Cafe Presse

After months of waiting, Cafe Presse finally opened in its South Capitol Hill location.  I stopped by today, being the rabid francophile that I am, with my high expectations tempered only by tepid feelings for Le Pichet, the proprietors’ other downtown establishment.   Twenty minutes later, I was pretty confident that this smart bar will be my new haunt for the summer and beyond.

I can’t comment too much on the decor; I met a friend who I hadn’t seen in ages, and we got down to catching up.  I noticed pretty quickly that the tables are much closer together than most Seattle establishments – instantly calling to mind the countless times I’ve snaked my way past lunchtime business dealings and afternoon romantic couplings over coffee in New York and Paris.  Minus the cigarette smoke, of course.  If the front room with its bar and tables is full, stroll to the back room, where the high ceilings lend a sense of space to the tables sitting under large, plate-glass windows.

The menu is divided into small bites, salads, and entrees.  Small bites included lots of baguette-based options (one was simply chocolate and baguette… do want…), sandwiches (croque madame and croque monsieur!), and other small French appetizers.  They are mostly priced around $4, making quick stops for snacks, coffee, and wine as easy on the wallet as stopping by the market.  Three visits per week should let me sample all of the appetizers by mid-July or so.

By all means order yourself some wine – with good options by the glass, half-pichet (1/4 bottle), pichet (1/2 bottle), and bottle, you can drink exactly the amount you want at rather reasonable prices.  We split a pichet of competent Cotes du Rhone ($16) which slaked my thirst just fine.

Salads appeared, with my friend’s tomato/tapenade plate far outrunning my arugula greens in taste and color.  The tomatoes were tasty, the tapenade rich.  Highly recommended.

Of course all of this was just a prelude to the mains.  You’ll not be surprised I had the hanger steak ($16), which came out gloriously rare, just the way I like it, surrounded by sauteed onions and a pile of crisp, hand-cut fries.  After one bite, I knew this would be my new hanger steak standard, dethroning Cremant’s excellent dish.  My friend’s steak tartare was equally tasty – with complex taste from the steak mixed with red onion, capers, fresh pepper, and a couple mystery herbs (tarragon?).  I demolished the steak, the fries, and the wine, and could easily have ordered another course (or two) – it was that good.

Service was unobtrusive and perfectly adequate considering their just-opened status.

I stopped at the small newspaper rack at the front and was pleased to see a copy of Le Monde on the wall.  I can see myself sitting at the bar, eating a baguette, drinking coffee, and reading the paper.  Life won’t be too bad.

The next day I have free is Thursday so perhaps I’ll return then.

Lola

Today was an epic day from start to finish. Exciting, thrilling, at times trying, it’s one of those days I hope to remember for a very long time.

Highlights of the day included pastries and coffee at Essential Baking Company, cramming a record five people into a Mini Cooper, jaywalking in front of a police officer (as if he would have arrested me at a parade), and getting a table for 10 at Lola.

I’ve eaten at Lola several times, but always for lunch and dinner. Today they were serving brunch when we walked in (shortly after 1.30p) and I knew I would have my chance to taste the much-touted Tom’s Big Breakfast. From their menu:

Tom’s big breakfast: grilled pacific octopus, pork belly hash, bloomsdale spinach, feta, olive oil fried egg

I can tell you that the dish lives up to the hype. The octopus was fleshy and tasty, grilled perhaps 2 seconds beyond my preference, but quite a minor quibble. The pork belly hash was chunky and rich – less a classic hash than a small handful of cubed delight. Eating a piece of octopus, a small pork belly piece, and a mouthful of egg with its blissfully orange/yellow yolk… paradise.

Let me also sing the praises of the bloody mary; it was the best bloody mary I’ve had in Seattle, hands down. Hallelujah! What was it around the rim? Sea salt, to be sure, and something that added a smoky flavor to the drink. Smoked paprika? No idea. We’ll have to go back and check; we were all laughing too hard by the end of the meal to suss out the ingredients.

Of course I couldn’t stop there. The woman sitting next to me ordered pork kebabs with harissa and honey. Can we talk about the pork for a minute? Grilled to perfection, tender, bursting with smoky, piggy flavor. A slightly spicy sauce (the harissa) had been added, balanced with a brush of honey. How do I know this dish so well? After finishing Tom’s Big Breakfast, I ordered a plate of the pork kebabs. And another bloody mary. Yes, an entire second meal. People were staring, perhaps appalled by my gluttony, but I didn’t care. This was a meal that deserved to be consumed with gusto, and I did my level best.

This hedonistic brunch for 9 came to around $210, tip included, although one person (I won’t say who), with his voracious appetite for food and drink, probably accounted for much more than his share. I’ll be returning as soon as I possibly can.

