A double-entendre dinner

I love puns and word play almost as much as I love hot food. So what better place to bring the two together than the Spicy Joint restaurant?

The Sichuan style Chinese restaurant offers an attractive menu, in every sense. There are lots of really interesting sounding dishes, large attractive descriptive photos and – best of all – oodles of fabulous mistranslations.

Things get off to a great start right inside the front cover with “hand exhausted bamboo”. The unintended pun gets a visual boost with an accompanying photo depicting a purple, phallical bamboo shoot rearing out of a pool of chilli sauce, its assumedly hand exhausted brethren lying wan and peeled in neat stacks alongside.

I first ate at the Spicy Joint a couple of weeks ago with Lindsay and Freeman. We decided to go for peculiar rather than punny dishes, so ended up eating things like spicy chicken gizzards. Everyone I’ve told about this dish has replied “Eeew!” For the record, chicken gizzards are not even remotely hideous. They have a firmish texture and taste like chicken. Funny, that.

The nearest we got to word playing with our food was “doll cabbage” - vertically sliced Chinese cabbage hearts in a tasty sauce we suspected may have had more than a passing acquaintance with Cambell’s chicken soup. I’m not sure how they came up with the “doll” bit; I guess it could’ve looked a bit like cooked doll torsos if you squinted at it with your eyes out of focus.

But then again, maybe not.

I came away from the lunch with my usual buzz of pleasure at having just eaten an interesting and delicious meal. But this time the buzz had a certain edge. I just HAD to return for some more enigmatic eating.

As luck would have it, my friend Janelle phoned for a catch up the next day and I had no trouble persuading her to be my dinner partner in crime.

Bacterial dish Dinghu style

We decided to order four dishes and I got the ball rolling by choosing “bacterial dish Dinghu style”, a delicious medley of reconstituted dried mushrooms cloaked in a very savoury sauce.

Tempted though we were to order “sheet iron black pepper cow” and “sheet iron sleeve fish”, we could guess what they were and had eaten them before, so we passed them by.

“Chicken knee soft bone” sounded a bit cartilaginous for our tastes, so we bypassed that one too. In the end, two unusual sounding but competently translated dishes got the better of us.



Hot and sour fern root noodles

 “Hot and sour fern root noodles” were grayish spaghetti-like noodles (made, according to the waitress, with some kind of vegetable root powder) and served cold in a hot and sour sauce. It was spectacular!

“Cordyceps flowers” are, I think, actually dried shredded tiger lily buds. They were tossed in a light sesame flavoured sauce and served cold on a bed of julienned cucumber. Tasty!




Cordyceps flowers

 Our final dish was something a little more mainstream (sorry to disappoint you): "Sauteed duck, Sichuan style". Nice enough.

But my quest isn’t over yet. I’ll be back, and top of my list will be “Braised gusteau in stockpot”.

Gusteau? I had to Google that one, to rediscover that the recently deceased Chef Auguste Gusteau was Remy the rat’s idol in the movie Ratatouille.

I can’t wait to find out what the Spicy Joint has done with him.

Spicy Joint Restaurant
533 Dominion Road
Balmoral
Ph: 623 4938

Open for lunch and dinner.

Extreme dining

I don’t know about you, but I find most dining out experiences to be fairly average – not overly memorable, but not too bad either. The middle ground may be safe, but it’s also dull.

In recent weeks I’ve had the pleasure of eating at four places that fall at the dining spectrum’s extremes; three great and one ghastly. Now that’s more like it.

Where to begin? Shall I get off to a glass half-full start, or shall I empty it a bit first?

For some reason I’m really hungry today and just can’t fill up. I finally managed to quench my appetite by rounding off a large lunch with five crisp breads plastered with Nutella. Post-chocolate bliss has ensued, so I’ll get off to a positive start by regaling you with the good dining experiences.

Latin Larder (170 Hurstmere Road, Takapuna): Simple cafe food done really, really well. I love the way they advised that our pies would take 5 or 10 minutes because they wanted to heat them in the oven rather than the microwave. Both pies had lots of tasty filling and home-made buttery pastry. The chicken pide was chock-full of flavour – one of the best I’ve tasted. The gingerbread (also a wait while they heated it properly) was also fabulous. That lunch left me on foodie warm and fuzzy high all afternoon.

Try It Out Restaurant (79 Aitkinson Avenue, Otahuhu): Probably the best Vietnamese food I’ve eaten in Auckland. The pho was absolutely delicious, as was the Vietnamese prawn casserole. The spicy chicken with lemongrass wasn’t spicy, but it was very tasty. I can’t wait to return.

