We’ve obviously been talking about food a lot this week. Food and travel are always linked, as we remember places as much for their tastes and smells as we do for their sights and sounds. While I’m now an avid traveler, I grew up taking pretty standard vacations to Florida and all-inclusive resorts. As such, I didn’t really get to experience ethnic cuisines and challenging tastes until later in life. The baby in the video, however, is getting a leg (or tongue) up on the competition by experiencing flavors at an incredibly young age. OK, enough of me making this sound poignant. Just watch a baby eating wasabi already.
The Search for Kuwaiti Cuisine … in Kuwait
People don’t come to Kuwait to drink alcohol. Nor do they come to eat pork. They also don’t arrive expecting to see pitbulls, to smoke marijuana, to watch Michael’s Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, or to look at any sort of pornography. It’s all banned in Kuwait (with harsh penalties for lawbreakers).
For tourists who hate being around other tourists, this desert country is an oasis: there are no tourists traps because, well, there really are no tourists here. Every place is an off-the-radar local spot.
It’s not surprise, then, that another aspect that’s not pulling people to Kuwait is the food. That’s because if you ask a local, as I did during a recent visit to this conservative and diminutive Middle Eastern state on the Gulf of Arabia, your question about the local cuisine will be greeted with a shrug. That is, until a Lebanese friend who lives in Kuwait City (one of the initial shruggers) called her boyfriend who called another friend who recommended one of the small handful of Kuwaiti restaurants in town.
In most countries, there are ethnic restaurants and then there are restaurants serving the default local cuisine. Here in Kuwait, however, it’s the other way around. One has to seek out a Kuwaiti restaurant; otherwise, you end up at a Lebanese place (which is the best of the best when it comes to eating in the Middle East), as I did at the excellent at Burj Al Hamam or Italian or Spanish (I had very good versions of both at the in-house restaurants in the new Hotel Missoni). Or perhaps one of the many unfortunate American chain restaurants (Applbee’s, TGI Friday’s, Ruby Tuesday) that have set up shop here.
The entrance to Freej Swaileh is around the back from bustling Salem al Mubarak Street. Descend the broken escalator to the darkened basement to find a dining room separated by private booths. Dining privacy is important, especially if you’re a burqa-clad woman, so you can eat without the hassle of the burqa getting in the way.
The servers knock on the door before each visit. And when my waiter came to take my order, I just pointed to various items, not sure what any of it was. About 15 minutes later, my juice mocktail almost drained, the server knocked and entered with several plates. There was chicken majboos (see photo), a biryani-like recipe with a tender half chicken set atop rice and a tomato-based sauce on the side; markookh, a stewy lamb-laden dish with eggplant; and jireesh, a mash of spelt with lamb mixed in.
It turns out, Kuwaiti cuisine is really just an amalgamation of other cuisines: Persian, Indian, Lebanese, for example. According to Abdul Fatah Marafie, who comes from one of the richest families in the country, Kuwaiti cuisine began with the date trade. “The dates came from Iraq,” he said when I somewhat randomly met him and expressed my bewilderment with the lack of local cuisine. “Then they came here to Kuwait where we transported them to places like India and Iran and Arabia. We came back with spices and added them to our cuisine.”
Which is why these dishes all tasted familiar. And why it wasn’t a surprise when the waiter knocked one last time and brought in a try full of gulab jamun, fried syrup-laden dough balls from India….er I mean…legaimat, as they’re called in Kuwait.
Video: Eating live octopus in Korea (Warning: Graphic)
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The team here at Gadling has seen our fair share of shocking internet videos, and some of us have worked up the courage to eat some pretty questionable fare during our travels, but this clip from Fuel TV’s Strangers in Danger might just be the most revolting thing we’ve ever seen.
Eating live octopus, or san nachi is widely practiced in South Korea, but the octopi being served are typically small enough to be wrapped around chopsticks and eaten in one bite. In this graphic clip, BMX pros “Catfish” Yankush and Mike “Rooftop” Escamilla decided to take it to a new extreme by choking down some unusually large cephalopods – with mixed results.
If you’re hungry for more, check out what the guys decide to do at Korea’s DMZ after the break; or catch the full episode tonight at 10:30PM E/P on Fuel TV and tune in every Tuesday as these two athletes travel through 13 different countries to take on the best, worst, & wildest challenges in each culture.
David’s Discoveries: A great bistro in Burgundy — L’Auberge de Jack, Milly Lamartine
Fred Flintstone might recognize the giant ribsteak served at L’Auberge de Jack. This poster-hung, cozy country bistro in Milly Lamartine is one of my favorite locales in Burgundy. Draw up a wooden chair and eat and drink with the locals. It’s unpretentious, affordable, and, à propos of locales, entirely local in its sourcing. It’s fun, too: a joyful dining experience.
Fred Flintstone would feel right at home: scenic, stone-built Milly Lamartine perches on a hillside a few miles from a famous prehistoric site, the Roche de Solutré, known for its bones, stones and wines.
Owners Sylvie Bouschet and her chef-husband Jack are from Mâcon, 10 miles east of Milly Lamartine. They’ve never heard of the Flintstones or locavores, either. But eaters of local food worldwide might want to make L’Auberge de Jack the template for their movement: there’s no mission statement accompanying the Charolais beef, raised by a family farmer near Charolles, 20 miles away, and served rare with thick-cut, housemade fries, some of the best you’ll ever eat. Sylvie and Jack don’t trade on common sense: for 30 years they’ve been buying wholesome, quality products from trustworthy people nearby.
