On the food trail… pt 3

Good things come to those who wait (I think I might have said that before…) and so now that life has somehow quietened down a bit I’m catching up on all the writing I wanted to do but never quite got round to. One of those was to finish up writing about the culinary happenings on my recent world trip and also to round it all up. First up is a look at the culinary highlights of the north American leg of my trip. And then I’ll be rounding everything off battle style in the next post. Let me recommend you don’t read this if you’re feeling hungry.

North America proved to be a lot more interesting food wise then popular beliefs would have you, or me, believe. Ok it wasn’t particularly healthy as such, especially compared to Asian cuisine, but some of it was down right some of the best food I have ever had the chance to try.

It all started in San Francisco with some great highs and some pretty poor lows too. Among the highs would have to be experiencing a real burrito in the Mission district, while drunk (that last bit being fairly important). Words can’t quite do justice to the pleasure of eating this burrito. As I remarked in my post about San Fran, proper Mexican food is really hard to come by in Europe, and while burritos aren’t exactly ‘haute cuisine’ by any means they are absolutely incredible when done properly. And boy was the one I had done properly. Not only was it delicious, it made me realise that when it comes to drunken foods, a category all too often ignored by critics and food writers I find, the typical European, though mostly British, favourite of kebab is far from the best I’ve always thought it to be. Burritos, especially proper ones with all the trimmings, a fairly massive size and reasonably priced, definitely vie for top stop alongside a good kebab (we’re not talking dirty 2 pounds 3 a.m kebabs here, get me). Burrito in the Mission or anywhere they do ‘proper’ Mexican food I guess is definitely a must for anyone serious about food. And as my friend pointed out, do it while drunk, it only increases the pleasures and experience (though be careful not to be too drunk, especially if you’re British, or Scottish, or Irish…).

The other main highlight in San Fran was a burger on Haight, at a joint called Burgermeister which the homies Alex and Joren took me to on my first day in town. I think my enjoyment was also probably greatly heightened by the fact that I hadn’t had a ‘real’ burger in nearly 20 months by that point. So I went into meat overdrive and ordered a massive one with blue cheese, mushrooms and garlic fries. Suffice to say it was well worth the wait and turned out to be ‘tha tits’ as a friend would say. Blue cheese and mushrooms are also a great combination for a good, homemade style burger. Burgermeister was also the only spot in the whole of North America where my request to have the meat done very rare was actually followed. I know most people find it weird, but if I wanted my meat cooked through I wouldn’t ask for it to not be.

San Fran was also were I had my first proper American-style ‘brunch’ experience. Mike took me to a spot in Richmond at the weekend were they served, in his own words, ‘a mix of soul food, mexican food and other stuff.’ I was intrigued to say the least. The result was actually not too far from his description I guess: huge plates that combined different ingredients and cooking styles but was actually done in a pretty ‘sensible’ manner, retaining certain distinct flavours while creating new ones through peculiar combinations and not overdoing it by compensating lack of taste with too much food (though there was still more than enough for 2 people). If I remember well I ended up with a plate that combined nachos with black beans, roasted potatoes and an omelette, the whole thing topped with sour cream and salsa and some greens. It sounds weird on paper, but it really worked quite well. And the atmosphere of the place was pretty nice too, what looked like an old dinner type joint fixed up with trendy touches. Definitely recommended, think it’s called Q, and it’s in Richmon though don’t ask me for the address (but feel free to google it).

I also had a pretty decent Japanese meal on my last day with Mike and his girlfriend. I know it’s ironic, I left Japan on a world tour, partly motivated by food, only to end up eating Japanese food on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Still I tried to fight it, but I enjoyed it. A nice, simple and well done カツ丼 (aka Katsudon) which, compared to the bowl of ramen I had with Alex a few nights before was totally amazing. That ramen was a massive fail, and I should have known better but instead I let my craving for ramen fool me into believing I could get something decent at a joint that just didn’t look it. Also that ramen spot, I forgot the name, gets added massive fail for totally messing up my request for つけめん which is the ‘summer’ version of ramen, with the noodles, broth and (sometimes) garnish all separated. How hard can it be to do cold noodles separate from the broth? Anyways.

