July 2012

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In search of Richmond’s best chicken feet

Wednesday, July 18, 2012 in Canada, Richmond

The girl in the purple stilettos, Mijune Pak. Photo by David Lansing.

The last time I was in Great Britain, I spent two weeks searching for the best fish & chips in Scotland which ended up coming from a trailer on the pier in Tobermory. Well, that story is going to end up in Islands magazine in September (I hope you’ll look for it).

So last night I asked The Girl in the Purple Stilettos at Shanghai River Restaurant what the best places for dim sum were in Richmond.

“This is very good,” she said.

“But there are others you like better?”

She smiled. “It depends on what you are looking for and how adventurous you are. Do you like chicken feet?” she asked.

I told her I’d never had chicken feet. But I was up for giving them a go.

“Meet me at Fisherman’s Terrace tomorrow morning,” she said. “At ten. We will have chicken feet.”

By the way, The Girl in the Purple Stilettos has a name. It’s Mijune Pak. She also has her own foodie blog site called, appropriately enough, Follow Me Foodie. So tomorrow morning, Mijune and I are going to share chicken feet. And perhaps much more.

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French again

Tuesday, July 17, 2012 in France, Katie Botkin, Rouen | 1 comment

Rouen, France. Photo by Katie Botkin.

A Letter from Katie Botkin in France:

Several years ago, I lived in upper Normandy, teaching English, and now I am going back. After I land in Paris, the relief of being able to understand the language is acute. No longer do I have to stand straining to listen in to the conversations, picking out a word here and there. I can make my way by asking for directions and because I know the general layout of the metro. I can saunter up to the counter at the St. Lazare station and glibly ask for a ticket to Rouen. And then ask when the next train is, and which platform it’s going to be on. I love being able to speak the language. Madly. The words surge in my blood, the flash of idiom and lilt and what is culturally possible. This carries me along, in a prickly, but beloved, fog, though the hour is late and I am famished.

I get to Rouen around 11 p.m. and walk the streets I once knew well, to rue Guy de Maupassant, and ring the bell. Sophie, who spent a month with my family in Idaho, lives here.

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The girl with the purple stilettos

Tuesday, July 17, 2012 in Canada, Richmond

The girl with the purple stilettos outside Richmond's Shanghai River Restaurant. Photos by David Lansing.

Laura says, If you’re not too tired when you get to your hotel, go to the Shanghai River Restaurant and get the shrimp dumplings.

Okay, here’s the thing: It’s after eight. You don’t do dim sum at night. You do dim sum in the morning. But I know what she’s getting at. If you want to know if a certain Mexican restaurant is any good, order the chile relleno. If they can do that right (and few can) they can do anything. If you want to know if a dim sum place is any good, order the shrimp dumplings.

When I get to Shanghai River there’s a 30-minute wait. Even though it’s after 8:30. There’s a family of 13 draped across every chair in the lobby so I stand outside, on the sidewalk, next to a stylish young woman with dramatically long legs perched atop purple stiletto heels texting on her phone. She looks up at me. “Waiting for a table?” she asks.

I nod.

“Me too. I’ve been here 20 minutes already. But it’s worth it. I saw Mark Zuckerberg here last October. Eating the Peking duck. You getting the duck? It’s the best.”

“Just the shrimp dumplings,” I tell her.

“That’s it? Shrimp dumplings?”

“I’m not really here for dinner,” I tell her. “I just want to try the shrimp dumplings.”

Shrimp dumplings at the Shanghai River Restaurant. Photo by David Lansing.

“You’re testing them, right?”

I nod.

She hurries inside the restaurant without saying a word and comes back a minute later with the manger on her arm. She says something in Cantonese while pointing at me. The manager nods and waves his arm for me to follow him. The manager and the woman in the purple stilettos take me to a part of the kitchen with a glass wall facing the dining room. Two cooks are pinching together dumplings. The manager says something to the cooks and a few minutes later, I’m presented with a bamboo steamer filled with eight shrimp dumplings and a little dish of XO sauce. I pick up a dumpling with my chopsticks, dip it lightly in the XO sauce, and take a bite.