But ask and you’ll discover the plump pork sausages simmered in Beaujolais come from Monsieur Girard, the butcher in Pierreclos, another handsome village, down the road a piece. The Beaujolais comes from over the bluff, near Solutré, ten minutes south by corkscrew road. That’s where the Burgundy and Beaujolais regions overlap. Excellent, underrated wines come from the eroded, limestone escarpments: Pouilly-Fuissé, Saint-Véran, Moulin à Vent and others.
Foodies know that cheese is part of the French dining experience codified by UNESCO. Sylvie and Jack haven’t heard of UNESCO’s efforts to protect French fare. No matter. Their snow-white or moldy goat’s milk chèvres are handmade from raw milk. Local dairy farmers continue doing what they’ve always done hereabouts – making cheese, modestly.
Admittedly, the chocolate in Jack’s monstrously exquisite Marquise doesn’t come from here. That’s the trouble with chocolate, unless you live on the equator. Happily, the coffee isn’t local either: it’s roasted in Italy. Maybe that’s why it’s good. Most French coffee is undrinkable.
Not so the wine: Burgundy’s whites (from Chardonnay) and reds (either Pinot Noir or Gamay or both) have rarely been better.
On the list at L’Auberge de Jack most of the wines are made in small quantities within a radius of a few miles. From the main road you see Olivier Merlin’s vineyards at La Roche Vineuse across the way. True, Merlin’s red comes from Moulin à Vent, 10 miles south. But it proves that humble Gamay can achieve greatness.
The most astonishing bottling on Sylvie and Jack’s list is from Domaine des Héritiers du Comte Lafon, a few hundred yards away, an offshoot of the celebrated Meursault winery. Their Mâcon Clos de la Crochette exudes not only citrus. It’s infused with the minerals unique to this area. And it’s blissfully free of oak.
Maybe a new term should be coined: “Locabiber.” A drinker of local wine. Burgundy’s a good place to start the movement.
L’Auberge de Jack: Milly Lamartine. Tel: 03 85 36 63 72. Open for lunch only Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, for lunch and dinner Friday and Saturday, closed Sunday dinner and Monday.
[flickr image via filtran]
In St. Louis, Finding Family Connections on The Hill
Vitale’s bakery in St. Louis makes 25,000 pizza “shells” a week, turning out the flash-baked crusts on a production line in a sturdy brick building on Marconi Avenue. Many go to local restaurants. But as I toured Vitale’s recently, a guy snuck in the side door, his granddaughter in tow, picked up a sack of shells and ducked out. No big deal: He’s a friend of the family. It all makes sense in this flag-flying Italian neighborhood, simply called The Hill, an ethnic enclave seemingly impervious to change, just a few miles from the Arch.
Traveling the American Road – On The Hill in St. Louis
At the bakery, I met three generations of the family that’s been working here since 1977. Mike Vitale showed me around, as his dad, brother, nephew and another couple employees who aren’t related to him pulled dough out of an enormous mixer, to weigh out, roll and process hamburger buns for baking. They were to be sold that weekend, while the Cardinals were playing three home games against their rivals, the Cubs, thereby cranking up the city’s consumption of burgers. It’s surprisingly artisanal food, hand-made if produced in huge quantities. The farthest the finished rolls will travel is across the Mississippi to Illinois.
Inside the bakery, the smell of yeast hangs heavy. Despite the ovens, it’s not particularly hot but maybe it just feels that way because it’s been so sweltering in St. Louis this summer. There are Cardinals stickers and family photos on various machinery, and one employee was wearing a t-shirt silk-screened with the names of other local businesses that play together on a bocce league.
More proof of the neighborhood’s continued ethnic tilt is Il Pensiero, a bilingual newspaper published twice a month and distributed on The Hill. The publishers surname? Lombardo, a nod to the northern Italian region from which many of the neighborhood’s immigrants came. In front of St. Ambrose, the Romanesque church on Wilson Avenue, a statue memorializes the poverty and hope of the Italians washing up on American shores, even here, more than a thousand miles from the Atlantic.
My cousins have moved into the neighborhood, too, with a deli, Eovaldi’s, named for our great-grandmother. I don’t mention it simply because they’re family: the boys had the best deli in the city in 2010 according to local independent paper The Riverfront Times, which writes:
When your deli is located inside the Oldani Brothers Salami factory, chances are you make a mean Italian sandwich. Sure enough, Eovaldi’s nook-like location on the Hill can pile on the salty cured meats with the best of them–favorites likes Genoa salami, mortadella and coppa are available, as well as the more pedestrian deli meats.
The neighborhood got a two-page spread recently in Feast magazine, a local foodie read, with one local writing in to say “I think no place in St. Louis represents something as unique as The Hill.” Pictured with the story are Rigazzi’s, Milo’s, Missouri Bakery, Il Viviano and Zia’s. Missing is a shot of Volpi’s, a salami house my mother is pretty much always raving about.
New development is breaking the traditional bounds of The Hill. Restaurants are moving beyond the red sauce mold, including Modesto, a tapas spot, that’s landed on St. Louis magazine’s “A-List” of the best places in town. The magazine also gave a nod to Five Bistro, a block west of Rigazzi’s, which won “Best Burger in St. Louis.” Real estate, too, is booming, the surest sign that the neighborhood is still surging. My aunt, mother to my cousins at Eovaldi’s, is downright horrified with the rents people are charging.