Going With My Gut

College Reunion at Josephs II, Waltham Massachusetts

It was a lovely New England summer day last May when Babs and I pulled up for brunch at Josephs II on Main Street in Waltham, Massachusetts. It'd been 8 years since I'd been a regular here. Maybe 3 or 4 years since I last showed up. Would she remember me? Was she even still there?

I poked my head through the door, and smiled. There she was, across the room, in all her strawberry blonde glory, not having aged a day from how I remembered her. I walked up to her.

"Hey Linda".

Linda turned. "Well look who's heeeyeah," she drawled in that working class Boston twang I loved, with a slightly upcurled lip, "Where the hell you been, and why'd you have to show up on the day I have a cold and look like creeyap?"

I reckon every university student has a favourite diner in their college town -- somewhere they and their varsity mates can stumble into late on a weekend morning, and mend their hangovers with the best that greasyspoonamericana has to offer, while trading stories about last night's party or analysing a date to death. Gut-hugging, heart-stopping American breakfasts aside, Linda was the reason Josephs II was mine.

Linda never did the blindingly sunny and gratingly chirpy schtick at work (morning-person chirpiness is not my thing on my best days, let alone when I've still got gin from the night before still swishing about in my brain). But my god, she never got an order wrong, and she could always ALWAYS tell when I was just about to ask for more coffee, and beat me to the punch.

I introduced her to Babs, and we did the slightly sheepish shuffly "sorry the college boyfriend didn't work out" shrug and smile. She asked about my family whom I introduced her to when we all trooped in for lunch during my graduation. What a memory!

"So you wanna eat, or what?"

Yes please.

I checked the specials board. Damn. Too early in the summer for lobster-claw rolls, and no luck with prime rib hash (always worth checking for on a Saturday morning, where instead of corned beef fried with hash, the chef uses Friday night's left over prime rib shavings).

So I went with my regular favourite -- ham and cheese croissant, with crispy-edged home fries and a side of french toast. Babs went for french toast with bananas, with fried eggs with cheese.

Linda came by with a pot of coffee. "You look about ready for a refill."

Yes please.

"Everythin else ok heeyeah?"

Bliss.

Josephs II Family Restaurant
805 Main St
Waltham, Massachusetts 02451-0601
USA
+1 781 899 4754

Congee-ing Up Memories

There comes a time in every Asian's trek through Europe where you hit your limit of bread and cheese and cured meats, and inevitably start pining for the familiar rice-and-soy-based flavours of the East. Over these last few days in the Baltic states, my craving has been for porridge, and with it all the people at the table at the time. Authentic relief will have to wait, so best I can do for now is to congee up a few memories.

Growing up in Singapore, congee was always associated with rest and recuperation.

Until my Dad started going to church (when I was about age 9 or 10), each Sunday he would make a big vat of bone-still-in chicken congee, and after I got home from Sunday School we'd both spoon and pick through it watching the English Premier League soccer match of the week. Sometimes, if we dawdled, we'd drift into a Tamil or Hindi movie without English subtitles, and make up our own completely ridiculous plot and dialogue. It was a great way to recharge before Monday, for me at least.

Later, when my parents decided that Sunday would be a no-cooking day, congee became a Saturday breakfast affair, brought home as part of my Mum's weekly haul from the Marine Terrace Market . Whether it was with chunks of chicken and cuttlefish, or slivers of pork with century egg , my favourite part was (and still is) a raw egg cracked in. Bye bye hangover.

Whenever my brother or I fell ill, it'd be home-cooked congee on the table. Sometimes plain and soupy, with pickled chinese cabbage. Other times, bonanza! Porridge with the seafoody sweetness of dried scallop. However sick either of us were, there'd always be enough fight left in us to kick up a royal fuss if the other dared to nick some (and we always did).

