Week 16 - Hunan/Xiang

The theme for Week 16 was Hunan/Xiang, so no surprise, this challenge entry is also doubling as one for the AtWCC for China. This was a hard week for me to pick a dish. Hunan food is known for being spicy - very spicy - and very spicy is not something you can really do with a young toddler. On top of that, there is a particular spice or chili pepper that gives A a bad stomachache, and we haven't yet identified which that is, so another reason to avoid the spice! Thankfully, there were a few non-spicy Hunan dishes to pick from, but really not as many as I was hoping to choose from.

I ended up making pearl meatballs with sticky rice from The Woks of Life, mostly sticking with the recipe but with some modifications like using ground pork instead of hand-chopping it, and leaving out the water chestnuts (because we couldn't find any in the store, even though we think these would have tasted great in it). The ingredients we used were:

- 3/4 cup short grain sweet rice

- 1 lb ground pork

- about 2 tsp minced ginger

- 1 bunch of scallions

- 3 tbsp cold water

- 2 tbsp Shaoxing wine

- 2 tsp cornstarch

- ground white pepper

- 1 tbsp sesame oil

- sea salt

- 1/2 tsp sugar

On the side, we had some baby bok choy and oyster mushroom caps, as well as rice, for a nice, balanced meal. Really wish we could have found those water chestnuts in time though!

I followed the recipe fairly closely for how to make these, because I'd never made anything like them before, and I was very concerned that the rice was still going to be hard and crunchy after steaming. The basic steps were to soak the glutinous rice for a few hours, combine the meatball ingredients, refrigerate the meat mixture, and then after the chilling step, form the meatballs and roll them in the rice. Then they steamed for about 20 minutes. Unlike the original recipe, we used a stainless steel steamer instead of a bamboo steamer, but that seemed to work fine.

The meatballs were really good! The rice was soft and not the least bit crunchy. I did make the meatballs a little too big and would adjust that next time, but they were really flavorful and the rice was an interesting addition that worked. I would definitely make these again.

Week 40 - A Recipe You've Been Wanting to Try

I did a lot of virtual cooking classes during the pandemic before things started opening up again after vaccines, and even though I attended multiple classes on dumplings, potstickers, and wontons, I was never able to make them. Why? Because every single wrapper I could find either had egg or was made on the same equipment as egg, and it wasn't worth the risk with B's allergy. I knew that there was one wrapper that was completely vegan, made by Nasoya, but it wasn't until this fall that we were finally able to get it. I had a hard time initially trying to figure out what to make for the Week 40 challenge - a recipe you've been wanting to try - because there are so many, but this seemed to fit, since I've been waiting to make wontons/dumplings for so long.

I decided to make pork wontons, but the only instructions I could find at the time from the classes were for shrimp wontons, so I loosely followed a recipe from Bon Appetit instead, with the intention of trying to fold them the same way they did in the class. As is probably obvious, I was terrible at folding the wontons. I tried all different shapes, but most of them came out looking horrible. The folded-over triangle was probably the best one, and the wontons just looked so empty, but that was the most I could stuff them without them breaking. I wasn't great at making them the last time I tried either. This is why I pay for them at restaurants, although I'll keep trying again here and there.

I made some green beans with onions in the air fryer alongside the wontons, based on a recipe from Allrecipes. They were pretty good, although they looked more like Chinese dry-fried green beans than they tasted. We haven't experimented much with making vegetables in the air fryer yet, but since these turned out well, maybe we'll do it more.

Overall, the dumplings were fine, but not great. The sesame sauce from the Bon Appetit recipe was delicious though, and it was good on both the dumplings and the green beans. It'll probably be some time before I attempt dumplings again, but hopefully next time will be better.

52W Challenge: Salt

This is the last post from the 2017 challenge for the 52 week cooking challenge. In my last post about why I quit, I mentioned I was starting to twist whatever I was making into a theme to check the boxes, and there is probably no better example than this challenge right here. I wrote this back in November when we made the soup, but had been waiting to post it until I finished all the challenges in between, which as you know never happened. This was from Week 41 since I was jumping around, but going forward I'll just note any posts with themes from the challenge with 52W Challenge in the title instead of the week number since I'm no longer following along, officially or unofficially.

