Restaurant Review: Noodle Boat Thai

I’ll admit it, I haven’t had many happy experiences with Thai cuisine. Several times I have followed an excited friend to a restaurant that supposedly had ‘great thai food’ only to find myself staring down at the same tropically sweet coconut curry swimming with the usual assortment of coarsely chopped mixed veggies. Somehow I always got the impression that the chefs were simply cleaning out the back of their fridge and mixing the lot with canned sauce. True, coconut milk covers a multitude of sins, but it cant turn leftovers into a gourmet dish on its own. Still, in spite of such experiences, I have remained hopeful, so when a friend of a friend who works for the Seattle Times invited Jeff and I on a culinary expedition to a Thai restaurant that has been garnering amazing reviews, I couldn’t help but feel excited.

At first sight, Noodle Boat Thai doesn’t appear very promising. Its name isn’t particularily evocative (not that this is ever much of an indicator of a restaurant’s quality) and it is squeezed into an out of the way strip-mall in Issiquah, next to a nail salon. Even with the GPS in tow we had a hard time spotting it at first. But trust the reviews, inside this place is a jewel box , its tiny space crammed with richly colored statues and tapestries that the owners have collected over the years. Walk through the restaurant to the right and you will find yourself surrounded by umbrella shaded tables, lush foliage, and gilded shrines in the surprising oasis of the outdoor patio.

We set up camp outside and were promptly presented with copies of the restaurant's menu; a heavy hand-made tome that looked like a veritable necronomicon of Thai cuisine. Our attentive waitress gave us advice on what to order and which dishes were best served hot or mild. We started with Thai Iced tea which arrived in charming terra cotta pots. I’ve always had mixed feelings about Thai Iced tea; on its own it can be overwhelmingly sweet, but if consumed with a spicy meal it has the same soothing effect as Indian raita. In this case, I was wise to order it for just such a reason.

For our appetizer we chose Mieng Kum; an incredible array of condiments ( chopped ginger, dried shrimp, minced red onions, dried chilis, toasted coconut, limes, and sugar palm sauce) in separate small blue and white saucers, surrounded by edible leaves called Cha Plu. The leaves were mostly bland on their own, but one is meant to fold them into cup shapes and then fill them with the items of one’s choosing. The effect is an explosive mouthful that runs the gamut of salty, sweet, sour and spicy all in one bite. Because of the dish’s small size and potency, it is truly an appetizer in the original sense of the word- not filling but very effective at stimulating the appetite for things to come.

Next up, the oddly named Queen of Banana: Steamed banana blossom with chicken, shrimp, lime leaves, mint, onion, and cilantro, tossed with coconut milk and chili paste. This was an amazingly tart and fresh dish, pleasantly dominated by the mint and lime. The steamed banana blossom had a tender and juicy texture not unlike artichoke hearts, which the chewier notes of the chicken and shrimp, and the crunch of the other vegetables balanced out nicely.

Our second entree of Lard Nha was the only one we ordered with a medium level of spice (Im ashamed to say that I have always been rather a light-weight when it comes to hot dishes). Wide, silky noodles were stir fried with brocoli and beef in a rich and spicy black bean sauce. This was one of the more savory dishes that we ordered but it still contained a subtle hint of sweetness.

For our third dish we chose the Halloween Curry (so named because it contains Thai pumpkin). This one was the big one for me, would this be just the sort of curry dish that I had been dreading? Judging by the previous dishes, all signs already pointed to no. The curry arrived in a ceramic pumpkin dish (they do not skimp on presentation at Noodle Boat) and was so delicious that I was literally shocked. I have never been a big fan of the squash family, but each golden nugget of pumpkin was so perfectly cooked-soft but not mushy, and had just the right balance of salty and sweet that I may become a convert. We ordered the curry with pork but the meat was rather lost next to the pumpkin so I would keep it vegetarian next time.

