Shao-Tai "These are O.R. scrubs" W.'s Profile

Inspired, yet again, by an episode of Tony Bourdain's No Reservations, I found myself in search of the north Vietnam lunch staple called bun cha.  I reached out to a friend, who pointed me in Thien Thanh's direction without hesitation.  I then asked my barber, who replied much the same.  "Go west, young man.  But only a few blocks."  Don't let the exterior facade fool you.  Granted, it looks like a weathered, Full Metal Jacket set piece, but after living in Taiwan and traveling through Asia, I've learned that dilapidation ain't necessarily a bad thing.  Some of the best food I've had, I've eaten in the most humble of surroundings.  So imagine my disappointment when I realized the interior was clean.  Dammit!

The bun cha hanoi blueprint: a Himalayan mound of snow-white rice noodles.  Another gigantic plate, practically a vegetable and herb jungle - lettuce, basil, and something that appeared mint-esque but tasted way different.  Finally, a bowl filled with warm pieces of grilled pork and meatballs (more like sausage patties), bathing in a sugar and nuoc mam (fish sauce)-based liquid midway between sauce and broth, and topped with slices of pickled carrot and daikon.

Chopsticks poking at the clumped-together noodles, I manage to tear away a chunk and dip into the sauce, where the strands miraculously separate into slippery, slurpy goodness.  The idea here is the interplay between both taste and texture in every bite.  Smoky, charcoal-y flavor from the grilled meat (the black specks are your friend).  Salty, sweet, and a wee bit sour from the sauce.  Add to that the different consistencies of each ingredient - the slick noodles, firmness of the pork, and the fresh veggie crunch.  My one suggestion would be to include temperature in the equation and complete the trifecta - refrigerate the greens until service and watch as the teaming of cold and warm contribute to a mouth ballet.

Fairly expensive considering the area, $8.50 an order, but easily splittable between two people.  Maybe that's what you're supposed to do...

Full name: Banh Cuon Thien Thanh.  Cash only.

Not so long ago while nursing a hangover, I flipped through a friend's DVD collection and stumbled across his Speed Racer set.  Awesome!  I popped in a disc and to my utter dismay, watched as Speed drove through winding canyon roads in the rain.  For five minutes.  Turn left!  Turn right!  No dialogue.  Somehow, my beloved, tricked-out Mach 5 had turned into a glorified touring sedan.  Upon re-watching Voltron and Battle of the Planets... ditto.  I felt a little betrayed by my memories.

I was a child of the 80's.  I remember planting myself in front of the TV for daily showings of CHiPs, Welcome Back Kotter, and Reading Rainbow.  I played with GI Joe and He-Man and collected Garbage Pail Kids cards.  I still have plenty of faded scars from getting pulled down the street on a skateboard, my hands gripping a jump rope tied to my cousin's bike.  And I remember video games in, as Dave Nelson put it, "the glory days, before the 16-bit processors."  Arcades were a different animal back then.  The Gold Mine in Sharpstown (or was it Westwood?) Mall, where I tried to squeeze into one of the four spots for Gauntlet.  Playing Spy Hunter at Circus Circus for hours while my parents took in the Vegas shows.  Good times...

Vintage video games had been dancing around in my head ever since I saw The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, the fantastic documentary about two radically different men chasing the Guiness Book of World Records high score for Donkey Kong.  After reading Julie P.'s Joystix review and calling the owner, I decided to drag a few cronies along and attempt to recapture those proverbial halcyon days of yore.  Joystix is primarily a classic arcade showroom, but on the first and last Friday of every month, it's open to the public from 9pm to 2am, all-you-can-play for $15.  Connected to a really cool bar (Eighty Twenty?), all dark wood and leather, you can grab a beer while you get your game on... brilliant!

For the first hour, I was under a time-warp spell.  Frogger, Star Wars, Defender, Joust, Centipede, Q*bert... seeing these games transported me back to a more innocent era, back when I championed Revenge of the Nerds as the bestest movie in all the land.  And then I started playing... and playing... and playing.  Gauntlet, The Simpsons, Gyruss and many others was continuous button-mashing with no skill whatsoever.  Dragon's Lair confused the hell out of me.  Robotron bored me to tears.  Thinking of Speed Racer, I groaned, "Not again."

