin's lanes are linked by abarra, vaulted passageways

Mardin is a historically and architecturally rich city that sees few foreign visitors, despite the fact that it's fantastically popular with domestic tourists who descend in throngs on the weekend. I hope our article inspires a few more yabanci to visit.

If you ever make do make it to this intriguing little town, you'll need some sustenance. As you might expect, we've got a recommendation.

On our first morning in town a tiny kebab shop near Mardin's food market and just below its main street, Cumhuriyet Caddesi beckoned -- not with a smoking grill, but a window display of kaymak.

Maybe you've heard of kaymak, which is often described as "Turkish clotted cream". It's difficult to visit Turkey and not be converted to kaymak. In the weeks leading up to this last visit the word "kaymak" came up in conversation between Dave and I at least 10 times a day.

Kaymak is made by skimming or "lifting" the cream that rises to the surface of boiling milk. What we didn't realize until this trip is that it has regional variations.

In western Turkey the best kaymak is made with high-butterfat water buffalo milk and comes in thick slabs rolled up like a jelly sponge. In Kars kaymak is made with cow's milk, and the result is semi-liquid, like whipping cream. The kaymak we ate in Van, made from sheep's milk, took the form of half centimeter-thick sheets with lightly bubbled surfaces, something like an Indian appom or the raw side of an American-style pancake before it's flipped.

In Mardin paper-thin, almost translucent sheets of kaymak made from goats milk resemble no dairy product I've ever seen. Arranged in layers on shallow plates like yufka or phyllo awaiting transformation into a borek or baklava, they drew us into a kebab shop where we ordered one to share (and ended up with two).

 

The kebabci (kebab seller) cut each of our kaymak into rough pieces, doused them with serbet or sugar water and served them with bread. Our kaymak were creamy in the middle and crackly at the edges, and bore just a whiff of goatiness -- a good thing in my opinion, to balance their dairy richness. In short, they were spectacular. We barely touched the bread, and got up to leave assuming we'd be back the next morning for more.

 

But on the way out we passed the kebabci mincing a gargantuan mound of lamb with his long curved knife. Something in the way that he took his time, mincing and remincing while adding a bit of salt or crushed red pepper now and again, suggested that this guy might be an usta, or 'master'. It became apparent that we wouldn't be returning the next day for breakfast, but later that same day. For lunch.

 

When we returned around 12:30 the little shop was filled with smoke, and our kebabci was doing a bang-up business. While he slid chunks of lamb and tail fat onto some skewers and shaped chopped meat into kofte around others, a helper grilled

 

while another assembled.

 

Delivery orders were stacked on a counter top and we had to wait a good half hour or so for our meals, as customers sharing the small counter with us (total seats: about 9) dug in.

 

The product justified the wait.

 

Our izgara kofte (grilled lamb logs) were perfectly seasoned, a bit heavy on the crushed red pepper and aci (spicy) as per our request, crusty and charred outside but very moist within. Once again I left my bread aside (except for the bit that had been moistened with lamb drippings) to concentrate on the star of the show.

Accompanied by a sweet little salad plate of onions soured with sumac, tomatoes, and springy parsley our gorgeous grilled lamb almost made us forget about the kaymak. (Almost)

A kebab and kofte usta indeed.

Kebab shop, on the lane between Cumhuriyet Market and Cumhuriyet Caddesi, Mardin. Morning through afternoon. Closed Sunday.

On a Newstand Near You

 

Caveat: If you're in Asia.

This month marks my second year on the masthead of Travel+Leisure Southeast Asia. And appropriately, the next issue is devoted to food.

Dave and I collaborated on a few for this one, including a feature story on Chengdu, pieces on great non-pho noodle dishes in Saigon and must-eat northern dishes in Chiang Mai, and little bits on street food in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur.

If you're eating in Southeast Asia pick up a copy. And I'll probably slap a few pdfs up on EatingAsia when the issue is off the shelves.

In Istanbul, the Contrarian's Balık Ekmek

Anyone who visits Istanbul must eat balık ekmek (fish sandwich; balık=fish, ekmek=bread). Seriously. It's not codified in law or anything, but eating a grilled fish sandwich next to the water is as required of tourists in Istanbul as spending at least half a day dodging carpet sellers in Sultanahmet.

Unlike Sultanahmet's carpet sellers however, balık ekmek is something you'll want to revisit on subsequent Istanbul sojourns. We ate our share our first, second, and third times in Istanbul. This last trip was no different.