The Week 41 challenge was all about salt. The challenge was supposed to be about using salt in cooking, which is something we do all the time but rarely with salt as the focus. They had a bunch of suggestions, like encasing food in salt or doing a brine or curing. I didn't really have any interest in those types of projects at the time I was going to do the challenge, and the only thing I could think of was seasoning some vegetables with onion salt, not exactly much of a "challenge." Since I'm not officially participating, I decided to switch it around. How could I get the flavor of salt without using any actual salt itself?

Around that time, my grandparents had split a giant winter melon that had grown in someone's backyard into three sections, and I had to figure out what to do with a third of a winter melon. (Yes, the winter melon in the photo below is about a third of a single melon.) The easiest thing to do with winter melon is soup, so we decided to make a soup without using salt. Instead, we would use chicken bouillon to make chicken broth and also incorporate some chopped ham.

The soup ingredients were simple: half of the winter melon, a pound of carrots, a bowl of shiitake mushrooms (plus the soaking water), about 3 big scoops of bouillon, that entire ham steak, and a little white pepper, plus some more water to make broth. No salt itself.

The steps for making the soup were:

1. Prep: Soak shiitake mushrooms in warm water for about 20 minutes or until soft, and then remove mushrooms from water but save the water. Squeeze excess water from mushrooms and chop into slices. Peel and chop carrots.

2. Add carrots and mushrooms to large soup pot. Add the mushroom soaking water plus however much water you think you need for soup broth. (Didn't measure, but we ended up removing at least a few ladles full later because we had too much water.) Bring to boil.

3. While waiting for water to boil, prep winter melon. Scoop out seeds and peel, then chop into smaller chunks. Chop up ham.

4. Once water is boiling, add winter melon, bouillon, and ham. Season with white pepper and stir everything together well. Bring back to boil over medium heat, and then lower to simmer. Simmer half-covered for about half an hour.

This was a very simple soup to make, and we based it on the soups that a lot of Chinatown restaurants serve before meals. We didn't plan to eat the entire pot of soup in one night but we did, mostly because it isn't exceptionally filling with just winter melon and carrots and mushrooms in it. It had so much more flavor than we were expecting it to, and it definitely tasted like there was salt added even though there technically wasn't. Probably wasn't what this challenge was intended to be about, but works for me. Would definitely make this again.

Week 29 - Dim Sum

I put off the dim sum challenge for a long time. The challenge week was in July, and I didn't make anything for it until September. I'm behind in challenges generally, but I just lacked motivation for this one. I think a big part of that was because dim sum has always seemed like a lot of work for something that is consumed very, very quickly. For example, A's mom made dumplings completely from scratch one night for dinner when we visited, and the 130+ dumplings she made were consumed in maybe half an hour. Another part of it was probably because we've had a lot of dim sum over the years, and I knew whatever I made wouldn't live up to it. Yet another part of it was probably because I wasn't going to make a multitude of dishes, but only one, and that really wouldn't replicate the dim sum experience. It just seemed easier to go out for dim sum than to do this challenge.

But part of this challenge is forcing me to go outside of my comfort zone, and sometimes to do things that I don't actually want to do. So I eventually forced myself to pick up some dumpling wrappers and try to make the dumplings that I used to love when my grandmother would make them for family get-togethers. It had been a while since we had them, but we sort of remembered what went into them and got some tips from her and my mom. The ingredients we used were:

- 1 lb ground turkey

- 1 cup dried shiitake mushrooms (probably should have used more)

- 1 can of water chestnuts (probably should have used more)

- 1/2 cup of scallions, greens only (probably should have used more)

- about 1.5 tbsp of soy sauce (definitely should have used more)

- about a capful of shao shing wine

- 1 pack of thin dumpling wrappers

- 1 egg, beaten

- chicken bouillon + water, enough to cook the dumplings in

As you can tell, we didn't really measure anything, and we weren't working off a recipe so all the amounts are estimates. The one thing we both agreed on soon after trying them was that we definitely should have used some more soy sauce. Next time.