But all was not lost.  I relished shaking pepper on evil Mr. Hot Dog and Mr. Pickle in Burgertime.  It was exciting taking control of the Light Cycles and battle tanks in Tron.  NBA Jam reminded of an early brush with fame, when I beat Scarface (of the Geto Boys) at Celebration Station.  Racing games are always a blast when competing against your buddies.  Street Fighter II still had some of that old magic left (Hadouken!).  And surprisingly, the true classics like Donkey Kong and Ms. Pac-Man retained a certain purity that couldn't be tarnished by time.  Also, Joystix is, without a doubt, a pinball lover's dream.

This just might be one of those once-in-a-lifetime things for me.  My fond, brightly-pixelated childhood memories were neither vindicated nor shattered, but ended up somewhere in-between.  I suppose in this instance, there's some shred of truth to "you can never go home again."

You've seen the words before.  China.  Dragon.  Garden.  Golden.  Hunan.  Imperial.  Jade.  Lucky.  Palace.  Panda.  Village.  Would-be restauranteurs play mix-n-match word Scrabble and presto!  ...a Chinese restaurant is born.  But while Jade Garden is saddled with a dreadfully cliched name, the food is hardly generic.  Located in the bourgeoning Wel-Farm shopping center in Sugar Land - a mini-Chinatown smack dab within America's third best city to live in [CNN/Money 2006] - its specialty lies in Cantonese cuisine.

Seafood freshness should never be in question, as large tanks house different varieties of crab, shrimp, fish, and more exotic shellfish like geoduck clams - though its elephant-trunk, phallic appeal escapes even me, who, like Galactus, is a devourer of all things.  Alongside this aquarium of tasty goodness, sao la (rotisserie/BBQ meats) are proudly hung in a metal and glass booth where a butcher can hack roast duck, chicken, crispy skin pork and char siu into bite-sized pieces for your enjoyment.  Not the best, but above average.

The razor clams with basil had a nice, tender crunch and a bit of jalapeno kick.  The only downside here is that the shell from this species of clam tends to be rather brittle (why yes, I am a marine biologist!), so you'll clamp down on a shell granule every now and then... imagine biting into a grain of sand x 2.  And I can completely understand how this would deter the common folk.  Me?  Small price to pay for the smiting of one's hunger.

Pi pa tofu is usually made by pureeing silken tofu and shrimp, forming the mixture into oval shapes, and then deep-frying.  Accompanied by a light, slightly viscous sauce, its molecular state (why yes, I am also a quantum physicist!) should exist somewhere between creamy and fluffy.  Their version however, omits the shrimp and suffers for it.

Guei fei ji, or House Special Chicken as it's called here, is one of my favorite things.  Boiled chicken.  With such a grandiose name, you were expecting something a bit more involved and flashy, yes?  Negatory.  It's so ridiculously simple it's genius.  OK, so apparently the chicken is normally boiled with scallops, which explains the price ($10.95 for a half bird), but I can neither confrm nor deny the method of cookery.  It's served room temperature with a small dish containing a dipping paste of oil, minced green onion, ginger and salt.

Jade Garden gets extra credit for being one of a tiny (I'm talking Tom Cruise-tiny) handful of Chinese restaurants I would willingly visit off the Bellaire Chinatown strip.  As with all family-style places, come with a group to sample more dishes and to keep the cost down.  They also offer a Peking duck variation where the skin and meat are not separated, but instead sliced together, and the wrapping vessel is a small mantou (steamed bun).  I dig the traditional crepe style.

*Addendum: geoduck = mirugai.  Hm, so I DO eat it.

Zagat?  Wiggity wack!  Michelin Star?  Who cares!  When I want a reliable recommendation, I'm listening to my Nai Nai (grandma... on my dad's side to be exact).  With the considerable weight behind her 80+ years of eating AND cooking, if a restaurant gets a thumbs-up from her, it's golden in my eyes.  Add in the praise of my aunt, who's been around the world many times over, and I almost don't have to say another word.

But I will.