Bourdain throwing stones

Anthony Bourdain is the best food writer walking this tasty green earth. He doesn’t like the Food Network. Or maybe he does.  Enjoy his rant.

http://blog.ruhlman.com/2007/02/guest_blogging_.html

Review: Chiang’s Gourmet

Chiang’s Gourmet serves Shanghai-style dim sum in its Lake City location. I love dim sum; I’ll even eat it when it’s not top class, but I’ll admit that I don’t know where to go for good Chinese eats on a weekend afternoon in Seattle. The easy answer is Vancouver, of course, but let’s do the best we can with what we have.

I went with a couple friends today – as one was Chinese and the other Singaporean, I handed the menus to them and said “go nuts!” They promptly obliged, chatting with the waitress and arguing over what to order.

The dishes were incredible. Here’s what we ordered:

• Some kind of soy milk soup, sweet. This was essentially a bowl of sweetened soy milk – it felt like you should drink it, and towards the end of the meal I picked up the bowl and did just that.
• Another soy milk soup, but savory, and filled with bits and pieces of unidentified vegetation. Delicious.
• Beef in layered pancake. I’ve had this dish before, and the keys to success are tender beef slices, and a soft pastry pancake. This dish almost got it right on both counts.
• Long sticks of fried dough that looked a lot like Spanish churros but without any sugar. Delicious and probaby not very good for you. I dipped some of this into the sweet soy milk and it went down a treat.
• Noodle dish with beans, except the noodles themselves were made from green beans. Yes, that is correct, the noodles were made from green beans. I have no idea how this is possible. They were almost clear, somewhat like glass noodles… in fact, now that I do my Wikipedia research, they probably were made from mung beans, like glass noodles actually are. My friends were arguing about this, now I guess we know who was right! It was a great dish, and some shredded chicken gave some body to the airy and light noodles.
• Spicy dumplings. This was the high point of the meal – I think they’re listed on the menu as “Sichuan dumplings”, or somesuch. Absolutely marvelous dumplings, soaked in a moderate amount of hot sauce. It’s worth the trip just for these. Probably the best dumplings I’ve had in the US, west of the Mississippi.
• Steamed pork bun, which had a mixture of pork and vegetable inside. It was slightly larger and heavier than a classic Cantonese-style pork bun; I prefer the latter but it was nice to see a different take on it
• A small roll of rice, with some vegetables, shredded dry pork, and granules of sugar inside. Eating this for dessert was a fitting end to a great meal.

If you want good dim sum, but are too lazy to drive to Vancouver to get it, give Chiang’s Gourmet a try.

Chiang’s Gourmet
7845 Lake City Way N.E., Seattle, WA [map]
(206) 527-8888

Samurai Noodles

I’ve heard a lot of talk about Samurai Noodles, and after a week of missed opportunities to sample its fare, I finally got a chance to drop by. Neither work nor weather nor dark of night would keep me from its large vats of pork broth.

Unfortunately I had to go to a birthday knees-up later that night, so I was forced to get takeaway. Not ideal for any first trial of a resto, but even more inauspicious given the large sign inside, something to the effect of: “Ramen OK for Take-Out, but Eat Within 7 Minutes”. OK, I guess I’ll have to high-tail it home…

I ordered two of their ramen bowl – one of the tonkotsu (pork slices w/pork broth) and one of vegetarian broth. I won’t say much more about the vegetarian option since I didn’t taste it. I was too focused on eating my own. Yes, this is teleopathic. Yes, I’ll return for the others. I promise.

One of the lads behind the counter tied the two styrofoam bowls into a plastic bag, and I was off to the races. Driving as fast as possible was only limited by how smoothly I could make turns and keep the bowls balanced precariously on the floor. More than a couple times I cursed as large potholes sloshed the ramen around. Finally I got to my destination, grabbed a pair of chopsticks, and unleashed my hunger.

Heavenly brilliance. Hot, rich, smooth broth. Tasty noodles, which were only a few tens of seconds past al dente. It was porktastic.

The flavored egg was exactly that – flavored, but I couldn’t recognize it. I love boiled eggs, though, so I recommend adding one to your order. The pork slices in the ramen were spectacular – tender and moist and porky.

I’ll be returning as soon possible.

Samurai Noodles, 606 Fifth Ave S, 206-624-9321.
10 am—8:30 pm Sun—Wed, 10 am—9:30 pm Thurs—Sat.
[map]

Review: Vancouver

Pisco decided to take a run to the border last weekend with three friends. We all like to eat, so we planned the trip around food. I put together a small itinerary with five stops for delicacies along the way.

First stop was dim sum in Richmond, BC, at a beautiful Shanghai restaurant on a recommendation to a friend. It was explained to me that this was Shanghia-style dim sum, a bit different than the normal Cantonese-style, but we were all happy to be starting our eating adventure in a place that looked and felt wonderful. It was spotless inside, with white tablecloths and an open kitchen behind plate glass. A fleet of young waitresses ran around the room, practically in a blur. There were probably 80 people there, and we were the only ones with non-Asians at our table. Luckily, we had one Chinese woman, so we gave the menus to her and said, “Go nuts!”

