Seattle Chinese Community Girls Drill Team

Sometimes you're in the mood for a very specific meal, but nothing you can find on a restaurant menu comes close to matching what you want. So it is at the moment with me and Chinese food.

What I want is an authentic, South Seattle-style home-cooked dinner, like I used to get on Monday nights when I was growing up. I've never really found anything quite like it in a restaurant.

You have to make it yourself. My favorite reference for this is "Flavors Of China" by the Chinese Parents Service Organization, which contains favorite recipes from a large number of local families. Proceeds benefit the Seattle Chinese Community Girls Drill Team.

Here are my quickie versions of three excellent examples of the book's comfort food:

Chinese "Meatloaf"

1 pound fresh ground pork
1-2 Chinese sausages
4-5 canned water chestnuts
1 egg
soy sauce (optional)

Slice sausage lengthwise into 3-4 strips, then dice; the sausage is important, it has to be the dark red, 50% fat kind, or the dish doesn't work. Finely chop water chestnuts. Mix all ingredients together -- the only good way to do this is to squeeze it all together with your hands! Form into a cake in a shallow, oven-safe dish. Bake at 400 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until juices runs clear (you can also steam it on the stovetop for 40 min.). Serve over rice (spoon the juice onto the rice).

Steamed Eggs

5 eggs
Sliced beef (optional)
Soy sauce (optional)

Beat eggs well. Then slowly mix in 1 to 1-1/2 cups of water. Pour into shallow oven safe-dish. Add sliced beef if desired. Steam on a rack in a covered skillet of boiling water for 40-45 minutes; watch water to make sure it doesn't boil off. Serve over rice. Note: My grandfather got the eggs to come out of the oven glassy-smooth on top; I am unable to replicate this feat, as you will be too.

Barbecued Pork

Boneless pork ribs (should have some fat; 'Boston' style works best)
Hoisin sauce
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce
garlic, finely chopped, to taste
hot mustard and sesame seeds (optional)

This is ridiculously easy, and they charge you a million bucks for it when ordering take out.
Do this the night before. Lay out a rib left to right. Hold a chef's knife in your right hand, pointed to 10 o'clock, and make diagonal cuts about a 1/2 inch deep into the rib every 1-1/2 to 2 inches. Flip the rib over horizontally and repeat the slicing. Each rib should have the cuts angled in opposite directions on opposite sides.
In a big bowl, mix sugar, soy sauce and garlic with enough hoisin to make a marinade for the ribs. Place ribs in marinade and cover with plastic. Leave overnight so it can work its magic.
The next day. Put an inch of water in a large baking pan and put a rack over it. Remove ribs from marinade, shake off excess sauce and place on rack, twisting each rib enough to open the cuts a little (this also creates little points that get crispy in the oven).
Bake at 400 degrees; as the ribs roast, the juices will drip into the water instead of burning and filling your kitchen with smoke. Turn, and brush on more hoisin every 15-20 minutes. Cooking time varies according to how thick the ribs are -- but you'll know when they're done. Keep an eye on it, and do your best to resist breaking off the crispy bits to 'test it.' Slice and serve with the mustard and sesame seeds.

These are just three examples from this thick volume! I'm not sure if the book is still being produced; I got mine at a garage sale. It has an orange cover with a plastic comb binding.

Thai Civil War

The reality of many restaurants with ethnic menus is that a lot of the dishes are variations on a core of basic ingredients. The exceptional restaurant knows how to take those basics and vary them in interesting ways. The standard restaurant fails to innovate and just exists in time and space.

A prime example of this contrast is currently on display in a little Thai civil war going on near Pioneer Square. In one corner: upstart Thai 65 (93 Marion, $7.50-$9.50). In the other corner, your returning champion, cube worker fave Mae Phim (94 Columbia, everything $5.99).

These establishments are on opposite sides of the venerable Colman Building (which also houses the two Irish pubs Fadó and Owl & Thistle -- Fadó on First Avenue, Owl on the Post Alley side).

The basic ingredient set for Thai food is rice noodles, the sweet sauce, chilis, a vegetable assortment, meat or tofu, coconut milk (when called for), and BASIL.

Yet in terms of the final product Thai 65 and Mae Phim are light years apart.

Mae Phim (foam takeouts)

I've had a few dishes from Mae Phim (but not the soup), and what stands out is that nothing stands out. It all tastes the same -- and not in a good way. The way it's supposed to taste is stir-fried, but the way Mae Phim does it, it comes out tasting braised.

That is: simmered. As a result the flavor lacks the desired taste accompaniment to the sizzle you hear when Thai food is cooked right.

Other quibbles: too much coconut milk transforms braised into bland; small portions on top of a big pile of rice fools you into thinking you're getting more.

