WasThis the Best Meal of My Life?

     Without knowing any more than that there was a Vietnamese restaurant on the main street of Old Town, Alexandria, Virginia, where my sister's friend had had the best meal of her life, my sister, Sharon, and I set out to eat there, too. We didn't know exactly where Old Town was, and even after we found it we weren't sure which street was the main street or which way to turn on it if we found it. Finally, we stopped at the Amtrak station to find a telephone book. [NB: This was way back then, before cell phones.]

    "But what are you going to look up?" I asked Sharon. "We don't even know the name of the restaurant."

    "Vietnamese. Under 'restaurants,'" she answered smartly, and there they were (as they were not in the Grants Pass phone book), restaurants listed by national cuisine—but no Vietnamese restaurant in Old Town Alexandria.

    "I'm going to ask the station master," I said, in an effort to try the more familiar, Grants Pass, method of seeking information.

    "Ask him what?" Sharon retorted, but what I asked was what the main street was called. He told me it was King Street; what was I looking for? I said, "A very fine Vietnamese restaurant," and he said, "Oh. The Sang Dong. It's only four block from here."

    Feeling pretty smart for having found the restaurant where Ann had had the best meal of her life, we drove the four blocks, parked the car, and walked in, were seated and given menus. Aghast, we looked at each other. This was Thai food. We were very hungry and wondered briefly if we should just eat here. Together we folded our napkins on the table and walked out.

    "I can't imagine anyone I'd rather be dong this with," Sharon said warmly as we got in the car and continued down King Street, reading the name and, more importantly, the nationality of each restaurant we passed.

    "There it is!" Sharon cried and swung around the corner. There were no parking places, and we were hungry, so she parked in a taxicab stand.

    Vietnamese cuisine, according to the explanation of the menu, combines the gourmet quality of French cooking with the cutting techniques and rapid cooking of the Chinese culinary art. It is, as indicated by this restaurant, utterly delectable. I had marinated shrimp and scallops, skewered. Sharon had braised fish in a ginger sauce. We shared a bottle of Chardonnay. Was it the best meal we had ever had? We ruminated on the question. Sharon said she had once eaten a simple omelet and salad in a tiny restaurant in the south of France that would be hard to beat.

    "What about the dinner you and I had together in the Greek restaurant in Atlanta?" I reminded her.

    "Yes, that was very good," she agreed.

    But is it the food or the company and the occasion that make a meal exceptional? I doubt that Ann ate here alone when she had the best meal of her life or that she was mad at her husband that evening. Sharon and I laughed as much in the Greek restaurant as we were doing here in the Vietnamese restaurant. It was true that this Vietnamese dinner with its accompanying French wine was particularly exquisite, but it was also true that the company was delightful. Finally, replete, we pushed our plates aside and asked for a cappuccino. When it came, it came with a brandy, on the house. Was it because we were so obviously having such a good time that the management treated us to a brandy? We left agreeing that maybe it was the best meal we had ever eaten. Even a parking ticket didn't dispel our bliss.

    Marvelous restaurant, the best meal of your life. The East Wind Restaurant. On King Street in Alexandria, Virginia. Old Town. You can find it.

Next week: "Literary potluck"

Recipes from this post:

    (Although I don't have recipes for the exact foods Sharon and I ate that night in the East Wind restaurant, I offer the following three recipes as examples of Vietnamese cuisine.)

    Beef with shrimp sauce and lemon grass

    Braised fish in caramel

    Ginger sauces

BEEF WITH SHRIMP SAUCE AND LEMON GRASS

serves 4

Ingredients

4 stalks fresh lemon grass, or 4 tablespoons dried lemon grass

4 shallots

4 cloves garlic

2 red chili peppers, seeded and minced

3 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 pounds lean ground beef

2 1/2 tablespoons shrimp sauce

freshly ground black pepper

1 cucumber

Coriander sprigs, for garnish

Preparation

If you are using fresh lemon grass, discard the outer leaves and upper half of the stalk. Slice the lemon grass thinly and chop it finely. Otherwise, soak the dried lemon grass in warm water for 1 hour. Drain it, and chop it finely. Thinly slice the shallots and mince the garlic. Seed and mince the chili peppers. Peel, halve, and slice the cucumber into 1/4-inch slices.