Most of those seeking the ultimate balık ekmek experience head to the sellers on either side of the Eminonu end of the Galata bridge. Grillers and servers sport embroidered Ottoman-ish (we're guessing) outfits that suggest they've been plying their trade in those very spots for, oh, centuries. They are an Istanbul grilled fish sandwich tradition and we can't complain about their product.

We also sampled balık ekmek on the other side of the Galata Bridge, next to Karakoy's fish market. On the weekends a couple of sellers there do a fine job, sprinkling herbs and ground red chili onto the mackerel fillets as they pop and smoke on the grill, and serving the sandwich with a generous squeeze of lemon, a decent amount of shrubbery (lettuce, carrots, tomato) and on request, a delicious smear of piquant chili paste.

(If you're looking for a sit-down experience there are a few casual restaurants beyond the fish stalls that serve sandwiches as well as fish plates. Take note: the sandwiches served on weekdays by a permanent stall steps from the bridge are dismal.)

 

But when it comes to must-eat grilled fish sandwiches in Istanbul we take a contrarian view. Forget Galata and head instead one span northwest to Ataturk Bridge. On the Fatih side, sandwiched between humble fishing boats and large Bosphorus tour cruisers, is a fish sandwich boat run by Mercan, a Kurd from Elazig in eastern Turkey. Mercan has been stuffing bread with grilled fish at this spot for a little over 20 years.

 

Cast your eyes on the peppers on Mercan's grill. This, he insists, is his southeastern (and Kurdish) improv on the classic Istanbul-style grilled fish sandwich.

"You can eat peppers then?" he confirms not one but three times before adding a few to our sandwich. 

 

What's good about Mercan's balık ekmek? The mackerel fillets -- generously proportioned -- and the bread, bearing a beautiful char from the grilled and perfectly sized, so that fish is not lost in a sea of dough. The salad, which is fresh and crispy and if you like, piled onto your sandwich freely. The peppers of course, soft from the grill and spicier than they might appear.

Mercan is open for business as early as 9:30am, which is when we stumbled across his boat on our way to Fatih. At that hour you'll share the waterfront promenade in front of which his boat is parked with only a few strolling locals and the occasional chatty Bosphorus tour boat captain idling before his first group arrives.

Pull up a stool and enjoy a grilled fish sandwich or two under Mercan's big blue umbrella. There are no queues, no crowds. It's hard to imagine a better start to a day.

 

Mercan's balık ekmek boat, at the base of Ataturk bridge on the Fatih side (across from Galata). 1 sandwich, 4 Turkish lira.

Happy Birthday Indonesia!

Not food, but fun anyway -- Dave's Indonesia national day multimedia piece from our trip to Sulawesi last year. Think I posted it way back when, but it's worth redirecting you again, if you haven't seen it, here.

It's A Man's World

James Brown certainly wasn't describing the Turkish çay evi (tea house) when he crooned those four words, but he could have been. Even in Istanbul -- but especially in Turkey's more conservative east -- the çay evi is a cultural artifact claimed by males. It's run by men, staffed by men (and often boys, who work as tea runners, delivering orders beyond the tea house), and frequented by men. 

In the east çay evi are everywhere, two or three to a city block. Tea houses are community halls, gossip nodes, places where men come together with their friends. They're where backgammon and cards (and other games that we're not familiar with) are played and TV is watched.

   

They're where buyers and sellers gather to compare purchases and sales after a morning at the market.

They're where a prayer bead maker might set up shop and a watch seller peddle his wares.

Turkish tea houses are also spots for solitary pursuits: a bite of breakfast, an hour or three of silent contemplation. They're where, if you are a retired Turkish gentleman, you might go to get away from the house, because the house is where the women are. You might call the çay evi an extension of the living room, if Turkish families were made up of nothing but men and boys.

 

 

I can't claim to be in tune with a culture that dictates that a goodly portion of its population spend the majority of its time inside the house. But it is what it is. We fell hard for eastern Turkey, and we especially love its çay evi. 

As a woman I rarely felt unwelcome in a tea house -- but then again I'm a yabanci, or foreigner, and I was accompanied by a male. (I'm also "of a certain age", which in Asia and Turkey commands a respect, deference, and certain amount of courtesy that it doesn't in the United States.)

And the weather was fine so we often sat outside, especially if a çay evi was crowded. If ordering required walking inside, Dave would take care of it. He payed for our tea most of the time (when we weren't being treated -- that happened often.). And invariably if one of the men wanted to chat he'd turn to  Dave first.

