Burmese Delight

A restaurant with ‘superstar’ in their name. Well, they certainly know what they’re doing. Nestled in an unassuming corner of the Inner Richmond district of San Francisco, Burma Superstar is a gastronomic delight.

I had been told by fellow foodie friends that their salads were absolute must-haves. But when the tea-leaf salad arrived, I looked at it with the usual skepticism, “it looks like any other salad, colorful, but still a salad.”

But then I tried the salad. Suffice to say, I will look at certain salads very differently. A combination of crispy romaine lettuce, dried shrimp and tea-leaves plus crunchy texture courtesy fried yellow beans and peanuts, it’s the perfect first course.

Moving on, up next was Burmese take on chowder – Moh Hinga. But instead of clams, it was a spicy noodle soup of catfish, onions, cilantro seasoned perfectly with chili paste.

The chicken noodles – Nan Pia Dok – was a lot like flat, Thai noodles. Tasty stuff.

But the star of the wonderful meal, was the pork curry. The simplest pork curries are the best. And this was no exception. Slow cooked, in a rich, spicy, thick curry with potatoes, with pickled mangoes providing the right tang. Best had with the accompanying coconut rice.

Home away

Recommended by a friend, I already had hight hopes from Pam’s Kitchen. And they didn’t disappoint. Far from it actually.

I went to the their University District location. This place serves delicious Caribbean food from within their colorful interiors.

We ordered chicken curry with dahlpuri. If you’re a Bengali, here’s the kicker. Their dahlpuri is closest to the authentic Bengali version (ডালপুরি) that I’ve come across outside of Bengal. And the chicken curry was just perfect. Not too spicy or oily, just how it’s likely to be made at home. Oh and did I mention the side of potatoes, that was reminiscent of the potatoes served with kachoris back in India. Overall, you can’t go wrong with the dahlpuri-chicken combination. Maybe the goat curry can go one better. Will have to try that the next time.
I had also ordered the sorrel, a cold non-alcoholic drink flavored with hibiscus petals. The sort of drink that reminds you of the Caribbean beaches.

We had what was very much like a hot pocket. Soft, freshly baked bread. The inside hollowed out and filled with jerk chicken. Of course, no Caribbean meal is complete without jerk chicken. This was one of the best jerk chicken I’ve had. Definitely worth a try. Like all great food, it tasted even better when we warmed up the leftovers later that night.
If you’re around Seattle, don’t miss Pam’s Kitchen.

Of Kings…

Like many other food fanatics, there’re plenty of restaurants and food carts the world over that I can, and regularly do, swear by.
But Nizam is something else. Going to Nizam for me is more of a ritual, which needs to be undertaken every so often, to refresh the taste buds, to retell oneself how good a simple kati roll can be. Why this obsession with Nizam – not least because they are acknowledged as the first store to have given the ubiquitous kati rolls its present form, but because there’s magic in their kitchen. The early 20th century red brick building, the dust and grime of old Kolkata that seems to have stalled in time and old, secret recipes for the most succulent, delicious kebabs you’ll ever get to have.

Kati roll – chicken or mutton, or sometimes both, that’s all I ever get at Nizam. Paranthas, laced with beaten eggs, fried precisely right to golden crispiness, plenty of delectable chicken or mutton kebab stuffing, a sprinkling of raw, sliced onions and green chillies – and voilà, you have a culinary masterpiece. Magic truly lies in the simplicity.

I’ve been told that Nizam is expanding nowadays. But as long as the original store exists, behind New Market, on Hogg Street, I don’t think I can bring myself to go to any of their other locations.
I’ve been also told, that they do a mean biryani as well several other Mughlai delicacies. I wouldn’t put it past the sorcerers in charge of Nizam’s kitchen to fail at anything, but Nizam for me shall always be synonymous with kati rolls, nothing more, and nothing less.

Postres

It’s late on a Friday night. You’ve just enjoyed a good dinner at one of Portland’s numerous offerings. But now if you feel the urge for something sweet, where do you go?
You could do worse than hitting up Pambiche – a small Cuban restaurant, serving up some of the most decadent desserts in Rose City.
Their food and especially their cocktails rightfully deserve their own post, but this is just I waxing eloquent about their postres.

Take your pick from Domino, an infusion of white chocolate mocha, Kahlua, espresso and smooth chocolate ganache.

Or, if you like coconut in your dessert (like I do), go for the Selva Negra, where tart passion fruit mousse dovetails perfectly with the sweetness of chocolate coconut cake. And it comes with dark chocolate cigrillos. What’s not to love!

If you’re the sort whose vision of Cuba includes smoking a fat, Cuban cigar, but don’t care too much about tobacco, Pambiche has you covered. Go for their trademark Cuban Cigar and enjoy the decadence of rum filled truffle cake, shaped like a cigar, wrapped in dark chocolate and cocoa. The delightful presentation is complete with a strawberry daiquiri salsa and coconut macaroons.

