Roasted Broccoli With Shichimi Togarashi

Are people bored of broccoli? Or is broccoli boring? I don't hear people getting excited about broccoli. I'm definitely guilty of over looking it every time I'm at the farmers market...going for more the super seasonal vegetables. But after eating so much fried chicken at the Fried Chicken Club meeting, I had a super strong craving for broccoli. I'm not sure why I had the craving......but I ended up buying couple heads of broccoli at the farmers market. I love chicken and broccoli and my mom usually stir fries it with garlic but I wanted to try something different. So in spite of the heat, I roasted the broccoli.

1 head of broccoli 1 onion (optional) Salt + pepper Olive oil Shichimi Togarashi

1. Turn on the oven to 425 degrees. 2. Trim the stem of the broccoli to get rid of the tough part. 3. Cut the broccoli into smaller pieces. (I like slicing each floret down to the stem.) 4. In a mixing bowl, mix broccoli with olive oil and season with salt + pepper. 5. Lay the florets on a roasting tray. (I had an onion lying around, so I roasted that also.) 6. Roast the broccoli for 15-20mins or until tender. 7. Sprinkle with shichimi togarashi to taste. 8. Serve + eat

This is super optional but I had some King's Hawaiian dinner rolls so I made a broccoli sandwich with Kewpie mayo and onion.

Fried Chicken Club, The First Meeting

On Saturday, I met up with Summer, Sydney, Sydney's husband, and few of Sydney's friends for the very first Fried Chicken Club meeting at The Drink in Williamsburg. So what's the deal with Fried Chicken Club? It's pretty simple. Bring any sort of fried chicken (chicken fingers, Korean wings, nuggets, fancy or cheap, sandwiches) to share with other people. We did really well for our first meeting. A nice variety of fried chickens.

Here's what everyone brought...

Summer brought a whole bucket of fried chicken from Wilma Jean that came with pieces of fried chicken + skewers of fried chicken chunks, 2 sides, and buns. Sydney brought hot chicken sandwiches from the Meat Hook Sandwich Shop. Sydney's friends brought a whole box of Popeye's fried chicken (regular and spicy), Korean wings from Brooklyn Seoul, and chicken strips + chicken nuggets from Sticky's Finger Joint. I brought a whole box of thighs and couple breast from Yafa Deli.

I have never been to The Drink. It's a great bar with a really nice backyard. It was buy 1 beer get 1 beer free when we went but most of the people preferred their delicious $5 punch.

Thanks to everyone that came out and brought delicious fried chicken to share.

The hot chicken sandwich from the Meat Hook Sandwich Shop made it to my top 5 sandwiches out of the 13 I've eaten so far list.

Also, Wilma Jean made it to my top 5 fried chickens out of the 27 I've eaten so far list, back in 2014.

Soft Shell Crab Sandwich

I'm not really a big crab person. It's not that I hate crab but it's just too much work for that little meat. Haha, yeah I'm lazy. When I was a kid, my mom would simply boil shrimp with the shell on and serve it with soy sauce. I refused to eat it because I didn't want to peel the shrimp. Or maybe I was smart cause she ended up peeling the shrimp for me. Heh. I do like the taste of crab, so when it's soft shell crab season, I make sure to stock up. It's pretty easy and quick to cook them. I usually fry it in butter and serve it with whatever seasonal vegetables I just happened to have. BUT this time, I made a soft shell crab sandwich because I finally got my hands on some King's Hawaiian bun. Last time I checked, about 2 years ago, the closest place to buy King's Hawaiian bread was in New Jersey. I found these in Pathmark in Gowanus.

Things you'll need: Soft shell crab (make sure to ask if the crabs are already clean) Cornmeal (or flour) 1 egg Butter Salt Japanese chili powder Kewpie mayo Lettuce Buns (any kind you like)

1. Crack and scramble the egg. 2. Coat the crab with the egg. (1 egg is enough to coat 3 crabs.) 3. Coat the crab in cornmeal.

4. Put a knob (about 1 tablespoon) of butter in a hot pan. (Medium heat) 5. When butter starts to foam, put the crab in. 6. Cook for 3-5 minutes on each side or until golden. (Beware, the crab does splatter when cooking.) 7. While still hot, sprinkle salt. 8. Sprinkle chili powder to taste. 9. Split bun in half. 10. Squirt mayo on bun, put desire amount of lettuce leaves, put crab on top, and finish with another squirt of mayo. Put top bun on. 11. Crack open a Narragansett beer or your favorite cold beverage. 12. Eat

A Taste of Home

After taking my first bite of this homemade pho by Lily's mom, I turned to Anh and said..."that's it, I can't eat any other pho." When people say, "oh this was made with love..." yeah, I totally tasted love in this bowl of pho and also time and also mad skills. I finished the whole bowl and drank all the broth. Super deep flavors that I have never tasted in any pho I have had in NYC.

We were lucky enough to get invited by Sydney to join her at her friend's mom's pho pop-up at Ramen Lab.

This really got me thinking about what I consider to be good and authentic. I have never been to Vietnam but definitely ate enough pho while growing up in LA. My family and I would drive to Westminster aka Little Saigon for our fill of Vietnamese food. After moving to NYC, it's rare to drive to Little Saigon when I'm visiting home. (I guess I should do that next time when I'm in LA.) When I was a kid, I didn't doubt the pho that I was eating wasn't authentic. Actually, I didn't know much about food until I moved to NYC in 2003. I went on a food journey when I first moved here, trying to find good pho. Pho that reminded me of LA and not Vietnam.

What does it mean to be authentic? Or traditional? And this isn't just about pho but almost every foods in every century, time and space, there are different variations. People grow up with different experiences and tastes which will affect the way they cook. Maybe the base is the same but with different hands mean different outcomes.

Now that I'm writing this (Hi! I didn't think about writing this. I'm more or less just letting my words spill out.), I guess I have never really searched for authenticity but I was searching for home or my life in LA. Nostalgia? Probably. Every time I eat a taco, I think about all the $1 street tacos in LA. When I eat Hainam chicken rice, I think about the version I had in LA.

This bowl of pho I had on Monday is like the true meaning of being home. It was made by someone's mom that really put care into it and maybe because I was eating in a crowded restaurant with mostly their family friends.