This Week's Floating Rock Report
Okay, by now everyone knows I must have prahok every week or go into withdrawal...This time, I arose at the ungodly hour of ten, in order to have a companion for my Floating Rock run..
Tiger's Tears for 9Lives, (up to their usual standards, he reports...) I noticed that among the herbage, there was even the "Fish herb", or wet dog herb, as I call it, that is sometimes used as a garnish in Vietnamese restaurants. 9L and I both love Vietnamese food, but one of the differences we noted, between Cambodian and Vietnamese, seemed to be that while in Vietnamese, the herbs are on the side, and *you* combine them, In Cambodian, they seem to be integrated into the dishes already..
We also shared my current favorite dish in the world, Long Bean Salad with Preserved Fish and prahok, and their divine version of Hot and Spicy soup..This is one of my favorite items in any Vietnamese restaurant, and I wasn't expecting anything really different. We were pleasantly surprised; galangal, less lemon grass, and lots of shallots in the broth. Lotus rootlets, (love those), instead of bean sprouts, fresh oranges, and the white-fish steaks were browned before adding to the soup...Hefty amount of purple basil. Wonderful! The flavor lines are more distinctly drawn, the colors are a little more vivid.
Since there were only two of us, which limited our sampling, 9Lives wanted to take ANOTHER soup home (he's such a trooper)...I convinced him to try the wonderful Spicy Seafood soup I had had several months ago at By The Sea, giving us a chance to cruise by, and see how they were progressing under new ownership...The place was empty...He did order the soup, while we chatted with the staff...Seems they reopened two weeks ago, after the previous owner moved to Texas to open a Cambodian restaurant down there...Unfortunately, the new chef is Chinese...Not that that's a bad thing, but it's worth noting in a Cambodian place whose menu is already slanted toward Chinese dishes. One would have to order carefully to find and explore the Cambodian flavors.
So, onto the soup. We examined it in the car, definitely different from what I last had...Pieces of fish weren't browned first in trumeric, but the broth did appear to be thickened with roasted ground rice, and had a lovely scent...More opague and green than I remembered, none of the tangled massed of veggie matter...Jackfruit and coconut milk? 9Lives retreated to his cave to wait out the storm; he will have to post his observations...
Me? I've got some raw ankimo to soak in sake, then steam...Did I mention we caught last call at Sea to You on the way home? ;)
galleygirl
Feb 22, 2003 05:10PM
Seems like there was no monkey in the wrench this visit.
I miss those tiger/dragon tears.
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They looked superlative...I could see the crunchy skin on the edge of each beef sliver....
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dschow and I went to Floating Rock for a late dinner (restaurant closes at 8pm, hours are 8-8) this evening. Including my husband, there were only three of us, so we ordered from chowhound postings: Squid salad - wow! so very full of fresh flavors and delicious squid) tiger tears, chili pork and catfish soup. Everything was as promised. If anyone needs a lunch date next weekend, drop an email -I'd roll out of bed in the morning to try more stuff!
Dessert was Zeppolas from Modern, courtesy of dschow - sigh, luscious - A good time on an evening when the rain was turning to ice balls bouncing off our windshield.
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i could not stay away from that soup with rice -- remarkably like malaysian curry. i personally didn't care for the catfish because it tasted a little fishy (i didn't mind swallowing the stray bones to get the meat, however).
and oh boy, i could eat that squid salad every single day. looked like peruvian ceviche that i had at a place in east boston once but tasted so much better . . .
oh, but that spicy chili pork -- remarkably like bacon, with little pieces of fat still on the pork and stir-fried(?) so that fat got slightly crispy. man, but it's so hot (duh, that's why it's called "spicy")! my mouth was tingling a good 10 minutes after having eaten the stuff.
tiger tears. i loved the roasted ground rice. awesome texture complemented the beef (oh so tasty) and vegetables. niiice.
pastrytroll, don't forget the florentines! how could you?! we have striperguy to thank for those modern recommendations (and thanks for the tip on the julius schecter, mmm). also at martignetti's i got a pack of clark's teaberry chewing gum. tastes like i'm chewing an altoid, sort of. not too shabby.
if i can get up in the morning, i might try to have their breakfast of noodles and fried dough sticks (normally served with jook or congee).
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So, which catfish soup did you guys get? I'm trying to piece it together. There's the Hot and Spicy Soup, or the Farmer's Style Fish Soup, but neither of those remind me of Malaysian Curry, or any curry, for that matter...I saw rice soups on the menu, but assumed they were congeelike [always a good thing, just didn't have stomach room to waste, or a hangover that needed fixing :) ]
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the soup was actually called "catfish soup with jackfruit and (something else)". it had green beans, (round -- japanese?) eggplant, and something that looked like artichoke hearts or lotus root -- it was tan in color. the server (owner?) said we were to eat it with the rice he put out for us. it was listed under soups. the soup base was an orangey color, and i think it was made with coconut milk. whatever it was, it was really good!
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Definitely coconut - which was the malaysian curry tang, especially in bowls over rice - lots of vegetable things and the catfish was perfectly noist, not at all dried out. But this dish was very mild.
Anyone going there next weekend?