Our last dish of Volcano Gem Hen was something we ordered simply because the description on the menu contained the admonition 'Volcano not lit for customers under 21'. How could re resist finding out what that was all about? A tiny roasted hen (about the size of a cornish hen) was drenched in alcohol, briefly set alight by the waitress, and then doused in a sticky sauce. Since we were out on the patio in full daylight, the intended visual effect was somewhat lost, but the resulting extra crispy skin was delightful. The salty hen was the perfect foil to the preceding sweet and semi-sweet dishes, it almost acted as a sort of palatte cleanser in that regard. Not the most complex thing we ordered but definitely flavorful and tender.

All three of us regretted ordering so many dishes (or at least our stomachs did) but when you are trying out a new restaurant you want to sample as many offerings as possible, there is simply no avoiding it. I would most definitely return to Noodle Boat despite it being a half hour drive from Seattle (Jeff and I have driven much further in pursuit of a good meal), as far as my limited knowledge of the cuisine goes, the menu was authentic, surprising, and delicious. I encourage those who are more familiar with traditional Thai dishes to make the effort of visiting Noodle Boat, as I would love to hear your opinion! Dont be daunted by the drive or the location, critics praise the hidden gems of the restaurant world time and again, and this is definitely one of them.

True Grit

I was out walking today, as I am every day, rain or shine, and found my originally purposeful stroll transforming into more of a wander. Wandering, that is walking with no purpose or destination in mind, is one of the best ways to get to know a city in my opinion. Its plan is allowed to unfold in an organic fashion, rather than in geometric fits and starts, and one can see some of the spirit that lies beneath the familiar constellations of shops and galleries.

Artifact from the pre-internet porn days; the soon to close Lusty Lady peep show sits shoulder to shoulder with its high class neighbors.

On this occasion I was struck by how visible the myriad historic layers of seattle are, each stratum layered one on top of the other in a jumble of eras and textures. Boston is like this, but even Boston's crazed streets appear reasonable when compared to the exuberant mess of hills and buildings that is downtown Seattle. Victorian edifices of genteel brick are sandwiched between brash new apartment buildings with mirrored sides, streets carry on more or less straight and then plunge alarmingly to sea level, past tipsy earthquake cracked warehouses, and under the giantess legs of the viaduct. Rusting iron and corroded stone slump beneath the glowing tubes of neon signs, and the rain forest encroaches wherever it can; slimy moss on sidewalks, ferns clinging tenaciously to alley walls like terrestrial mollusks. And then there are the encircling mountains, the lares and penates of the city, who only show their timeworn faces to us mortals when they choose, but whose mercurial weather moods shape the pattern of our days. So many tiers of time and place, it can be dizzying

The hidden world beneath the viaduct.

I would like to compare all this to the concentric rings of a tree; a legible timeline reaching back to the city's beginnings, but that is far too orderly of a metaphor for this great gritty place. Seattle is an eroded cliffside, where the young soil has been washed away haphazardly to expose layer upon layer of ancient rock. It is transparent new skin stretched over old bones, it is a tide wrought wharf where many colored woods shine beneath clusters of armored sea creatures. It is beautiful. The eye is never made weary, but is always intrigued anew by the mysteries each bit of architecture and landscape promises.

A post apocalyptic scene; the sun sets behind a crumbling wall near the wharf.

A Modern Pilgrimage

As you can surmise from my last posting, Jeff and I have left Boston. After years of procrastination, worry, and dreaming, we are finally taking our relationship with the city of Seattle to a new level. We dare to believe, you see, that this lovely, quirky city ruled by mountains and sea will eventually become a place that we can call 'home' in all senses of the word. This is the first time that either of us has chosen a place to live- not for school, not for work, not for family, but simply for pleasure. Its an exciting choice to make but it carries many burdens. We are both further away from friends and family than we have ever been-even phone calls require more thought because of the three hour difference from the East Coast. And we have to start our lives over again in may ways, which is terrifying....but also liberating.