To  make

In a mortar or blender, pound or grind the lemon grass, shallots, garlic, chilis, and 1 teaspoon of the sugar to a fine paste. Heat the oil in a wok or large skillet over moderately high heat. Add the paste and stir-fry until fragrance arises, about 1 minute. Add the ground beef and stir to break up the lumps. Cook until the beef is browned, about 5 minutes. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons sugar. Reduce the heat to low and keep stirring for 5 minutes, or until the beef is lightly caramelized. Add the shrimp sauce and stir for 3 minutes longer.

To serve

Transfer everything to a serving platter and sprinkle with black pepper. Serve over rice with the cucumber slices, garnishing with coriander.

BRAISED FISH IN CARAMEL

serves 4

Ingredients

1 - 1 1/2 pounds mackerel or eel, bone-in, about 1-inch-thick steaks (I've used catfish, and it was delicious.)

Coarse sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

3 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon thick soy sauce

3 tablespoons fish sauce

6 ounces daikon

2 large cloves garlic

2 scallions, trimmed

3 dried red chilis

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

3 ounces fresh ginger

Preparation

Peel the daikon and slice it into thin rounds. Peel and lightly crush the garlic. Trim the scallions and cut them into 1 1/2-inch-long pieces, quartered lengthwise. Peel and julienne the ginger.

To make

Season the fish steaks with salt and pepper on both sides. Make a caramel by combining the sugar and 2 tablespoons water in a large pot over medium-low heat. Let the sugar melt without stirring it (though you might swirl the pan every once in a while). When the sugar turns golden, in about 10 minutes, remove the pot from the heat and stir in 1/3 cup water, the thick soy sauce, and the fish sauce. Reduce the heat to low and add the daikon, garlic, scallions, chilis, and fish steaks. Cover and simmer until the fish is cooked through, about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a saucepan over high heat and stir-fry the ginger until golden crisp, about 2 minutes.

To serve

Remove chili peppers. Transfer the braised fish to a serving platter and scatter the ginger over it. Serve with rice on the side.

GINGER SAUCES

1. Ginger dipping sauce

yield: 1/2 cup

Ingredients

2 cloves garlic

1 - 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

1 fresh red chili pepper

1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger root

1 lime or lemon

3 1/2 tablespoons Vietnamese fish sauce

Preparation

Crush the garlic cloves. Seed and mince the chili pepper. Grate the ginger root. Squeeze the lemon or lime to yield 2 tablespoons fresh juice.

To make

Combine the garlic, sugar, chili, and ginger in a small bowl or mortar. Crush the mixture to a paste. Add the lime juice and fish sauce and stir to blend.

This might be the same sauce as in the photo
above. And either could be from either recipe

     2. Ginger fish sauce

    yield: 1/4 cup

    Ingredients

    2 teaspoons small pieces fresh ginger root

    1 fresh red chili pepper

    1 clove garlic

    2 teaspoons granulated sugar

    5 teaspoons fish sauce

    1 tablespoon water

    1/8 fresh lime

    To make

    Put the ginger into a mortar with the red chili pepper, garlic, sugar,                                                                          and fish sauce. Pound everything to a paste with a pestle. Squeeze                     the juice of the lime into the mortar, then remove the pulp of the lime section with a small knife and add it to the paste. Add the water. Mix well. Serve with fish.

Buddhas, St. Francis, and Oliver at the Loma Vista Cafe

     The first day my friend Maren and I were in Big Sur, we decided to have breakfast at the Loma Vista Bakery and Restaurant, next to and associated with the Big Sur Garden Company. Walking through a gate, we found ourselves in an enchanted place. A sand pathway, meticulously raked into patterns, led past a large Buddha statue, laced with greenery and tiny flowers, peacefully contemplating a small pool with a gentle fountain; then past cactuses with big, white, odorous blossoms and other fragrant and colorful flowers to a rose-embowered cottage that was the cafe.

