It's Not Tapas

Imagine for one moment a turd; not a pleasant image, I know. Imagine that this turd is then cut up into little bite-sized pieces before being artfully arranged in the middle of a small plate. There are some people who will tell you that this is tapas. It's not: it's shit on a plate.

With apologies to Jorge Valdano for bastardising his famous 'shit on a stick' rant.

The Ultimate Fried Egg Sandwich

It doesn't take much to set me off. So it should come as no surprise that I did one when I saw an article in The Guardian on how to cook the perfect fried egg. What particularly stoked my ire was the writer's cavalier dismissal of fried eggs with a crispy bottom. I still can't bloody believe Felicity Cloake likened crispy egg white to a hairball! But really, what is the point of frying an egg if you don't want a crispy egg white? If you're going to fry an egg slowly on a low heat, you might as well not bother; poach it instead.

So what's the best way to fry an egg? Well of course, it's the Asian way. I'm transporting myself to Vietnam where I enjoyed the ultimate fried egg sandwich. Think of a crispy fried egg with a runny yolk laced with chilli-infused soy sauce (although as Mimi points out below, Maggi seasoning is more likely to be used in Vietnam) inside a light airy crusty roll. If a famous brand of Danish lager did sandwiches...

To cook a crispy fried egg, heat a frying pan with a generous amount of groundnut oil until it's very, very hot. Crack an egg into the pan and watch it crisp up. Turn down the heat and spoon hot oil over the top, or alternatively flip it over very briefly before removing from the pan. Of course you can season with salt and pepper, but a few chopped chillies in soy sauce will give it that taste of the east. Unfortunately, light airy Vietnamese rolls aren't readily available in the UK, but crusty bread rolls are a decent substitute. And there you have it, a PROPER fried egg sarnie.

Lies, Damn Lies and Fish Sauce

Although I was born in the northwest of England, my culinary upbringing was strictly Chinese. I didn't really have much choice. In common with many immigrants, my folks fought off homesickness through rustling up the dishes they grew up with. The food they cooked was typical of their hometown of Canton (now known as Guangzhou) as well as Hong Kong, where they lived before coming to the UK.

In particular, Sunday lunch was always a very special meal. My mum would get up at an ungodly hour to put a slow-cooked soup, made with pork bones and mysterious dried herbs, on the boil. My dad was in charge of the roast. Not beef or lamb, but a slab of pork belly or maybe a whole duck roasted in the traditional Cantonese way. Sometimes, there would be a steamed fish, other times, some stir-fried seafood. And then there were vegetables, which my mum would ALWAYS make me eat. I didn't properly appreciate it when I was younger, but I am forever grateful to my parents for instilling in me a deep love of my native cuisine.

So you can imagine my shock and horror when I discovered my folks have never ever used fish sauce when cooking. This revelation got me thinking what other liberties they were taking in the kitchen? After all, according to no less an authority than Gok Wan, fish sauce is a Chinese store cupboard staple. And it must be true because this rather special TV chef would liberally slap shedloads of crappy Squid Brand fish sauce into most of the dishes he rustled up on his comedy cookery show, Gok Cooks Chinese.

I am, of course, taking the piss. Don't get me wrong, I like fish sauce. Without it, Thai and Vietnamese food wouldn't be the same. However, when it comes to Chinese food, fish sauce isn't really that common. In fact, it is traditionally only used and manufactured in a small corner of southeast China by the local Chiu Chow (Teochew) and Hokkien communities. Even then I'm not so sure how common it is as a Chinese condiment, as the shelves of the shops I visited in London's Chinatown were full of fish sauce from Thailand or Vietnam with nary a bottle of Chinese-branded fish sauce to be seen.

So why is Gok Wan perpetuating the lie that fish sauce is essential for Chinese cooking? My theory is that fish sauce is being used as a shortcut to gain that elusive xian (鮮) or umami taste. The alternatives would be either to do it the old fashioned way, or to use the much-maligned MSG. (I don't really want to go into the MSG debate right now, but scientific evidence debunks the mass of hypocritical borderline-racist bullshit written about this subject.)

Just to be clear, I'm not saying fish sauce shouldn't be used in Chinese food outside of those traditional Chiu Chow/Hokkien dishes in which it already features. What I resent is that, along with a load of other misconceptions, fish sauce is portrayed as a traditional Chinese staple on Gok Cooks Chinese. It would have been more honest if Gok said that he was using fish sauce to give the recipe a twist, or as a bit of cheat. But no, he gave birth to a lie. It's one I want to stamp out.

World's 50 Best Restaurants – Don't Make Me Laugh!

It's been a week now, but I'm still seething, when I'm not laughing. So why am I indignant yet amused? It's because of the joke that is San Pellegrino's World's 50 Best Restaurants. I find it laughable that some believe it to be a better guide than Michelin. Don't get me wrong, I don't set much store by Michelin but at least with their Tokyo and Hong Kong guides, they attempt to respect Asian food. In contrast, San Pellegrino features few restaurants in Asian cities that serve local cuisine.



