Ding Tai Fung (Bellevue)

This is the first post in the Summer in the Pacific Northwest Series, which is sort of being run concurrently with the Oh Canada Series (partly due to some overlap).

I guess you could say I'm on a mission.

It's not a difficult mission, really. I'm just trying to eat at every Din Tai Fung in the world, that's all. I've made reasonably progress to date. I visited the original one in Taipei, of course, as well as the one in Los Angeles opened by the family's son. There are franchises around the world, and I've gone to both the ones in Beijing and Shanghai. Heck, I've even been tricked and gone to a knock-off one in Toronto.

And then they finally decided to open a second location in the U.S. I prayed that they would choose the East Coast (why not? There is already so much good Chinese food out west!). Alas, they decided to open in Bellevue, just outside of Seattle.

Disheartened, I really had no idea when I would be able to go.

As it turned out, Bryan's cousin decided to get married in Seattle. Better yet, his aunt (with whom we stayed) actually lives in Bellevue.

It's not hard to guess where I wanted to go for dinner.

Unlike some of the older Din Tai Fung locations (like the original one in Taiwan or even the original one in Los Angeles), this one is prettier and "swankier" inside, with hard wood floors, cute hanging lights, and prettier dishware. It reminded me more of the slightly more upscale ones in Beijing and Shanghai (where Din Tai Fung is regarded as a really pricey restaurant).

Your food comes out on prettier, slightly more stylish dishware. The marinated cucumbers, always a refreshing starter, were great.

The spicy wontons were average and probably worth skipping. After all, if you're coming to Din Tai Fung, you should really be getting their xiao long baos!

Speaking of which, we ordered several dozens of the dumplings. These were solid, definitely serviceable, but we noticed a quality difference between the ones here and both the ones in California (slightly better) and Asia (noticeably better).

The skins aren't supposed to break, but I think we had one or two break on us.

But really, I'm arguably splitting hairs here. The dumplings were still delicious and very, very enjoyable. The soupy pork filling is still very flavorful and satisfying, and people still gobbled it up. If this exact restaurant opened up in Boston, I would still go at least once a week!

Sauteed Green Beans

Other non-dumpling side dishes, such as the stir fried green beans, were all fine. It's nice that they have a variety of offerings on their menu. After all, if you're a local, you may not feel like eating xiao long baos all the time.

Stir Fried Rice Cakes (chao nian gao)

Of course, I think Bryan would differ. He's pretty particular about what he will eat when he's at Din Tai Fung. In short, he only eats the crab roe xiao long baos. He thinks everything else is a "waste of stomach space."

Wonton Soup

Most people aren't like Bryan, so I still think it's nice that they have a variety of dishes. We found most of their dishes, such as the stir fried rice cakes (two photos above) and the wonton soup (above) to be pretty tasty. I would definitely consider ordering a bigger variety if I lived close by and came every week.

However, if I'm only coming to visit it as a destination restaurant, I would focus mostly on the dumplings, which are still their main specialty.

Definitely try the dessert dumplings if you've never had it before. My personal favorite (by far) is the taro dumpling. Often I'll eat the same number of taro dumplings as normal pork ones! Black sesame is also pretty good. We did not try the red bean one here, but we've noticed a difference in sweetness and texture between the Los Angeles and Taiwan ones, so I can't recommend one from a particular restaurant unless if I've tried it, and we didn't try it here.

Overall, I am still very, very jealous of all you people that live in the Seattle area. You are so lucky that Din Tai Fung picked another West Coast city in which to open their second restaurant.

This Din Tai Fung is very popular, just like every other Din Tai Fung in the world. We arrived early, around 5:30PM, so we did not wait in line. By the time we left, however, the line was super long. The restaurant is inside of a mall, so if you do have to wait a long time, I guess there's at least stuff you can browse while you wait?

I still hope that someday, they will come to the East Coast. The odds of Boston may seem low, but then they picked Bellevue over San Francisco, so we can always dream, right?

Din Tai Fung
700 Bellevue Way NE Ste 280
 Bellevue, WA 98004

"Fake" Ding Tai Fung (Toronto)

This is the fifth post in the Oh Canada series, summarizing some of the great eats I had when visiting various Canadian cities this past year. We're moving from Montreal onto Toronto now! Other posts in this series (Montreal posts) include St. Viateur Bagels, Le Bremner, Schartz's Smoked Meats, and Joe Beef.

I was most definitely totally fooled.

I mean, I'd vaguely heard about this happening. My mom has told me anecdotal stories about my Taiwanese relatives popping into Din Tai Fung in other countries (was it Macau, or maybe some small city in China?), only to be turned off by the clear subpar quality of the food - an obvious knock-off.