The steps for making the dumplings were:

1. Combine ground turkey in mixing bowl with soy sauce and wine, and let sit while prepping vegetables.

2. Rehydrate shiitake mushrooms, reserving the soaking water, and then cut off stems. Put mushrooms, water chestnuts, and scallions in a food processor until chopped well. Add to turkey mixture and mix well. Allow to sit for a few minutes.

3. Combine the water from the shiitake mushrooms with chicken broth (chicken bouillon and water in our case). Bring to boil.

4. Make dumplings. Put a small amount of filling in each dumpling wrapper and seal with egg. [I should have put in more filling. I always overfill everything, like tacos, lettuce wrap, etc, so I think I overcompensated here and didn't put enough. Next time.]

5. Boil dumplings in batches of 10-12 for about 10 minutes until meat is cooked.

Since I didn't put enough filling in each dumpling since I was afraid they would burst, there was a lot of turkey left over at the end. I ended up making about seven giant meatballs (with the turkey mixture, some of the beaten egg, and some more soy sauce) which, after pan-frying for a bit, we then added to the soup that would accompany the dumplings. The soup was my grandmother's idea. She said the dumplings would be even better made with chicken broth instead of water, and that you could then just add vegetables and drink it. Perfect idea. We added in some chopped mushrooms (regular mushrooms, not shiitake) and the rest of the scallions, along with the meatballs, and it was a really clean soup.

In the end, the dumplings were good but not great. There were hints of the flavors I really like from our family's dumplings, but there was something missing. I don't think it was just more soy sauce though. Maybe it was more mushrooms, maybe more water chestnuts, maybe all of the above. Maybe it was some other ingredient that I was missing. I also need to put more meat in each dumpling next time, because there was way too little filling in these. We did enjoy eating them for dinner though, and they were also good out of the refrigerator the next day (cold actually has always been my favorite way to eat them). May take some more experimentation and practice to get this right, but I'm certainly not opposed to it!

Flushing Food Crawl

Considering how many food options there are in Flushing, we don't get out there nearly as often as we should. It's only a (relatively) short trip on the 7 train, yet almost all of it has been unexplored by us. For that reason, for one of our dining resolutions for 2017, we decided we should go on a dumpling crawl in Flushing. Last weekend, we did just that (and can finally check off our first fully completed resolution!).

Our first stop was Tianjin Dumpling House at the Golden Shopping Mall in the basement food court. Out of all of our stops on the food crawl, this was the one we had actually been to before, grabbing some dumplings before a wedding a few years ago in case it was like a typical Chinese wedding and the food wouldn't be served for hours. Their specialty is the lamb and green squash dumplings, although the lamb/carrot and pork/chive ones we got the last time (because they were out of the squash ones) were good too. (Just as a side note, probably best to not think of this as your typical "mall" or mall food court; it's a bunch of stalls in a cramped basement that have been there forever just serving good food.)

Each order of dumplings at Tianjin has 12 dumplings, and they range in price from $4 to $7. Really inexpensive. The lamb and green squash ones were $6, which was a great price for 12 dumplings. They were cooked to order so they did take a little bit of time to get, but they were totally worth it. One of our favorite things about the dumplings was the nice chewy wrapper which had sort of an al dente texture to it. We assume that the wrappers are handmade because you can't get that type of elasticity from a machine-made wrapper, and also because the dumplings are all different sizes.

The dumplings themselves had a mild lamb flavor but not an overpowering gaminess. The green squash added an interesting texture. We didn't get much flavor from the squash, but it added something of a "wetness" to the dumplings that helped ensure that they didn't get too dry. For dipping sauces, this no-frills place doesn't have any pre-prepared sauces available. Instead, they have bottles of soy sauce and vinegar and containers of chili sauce and a green-ish garlic sauce. We have no clue what made it green, but it was delicious and had a really nice sharp, garlicky flavor. This was our first stop of the day, but after discussing, we both agreed that it was the best.

