Eating Out On Niu Jie – In the Muslim Quarter Of Beijing

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China, Chinese, Chinese muslim cuisine, Fish & Seafood, Food, halal, Meat, Restaurant, Vegetables

Niu Jie, which translates as Ox Street, lies at the center of Beijing’s Muslim quarter, which houses several mosques and a multitude of restaurants offering Beijing-style Muslim cuisine, also known as qingzhencai or huizucai. (The oldest mosque in Beijing is the Green Mosque and dates back to the 10th century!)

Muslim cuisine in China can be separated into Southern and a Northern, or Beijing, schools, both of which employ halal methods of slaughtering, but differ in the use of proteins. Northern Muslim cuisine focuses mainly on beef, while Southern proteins are usually mutton or lamb, along with duck, shrimp and geese. Islamic restaurants can easily be identified by Arabic writing.

While in Beijing, we couldn’t miss the opportunity to visit one of the many huizucai restaurants, which offered a mixture of Southern and Northern-style dishes:

True to Beijing-style restaurants, rice has to be ordered separately and comes in tiny bowls, and might actually be offensive because it implies there wasn’t enough other food, or that you didn’t enjoy it. Westerners like us of course get cut some slack there. We enjoyed a variety of dishes, and couldn’t pass up one made with mutton:

The mutton was crispy and came in a mildly spicy brown sauce, but, being mutton, wasn’t the easiest to bite through while being held with chopsticks.

This was probably my favorite dish, though it was closely rivaled by sweet and spicy eggplant that I failed to picture before we devoured most of it. Shrimp, cucumber and red peppers in a light, somewhat sweet sauce. I don’t usually like warm cucumber, but this was wonderful!

And finally, a Beijing-style beef dish. This came with tons of fat on the meat and swimming on the sauce, which wasn’t wonderful to me. However, the Chinese often leave on significant amounts of fat and enjoy it very much, and you can even specifically order “fatty beef”. Most likely it’s an acquired taste.

Overall it was a very interesting experience, and while I loved two of the dishes, two others didn’t really win me over. I’d definitely recommend the experience to visitors, as well as a trip to the Green Mosque!

Do you eat halal food, or follow other specific preparations? How easy/hard is it for you to travel or eat out? Have you discovered other cuisines that offer interesting additions to your standard fare?

Donghuamen Night Market in Beijing – Curiosities on a Stick

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Beijing, China, Chinese, curiosities, Fish & Seafood, Food, Fruit, Meat, Snacks

Yes. That would be me eating fried snake on a stick.

Probably the most memorable novel food experience on our China trip was the Donghuamen night market that pops up every night on Donghuamen Street in one of the luxury shopping areas of Beijing, China. The market serves pretty much anything you wouldn’t normally think to eat on a stick. Don’t believe me? Take a look: This stand had English labels, but you could mostly tell what things were. And if in doubt, vendors waving sticks at you and yelling “Testicles!! Lady, testicles!!!” at you enticingly is a good indication of what might await you. There were indeed testicles (from cocks and bulls, I believe), and also snakes, eels, whole baby sharks, centipedes, silk worms, honeybee cocoons, sea stars, sea horses, sea urchins, various squids and other cephalopods, stinky tofu (essentially tofu gone bad, and believe me, your nose will tell you if you’re even getting close!) and plenty of other things.

As a customer, you select as many of these items as you want and the vendors will dip them into an intensely flavored spice rub and either fry (most common) or grill (much rarer) them for you. While it’s certainly a lot to process for your brain, everything tastes pretty much just like that incredibly overpowering spice mixture, though things like silk worms and scorpions might add a textural component to the experience. It’s neither too diet-friendly nor too tasty, if you ask me, and not even because I don’t enjoy snake/squid/what-have-you, but simply because that spice rub was probably 95% salt and 5% hot spices. Nevertheless, it’s something any curious foodie should try at least once when in Beijing!

Now, once the foodie quota is met, you can distract yourself with steamed or fried bao zi (stuffed buns) served with a variety of dipping sauces:

And for a sweet finish, there are fruit, also served on a skewer, though not fried or rubbed in salt:

The Donghuamen night market has been around since the early 1980s and is a popular draw for Chinese and foreigners alike, though the Chinese tend to seem more enthusiastic about the offered wares in general. Do expect to be aggressively advertised to by testicle-sellers if you are foreign, and maybe be advised that “bu yao!” means “I don’t want it!”. Other than that, it’s certainly a memorable experience to try out one night in Beijing, and will provide you with glorious photos to show whenever people ask about your trip.