I spent a fair amount of time pondering this as we made our way around eastern Turkey, this "tea house as man's world" thing and my place in it. I am a strong woman, I think, who's never thought of herself as anything but equal to men. Yet here I was retreating to the background, allowing Dave to test the waters in a tea house before we decided whether or not to drink there, sitting outside so as not to offend, so sensitive to appearances that I'd avoid paying for my own tea if I could.

And yet -- some of our best, most memorable encounters in eastern Turkey took place in tea houses. Once a customer figured out that it was I, not Dave, with whom he could communicate the conversation flowed. And flowed. That I was a woman seemed to be a non-issue (or maybe, as a yabanci I am a sort of undefinable 'non-woman'.)

(As an aside, all of this tea house conversation made me wish that women in eastern Turkey had gathering places similarly accessible to travelers -- because the one thing I lacked, and wished for, on this trip were more opportunities to talk to women.)

We spent hours in (and on stools in front of) tea houses. Beautiful old tea houses with sweeping views of the Syrian plains in Mardin.

Newer, characterless tea houses with pleasant outdoor courtyards in Van. A cubbyhole of a tea house in Gaziantep, where we watched the owner assemble an order of 25 glasses in about 3 minutes.

 

In çay evi we learned that -- unlike American cafes and Malaysian coffee shops -- it's quite OK to bring in outside food and drink.

That laying your glass on its side when you've finished means you've had enough, and that turning it upside down means the tea wasn't good.

That Erzurumlu like a slice of lemon in their tea.

That in the east the sugar cube goes not in the glass, but under your tongue or just inside your bottom lip (like chewing tobacco) or between your lips, to be melted with each sip. (Sugar cubes in the east are also harder and denser.)

That the only man allowed in the tea maker's cubicle -- besides the tea maker -- is Ataturk.

That for us, "Cay içer misiniz?" ("Will you drink some tea?") are among the three most evocative words in the Turkish language.

For more glimpses of Turkey hop over to Sky Blue Sky, where Dave has posted some lovely portraits he shot in the strange little southeastern town of Midyat. View it here.

Chengdu's Sleeper Dish: Mizheng Rou

Sichuanese rice meal-coated steamed pork belly with pumpkin

If all goes according to plan, Dave and I will be back in Chengdu in a little over a month. Until then, we have mizheng rou.

"Rice-steamed meat" is the admittedly not especially appetizing translation of the Chinese characters for what is actually a quite delicious dish. At its most basic mizheng rou consists of meat tossed with ground toasted rice packed into a bowl and steamed for a good long time. It's a cool weather staple, served from giant bamboo or stainless steel steamers set out on sidewalks in front of hole-in-the-wall eateries.

Mizheng rou is probably the most delicous Sichuan dish you've never heard of.

It's deeply comforting in the way that a long-simmered stew is. Imagine it --- meat seasoned with sauces and (sometimes) chilies, then tossed with coarsely ground toasted rice, packed into a bowl, and set into a steamer. For two hours, or maybe three (it's hard to overcook mizheng rou) the meat and rice are gently coddled in swirling scented steam. The meat goes wonderfully soft, absorbing and releasing flavors that are picked up by the uneven bits of rice clinging to its surfaces. They in turn plump up, taking on a texture akin to a thin layer of lumpy mashed potatoes.

Our first encounter with mizheng rou was in 1991, on our first trip back to Chengdu since teaching English there in the mid-eighties. One evening we ate at the home of our friend Qiao's (the same Qiao who taught me how to make some pretty fantastic sauce for noodles with Sichuan preserved vegetable) parents. The weather was typically late-autumn awful -- damp, cold, and gray -- and Dave and I were both nursing sore throats and achy bones. Soon after we arrived at Qiao's parents' place they threw open the windows to let in some "fresh air". We shivered in our coats and warmed our hands on big mugs of tea.

But that dinner -- oh, the food! -- nearly cured us. If there's anything better than a meal in Chengdu it's a home-cooked meal in Chengdu. We ate dry-fried green beans sporting bits of fatty pork and salty preserved vegetable, softened stir-fried tomato slices nestled in pillows of scrambled egg, deep-fried 'sandwiches' of chopped pork held between crispy slices of lotus root, tender pea vines dotted with toasted Sichuan peppercorns and dried chilies, and cool shredded cucumber and carrot tossed with bean thread noodle, chili oil, and black vinegar.