    Inside, a fresh-bread odor mingled with that of coffee and tomato-and-pepper frittata. The young man behind the counter was a golden-hued, Greek-god figure with seductive blue eyes, a fresh clean face with long cheekbones, and a ponytail of light brown hair. He wore a surfer tee-shirt, and he prepared my tea with a mysterious ritual that had me bewitched.

    Taking our breakfasts outside, Maren and I wandered through a honeysuckle arch into a courtyard with small tables and a farrago of exotic flowers, large pots, and sculptures of all cultures:

Buddhas next to Renaissance angels, Bacchus with his grapes, Nordic trolls rubbing elbows with St. Francis alongside a Mexican donkey. Egyptian figures guarded the entrance arch. Honeysuckle blew its sweet breath into the air. A black cat wandered through the garden, followed in a few minutes by a young, bearded, hippy-style gardener who chased the cat away and then explained with a grin that the cat wanted to make a kitty box from the sandy floor of the courtyard. He turned to watering his plants with such sunshine in his aura he seemed a figure of mythology himself, half troll, half St. Francis.

    Maren and I returned to Loma Vista every morning we were in Big Sur. The hippy St. Francis hugged me when I arrived. The Greek-god surfer performed the tea-making ritual. Finally, emboldened by familiarity, I entered the story. "What is your name?" I asked the young man of the tea ritual.

    "Oliver," he said. "What's yours?" When I said, "Diana," he said, "That's a good name. I have an aunt, whom I love dearly, with that name."

    "Where did you learn to make tea like this?" I asked.

    I should have known the answer would have a story. "From a Chinese man," he said, "an architect who studied teas. He learned to make espresso drinks while he was in this country, and he developed a similar way to prepare tea. I learned from him."

    And now, along with the enchantment of Loma Vista Bakery in Big Sur, I give to you from Oliver the tea-making ritual of the Chinese master:

    Half fill a tall glass with hot water. Loosely stuff a white tea bag with tea leaves—rooibos, yerba matte, black—any kind. Secure the envelope flap with a toothpick and drop the tea bag into the glass. Using a squeeze-bottle, scallop honey along the top inside of the glass in small swirls till you have completed the circle. Then—"This is the important part," Oliver said—take a long-handled spoon and draw the honey down the sides of the glass to the bottom, each time beginning with the swirl part of the scallop. Pour steamed milk into the glass, filling the vessel to the meniscus. The tea bag will rise to the top but be hidden by the thick white foam of the milk, leaving the toothpick to poke through like a mast. Finally, with your squeeze-bottle of honey, spiral a design atop the foam. Drink slowly, in a garden, in enchantment.

Next week: "Was This the Best Meal of My Life?"

Recipes from this post: Tea from the Chinese master (see above, last paragraph)

Costa Rican Cuisine

    When I made a seven-day trip to Costa Rica one summer, I had a wonderful time and saw some beautiful places, but I was not enthralled by Costa Rican cuisine, which seemed but an imported version of what we know as Mexican cuisine. Every dinner came with a mound of shredded iceberg lettuce topped with one or two slices of pale tomato, a large helping of rice, and a smaller proportion of black beans. Fried fish or chicken might complete the meal. Vegetables were seldom served, and those sold by street vendors lacked vibrancy and robustness.

    Fruits, however, were abundant and good. I had a breakfast fruit plate with deep-red, juicy pieces of papaya; bland but still good watermelon; a banana that tasted like any banana I've eaten anywhere; and white pineapple so juicy, sweet, acidic, and flavorful it could have been the Prototype Pineapple. I got a good sample of Costa Rican oranges at a private home one morning when a thirteen-year-old boy picked two or three grapefruit-sized oranges from a backyard tree. With one unhesitating whack of a monstrous kitchen knife, his mother sliced off the top cap of one. With similar whacks, like chopping a stick into kindling, she tore off silver-dollar-sized pieces of rind, leaving a thick white skin around the orange. Then she showed me how to eat the orange out of its own thin-skinned bowl by scooping the flesh with my teeth. With a sharp bite and a deeply satisfying taste, that fresh-off-the-tree orange was one of the best things I ate in Costa Rica.

