Flavors of Asia

Hello again TL people. I know that I post rarely (haven't posted in what, 2 months or so?) But I thought I finally had enough to put out a really good blog, one worth reading again. (Also, have the time. I have 3 finals coming up this week but i'm not too worried about them.)

Really, only two particularly amazing things have happened since the last blog. (grand buffet did again, but it didn't change much. tables of sweets and breads and bakers showing off again. Gets fairly normal to be honest.) I went to a japanese food and restaurant expo and volunteered at what I thought would be helping out with food demos and such, and I went to a korean foods dinner that was offered by the korean association here at the culinary institute of america.

First, I will leave you with a saying; In asia, different cuisines are known to have different flavors that make up the strongest part of them. For example, China is known to have the flavor of fire. Not because they use only fire and high heat in their foods, or the spices or anything, but because when you think chinese food that's what comes to mind. Japan is known for the flavor of the knife, and korea is known for the flavor of time.

since this will be about japanese and korean stuff, lets start off with alphabetical order; Japanese.

For those of you who do not know me, I am a white 22 year old (soon to be 23) male who absolutely loves traditional japanese flavors. When the school offered me a chance to volunteer at Mutual Trading Company New Yorks first annual food show, I jumped at the chance to learn more about foods. However, once I got the notice of where I was going to be working, I was quite disappointed. it wasn't food at all, I was going to be working with a cutlery vendor. So, seeing as some of my friends were working with famous restaurants and chefs (Ivan Ramen, Abe Hiroki of EN Japanese Brasserie and a few others) I was a bit disappointed. Then I met my vendor. Some of you may know Takamura knives, they just started being sold in the US a few weeks ago. At the expo I was working. Helped out by me. I don't have a picture of myself with the blacksmith, who was also there, but here he is below

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(That's him in the middle.)

I consider myself a bit knowledgable about knives so I was a fairly good fit for the station, but even i was blown away by how good his knives were. made out of a high speed white steel powder (for those who know what blue steel is, imagine this being a step above that), not stainless but heavily stain resistant, 64 on the hardness scale, sharpened to a razor blade, nice and thin, flexible but strong. I could go on for hours about this guys knives (I was lectured for about ten minutes and can recite everything verbatim from that with many of my own embellishments).

These are some of his knives. Lets start out big shall we? That knife on the far left was a copy of a knife that gordon Ramsay ordered. A few years ago, Gordon Ramsay ordered about 1500 knives from various knife makers around the world to do his own test and figure out which are the best. about a year ago, Takamura got a call from Gordon Ramsay, saying "We picked yours as the worlds best knife" and ordering a ton of orders. The middle knife is a replica of the knife that Rene Redzepi of Noma ordered from him. The knife to the right in the red lacquer is part of a special series he did. While the blades on the knives are all the same, this was a special lacquer he did out of magnolia wood, soft to not dull the knife, and using a special technique in which he applies coats only once, maybe twice a day to the knife for at least half a year for each coating. One of the customers asked what they should do if the handle breaks or goes out of service, and Takamura was so confused by this he kept telling them if they need it sharpened or the blade cracks to send it back to the company. once translation issues were fixed, the translator said "he doesn't believe that will ever happen in your lifetime. but if it does, send it back to the company and it will get fixed." And this wasn't about his special lacquers, this was about his ordinary handles.

some more of his lovely knives.

This is part of his station that he had set up for customers to try his knives. it is done with his cheapest knives, the ones cast in one layer of damascus on each side, but the core metal and the sharpened blade are still the same. I am one of the privileged who got to slice carrots and tomatoes with his knife. to say how sharp it was, you didn't even need to hold the carrot. If you sliced through it it would work perfectly on its own, despite being a tough fibrous vegetable. The tomato could be sliced incredibly thin for something that is as fleshy and tender as a ripe tomato. For most, all we had to do was give people a demo of the knife, and quickly they would buy one. I know many chefs don't know a good knife when they see one and don't know how to sharpen their knives well, but some do, and even those that understand what makes his such a good knife looked at him in disbelief right after trying to use his knives. Put a smile on my face every time someone tried and then just shook their head or had a look on their face as though they were expecting something completely different. The biggest selling point for me was when you picked up the cut carrots, there was no roughness to them. the slicest section was as smooth as butter. And I don't mean was way smoother than before you cut it, i mean it was FLAT. nothing sticking out at all, and when you ran your finger along it, it was just a thing of beauty.

I did buy one for myself, despite being a cheap broke college student. 198 dollars after tax and I think it's a knife that I will use for a VERY long portion of my career. They are simply magnificent and he deserves all of the praise he gets for being an incredible knifemaker, both him and his family.

For those more interested in the food side of things, the korean assocation's dinner was a bit more close to the food porn that I assume you all want from me. After all, it's food. who doesn't like food? SO LETS BEGIN!

