Chef's Tool Kit Part 2: The Cleaver Chronicles

Chef’s Kit II: The Cleaver Chronicles

The heavy cleaver is the workhorse of the chef’s knife kit, handling chores not meant for a sharp blade; think of it as the hatchet of the knife kit. It relies on the momentum and weight of the blade to perform tasks like splitting joints or cutting through thin or soft bones, cartilage, and sinew (bone saws are used for cutting thick bones). It can be used for carcass work or dispatching fish heads. It’s great for prepping really dense items like acorn squash, or spatchcocking birds. The weight of the cleaver is ideal for smashing garlic or ginger with the side of the blade, pounding-out meats for milanesa or flattening portions for stuffing, or even flipping upside-down to use the back of the blade for tenderizing tough cuts of meat.  A heavy cleaver has a blade angle of about 25° and is usually made from softer steel; hard steel could fracture hitting dense items with such force. The exception is the light Asian-style cleaver, which is used more like a chef’s knife.



Zhen 7-inch Light Vegetable Cleaver

I have used a lightweight Chinese-style vegetable cleaver for many, many years, finding it especially useful during prep. It’s perfect for sliding along the cutting board and scooping up whatever you just sliced. It’s ideal for smashing garlic and ginger AND mincing it up. It juliennes vegetables better than any other blade, and there’s no better tool for mincing meats. I love the Zhen 7-inch VG-10 Light Vegetable Cleaver that I ordered from amazon.com. It’s made from VG-10 alloy and is easy to keep super sharp. The balance is perfect in the hand, especially if you fudge a little and hold the index and middle finger on the side of the blade when slicing, like I do. The handle coating is made from non-slip TPR (thermoplastic rubber) and the shape fits my hand nicely. It’s made in Taiwan from 3 layers of forged Japanese steel, with a VG10 stainless alloy core, and has an HRC hardness rating of 60-62.  This has ended up being one of the favorite knives in my kit, and at $55, worth the price. A comparable Wusthoff or Henckel would be $75, a similar Global is about $160, and a comparable Shun blade would set you back $230.

    

Update 7-inch Heavy



My Update International 7-inch Heavy Bone and Meat Cleaver is made for dispatching big chunks of meat, splitting heavy joints, and any task related to a bone. This baby is thick-bladed and heavy weight, and it has a full, thick tang and a massive handle. This cleaver is not meant for delicate detail work of any kind. This tool is indestructible, and at a retail price of $14.25, it seems impossible that it could be sold that cheaply. To put the price into perspective, the Wusthoff version is $100, while the Henckel Standard is $50, the Henckel 4-Star is $120. For a Global, pay $170, and a Shun will run you $220.



 

Ayutthaya Cleaver 

My other cleaver is a work of handmade art, constructed by knife craftsmen in the ancient Thai city of Ayutthaya, pounded-out by hand (and mechanical press, if I had to guess) from a sheet of glowing hot steel. The company has made this 12-inch cleaver exactly this same way for the last 70 years. It has a hardwood handle, a full tang, and pounded-metal handle posts. The 18-ounce blade is meant for any chore, including harvesting sugar cane stalks, splitting firewood and chopping kindling, or splitting a pig carcass down the middle. Trapped somewhere by rampaging zombies and need to split some skulls? Grab this thing. It is available from Importfoods.com and is well worth the $26 price tag (although had I bought this in Thailand it would have been more like $5 US). This is a down-and-dirty chef’s tool that can take on anything.

Mick Vann ©

Chef's Tool Kit, Part 1

Chef’s Kit, Part I:

This article on knives for a chef’s kit is the first in my series of articles on tools for the working chef (or the dedicated home chef). In putting together my personal kit, I invested a lot of time in researching what was the best option for each blade or tool category, based on the quality of the materials, the purchase price, and reviews from other users, especially users that are also chefs. I also have a brain crammed full of decades of commercial and home kitchen experience and personal knowledge to draw from.

 Knives

1. There are three approaches to outfitting your kitchen with knives. One approach, and the approach that any street cook worth their weight in Thailand takes, is to invest a pittance in a set of Kiwi brand knives; the same company makes knives and kitchen tools under the name Kom Kom.  They are made in Thailand from strip stainless steel and have riveted hardwood or plastic handles with a tang going down half of the handle. The blades are soft but you can get a razor sharp edge on them in a heartbeat, with just a few strokes from a steel. I have used them for decades, often as my go-to knives in the trenches of commercial kitchens, where knives are often "borrowed" and shamefully abused by fellow kitchen staff. They are so inexpensive that you can almost consider them disposable, but take care of them and they will last many years.




  
When I first started buying them back in the early 80’s you could get a 6½-inch santoku for about 4 dollars, and they are still very inexpensive today. I purchased this 4-knife set from Importfood.com for $22.50, which includes the heavier weight 7-inch santoku shaped blade (far right), the 6½-inch rectangular nagiri-shaped blade “chopping knife”, the lighter weight 6½-inch santoku-shaped blade, and the 4-inch all-purpose “Java” chopping knife (far left).

For an average of a little over 5 bucks per knife, this set cannot be beat, and it covers most work stations in a commercial kitchen. I have even filleted fish with the thinner, more flexible 6½-inch santoku blade (although you’ll do much better with a proper flexible fillet knife). Kiwi knives are available online from http://importfood.com/thai_knives.html, from http://www.amazon.com, and http://www.kiwiandkomkom.com/. They are available in Austin from MT Supermarket, in Chinatown Center, at the intersection of Kramer Ln. and N. Lamar Blvd., although the santoku models get snapped-up off the shelves quickly and it can take time for MT to get them back in stock.