Not altogether consciously at the time, I ended many a work week and started many a weekend with congee with friends. On many Friday nights, I'd be at a late night eatery in Hougang ordering up a Teochew porridge storm of little savoury dishes like salted duck eggs, minced pork patty steamed with salted fish, braised squid rings, and fried tofu skins braised in dark soy sauce to go with the comforting blandness of rice boiled in too much water. Saturday mornings saw a more Cantonese approach -- ingredients cooked with the rice into a savoury silken mix -- either at the upper floor of Tiong Bahru Market or House of Rice Roll & Porridge in River Valley. The combination of gruel, griping, giggling and gossiping was unfailingly good for the soul.

I lived only for a short while in New York, but in that period dragged anyone who would let me to Big Wong on Mott St each Saturday morning for congee and giant crullers (pictured above). I was pleasantly shocked when I visited this past May to find that their congee prices hadn't changed in a decade...at least not enough to notice. More recently while living in London, whenever I fell ill, I'd drag myself to Hung Tao on Queensway for porridge before slumping off home.

How is it that in all these years I've never learned to make this stuff? Maybe because anytime I'm really craving congee, I'm not in any state to cook. This obviously needs remedying when I reach Singapore in the spring, as part of this round-the-world trek.

In the meantime, how about you? What does congee conjure up for you? What's your favourite place(s) for great gruel or your recommended rice congee recipe?

House of Rice Roll & Porridge
75 Killiney Road
Singapore 239529
+65 6736 1355

Big Wong (recently renamed Big Wong King due to rivalry with a breakaway branch)
67 Mott Street
New York, NY 10013, USA

Hung Tao
51 Queensway
London, W2 4QH, UK
+44 20 7727 5753

Lobster Mobsters

Maybe it's just The Sopranos talking, since I've been watching the series in marathon sessions as a start-of-sabbatical treat, but let's face it, when it comes to lobsters, we the Soh family are known to be quite... mobster-ish. This most recent stint at Cape Cod saw my brother's buddy Chok getting an initiation, and Babs officially getting added to the books.

The Ambush
Our convoy pulls up at Joe's Lobster Mart in Sandwich, MA, and we stride in ala Reservoir Dogs.

I immediately start shooting (with my camera). My parents hang back, letting the other customers clear out with their little 1 or 2 fish-fillet bags.

Then we state our demands (politely). Four 3.5 pounders. Three 2.5 pounders. Please. We decide to give the 16-pounder mascot (below) a free pass.



We bag 'em, throw them in the trunk, drive home, then toss them in the cold room to keep 'em quiet. A spectacle of crustacean terror that would repeat with variations for the rest of the week.




In Hot Water
The first night we kept it simple. Large pot, half full of fast-boiling water. 10 minutes for the first pound, 3 minutes for each pound after. The humane among you can follow Laura Karwisch's step by step guide to killing the lobster just before it goes into the pot. And only just before please, otherwise you might be called a gavone.


Pinchey sleeps with the fishes



Chok goes to work on Pinchey

The dinner deed is done. Their shells are empty, their heads scraped, their legs in tatters. But we ain't finished yet. Back into the pot they go, with water to cover them, and a couple of glasses of white wine. Boil down until the concentration suits your taste (once on the boil I tend to turn the heat down and simmer for at least 2 hours). Stock to die for, for the rest of the week.

The Grilling

Later in the week Babs decides to do a number on 3 of them on the grill.

Boil as above for 3-5 minutes (until they stop moving), then split them wide open from the bottom.

Rub mixed herbs and butter (preferably organic salted butter) onto the wound. Grill them on their backs on the BBQ for another 10-15 minutes until the meat is opaque and the roe (if any) is a bright vermillion.

Hacked Lobster Noodles
It's our last night on the Cape, and we feel like Chinese. This time Mom gets in on the stabbing. Then Babs cleans up by hacking them to pieces on the deck. He comes back into the house a little slimy, a little shaken, but definitely with stripes. It was a spectacular comeback from the Nov '07 faux paux where he asked me at a family dinner in Boston if I wanted to share a 1-pound lobster with him. Honestly, if he weren't already a friend of mine...