Next up was probably the one we had been most excited about - White Bear. We had wanted to go to White Bear for ages, and every time we saw pictures of the wontons in chili oil, we wondered why we hadn't made it yet. These were also $6 for 12, and they came topped with scallions and some pickled vegetables along with the chili oil. (It's #6 on the menu if it's not obvious.) They were also supposed to have good dan dan noodles there, but we didn't want to overdo it and end our food crawl after two stops, so we didn't get those.

We liked the flavor of these dumplings, but we thought that they would be better. The way some people talk about White Bear, we expected this to be something like a life-changing dumpling experience, and it wasn't. It sounds like maybe our expectations were just too high, but while they were high, there was also the fact that we thought our first set of dumplings from Tianjin were better. The wrappers here were handmade and thinner, like a lot of wonton skins are, but that made them less chewy and in some cases, easier for them to fall off the filling. A couple of our wontons were either broken or broke as we tried to pick them up. Flavor-wise, we noticed that despite the chili oil, they weren't really very spicy at all. We've had wontons or dumplings like this before that were much spicier and thought those had more flavor. These were also on the salty side. The pickled vegetables here added some nice freshness and differentiated it from other dumplings we had in the past, but they also contributed to the saltiness.

We intended for our next stop to be more dumplings, but as we wandered around, we found ourselves in the food court at the New World Mall (this one, a more typical mall and mall food court). We walked around looking at all the stalls and all the many food options until we stopped in our tracks at Cheers Cut. When we were back in Vancouver, we had tried Taiwanese large fried chicken for the first time (post coming eventually in our trip recaps) and it was incredible. We had heard rumors that places in NYC were starting to make this, but didn't really know where to go yet. When we saw that Cheers Cut had large fried chicken, we had to stop the dumpling crawl and get some chicken.

Cheers Cut (apparently with two locations in NYC, as well as one each in Tampa and Philadelphia) had two sizes of large fried chicken - large (samurai) and extra large (ninja). We, of course, went with the ninja ($7.95) so we could try more, and in the choice between pepper and chili topping, went with pepper since it was closer to what we got in Vancouver. In style, it was very similar to what we got in Vancouver (and presumably what they serve in Taiwan, but A never had this there, and M hasn't been to Taiwan) - a chicken breast and thigh flattened into one large piece of chicken, breaded, and deep fried. The dark meat retained some of the bones, even in this flattened form, but there was a mix of white and dark meat in every piece.

While this chicken was good, we preferred the one we got in Vancouver. The breading on that one attached more to the chicken and didn't really get soggy and flake off at all like this one did in parts, there was a little more flavor in the topping, the breading, and the chicken itself in the Canadian one, and the chicken was a little juicier there. That said, until we hear about the location of another Taiwanese large fried chicken joint in NYC, we don't have anything to compare it to in this city, so guess it's the best one for now. Maybe someday there will be other places here to compare, but right now it's much cheaper going to Queens than flying back to Canada.

Our next stop we figured would be one of our last, since it was a full-service restaurant instead of a quick service place - Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao. We were going, obviously, for XLB, but we also heard that they made good scallion pancakes. Since we'd pretty much been eating heavy food without vegetables all day, we also figured we should balance that out with a plate of cucumber and garlic ($4.50). That was nice and refreshing with good garlic flavor, although a couple of pieces of cucumber were a little on the bitter, softer side. It felt really good to eat all those cucumbers though, since we were incredibly dehydrated.

The scallion pancakes ($3.50) came first, since soup dumplings take a little bit of time to make. These were crispier and flakier than the scallion pancakes we're used to getting. Despite the crispy exterior, though, the insides were still soft and chewy just the way we like them. While these were quite good, the ones A's mom makes are better.