Here’s what came out:

• A pastry/sandwich with tender sliced beef that almost tasted like pork. Phenomenal.
• Chopped, steamed vegetable wrapped in a tofu ribbon. Cold, tasty, and delicious. The best vegetable dish I have ever eaten in a Chinese restaurant. Unhelpfully listed on the menu as “Green vegetable in wrap” or somesuch.
• Potstickers. Solid but unexceptional.
• Steamed dumpling. Solid and yummy.
• Steamed dumpling w/crab. Insanely good, the crab bursting with flavor.
• Small, tart-like pastries filled with an eggy custard and various animal parts. Except the custard wasn’t eggy. My friend said there were chicken feet in the pastry and I was never sure if she was kidding or not. Delicious.
• Deep-fried pastries that were somewhat of a cross between a beignet and a light Krispy Kreme doughnut, except there was red bean paste inside. It was light. fluffy, warm, slightly sweet from the bean paste, and had a sprinkle of pink sugar on top. The best dessert I’ve had all year.

So our journey was off to a good start. After a couple hours of shopping in Yaletown, we stopped for coffee at a small cafe. Continuing our path of excess, two of our party ordered lattes with Baileys… it was five o’clock somewhere…

Another quick round of shopping and then it was time to start the dinner courses. I had planned to start at Salt Tasting Room in Gastown, but they were busy with a private party. The place looked fantastic so we decided to go have a drink and then come back at 7.30p when they would be open. A jaunt around the neighborhood brought us to Chill Winston, a dark, candlelit bar filled with overstuffed furniture and slim, friendly staff. Lovely drinks were soon on the table – mine had ginger beer and vodka with a slice of cucumber… somewhat reminicent of the Pimm’s I used to quaff with abandon in the summer. We ordered lightly as this was stop 1 of 3 planned for the night – a plate of sliced beets and scallop ceviche was fresh and light, exactly what we wanted. A fine soundtrack of cool electronica provided a nice backdrop as the evening picked up more patrons and energy.

We returned to Salt and let the smart English proprietor pick out a plate of cheese and snacks for us. Frankly, there’s nothing I like better than to find someone who will listen to you for a minute and return with exactly what you need, even if you didn’t know it yourself. A cold glass of amontillado sherry was the perfect accompaniment to a snack of two cheeses and a small pile of sliced, cured sausage. I repeated warned everyone not to eat too much since we would be heading out to dinner proper in just a few minutes.

And just a short while later, we found ourselves seated upstairs at Hapa Izakaya on Robson Street, next to a another table well on their way to having a good time. I don’t remember everything that we ordered, but here is a partial list: sake (warm), edamame, negitoro (superb as always), and short ribs (rich). By this time we were pretty overloaded, but the night wasn’t over, so I brought everyone to Mondo Gelato for a sweet finish. Interestingly, almost no establishments had any kind of coffee, as the water had been shut off by the province due to excessive rains – everyone had to drink bottled water. But as much as I don’t care for Starbucks, they had coffee when nobody else did – and the espresso did hit the spot before the drive back to Seattle.

It took a full two days before I felt hungry again, and I’m planning the next trip up as soon as possible.

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.”

Review: Sichuan Cuisine Da Ping Huo

Pisco has several friends in Hong Kong, and so my gracious host arranged a group dinner on Friday at a place illustriously called “Sichuan Cuisine Da Ping Huo”. The restaurant was special, in that it is tiny (20 seats), serves a 10-odd course prix meal exclusively, and is run by a husband-and-wife team from Sichuan province. Sichuanese food is known to be spicy, and these two have a reputation for providing a highly authentic experience. Authentically (read: insanely) hot, that is. The husband runs the front of the house and the wife is the chef; a couple other waiters help out but it’s a pretty lean operation.

Five of us met up in Central and we strolled over to the resto which was in Mid-levels. We were booked for the 7 o’clock seating and we walked in on time. The dining room is quite beautiful – all dark stone, soft lighting, and modern tables and chairs. Accessories of the eastern persuasion (paper lamps, ceramic vases, etc.) were strewn tastefully around the room, undoubtedly in a feng shui-compliant manner. Ten large paintings were mounted on the walls, and someone told me that Wang Hai (the husband) was the artist for all of them. It’s a beautiful, calm space; somewhat odd in retrospect given the fiery gastronomical ordeal that we were about to be put through. It’s what my dining room would look like in my dreams.

