Review: Green Leaf

A couple days ago, I had the pleasure of returning to one of my favorite restaurants of late – Green Leaf in the ID.  It’s become one of my frequent haunts because it’s well-lighted (read: not too bright), almost laughably affordable, and most important, they make their food with love.  It’s a hard thing to measure, the love quotient of your food, but you always know when you’re eating something that has no love in it.  At Green Leaf, I get the feeling that pretty much everyone involved in getting the food to your table either loves the food or, at the very least, feels quite affectionate.

We ducked out of the downpour into the small space and got seated after a short wait.  My friend and I were feeling adventurous, and decided to explore the menu a bit.  We picked the banh xeo to start; I took the green mango salad as a second course, and M had the bun bo hue.  The guy taking our order (who I assumed was the owner) gave us an approving nod: “Very Vietnamese dishes you are ordering!”  I doubt he sees many non-Vietnamese ordering bun bo hue – it’s one of my favorite dishes though I just couldn’t handle spicy food today.  We ordered a couple egg sodas (soda sua hot ga) and he said, “Wow, very unusual!”  It was a nice moment.

The banh xeo arrived, two steaming hot crêpes overflowing with sprouts and shrimp.  They’re a little messy to eat though I imagine it gets easier with practice.  I sliced off a large chunk, wrapped it in a lettuce leaf, stuffed some mint and basil inside… what a heavenly experience.  Light, airy, and full of flavor.  Bursting, even.  With flavor.  But physically bursting too.  There was a lot of bursting going on; I can say this was one of the best dishes I’ve eaten in weeks.

Mains showed up shortly thereafter, and our helpful waiter said, “You guys have to eat faster… the banh xeo is only good when it’s hot.”  Duly noted, and it was good advice.  We mowed through the remains of the crêpe and remarked how lucky it was to have someone to guide you through new ethnic cuisine without making you feel like an idiot.

My green mango salad was a mound of chopped mango and other veggies underneath three large grilled prawn on skewers.  I’ll admit that I don’t know the right way to eat them – are you supposed to eat the head?  How do you get the shells off?  Is it OK to use my hands?  No, with difficulty, and probably yes, respectively. Anyway it’s the mango and the vegetables that are the real star of this dish; the shrimp could disappear for all I care.  It’s beautiful, tangy, and you feel yourself getting healthier as you eat it.  Highly recommended.

M had the bun bo hue and made a pretty good effort to consume most of it, which was impressive given how much food we had already eaten.  Apparently it was pretty good, and I’ll have to go back and try it.  When I crave bun bo hue, I usually go to Saigon Bistro, and it’s always a race to see if I can eat all the soup before the nuclear-strength chilis steeping in the broth make it too spicy to eat.  I win about 2/3 of the time.

Completely stuffed, we relaxed for a bit, paid the bill, and walked back outside in the downpour.  Total bill came to around $23 for two people, before tip.

Green Leaf, 418 8th Ave S.  [map]

Review: Campagne

Pisco went to Campagne this week with a friend, as we were headed to the Paramount and wanted to grab a quick bite to eat.  Campagne is not on my list of places to grab a quick bite, but since it’s November, and 25-for-25 is in full swing, we gave it a shot.

The biannual promotion also meant that the place was packed, even on a Monday night, and we were seated in the lounge.  It was a bit darker and redder than the main room; perhaps a bit younger too.  I’ve always felt Campagne’s clientele was a bit older and could use some diversity.  At least they seem to have addressed the latter – our server was a lass with a 70’s style DIY punk haircut.  Totally adorable.  She really knew her wine too – the red Rhone that she suggested really went down smoothly.  I almost took the wine pairing with the prix fixe meal, but at $19 for three 2oz pours, I felt it was outrageously overpriced.  Really, how can they get away charging that much?  With patrons who have more dollars than sense, obviously.

The meal itself went smoothly, if quickly, as we had a show to attend.  P started with a squash soup, which hit just the right balance between light and heavy.  I began with the rabbit rillette, served with toast, mustard, and sea salt.  It was heavenly and the high point of the meal.  Rillette should be served more often in this town.  It would make a great sandwich.  Can you imagine it?  Rillette sandwich.  Perhaps on a light, crunchy baguette.  With a glass of champagne.  Dry champagne, ice cold.  On a hot day.  Goodness that would be good.  But I digress.

Mains came next – P had the trout with bacon (can’t recall if it was broiled or pan-fried).  It was good but seemed slightly overcooked for my taste.  The bacon didn’t seem to add much to the flavor which tells me that it wasn’t enough bacon.  Everything tastes better with bacon.  I had the confit de canard, which came in its own cast iron pan next to a small pile of herbed home fries.  The duck was good – they had gotten the skin to be crunchy and the meat was falling off the bone, but it was just a tad dry.  There was plenty of fat throughout the leg, but there were curiously dry parts that were maddening.  The chef was this close to brilliance!  So close, and yet…

P had the chocolate cake for dessert, which looked great but tasted like every other molten chocolate cake I’ve had in the last two years.  I took the quince tart, scantily clad in cherry coulis, overlooked by a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  It rocked.  I heart quince.