My aunt makes a beeline for the fridge in back displaying an array of cold appetizers and returns grinning, setting down a small plate of chicken feet.  Unlike the kind you get at dim sum, these are simply boiled and chilled, with a slightly sour taste.  Here's a tip: there is no polite way to eat something that's all skin, tendon and bone... just GNAW, baby!  It's not the prettiest thing to do in public, but damned if it ain't addictive.

We order from the lunch special menu - which does not mean "would you like steamed/fried rice, egg drop/hot and sour, egg roll/crab puff?"  It just means the prices are reduced.

The salted fish, chicken, and eggplant claypot was excellent.  Salted fish, due to some kind of curing and fermentation process I'm guessing, can be overpowering and somewhat of an acquired taste.  But here, its pungency is muted and a perfect compliment to a bowl of rice.  The same can also be said for the mapo tofu, which was spicy but not overtly so.  I could actually taste the pork, tofu, and chiles.  The same dish made by an inferior chef?  It'd be like sticking your tongue in a volcano.

The dried tofu, pork and celery dish really represented the overall character of the food at Fu Fu - it tasted CLEAN.  Not greasy.  Not salty.  Not flawless, mind you, but just about right.  The orange peel beef was OK, and I did appreciate that it was coated and then fried, giving it a crunchier texture.  Everyone else adored the shengjian bao - think big ass potsticker with fluffier dough - but I lived in Taiwan more recently, so I know better, heh.  Even then, good stuff.

All tables were full - which is normal - so the service was rather slow.  Fu Fu is super hot right now, so if you arrive around noon, you'll be waiting.  Best to come before or after the lunch rush.  I've never tried it, but the hot pot is very popular.  Technically a 4.5 on my scale but my family's raves pushes it to 5 star territory.

When it comes to food, I talk about Taiwan way too much - and here's why.  Growing up in Houston, our family never ate out.  Considering my mom and grandma are world-class cooks, we never had to.  But then I moved to Taipei in 2003 to teach English and my eating habits took a complete 180 degree turn.  With food literally EVERYWHERE, I figure I ate out 99.9% of the time for two years straight.  Restaurants, eateries, stalls, stands, carts, dollies... night markets with blocks and blocks of streets, lanes and alleys dedicated to the sole pleasure of eating.  It was glooorious.

But those experiences came with a price.  Oftentimes, meals at places like Classic Kitchen are now tinged with a trace of sadness, knowing how truly good the food could be.  Am I over-romanticizing?  Probably.  But it's surprising how even a simple thing like fried dough could taste so different.

The youtiao (fried dough sticks) here is a little soft and could've used more oil time because it lacked that deep golden color.  The jiang ro shaobing (fatty pork sandwiched between toasted flatbread) tasted great but the pork wasn't fatty enough.  I prefer a 50/50 balance of fat and lean meat.  The guotie (potstickers) took a while to come out but was decent.

Dou jiang (soybean milk) is a polarizing subject.  Purists enjoy it hot and in its naturally sweet state and dip in the youtiao.  Others like it hot and savory, with bits of pork sung, pickled cabbage, green onions, and chunks of youtiao.  I'm of the latter group.  I also add vinegar.

We had the misfortune of getting served by a waitress sporting some major 'tude, but the good news is: the waitstaff isn't beholden to any one table.  You can just pick out someone more pleasant.  It gets busy on weekend mornings but the wait is never too long.  This is solid, if unspectacular, breakfast fare that makes me yearn for the motherland ever so much.  Nostalgia is a bitch.

In my youth, the extent of my exposure to Mexican food included Taco Hell, the weekly enchilada tray in grade school, and maybe a rare visit to Ninfa's for the obligatory fajitas.  I was scarred.  (Though I still harbor delusions of one day sneaking back into Alief Middle School to stuff my face with chili and cheese-topped fried burritos.  But then, that's not really traditional Mexican food, is it?)

I grew up, nary touching anything remotely Mexican/Tex-Mex, until I discovered taquerias - and that the food in said establishments did wonders for a booze-filled belly, not to mention tasting like the real thing.  And so the scars receded a little.