The last thing to arrive was the steamer of six pork soup dumplings ($5.95). These were quite delicious. The soup inside was rich and flavorful without being too scalding. The filling was also flavorful and soaked up a lot of the flavor from the soup. The really nice thing was that the wrappers were thinner than most versions you get in NYC. That was always our gripe with the offerings in NYC. While in overall rankings we'd rank higher the ones we got at Din Tai Fung in Asia and others we got in Vancouver, these are probably our favorite of the ones we've tried in NYC. We haven't tried everywhere in NYC though, so we're open to further comparisons, but so far, these are the best we've had here.

After all of that savory food, it was time to end the day with some dessert. We headed back to New World Mall to the food court, as we had been hearing a lot recently about some stall there named Erqal that served Uyghur ice cream. When we went on our walk through the food court earlier, we had seen it and mentally bookmarked it for dessert. With tax, a regular ice cream was only about $3, which was pretty good for such a large cup.

The first thing we noticed about the ice cream was how it was made. There was a giant whirring motor spinning a frozen metal bowl holding the ice cream base. In the bowl was also a large wooden paddle that provided the aeration required to make the ice cream. When it's fully frozen the wooden paddle is then used to scoop out the ice cream into another container so that it resembles a large clump. The ice cream definitely had a different texture from most of the ice cream we usually eat. It had hints of brown sugar and caramel in the flavor, and texturally it wasn't as creamy as any other ice cream we had ever eaten. It was more icy and watery for lack of a better term, and it lent itself to being eaten very quickly. It was an interesting experience, and we really enjoyed the ice cream.

We had a pretty productive day exploring Flushing, trying different foods from all over China, checking off our resolution to go on a dumpling crawl, and even seeing bits of history from the colonial era on our walk, like the Kingsland Homestead. We should definitely explore more neighborhoods in the city more often.

Week 18 - Stir Fry

We stir fry on a regular basis, so I thought the best thing to do for the challenge would be to look for a new recipe. But nothing really caught my eye as I looked at recipe after recipe, so I decided instead to make black bean chicken for the challenge. I've made this before (and even posted about it), but it had been many months since the last time and I was kind of craving it.

There were some differences in how we made it this time, mostly because we were going to eat it on its own and I wanted to make sure there were enough vegetables in it for a meal. Instead of just a bell pepper, garlic, ginger, and scallions, I ended up using onions, a green bell pepper, a red bell pepper, mushrooms, garlic, ginger, and leeks (store was out of scallions). And lots more black beans than in previous times, but there was also more stuff in the dish.

This was really good, although I wanted more black bean flavor. I always forget how easy it is to make this and how we just need some fresh vegetables to throw in. I should probably make this and ma po tofu more so I can finish off the black beans we have and get some newer, fresher, probably stronger in flavor ones.

9th Ave Food Festival 2017 Part II

The second day of the 9th Avenue International Food Festival was warm and sunny, and the good weather meant even bigger crowds. While we spent our first day mostly visiting places familiar to us, the second day was all about trying small snacks from places in the neighborhood that we've known about but never made it to. It was an easy (and cheaper) way to sample their food and see whether we might want to go for a return visit sometime.

Our first stop was back at the Spam house as we're all about free snacks, especially when they're tasty. This time there was no musubi offered, just sliders and fries, so we both went with the slider. It tasted a little better than the day before, but that could just be because we each got a full slider to ourselves. We were much happier with a full slider as opposed to half and half of a musubi.

As we made our way up the avenue, we stopped first at K Rico, a South American steakhouse that seems to be sticking in a spot that has seen a lot of turnover since we've lived in the area. They had chicken legs, arepas, and empanadas, and after a staff recommendation, we went with one of the beef empanadas.

Unlike some empanadas we've had, these were more deep fried, sort of like a pastelillo. The inside had beef, egg, raisins, and some herbs. The raisins and the sauce made it a little sweeter than most similar beef empanadas we've had, and we think we prefer the more flavorful, more savory ones. A didn't get much meat in his bites, but that could also be because he somehow dropped a piece while eating. He also didn't really like the raisin addition in this case. In the end he thought it just tasted fried. M got more flavor from it, but not as much as she was expecting.