But for some reason, I didn't think it would happen in North America, a place where trademarks are typically enforced rather strongly.

I had heard there was a Din Tai Fung in Toronto, so it was actually my idea to get everyone to go there. You know me, trying to hit as many Din Tai Fungs as possible.

It wasn't until after I came back to the US, and after some online research, that I confirmed that I had indeed eaten at a fake Ding Tai Fung.

It's actually a pretty authentic-looking copy. When you enter the restaurant, you see the signature window displaying chefs making the dumplings. This is something you see at every Din Tai Fung, and it affirmed to me even more strongly that this restaurant must be the real thing.

The menu looks the same and the dishes look pretty similar. I didn't even notice that the English name is technically off by one letter. You see, it's confusing because when you pronounce "Din Tai Fung" in Mandarin, the proper phonetic spelling using pin yin (the official method) is actually "Ding Tai Fung." So the spelling with the letter "g" in the title (the way this fake restaurant spells it) actually sounds more correct in Mandarin.

The dishes look identical, and many tasted pretty good. 
Pan fried rice cakes with mustard greens, bamboo shoots, and pork were decent - not too gummy and pretty good flavor. The tofu sheets with mustard greens was OK, and I actually quite enjoyed the spicy wontons and I took several helping - there's something about that addictive hot & spicy oil!.

But the dumplings were definitely sub par. They weren't made with quite the same finesse as the real ones. The flavors were OK, but the texture of the skin was not nearly as good. Still, though, it was objectively a decent dumpling, and still better than many dumplings I've had in the US.

Thoughts
I guess it's an interesting question - would you visit a restaurant that you knew was blatantly copying another restaurant (down to the name, trade dress, menu, etc) yet still produced reasonably solid Shanghai-style dim sum?

This Ding Tai Fung has been in Toronto for years, so clearly it's been able to survive in one of the most competitive Chinese restaurant markets in North America. By this point, I'm sure a lot of people know that it's not the real Din Tai Fung, yet they are happy to eat there because it's still a decent imitation and offers them a workable copy of something they wouldn't otherwise get (at all).

It kind of reminds me of all the Pinkberry inspired places ("insert-name"-berry) that started opening in various cities where the real Pinkberry was not available. People still swarmed to these places because they offered something that people couldn't otherwise get in their hometowns. Maybe this is something like that.

I had heard from a friend that this Ding Tai Fung has "gone downhill" in the past few years. Perhaps there was a time when it was really close to the real ones, and maybe no one knew? I don't know the history, but I find it interesting that the real Din Tai Fung hasn't really tried to go after these fake ones. Maybe there are too many? Or is that difference of one letter enough that it doesn't constitute copying? (I would highly doubt that, but who knows!) Or was there some sort of "break up" where before, there was a time when it was "real"?

I find it peculiar that the real Din Tai Fung did not say anything about it until July 2010, when they posted a statement on their website calling the restaurants in Toronto and Macau "imposters."

Nevertheless, most of the guests who were with me that night still enjoyed the food. To this group of out-of-towners (virtually none were local to Toronto), this was still better Chinese food than anything they had in their hometowns. Maybe it's because I've visited too many better Din Tai Fungs that I could quickly tell that it wasn't as good.

However, like I said, it's still reasonably enjoyable. If it had a totally different name and opened in Boston, I'd probably eat there because it competes reasonably favorably with many of Boston's Chinese restaurants. However, the fact that they are blatantly copying sort of puts a bad taste in my mouth, and for that reason alone, I'm not certain I'll return.

Ding Tai Fung
3255 Highway 7 East, Unit 18B
Markham, ON L3R3P9

Taiwanese Grilled Corn

I'm convinced there's absolutely no better way to enjoy corn than this.

Perhaps it's the combination of culture, memories, and large doses of nostalgia. After all, this is my mom's special grilled corn recipe. We ate it while grilling the first time I ever swam at a "beach" as a kid (yes, it was just a lake beach in the land-locked Midwest, but I absolutely loved it).

Whenever my mom visited Boston (back when we didn't have a grill), she would make this at my sister's place, which has multiple grills. Every single time, it was fantastic and we could never get enough of it. This Taiwanese-style of grilled corn is really, really tasty. Imagine -  sweet, charred, almost caramelized corn with hints of garlic, soy, and sweet chili sauce.

In Taiwan, you'll most often see this type of grilled corn served at night markets, although it appears in  traditional outdoor markets as well.

I called my mom this past weekend in a moment of desperation when trying to figure out what to make for my relatives who were coming over for dinner.

My mom saved the day.

And I was floored how simple this recipe was.