    But it's not fair for me to judge Costa Rican food, since I have [had at that time] an allergy to peppers. [See "Confessions of a Picky Eater" and "The End of the Story about Peppers," May 11 and 18, 2020.] Peppers are the cuisine. The omnipresent rice is always cooked with flakes of red pepper. Eggs are scrambled with peppers. Peppers flavor meat, chicken, and fish. The first Spanish words I learned were "allergy" and "peppers." Ordering a meal at a restaurant, I would think I had made myself clear—no peppers, please—only to find questionable substances in my food, after all. "Aren't these peppers?" I would say, indicating the green spots in my scrambled eggs.

    "Oh, but those are sweet peppers," the waitress would answer, as though the Spanish word for peppers meant only hot peppers. So I learned to say, "I have an allergy to sweet peppers, hot peppers, chili peppers—all peppers." Then I would make unmistakable getting-sick gyrations. The waitress would grin with understanding and leave, but when my dinner arrived, I would point to the rice and say, "What are those red specks?" and she would say, "Oh, no! They're peppers!" and snatch the plate to return to the kitchen. Peppers are so much a part of Costa Rican food people forget they're there.

    I didn't get sick from peppers until my fifth day in Costa Rica, so my avoidance regime worked pretty well, though it greatly curtailed my culinary experience—as it might in many countries. When my son went to Thailand, he wrote me a postcard raving about Thai food but adding, "You would starve to death in Thailand. They put peppers in everything." 

    I didn't quite starve in Costa Rica. The fruits were delicious.

Next week: "Buddha, St. Francis, and Oliver at the Loma Vista Cafe"

Learning Social Graces in Marseille

     In the mid-sixties, when I was a sophomore at Vanderbilt University, I took spring semester in Aix-en-Provence with the Vanderbilt-in-France program. (See dianacoogle.blogspot.com for more essays about living in France.) Before I left for France that February, one of my mother's painting students, a French woman, gave me the address of her parents, who lived in Marseille, urging me to get in touch. Though I thought the connection tenuous, I did write them after I settled in Aix. My mother's student had told her parents about me, so they were expecting my letter and invited me to visit.

    The M. and Mme. Brun—Mr. and Mrs. Brown—who met me at the bus stop were older than my parents, white-haired, small, and full of Old World social graces. I found them utterly charming, and, for different reasons, they were equally charmed with me, a shy young girl with the American innocence Europeans sometimes found contemptible and sometimes quaint. M. and Mme. Brun took me to dinner that night in a tiny, unpretentious restaurant on the shores of the Mediterranean, just at the corner of a long fishing pier. From our table by the window I looked out at the blue Mediterranean curving into the horizon. Looking down, I saw the sea lapping below. M. and Mme. Brun told me that the fish served at this restaurant was caught from the pier and was only an hour or so from sea to table. Our waiter displayed a tray of this fresh fish, artfully arranged on ice, for us to choose our dinner. M. and Mme. Brun helped me make a choice. M. Brun ordered the wine. When the salad and bread arrived, I said, "Bon appétit." Pleased, they repeated, "Bon appétit." We beamed at each other.

    After our meal the Bruns suggested we have coffee at their apartment. To me, at that time, "apartment" meant a small, dumpy couple of rooms like my Aunt Zip's home in Atlanta, crowded with stuffed furniture and knickknacks. M. and Mme. Brun's apartment was a dazzling surprise, large and spacious, with big windows and, even though night had long since fallen, rich with light because everywhere—on chandeliers, in cabinets against the walls, from table surfaces—crystal sparkled and glittered: wine glasses, water glasses, bowls, candy dishes, and large chandeliers with scores of twinkling teardrops dangling from their heights. The apartment danced with crystal. Glossy hardwood floors, Persian rugs, lace tablecloths, fine china, and polished wooden furniture added a sense of wealth and good taste, but it was all that crystal that made me feel I had entered a fairyland.

