New Bern: Ancestral Home of Pepsi

No, I did not go down to the little town of New Bern, North Carolina just to visit the birthplace of Pepsi. I was actually in town for a wedding, but figured it would be a great opportunity to explore the local historical landmark.
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Coincidentally, my flight to the tiny airport was out of Atlanta's Hartfield-Jackson Airport. Atlanta is the home of Coca-Cola; I had a great time there when I visited in 1996. The museum and Coke displays were only topped by the bountiful samples of Coke products from all over the world. I also heard that the museum was recently renovated. I highly recommend a visit if you're in Atlanta.


Unlike it's rival, PepsiCo moved out of its hometown and set up shop in the small town of New York City. The remnants of its history in New Bern stay true to the mainstreet feel of the town. The one room Pepsi "museum" is mostly a store selling pro-Pepsi merchandise and a drug store counter with a fountain selling $.50 Pepsi and Mountain Dew.


Besides a placard on the wall and a book detailing the history of the soda and the company, there wasn't much else. A looping track played the 90s Joy of Cola jingle in the background. I sat at the counter and perused the store copy of the history book while chatting with Connie, the friendly Pepsi clerk. Like Coke, Pepsi was invented by an entrepreneurial druggist Caleb Bradham and originally named Brad's Drink. After some remarketing, possibly a combination of pepsin and kola, the product took off.

Though there wasn't much else to do in the store, I left content, reflecting that this huge global brand really did start in such humble beginnings.


*Full disclosure: in a Pepsi Challenge, I'd still pick Coke.

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M. Wells: Quebecan Diner in Queens

If you ever follow @samkimsamkim when he's in New York, you'll see all the amazing places he checks into on 4 Square. Despite living here, I can't keep up with all the new joints like Sam can. So when I had the opportunity to join him for a day, I met him up for lunch at M. Wells in Long Island City.
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Riding the 7 train out of Manhattan, I realized that this would be my first foray into Queens that didn't end in either Flushing or at JFK. There was a huge stretch of train stops that I've ignored as I've made the trek for Chinese food in the past. M Wells is right on top of the Hunter's Point stop on the train, actually very close to Manhattan. In fact, I was confused looking up directions initially because the directions only told me to get off the train and abruptly terminated. It took several minutes to figure out that the last step really was no more than walk outside.


M. Wells is in a retrofitted diner, opened by a husband-wife team from Montreal with training at Au Pied de Cochon. The concept is bringing simple Quebecan food to common American diner fare. Hot dogs, hamburgers, and hash shared the menu with foie gras, lobster rolls, and pickled pork tongue. I ordered a spiced lemonade while Sam and I decided on our lunch.


I'm Taiwanese. Spicy duck tongues were one of my favorite small dishes as a kid. I'm Californian. I always appreciate a good lengua taco. This was my first encounter with pickled pork tongue ($6) however. Considering I've taken part in ritual decimation of pigs before, it was odd that I've never had tongue. For $6, I was surprised how large it was. It would be too odd to make a meal in itself, but the pickled flavors permeated the meat and did not taste anything like beef tongue. Not bad, and seeing as how I have no reservations with offal, I would order it again in the future.


After reading the Serious Eats review of M. Wells, I knew I had to order the hot dog with sweet bacon chili and slaw ($5). My favorite dog at Pink's in LA was the coleslaw dog. While this hot dog lacked the traditional snap in the casing I use to judge hot dogs, the sweet chili put it over the top. I found myself scraping the plate for the remnants of chili. Good price for a gourmet dog, though it wouldn't be enough on its own for a meal.


Sam pointed me to the first item on the menu, the one he had heard the most raves for: egg-sausage sandwich with cheddar, tomato, pickled jalapeño, on an English muffin ($8). This mammoth of a breakfast sandwich would be more than enough for a satisfying lunch. The pickled jalapeño added less of a kick than an intriguing contrast in flavor. My problem with scrambled egg sandwiches is always the overdominance of egg, and typically bad egg. There was none of that here; it's certainly worth ordering.

As of this writing, the restaurant is only open for breakfast and brunch until 4 pm Sunday-Thursday. It serves quintessentially lunch food, but given the time it takes for the food to come out and the location, it wouldn't be pragmatic for office workers to make it out for a trip. I'll probably come back when they start serving dinner, but for now, I'll recommend it to anyone looking for a great lunch in New York.

M. Wells
mwellsdiner.com
21-17 49th Ave. (right off the Hunter's Point 7 train stop)
Long Island City, Queens
(718) 425-6917

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Stick Blender Experiences?