There are just three ingredients in this magical sauce. Soy paste, which is a thick form of soy sauce, sweet chili sauce (tian la jiang), and lots of garlic. If you want to make it spicier, you can add some sort of chili oil or chili sauce.

You know how Asian moms are - there's no such thing as measurements.

"Start with some soy paste, and then add some sweet chili sauce, and then mash some garlic inside."

"Umm . . . can you give me some sort of ratio? Is it like 1:1? Or mostly chili sauce? Mostly soy paste?"

Turns out it's roughly 4:1 - with soy paste being the main ingredient. I'm glad I asked! I was totally considering trying a 1:1 ratio . . .

Mix together the sauces with lots of fresh, smashed garlic. I think the amount of garlic you add is largely personal. I can't see you going wrong either way. I chose to add about 4-5 cloves, and I smashed them up real good to try to extract as much "garlic juice" as possible.

Stir everything together and set aside. It's nice to let the flavors meld a bit while you grill.

And then start grilling the corn!

We don't do any of those fancy tricks to try to keep the corn moist. We just throw the cobs (shucked) straight on the hot grill. Rotate it every few minutes so that it can char as evenly as possible.

After about 15-20 minutes, when the corn is just starting to char, start brushing it with the sauce. Do this over and over again, rotating the corn every few minutes and reapplying the sauce.

Pretty soon, the corn will be gorgeously charred and will have absorbed much of the flavorful sauce. If you coat the corn cob 2-3 times with sauce, you'll end up with a lighter tasting cob. Slather it 5-6 times, and the flavor will be more intense (more preferred, in my opinion, but minds may differ).

In Taiwan, they finish the whole cob off by slathering lard all over it before serving. You can do the same with butter or oil. Or, if you're like my mom, you just skip that step entirely.

Frankly, it's pretty tasty either way.

Serve!


Taiwanese Grilled Corn
4 tablespoons soy paste
1 tablespoon sweet chili sauce
4-5 cloves of garlic, smashed
hot chili sauce (optional)
6-8 ears of corn, shucked

Mix together soy paste, sweet chili sauce, and smashed garlic cloves. Set aside. Grill corn on a hot grill until the corn begins to char, about 20 minutes. Brush on the marinade and turn the corn, repeating this 3-4 times, or according to your preference for intensity of flavor.

Serve!

Nom nom nom . . .

Three Cup Chicken (三杯雞 or San Bei Ji)

Do you remember those tiny little dorm fridges everyone used to have in college?

I don't know about you, but every single person in my hall during college had one of those mini-fridges.

They kept food just fine, but they never had a real freezer. At most, the tiny little compartment in the top corner of the fridge would hold a couple pints of ice cream. And it never kept it that cold.

Imagine my surprise when I walked into Bryan's dorm room and found a full size freezer. The freezer itself was bigger than my entire dorm fridge.

Turns out, his mother periodically cooked all his favorite Chinese dishes, pack them up in individual portions over rice, and shipped them all the way from California to MIT, packed in dry ice.

Thus the huge freezer.

It was always a huge treat whenever he was willing to share his mom's precious cooking with me. My favorite dish had 5-spice tofu, peanuts, and stir-fried Chinese vegetables.

When Glad FreezerWare asked Foodbuzz Tastemakers to design a "freezer-friendly recipe" to try out with these nifty new freezer-friendly containers, I immediately thought back to the scrumptious Chinese meals Bryan and I used to enjoy in his dorm room, compliments of his mom and the wonders of modern technology.

Knowing that simple home-cooked Chinese food freezes exceptionally well, I decided to make Three Cup Chicken, a fragrant and intensely flavorful Taiwanese classic that goes insanely well with rice.

Three Cup Chicken is a chicken dish where chicken is stewed in "three cups" of sesame oil, soy sauce, and rice wine (plus tons of aromatics). Of course, depending on how much chicken you're making, you may not necessarily actually need three whole cups.

I think it's a dish with a huge bang for its buck. The ingredients are inexpensive, the preparation is relatively short and easy, and the end product is so, so flavorful.

There is one catch, I guess.

You have to cut up chicken bones.

Sure, you could technically make this dish with boneless chicken breast, but it won't be nearly as good. There's something about the bone marrow infusing into the sauce, the fat in the chicken skin, and the tenderness of dark meat that make this dish much better with chicken leg pieces (or a whole chicken, for that matter).

I've found that you need a really, really sharp cleaver and you have to be really purposeful when you chop. We're not talking about a gentle chop. We're talking about a "hai-ya!" chop.

Hai -YA!

It takes a bit of practice. In the beginning I was just too timid, and thus I was unable to fully chop the bone in half. It's much better to aim once, swing hard, and (hopefully) make one clean break.