    While the coffee was brewing, M. Brun offered me a liqueur. I wasn't sure what a liqueur was, though I knew it was alcohol, so I knew better than to gulp it. But I made the classic mistake of inhaling before I sipped, and a long, choking, coughing fit turned my face crimson and spoiled my façade of worldly aplomb. But M. and Mme. Brun never thought me an uncouth hillbilly. True to the social graces of their class and their country, they treated my faux pas like nothing more than a rough swell in the smooth sea of our conversation. When I left, they kissed me on both cheeks and told me to come back often.

    M. and Mme. Brun became special friends while I lived in France, fulfilling something in the French experience I wouldn't otherwise have had. The hours with other students drinking coffee at the outdoor cafes, the blood sausages and custards at the university lunchroom, the invariable French bread and cafe au lait for breakfast at my boarding house were a part of France I cherished, but outside of that, whenever I went to Marseille, I could enter the Old World elegance of a different France, where M. and Mme. Brun taught me to order dinner in a fine French restaurant, to eat off crystal plates, and to drink liqueurs.

Next week: "Costa Rican Cuisine"

Recipes from this post

    Fish in the French fashion

    Salade verte

 

FISH IN THE FRENCH FASHION

I can't give a duplication of the recipe for the fish I had in Marseille, first because the fish was probably of a variety not found here and then because I don't have the recipe. What I offer below is a simple French-based recipe for cooking fish fillets. It'll have to do.

The sauce

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons flour

2 cups fish stock

1/4 cup mushroom peelings

pinch of nutmeg

other seasonings

To make

Melt butter in the top of a double boiler. Stir in the flour to make a roux. When it is smooth, gradually pour in the stock, stirring or whisking well to keep the mixture smooth. Cook over low heat until well combined and thickened. Add the mushroom peelings. Return to the double boiler and simmer about 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Strain through a fine sieve. Add nutmeg and other seasonings, if desired.

The fish

Ingredients

4 skinned fish fillets

3/4 cup sliced mushrooms

1 shallot

1 teaspoon chopped parsley

2/3 cup dry white wine

Preparation

Rinse and wipe dry the fish fillets. Finely slice the mushrooms, mince the shallot, and chop the parsley.

To make

Put the fish in a buttered skillet and cover with the vegetables. Pour the wine over everything and cover with a poaching paper. (See instructions below.) Simmer 10-15 minutes. Remove the fish carefully and place on a hot ovenproof serving dish.

To finish

Pour the sauce over the fillets and broil until sauce is lightly browned.

To make a poaching cover

Cut a piece of parchment paper slightly bigger than the diameter of your pot. Fold it in fourths and, beginning at the folded tip, roll it diagonally. Hold the cornucopia-shaped roll with its tip at the center of your pot and snip off the part that hangs over the edge of the pot. Snip the pointed end to make a vent. Place the poaching cover over your food instead of a tight lid.

SALADE VERTE

This means, simply, green salad, and though I can't be sure what salad I had so long ago at that little restaurant on the Mediterranean, surely it was made in the French fashion for producing a superior green salad.

Ingredients

Only the freshest greens should be used, augmented with whatever wild greens are available (dandelion greens, miner's lettuce, sheep's sorrel, etc.). These days many packets of cleaned greens are available, and convenient, but the salad is always inferior to those using a variety of fresh greens torn into salad size pieces by the cook. Fresh herbs are a great addition. 

Only the best olive oil of course, and white wine vinegar.

Good fresh garlic is essential.

Preparation

Rub a wooden bowl with a broken clove of garlic. Rub it well. Wash and dry the greens. Tear (don't cut) them into bite-size pieces.

To make

Place salt, freshly ground black pepper, and some vinegar in the bowl and mix well. Whisk in olive oil a little at a time. Finally, throw in the greens and herbs and toss well.