Our next stop was Tacuba which had caught our eye the day before because they had a rotating al pastor spit outside with pineapple on top. Unfortunately, the spit was gone when we got there, but they still had al pastor left. In addition to the pork, each taco had onions, cilantro, pineapple, and a green sauce. They were really good. The pork was flavorful and had just the right amount of "crisp" to the edges that only come from rotating spits. The pineapples were also grilled so they were nice and soft with a bit of smoky sweetness. The only negative here was that the taco filling amounts were pretty uneven from taco to taco.

The other thing that had caught our eye the day before was the clam chowder from Blue Seafood Bar, mostly because it wasn't that expensive and we love chowder. While this was a creamy chowder, it wasn't as heavy on the cream as some others we've had which we liked. Not sure if this is how it usually is or if it's because of how it was cooking on the grill outside, but it was good. In addition to the clams and broth, there was celery, corn, potatoes, and lots of herbs. The flavors here were good, but having just been to the Pacific Northwest, we've been spoiled on amazing chowders. As good as this was, there was almost no way for it to compare.

Our final stop was Ding which was selling an assortment of Chinese dishes for $5. A lot of them looked good, and in the end we went with dan dan noodles, one of our favorites. We watched as they scooped out the noodles and topped it with sauces, seasonings, and garnishes from at least eight different bowls. The noodles had a good amount of late hitting heat from the Chinese peppercorns, but wasn't unbearably spicy at all. Also the meat sauce and additional sauces and flavorings all melded to form a very tasty dish. We got a menu from the vendors there, and from this first taste we both think we'd like to give the restaurant a try.

We had a pretty successful visit to the food festival this year unlike the one year that we only got pierogi, curry puffs, and doughnuts on both days. We do still miss the pierogi though.

Chaan Teng

Back in November, on the corner that used to house Delta Grill in Hell's Kitchen, a new Chinese spot opened called Chaan Teng. We were intrigued by it, as the decor was a little fancier and more upscale and the menu had some interesting takes on Chinese dishes, like General Tso fried chicken. We also noticed that they had daily lunch specials (including weekends, unlike some other places), so we figured that would be a good way to try it the first time.

We both got lunch specials that day, which started off with a choice of appetizer (spring rolls, chicken and shrimp dumplings, or a green salad). We both went for the dumplings as usual. These reminded us more of Thai dumplings, like the chicken and shrimp dumplings from nearby Qi, than they did of Chinese dumplings, but that was fine with us since that's one of our favorites. It also made sense since Pichet Ong is behind both Chaan Teng and Qi.

For the main course, M got the charred lo mein with egg. The description said it was "wok charred egg noodle, cabbage, mushroom soy, Cantonese spices," which was an abridged description as there were also carrots, scallions, and bean sprouts among other things. Apparently there was also supposed to be Chinese broccoli, but M had that excluded because of her intolerance. (The server said everything was made fresh for each portion, so that was no issue.) The noodles were pretty good, lots of flavor, and tasted really healthy with all the vegetables.

A got the hot numbing rice noodles, marked on the menu with a three chili pepper spicy designation, and described as "rice noodles, Berkshire pork, vegetables, Sichuan spiced gravy." Hot and numbing was a proper description. The noodles were spicy and had a good burn, and the Sichuan peppercorns made A's tongue tingle and the water taste salty fairly quickly. Both are signs that the peppercorns are doing their job and messing with taste buds. The vegetables were infused with the hot and numbing flavors, and didn't help with not making A's mouth burn up. The pork belly was rich and fatty, and it had great flavor that didn't involve raging fire.

