I Can't Smell the Tofu at Young Dong Tofu

Somewhere along my life, I started to fall in love with tofu. All those childhood myths where we grow up to find things previously disgusting to us enjoyable are true. I love my tofu, whether firm or silky. Needless to say Korean tofu houses are on my frequently visited list of places to eat. Young Dong Tofu happened to be very close to my house, and it also happened to be pretty good.

On this day, I was originally going to just stay home and eat. But my vegetarian friend Ko was in the mood for some Korean tofu. Apparently everyone else she normally goes to eat tofu with is sick of eating tofu except me. So I happily obliged. Like most Korean tofu houses in the area, the menu's on the disposable paper placemats. We just split a combination order of BBQ Beef with Mushroom tofu.

(Kimchi Octopus)

A huge part of my love for Korean tofu houses are their side dishes. No other cuisines would just throw a bunch of small little places of goodies on your table for no additional charge. Young Dong gave us their kimchi octopus, kimchi cucumbers, kimchi cabbage, sprouts, seaweed and green bean pancakes for free. I generally avoid the spicy stuff except the octopus tentacles. Something about those mushy and chewy strands of tentacles overcomes my fear of spiciness. Truth be told, the kimchi actually isn't overly spicy at Young Dong. A few small bites were actually manageable for me. Young dong mixes some vegetable strands along with the octopus.

(Kimchi Cucumbers)

Since I knew I was going to blog about this outing, I decided to at least take a sample of the other kimchi dishes on the table. The spiciness was again very tolerable if I only ate one or two. The cucumber slices were crunchy and fresh. The spiciness does actually help bring out the sweetness of the cucumber. I can see why people would love this. I just can't eat too much of it. I am very glad to have given this a try, cause I would actually take a slice or two from now on whenever I revisit Young Dong.

(Kimchi Cabbage)

I have never been a fan of kimchi cabbage. Unlike the cucumber, the spiciness doesn't bring out anything from within the cabbage. It's just plain spicy with a little crunch. It's just really not my thing. I suppose if all I had was this plate of kimchi cabbage, I would still be able to eat it. But every time I see something this red, it brings back memories of my younger days where my friends brought me to these super spicy restaurants where eating was just painful.

(Green Bean Pancakes)

I have always been a fan of the green bean pancakes. Generally speaking they are just slightly crispier than a western breakfast pancake. But today's green bean pancake was way more crunchier than usual which I found way more appealing. The crunchiness almost functioned like it was some dough goo that has been battered on the outside and deep fried. I don't think the pancake was deep fried, only pan fried with enough oil to make it a little crispier and crunchier than usual.

(Seaweed)

(Sprouts)

I should come as no surprise that I love the seaweed and the sprouts. After all these are the two dishes that actually are not spicy. I do however much prefer the sprouts than the seaweed. Most Korean tofu houses' seaweeds that I had sampled tend to be too sweet. Young Dong's aren't overtly sweet, but it's there. Since the last couple of years I started becoming weary of all things sweet, I found it more and more difficult to eat a ton of seaweed. So I much rather chomp down on the sprouts.

I could just eat this dish of sprouts all day long. I can't recall one time where I didn't have to ask for more. It's fresh and crunchy yet still cooked in a broth thoroughly. It's light in flavor, chilled and easy to eat in bulk. If my meal just ended here, I would be one hundred percent satisfied. Fine, I'm over-exaggerating. The point is I just love the way Young Dong cooked their sprouts. I just need to figure out what they actually did so I can do it at home.

(Stone Bowl Rice)

Young Dong like most Korean tofu houses around Los Angeles serve their rice in traditional stone bowls. The only problem with stone bowls in general that I have often experienced is peeling off the burnt rice sticking to the bowl. I enjoy a little bit of that every time, but it's always unpredictable how easy or difficult it would be to get the rice off. If only there was an iPhone app that would scan the bowl and tell me where the weak point of the rice sticking to the bowl is. Then life would be easy. Where is that easy button when I really need it.