We have been here for about two weeks now, having left Boston on May 21st, and what a long and strange trip it was to get here. (Please excuse the haphazard nature of this post....its not an easy thing to tidy the experiences of several weeks into a few neat paragraphs.) We somehow condensed all of our possessions into two 5x7x8 crates (its frightening to see your entire household fit into two flimsy wooden boxes and equally disturbing to see just how much random stuff two people can accumulate in 8 plus years) and had them shipped on ahead of us to Seattle. We put our very angry cat into another crate (dont worry, this one was designed for animals) and waved goodbye to him at the airport. It was strange to think of so many details of our lives arriving before us, but I guess the thought was that our new world could start to take shape ahead of us and all we would have to do was show up.

We then embarked on what I can only call a modern pilgrimage. Ten days of driving, from coast to coast, across a portion of the United States that was entirely a blank for me before this. We decided to drive instead of flying for practical reasons (we needed some way to get our car to Seattle) but also because we had never done the fabled 'cross country road trip' before and we felt that a more gradual transition from one city to the next would make the change less painful. It is true that the lengthy trip made adjustment easier on some level...after just a few long days on the road we began to feel like gypsys, with no past, no future, just an endless present, and with no goals except to drive, always keep driving, mile after mile. Our usual comforts were stripped away and all of our desires regressed (or evolved?) to basics: sleep, food, gas, beer, coffee. And strangely, we were never lonely. Our trip was an instant conversation starter and we found ourselves chatting with locals all across the country. Our city aversion to conversation with strangers was soon eradicated and we found friends in the most unexpected places.

And the land....oh the land. I hate to sound so tritely patriotic, but somewhere along the way I fell in love with America. Such rugged beauty, such timelessness and all there, right under my nose. In the mornings I witnessed the gentle mating of earth and sky as clouds embraced the mountain tops, and at night the sky became our theater; a bowl of stars upended over the road. I watched the colors of the land change from the vibrant spring greens and yellows of New England to the watercolor tints of the Midwest: subdued ocher and russet cliffs, pale gold and sage green fields, and milky aquamarine rivers. In cattle country where the soil was rocky and dry and the hills were wild, I saw the importance of the overstated ranch gates, how they stood like symbolic shinto thresholds, keeping out the chaos of the wilderness and demarcating the human cosmos within. In the mountains I saw burn zones, where incinerated pine trees stood like strokes of charcoal against rocks coated in brilliant orange lichen. Later, I watched as those jagged peaks transformed into gentler hills; bunched folds of green velvet along lazy rivers. I saw endless fields of glistening obsidian, where a 2000 year old volcano had erupted, and I faced my own fear to explore the caves that lava flows had carved.

Most importantly, I saw a bit of the essential difference between the East and the West. In the East, everywhere you see the mark of man's hand and the passage of human time: how cities were birthed and evolved, how industry subdued the land, how paths became roads. The countryside is familiar, gentle, and nonthreatening. In the West, the cities are fewer and farther between and everywhere you see the mark of Nature's hand and nature's history; how ancient rivers carved valleys, how the earth heaved up and became mountains. The West has a terrible beauty; it makes you feel small and powerless, but somehow it also makes you feel whole, makes you realize that you cannot exist independently of the natural world that birthed you.

So I guess this trip was not an ordeal, it was a learning experience. And all poetic appreciation aside, here are some of the concrete lessons that I learned:

1. Coastal cities are not the only depositories of culture in the United States.

2. People are the same everywhere...but they seem to get friendlier that farther you travel from the East Coast.

3. Coffee in the morning makes everything okay

4. Laptops and GPSs are not examples of evil technology, on the road, they are your best friends.

5. The purest things I have ever seen are the roadside signs that read simply: Beer Gas Food. Thats the holy trinity on a road trip man, thats all you need to feel human.

6. No matter how intellectual you think you are, after six straight hours or driving, all conversation will regress to baby talk and belligerent babbling.

7. A bull Bison can and will fuck you up if you mess with him

8. Chicago has the best Mexican food

9. Beer can be used as a bartering tool

10. Home is not a fancy house with a picket fence, it is wherever you can put down your bags and lay your head at night next to the person you love.

We're here Seattle, are you ready for us? Are we ready for you?....

