out in the burbs

After church, a carload of some of us young ladies headed out to dinner and dessert...

The first stop was Big Fresh Cafe in Framingham. It's an organic place that focuses on local products - for eating organic and fresh, the menu is priced pretty reasonably. I had the Stir Fry Big Fresh Special, "Organic tofu in a delicious satay sauce, served on brown rice with teriyaki vegetables & collard greens." The presentation was pretty and I added a bit of Bragg Liquid Aminos as a seemingly lower-sodium soy sauce alternative. (I don't know the specs for sure, yet.)



But apparently I didn't get the memo that dinner was really supposed to be a snack, since everyone was saving room for ice cream at North End Treats.

We were surprised to find out that the store had much more than ice cream. Frozen yogurt with mix-ins, Richardson's ice cream, and gelati made up the frozen treat section. Sandwiches, pizzas, and pastries using recipes from Bova's 24-hour Bakery in the North End are sold here, too. Lois had an amazing hazelnut gelato, Evelyn had her first cannoli with chocolate chip-dipped ends, and Pam and I shared an amazing peanut butter cup bar.

Jo-Jo Tai Pei

Do four Taiwanese eateries within a half-mile radius make a neighborhood a Taiwan-town?

The original two Taiwanese store fronts in Allston Village were Infusions Tea Spa (tapioca pearl tea and tea-time snack haven) and its next door neighbor - Yi Soon Bakery. Then Super 88 welcomed a Wisteria in the food court after the Newbury Street location split into two (the Super 88 in Allston and the East Cambridge sit-down). More recently Jo-Jo Tai Pei moved across the street from the bakery.

I've been there twice and both times have been quite tasty. The first time Sandra and Jack brought me there for the "special pork chop over rice" ($6.99), Taiwanese stir-fried noodles ($6.99), "famous spicy beef noodle soup" ($8.99), and "bow bin" shaved ice (small $4.99).

The pork chop plate really felt like a good value. The chop was season, fried, and enormous. Sides included a tea egg, Chinese broccoli, and some pickled turnip (?) - I never touch it, so I'm never sure. I love the "garnish" of stewed fatty pork belly pieces.





The stir fried noodles were simple, not overly oily, and perfectly seasoned with just enough garlic and onion flavor.



The beef noodles, while pricier than I'd like to pay for, were delicious. The spiciness level was decent and the texture of the noodles was dense enough to give a little chew.



The shaved ice was tasty. Of all the sweet toppings I love the tapioca pearls and boiled peanuts the best. While I do enjoy the sweet beans, my brain never gets used to eating sweetened boiled mung beans.



I followed Jerry and Scott there a second time for the "crispy smelly bean curd" ($5.99), oyster pancake ($5.99), cold dan-dan peanut noodles ($6.99), and large bow bin ($6.99).

It was my first stinky tofu experience. The whole restaurant could smell something was up once our order was fired up. A few Asian and non-Asian patrons asked each other "What is that smell?" For all it's pungency, the flavor and texture were pretty mellow. The pieces of tofu are bite-sized, so it's easy to throw a few down the gullet and act like a season stinky-tofu eater. The oyster pancake was good, but not as amazing as Myers+Chang's version. The dan-dan noodles were tasty - and easy enough to take out for a picnic dish. I enjoy them more than Thai Peanut noodle salad because they use a thicker (almost Soba-like) noodle.

I look forward to going back to search for one of my holy grail, childhood food memory dishes - the Jo-Jo Special Mini Steamed Bun. It's a thicker dough version of a soup-on-the-inside dumpling that's been pan seared. The ones I remember from my elementary school days in a South Bay Taiwanese noodle shop were pan fried on both sides, but the Jo-Jo version online appears to be close enough. I'll find out one of these days.

Iron Chef Tofu Battle: NYC Chinatown Edition

Jen's boyfriend, Daniel, has been on a 6 month in NYC. While I'm not totally clear on the origins of our dinner party, it seems safe to say that one of his Princeton buddies, Olympia, decided to challenge Daniel to an Iron Chef-like dinner battle. From an email thread, I gleaned that he is apparently naturally suited to such a competition because of his "Bobby Flay-esque egotism." I received a voicemail from Daniel and a text from Jen: Would I go to NYC to be his "secret weapon/sous chef?"

I agreed at the last minute. I knew I'd be in town to have Filipino brunch with Jen and Thuy and Nicki pre-dinner battle. And, if I took the Chinatown bus, I'd only spend $30 round-trip. A day of good food, old friends, and new people? I couldn't pass it up.

The secret ingredient was announced at 4 pm in Chinatown. Tofu.

Jen thuy and I were in SoHo when we got the news. "What a piss-poor ingredient," I thought out loud. I was a little mad. Tofu? I rarely use the stuff. And we were against two Cantonese girls. They'd out-Chinese me for sure. I had to think out of the box.

Jen and I arrived at 5 pm just before Daniel. The girls, who went by both Queens of Canton and Team Canton, had pre purchased 6 or so different types of tofu. We claimed our tofu types and all shopped separately before returning to the kitchen. Both teams shared the stove and rotated to accommodate each other... by 8 or 9 pm we presented our dishes and started to eat.

True to Chinese form, Team Canton had a hot and sour soup with the soy-marinated tofu, wood ear, and pork. It was super yummy - you could taste the melted pork fat. They followed up with fish paste-stuffed tofu and eggplant. They even scored the eggplant so it'd "absorb more flavor." I thought it had good texture. Then they had a noodle bowl with tofu, kailan, red pepper and (a store-bought) roast duck. It was a pretty dish the judges liked in appearance. [The dinner "Chariman" originally asked that duck be our secret ingredient, so one of the Queens of Canton purchased this to appease him] Their closer was "tofu" almond gelatin topped with mangoes. I must say, I was a little skeptical of it's true "tofuness," butI'm sure it tasted just fine.

Daniel and I donned our yellow aprons and named ourselves "Team Awesome." We started our international tofu menu with a silken tofu/soy ice cream/peach-berry smoothie. It was California-inspired for sure. Daniel is not Canto, but he is obsessed with Sichuan food, so he used his Blackberry to craft a super-spicy ma po tofu. It got high flavor marks from the judges. Next I took the judges to Southeast Asia by making a yellow coconut curry with potatoes, okra, deep-fried tofu puffs and deep-fried hard-boiled eggs. I was so proud of this dish because the texture of the exterior of the eggs matched the puffs so well. Plus, the nooks and crannies of the tofu skin, egg "skin" held the sauce nicely. Then we closed with a trip to Italy. We combined silken tofu and ricotta to make a lasagna with a pork ragù and and homemade balsamella (bechamel) sauces. It was sooo surprisingly good we could have left out the ricotta entirely.

the judges deliberated on....

Flavor (ma po tofu and lasagna hit the spot)
Presentation
Creativity (smoothie and lasagna)
Use of ingredient

We won the flavor and creativity categories so it came down to points. .... and we won! Bringing tofu out of Asia was our biggest asset.