Order some of their excellent, 10+ year old rum and enjoy your dessert while Cuban folk songs play in the background.
Beyond these ones that I’ve tried and enjoyed myself, there lies a world of other delicious, flavorful desserts. The only way to do justice is to devour them yourself.

Continental Cuisine – Part 2

From the cassoulet and ice cream of the French capital, I headed to Rome. Rome (and Italy in general as far as I could tell) really live up to their reputation of delicious, yet simple, pasta and pizza, all accompanied by excellent wine.
Make sure to try cacio e pepe when you’re in Italy. It’s the simplest of all pasta dishes – essentially spaghetti with black peppers and cheese, preferably Pecorino Romano. And you’ll never go wrong with a spaghetti carbonara.

The Italian pizza by default comes in a thin crust variety and is usually eaten with knife and fork, which took me a while to get used to.

A day trip to Napoli took me to a 140+ years old pizza store, L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele.
The photos on the wall bear witness to the who’s who of the clientele to have enjoyed pizza here, from Julia Roberts (while shooting for Eat, Pray, Love) to the god of Napoli, Diego Maradona. They make only two types of pizza – margherita and marinara – but they’re some of the best traditional Neapolitan pizza you’ll ever have. The slightly burnt bottom, the runny center, all make for a delicious meal. They’re always crowded though, so prepare to wait or opt for take out (as I did).

A dessert store helped pack me enough goodies for the train ride back to Rome.

Talking of desserts, did I mention the perfect tiramisu I had at Rome? Not a huge tiramisu fan myself, but this was the perfect balance of taste and texture.

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And finally after two weeks of travel, I was on to my final destination, Madrid.
The gastronomical exploration at Madrid only helped reinforce the high regard with which I held Spanish cuisine.
There were of course the excellent tapas, diverse and tasty,
from the adventurous black pudding

to the more traditional steak.

Then there was the best bar food I’ve had, huevos fritos con patata y chorizo or scrambled eggs with perfectly fried potatoes and spicy chorizo. Of course this is accompanied by wine or wine based cocktails.

Having soaked in museums, art works, tourist hotspots and the ilk over the past two weeks, I spent most of my time at Madrid sitting in public squares (and there are many of them in the Spanish capital), people watching, all the while sipping on delicious sangria or tinto de verano – red wine with some kind of carbonated soda – and munching on lightly fried green peppers.

But the highlights were undoubtedly Mercado de San Miguel and Restaurante Sobrino de Botin.
First to the market. Mercado de San Miguel is a sort of market that also doubles up as the eatery. While there’s fresh produce on sale, there’re more stalls selling roadside food and drinks. And the options are endless. From varieties of paella to all kinds of seafood and of course, ham!



My favorites were gulas – delicious baby eels – and paella cooked in octopus ink (the latter mostly because of the novelty factor)

Restaurante Sobrino de Botin is, as per Wikipedia and numerous unmistakable signs posted throughout the establishment, the oldest restaurant in the world to have been housed throughout in the same location. They’ve been here since 1725, that’s almost four hundred years, older than the city I grew up in by about hundred. It’s age itself makes it a must visit place. But the food is great too. Their specialty is the roasted suckling pig – full baby pig cooked to perfection, the crispy skin providing a wonderful texture to the flavorful meat inside.

It would be criminal to depart Madrid without trying out chocolate con churros – a fried dough pastry dipped in rich, thick, delicious hot chocolate. And by most opinions one of the best places to enjoy this decadence is Chocolateria San Gines, a hundred year old (famous restaurants in Europe tend to be a tad old, but you’ve got that by now) establishment that’s open 24 hours every day, making sure there’s no reason for you to not drop by.

Continental Cuisine – Part 1

I didn’t really decide on my destinations based on the cuisine they offer (that’ll happen at some other point in time, hopefully). Nonetheless the cities I visited all had some of the most delicious food I’ve ever had.

First stop was Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, one of the foremost cities in Spain and the land of awesome seafood as well as traditional Spanish cuisine.
I think I had paella and sangria everyday while here. The eating traditions of Europe, as far as I could make out, is not necessarily restricted to the three main meals a day, which leads to a lot of snacking throughout the day.

There was a lot of tapas as well. Hands down the best tapas I’ve had, which shouldn’t be very surprising really. Delicious smoked salmon, Serrano ham, razor clams, cured tuna and the list goes on. After a few futile attempts of ordering from the menu, I figured the best way to try new, tasty fare was to grab a seat at the bar and let the bartender know that you’re new to the city. This worked perfectly as they suggested some of the best stuff. Sometimes a local sitting next to me would also pitch in with spot-on suggestions.
I would’ve never thought salmon could taste so creamy and full of flavor, which goes perfectly with the tartness of the cured tuna.

One particular place had an excellent fisherman’s stew – a veritable aquarium containing all that’s tasty from the oceans, shrimps, mussels, snails – something I had been meaning to try for a while but never got a chance. For lovers of seafood, it really is the cornucopia of the best offerings from the ocean.