Be careful, though! You could still get small bone shards flying around.

Once the bone is broken, you can go back and gently cut the meat up into ~2-inch wide pieces.

Once you've chopped all your aromatics, the cooking part is actually pretty straightforward.

You can either brown the chicken first (gives a better char), or (if you're short on time or equipment), do it all in one pot. Since I was short on time, I decided to cook it in one pot.

Over medium high heat, stir fry garlic, ginger, and scallions (optional) in half of the sesame oil until everything smells gorgeously fragrant. Add chicken pieces and cook until they are no longer pink. Add rice wine, soy sauce, remaining sesame oil, and sugar. Bring to a boil and then simmer (uncovered) for about 15 minutes, slowly reducing most of the liquid.

Periodically check the flavor. If it's not salty enough, just reduce it some more. You can always add more sugar, soy sauce, wine, etc. depending on your preference.

At the end, add basil leaves and quickly stir until wilted.

And then serve! It's that simple!

I had cooked some other dishes on the side the same night, such as Yellow Chives with 5-Spice Bean Curd and Soy Sheets with Edamame and Mustard Greens. I'll post about those soon.

To make my freezer-friendly lunches, I lined the bottom of my container with a bed of rice. I then added my veggies on one side and my meat on the other. I poured some 3-Cup Chicken sauce over the entire thing.

Into the freezer they go!

The next day, I brought one of the containers to work for lunch. It was cool knowing that my other two containers would keep for awhile in the freezer, and I wouldn't have to stress about trying to finish the leftovers within a couple days (I get tired of eating the same thing too many days in a row, so that's a good thing!).

I heated the entire container in the microwave and voila, lunch was ready. I was surprised how well everything reheated. Aside from the 5-spice bean curd being just a bit drier, overall everything tasted just like it did the night before.

Because the lunch was frozen, I didn't have to fight for communal company fridge space when I got to work. Instead, I just kept it in my office until lunchtime.

It worked out well. I saved a bit of lunch money, and arguably ate a healthier lunch.

Now if only I could get that exact recipe from Bryan's mom so I can re-make that dish I loved in college.

Or maybe  I could convince her to ship me some directly in dry-ice?

;)

3-Cup Chicken (San Bei Ji)
derived from various sources
serves 4 | 25 minutes

1/4 cup sesame oil*
3-inch segment of ginger, sliced
10-15 cloves garlic
2-3 stalks of scallions, cut into 1-2 inch pieces
4 chicken drumsticks, cut up into pieces (other bone-in chicken works too)
1/4 cup rice wine
1/4 cup dark soy sauce (I used double black, but black should work fine too)
2 tablespoons sugar
1-2 cups Thai basil leaves

Over medium high heat in a pot that comfortably hold all the chicken pieces, stir fry garlic, ginger, and scallions (optional) in half of the sesame oil until everything smells gorgeously fragrant. Add chicken pieces and cook until they are no longer pink. Add rice wine, soy sauce, remaining sesame oil, and sugar. Bring to a boil and then simmer (uncovered) for about 15 minutes, slowly reducing most of the liquid.

Periodically check the flavor and turn the chicken pieces if they are not all submerged. If it's not salty enough, just reduce it some more. You can always add more sugar, soy sauce, wine, etc. depending on your preference.

At the end, add basil leaves and quickly stir until wilted.

Serve! Preferably with rice.

*Cooking notes
Although this dish is traditionally made with equal parts sesame oil, rice wine, and soy sauce, I personally found the dish to be a bit oily for my preference. I think I would reduce the oil by half (1/8 cup) the next time I make it. I'm sure it would still turn out fine.

I also think I did not reduce the dish quite enough. The liquid should be almost gone, saucy instead of soupy. Next time I will cook it uncovered and monitor it carefully (as opposed to trying to cook two more new dishes at the same time!)

Disclaimer
As part of the Foodbuzz Tastemakers Program, I received free Glad Containers as well as a stipend to cover the cost of the ingredients.

Bok Choy Agar Noodles

This post is part of a larger series devoted to a Molecular Gastronomy focused meal I made: Molecular Gastronomy with an Asian Twist. Other posts in this series include Spherification (making "caviar", Pho Inspired Grilled Steak with Mint, Cilantro, and Lime, and Sweet Basil Pesto with Rice Noodles

Playing with molecular gastronomy is fun, although things can get a bit wacky at times.

Like these crazy bok choy "noodles," for example.

Admittedly, making my own "caviar" using spherification was by far the "nerdiest" thing I did this past weekend. Nevertheless, I would give these green noodles a close second.