(Mushroom Tofu - Mild Spiciness)

Finally the main course came. We've been having a great time with great conversation so far over the condiments. There is a raw egg we were given to crack and put right into the boiling bowl of tofu. This kept the egg from being overcooked if it was placed earlier. The egg whites blend very well with the tofu and I usually forget that there was an egg inside until I reached the egg yolk which I have never been a fan of. I am also a fan of mushrooms, but I have never found the mushrooms inside the mushroom tofu satisfying. This is mostly because there just isn't enough to really share. I don't mean this one time, I just mean in general. I need a lot of mushrooms to satisfy my taste buds. A few strands of golden needle mushrooms just won't cut it. That aside, the mild spiciness for the silky tofu was just perfect for me.

(BBQ Beef)

"Beef, it's what for dinner." Or lunch in this case. Every time I see a sizzling plate, I will always go back to my childhood memory of eating a sizzling plate steak in a specific restaurant in Hong Kong. I was infatuated. Though that novelty has long worn off, somewhere deep inside the child is still there ooo-ing and ahh-ing over the sound of steaming hot food.

I generally would choose the BBQ beef over the beef ribs. Most of this was just laziness, while the rest was not wanting to deal with the ligaments that's more difficult to chew and digest. The BBQ beef today was like it always had been, a little sweet, flavorful and juicy. There were plenty of onions to flavor the meat and the rest augmented the dish in presentation and taste. The beef itself was tender and easy to eat.  It's definitely one of my favorite dishes of sliced beef from any restaurant.

I do love tofu, but I can't resist having the rest of the offerings at Young Dong. It's not because the tofu there isn't good. It's because everything else there is also good. I couldn't stop eating the sprouts and the other condiments. The aroma of the BBQ beef doesn't help the case for the tofu. No matter how amazingly silky their tofu is, it's not going to win my nose over given what else is on the table. The only time I had ever smelled tofu enough to be lured to it is when it's firm, well-marinated and grilled. Even then it's the sauce that I'm smelling, not the tofu. There's just nothing I can do about it when I can't smell the tofu because everything else smells so much stronger. Our sense of smell is far stronger and addictive than our sense of sight. It's also why in the back of my mind, I never thought of tofu houses as tofu houses, but Korean BBQ joints that also serves tofu.

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Scavenger Hunt Potluck - Part I

It's not often that I could talk about dishes from multiple restaurants in one sitting, especially if these restaurants span the radius of twenty plus miles. Last Sunday night was one of my best friend Christine's big birthday bash. She had contemplated for a while where she would be dining with all her friends that night. But because there were over twenty guests many of which are rolling in at different times of the night, it was difficult for her to find a restaurant to accommodate the situation. Instead she decided to have each of her guest in leu of bringing a present, to bring a specific dish from a specific restaurant and have a potluck at her house instead. Well some of us brought a present anyways. She provided the drinks including alcohol and the utensils.

(Brodard Restaurant - Pork Spring Rolls In Dipping Sauce)

A little over a week before the party, she sent out a rather comprehensive list of a wide variety of dishes she wanted to have for the night. Thematically speaking the dishes didn't link together in the traditional sense. It was her birthday so the theme was literally anything the birthday girl wanted. It turned out to be a rather festive and fun way to have a dinning experience.

(Lunas Restaurant - Stuffed Mushrooms) 

The guests rolled in at various hours of the night mostly between 6pm and 8pm. Being one of her best friends, I was among first to arrive. I signed up for a dish that was local to where I live since I didn't want to drive somewhere far to pick up food and then return. Lunas Restaurant in San Gabriel was the closest restaurant to my home, and the item desired was the stuffed mushroom appetizer.