I left San Fran for Seattle, munching on the remainder of the burrito from the Mission. Another reason why that was a great dish, it can be split across multiple days and still tastes as amazing as the first bite, probably even better. Seattle wasn’t necessarily a culinary stop as such on my tour, though one thing I did realise was that with the whole coffee shop thing comes amazing pastries and other sweets. And I mean serious business type pastries. There was one spot near Alex’s house that did the most amazing muffins with cereals, the kind of stuff that is so moreish you’re addicted from the first bite. That place also did a mean croissant, and being half French and raised in France I have very high standards when it comes to croissants. These guys knew what they were baking. Other brief highlights in Seattle was a pulled pork sandwich, nothing spectacular but enjoyable and the first bbq related food I had in about 20 months as well, and an American style pizza on the last night which was, well… American really. Which is kind of good and bad. Good because there was enough on there to feed a family of ten for a month and it was actually a pretty good deep pan too, not too bland and with a good mix of toppings. Bad because, well it was big enough to feed a family of ten for a month. And being half Italian, I’ve never quite been able to handle the whole deep pan thing, it just doesn’t feel right. Oh and Seattle had some pretty sweet bars too, with a good choice of beers, but shame about the pricing and retarded licensing laws.

Vancouver, which was next up, also suffered from retarded pricing and licensing laws for alcohol. Food wise it was another spot where I wasn’t too sure what to expect, and wasn’t particularly looking for anything ‘special.’ As with Seattle, one of the highlights was definitely the coffee shop pastries and cakes, with some serious ones down on Main St. where I spent a few hours just stuffing my face with cakes, muffins and pies. Asking around I realised that possibly the one culinary ‘speciality,’ if you can call it that, worth hunting in Vancouver was fresh fish. Luckily Jules’ mom came to the rescue, not only did they give me a flat for a week, she cooked a great little meal on the last day with fresh salmon which was pretty sweet. Aside from the fish, there was a pretty decent burger joint Kelly took me too which I continued my search for a good burger (the chef failed by totally ignoring my rare meat request, but the toppings were totally spot on) and an interesting all-day breakfast/brunch spot I found on Main St, which served a weird, but quite delicious, mix of European and North American dishes. I had a stuffed omelette with roasted potatoes on a bed of salad and cornbread which hit the spot. The place reminded me of Q in San Fran, not just because of the atypical cooking but it also had a similar vibe, though it was a lot more cooky on the decor front.

The only other food highlights of Vancouver were pretty much all non western related, which isn’t surprising when you consider that the city is still pretty ‘young’ and that it has a high immigrant population from various parts of Asia. Jules and Carla took me to a Vietnamese restaurant which turned out to be a ‘real’ Vietnamese spot, as opposed to most of the fake ones you get in Europe, which are normally run by Chinese. While it didn’t quite compare with street food in Vietnam, which let’s face it pretty much nothing short of home cooking will, it was pretty good and I noticed in my time there that the majority of Vietnamese spots in Vancouver, and on the west coast in general, seemed to be real Vietnamese restaurants that served the kind of dishes I had actually seen and tried in Vietnam, though likely with some slight differences to appease western pallets. On my last night Trevor took me to another non western spot, an Indian place that specialised in dosa, an indian dish quite similar to French crepes and which I first discovered during my time in Borneo the month before. That place was a little family type restaurant in a part of town where Trevor grew up, and they did the dosa with all sorts of stuffings and variations. While in Borneo the dosa was mainly a side dish, served with a simple rice stuffing, the restaurant did them up as proper dishes with curry inside which was actually a real surprise for me. I like a good curry, but I’ve always struggled with the sizes, whether it was too much in the UK or not enough in Japan, a problem solved by the dosa as it limits the amount of curry used for stuffing and makes it the perfect sized meal. Taste wise it’s also pretty good, comparable more to galettes than crepes actually, which are basically the salted version of crepes made with buckwheat.