Here's the back story. As part of my original proposal to Foodbuzz for this Foodbuzz 24, 24 meal, I had promised to make bok choy "noodles" as part of a larger, molecular interpretation of a deconstructed Taiwanese beef noodle soup.

Funny thing is, I really had no idea how I was going to make these. I find that I often like to invent absurd and overly ambitious meals in my head, sometimes promising to deliver them without really thinking things through.

It bites me back sometimes when my fantastic proposals actually get accepted and I have to deliver.

Thankfully, the internet is full of solutions, and my friends had given me a nice, big bag of fun powders to try.

At the end of the day, under the pressure of time, I was actually able to deliver a meal that came surprisingly close to my original proposal.

This "deconstructed Taiwanese beef noodle soup" begins with the baby bok choy, a common vegetable used as the "green" part of a beef noodle soup. I decided to mix up the shapes and flavors, making the bok choy into a noodle instead.

I blended up a couple small stalks of bok choy and a small shallot in some dashi broth in the blender.

Heat up the bok choy "soup" with some agar agar, a red algae based gelatin.

Pour out the solution into appropriately-shaped containers. Since I was trying to make noodles, I tried to put them into square containers. Let set at room temperature or in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

Remove from containers, and slice!

Though they look sort of like noodles, the texture is pretty different. It's kind of soft, breaks easily, and (frankly), isn't nearly as good as a real wheat-based noodle.

I think this recipe works better for making interesting vegetable "pates" or "terrines."

Nevertheless, it's a cool way to make some interesting, gluten-free noodles which incorporate any flavor you might want. I'm sure this would work with all sorts of other vegetables, such as arugula, basil, spinach, or maybe even carrots!



Bok Choy Agar "Noodles"
Ingredients
7 oz bok choy
1 small shallot
3.2g agar agar powder
1/4 cup broth (I used dashi)
salt to taste
dash of sugar

Blend together bok choy, shallot and broth together until a fine puree forms. Heat 200g of the bok choy liquid with agar agar until boiling and agar agar is dissolved. It will become much thicker. Pour into a level, square surface up to about 1/2 inch thick and let cool for at least 1 hour.

Slice up into "noodles" and serve.

Food Blogging & Photography Workshop at ITASA in Atlanta

Did you ever think Taiwanese meat sauce over rice could look so beautiful?

I was floored and blown away by the creativity of the students at my workshop this past weekend at the annual East Coast ITASA (Intercollegiate Taiwanese American Students Association) Conference at Georgia Tech University.

Yes! I gave my first food blogging workshop and it was super fun! Here's a recap of what I talked about, as well as some photos from the workshop itself!



I spent part of the time talking about how I got started with blogging, and then what I did to "take it to the next level." I emphasized the importance of picking a strong blog name that really identified who you are. Ideally, pick a url with a "dot com" ending.

For fun, I flashed up on the screen various names and logos I had toyed with before settling on Tiny Urban Kitchen.

Next, I gave some tips on how I took my personal "blogspot" blog to the next level.

1. Focus on creating high quality content! (good writing, photography, voice, etc)
2. Spread the word about your blog!  (e.g., visit & comment on other blogs, submit photos to photo aggregating sites like Tastespotting, etc)

Of course, it still takes a lot of hard work, time, and effort before people may start to recognize or find an excellent blog. However, I'm convinced that if you create really good content and you get yourself out there, people will notice and if they like you, they will stay and become faithful readers.

It's impossible to cover all aspects of food photography in 30 minutes, but I did give some key tips on easy ways to improve one's food photography.

"First and foremost, try your hardest to take pictures in daylight. The color of natural sunlight just makes photos look so much better. When I'm in a restaurant, I will often request to sit next to a window just so I can take advantage of the light!"

Obviously, you can't always take pictures in daylight, especially in the evenings! In those cases, white balancing a photo can make a world of a difference.

Above is a before and after picture showing how simply white balancing a photo improves it dramatically.

I also gave many more examples of various types of photo compositions, showing what works and what does not! Finally, I gave several food styling tips, such as "add splashes of color" and "create borders and space."

Cooking Demonstration! Taiwanese Meat over Rice

In the middle of the workshop, I showed them how to make one of my favorite and easy college-friendly Taiwanese dishes, "loh-bah bng" ("lu ro fan" in Mandarin, or literally "stewed meat rice").

For the last half hour, I split everyone up into teams of eight people, and told them to try styling this inherently ugly dish!

Off they go . . .

And then . . . wow! Aren't these gorgeous?

I was seriously floored by the creativity and artistry of these students!

Please come by the facebook page to see larger images and also to vote on your favorite!

Cheers!