Located in the Southeast corner of the parking lot behind Canino's farmer's market, I was introduced to the Tacambaro taco truck through a Robb Walsh review in The Houston Press.  Two words caught my attention and my eyes grew large with intrigue.  Mollejas (sweetbreads) y tripitas (tripe).  I have an unusual affection for organ meats - intestine, gizzard, heart, stomach, liver, tongue... so seeing those two things on the menu, "I was as happy as a little giiirl." (TM Sprockets)

I immediately notice that everything is crazy fresh.  The organ meat is cut and fried on premises.  The masa flour for gorditas is patted around and slapped on the griddle two seconds after order.  This is no-frills, fast food done right.

Rolled up in between two piping-hot corn tortillas (flour is for suckers) with diced onion, cilantro, and freshly squeezed lime juice, the mollejas were pretty damn good.  Slightly charred bits mingled with fluffier bits, the sweetbreads had barely a hint of the typical offal flavor.  And to be honest, I kind of missed it.  So thank goodness I ordered the soft and chewy tripe, because it was packin' a nice heap of offal-ness (not to be confused with awfulness).

$8.50 for four tacos and a half liter of a citrus-y soft drink called Refresco, it wasn't as cheap as I thought it would be.  Although I didn't find the sweetbreads and tripe as revelatory as Walsh, you could hardly do worse than organ meat tacos for a late-morning breakfast.

As you walk in, try to sift through all the noise and focus your ears on the conversations being held at the tables around you.  What you'll hear is the distinctive Beijing chiang,or accent/dialect/what-have-you, which can only be a harbinger of good things to come, because this restaurant specializes in Beijing kao ya AKA Peking duck.  China Rule No. 1: Never argue with a mainlander.  (Heck, a Beijing bootleg DVD street hawker could chew up our most ruthless, sleazeball lawyers within seconds.)

For our group of eight, my dad ordered a six-person meal to go along with two orders of Peking duck.  What followed was a seemingly endless procession of dishes selected from a set menu (we would have leftovers enough for another meal).

Cold appetizers: tofu and thousand-year-old egg, sliced pig ear, beef tendon, and fuqi feipian (beef stomach and tongue).  The meat slices are tossed in a chili oil undoubtedly populated with Szechuan peppercorns, though it wasn't numb and spicy enough for The Man With An Iron Stomach.  Ahem, that's me.  Moving on... the one appetizer that wowed everyone was the suan ni bai ro, or garlic something pork (my Chinese is spotty at best).  Thinly sliced pork topped with green onion and a spectacular soy-garlic sauce, it subtly encompassed the best of flavors: sweet, savory, sour, spicy.

Main dishes: braised intestine (which scurrs most people so I think I finished the entire plate... in two sittings, mind you), stir-fried baby shrimp and peas, bok choy, string beans, shui zhu nio (water boiled beef), which is beef and lettuce basically soaking in chili oil.  Be afraid.  However, STILL not spicy enough for TMWAIS.  I'm not satisfied until I can't feel my mouth.  Alas, there was more but I forget.  Besides, it's the duck people come here for.

Served on a large plate with the skin and meat separated into pieces, you grab a paper-thin crepe, slather on some plum sauce and proceed to make a skinny burrito with the crispy skin, tender meat, and some green onion.  The combination is sublime.  It's PB&J.  It's Jordan and Pippen.  It's the Foo Fighters @ Liberty Lunch, circa 1995 (my first "real" concert).  The plum sauce hits you with the sweet, and the raw, green onion bite cuts the fat from the skin.  And oh, the skin... Jim Gaffigan was on Conan extolling the many virtues of bacon and I could only nod in agreement and offer up roasted duck skin as its equal.

To end the meal, a duck, tofu and napa cabbage soup is prepared from the unused scraps and bones.  It was a delicious finish.  Quite affordable as well, ~$115 including tip.  Remember to call and order the duck beforehand - I think they need two hours of lead time.  It's worth noting that my little nephew, who is not an established meat eater (he's only two, so there's time enough to brainwash), happily put away two crepes himself.  He is, however, an unabashed sugar addict, so maybe the plum sauce had something to do with it.