Two-fifteen (215 Dominion Road, Eden Quarter): Yum, yum, yum. These people can really cook and the service is friendly and very professional. If you go, try the air-dried beef with truffled potato and poached egg – it’s one of the nicest things I’ve eaten in ages. The duck confit with green apple compote was also five-star, as was the buttermilk panacotta with poached raspberries and lavender biscuit.

Despite the diverse nature of these dining experiences, they are united by a common bond: a clear passion for the food they cook, quality ingredients and attention to detail. 

Unfortunately not every restaurateur feels this way and now it’s time to go from the great, to the ghastly.

One of my brothers has just returned from a month in Vietnam and has been hanging out for some Vietnamese food. Tempted though I was to head back to Try It Out, curiosity got the better of me and I suggested that we check out a Vietnamese place I’d spotted nearby – Vietnam Cafe (38 Aitkinson Road, Otahuhu).

Wrong move.

Our group ordered seven different dishes – all of them bland, stodgy, ham-fisted travesties of Vietnamese food. It’s one of the worst meals I’ve eaten in a long while and I can’t believe that Vietnamese people cooked that slop. 

Vietnam Cafe's chef and owner appear to take little pride in what they produce. What a sad way to spend one’s working life.

A rummage in my drawers

I've given you an insight into my psyche lately and now it’s time for a different kind of intimacy; a rummage in my drawers and a peep in my pantries.

Our new kitchen has lots of drawers – 40 to be precise - and two pantries. Although they mostly contain everyday items like sugar, flour (well, 10 different types!) and cornflakes, there are also quite a few "interesting" things.  I could tell you all about the normal things, but that's not why you read this blog, is it?

So, true to form, here are the Top 10 weird foodstuffs in my kitchen:

10. “God knows”
Chinese salted, preserved shredded turnip (it comes in cabbage too). When I was a kid my father used to buy this.  I have no idea how on earth he managed to find "tong choi" in Palmerston North during the 1970s, given that there were probably only about four Chinese people living there at the time.  But he did, and a little clay jar of it used to sit in the corner of a bookshelf in our lounge. 

It’s nice added in small quantities to give a salty counterpoint to otherwise fairly bland noodle dishes (e.g. pad Thai). Kieran opened the jar when he was a toddler and asked Don what it was. The reply “God knows” stuck and it’s now fondly regarded by the whole family (although only Kieran and I actually eat it).

9. Lotus leaves
These monsters are soaked to soften them, then wrapped around glutinous rice that's flavoured with whatever, before being steamed. The leaves, which aren’t eaten, impart a pleasant vegetal flavour to the filling.

8. Cocoa nibs
Cocoa beans' bottoms. I add them to spiced fruit cakes to provide a complementary subtle chocolatey crunch.

7. Sugar crystal sticks
Lovely looking sugar and saffron confections all the way from Tehran via a Middle Eastern supplies store in Mt Eden Rd. They’re meant to be stirred into coffee as a sweetener. Trouble is, I don’t like sugar in my coffee. I keep hoping I’ll come up with a creative inspiration for using them…

6. Smoked kelp
Buying it seemed like a good idea at the time, and it smells really nice. Now what?

5. Drumsticks
I bought this pack of frozen ‘drumsticks’ at an Indian store about a year ago, where they sat until a few nights ago because I had no idea what they were or what to do with them. I decided to treat them like okra and used them in a side dish to accompany a curry that I made when our friends Lindsay and Freeman, and their kids came over for an impromptu dinner.  Lucky old them.

It transpires that drumsticks are really, really, really tough and stringy. The trick to eating them involves slitting them in half lengthwise and scraping out the insides. A lot of effort for little return.

4. Soybean powder
I have no idea why a steaming bowl is depicted on this packet, or what Chinese people would ususally use this stuff for.  I bought it because a gluten-free chocolate cake recipe specified soy flour and I assumed soybean powder is the same thing.  Then again, maybe not. 

I had a go at baking the gluten free cake yesterday.  It tastes wonderful but, for some reason, the cake has done a great impersonation of Mt Eden - crater and all.  Must've been the soy powder.

3. Ajwain

I have no recollection of where or why I bought this. And I’m certain I’ve never cooked with it. Googling reveals it to be a member of the parsley family that tastes strongly of thyme.  Sounds skitzo to me. Ajwain is used sparingly in Indian cooking.  Farty pants readers may be interested to know that it helps reduce beans' flatulence-causing effect and also aids digestion.

2. Mystery things

I vaguely recall buying (and using) these about 15 years ago. I think they’re a Thai pickled plum.

1. 18-month-old yoghurt

Readers of my Intellectually Curious posting may recall being introduced to this yoghurt when it was a spring chicken at 6 months past its ‘use by’ date. Another year on and it is time for my yoghurt friend to go.

Lindsay and Freeman bravely stayed on after dinner to witness the Beast From The Fridge being unleashed.  Here's what happened (Lindsay lived to tell the tale)... 