Mom fries them up in a giant pot (a wok would be preferable if you prefer the dish to be less wet) with plenty of chopped garlic and ginger, and finger-length cuts of scallions. At the end, toss in pre-boiled noodles of choice, cooked al dente (the noodles will soften a bit further when tossed with the lobsters). Season with pepper. Add salt only if the lobsters don't provide enough brine.



Chok – who apparently had not eaten a whole lobster by himself until this week – thanked Mum and Dad before getting on the bus back to New York.

Fuhgeddaboudit.

Clam Bam Thank You Ma'am

My brother and I both went to college in the Boston area, so over the last decade vacationing on Cape Cod has become a bit of a tradition with my parents, and a bit of a legend among our friends. (This year we had one friend cursing and swearing that they had to attend a wedding instead of crashing with us).

The story is a catchy one possibly because it's a simple one. We rent a beach house for a week, spend a few hours during the day doing our own thing, a few hours at night doing some family bonding over gin rummy or mahjong, and everything in between decimating the local crustacean population.

Thanks to the good (and slightly bemused) folks at Joe's Lobster Mart in Sandwich MA, this year we had the good fortune of chowing down on 3 types of native clams in 5 different ways.

Aw shucks, they're a little neckkid



When you have great ingredients, sometimes the best thing you can do to them is … nothing. All I did with these little necks (also called cherry stones) was to shuck them. If you're trying this at home, I highly recommend a proper clam knife and a steel mesh glove, or at least a few good thick rags so that you don't bleed too much when you stab yourself when the knife slips (and it will...I have 2 scars on my left thumb to prove it).

People tend to suck these down with some combination of salt, pepper, tobasco sauce and lemon. You'll know your clams are REALLY fresh when the lemon juice makes them wince. I personally prefer to leave them stark nekkid.

Steamers – West side



Steamers, the lobster's key partner in a New England Clambake, are oval-shaped, in contrast to the little neck's roundness. Steamers have a “foot” hanging out of their shell, and wear a sock-like protective membrane along the shell opening that needs to be removed before eating but after steaming. The foot is a great little handle for dragging the clam through melted butter when eating.

I used my basic clam and mussel steaming recipe for this dish.


Steamers – East side



You can use little necks or quahogs (also called chowder clams) for this salad / starter. Quahogs as far as I can tell are just little necks that have spent their lives in clam body building gyms. They have the same shape, colour and taste, but are the size of your palm or larger.

For this one, steam the clams in a shallow bath of just water and/or white wine (i.e. without the garlic and onions). Separately, make a dressing of chopped garlic, coriander / cilantro, spring onions / scallions, light soy sauce, a dash of sesame oil, and black pepper. (Dilute the soy sauce with a bit of water or clam juice)

When cooked, take the clams out of the steaming pan, serve up on a platter, and spoon on the dressing.


Linguine Vongole



A first-time attempt, dedicated to my Dad, who's ordered this at just about every Italian restaurant we've ever been to, ever. I think this one passed his muster, although Mum makes a highly formidable version so I wasn't going to push the “so whose do you like better” issue. I was delighted with the result, at any rate, and can't wait to make it again for myself!

Full version of my Linguine “Wen-gole” recipe here.

Clam Chowder

Another first-time attempt, after years of chugging bowls upon bowls of the stuff any time I visited Boston. I put some leftover roasted potatoes and breakfast bacon to good use for this one, but used way too much paprika. So the chowder was more a sandy beige rather than the expected creamy white. Ah well. So were we, eh?

For this chowder (6-8 servings) I steamed 4.5lbs of quahogs and chopped them up for the body of the chowder. Then I steamed 1.5lbs of little necks and shelled them and served them whole in individual bowls.

Also, in place of anything that called for water, I used stock boiled down from left over lobster shells, as well as any left over liquid from steaming the clams.

Other than that, this chowder was a loose riff based on recipes from All Recipes, Cooking for Engineers, and Suite 101.


