The experiments continue

Sorry about the lack of real cooking this week but rest assured the experiments are still taking place. What I've made here is a Nai Wong Bao (milk egg yolk bun). This ties with the lotus seed sesame balls for my favorite dim sum. The lotus seed ball shares the top place because of history. It's been my favorite dish ever since my first dim sum so it stays. This thing's got condensed milk, coconut milk, and egg yolks hence the name. The filling will be great as is wrapped into a yeast doughnut dough (like a Muchkin) and dipped into chocolate sauce (kinda like a Cadbury Easter egg). I was also thinking of a salty version, with salted duck eggs, like a yolk in the middle of a meat ball or like in the previous post inside a pot sticker.

While making more dough, I started to hate it. I think there might be too much gluten in it so after doing some internet reseach (ie. generously borrowing from Noodle Bar) I've broken down and bought some cake flour ($3.49 for 2 lbs, more than twice as expensive as all-purpose flour!!!). It's a balance between preferences. Rosy apparently hates chewing and I've never met anything I thought was too chewy.

On the business front, things are progressing a bit slower than I anticipated. We got our tax ID and a few things but I can't figure out for the life of me what type of mobile food vendor we'd be at a farmer's market. The farmer's market association isn't returning my calls or email so I think we have to resort to harrassing them at the market this Sunday. Wish us luck!!

I never thought I could be a fanboy, until last Saturday

I'm going off topic with this post, it's not really about the pig.

I generally have pretty low self esteem. Laugh all you want but it's true. Like today, when the barista offered to make a drink for the next person in line, before I could speak, the fat guy in a jersey next to me piped up. I just sulked and waited for the barista to finish. So when Chris Consentino of Incanto threw a bone to us, I giggled. I blushed. I did everything a grown man should not do. I told him how great he was in the San Francisco's episode of No Reservation then I shamelessly asked him for an autograph. Just as I was about to shoot my hand out to shake his, he, perhaps sensing a potential stalker was getting too confident with his prey, turned and talked to my friend. Well, an autograph, some comped appetizers and drinks are way better than nothing.

Suggestions for where to eat in SF from the chef himself. Sorry buddy, while your food is two thumbs up, Humphry Solocombe is NOT better than Bi-Rite Creamery. Jesus Juice is not a superstar.

Are we approachable?

Jerry and I had friends visiting from Laguna Beach this past weekend and two of the five visitors have never really experienced SF as a city. So, we decided to take them to our favorite SF haunts, which of course, include our favorite restaurants, cafes, and the like. We started with my family’s favorite dim sum restaurant in Chinatown-- named Golden Mountain.

The dim sum restaurant was exactly what you would expect from a traditional dim sum house--poor service but deliciously strange and strangely delicious food. In an effort not to scare our poor guests away, we decided not to order chicken feet or pig’s blood (normal fare for my family) but we did order pork buns, egg and lotus seed buns, beef and shrimp rice rolls, sui mai, shanghai dumplings, chive dumplings, sesame-seed balls, and squid with fish balls and pork skin. They did not take to the squid with fish balls, but we explained to them that the dish is normally much more well prepared--there was something a bit off about the curry sauce that day. (Although I’m sure that it wasn’t just the sauce that turned them off.)

As we were having brunch, my opinions about to making dim sum and other similar Chinese foods approachable to non-native eaters were pretty much confirmed. For those who have not had dim sum, it is usually the texture, names, and looks of things that turn them off. For instance, many dim sum items are a bit mushy, chewy, or stringy. And many items come in shapes not known in American food culture--such as the tear-drop shape of some dumplings and buns. Lastly, very few people find something labeled “pickled jelly-fish” appetizing. I think that “crunchy ocean salad” would be more winning as a name.

And as with most meals these days, I began thinking about how to improve the marketing of The Pig’s products. We’ve mostly gotten it right in terms of making the traditional Chinese bun into a pocket to allow for portability but also to mimic the beloved American sandwich, Mediterranean pita, and Mexican/Latin-American taco. Our bun would be a new flavor in a very familiar shape. But how would we also make the fillings approachable? We knew that kalbi beef short-ribs and fried chicken katsu would be a hit but would normal everyday people love or hate something called “pig-belly”? One thing for sure is the fact that lots of women (and men) are wary of eating something so fatty. So after much debate, we decided that braised pork shoulder might be a good exchange.

After all, we weren’t able to present the pig belly in its best form. All of the braising caused the fatty goodness to separate into clumps. It was still delicious, but not as pretty.

We also decided that adding a dessert item to the menu would be a good way to give people an end to their meal. Dessert is one crucial thing missing from dim sum that many non-native eaters crave. After we had cleaned through all of our tiny dishes, our friends asked, “Hey, what’s for dessert?” We had no response. Typically there is no dessert after a Chinese meal. Normally it ends with a slice of fruit and the bill.

Although we’ve not yet begun experimenting with our dessert bun, we’re thinking--mini versions of the buns fried (!) and injected with rich cream cheese and ricotta spiked with lemon zest and a tangy berry dipping sauce. Can’t wait for trials to begin! Stay tuned.

quick update

As you can see we've posted a tentative menu up. Rosy and I agree that the only thing we need on the menu before we're ready is a vegetarian pot sticker. Some things might change though due to the availablility of the ingredient. I've been getting the meatier part of the pork belly from the Ranch 99 dude, essentially cutting 1/3 off the thicker end piece of the slab of belly and he is none too pleased. In most cases I just fein ignorance when he starts protesting. Russell Peters has been my angel telling me to just "do the right tin" but I flick him away annoyingly and demand in english the cut I want. Even though all of this is playing out in my head, I assure you it's completely normal, for me. I suspect that this might not work for getting these bellies in any meanful quantity. So sad to say but I think I'm going to have to experiment with some Boston butts.

So Wednesday was my last day at the office. In order to keep me up on my feet and avoid getting hemorrhoids in the weeks to come, my dumpling skin rolling practice is due to start next week in addition to modifications in my bibimbap pot sticker recipe. The reason for the skin rolling practice is because Rosy and I went to a Shanghainese restaurant two days ago and I realized that store bought pot sticker skins are just not going to cut it. Their skin is light and crunchy, not merely a vessel. And on the tshirt front, I threw the sketch onto Photoshop and this is the result. Let me know what you think.