A Love Letter to Boston

Last week I made one final trip into the city to say goodbye before the chaos of the moving process really took hold in earnest. As I have always done over the years when feeling out of sorts, I paid a visit to the historic wing of the Boston Public Library. The elegance and timelessness of the baroque architecture and Sargent’s beautiful murals have never failed to make me feel calmer and more centered when Im feeling run down, overwhelmed, or even just sad. In the dim, womblike enclosure of the upper level I almost always find myself alone, which is truly a rare thing in downtown Boston.

At this time the library was hosting a retrospective exhibition of Jules Aarons’ photographs of Boston Neighborhoods during the 1950’s and 1960’s and it felt appropriate to check it out and make contact with the city’s history one last time. But looking at these incredibly intimate and candid shots of street life during a time before I was born, I had a hard time relating what I saw to the Boston of today, the Boston that I know. I realized just how much the city must have changed over the years and how little I was aware of those changes. My presence here for these last 8 years has been little more than a blip on the city’s radar. So I started to wonder….do I really ‘know’ Boston at all?

Maybe that is a part of the sadness of leaving that I hadn’t counted on…this feeling that I have nothing to hold on to, that I cant take Boston with me because it isn’t mine, was never mine, at least not in the way that the people who have been born and raised here feel it in their very bones, feel that it belongs to them and they to it. I have loved my life here but in some ways I have always been just visiting, an eternal interloper or tourist. It seems that I have never had enough time to see everything, to learn everything, I was just passing through.

But Boston, I love you. I love you so very much. I love that your streets distain the thought of a grid, that they meander in organic madness and make walking more efficient than driving. I love how mom and pop stores from another era still cling to business in the midst of your most gentrified areas. I love the way that slick steel and glass skyscrapers sit shoulder to shoulder so companionably with crooked townhouses of aging brick and stone. I love your back alleys, where some of the best restaurants hide. I love your river that divides you from Cambridge, but never manages to keep you apart. I love your graveyards where the stones have been washed clean of memory by rain and wind. I love your suburbs, where each town retains its own unique identity, while still remaining loyal, and I love all of the amazing, challenging, and wonderful people that I have been privileged to call friends.

I love you for what you were, what you are, for all the things I have seen, and all things I have been blind to. You took me in and nurtured me, even though I wasn’t your own and now you are letting me go, sending me on my way to a new destiny. And maybe I have actually been privileged because I have never belonged to you….your sights have never become mundane and you have never ceased surprising me. Often an outsider can see things that a native cannot. So I hope because of this, you’ll let me carry just a part of you with me. Goodbye Boston, I will never forget you, and Im sure we will meet again one day.

The Cat Came Back

I truly love living in a city (or at least within shouting distance of one). Yes, its noisy, the traffic is atrocious, and its hard to find personal space when you are out and about, but a city is so varied, so multi-layered, so full of stories and textures that it can attain an almost magical quality if you look at it the right way. Read Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities and you’ll see what I mean. He understood that what we think of as one city, as a single organism is actually many worlds, all crammed together, all coexisting. Some of these worlds are obvious and some can only been seen in the right light or when you are in the right mood.

I grew up in suburbia and for me cities were once places where one went on vacation….as some people go on safari. You gawk, you keep a map close at hand, and when you leave, its almost with a sigh of relief. Oh yes, I’d say, I love to visit, but I could never LIVE there. So when I first moved to Boston for Grad school about 7 years ago, I was so terrified, that I literally didn’t leave my apartment for several days. I sensed that the city was a beast, that it wanted to absorb me, digest me, and I wasn’t ready to give myself up to something bigger than myself that I couldn’t understand. But over the years I learned how to do just that and it was only then that I was able to see past the big picture and pick out the tiny facets beneath.

I’m writing about this now because of one of these tiny facets that I noticed last week, the type of little incident that seems unimportant but manages to tenaciously stick in your mind.