I called in and placed my order ahead of time. In fact I called in a week ago to make sure they were open on the 26th and also to confirm the price for the dish. Christine tried to get all the dishes to be around $25 so that we would all spend about the same amount. But of course nothing in life is truly fair. My mushrooms were slightly over $30. Nevertheless I told the woman on the phone that I would pick up the order in thirty minutes. I was on time. Being an actor had made me punctual for the most part. When I arrived thirty minutes after the call, the woman on the phone was there at the podium and my order was ready. It's always great to have my orders ready on time. The woman, who was probably the owner, was happy that I was right on time to pick it up and pay for it.

(To Go Boxes)

We decided to put all the food onto nice serving plates. The key to making a potluck buffet look, feel and taste less like a potluck was to have the food served on fine china. It instantly made the meal felt more elegant and expensive. The food were not the cheapest around to begin with, so eating them out of the box would simply have cheapen the experience and do the food injustice.

The mushrooms came with rice, chips and salsa. The drawback to this kind of potluck was that the foods weren't at their hottest when they were served since there was a lag time for takeout. Despite that, the mushrooms were still very appetizing at room temperature. The portion at Lunas was generous; three orders were enough to appease the entire group. The mushrooms were creamy, juicy and popping with flavors. It certainly would have been better if they were hotter, but that's the tradeoff in having a potluck style buffet with foods from across the county and beyond.

(California Pizza Kitchen - Spinach Artichoke Dip & Hummus)

It was still early so only a few other dishes had arrived, among them were the spinach and artichoke dip and hummus and pita bread from California Pizza Kitchen. Christine actually only asked for the spinach and artichoke dip so the hummus was actually a bonus, and a delightful one. Personally I much prefer hummus and pita over chips with spinach and artichoke dip. Especially in a potluck situation, hummus is great at room temperature; I prefer really hot spinach and artichoke dip. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad at room temperature, I just have a strong preference on the temperature on this dip. Generally when I eat this at a restaurant, I loose interest after the first ten minutes once the dip is no longer hot. The pita bread was also nice and soft and was just the perfect carbs to have at a mostly carb-less potluck.

(Ruen Pair Restaurant - House Special Raw Blue Crab Papaya Salad)

Next was an amazing house special raw blue crab papaya salad from Ruen Pair Restaurant in Hollywood. I had actually never heard of this Thai restaurant. But then there were so many amazing little places in Los Angeles, it wasn't a surprise that I didn't know. The salad was provided in a few separate boxes to keep the salad from getting soggy, so we had to toss it ourselves. This dish was beautifully balanced. It actually has been a very long time since I had blue crab as it's not readily available at most local markets in Los Angeles. I much prefer blue crabs then dungeon crab. But this was the first time I had them raw and they were devine. The meat just melted in my mouth as it was sucked out of the shell. The sweetness of the crab mixed elegantly with the lightly spiced papaya salad, a perfect combination.

(Brodard Restaurant - Pork Spring Rolls)

(Brodard Restaurant - Pork Spring Rolls Dip)

The last couple of weeks, I've had a ton of spring rolls at various parties. I am a big fan of spring rolls and I can eat a ton of them in one night. They were generally light and leaned on the healthier side of the food spectrum. Of course I refrained myself from gorging down spring rolls at this party because I wanted to eat everything else. I was just happy to be having spring rolls from a restaurant I had never tried. I was told beforehand that the spring rolls from Brodard Restaurant were the best. After trying them, these spring rolls were the best only because the sauce was amazing. The spring rolls themselves were good and well made but not the best if they stood alone.

Although it may not be the most environmentally friendly practice to wrap each individual spring roll in plastic wrap, it was necessary to keep the rolls from sticking to one another. The rolls were wrapped with pork and crispy egg roll skin inside along with a few other condiments. Personally I much prefer rice noodle and shrimp in my rolls, but these were still very delicious. The sauce was what made the big difference. It was a lightly sweetened tomato based medium thick sauce with egg flowers in it. When the rolls were smothered with the sauce, the complexity between the juicy sauce, the elastic tapioca skin, the chewy pork and the crunchy egg roll skin made a beautiful little symphony of textures inside my mouth. These were definitely fantastically fun spring rolls to have at a party.