“Well?” says the woman in the purple stilettos.

“Best damn shrimp dumplings I’ve ever had,” I tell her. She laughs and says something in Cantonese to the manger. He laughs as well.

“What did you tell him?” I ask her.

“I told him you’ll be back.”

And she’s right. I will.

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Taking the SkyTrain to Vancouver

Monday, July 16, 2012 in Canada, Richmond

Vancouver's oh-so-hip SkyTrain. Photo by David Lansing.

When I ask Laura if I should grab a cab at the Vancouver airport I am, of course, hoping she’ll offer to come pick me up. No such luck. Laura has other things to do. Things with her husband, the Tug Boat Captain (or TBC as I call him) and her 14-month old baby boy, Nathaniel.

“Call the hotel. They’ll send a shuttle,” she says. “Or take the SkyTrain.”

SkyTrain. I like the sound of that—Sky…Train. Like CarBoat or BikeJet.

I’m a big fan of subways and metros and trolleys and buses and pedicabs. When I know how they work. What I hate is dragging a bunch of luggage behind you and getting all sweaty as you clomp up endless stairs and then standing in front of a ticket kiosk (usually with 10 impatient people right behind you) trying to figure out where you’re going and how much it’s going to cost and all that crap.

But the SkyTrain is easy. Credit card in the ol’ automated kiosk, a little ticket gets spit out, I’m on a clean, well-lit, automated SkyTrain (mind the gap!) and 18 minutes later I’m at my hotel just off No. 3 Road in downtown Richmond.

Not Vancouver, mind you. Not for this trip. But Richmond, BC. North America’s most effortlessly Asian city. To eat prawns wrapped in rice paper and pineapple buns and sobu noodles and seafood pancakes and Cantonese-style hot pot and, of course, dragon beard candy. Lots and lots of dragon beard candy.

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How to make Turkish coffee

Sunday, July 15, 2012 in Bodrum, Turkey

From The Food and Cooking of Turkey by Ghillie Basan, a most excellent Turkish cookbook:

For those (in Turkey) who can afford it, the first small cup of kahve is enjoyed on rising, the second cup is drunk mid-morning, and a third may be drunk after a long meal. As it is more expensive, and more prestigious, than tea, coffee is not available to all on a daily basis. In some Anatolian communities, where it is reserved for special occasions, there still exists the tradition of selecting a suitable bride partially based on her ability to prepare and serve coffee, while the prospective mother-in-law and her son inspect the young girl’s beauty and grace.

The traditional cooking vessel for Turkish coffee is a cezve, a slim, deep pot, often made from tin-lined copper, with a long handle. Generally, medium-roast Arabica coffee beans are passed through a very fine grinder until almost powdery. A wide selection of suitable coffee beans are available in health food stores, supermarkets and delicatessens, but the Turkish setting on the grinding machines usually doesn’t grind the beans fine enough for the desired effect, so make sure it is passed through the grinder twice.

Most Turks drink their coffee sweet, but you can drink it sade (black), orta sekerli (medium sweet), or sekerli (sweet). There is an art to making an acceptable cup of Turkish coffee.

Making Turkish Coffee

To make the coffee, measure the water by the coffee cup (a standard, small cylindrical cup) and the coffee by the teaspoon. The general rule allows for one coffee cup of water to 5ml/1 tsp coffee and 5ml/1 tsp sugar per person.

1 Tip the water into the cezve and spoon the coffee and sugar on the top. Use a teaspoon to stir the sugar and coffee quickly into the surface of the water to give the desired froth a good kick-start.

2 Put the pan over a medium heat and using the teaspoon, gradually scrape the outer edges of the surface into the middle to create an island of froth. The key to achieving the perfect froth is always to work at the surface; never touch the bottom of the pot with the spoon.

3 Once the coffee is hot, pour about one-third of it into the coffee cup to warm it and return the pan to the heat. Continue to gather the froth into the middle and, just as the coffee begins to bubble up, take it off the heat and pour it into the cup. Leave the coffee cup to stand for one minute to let the coffee grains settle and then drink it while it is hot.

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