But the highlight of the meal was Qiao's mom's mizheng niu rou, a mound of roughly chopped steamed beef mixed with chili paste, soy sauce, sesame oil, Sichuan peppercorn, chopped green onion, lots of chopped cilantro, and bits of toasted rice. It wasn't especially spicy, but every bite was so flavorful, every morsel of meat thoroughly imbued with the seasonings.

Dave and I talked about that dish for days, months even. Then on our trip to Chengdu last January it seemed that mizheng rou was everywhere. Pork belly with pumpkin, beef with green onions, pork ribs with preserved vegetable -- we couldn't get enough of it. When we returned home I set about recreating the dish, with help from Fuchsia Dunlop's Land of Plenty and a recipe book of Sichuan home-style dishes that I picked up in Chengdu, and we've eaten it many times since.

Mizheng rou's greatness was confirmed when we served it to two houseguests a few months ago, Americans who had no preconceptions of what Sichuan food should or shouldn't be. They loved it. I think you will too. (Bonus -- it is VERY easy to make. Any steamer will do -- you don't necessarily need a Chinese-style bamboo one.)

I offer two versions, one for beef and one for pork with pumpkin or winter squash (the pork is not spicy), below. Both are wonderful served with crisp cold romaine leaves dressed with black vinegar (substitute a mixture of cheap balsamic and rice vinegar) mixed with sesame oil, a bit of sugar, salt, chili oil, and just enough sesame paste to give body.

 

Rice-meal coated spicy beef pre-steaming

Mi Zheng La Niu Rou (Spicy Rice-Steamed Beef)

This recipe is adapted from Dunlop's Land of Plenty (a must-buy if you are at all interested in Sichuan cuisine, and especially if you're travelling to Sichuan and want to bone up on what to eat there). I sometimes top it with slices of carrot, which will soften in the steam. Feel free to play with the recipe -- add a bit of chili bean paste if you like, or chop up some cilantro stems and mix them into the meat with the green onions.

1/2 cup white or brown rice

2 star anise

a 1-inch piece of cinammon stick

1 lb of beef (Dunlop recommends flank steak, but I've used tough Malaysian beef to good effect -- any stewing beef will work)

2 Tbsp soy sauce

1 Tbsp each chopped ginger and garlic

2 green onions, white and green parts, chopped

Anywhere from 1/2 tsp to 1 Tbsp dried red chili flakes (if you're a chili head -- OPTIONAL)

2 Tbsp dry sherry or rice wine

3 Tbsp sesame oil

water or meat broth

For serving:

Ground Sichuan peppercorns

sesame oil or chili oi

cilantro leaves, a large handful

1. Rice meal: Put the rice, star anise, and cinammon stick into a pan and toast over low-to-medium heat, stirring fairly constanty, till the rice turns opaque. Remove the rice from the heat and set aside to cool. Then, remove the star anise and cinnamon (set them aside) and pound the rice in a mortar or grind it in a spice grinder to make ROUGH, UNEVEN pieces. (You do not want a powder).
2. Cut the beef into thin slices or approx. 1/2-inch chunks. Put it in a bow and add the soy sauce, ginger and garlic, green onions, chili flakes if using, dry sherry or rice wine, and sesame oil and mix. Set the meat aside to marinate for 15 minutes.
3. Add the rice meal to the meat and mix. If the mixture is completely dry add water or broth by the tablespoon full. You want just a small pool of liquid at the bottom of the bowl.
4. Pack the meat snugly (and any liquid) into a heat-proof bowl (I use a stainless steel bowl). Tuck in the reserved star anise and cinnamon. Lay thin slices of carrot on top, if you like.
5. Place the meat into a steamer and cook for 1.5-2 hours. (It's hard to overcook this dish and how long it takes will depend on the cut of meat you use. Test for tenderness after an hour and 15 mins.)
6. When the meat is done, remove the bowl from the steamer. Place a large plate over the top of the bowl and turn it upside down. Remove the bowl and scrape any bits clinging to its sides onto the meat. 
7. Drizzle with sesame or chili oil, sprinkle with ground Sichuan peppercorns, garnish with a flurry of cilantro leaves, and serve.

