Gastrolust

The utilitarian Haas avocado is frequently on sale in these parts, and while I often simply cut slices into a salad or mash one to make guacamole, Mark Bittman’s recipe for “Fast Avocado Soup” recently caught my eye. This is simple soup. Take a few avocados, combine with an almost an equal number of cups [...]

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I’m sitting in Le Gourmand, staring at a “simple” menu of five starters and five entrees, trying to figure out what to eat. I flip the menu over, and above a half-page list of local ingredient sources, there’s a quote from Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin about gourmandism, which says, in part: Morally it is an implicit [...]

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Okay, time to close out this inadvertent “noodle trilogy” with a confession of sorts: I did not prepare the yakisoba or the hiyashi udon discussed the past two weeks. And I certainly wouldn’t want to claim preparation of the “girl noodles” in this week’s “Something I Ate.” The better half is from Japan. She’s the mistress of [...]

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If you’ve been reading Sexy Feast since the column started a month ago, you know that I see sex and food as very much connected. Both bring great pleasure–good at the most basic level, great if you’re willing to invest more. And you know I continually compare sex to a menu. We tend to have [...]

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If pre-Labor Day is serious summer and the season for cold noodles, then post-Labor Day is faux fall—and a perfect time for hot noodles. Few noodle dishes are better than yakisoba, which literally means “fried noodles.” It’s a Japanese dish derived from China and made not from buckwheat (“soba”), but from ramen-like noodles made with [...]

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Shishamo. What is it about her that makes me crave her so? Sometimes I travel far to partake in her pleasures, most notably in Japan. October’s the time to go, when her belly is bursting with eggs, her fertility calling like a siren’s song. But now I’m on this side of the Pacific, and feel [...]

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Just as ma po dou fu is a favorite emergency dinner option in my home (even if there’s no ground pork in the fridge, there tends to be tofu in there, and there’s always frozen pork in the freezer), udon is ubiquitous for lunch when we’re otherwise uninspired. We do a number of noodle dishes [...]

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Go to Tai Ho (despite repeated recommendations, it took me 11 years), and if you’re observant, you’ll notice two different-colored take-out menus at the front counter. If you’re staying, that’s your clue to ask your server for both menus, as they’ll otherwise just give you one–the Chinese one. The other is also Chinese, but Korean-style. [...]

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