The last food stop in Vancouver was literally hours before my flight. Unplanned, it was by far one of the most surprising and delicious ones. I hooked up with Kelly in the morning for a coffee and more of the addictive coffee shop cakes, and he took me to a part of town which I’d been looking for but hadn’t quite found. As we walked around and talked, I mentioned needing to get some food for the trip and that’s when he took me to this Italian deli, located somewhere on Commercial Drive, which served up the best homemade sandwich in focaccia I have had since, well… since leaving and returning to Italy actually. The ingredients were all top notch, including all the obvious suspects and the inclusion of the often forgotten olive oil and balsamic dressing, and the size was on par with the burrito in Mission, leaving me enough for a bite at the airport and one on the plane and without losing any of the taste or pleasure. I’ve always taken Italian delis for granted to an extent, living in London I always preferred heading back to Italy to stock up on all the necessities rather than paying quite a lot for imports, but after nearly 2 years it’s fair to say that deli pretty much stole the show and could teach a thing or two to some of the places I’ve been to since returning to Italy.

Montreal continued the European theme that the Vancouver deli had started by chance, well kind of continued it if you count Montreal’s French heritage, but it’s a thin link at best, just go with me on this. I went to Montreal with a couple of things in mind I had to try, and I left having tried them and discovered a few other in the process too. The really obvious culinary must have for Montreal was poutine, a Quebecois variation of the northern English staple of chips in gravy if you will (and I’m bound to get picked up on that comparison by someone at some point, but you know it’s an easy one to make). Poutine is essentially chips with gravy and melted cheese on top. Not to be outdone, Lewis took us to a spot that did just that but topped it up by baking the whole thing before serving it. We each ate our own, mine had chicken on top for good measure, cos you know if you’re going you might as well go the whole way really, and then proceeded to get drunk and play pool for about 4/5 hours. Thing is the poutine actually stopped me from getting drunk. Not quite sure what happened but my bet is it basically soaked all the alcohol I threw at it while playing pool, which is pretty impressive. So yeah poutine makes a good alcohol rampage buffer for anyone interested.

The other thing I wanted to try in Montreal was recommended to me by Kelly and others in Vancouver and confirmed by Lewis’ local friends: bagels. Something I didn’t quite expect but was definitely worth it. Ben and I ended up in St. Viateur a bakery in the Jewish part of town known for its bagels and which delivered on the goods. Considering we spent about an hour cycling around looking for it, we were more than ready for it by the time we walked out of the place with 12 bagels and enough toppings to feed about 10 people. I’m far from a bagel connaisseur but my time in London has taught me the finer points of a good bagel (Brick Lane bagel shop massive stand up) and the Montreal ones definitely give any bagel I’ve had in London a run for its money. The other Jewish related highlight was a spot of smoked meat at the Schwartz deli, renowned worldwide apparently. And for good reasons, as the smoked meat sandwich was definitely the best I’ve ever tried, and would only be equalled by the one I would have in New York the following week. Ok so the only other real comparisons I had against it were also from the Jewish bakeries in London, but still the meat at Schwartz was totally off the hook, to put it lightly. The simplicity of it was also key: two slices of bread, some mustard and more meat than can possibly fit between the aforementioned slices of bread. It’s a total win and definitely a must for anyone serious about food and looking for something memorable while in Montreal.

Elsewhere Montreal didn’t really throw up any other surprises. There were a lot, and I mean a lot, of creperies (see told you there was a thin European link somewhere). I only ended up trying one of them and it was pretty good, though some of the toppings were strange to say the least (but nowhere near as bad as some of the stuff I’ve witnessed in Italy). I also had another burger stop, which wasn’t quite there unfortunately. Montreal turned out to involve a lot more drinking than eating overall, which wasn’t quite what I had planned.