We were feeling hungry that day so we also got another appetizer to split - the spicy pork shumai (pork, chili, lemongrass, scallion soy sauce), which was the spiciest thing on the menu, the only thing with four chili peppers next to its name. We weren't sure how spicy the shumai could really be considering the description, but they weren't kidding. It was definitely hot, plenty of chili and chili oil, and it was full of that numbing effect of Sichuan peppercorns. The shumai themselves were really tasty, but that sauce was really, really hot. Normally we would eat all of the scallions and onions in the sauce, wiping up every last bit with the shumai, but we couldn't here because it burned (in a good way, but it still burned).

Overall, we liked our meal at Chaan Teng. It was enough to pique our interest about the rest of the menu, and we'll probably go back sometime to check it out some more.

Week 28 - Local Ingredients

I wasn't really sure what to do for the local ingredients challenge, other than just go to the farmer's market and pick up something that looked good. Other than locally grown produce, what would really be considered a "local ingredient" for NYC? Since I was kind of stumped on that one, and since getting something local from the farmer's market was perfectly acceptable for the challenge, I just took the simpler route.

We were out shopping near my parents and stopped by the farmer's market to see what they had. I thought maybe there would be some good squash since it was the middle of summer, and that maybe I could make a good squash salad, something like one we saw during one of those Williams-Sonoma demo classes. The squash didn't look great, so that wasn't a good option, but what did look pretty good was the cilantro. I wondered if I could just make a cilantro salad, and then the tiger vegetable salad from Xi'an Famous Foods popped into my head. That definitely had cilantro in it. I quickly found a recipe for that type of salad on my phone, and we picked up the cucumber for the salad at the farmer's market too.

The recipe that I used as the base for this challenge was from the NY Times cooking section (original here), but I made some adjustments as usual. The ingredients for the challenge were:

- 1 large bunch of cilantro ($2)
- 1 cucumber ($0.75)
- 3 large scallions ($0.60)
- 1 serrano pepper ($0.06)
- canola oil ($0.10)
- sesame oil ($0.25)
- white vinegar ($0.10)
- salt ($0.05)

All the amounts for the sauce are approximations since we adjusted the flavor to taste and I'm not sure how much we used in the end. The estimated total for the salad was about $3.91, which isn't bad at all. We paired this with some ma po tofu (prepared like the heritage week challenge except that I now cook the onions first and used scallions instead of leeks since TJ's is out of frozen leeks at the moment), and although I didn't calculate the exact cost of that portion of the meal, I'm pretty confident that the grand total likely came under $10.

The work involved in the tiger vegetable salad was almost entirely prep. Although I love cilantro, I find washing and preparing cilantro to be a really tedious task. That's how I feel about the cilantro we get from the store, which is probably on average about 5 times less dirty than the straight out of the ground cilantro we picked up from the farmer's market. And we picked up a lot of cilantro at the farmer's market. It was a great deal getting that giant armful of cilantro for $2, but it took forever to get it clean. Removing the thick stems took some more time after that. Thank goodness I didn't have to chop it too.

Once the cilantro was finally prepped, I sliced the cucumber as thinly as I could, slivered the scallions (with A's help as my eyes were painfully burning partway through), and finely chopped the serrano pepper. After that, we mixed in the canola oil, sesame oil, and vinegar to taste and added some salt. It was a little difficult getting it all to mix together at first as there was just so much cilantro, but once it started to soak up some of the liquids, that giant bushel of cilantro dramatically shrunk in size.

While the salad was good - light and refreshing - it wasn't nearly as good as the one at Xi'an Famous Foods that was my initial inspiration. Looking at their menu now, it seems like their salad includes cilantro, scallions, celery, and long horn peppers in a sesame vinaigrette. The ingredients are definitely a little different from what we made, which probably accounts for the difference in flavor, besides the fact that they are pros at making it and this was our first time. On its own merits, the salad was fresh and clean, a good side dish, but the flavor of the cilantro wasn't as powerful as we had anticipated it would be, coming straight from the farmer's market. I'm glad we tried to make this ourselves, but not sure we'll make it again. That cilantro was a lot of work.