We ordered a few large bottles of Yanjing beer, said a couple of toasts, and relaxed. A couple minutes later, the dishes started to arrive. I’ve listed them in order, but it’s possible that a few are out of order. I’m sure I forgot a few, too, but I lost track. All dishes were served in quantities that our table normally didn’t finish. I was reminded to pace myself, since it’s easy to quell one’s hunger pangs with the first three dishes… and then be overwhelmed knowing you’re not even halfway through the meal. It’s a marathon.

Dishes
- Sweet and sour cucumber (cold)

- Rice noodle salad in spicy sauce. Clear, wide rice noodles were difficult to pick up, but they were rather tasty. Spice level 5 (on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is milk and 10 is 5-star pad thai or phaal curry. Tabasco is probably a 6 or 7 on this scale.)

- Chili, shredded carrot, and jellyfish (salad). Spice level 5

- Pine nuts and celery? A simple dish, and much appreciated as a palate cleanser. Spice level 2.

- Napa cabbage soup in pork-based broth, with shredded chicken on top. Spice level 3.

- Chicken in red chili sauce. This was heralded as the first meat dish and it was lovely. I avoided eating as many of the chopped chilis as I could, but that was still too many. Spice level 5

- Dried tofu with spring onion and large red chilis. Spice level 3, or 5 if you ate one of the peppers, which I did.

- Beef, extremely spicy. Here is where it started to get serious. At this point, you’ve eaten quite a bit, but you haven’t even gotten halfway through the meal. You’re on your third or fourth beer, feeling tipsy; tipsy enough that you can just ignore the sense that you are eating way too much spicy food, and that there will be hell to pay later. Mr Wang delivered this dish himself, and placed a new set of bright red chopsticks on the bowl. “Very hot” he said, smiling, and then he strolled off, leaving the rest of us warily eyeing the bowl. The beef was fairly dense and not particularly tender, but it was flavorful. The heat came a minute after swallowing; it built slowly in your mouth, eventually causing your nose to run and your scalp to itch. More beer was commanded. Spice level 9

- Pork. Unquestionably the highlight of the meal for me, though others disagreed. Beautifully sauteed pork, sliced around 1cm thick, with a mixture of rice and sweet potato in between each slice. The combination of the spicy pork, sweet potato, and rice was something that I hope never to forget; it worked so well together. Spice level 7

- Lettuce heart and fungus (vegetarian). By this point I couldn’t really taste anything but this dish was reported to be good. Spice level 2

- Large prawn in chilis. Rather enormous prawn. Spicy. Reminded me of a popular saying in Ibiza in 1998: “If you eat the head of a prawn, you get the knowledge of a prawn.” I didn’t eat the head. Spice level 6. At this point, you’ve ingested a very large quantity of food, most of which is incredibly spicy, and you should stop. But you don’t, of course, because you’re in the middle of an epic dinner and you just can’t say no to Mr Wang. A small voice, imperceptible through the haze of beer and chili wafting through your brain, reminds you that you will regret this later.

- Pork dumplings. Served in a sweet red chili sauce that looked more fiercesome than it tasted. Spice level 5

- Ma po tofu. Tofu and pork in an insanely spicy presentation. Spice level 87. This was, from a chili point of view, the meal’s piece de resistance. Or its raison d’etre. The mainland Chinese woman in our group (who lived for some time in Sichuan) declared it a 10 by Hong Kong standards.

- Light soup with baby pea shoots. Clear broth. Spice level 1

- Dessert: Light jelly in honey sauce. I would be lying if I said that I could taste anything at this point. My taste buds had been utterly and unapologetically obliterated, and I kowtowed to the owners. Spice level 1

After dessert, the owner introduced his wife (the chef), who is also an opera singer. She gave a short performance at the end, around 5 minutes of rather powerful Chinese opera. We all listened intently as she sang; all of us, that is, except one woman at another table who took a phone call midway through and then had a conversation that lasted much longer than “I’ll call you right back.” I shot her dirty looks but she didn’t care.

Fully satiated, we headed off to a few bars in the neighborhood, met up with more friends, and carried on until quite late. Pisco got to bed around 3am and fell into a deep sleep.

Unfortunately, that’s not the end of the story.

Around 5am, I wake up with a horrific pain in my stomach. We can debate whether the pain felt more like a knife or a hot branding iron; suffice it to report that it was indeed bad. The Sichuanese food was not making nice; after ingesting far too much of it, my body was surrendering. I alternated laying on different sides; no change. I wondered if I should go to the hospital and get my stomach pumped; this was a new and novel thought. The pain got to be so bad that I wondered if I should get airlifted back to Seattle. Not that that would do me any good, but you can see what state I was in. I decided to stick it out and spent the next two hours figuring out if my delicate equilibrium was going to explode. Luckily, I fell back asleep, but not before realizing that somewhere, a Sichuanese restauranteur and his wife were probably laughing at me.

Sichuan Cuisine Da Ping Huo
L/G, Hilltop Plaza
49 Hollywood Rd., Central, HK
Tel: +852 2559 1317