(Blair's Restaurant - Truffled Mac & Cheese)

(Blair's Restaurant - Bread and Butter)

The final piece to the appetizer menu of the evening was the truffled mac and cheese from Blair's Restaurant. The portion was very small so I tried not to take too much and give everyone else a chance to try it. When the box with the mac and cheese was first opened, the aroma of the truffles came whooshing out. That by itself was well worth the money. Of course as the mac and cheese sat and cooled down, it was hard to smell the fragrant of the truffles. That is really the only reason to get this dish, without which it's just good mac and cheese. But good mac and cheese is still just mac and cheese. The truth is if you can't smell the truffles anymore, it's not much of a party.

Continue to Part II...

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Cold House; Hot Pot - Easy Meal For A Lazy Day

It's cold outside and it's cold inside. It's just plain cold right now. When it's cold, it's time to bring out the hot pot, also known at a lot of places as Shabu Shabu. Not only is it a convenient way to cook with very little prep time, it also serves as a heater for my chilly dinning room.

It's very simple to prepare. We have a half and half pot. A lot of people do a spicy and a non-spicy soup. We instead did a tomato and non-tomato soup instead. Unlike a lot of fancy restaurants, we don't do anything fancy to the soup base, just water and salt. On one side we threw in a bunch of tomatoes right away so they would be boiled to smithereens to flavor the soup. The other side we just left it natural and let the food we add eventually flavor the soup. We just prefer it this way. By the end of the meal the soup would be way pretty rich with just a plain water base so it's not absolutely necessary to make the soup so fancy to begin with. It could add to the taste if you prefer a specific flavoring.

(Half and Half Hot Pot)

With hot pot, we can add all the things we want or just a very few items. It's almost like a left over casserole except with using a bunch of random raw meats and veggies. It's pretty inexpensive and makes the dinning experience just a bit more fun. It also forces you to actually sit at the table a little longer and get some conversations going since you have to be there to cook your own foods.

(Raw Beef and Chicken)

We always have a plate of raw beef to add to the soup. Beef cooks extremely fast and is just perfect with hot pot. Chicken is good too, but it's much harder to control in the cooking cause it can get overcooked rather easily. We don't get the expensive Shabu Shabu meat that's thinly cut by machines. Yeah those do cook easier but they do also cost a lot more. Instead we thinly cut the beef by hand, marinate it with some soy sauce and some cornstarch. The chicken was also thinly sliced by hand and marinated with salt and a tad bit of cornstarch.

(Seafood and Tofu)

We also got some other items to add to the pot. We got shrimp, one of my family's favorite, squids, sea cucumbers, fried tofu and normal tofu plus a few different veggies. Shrimp is a common thing to add to a hot pot, but I'm just not a fan of boiled shrimp. It just doesn't do it for me. Yes, it taste still pretty good when you dip them in a chilly peppered soy sauce, but I'm just not a fan. This is totally a personal preference though. Squids are good for hot pots, the small ones at least. They were very fresh and had a crunch in them. Dip them in a bit of satay sauce with soy sauce and it's just perfect.

With the sea cucumber, we had a bunch of them soaked in water to get them soft before actually putting them in the hot pot. It takes a long time to prep sea cucumbers and this was actually our first time giving this a try. It really shouldn't be used in a hot pot. Sea cucumbers really have no taste of their own, just a jelly texture. It absorbs the flavors of whatever else it's cooked in. Because of this, especially towards the beginning of the hot pot meal when the soup is still very light in taste, the sea cucumber pretty much had no taste to them. Even in the end, the soup is just not thick enough as a way to add real flavor to the sea cucumbers.