Dinner at Sweden's Best Restaurant

     I used to travel to Sweden frequently to visit my friends there and to teach at the University of Gothenburg. Whenever I was there, my friend Maren and I would make a week's excursion to a different part of Sweden. One year we traveled through the landscape of Värmland, often called the most beautiful region of Sweden, theme of the Swedish novelist Selma Lagerlöf, and the setting of her romantic novel, Gösta Berlingssaga. For most of this excursion Maren and I stayed at the summer home of a friend, a colleague at the university, so we saved money on lodging. Because we had a kitchen, we could cook meals, saving more money. For all this we reasoned that we could therefore afford to eat one dinner at the inn of Grythyttan, a small village in Värmland that had a cooking school, a renowned chef, and a restaurant touted by some as the best in Sweden. Surely it would be worth niggardly attention to our pocketbooks during the week for a splurge at such a place at week's end. So we made reservations and, on the appointed day, drove to the village.

    Maren and I entered the restaurant of Grythyttan's 18th-century stagecoach inn through a small, black, wooden door that sat one step up from the cobbled street. After we were seated at a small table against the wall in a dining room with tall windows, high ceilings, and dark wood, we had a little tussle about who would drink and who would drive. I gave in when Maren said I should have the whole experience, alcohol included, because I was the foreign guest. Then we ordered our dinner, opting for the chef's suggested menu to make choices easier and figuring he knew best. While dinner was being prepared, we strolled through the beautiful old courtyard and gardens, I with my cocktail in hand.

    The atmosphere of this historic inn with its Swedish 18th-century architecture and lovely gardens would alone have vindicated the cost of eating, but when it comes to expensive meals, the menu is an even more important indication of valuer per Swedish crown. For the first course we had duck liver paté with warm parsnip sauce and honey-poached pears, nicely complemented with a slightly sweet French white wine. The main course was tournedos (ox steak) with a red-wine-and-capers sauce, one long bean, and couscous with herbs and tomato. The ox, the waiter told us, had been raised on a Swedish farm, frequently visited by the chef, where all the oxen lived happily and were well cared for, presumably the reason our tournedos were so flavorful, juicy, and as tender as cake. When Maren requested—and got—more sauce, I used rather too much of it and realized the cook had not been stingy but subtle and restrained with his one splash of sauce. I was chagrined that it was I who had marred this meal that was supposed to be perfect to be worth the price. To be honest, I didn't much care for the one long green bean, either, but Maren said she didn't suppose a great deal of the price of the meal was invested in that bean. With the tournedos came a dark red California wine, smooth as velvet and absolutely superb, although my judgment of its excellence might have been influenced by West Coast chauvinism and its beautifufl dark name.

    After the main course came the cheeses. One was a sheep cheese from Bredsjö, Sweden. It had won many prizes in France, the waiter told us, and was Sweden's most expensive cheese. This was not a cheap sheep cheese. There was also a two-layered cheese with a black line thought it: the ashes that separated the morning milk from the evening milk. With the cheese I was served a Swedish cloudberry wine, available only at Grythyttan.

    By this time, Maren and I had been at dinner for more than two hours, and dessert was still to come: a small slice of a very rich, dark raspberry and chocolate tart, served with a Muscat Baume de Venise from Rhone, France. It would have been called perfection whatever the price.

    Before we left the restaurant, I hunted up the chef de vins to tell him that I would certainly buy some of that California wine when I got back to Oregon. His face lit up. "Ah!" he said. "Oregon wines!" and he told me he often serves a pinot noir from Yamhill Vineyards in the Willamette Valley. He dashed into the cellar to grab a bottle to show me. He was so personable and good-looking I thought about suggesting he give me a call the next time he was buying wines in Oregon and I would invite him to my house, but then I thought maybe I was being unduly influenced by the food I had ingested and the wine I had imbibed, so I simply thanked him for the good meal and joined Maren for a starlit walk through the village back to our car.