I'm going to get this out of the way now because it will probably come up in future reviews: Anthony Bourdain is one of my heroes.  I love his books (A Cook's Tour is my de facto reading companion whenever I travel overseas) and his TV shows are an addiction.  I dig that he's past the half-century mark in age and still listening to the punk classics he grew up on.  I share the same sense of pride when I tell people where I spent my formative years; NYC for him, TX for me.  And his life currently... wow.  The guy is the foodie version of Man vs. Wild - plop him down in a foreign land and watch him eat his way out.  What more can one aspire to?

Tony eats natto, I eat natto (one of the most horrible things I've ever had in my mouth).  Tony eats lamb testicle in Morocco, I eat baby goat testicle in Mexico (quite good!).  Tony eats mofongo in Puerto Rico, I... immediately begin my search for the mashed plantains, garlic, and pork dish here in Houston.  And all Googling points to Tex-Chick.

The restaurant/shack is TINY - no more than five tables, one stove, and three people doing everything.  Reminds me very much of the crowded, claustrophobic atmosphere found in Taiwan eateries.  I order the mofongo and carne fritas and encounter explosions of flavor - nothing shy about this place.  The big ice cream-scoop of mofongo was denser than I expected, but great nonetheless.  The pollo guisado looked tasty as well.  For the price though, ~$10, the portions are on the small side.  Now, I don't need a buffet for lunch but I'm not Keira Knightley either.

I'm glad this place exists and that I tried it, but I don't know if I'll be back, considering I can find better food and value on Bellaire (Chinatown).  What can I say, I never get sick of Chinese food no matter how frequently I eat it.  I suppose most everyone feels that way about their native grub.

Oh, be prepared to wait for both a table and your food if it's packed.

Hands down, my favorite joint in Houston for banh mi AKA Vietnamese sammiches.  What sets this hole-in-the-wall apart from the numerous sandwich shops around the city?  The oh-so-wonderful bread.  Unlike most places that use a submarine/torpedo roll for their banh mi, Thim Hing takes advantage of the traditional French baguette, and it makes all the difference.  Freshly toasted, the bread packs a mean crunch and the inside is so soft, my pillow weeps with envy.  So if you catch me getting out of my car with crumbs littered up and down my clothes, you'll know where I've been.

I normally order a thit nuong (grilled pork), a dac biet (special = the works) and a cold can of Chrysanthemum tea.  If I remember correctly, the pricing goes like this: small - $1.50, medium - $2.00, large - $2.50.  So yeah, the cheap bastard in me dances a jig whenever I eat here.  All banh mis come loaded with pickled carrots, cucumber, cilantro, a mayo/butter (?) concoction, and jalapenos.  The jalapenos, like Derek Zoolander in a coal mine, will surprise the heck outta you!  Sometimes mild, sometimes you'll cry for mommy... mostly awesome.  Achtung, baby.

It's located in a tiny, run-down strip center (which I will always remember as housing the long-gone Rack n' Roll) in Alief and the hours are a bit wonky - I believe they close at 6pm - so it's always a treat when I get a chance to stop in.  Also, if you do get the sammiches to-go, pop 'em in the toaster oven before chowin' down... you'll be glad you did.

Pie, pie, pie.  Just thinking about pie takes me to a happy place, where I'm skipping along in a little sailor outfit and holding a red balloon, singing "a tisket, a tasket, I lost my yellow basket"... wait, that's a Droopy cartoon.  But you get the picture.  Which is to say I'll never forget the first time I tasted Flying Saucer's crown jewel, their strawberry cream pie, and experienced a culinary epiphany.

Cut into the pie and feast your eyes on the sheer size of the strawberries - they're the Queen Latifahs of their kind, bursting with freshness.  Now, I have only used "ethereal" to describe one other food in my lifetime (the duck liver at Quanjude in Beijing), yet there are no other words for the whipped topping here.  Remarkably light and fluffy, it's ethereal-ness makes me suspect Ferran Adria had a hand in its conception.  And their signature Flakey & Tender Crust is magic, the sweetness level perfect.  In fact, the whole damn pie is perfect in terms of sweetness... I guarantee you won't OD on the sugar in a slice of Flying Saucer pie.

And I'm still daydreaming.  Pecan pie and a glass of cold milk.  KEY LIME... ughluughlugllugh [Homer Simpson drool].