Sometimes when you live in New England you get pretty tired of flaky white fish, so when Todd called from Hawaii yesterday, I impulsively failed to politely ignore him as usual, and, instead, ordered some pristine albacore tuna and striped marlin (tombo and nairagi in Hawaiian parlance). Of course, that meant I’d have to wring some ideas out of my brain, since neither fish is on my menu. Pictured above, rendered with Goolgle’s lovely and free Picasa, is tonight’s special: a duet of sashimi with roasted sesame butter, honey mustard emulsion and arugula flowers. The fish, itself, I brushed very lightly with soy sauce infused with spring Vidalias and ginger.
Here’s today’s “Daily Catch” inspired by a recent, most awesome dining experience. It is halibut pan roasted in lime butter with fresh pea falafel and a carrot-cardamom puree. But more on my recent meal…
It was Sunday a couple of weeks back. I’d been meaning to try S&S Market/Biryani Park for some time now, and this seemed like as good a time as any, so we ventured over to Route 1, exited onto 99 in Malden and searched for number 105 on the left. Down about eight tenths of a mile, there it was, an unassuming - and somewhat uninviting - mostly windowless, standalone structure looking something like an erstwhile gas station. Fortunately I was able to cajole my clearly hesitant companions inside where we had no option but to seat ourselves.
Apparently Federico Fellini directed our dining experience at this point. On one flat screen Sri Lankan music videos blared without interruption; on the other was an unmemorable sporting event. The walls were occasionally adorned with various south Asian artifacts and souvenirs; and on the floor to my left sat a well worn Lightning McQueen throw rug. We sat at a card table on banquet chairs, and after an uncomfortable wait in the empty room, a Brazilian little person arrived with menus, silverware, cloth napkins and water. As he exited we pored over the menu and found limiting ourselves to enough food for a small town nearly impossible. Naturally we over ordered.
The little person appeared again. At this point he was our only contact with the restaurant. He was our handler. For all we knew, he may have been its sole employee. He placed a small pad and pencil on the table and said what I correctly guessed was “number.” We were to write the menu numbers that corresponded to the dishes we intended to order. Simple. Efficient.
After another wait my goat soup arrived, then the first wave of bread and complimentary (and complementary) shots of mango juice, then finally… the owner. She was a magnificently warm and friendly woman from Sri Lanka who brought her mother to Malden. Together they opened a restaurant. Hers is a sad and beautiful story (in the words of Jim Jarmusch, not Fellini), and when you visit S&S Market, she will share it with you.
More dishes arrived, one after another, some by mistake, others not. We didn’t mind that our meal didn’t match our order. I imagine I would eat and enjoy each of the more than one hundred menu items offered. In fact, I intend to do just that. I do not exaggerate when I say S&S Market/Briyani Park is easily the area’s best kept secret - its most hidden gem.
But I digress. I felt the urge today to work cardamom into our daily special. It was the string hopper uppuma from our Sunday lunch - a pilaf of dry roasted semolina and caramelized onion redolent of curry leaves and cardamom that reminded me. I haven’t used it in a while, and it’s high time I did.
As I await the publication of my new memoir, Childhood Including a Portion of my Teen Years in Southeast Asia, I can’t help but recall the humiliation I suffered as a monastery novice - or, as I prefer to call it, servant. Child labor laws might protect our young ones here, but where I spent much of my youth I prepared three daily meals for a bevy of monks, novices and adepts alike. “Hot noodles!” they would mercilessly scream. “Now!.” And nothing but the most steaming, delectable noodles would suffice, or I would face a host of verbal assaults and not so gentle tomfoolery. Fortunately, years of therapy have softened the collective blow, but the only vow I ever took at the monastery was to never prepare hot noodles again. Indeed, I followed a much different path, and my self-prescribed catharsis has been to champion the cold noodle. Following is one recipe I devised toward this end.
Trinity Cold Noodle Dressing
1 cup vegetable oil
½ cup rice wine vinegar
½ cup coconut milk
juice of 3 limes
1 Tbsp local honey
2 cups chopped cilantro
1 cup chopped mint
1 bunch basil, rough chopped
¼ cup chopped scallions
5 ea Thai bird chiles
3 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp salt
1 tsp grated ginger
- combine all ingredients in a blender and puree until smooth.
When I was in my second year of high school, my twin brother, P-Lo, and I were sent to live with our Auntie Seweryna, in Gdansk. She was a stern woman, as old as stale bread, and she ruled her tiny kitchen with an iron fist. Night after night after night, though he was just back from his shift at the shipyards, Seweryna would insist that P-Lo make supper for the three of us. As I remained in school, I was awarded favored nephew status, so my duties were relatively light. Our auntie’s specialty, among others, was pierogi, and before long P-Lo, himself, became a master in his own right. Lucky we were, today, at the restaurant, when P-Lo arrived unannounced and ready to pitch in. Our “Daily Catch” this evening, thanks to my brother, is hake with potato-chive pierogi, caramelized onion syrup and wilted pea greens. You now have about 4 hours to get it while it lasts.