I like the food at Campagne but always walk away feeling that it’s overpriced.  For excellent French food and a rather better experience, I’ll go to Crémant every time.

Review: Narita/Satellite 3 and 4

Pisco flew through Tokyo on his return from Hong Kong, and while normally connecting flights are anticipated with as much excitement as a visit to one’s dentist, this one was different, for it would be Pisco’s first steps on Japanese soil.  A Japanophile at heart, I’ve always wanted to visit, but have not yet had the pleasure.  The three-hour layover promised to give a taste, however small, of the country responsible for sushi, Akira, Pokemon, Asahi Super Dry, and, most importantly, Hello Kitty.

After landing in Narita I deplaned from the 747 rather in a haze; getting up at 5am is never any fun and I managed to get a bit of sleep on the flight. I was directed to the Satellite 3 and 4 terminals, through which it seemed all United connecting flights were routed. I had expected a full-on shopping experience, something like a miniature Shinjuku replete with large neon signs. Alas, it was a rather small terminal, eight or ten gates, with a couple trinket shops, a noodle stand, and a sushi joint. It was new and clean, and practically empty in the morning. I took a lap around all the gates just to see what was there, and all you could hear was the quiet hum of the peoplemovers. There was an occasional large-screen television playing the news, but you could only hear it in a small radius around the set, as opposed to American airports, which blast propaganda so loudly you are hard pressed to find a square meter of silence anywhere.

So it was Japanese, and nicely different, in its own way.

Sometime after 1p I decided that I should try the sushi restaurant, if only to say that I have actually eaten sushi in Japan. I recalled that some massive quantity of fresh fish is airfreighted from Narita each day, so it was not too far a stretch to imagine that some of it ended up actually at the airport. I took a seat at the bar and reviewed the plastic menu in front of me. There were a few sushi combo selections, some chirashi bowls, and then a list of pieces a la carte. Selections seemed to be priced in the Y1000-Y3500 range. I asked for the mid-level chirashi, a bowl of miso soup with clams, and a hot tea.

The tea was hot, as was the miso. The soup was filled with tasty clams, which were difficult to eat with chopsticks, but I did my best without embarrassing myself, which was tricky as there were actual Japanese sushi chefs staring at me.

A few minutes later the chirashi bowl arrived, and for a moment I thought that it was filled with plastic sashimi replicas. Each piece was brighter that I had ever seen before – the squid was so white I thought I needed sunglasses; the shrimp was huge, pink, and orange; the tuna was so dark it looked like blood sausage. I probably stared at it for a full two minutes before picking up the squid. So white it could have come from an Apple store, it was firm and tasty and not the slightest bit chewy; likely the best piece of squid I had ever eaten. Immediately I decided that I needed a beer, and asked for a small glass of draft Sapporo.

The beer arrived in a frosty glass, and it was the smoothest draft beer I’ve ever tasted. I am sitting at a sushi bar in Japan, eating fine sushi and drinking fine beer. Life was rather good at that moment.

Some time later a lad sits down next to me. He looks through the menu and then peers at my bowl of chirashi. “Which one is that?” he asks, in flat American English. “It’s the Chendu Chirashi,” I replied, though now I can’t remember what it was really called. Looks good, he says, and I tell him that it’s a good choice. He orders it and then settles down for the wait with a large textbook. I returned to my Weekend Financial Times.

I had nearly finished my nearly perfect meal when we finally started talking, as naturally happens when two Americans find themselves eating damn fine sushi next to each other in an airport sushi bar in Narita. His name was Mark and he lived in Bangkok, where he was a physics teacher. That explained the large (physics) textbook next to him. He was en route to Chicago, and with his shaved head, thick-rimmed eyeglasses, and colorful tattoos, he looked like any young, urban graphic designer, or, more fancifully, Moby. We swapped stories about our Asia experiences – he wanted to know more about Hong Kong, and I wanted to know more about Thailand, since I had only spent a week there several years ago.

We also talked about other countries in the area, and he mentioned that he had recently been to Cambodia. This is where it started to get weird. “It’s pretty wild out there still. I was walking around the other day on the street and some guy offered to sell me a baby. He wanted two dollars.” “That seems low for a baby,” I added, a bit shocked. In a completely deadpan voice, he added, “I’m pretty sure I could have bargained him down to one dollar, though. He looked pretty desperate.”

“Later that same day, I was offered a rocket launcher for sale. I tried to explain to the guy that I was going back to Thailand, and they probably weren’t going to let me into their country with a rocket launcher, but he was pretty insistent. Guess how much he wanted?” No idea, I said. “Five hundred dollars, ” he said. “Which I guess means that one rocket launcher is equivalent to 250 babies in Cambodia.”