The drinking continued down into New York, and once the blur of the first few days had faded I found quite a few of the foods and dishes I was particularly after. The first one wasn’t a typical NY dish as such, but more a case of NY being the last place I could try and get it before heading back to Europe. I am talking about ribs. I know I should have gone further south, but hey beggars can’t be choosers. We had a spot of ribs and fries, and cornbread too (which by the way is totally awesome and I’m sold on it many times over), in the first few days (I forget exactly when, see aforementioned alcohol abuse) which was nice but nothing ‘special.’ I’d kind of written off the ribs until Ben and I found ourselves in Harlem towards the end of our time in town, looking for a soul food restaurant recommended to us by one of his friends. The place was called Amy Ruth’s and it was quite simply the highlight of anything food related in NY, tied with the smoked meat sandwich on my last day. I’ve never had soul food, and was not only curious but also starving. I ended up with a plate of ribs with sweet potato and mac and cheese sides and cornbread that left me not only unable to move for a short while but also totally ecstatic. I think the ribs were deep fried and then smothered in sauce, which sounds wrong but was oh so good (and also further proves the point that deep frying things, anything, can be a good thing).

One of the things ‘you have to do’ while in NY is eat cheesecake, obvious but you know hard to resist, and I duly obliged with a stop at Junior’s on Flatbush Av., where I had one of the worst sandwiches ever, followed by the biggest, and definitely one of the nicest, slices of cheesecake ever. One slice was enough for three of us, and looking at the other cheesecakes around the place I can only imagine the damage it can cause on a regular basis. NY was also the last stop for me to find a proper dinner in which to have pancakes and coffee in the morning, just like they do in the movies and tings. That turned out to be a little bit different to what I’d hoped, as I ended up in a small dinner in Brooklyn one morning, with a plate of pancakes and bacon, an expensive one too, looking at a screen with the rolling news title ‘Russia invades Georgia.’ I laughed, and then ate the pancakes which were pretty good but not quite what I’d imagined in my movie induced fantasies. I also had a really nice Thai curry in Brooklyn, again something I wasn’t particularly expecting. Not only was it a good curry, it wasn’t overly priced and the restaurant had a really nice setting and atmosphere, which is a definite plus.

The last night and morning in New York actually threw up two of the nicest food related moments, both totally unplanned. The first was a plate of tacos I wolfed down at 3 a.m while fairly incapacitated and which, in the drunken haze and stupor, I am sure tasted amazing and were a real surprise as I didn’t quite expect to find good Mexican this far up north of the border. Ok so maybe it was the alcohol, but I’m pretty sure they would have been just as good had I not been totally drunk. I seem to remember there being black beans and some avocado in there, which is definitely a touch. And then in the morning, before heading out I got taken to this spot somewhere near L.E.S which is apparently also renowned for its smoked meat, aka pastrami in NY slang I believe. As I mentioned this was definitely on par with Schwartz in terms of taste and overall ‘meatiness’. It was also done in a simple manner, though they definitely managed to fit more meat in there than I ever thought possible, but then they also charged me 15 dollars for it. I got a little scared when I saw the price but was reassured when I tasted the meat. It was worth 15 dollars, which isn’t a price I’m willing to easily pay for a sandwich. Wish I could remember the place name but I wasn’t particularly paying attention, hangover and all that.

In the end north America proved that it can stand up, to a certain extent, against other culinary hotspots though maybe not for any sort of refinement or ‘haute cuisine’ as I previously mentioned (there is some of that in California or so I hear) but definitely in terms of interesting variations on dishes you’ve come to take for granted in Europe like say burgers, cheesecake and Mexican food. In a sense it’s also quite similar to the UK, where a lot of the really good stuff tends to be from somewhere else around the world, and the more typically American or Canadian dishes are not so easy to find about unless you’re looking for them (like for example soul food, which I would consider to be more typically American than say burritos or tacos). More than anything I was surprised by the fact that I didn’t actually get too much of the oversized portions everywhere I went. It varied from place to place, but it definitely wasn’t anywhere near as bad as what I was expecting, much like the food itself actually. A proper culinary tour of America and Canada would definitely be something I’d love to do at some point, especially as an excuse to go and do a bbq related blow out in the Southern states. Ok I better stop before I drive myself into a craving frenzy I can’t satisfy.