"Bloody poop" anyone? The toilet aesthetic is nothing new in Asian restaurants. We have a post, from a few years back, about a toilet-themed restaurant where people actually sit on toilets at a table. Recently, Time magazine had an article about a Taiwanese restaurant chain that's opening up restaurants in China and other parts of Asia. Modern Toilet serves dishes, with names like "green dysentery," in toilet-shaped plates. Food is presented in the shape of excrement.
Modern Toilet interestingly combines the vulgar, the obscene, the scatological with the high-end. As the Time article states: "Every customer sits on a stylish acrylic toilet (lid down) designed with images of roses, seashells or Renaissance paintings." In this way, the restaurant is enticing patrons and receiving positive feedback. Jennifer Finch, an American who dined there, described the experience as tasteful and clean.
The cuisine is an eclectic mix of Asian foods, including curries, pasta, fried chicken and Mongolian hot pot. Patrons comment that despite the disgusting descriptions, the foods are great. Apparently, China's comfort with (and interest in) toilet creations beyond the bathroom are not new. Time points out that a flush toilet was found in a tomb of a Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C. to A.D. 24) king. The Chinese invented toilet paper in the 6th century! But, while toilet dining may be less shocking in Chinese culture, Westerners seem to be gravitating to these restaurants as well.
Asian cuisine has been pretty popular here in the U.S. for sometime. It seems to me that many Americans have become fairly agile with a pair of chopsticks. However, I know that not everyone is comfortable using two sticks to transport food from plate to mouth.
If you're one of the number who still struggle with the sticks, there's a new tool that can help you eat your Asian food without all the fuss. The Tukaani chopsticks were created by Finnish designer, Lincoln Kayiwa, and were modeled after the beak of a Toucan. The stainless steel utensil has the two 'sticks' connected by a ring twisted at one end.
The Tukaani chopsticks may be great for beginners, but I still think they're no substitute for learning how to use chopsticks properly. It may take some practice, but using chopsticks isn't so difficult to master that you'd need to use the Tukaani forever. What's your take on the Tukaani chopsticks?
So even Tom Colicchio has chimed in to call this season of Top Chef a "hard one to read" (aka mediocre), which means that either 1) I have low standards for television (possible), or 2) My television airs a secret, for-my-eyes-only awesome version of Top Chef that's full of crazy cooking and fun. I loved watching Restaurant Wars last night, and I'm still sticking to my belief that the show is as sharp as ever. Let's get into it.
I'm getting back in touch with my Asian side, all. It started with a little dig into my roots with bulgogi, and now, motivated by the Chinese New Year this weekend, I am going full force with a little lesson in Asian greens. There are so many greens and vegetables that originate in Asia that we could cover, but we're just picking and choosing ones that we see pop up in recipes more often than others.
Bamboo Shoots - These are so common, it seems odd to include them, as if they were "exotic" in some way. Bamboo shoots are the part of the bamboo grass that we eat, which are harvested before the bamboo gets too tall and tough to eat. Most commonly, bamboo shoots are canned, though it is available as fresh bamboo. If you buy fresh bamboo, it has to be cooked, as fresh bamboo is hard to digest. Bamboo shoots are often used as an ingredient in stir-fry dishes, like Beef and Bamboo Shoot Stirfry.
There's going to be a lot of rice cooking going on in the kitchen this weekend for Chinese New Year, and unless you've got the technique down to steam rice in a regular pot, you're better off using an electric rice cooker.
Rice cookers range from low to high-end, with prices going anywhere from $20 to over $100 for cookers that can be described with terms like "fuzzy logic," a technology by which the rice cooker can gauge temperature and type of rice to cook rice perfectly. However, the most sophisticated, luxurious rice cooker I have come across yet -- the Ferrari of rice cookers, if you will -- is the NJ-WS10 by Mitsubishi.
The machine is sleek and black, but it's not the design that makes it the ultimate rice cooking machine. The inner pot is 100% rock solid carbon, and though I have no idea what that means, I do know that it makes this rice cooker almost $1,000.