I love tofu. I love the deep fried tofu and the normal tofu. No hot pot would be complete without it. I normally prefer having both the fried tofu as well as silky tofu. With the fried tofu, the soup is absorbed into the tofu because it's pretty hollow on the inside. So you'd have to be very careful when eating them as to void burning your tongue. I prefer the really silky tofu for the texture. I like it sliding like silk in my mouth. But that also can lead to burning of your throat if you're not careful. Some people like firmer tofu.  We had both tonight. Firm tofu is nice when it's cooked long enough to really absorb the flavor of the soup. We ended up with some cheap tofu so it wasn't as silky as it could be. But it was still good.

We had a bit of veggies on the side and udon for carbs. We switch it up between udon, rice noodles and various cuts of vermicelli noodles at hot pot. As with veggies, just grab your favorite kinds of veggies from the market and cook them. You really can't go too wrong with most vegetables. The only thing to consider is if you get veggies that are more fragrant than others that some of your diners may not like. I say eat what you like and avoid what you don't. For the most part it really doesn't matter.

No hot pot would be complete without seasoning. The easiest to make at home would be adding soy sauce to Chinese barbecue sauce, which is also known as satay sauce. But there's a lot of other variations that is commonly done. You can add sesame sauce, sesame oil, peanut butter sauce, peanut butter oil, vinegar, fish sauce, hoisin sauce and pretty much any other sauce you can find in the Chinese market. you could theoretically use anything if you like the taste. One thing that used to be done a lot is to mix all this sauce with a raw egg. Then you would dip your cooked meat and veggies into the egg sauce, pull it out and then eat it. It cools down the meat and keeps your mouth from being burnt. This actually taste very good, but a lot of people stopped doing this because of salmonella scare.

For me, hot pot can be as lavish as you want or as simple and easy as you like. I've had hot pot with crab, live shrimp still jumping around, peeing shrimp, all sorts of different kinds of fish, an assortments of fish and meat balls, a huge range of vegetables and mushrooms, goose intestines, tons of different cuts of meats, Japanese fishcake and pretty much anything you can find in a Chinese supermarket. I've enjoyed it with upwards of thirty or so people at a church function and as few as three people at home many times in the past. It's one of those meals that can't really go wrong no matter what you do. It's just putting the food in the boiling water; take them out when they look cooked; eat. If you're afraid of germs, you can use separate chopsticks to cook with and to eat with. Oh yeah, you do need to learn to use chopsticks if you want to be effective with a hot pot meal. Forks just isn't going to cut it.

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Quick get-together: It's not rocket science

It doesn't take much to put a little gathering together. I'm still growing as a cook and I still have a lot to learn. But I am good enough to get my friends to actually eat what I make. I'm one of those cooks who cook from instinct. I seriously do not even know where the measuring cups are at my house. When my friends asks me for my recipes, I can list the ingredients, but I can't tell you how much of what I've put in. I just "feel" it.

Last weekend a few of my friends got together for a potluck. I made a red and green bean dessert soup. It turned out rather well. It was even better the next day after it was chilled in the fridge overnight. I'll blog about this specifically with the recipe later. During the potluck, we decided to get together again this weekend. But it turned out that I couldn't make it this weekend after all so I pushed it up by one day, to today. I was totally unprepared and hadn't any clue what I was going to make.

My original plan was me spending most of the afternoon figuring out what I'm going to make, but that was cut short when I got a last minute audition notice late last night for today. I was off in Studio City in the afternoon and didn't get back until 5pm. I had two hours to get food on the table so I resorted to what  I knew how to make, hamburgers.

(Bruschetta)

But I didn't want to make hamburgers for the actual meal. It didn't feel right for the holidays. I just wanted to make the patties but present them in a different way. So I got a roll of sourdough bread to make mini-burgers. I also had to keep in mind that one of my friend is a vegetarian so I had to make a version without the meat. I had tomatoes and an onion in my fridge. I defrost the two sticks of ground beef by placing them in a bucket of warm water. This is a much better way to quickly defrost something instead of using the microwave.