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Saturday lunch? E-mail me at jnich851 at aol.
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Damn, that was definitely on our list...Sounds like the one I was looking for...It was "Jackfruit and coconut", but it was so hard to decide between that and the "spicy and sour" soup...Sure the tan thing wasn't just big slices of galangal?
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Could it have been pieces of bamboo shoot tip? The big triangular, soft tan tips (could be cut up) are pretty common in Cambodian dishes and taste (or rather feel) faintly like artichoke hearts.
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Ooh, good call. Or maybe even banana shoots? I think I saw those in Angkor Mkt. next door...
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wow, both of your guesses are certainly better than mine! i'm pretty sure it wasn't an artichoke heart or lotus root -- it shared the color of these two. at first glance i thought it might be lotus root because it had holes (well, more like enlarged slits?) but definitely not the texture of lotus root. the slits also reminded me of artichoke hearts. does this help with the guessing?
i've never had jackfruit before, but it looked a lot like pineapple in the soup.
i took the spicy chili pork and tiger tears leftovers for lunch at work today -- the people who looked and didn't taste them were put off by the scent (but oh the scent!). those who tasted them LOVED 'em. my mouth was burning (and i drank 4 cups of water) after finishing the pork (i also broke into a cold sweat). now that's fine eating!
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This feels kind of like culinary forensics...anyway, with the holes (and if the texture was soft) I'd say it's gotta be bamboo shoot tip. But I guess what this really means is you'll have to sacrifice yourself to the cause and go back to eat and ask.
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I'm volunteering to put my taste buds on the line: I think bamboo tip sounds close - but I've never seen a banans tip, cooked! One meal, and I'm in love with a restaurant!
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I *think* it was a banana shoot I saw. I know they're used a lot in SEAsian salads, tho I've never eaten them..I'll have to research further...But either way, Cambodian food is *so* different, flavorwise, than anything else I've ever eaten (sorry, the dumbed down stuff at Elephant Walk bears no resemblance...), that it's easy to fall... :)
The Globe reviewed a Cambodian place in Lowell called Red Rose that sounded very good last week, and I've heard rumors of a place called Khemera in Lowell, also...Soon, a field trip will be needed...
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If you go on your field trip...There's a tiny little cafe called appropriately enough Le Petit Cafe on Middlesex St. It's inside what looks like a dingy brick office building but inside it's full of Cambodian shops (herbs, jewelry, insurance, and such) and the cafe. It's got just a few tables and a walk up counter for a version of bahn mi they call "Chinese subs" and cheap soups. I've only had the hot coffee w/condensed milk--it was great. Seems like fertile chowhound territory to explore.
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If you go on your field trip...There's a tiny little cafe called appropriately enough Le Petit Cafe on Middlesex St. It's inside what looks like a dingy brick office building but inside it's full of Cambodian shops (herbs, jewelry, insurance, and such) and the cafe. It's got just a few tables and a walk up counter for a version of bahn mi they call "Chinese subs" and cheap soups. I've only had the hot coffee w/condensed milk--it was great. Seems like fertile chowhound territory to explore.
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I don't live THAT far from Lowell, and I love the hot coffee with condensed milk - but I thought it was Thai coffee, is Thai coffee specifically the iced stuff? or is this just generic southeast Asian?
I've always wanted to head to Lowell - do I sense a field trip in a couple of weeks?
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Of course, we *should* go to Lowell, but that coffee can be had at all one's favorite Vietnamese places, as well as Thai, and I had a well-sugared jolt of caffeine at FR on Saturday..Of course, I take mine black...
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Thai coffee can be hot too. Cambodian coffee is often Vietnamese (or Laotian) grown beans that are roasted with butter, cocoa, or sometimes even wine. But you also find Oliang (Thai coffee powder--ground with corn, soybean, etc.) or, here, Cafe du Monde brew both served hot/cold/white/black. The condensed milk thing in SE Asia evolved because it didn't require refrigeration--but we all know why it persists--yum!
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I saw banana buds at the Angkor Wat Market, but not banana shoots(?). I'm not sure how the shoots might be used, but I used the banana blossom once to make a Cambodian Salad (Elephant Walk cookbook). The outer purplish leaves and baby bananas are removed, but the blossom is usually sliced into rings, so I don't think that's what was in the soup. But I have faith, I'm sure you guys will figure it out!
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Okay, then it was buds...that's what I saw...of course, I don't know if that's what they ate... ;)
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i actually got a part of the banana plant at a farmers' market in kauai (hawaii) and cooked it with pork -- it was flowery and very starchy. the outer "husk" was purplish. so maybe i got banana buds (but oh the produce in kauai! rambutan! suriname cherries! but i digress)? but what we ate at floating rock certainly wasn't that . . .
more than willing to donate my stomach for spice-intensive research, particularly of cambodian origin . . .
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The soup from By the Sea didn't wow me. Flavors were murky, unlike the crisp, fresh flavors at Floating Rock..Fortunately, the monkfish liver steaming went well and I was able to avoid starvation..:), lots of great octopus, tuna and yellowtail to top it off.
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Well, at least no one can say we didn't try..... ;)
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