MotorMouth Food Truck – Globally Inspired Gourmet Dishes On The Road

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Cleveland, Fish & Seafood, Food, food truck, Local, Meat, MotorMouth, street food, United States, Vegetables

My love affair with Cleveland’s food trucks is intensifying, and so I bring you yet another gem on wheels: the MotorMouth Food Truck, another less-than-a-year-old truck serving (Greater) Cleveland. Their menu and location gets posted the night before or early in the morning on Facebook and Twitter.

This truck, owned by Chef Rusty James Phillips, serves globally inspired gourmet dishes, and when they say gourmet, they sure mean it. Just have a look at their menu when I visited!

I mean, come on? Roasted duck tacos? Butter-poached cod? Normally way above my price range for a casual under the week lunch. I was very, very torn on what to order, but finally settled on the butter-poached cod, served with tamarind-spiked black beans and yellow rice:

The cod was buttery, flakey, melting in your mouth, but what really made this dish was the contrasting side – Spanish style yellow rice with black beans, onions, red peppers and a very healthy kick of tamarind. Incredibly flavorful and spicy, I probably could have eaten 3 to 4 servings, easy. One of the best rice dishes I’ve had in a long, long time. Absolutely excellent.

Of course I couldn’t resist dessert. Enter their famous Mexican brownie:

This pretty much blew my mind. Not at all your typically intensely sweet brownie, it reminded me of chocolatey gingerbread, probably due to the spices. These treats were made by Becky’s Pantry with Abuelita chocolate (unsweetened Mexican chocolate, quite different from what we’re used to here) and smoked chilli powder and topped of with toasted slivered almonds. Very, very intriguing, and a huge serving to boot.

MotorMouth tries to buy as many of their ingredients from local farms, and always has a vegetarian option available.

Bottom line? Generous portion sizes, very fair prices, and out-of-the-ordinary gourmet foods with unusual ingredients prepared by a very nice team. 5/5 from me, with brownie (haha) points for enduring the rain to serve hungry mouths like mine. I hope I get a chance at those duck tacos soon!

Thanks to the MotorMouth Food Truck team for serving University Circle folks!

Which menu item would tempt you? What not so common dishes would you love to see at prices like these?

Umami Moto – An Asian-Inspired Foodtruck on a Mission!

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Asian, Fish & Seafood, Food, food truck, Poultry, Review, UmamiMoto, Vegetables

My wife’s work is awesome. Why? Because once a week, Umami Moto rolls in during lunchtime and feeds the hungry masses!

Umami Moto, owned by Jae Stulock and Sandy Madachick, is an aptly named foodtruck (loosely translated from the Japanese as “savory car”) that has been on the prowl in Cleveland, OH and surroundings since last winter, bravely weathering lake effect snow (which lasts a good 5 months a year) without a hitch. As you might guess from the name, most of their offerings are Asian-inspired, with an emphasis on Thai and Vietnamese cuisines. Obviously I had my wife treat me, no?

We actually went on two different occasions (yes, it was that tasty!), and here’s what a menu will look like:

The menu varies daily, and gets posted on facebook and twitter in the morning, messing with my poor little head and making it hard to focus on my work rather than which dish to try.

On our first vist I ended up going with fish tacos (not on the pictured menu) with a lime aioli that was absolutely divine and changed my world view concerning all things fish taco. Co-owner Jae Stulock informed me that the secret ingredient is lime simple syrup!

My wife chose a Vietnamese chicken curry served over rice (see the menu above), that reduced her to repeated “Man, this chicken is great. No, it’s so good!” comments in between bites.

So when I returned today (armed with a camera rather than an iPad), I decided to give the vegan snap pea and mushroom stir-fry served over white rice a try, and it was wonderful. The seasoning was spot-on and complemented the earthy mushroom flavor perfectly. I could have easily left the rice for a few more servings of the veggies alone!

I tip my hat to the chefs! Another great thing about Umami Moto is their efforts to use locally produced ingredients, plus all their food containers are made from recycled materials. A+ for responsible business.

Bottom line? When in Cleveland, try to catch Umami Moto. Great flavors, creative dishes, friendly personnel and fair prices. 5/5 from me.

I’ll leave you with a picture co-owner Stulock, who was gracious enough to pose for me with his tasty, tasty vehicle.