Soul searching

I think I’ve given myself cheesecake and chocolate poisoning.

Every Easter Sunday my mother’s extended family gathers for a shared lunch and, as always, I was on dessert duty. A few days beforehand I spotted some quinces in my local greengrocer's and decided to utilise them in my creation.

What I like about quinces is their secret surprise. For long, slow cooking turns their inedible, rock-hard, tannic white flesh into a red-pink delight. I created a cheesecake topped with chunks of roasted, spiced quince and a layer of jelly made by setting the quince juice.

To be on the safe side, I made two cheesecakes – one for Sunday’s lunch and a test one that my family ate the evening before. It was too rich for Rory, and he only managed half a piece. Don ate one piece and declared himself done. Kieran and I guzzled our slices and promptly dispatched the leftovers.

I still felt nauseous when I awoke yesterday morning.

Undeterred, I pigged out big time at the family lunch (the quince cheesecake was a hit) and went on to round off this morning’s wholegrain toast breakfast with a large milk chocolate Easter egg. I couldn’t quite manage the chocolate buttons in that sitting but their siren call becons…

Mustering some will power to offset the paucity of won’t power, I headed out in a futile attempt to walk off my excesses.

As I was jaunting along, thinking about what I’d write in this blog, I noticed a man up ahead kick at a little pile on the footpath. With a sinking heart, I approached to discover a starling that had been hit by a car. It was conscious but clearly mortally wounded, presenting me with a ghastly dilemma.

Should I walk on and leave it lying in the pouring rain – waiting who knows how long for nature to take its course? Or should I play God and put it out of its misery?

I stood there a while, hoping someone would come along and decide for me. But nobody did. The bird, twitching what little it could still move, looked up at me, fear and resignation in its eyes.

I knew what I had to do and told the bird I was sorry. Mustering the full force of the weekend’s cheesecake and Easter eggs behind me, I stomped on its head. It wouldn’t stop twitching. Even though I knew it must be dead, doubt remained over whether I’d made a clean kill. So I stomped again…and again. Still it twitched.

As I trudged home, weeping, I contemplated my deed’s brutal kindness.

It is difficult to reconcile my despair with the fact that I happily eat meat most days. In the end up I figured that there isn’t really an answer and that my response has been quintessentially human in nature: contradictory, compassionate, conscious, ego-centric.

I feel emotionally drained and writing this blog hasn’t been as cathartic as I‘d hoped. But life goes on and now it’s time to go and do some housework. Later I plan to curl up with the latest Cuisine Magazine. But I think I’ll give the chicken recipes a miss.

Nonya nirvana

After nearly seven weeks using a cramped makeshift kitchen in our laundry, we’ve started moving into our new kitchen. I’m now free to begin the process of unleashing nearly two months’ worth of pent up cooking desires.

Most of the weekend was spent wiping wood dust out of the new cupboards and unpacking countless boxes of stuff. To give you an idea of the task’s enormity, I discovered along the way that I have around 60 different herbs, spices and spice mixes.

I only found time to cook a roast lamb, crispy roast spuds, broccoli and (real) gravy, followed by mini chocolate puddings - the ultimate “I’ve got an oven again” celebration. (At the risk of showing off, I actually now have two ovens but one has yet to be connected.)

Kuih dadar

Not long before the kitchen renovation began I was doddling around the Internet and encountered references to a book called Nonya flavours: a complete guide to Penang Straits Chinese cuisine.

Nonya (Peranakan) cuisine is one of my favourites. Laksa, sambal patai, kuih dadar, kuih seri muka – I love Nonya food because it combines many flavours that I enjoy: coconut, palm sugar, chilli, garlic and belachan (shrimp paste).


Kuih seri muka


Apparently many Nonya recipes are in danger of being lost because they’ve never been extensively documented, so the State Chinese Association of Penang decided to compile a Penang (i.e. northern Malacca Straits) Nonya cookbook. To cut a long story short, Debbie Teoh (a Nonya chef, author and food consultant) was hired to help compile and test the recipes.

My Internet searches failed to reveal where I could buy the book. Fortunately, I found Debbie's email, made contact and was delighted to receive a prompt reply saying she’d be happy to send me one.

Just as my kitchen was being pulled apart I became the proud owner of an autographed copy of Nonya flavours. It’s packed full of interesting information about Nonya culture, recipes and – best of all – lots and lots of juicy colour photos. I’ve barely been able to contain myself.

This evening’s inaugural foray into Nonya nirvana involved cooking one of the cuisine’s better known dishes, Kari Kapitan – a chicken curry.

The dish requires making a spice paste with shallots, garlic, fresh ginger, galangal, fresh turmeric, candlenuts, lemongrass, chilllis (unfortunately omitted in deference to Don and the kids), and toasted shrimp paste.