After prepping everything, my vegetarian friend arrived and saw what I was doing and asked if I was making Bruschetta. I had no idea what that was, but apparently it's exactly what I'm making. Mix some diced tomatoes with diced onions, add some Italian spices, black pepper and olive oil. Serve them over a slice of bread and voila; bruschetta. I did toast the butter spread bread first in the oven. As it turned a little golden, I topped each slice with some of the tomatoes and onions. I didn't want those toasted too long turning the vegetables into mush, but just enough so that it doesn't feel raw. Put a bottle of wine next to it and it turned out to be a classy appetizer. The best part; it only took fifteen minutes to make.

(Baked Mini Half Burgers)

Then I made my baked mini half burgers. The ground beef was premixed with paprika, italian spices, creole mix, steak mix, olive oil, black pepper, eggs, onions and a little bit of rum. I sometimes add or subtract some of the spices depending on what my mood is. Yes, I am a moody cook. I would also substitute the rum with bourbon or whiskey or beer depending on what I happen to have or what I feel like. I do think adding a little bit of alcohol to the patties enhances the beef, giving it a slightly nicer aroma on the palette. Once it's mixed in for a little while, I take out little chunks and put them on each slice of the bread. I used sour dough, which I much prefer over baguettes. After baking it till the meat looked cooked, I topped it with a little bit of the tomatoes and onions and baked it just a little longer. Another very simple to make finger food.

(Oven-Baked Meatballs)

I had a lot more meat then I had bread. So I decided to just bake the rest of the meat in a meatball format. I'm a firm believer of just making do and making it work. I said this long before Tim Gunn started saying this on Project Runway. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Unwittingly I turned what would have been one dish into three different appetizer. All I really needed to do is add a little slice of pineapple under each meatball and it would really have been a totally different dish: well, next time. I baked the meatballs with the onions and tomatoes, so the flavors mixed in more with the meatballs rather than just topped with the burgers. It felt and tasted slightly different. My friends had to double check with me if the meatballs were the same as the mini burgers. So it wasn't too obvious. I didn't intend to make three dishes really, it just turned out this way.

(Harvest Veggie Udon Soup)

The main dish for the night was a veggie soup. I did this a month ago at another small gathering with my friends. I threw in some tomatoes as the base with some wild corn. My friend Mai brought some veggies over. I had no idea what she was going to bring beforehand, but I trusted it would be great. She brought bok choy, mushrooms and tofu. We just threw it all into the pot with a little bit of salt and let it do its thing. It did its thing. We added a little udon to it at the end to get a little bit of carbs into the meal. It was a healthy and light soup, and all those veggies made it very flavorful. Having friends bring over their favorite vegetables and just throwing it all into a pot feels good. It's like a communal effort and it can't really go wrong. It's also something that you can over eat just a little without feeling like you just cost yourself an entire week of working out at the gym.

(Bellagio Hot Sipping Chocolate)

We had a bottle of Artis Italian sparkling wine and a bottle of german Riesling with the meal. The meal was light so having lighter white wines were perfect for this easy and simple evening. For me, it's that simple. A few friends, some simple but delicious foods and a glass of wine makes a perfect evening. But being the holiday season, I finished the night by serving all my friends a serious cup of hot chocolate. These are not your generic Carnation/Swiss/Nestle hot cocoa. I used Bellagio Sipping Chocolate instead. I did add a little creamer since I didn't have milk and a little whip cream so it's not too rich. Not everyone can handle real sipping chocolate. Personally if it was just me, I would add a few extra teaspoons of sipping chocolate with some whole milk. But not everyone can handle the bitterness so I kept it more mainstream for everyone.

(Bellagio Sipping Chocolate)

For me, it's really easy to just throw something together. It doesn't need to always be super fancy. It just needs to be real and honest. What you have in your fridge or can easily get at the grocery store can really go a long way. Keep everything light and just let the food speak for themselves. It will do its magic and a great evening is born. A quick get-together is really just an hour or two away.

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