Traveling Feast

Perfectionism is a debilitating condition that kept a new electric smoker unopened in the garage for over six months.  Yet for some inexplicable reason the fears of horrible barbecue failure parted this week.

I drug the box out onto the back porch, unpacked and assembled the smoker, seasoned it, and threw in two pork roasts.  I don’t quite know what happened, but they were stunning even without any experience.  Now I’m obsessed.  I have checked out or special ordered nearly every book on the subject in the public library system.  One of my early favorites (full disclosure: I have yet to try a single recipe), is Paul Kirk’s book on Championship Barbecue Sauces.

The reason I am intrigued is he builds his book not around rote recipes but around step-by-step explanations of how to create your own personal sauces, marinades, dry rubs, wet rubs, and the like.  He explains ingredients, suggests proportions, offers tips, and describes techniques rather than just expecting you to duplicate his concoctions.  Of course he offers plenty of by-the-book options, but the build-it-yourself approach sounds like so much more fun.

This said, I’d love for any or all of you with smoking and barbecue experience to weigh in with your favorite books, techniques, tips, or…. why not… recipes.

I’ve been complaining about the lack of Shanghai-style dumplings in the states for over a year.  One of the food-related downsides to travel is the two-fold discovery.  First you eat something transcendent in, say, China, only to return and realize it is impossible to get anthing remotely similar at home.

During a week in Shanghai in the spring of 2008, my goal was to eat absolutely everything put in front of me, and I came remarkably close.  I even managed to gulp down a few bites of blood soup before calling ‘uncle’ in universal sign language (clutching my throat, rolling off the chair, and writhing on the floor while making gagging noises).

But without a doubt the biggest culinary revelation of the trip were the incredible dumplings.  We even ate them for breakfast and in less than a week I went from thinking that pork dumplings at 8 am were about the strangest start to the day to craving them from the moment I woke up.

This presented an immediate problem once I passed through customs back into the U.S.  It was morning in Portland and there wasn’t a dumpling anywhere in the airport.  Spokane wasn’t any better: no dumplings.  And not just for breakfast.  I couldn’t find anything even marginally similar anywhere in town at any hour.

I asked my Chinese friends: still no joy.  They said part of the reason they return to China almost yearly is simply to eat dumplings.

Then Wednesday night I discovered a reference on a San Francisco web site describing a tiny shop in Millbrae that served Xiao Long Bao.  The place is called the  Shanghai Dumpling Shop.  It was a long shot, but I was desperate.

Last night after a meeting in San Francisco with Kate Riley of Mercedes ‘Hair of the Dog’ Cantina I punched into the GPS the coordinates for the dumpling shop (455 Broadway, Millbrae CA) and headed down the 101.

I counted it as a hopeful sign that nearly everyone in the shop was Chinese and the man behind the counter looked suspiciously at me.  It is the Seinfeld ‘Soup Nazi’ Principle: some of the best food is to be found in places that don’t need your business and might not be particularly pleased you walked in the door.

The fact that I heard more Mandarin at the tables around me than English was another hopeful sign, and so I didn’t waste my time exegeting the whole menu.  I just asked for the pork Xiao Long Bao ($7.50 for 10) and ten minutes later a bamboo steamer arrived without ceremony at my table.

They were not exactly like I remembered from the storefront shops in Shanghai, but they were very, very close.  In fact they were so close I was very, very happy even though I nearly burned my tongue as the hot juices of the first one squirted out into my mouth when I bit down.

Millbrae isn’t close enought to Spokane for  a daily fix, but plane tickets to California are somewhat cheaper than those to Shanghai and, at least as of yesterday, a passport wasn’t required to order at the Shanghai Dumpling Shop.

I’m used to eating my Vietnamese food in shabby or utilitarian spaces.  Chic Vietnamese like the Slanted Door in San Francisco hasn’t made it to Spokane just yet.  Neither do I think our local purveyors of this brilliant Asian cuisine spend much money on interior decoration.  The Pho Van location on Hamilton fits my stereotypes perfectly.  I’m still happy to eat there.

Yet the restaurant’s new sibling at the base off the Division hill (several blocks north of the General Store) is a revelation.  Think converted Pizza Hut on the outside, but inside the space looks sleek and upscale in a way that almost nothing on Division does.  Here is possibly the first Vietnamese place in town you could take a date to prove to them you are both cosmopolitan and classy.

The sign out front says “GIVE US A TRY.”  Take them seriously and do just this.  The menu features the classic northern Vietnamese soup Pho as well as several other typical Vietnamese plates (all under $10).  But they also offer several Chinese-American dishes like Almond Chicken if you aren’t ready to jump into a giant Pho bowl just yet.

Stop in soon.