To start the evening off, it was in a very quaint little restaurant on campus, the St. Andrews restaurant. Yummy food, good company, good price. overall it was done for 10$. TEN DOLLARS. amazing food served course after course for TEN. DOLLARS. sounded good for my wallet after that big knife expenditure.

It was also an evening based around fermented foods in particular, so when going in we assumed a lot of kimchi, pickled items, etc. etc. We were right AND wrong. While there were plenty of fermented things, it was not the only thing presented. I think they did a great job of showcasing a variety of flavors techniques and talents personally.

So this was an interesting dish created by them for the event. It was a kim-pacho, A sort of gazpacho style cold soup created with kimchi. was not quite my favorite food of the event, but it was chilled, had a nice slightly sour, slightly sweet flavor to it and was a very unique warm up to the event. This was the start to the evenings teaching me of just how little I know of non-western ingredients, as several times throughout the dinner I found myself going "...what the hell was that vegetable I just ate?" In this case, I think it was a korean version of a pearl onion that they'd pickled or done something to, because while having the shape and somewhat texture, the flavor was very different. you can't see it in the picture but there was a good few things floating around inside the soup.

Second course, I have to be honest, I can't tell you a lot about. It was one of the students special family recipes for a bibimbap course (I hope i'm right on this one, the event was a few weeks ago), and it was my personal favorite for the night.underneath the seaweed (Again, I think. it didn't taste like traditional dried seaweed but it may have just been the seasonings) was a beautiful bed of flavored rice with a variety of vegetables. It had a slight spice to it and all the flavors came together beautifully and in each bite you would get different vegetables, flavors, and textures.

A nice little array of vegetables on the bottom there and some good squid (and I hate squid) And clams (and I hate clams) cooked throughout the middle. This course also had another of those moments of ...what did I just eat? If anyone happens to know what the vegetable was right next to the beets, second from the right there I would love to know. All of these vegetables were pickled, and delicious, and what was in the middle down there was the squid, the clams formed what looks like the scallop at the top. the sauces were particularly delicious for this one, I must say. they were flavorful and new by my tastebuds and they really brightened up the dish without even needing any kind of citrus or acidy flavors in them to help (that was done with a contrast between the pickled vegetables.) this was most likely my second favorite course of the night, tied between this and dessert.
This was also the first wine pairing of the night (yes. 10$ included wine pairings.) but the wine for this course was nothing really worth mentioning, white wine, tasted good, went well with the food but nothing that was really astounding. Slightly on the sweeter, dry side for whites.

Pork belly folks. Pork belly. I can't tell you what that green sauce on top was, but I can tell you that it wasn't particularly amazing. very earthy flavor to it, helped remind you you were eating pork but that was it. The pork belly by itself was not particularly great either, but that was only to me who didn't understand how to eat it at first. Because i'm dumb. You see all those other things on the plate? Those aren't sides, they're toppings. The flower on the bottom left there? Pickled radish. Eat a bit of pork belly with a little pickled radish and the flavor was astounding. the same with everything else, but the sauces were all a little low on the flavor side in comparison. That being said, this was probably my least favorite dish of the night in comparisonto everything else, and it was still very well done.
this was paired with a korean rice wine, and all that told me is that I really don't like rice wine unfortunately. very thick with an unusual texture to it, and the flavor didn't strike me right. I'm not a huge fan of alcohols though.

Dessert course, finally! first note: if you see a plain rose leaf on top of a dessert don't eat it by itself. bitter and bleh and kind of a horrible garnish other than being really pretty. aside from that, everything else was spot on with this. It was the last wine accompaniment, a blackberry raspberry wine that was incredibly sweet (hit my palate right, not many others), and it was the basis for the dish. this was described as a tiramisu, which is mostly right, but instead of coffee flavor imagine using the wine instead. it was the basis for the sauce and the cream, and the dish was served with a very fudgy brown topped with some green tea sorbet that was not overly crystallized or creamy and really complimented everything else together quite well. this is up there with the other two as favorite of the night, but it's dessert so i'm not counting it because I have a huge sweet tooth and it gets an unfair advantage. also, taking a bite of rose leaf made me sad.

Finally, the night ended with Petit Foir, of which there really isn't much to say. Some good chocolate, a little pecan tart, macaroon, and a very unfortunate lemon raspberry gelatin. everything else was good, but that gelatin was just... it tasted like less flavored jello with a better texture. It was really the only thing I was disappointed in that night, especially since it was the end of the night.

Overall, would eat again. Want to eat again. Can't wait for the korean association to do something like that again. It was delicious cheap and everyone who ate there was extremely happy with the experience and left talking about it for the next few days. Or in my case, weeks I guess.

That's all i've got, thrown together a bit hastily, but busy people are busy! I'll do my best to answer any questions but it's another thing that i've forgotten too much about. need to go back and write notes on these meals as soon as I eat them next time, haha.

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