I'm thinking of buying this Cuisinart Smart Stick Blender. My apartment is currently under-served in the chopping to pureeing department. I'm getting tired of being stuck between grinding ingredients to a pulp in my mortar and pestle and chopping up a mess. Also, I have space issues and I can't stand gadget clutter on my counters or kitchen tables. Even better, I would love to be able to puree soups. I need all the space I can get, especially in my tiny New York kitchen. No counter space for a blender or food processor. Stick might be the way to go. Anyone else have a stick blender? How has it worked for you?

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White Rabbit Candy Back as Golden Rabbit

Standing at the checkout counter at 99 Ranch, I noticed a vaguely familiar white bunny. But wait, this bunny was anthropomorphized. The face looked the same, but clothes? Blasphemy! I knew that White Rabbit candy had been hit by the melamine milk scandal back in 2008, but I had assumed it returned back to the market after resourcing its milk.
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Well Shanghai's Guan Sheng Yuan Food did indeed bring back the iconic candy with milk now from Australia. It looks like in an effort to distance itself from poisonous candy, it changed from what most people remembered:

Photo Credit Mike Gonzalez/Wiki Commons
Now it's Golden Rabbit Creamy Candy. Gone is the plain white motif. I do wonder though, what makes the candy "golden." After all, the candy's the same color, right down to the translucent piece of rice paper.

Did you know that the candy was first branded with a red Mickey Mouse when a British merchant opened a candy plant in Shanghai? Or that Premier Zhou Enlai presented a bag as a gift to Richard Nixon on his visit to China? This white candy has its hands deep in China's culture. Wonder if billion-plus Chinese can handle a rebranding.
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RN74: Michael Mina's Wine Bar

Clack, clack, clack. I felt like I was in a train station instead of a Michael Mina wine bar and restaurant in the middle of San Francisco. Above my table, an old-fashioned schedule board with rotating letters, flipping to display the next bottle of wine. The board was a nice touch for the all-too-common semi-exposed industrial motif of modern restaurants. I could tell from my first step in the place that they took their wine seriously. Now I was curious about the food.
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I have yet to dine at Michael Mina's namesake restaurant, nor XIV, his Los Angeles venture. I didn't set out with the intention to follow him, but discovering that the darkened, rather non-descript restaurant on my commute every morning was associated with him, I thought this might be a good introduction into his culinary kingdom.

RN74's Executive Chef is Jason Berthold, a young chef as inspired by the wine pairings as by the ingredients in the regional French and contemporary American dishes on the menu. Maybe I didn't do him justice by forsaking full wine pairings for my dishes, but I did indulge in RN74's "Summer of Riesling" promotion by ordering a glass. I asked for something semi-dry, and got a glass almost too sweet to drink with any food. The waitress was kind enough to replace my drink after noticing my reaction. That said, their seasonal Pimm's 74 Cocktail,a blend of housemade Pimm's, ginger beer, campari and prosecco, was appropriately sweet for a summer drink.


The bread and butter came out. I absolutely can't get enough of San Francisco sourdough. And when I say San Francisco sourdough, I mean it. The local wild yeast makes the best bread, something that I have yet to see replicated elsewhere.


Since it is a wine bar, the endless winelist easily dwarfed the simple one-page food menu. For the first course: soft shell crab (celery leaf remoulade, citrus, ginger). The remoulade was not as creamy as I had hoped, but the crab was fried well, without any greasy weight of most soft shell crab dishes.


The sauteed pork belly & stuffed squash blossom (heirloom tomatoes, bacon, basil, lemongrass) consisted of fairly standard pork. I have yet to find a pork belly that is notably deficient in flavor. Mostly, I'm looking for the right crispy texture along the edges of my pork belly. The novelty of this dish was the squash blossom. Seemingly solid, it cut apart to reveal some delicious, unidentified filling. The texture was somewhat like fish cake, but with bits of bacon embedded in the white cushion. The tomatoes had enough sweetness to cut through the fatty pork, a requirement when dealing with pork belly.


Main course #1: sauteed Alaskan halibut (gnocchi a la parisienne, cherry tomatoes, celery, ginger, mache My first impression was the quality of the fish's seared crust--crunchy and savory while hiding a delicate white flesh. This was a sign of a well cooked fish. The blanched and peeled tomatoes added the sweet component to the dish. The gnocchi were especially notable. Reflecting the texture of the halibut, each gnocchi had a bit of a crunch, but a soft interior making a pleasant mastication experience.