In closing, a few notes on buying clams:

• Clams live buried in the sand, so it gets everywhere. Different fishmongers soak and clean it pre-sale to various degrees. Always ask your fishmonger what kind of soaking and cleaning they need.
• If they need soaking, soak in very salty cold water and a couple of teaspoons of cornmeal for at least 2-4 hours.
• If they don't need soaking, give them a good long rinse under cold water.
• If you see any shells open (or smelling particularly fishy), tap them hard. If they don't close, they are dead clams. Junk them.

Brooklyn Beef Brawl

High noon, Brooklyn. Williamsburg Bridge. South side. Broadway. The streets are quiet. An empty plastic bag rustles by. The breeze brings with it that unmistakably delectable waft of...sizzling beef fat. I imagine this must always be the case on this street. Whether it means to or not, Broadway is Brooklyn's Beef Block, a divine bovine response to Manhattan's Museum Mile.

On one corner, weighing in at “family members have been personally choosing its USDA Prime porterhouses each day since 1887...and they take only cash or their in-house credit card” was Peter Luger – the only beef joint I could get anyone to talk about for the last 3 years, be they New Yorkers, Londoners or Singaporeans.

On the other corner, weighing in at “they take whole carcasses – a Volkswagon's worth of organic grass-fed beef – and each week divvy all of it up between their 3 restaurants and butcher store... and make up the menu daily depending on what's in season at local organic producers” were (relative) newcomers Mark Firth and Andrew Tarlow, who owned Diner, Marlow & Sons, and Marlow & Daughters, all on the same street.

Perhaps it was time for a high-steaks duel.

The Peter Luger dining room had the air of a training gym when Babs and I went last week. Next to our table, a Chinese family, a Filipino family and 2 tough looking Russians in track suits and sneakers all had brows furrowed with quiet concentration. A few were showing a shimmery hint of sweat. Their common sport: chewing.

We had picked a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge as our appetizer / warm up, so swung straight for the porterhouse for 2, with creamed spinach and fries on the side.

I was revving up my skepticism. “USDA Prime” is apparently largely based on the quality of fat marbling on the steer, rather than what it's fed or how it's raised. The US industry standard these days, apparently, is to house cows jammed shoulder to shoulder, knee deep in their own poo, chewing and on too much corn and soybeans and developing nasty stomachaches, since it's unnatural food for them, but is apparently great for building up restaurant-friendly marbling quickly. Cue routine doses of anti-biotics and medication as a result. If Peter Luger was using a less industrially-raised type of beef, they sure weren't telling anyone about it on their website.

The dilemma was, this is the crème de la crème of the kind of beef my generation grew up on. So it took just one bite to hit all the neural transmitters. The juicy pink chunk tasted as creamy as its hue looked, with good resistance as well as yield to the tooth. We were sitting down but I still felt my knees buckle.

I was looking forward to seeing what kind of fight young turk chef Sean Rembold across the street would put up.

After an afternoon expedition to Coney Island as a palate cleanser, Babs and I rocked up to Diner just as the dinner shift started. The bartender was still furiously scribbling the specials of the day. A crazy-haired lady dining alone in a booth behind us was poring over a book on chicken pot pies, and the 1961 edition of the The New York Times Cook Book. Good omens.

I opened with the in-season rhubarb-based cocktail, and followed with the slow cooked beef shank with grits, broth, and scallions. It came with a knife, a fork, and a spoon. I ended up not even needing the first 2. The shank simply fell away into meat tendrils at a touch. The rich broth infused the humble grits with a personality trust fund.

This was a new bench mark in comfort food – almost convalescent. Then the peppery green scallions, slicing through the natural grease of the meat, would snap one out of one's gently descending stupor. I sighed with contentment as I pushed back the empty plate, still warm.

My brother was already texting from Boston, demanding to know who was the Baron 'o' Beef on Broadway. I was delighted to tell him to try both on his next trip to New York. And don't forget to suck down some local oysters at Marlow & Sons.

Cop out, he replied.

Possibly. But why force a choice? Is there really a good answer to "which is the Ace of Art", between the Met and the Guggenheim? The beauty of New York was that this town -- even when it's the same street -- is big enough for both.

===

Peter Luger
178 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY 11211

Diner
85 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY 11211