Rice meal-coated steamed beef with carrots, served

Mi Zheng Zhu Rou Nan Gua (Rice-Steamed Pork with Pumpkin/Winter Squash)

Note that there are no chilies in this dish (though you could certainly add some if the spirit moved you.)Use soft pork ribs or a fatty cut (belly perhaps, or shoulder). Pumpkin, butternut, acorn, kabocha squashes all work well here. I like to serve this with a simple stir-fried leafy green like spinach, mustard, or baby bok choy.

1/2 cup white rice

3/4# boneless pork cut into 1/2-1 inch chunks, or 1# soft pork ribs

2 Tbsp taucu (bean paste)

3 Tbsp soy sauce

2 Tbsp rice wine or dry sherry 

2 Tbsp sesame oil

1 1/2-inch piece ginger, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves finely chopped

2-4 tablespoons meat or vegetable stock

1/2# pumpkin or winter squash cut into 1.2-inch chunks.

Sesame oil for drizzling

Handful of cilantro leaves

1. Toast the rice in a pan till opaque (don't burn it!), let cool, then roughly grind in a spice grinder (or pound in a mortar).
2. In a bowl, mix the pork, taucu/bean paste, soy sauce, rice wine or sherry, sesame oil, ginger, and garlic, then set aside to marinate for 10 minutes.
3. Add the rice meal to the pork and mix, then add stock and water a tablespoon at a time until the meat is thoroughly moistened and there's perhaps 1-2 tbsp of liquid at the bottom of the mixing bowl.
4. Pack the meat and its juices snugly into a heatproof bowl. Cover the meat's surface with squash or pumpkin cubes, pressing them down into the meat.
5. Steam the pork and pumpkin for up to 2 hours. Check after 1 hr 15 mins for tenderness.
6. When the meat is done remove it from the steamer, place a large plate over the top, and turn the bowl upside down onto the plate. Scrape any pieces sticking to the bowl onto the meat. Drizzle 1/2 a tablespoon or so of sesame oil over the top, garnish with cilantro leaves (if using), and serve.

Banh Mi's Back Story

Last week our investigation into the origins of perhaps Asia's favorite sandwich -- banh mi -- was published in Wall Street Journal Asia. Read the story here.

If you saw our May post on op la -- a delectable a.m. pan-fry of eggs, charcuterie, and sausage -- it will probably come as no surprise that our favorite banh mi in Saigon is served up at the same shop, Hoa Ma Quan. 

Unsurprisingly, it comes down to the quality of the ingredients.

 

This shop makes its own mayonnaise and pate, daily. They're both so good all they really need is a crusty loaf, but they really add something special to the house banh mi.

Also, that bread -- it's kept warm in an old-fashioned 'oven' of stacked metal trays suspended over a single charcoal-fired burner. When your banh mi arrives the bread is warmed through and through, and the crust is super crackly.

Hoa Ma Quan's pickle is also something special, wide strips of carrot and cucumber and a little daikon with just the perfect sugar-vinegar sweetish tang. Here, if you order your banh mi to go they pack the pickle separately so that its juices don't soggify the bread.

These folks take their banh mi pretty seriously. Which makes for some pretty happy customers.

Hoa Ma Quan, 53 Cao Thang, District 3; no phone; 6 a.m. to noon (often sold out by 11 a.m.)

To read our other contributions in this WSJA series on Asia's iconic dishes, click dish names from the list below:

Chengdu: Mapo Dofu

Chiang Mai: Khao Soi

Singapore (and Malaysia's) Chinese New Year Specialty: Yu Sheng/Yee Sang

Manila: Lechon

Melaka: Debal

Penang: Asam Laksa

Jogjakarta: Ayam Goreng Jogja

Jakarta: Gado-Gado

Saigon: Canh Chua

Hoi An: Cao Lau

What is Lao Food?

I really couldn't have told you, before we spent two weeks in the former Lao royal capital of Luang Prabang last March. Vietnamese influences show up in markets (as in the rest of Laos the local version of pho is a popular breakfast) and dishes like the local kao soi are reminiscent of the spicy-salty cuisine of neighboring northern Thailand. But Luang Prabang has its own food as well that bears the imprint of climate (lots of wild mushrooms during the rainy season), geography (plenty of fish from the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers) and topography (lots of ingredients foraged from the jungle that carpets hills around the city).

In our latest contribution to food and wine website Zester Daily we investigate the cuisine of Luang Prabang, serve up a couple of simple -- and really delicious -- recipes, walk you through local markets with a slide show, and show you how to wrap fish in banana leaf for steaming with a second slideshow.

Read the story here. And give those recipes a try!