As a rule, I typically do not order chicken at restaurants. I generally like to see the restaurant's skill at handling more interesting fare, but supposedly the mark of a quality French restaurant is in its roast chicken. Very well then, bring on the roasted naturally-raised chicken (cornbread, mission figs, gold corn, cippolini onions, braised bacon, watercress). First off, not too dry for a chicken breast. And beneath the breast lay pieces of what I suspect came from the darker nether regions of the poultry. The cornbread was an odd complement, but the sweet figs were a welcome addition. Was it good dish? Certainly. Would I order it again? Sorry, chicken, but I'll have to side with your aqua-bound brethren and choose the Liberty duck breast next time.

No dessert for me this time, but I was plenty satisfied without satiating my sweet tooth. The dishes were fairly large, at least larger than I would expect at a wine bar. I'm sure the bar menu items are smaller, better for multiple courses and pairings. My experience with the restaurant menu was stellar. I'll have to come back and sample a variety of small dishes with the appropriate wines and let Chef Berthold and Wine Director Rajat Parr show me where this wine bar should really shine.

RN74
301 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415)543-7474
~$15 appetizers, ~$28 entrees, ~$11 small plates

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Curry's Good, Katsu's Better: Muracci's Japanese Curry & Grill San Francisco

Open only for lunches and early dinner, Muracci's Japanese Curry in the Financial District of downtown San Francisco does brisk, delicious business.

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While famous for their curry, which is cooked for two days, this little shop's katsu (pork cutlet) needs more exposure. Although the curry was good, it didn't quite leave as splendid a lasting flavor as I had hoped. When I'm eating stew-like foods, I want each spoonful to be lip-smacking after each bite. Muracci's curry has complexity, but it doesn't seem to last long enough. This might have to do with the viscosity of the sauce. Plenty of flavor, but too thin to last on your palate after the last morsel slides down your gullet.



I will point out that the pork cutlet was the best I've had. Thick and juicy, it's tough with pork to keep it from drying out. Too many tonkatsus I've had rely too heavily on the sauce or breading to impart flavor. I almost mistook Muracci's pork for a chicken cutlet it was so tender. Additionally, I had the chicken katsu. While good, it lacked the depth of the pork.

I especially appreciated that Muracci's makes all the dishes to order, rare among counter, lunch-focused shops. The staff is also Japanese and very friendly. There is also a Los Gatos location for those hesitant to trek out to the downtown. Slightly pricey, (~$9) for a katsu curry, but what do you expect in the City?

Muracci's Japanese Curry and Grill
muraccissf.com
307 Kearny Street
San Francisco (Financial District), CA 94108-3204
415-773-1101

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Powderface Beignets at Fruitvale BART

Coincidentally, I had to go to the Fruitvale BART station the day after the verdict for the Oscar Grant shooting. It was actually rather empty and quiet on the platform where he was shot on New Year's Eve 2009.



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Downstairs, some of the stores still had their windows boarded up in anticipation of riots that never reached the station. Most of the commotion was centered around downtown Oakland.



I had seen Powerderface before, the only beignet shop I've found in the area, not that I've ever did a thorough search of pastry shops throughout the East Bay. $3.50 for a bag of three beignets. Looking at the wall, I saw a review from 2008 listing the beignets at six for $3.50. Quite a price increase for just two years. I guess that keeps up with market rate for pastries like Beard Papa's, which are outrageously expensive for what they are.



At least the beignets are made fresh to order. I watched her roll out the dough, cut it out and drop it into the deep fryer for 3-5 minutes. I have no idea how they handle a rush, but I got the feeling there weren't very many of those. Out of the fryer and onto the cooling rack. A dust of powder sugar. The heat and oil from the beignet melts some of the sugar into a fine glaze.



I bite into the first one. Flaky exterior, soft and yielding interior with just the right amount of gooey dough consistency. The beignets were lightly dusted with sugar so they weren't too sweet at all. I'd like to tell you how they compared to the famed Cafe du Monde in New Orleans, arguably the king of American beignets. However, I haven't been to the Big Easy since Katrina and honestly can't remember. I just remember the sugar high my brother had from those beignets. So at the very least, I can say Powderface probably scales back on the sugar to a much more desirable level.

If you have a few minutes in your morning BART commute, take a moment aside for yourself, a fresh beignet, and a cup of strong coffee.

Powderface
3411 East 12th Street, Ste. 134
Oakland, CA 94601
(Fruitvale BART station)
(510) 536-face (3223)
powderface.net

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