Fuku+

We were really excited when we showed up at Fuku+ for dinner. We had been wanting to go ever since we heard they opened, since it was much closer to home and we still hadn't made it down to the East Village to wait in line for the original Fuku. It sounded like this one had everything the original did, and then even more good stuff, like the Fuku fingers collaboration with Mission Chinese. We were pretty sure we were going to love everything we had after all the rave reviews we'd read about everything Fuku, so we settled in to our place at the standing bar (only spots left) and excitedly put in our order.

Although there were 3 main things we wanted to try, we hadn't left Urbanspace Vanderbilt that long before our visit, so we had to drop the Sichuan pork flatbread from our order as there just wasn't enough stomach space. The 2 things we did get were the Mini Me, a smaller version of the original Fuku chicken sandwich, and the Fuku fingers collaboration, since that was a limited time only item. (Sorry for the dark photos, there's no natural and/or bright light in there.)

The Mini Me was a huge reason we came to Fuku and why we had wanted to go for so long. Reading everything people had to say about the original sandwich downtown, we were sure it had to be good. People raved about it. They called it a life-changing chicken sandwich, the best one ever, best in the city, best everything. We cut it in half (forgot the cross-section photo in our haste to dig in, sorry), and then took our first bite of what would surely be the greatest chicken sandwich to ever hit our tongues.

But it wasn't. Neither of us shared what we thought about the sandwich until we had finished the whole thing, but when we were done, we both had the same reaction, basically, "Huh?" All that hype, all those raves, for that? It was a small fried chicken thigh with a crispy outside, 2 pickles, and a very soft bun. It was supposed to be a spicy chicken sandwich (Eater said it was the "product of a habanero buttermilk brine"), but there was absolutely zero spice to it. The crunch was nice, but that's not really the main/sole component we look at to judge a chicken sandwich. The chicken tasted so much better with the addition of the ssam sauce sitting on the counter, but it didn't have much depth on its own, none of this amazing spiciness that everyone else claimed to taste.

It's been incredibly confusing to us, like we're living in some bizarre food world, where everyone else is raving about the Mini Me like it's the best chicken sandwich on the face of the planet but our feelings about it are pretty much a "meh" or a shrug. It was fine, but not as special as we thought it would be. Would we like the original Fuku sandwich better? Did we come on an off day? Were our expectations just too high? Was it just our sandwich that wasn't as good as the rest? Did someone else order a non-spicy sandwich and they gave it to us by mistake? As we wondered this in the days after our visit, Eater did an entire chicken sandwich crawl and named it the top sandwich of the day, proclaiming it even better than the one at the original Fuku, so who knows whether or not we'd like the original Fuku one if they're right. We're honestly just so baffled by all the raving based on our experience eating it. The Delaney Chicken sandwich we had earlier that day was so much better.

After we finished off our sandwich, it was time to move on to the Fuku fingers, the collaboration with Mission Chinese which donates a dollar from each order to charity. The fingers, composed of white meat chicken, were seasoned with MCF's Chongqing spice blend, a combination which seemed to be dominated by Sichuan peppercorns, chiles, and some sugar. There was no doubt in our minds that this would be spicy, as the order was basically a bowl full of chiles (mixed with some scallions) cushioning 6 decently sized chicken fingers.

Damn, they were not playing around with the heat here, and it was fabulous. The flavors were great. It wasn't just heat, but there was a lot of depth to the spice. It was much hotter than we expected and our lips were tingling, but it was worth it. The quality of the chicken was good, and overall, we just really liked these. They were so much better than the sandwich in our opinion. We ate the Fuku fingers second so it wasn't like our taste buds were on fire and we just didn't notice the spice or flavors of the sandwich. We deliberately saved the Fuku fingers for last because we knew the Sichuan peppercorns would mess with our tongues.

If you can tolerate spice, the Fuku fingers would definitely make a visit to Fuku+ worth it, since it's the only place you can get them. Despite all the raves, we just can't say the same thing about the Mini Me. Maybe somewhere down the line we'll try the sandwich again either here or at the original Fuku, but for now, we'll stick to some of our other favorite chicken sandwiches (like the fabulous Bobwhite).