Shrimp paste reeks so badly that it almost walks, so I keep the family safe by caging it in a sealed glass jar. It needs to be toasted over a hot flame for around five minutes before it is used, which magnifies the smell tenfold. The kids reeled out of the kitchen in disgust when I started toasting it, later informing me that they could smell it out on the street!

Despite the stench, the resulting dish was absolutely delicious.

My Kari Kapitan

Over dinner, Don and the boys discussed a range of automotive intricacies.

As they analysed how to avoid over-steering radio controlled model cars, sideways drifting, and The Stig’s identity, I quietly tuned out and daydreamed deliciously about my next foray into Nonya cuisine.

Camping in

Life has been chaotic lately. Really, really chaotic. The past few days have been even madder than usual - all in aid of creating a foodie’s fantasy.

Since late February we’ve been in the midst of a major renovation to our kitchen and dining room. For good measure we also got the house re-roofed. Living and working at home while all that is going on has little to recommend it. And just when I thought things couldn’t get any crazier, it did.

Our floors were varnished last week and we decided to live in during the process – something that has proven to be been one of life’s “never again” seriously unpleasant experiences.

Polyurethane is extremely strong and toxic and, if it wasn’t for my downstairs office – which is well away from the varnish action upstairs – then it would have been impossible to stay in the house and live to tell the tale.

Surviving has required our family of four and Phoebe the cat taking refuge in my office over the past five nights, bunking down on airbeds amongst the filing cabinets, desk and shredder.

The fumes were so bad the first three days that I brought the toaster into my office, and set up a temporary breakfast preparation area on a pile of building debris outside. This weird urban camping experience was made even more surreal by my early morning outdoors outfit - a fluffy blue dressing gown. Beeeautiful.

Who knows what the neighbours made of seeing my pyjama clad family spreading our toast on the back path? I guess there are far worse things we could have been doing.

The kids have found it a great adventure. Don and I remain unconvinced. The cat thinks we're simply bonkers.

Cheap thrills

I’ve developed an obsession.

The centre of my attention has a cheerful, pert and beguiling appearance that belies an incredibly firey personality. It’s a quality I find incredibly attractive - even irresistible.

My obsession causes me lots of pain, and provides even more pleasure.

Why is it that I just can’t get enough of chillis?

While many people run a mile at the mere hint of spicy food, I’m one of the world’s fortunates who gets a real buzz out of eating it.

Apparently chilli's active ingredient capsaicin triggers an endorphin release to counteract the burning pain, resulting in something akin to a runner’s high. I used to get a gym goer’s high in my younger, blobbier days. But now I’m older and fitter, I have to resort to more extreme, Scoville unit loaded measures in order to keep it legal.

Eating strongly spiced food always makes me feel incredibly happy and content, although that’s not always the case the next morning.

I’m naturally keen to try as many of the world’s spicy cuisines as I can lay my tongue on, and have eaten my way through all of the obvious suspects.

I had, however, never heard of the Hunan cuisine until I read Fuschia Dunlop’s brilliant, hilarious book “Shark’s fin and Sichuan pepper: a sweet and sour memoir of eating in China”. The Englishwoman lived in China for a decade, being the first Westener (and I think the first woman) to serve an apprenticeship at a Sichuanese cooking school.

She also wrote Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province, a book I've put to good use. Like Sichuan food, Hunan cuisine uses liberal amounts of chilli but in greater, less diluted quantities.

Even though I’d eaten Hunan food I’d cooked myself, I hadn’t found it in any Chinese restaurants. So it was with great excitement that I recently learned of a small place in Balmoral that has Hunan options on its menu.

My brother Brodie was keen to give it a go, so off we headed to Wu Han Restaurant one evening.

Nobody in the restaurant knew us, or even cared, giving us license to be as greedy as we pleased.  So we ordered four dishes and rice between the two of us. Here’s what we ate:

Sweet potato cakes – mild fritters made of diced, boiled kumera and batter. Even my kids would like these. We spiced things up by saucing them with one of the resident condiments.

“Greedy fish” – a whole deep fried snapper smothered in a mountain of chilli: preserved (red and green), fried whole dried ones, bits of chopped fresh ones. Yum, yum, YUM!  It was not nearly as hot as one would suppose but eating it still gave me a real buzz.

Beef soup – hot and tasty but extremely oily. Apparently Hunanese use a LOT of oil in their cooking; they should be the size of houses.

Hot, sour cabbage with, you guessed it, lots of dried chilli. Crisp, crunchy, hot, acetic, salty, tasty, utterly moreish.

It all tasted so good that we ate until we almost burst. All for $52 - $28 of which was for the snapper.

At the end of the meal I was so full I could hardly stand up. I suggested that Brodie carried me out to the car but, in true brotherly fashion, he declined.