Quite a lump of change for the perfect bowl of rice!
If you're planning a fantastic Chinese feast this weekend for Chinese New Year, don't fret one bit if you're a little (or a lot) rusty with chopsticks. You could, of course, go the way of stabbing your dumplings and winding your noodles of long life with a fork, but we have a better idea. How about some chopsticks are a little easier to use?
Now, if you're a already a professional, then you might just need your own personal set of portable chopsticks. These aluminum chopsticks slide out of a fabric pouch and snap together. Not only are they pretty, but this keeps away the problem of disposable chopsticks creating waste! ThinkGeek also has a pair that screw together.
For an even more "green" Far East feast, the Bird's Eye Maple chopsticks are perfect, which are also fastened together with their very own chopstick rest. They are available from Porterhouse Crafts for $23 for two pairs.
If you're becoming more and more into Asian foods, or are new to Asian foods, then I've just come across a cool site that serves as a decent resource, www.asiafood.org. The site has recipes, links to other Asian food resources, feature articles as well as restaurant reviews (though they seem to focus only on a few sleect places like NYC). However, the greatest information is AsiaFood's glossary. It doesn't have pictures, and the definitions are brief, but for quick information, it seems to do the drink. For example, maybe you need to find out what gamboge is. Well, it's an acidic fruit from southern India and Sri Lanka!
AsiaFood's glossary helped me out a little today when I was trying to figure out what the heck grass jelly is.
Grains, beans, and other legumes make up a large part of the Asian diet. In fact, at the Korean market, entire aisles can be dedicated to beans alone. Koreans add beans to white rice, creating a "mixed" steamed rice. My mother did this a few times when we were kids because there are a lot of health benefits, but when we saw bowls of steamed rice tainted with giant red, purple, and black beans, we wouldn't touch it. She made two pots of rice every night after that. One with plain white rice, and one with a mixture.
Some of us may be familiar with adzuki beans after they have been cooked down to almost a paste. They beans are sweet and nutty, but they are made sweeter with the addition of sugar and honey and used as a filling in pastries like Japanese mochi and Korean dduk. Koreans also use the beans to make "jook," a sweet porridge.
With the Chinese New Year goings on around
the world this weekend, it's no better time to stock your kitchen with commonly used Asian ingredients both in the
pantry and in the refrigerator (right after you've purged it of all those
useless gadgets). A lot of Asian foods are healthy and delicious, so if you haven't done much Asian cooking at
home, let the new Year of the
Dog be the year you try it.
I do a lot of Asian cooking at home, so these are a few things I like to have on hand:
Soy sauce - I actually have a giant 1-gallon container in my refrigerator. Yes, keep soy
sauce in the refrigerator. Also, if you are wary of gluten or carbs, there is wheat in soy sauce (who knew?)
Sesame seeds - I have both regular and black sesame seeds. They taste the same to me, but the
black ones add some
contrast for presentation. However, there is a difference in taste between regular and toasted sesame
seeds. If you buy regular sesame seeds, toast them yourself in a dry pan over medium high heat.
Sesame oil - It's rarely used as a cooking oil, but rather, as a seasoning in
marinades or added to a dish like a condiment just before serving for its fragrance.
Rice - Short grain rice that is "sticky" when it is steamed.
Asian cuisine has been pretty popular here in the U.S. for sometime. It seems to me that many Americans have become fairly agile with a pair of chopsticks. However, I know that not everyone is comfortable using two sticks to transport food from plate to mouth. 
Spoilers! Really, what do you expect?
I'm getting back in touch with my Asian side, all. It started with a little 
There's going to be a lot of rice cooking going on in the kitchen this weekend for Chinese New Year, and unless you've got the technique down to steam rice in a regular pot, you're better off using an electric rice cooker. 
If you're becoming more and more into Asian foods, or are new to Asian foods, then I've just come across a cool site that serves as a decent resource, 
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