And perhaps the biggest sin -- not spicy enough. On the familiar 1-to-5 stars of Thai hotness, 3 is usually on the fence between medium-hot and almost-too-much. Mae Phim's 3 stars is a 1 everywhere else.

Thai 65 (paper takeouts)

On the other hand, Thai 65 is everything Mae Phim is not (and never was). Take a bite of cashew chicken or kra pao and and there it is -- the stir-fry zip and noticeable differentiation of flavors, even though you know both contain many of those same basic ingredients. The flavors are wok-fresh, whereas Mae Phim smacks of pre-cooking.

Especially good is the orange chicken -- not just sliced chicken in syrup, but breaded white meat, delicately soft on the outside, not hard and crusty. The orange sauce does not overpower.

Finally, a tip: Thai 65's hotness scale has a 1 handicap; a 3 is what every other Thai place calls a 4. So be warned.

Mae Phim est mort. Vive le Thai 65.

"We don't have those"...

...the waiter at Olive You (Greenwood) said to me, at 11am on a Saturday morning, in response to my request, Hi, I just wanted to stop in for an omelet.

It's on the menu posted out front, I replied to his reply.

"Oh, we stopped doing that a while ago," he said, lackadaisically.

No omelets? This is a Greek restaurant?

"Yes."

That’s open for brunch?

"That’s right."

Then it’s the strangest Greek restaurant I’ll never eat in.*



* I don't count the time we went in to Olive You for take out. It was during their first month in existence. We chatted with the owner, and before you could say avgolemono he had talked us into homemade dolmathes, marinated peppers, calimari and olives for a cool $45. Apparently the only thing we didn't get was the undercoating.

A brief affair

Well that was over quickly. For a while, things were going hot and heavy between people in my office and Jimmy John's (Downtown, Pioneer Square), a variation on the Subway/Quiznos formula.

A coworker came back from lunch one day raving about a new sandwich place, and shortly thereafter everybody in the office was Jimmy John's this / Jimmy John's that.

One must admit that Jimmy John's operation is built for convenience and speed. You order at the register, and there's no tedious relaying of information to the sandwich making line, because the first station is right at the cashier's elbow. Your order is already halfway done by the time you finish paying, and when you get to the pickup spot, it is done.

One time I could swear a time paradox occurred, and the sandwich was ready before I ordered.

All sandwiches come on fresh, chewy bread, and they'll make any of the 8-inch subs in a "Slim" version, basic meat and/or cheese only.

They even do free & friendly delivery, which is great for when you're on a gawd-awful deadline.

The thing is -- they only have one-and-a-half good things on the menu for under $5: The Vito, and it's lighter version, the Slim #5. The Vito is an Italian-style sub with salami, cheese, and oil-vinegar dressing, and hot peppers on request. It's good, and it's the only thing on the menu I ever seemed to order.

The love affair ended when I tried the other 8-inch subs. The roast beef, the turkey, the ham, the tuna -- all disappoint in the skimpiness of their contents.

One-hit wonders go away for a reason. Today, no one at work goes to Jimmy John's.

Reuben From Space

Warm pickled cabbage. Why would anyone want to eat anything that sounded like warm pickled cabbage?

Yet in the guise of sauerkraut it is a major ingredient in the reuben sandwich, one of my favorite diner/cafe items, and it has been my quest to try every reuben in Seattle.

It's very difficult to do a reuben badly. Can you grill corned beef? Do you have cheese? Then put it on rye bread with thousand island and the aforementioned sauerkraut. Butter the outside, grill that. By then the cheese is melted, and you're done. Cut in half and serve.

That said, it is therefore not only amazing that Chez Dominique (West Edge) does a bad reuben, but just how badly they do it.

Who makes the Chez Dominique reuben, an obsessive-compulsive engineer? Maybe one formerly employed in the German automotive industry? Who was fired for being too precise?

Because the Chez Dominique reuben is efficiently compact, all the edges are parallel inside and out, all the angles 90 degrees.

It is a reuben they might package for NASA, or any environment where you don't want crumbs floating off and getting into the space station equipment. This reuben is fully ISO9000 compliant.

Certainly some space-age system was used to heat, barely, the corned beef. It did not taste or appear grilled or fried. Maybe it was synthesized in a replicator.

The slice of white 'cheese' was also perfectly square even though slightly melted. It tasted... Swiss-y. I'm sure it will come in handy to seal hull breaches and spacesuit punctures. Or reattaching heat shield tiles.

The rye bread was dry on the outside, but toasted using some process that did not involve browning.

At least the sauerkraut was good.

All in all, I'd have to say the Chez Dominique reuben is bland, unimaginative, and fails to impart any joy when consumed. But it is perfect for tucking into your kid's jet pack for lunchtime at the space academy.