When I was working in the South End, I used to take the commuter rail into South Station early every morning. Right before the train heads into the station, it crosses a sort of wasteland of access roads, construction sites, and rusted heaps of metal. Every time I passed through this spot on my morning commute, my eye was caught by the same thing; a sort of make-shift dog house sitting right there in the middle of this industrial dumping ground. It was really no more than a box with a small door cut out of it, and there was often a bowl for food or water placed out front. I always wondered what sort of creature lived there, but never gave it more than idle speculation. Then, several weeks ago I was taking the train into downtown on a shopping trip and saw that the house was gone. Suddenly I felt very very sad…, as if instead of a mystery being solved, it had simply been blotted out. I was surprised how much this little bit of a story and its disappearance had affected me. A few days later I was again riding the train, and there it was, a brand new house, this one very obviously hand crafted. Sitting next to it was a large grey Persian cat.

It sounds silly I know, but the sight of a domestic cat, out there in a place that is the closest to the middle of nowhere that you can come to in a city, was almost shocking to me. I thought wow….this is it, this is the animal that has been living here all these years. Someone that works on the trains saw this animal, fed it, built a home for it, and has cared for it all this time….and probably very few other people are even aware of its existence. It is tied to the city as much as the train, the station, all the other large blatant parts of Boston are, but it exists in another world that can only be seen if you are looking for it. It made me wonder….how many other things are living and happening that I don’t know about. Things in odd corners, in back alleys, or maybe even right out in front of me? This is what it is to be part of a city, I mused,….it’s a constant discovery, an eternal exploration. Who knows what those canyons and jungles of cement and steel have to offer. I guess that’s why its so important to always fight for the window seat on the train. ;-)

Carnitas

I would never go so far as to describe Jeff and I as vegetarians,( although for some time we did rub elbows with that disciplined crew) but we do rarely eat meat, and it is the central feature of our home cooked meals only once in a blue moon. I cant take sides in the great 'to eat or not to eat' debate, I’m far too conflicted myself to offer up any solid arguments, but I do feel strongly that eating meat should never be taken lightly. If one chooses to partake, I think it should be done with thoughtfulness and appreciation. I hate the idea of disembodied chunks of meat moved from freezer to plate with the casualness and lack of regard that one usually reserves for processed snack food. Think before you eat. Take a moment to consider your place in the food chain and maybe feel a little gratitude for what you are receiving, that’s all I ask. I came across a poem a while ago that I wrote down on a sticky note and then promptly lost, but it went a little something like this:

‘When you kill a beast, say to it: as I take your life, so too shall a far greater hand one day take mine.’ In other words, always remember that whatever you take from the world must someday be returned. Now there’s a thought for Earth day.

I might add, that the less meat you eat, the easier it becomes to be thoughtful about it, for the occasional addition to your plate gains all the special excitement of a culinary event. Weds night was one of those events. After a carb heavy meal the night before (risotto) Jeff put in a request for something a little different. What the hell, I thought, why not go all out, why not make Carnitas?

I have made Carnitas at home before on the stovetop but I found the results to be a bit dry for my taste and the process rather time consuming. Likely this is mostly due to my inexperience with braising. Semi-vegetarians aren't usually the best cookers of meat, go figure :-P. Anyway, I had been thinking for some time about trying my hand at making Carnitas in my slow cooker, an appliance that is often banished to the back shelf but always yields amazing food when used, and decided that it was about time to give it a whirl.

Carnitas, or ‘little meats’ is a type of braised pork used in Mexican cuisine. Traditionally, the heavily marbled ‘Boston Butt’ cuts of pork are used for the dish, and never having seen this portion of the pig before, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Whole Foods didn’t feature Boston Butt in their meat case (oh how appropriate is that name!), but the butcher kindly brought the 2lbs that I asked for from the back. I was now the proud (and slightly squeamish) owner of a large roughly cylindrical hunk of pork, richly marbled, and covered in a thick layer of more fat.

When you make this dish, you must resist the urge to give in to lipid phobia and trim off all of the extra fat. That lovely white stuff is what will help give the dish it's wonderful moist texture. Don't be afraid, just close your eyes and think of England....