Also, being summer, it’s the perfect time to enjoy a chilled bowl of gazpacho – a tomato based soup cooked with garlic, cucumbers, onions, that’s just about the perfect summer dish..

For desserts, there’re the quintessential bunyols – roughly analogous to doughnuts – along with a lot of other delicious pastries.

And there’re ice-cream carts/stores at every street corner.

Next stop was the City of Light. As charmed as I was by Paris, and it was my favorite city on this trip, gastronomically I think the variety of Barcelona (and later Madrid) edges Paris down the chart of favorite food haunts.
Nonetheless, there were the many delicious crêpes. I took a liking to the ham & cheese ones.

There was the very French cassoulet – a traditional stew with sausages, bacon, duck confit, from the Basque/Languedoc regions – probably the single best meal of my trip,


some excellent pork rillettes,


traditional duck confit


and delicious, delicious ice cream at the Häagen-Dazs store on the Champs-Élysées. It wasn’t just the ice-cream, but the whole experience of sitting at a roadside café on the most famous of Paris’ streets that made me go back here again & again.

Swiss it up

Swiss food doesn’t get talked about as often as her idyllic meadows or the beautiful landscapes or an imperious tennis player. Not as fancy as French cuisine, nor as spicy and colorful as the Spanish, the Swiss nonetheless do a pretty good job in the kitchen.

Thanks to the cuisine diversity that Portland has to offer, one need only drive to Café Hibiscus, located on the east side of town to enjoy some great Swiss food.
Start with some fresh mushrooms sautéed in garlic butter.


Then dive straight into the good stuff.
There’s the wienerschnitzel, breaded cutlets topped with butter. I tried the pork cutlets, delicious shredded, sautéed tender pork made even more delicious by the rich butter. It’s served with rösti, which is Swiss-speak for adding bacon and onions to hash browns (it is as good as it sounds).


Vegetarians can try the vegan lentil stew, just as tasty (or as tasty as something without bacon and pork can be).

If fish is your thing, fear not, the good Swiss have got your back. Go for the gravlax, house cured salmon served on rye toast, topped off with onions, cream cheese, dill and capers. Probably not for the weak palate, but definitely worth a try.

Street Food Done Right

Bollywood Theater with its theater set type settings, serves good Indian street food at a reasonable price.

Irrespective of whether you are familiar with the kaleidoscope of tastes that is the Indian street food or not, you should try this place out. Not many places do the typical Indian specialties just right. And don’t fall for the clichéd trap of nostalgia seeped comparisons with how it is “back home”. It’s never going to be like that – there’s magic in the streets back home – but what Bollywood Theatre serves, from their Vada Pavs to the Pav Bhaji and the Spicy Goan Shrimp Curry, are traditional, popular dishes served in the proper manner. And to have Shatranj Ke Khiladi or Sholay or some other Indian classic play on a giant screen, while you embark on a street food journey, what more could you ask for.

Also don’t miss a visit to the restroom. In keeping with their name and theme, it is like the set of a theater.

Fatty Goodness

If you think pork is the best, like I do, get yourself to Lardo. Now.

When I first went there, in the summer of 2011, they used to operate out of a food cart and I didn’t have many reference points for pork belly burgers.

But I loved their food.

The next time I went back, almost a year later, I had enough reference points and they had moved out of their modest food cart into a prime brick and mortar location.
But one thing hadn’t changed – the delicious, greasy, artery-clogging goodness of their pork belly burger, server with an egg and best enjoyed with a side of lardo fries.

Lardo literally means cured meat made from the layer of fat found directly under a pig’s skin. This restaurant specializes in pork meat – apart from the pork belly, they also serve mortadella, porchetta and shoulder cuts of pork. But the one menu item that defines Lardo for me is their dirty fries – a mouthwatering blend of French fries topped with savory fried pork scraps and marinated peppers providing the right amount of tanginess – the perfect drunk food, if it exists. It’s heart attack on a plate, but at least you’ll die happy.

Chicken of the Gods

Let me first get one thing out of the way. This is the best chicken I’ve ever had. Period.

To make sure I wasn’t swayed by the ultra-positive Yelp reviews and word of mouth publicity, I held off on writing about Nong’s Khao Man Gai. But more than a week passed by, and I was convinced more than ever of my initial reaction.

Nong cooks chicken, like you’ve never had it, in this unassuming food cart in downtown Portland (they’ve recently expanded to a few other locations around the city as well). As per their website Khao Man Gayi, also known as Hainanese chicken is originally Chinese, now popular all over Thaliand.

There’s only one item on the menu and all you specify is the amount of chicken, rice and sauce you want and if you want to add chicken liver (it’s like goodness topped off with more goodness). That’s it. And then sit back and enjoy!

P.S. If there’s one tiny quibble I’ve with them, it is they’re no longer open on weekends, which means, soon, one of these days, it’ll have to be either work, or the chicken.
P.P.S. Their East Portland location is open on all seven days.