So let's consider the gospel according to San Pellegrino:

1) Of their best 50, only four are in Asia, with the best-placed restaurant, Tokyo's Les Creations de Narisawa, in at No. 12. In the next 50, there are a further seven restaurants in Asia. So out of the best 100, eleven are in Asia. Did I mention that 60% of the world's population lives in Asia?

2) The best restaurant in Hong Kong is Amber. I'm sure it's very good but does modern French food represent the best of this fine foodie city? Of the three other restaurants in Hong Kong featured in the best 100, two also serve French food with the other, Bo Innovation, serving a molecular gastronomic take on Chinese food. It seems that the city's traditional Chinese restaurants just don't cut it.

3) That's because it would appear London, not Hong Kong, is the place to go for Chinese food, as Hakkasan is apparently the best Chinese restaurant in the world. Well at least you can't accuse the voting panel of not having a sense of humour. It's just that joke isn't funny anymore.

4) The best Thai restaurant in the world is also in London. Yes, that's right, there isn't a single Thai restaurant in Thailand that can compare to Nahm. This is getting more than slightly ridiculous now, not even the most partisan Londoner can surely believe that their home city boasts both the best Chinese and the best Thai restaurant in the world. Can they?

5) The Japanese can feel rightly aggrieved that despite Tokyo being lauded as the best foodie city in the world, it only has three restaurants in the best 100. Mind you, it's probably because standards aren't what they were in the home of sushi. Why else would the favoured haunt of the beautiful people, London's Zuma, be deemed the fourth best Japanese restaurant in the world?

6) And lastly, of the best 100 restaurants in the world, none are in those citadels of Chinese cuisine such as Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai or Taipei. I feel sorry for the 70 million plus people that live in those cities, as the poor sods can't get their hands on the best that their native cuisine offers. If only there was a Hakkasan that they could go to.

In fairness, the voting process is transparent. It's just that the voting panel seem to be a bunch of ignorant bores (I'm being kind - I called them much worse in the original draft) that don't really get Asian food. Why else would they pitch up in an Asian city, and dine out at restaurants serving posh European food. Why not get down and dirty with the local cuisine? Oh well, their loss, not ours. And by the way, in case you're wondering, Noma came in at No.1.

And Another Thing...

There are times when real life intrudes the blogosphere and if you're reading this, it means that I've been too busy to write-up a 'normal' post. That means I'm probably in a crappy mood so it's only appropriate that my 'stand-by' post (do other bloggers have these?) is one where I turn into Mr Grumpy and have a good old-fashioned moan.

Pan-Asian Restaurants
There's a group of bright young things out on the town looking for somewhere to eat. One of them wants Thai, one Chinese, whilst the cool kids are torn between Malaysian and Vietnamese. That's where the Pan-Asian eatery comes in, not all of them are shit but plenty are. You know the ones; they'll have banana leaf, mango, or lemongrass in their name. Otherwise, they'll be called something in an indeterminate Asian language that when translated means 'ha-ha, thanks for your hard-earnt'.

The menu will claim to represent the cuisine of a third of the world's population but there will be dishes that bear no resemblance to any Asian cuisine. Much of the food will be pre-prepared, inauthentic ingredients will be used, spicy dishes will be watered down and everything will be too bloody sweet.

Punters that regularly frequent these places should be disappointed but they won't be. That's because most of them don't really care (or realise) what they're eating is a piss poor rendition of some of the world's greatest cuisines.

Service Charge Inflation
I always try and tip at least 10% and don't mind putting more in for exceptional service. So when a restaurant has a 10% service charge, I don't mind too much as long as the service has been OK. I'm not sure when 12.5% service charge became de rigueur but if you're somewhere nice and the service is good then it's no big deal.

But a 15% service charge is just taking the piss. I mean that's nearly as much as the VAT. For that I expect complimentary shoeshine and suit pressing. American readers might think I'm a tight-arse but we don't have that tip equals double-the-tax bollocks in Britain. And whilst we're at it, what is it with Americans calling the main course, an entrée? Do the French call it that? No and it's their bloody language.

What really pisses me off about the 15% service charge is that the places that charge it tend to be posh and expensive anyway. They also know most diners won't kick up a fuss and in fairness, I've never been anywhere with 15% service charge where I've had cause to ask for it to be removed. That said I prefer the decision to leave a generous tip to be mine and not theirs.

I can't believe I've had a good rant and not mentioned how utterly shit some restaurant critics are when they're out of their 'white man food' comfort zone. Well I have now and yes I do mean you, Matthew Norman.

What gets on your nerves in the world of food? Leave a comment and we can all have a therapeutic bitch about it.