Cut the pork into 1-inch cubes and place in a bowl (or directly into the slow cooker). In another small bowl mix your seasonings. I used about 2tsp smoked paprika, 2tsp cumin, 2tsp smoked salt, 1tsp coriander, 1 1/2 tsp dried mexican oregano, and a couple pinches of dried ground chipotle pepper. You can add more to taste later if you like.

Toss the pork pieces with the seasoning mix, make sure they are well coated.

Transfer the pork to your slow cooker (if you haven't already). Quarter 1 onion, take the layers apart, and place on top of the meat.

Turn the slow cooker to low heat and forget about it for about 6hrs or until the meat is tender enough to shred.

Warm some corn tortillas in the oven, add the carnitas, guacamole, sour cream, and salsa, or whatever fixings you like, and dig in.

So how did it turn out? Oh dear god, I haven’t the words. The meat cooked down to a velvety softness and was literally drowning in its own rich liqueur of fat and spices. That, combined with the tartness of salsa, the creaminess of avocado and sour cream, and the mild roughness of the corn tortilla, created a sincornicity of flavor and texture that was beyond compare. My hands were literally shaking as I ate, no devoured, four portions one after the other. I lost all sense of self, I was no longer human, I was a gluttonous ravening beast, and I believe I made noises that were probably terribly inappropriate. I licked my fingers and then, dear readers, I gleefully and unashamedly licked the plate. If that isn’t a reason for cooking at home then I don’t know what is. Ah the joy of savoring every last morsel of a tasty dish without worrying about what the other diners might think….

If you attempt this dish at home, please make sure that you have turned the oven off and that there are no open flames in the house before you take your first bite. You may lose consciousness from sheer pleasure and I wouldn’t want your house to accidentally burn down during that blissful interval.

A side note; after Jeff and I had both gorged ourselves, there was about a cup of pork and liquid left, so I decided to use it in a makeshift soup the next night. I added about half a bag of frozen roasted corn from Trader Joe's, a 14oz can of crushed tomatoes, a 1/2 cup of water, and a couple more pinches of salt, then let it simmer for a bit. Top with some sour cream, dip in any leftover corn tortillas, and you have yourself another delicious meal. So yes, that 2lb piece of pork was well appreciated, and even if I cant feel entirely guiltless, I can at least say that I didn't take this pig for granted.....I also learned that I need to use my slow cooker more often!

Cooking From Scratch: Key Lime Pie Part IV

Finally, the moment you've all been waiting for, the dramatic conclusion of my Key Lime Pie from scratch project. Hopefully you haven't fallen asleep and stopped following the process long ago.

I decided to use Nigella Lawson's recipe for the filling, as I have been successful with it in the past.

You will need:

5 Eggs

1/2 Cup plus 2 tbs Key Lime Juice

14oz of Condensed Milk

Separate your eggs so that you have five egg yolks in one bowl, and three egg whites in a second bowl (I saved the remaining two egg whites for later use in an omelet). Two of the eggs I used were from a friend who raises his own chickens. You can easily see the color difference in the photograph-the yolks were a deep orange.

Beat the egg yolks until thick.

Add the condensed milk (I used the condensed milk that I made from scratch in part I of this recipe)

Add the key lime juice.

In your second bowl, beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks, then gently fold them into the egg mixture in the first bowl.

Pour into the crust (see part III of this recipe) and bake at 325 degrees for 25min or until the filling is firm.

Behold, the finished product at long last! The farm raised eggs that I used gave the pie a very bright yellow color. Im happy to say that it was absolutely delicious; the perfect balance of tart, sweet, and bitter, and the crumbly, buttery crust nicely set off the creamy citrus filling. My dinner guests devoured almost the entire pie in one sitting...it wasn't pretty, Im not even sure what happened. One minute I was cutting the pie, and the next we were all slumped over in our chairs with happy yellow grins on our faces. Seems strange to put so much work into something that can disappear forever in just a moment. Its rather Buddhist actually....so uh yeah, eat your dessert, it will make you more spiritual