I don’t know if y’all are familiar with this, but there’s this thing called Instagram. Apparently you attach it to your phone somehow and it takes pictures of food. One of our servers has one, I guess, and he sent these shots to me. Looks like my sous chefs have been busy coming up with fish specials behind my back. I guess my pedestal is so high I need better glasses to see what they’re up to.
Mark’s been begging me to showcase his work more often here, so this is his fish special today: pan-roasted striped bass with gingered carrot puree, wasabi glazed peas and scallion tempura. Just don’t try to hire him away from me. I know a guy.
For his homework assignment last night, I asked Mark to research quinoa and give a little presentation to our staff (along with the required essay). It’s part of a program I introduced at the restaurant called MultiCultural (or simply, MC) Hammertime. Through this initiative I hope to broaden my team’s awareness of how their actions affect the world around them. Apart from some spelling errors, Mark’s essay was rather impressive: thorough and fairly well structured, and it presented some cogent points; his presentation, free of the necessary pedantry of academia, had the room roaring with laughter, then sobbing in distress, such is his storytelling guile.
Did you know, for example, that quinoa is related to beets? Neither did I. And that it is the only single vegetarian source of a complete protein? I knew that one. Well, here’s one you might not know: Andean farmers in Bolivia, Peru and Chile who for generations survived on this “superfood” can no longer afford to eat it? It seems that the Whole Foods set has fallen so desperately in love with quinoa that the wholesale price has more than tripled. Of course it hasn’t been all bad for the growers, not at all. Quinoa has put their kids through college, or expanded the farmhouse. But cheap processed flour has replaced the health benefits of quinoa with the detriments of a processed food diet - diabetes, obesity and general malaise. Thank you Mark, you may sit down.
For his special today Mark prepare his quinoa in a simple manner, choosing to adorn it with a pan roasted striped bass, a tussle of wild arugula and a lovely bell pepper vinaigrette.
Several times a year I like to venture outside the hallowed halls of my restaurant to see how ordinary citizens go about their lives, much as Shakespeare’s Henry V walked incognito among his troops before battle, or Zeus might pay a visit to his Athenians in the form of a mere mortal or, perhaps, ball of twine. And when I do, I find it’s important to bring food and wine in order to avoid arrest on some bogus trespassing charge when it was really just a misunderstanding and I don’t know why she couldn’t see that in the first place.
So on one particularly snowy evening recently I, along with my faithful sidekick and now sous chef, Lindsey, plus Heather the Server, ventured into the wilds of Wellesley to meet some new folksy folks and make dinner. At first I challenged the homeowner to a throwdown, but was immediately contacted via social media by Food Network attorneys, so we had to settle for a meal instead.
What you see above is about half of the meal. Pea soup with white pepper mousse and shaved black forest ham; burrata over wild mushrooms and gnocchi; quail stuffed with carrot-rice pilaf served with spiced yogurt and carrot caramel; and beef cheek confit with fingerling potatoes, grilled spring vidalia and bordelaise. So keep your eyes (and carrots, hahahahahahaha) peeled, because maybe our next doorstep visit will be your own. (It also helps to bid vigorously and often at charity auctions.)
You know, there are three types of people in this world, and I’ve always been of the mind that you just can’t please ‘em all. You have the hot dog people, sometimes known as franks; you got the chorizo people; and then there’s the sweet Italian sausage types. Today I’m not afraid to admit that maybe I’ve been wrong. Maybe you can please ‘em all. Today, for our staff meal, Eddie embarked on an adventure unparalleled in the sheer audacity of his derring-do. Today, against all odds, Eddie set out to please ‘em all when he encased a slice of chorizo and a hot dog in a warm and cozy cocoon of sweet Italian sausage, and I think the world just became a little bit happier.
Today we hosted the Super Hunger Brunch at the restaurant benefiting the Greater Boston Food Bank, and if you were among the 6,587,492 Massachusetts residents who didn’t join us in the fight against hunger, then shame on you - unless, of course, you elected to partake at one of the other participating restaurants. Among other offerings, we featured a smoked salmon tartare with potato, dill aioli and pumpernickel crumbs; a breakfasty chopped salad replete with sausage, bacon, crispy potatoes and a maple vinaigrette; an oscar-style quiche with crab meat, asparagus tempura and Old Bay hollandaise; and a steak and eggs quesadilla. Hope to see you next year!