Another approach is to have all of the specialty blades, developed over centuries for specific tasks, in an assortment of lengths and shapes, made from quality metal alloys, all at a much higher price than the first option. The difference in a first category knife and the French, German, or Asian-made second category knife doesn't even compare. Heft, weight, balance, workmanship, materials, and quality are all far superior with the second category. One single second category knife can cost many times what that set of four first category knives cost. However, BOTH the cheap and the more expensive knives will perform the task at hand and are functional. Some people are tool junkies while others are bottom-line pragmatists. The old adage, “you get what you pay for” definitely holds true in this case. More on that second approach next time.

Mick Vann © 

Taylor Cafe

Taylor Cafe





Stools, at the counter


So we were out north on a Sunday and I had been jonesing for a big, fresh chicken-fried and a luxurious slab of pie from The Texan Café in Hutto, so off we went. The Texan was closed for Memorial Day, and we figured that Taylor was a short 8 or 9 miles further down the road, and perhaps some barbecue would be in order. I knew that Louie Mueller’s was normally closed on Sunday, but maybe Vencil Mares’ Taylor Café would be open. Taylor was the site of a major Indian battle with the Comanches in 1839, and in 1876 became a railhead situated along one of the major cattle trails. With the railroad came a colonization of farmers and businessmen, mainly from Midwestern and Southern states. The rich pastureland was soon cultivated and began to produce an abundance of cotton. An influx of settlers from Czechoslovakia and other Slavic states, as well as from Germany and Austria, helped establish the town. Vencil comes from down the road towards Flatonia, of Czech and Bohemian stock, with (as he puts it), “a little billy goat thrown in”. The Czechs, Bohemians, Germans, and Poles settled all along the barbecue belt in Central Texas.

By the early 1950’s mechanical harvesting had replaced the human cotton pickers around Taylor and the economy begin to change. As the century progressed, cotton production had been joined by feed corn, winter wheat, and cattle. Today's diverse population of about 15,000 includes people of English and Scots-Irish background, as well as Czechs, Bohemians, Germans, Swedes, Hispanics, and African Americans. They all share a love of barbecue.




One of the pitdudes, chillaxing by the fan after tending the pits


We figured that eating at Vencil’s on Memorial Day would be appropriate, since he was an Army medic in the D-Day assault and patched-up soldiers all through the war, including at the Battle of the Bulge. When he returned home from the War he got a job at Southside Market in Elgin, where he learned the basics of sausage stuffing and the barbecue business. In 1948, a year before Louie Mueller opened his place, Mares opened the Taylor Café in Taylor’s oldest building downtown. It sits under the shadow of the overpass, where Main St/Hwy 95 transits the railroad tracks. Louie Mueller’s is a block to the northwest, and the Amtrak station is a block to the east. If you’re coming east down Hwy 79, take a right just before the overpass and Vencil’s place will be on your immediate right, on the corner; there’s plenty of parking.


 


Vencil at the end of the bar, in red cap
 

You enter from the rickety screen door on the southside of the building; the pits are to your left, the railroad tracks are right behind you, and Vencil usually holds court at the end of the long, u-shaped bar, sitting right inside the door. He’s 90 years young and a little stooped, but he still comes to work every day. Menus are handwritten on poster board with a magic maker, and both of the servers are down-home casual and efficient as hell, from working the same regular crowd, in the same tight space, putting out the same great food, for many, many years.



 


White bread, saltines, and sauce
 

We opted for the three-meat plate (me fatty brisket and her, lean) pork rib, and some of Vencil’s peppery handmade beef sausage. We also needed a pound of Vencil’s turkey sausage on the side, to nosh on (the leftover was a TV snack that night). Throw in a basket of white bread and saltines, a killer sauce (perfectly balanced twixt sweet and sour, add tomatoey, garlicky, spicy), a pitcher of ice water, a mound of some pretty damn good mustardy potato salad and some rich, meaty pinto beans, and you got yourself a fantastic meal for 10 bucks or so.




Three-meat platter









Brisket smoke ring and bark closeup, with bean border


The fatty brisket was ethereal: meltingly tender with just the right amount of tug when pulled. It has a thick smoke ring and a peppery, smoky bark that just add a couple of more layers of complex flavor to the beefy brisket. The beef sausage has a nice snappy casing, and a smoky flavor with the kiss of spicy pepper and garlic. The forcemeat is medium-coarse grind and has enough fat to make good flavor, but not too much to make it taste the least bit greasy. Good sausage. The pork rib had a nice smoke ring and great porky flavor with the right amount of juiciness and smoke, but it could have used just a touch more time in the offset smoker over the post oak to reach perfection; still, a damn good pork rib. The turkey sausage is a slightly finer grind than the beef sausage, and loaded with smokiness. It could have had a bit more fat added, but I wouldn't call it dry. Compared to Billy Inman’s turkey sausage, this runs a close second, with Billy’s being coarser, more moist, and smokier. Still, I loves me some smoked turkey sausage (the REAL stuff, not that grocery store crap), and it’s really hard to find at local BBQ joints.




Turkey sausage


I’d like to think I controlled my three-meat plate as well as Bill Pickett controlled the steers he bulldogged back in his day. Pickett (1870-1932) was a black cowboy from Taylor who initiated the practice of “bulldogging” or steer wrestling and in 1971 was posthumously inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame. Pickett controlled the steer by sinking his teeth into the animal’s upper lip as he twisted the bull’s neck and brought him down, much as I controlled my delicious three meat plate; I sank my choppers into it, and subdued the mofo.




The subdued three-meat.......


Taylor Café
101 N. Main St., Taylor; 512/352-2828

Mick Vann ©   

Salvadoran Crawl at Costa del Sol

A month or so ago, me and Shane were going to meet our workstudy homeboy Diego for lunch, before he blasted off to NYC to go to law school; we need more environmental lawyers, dammit, and Diego will make an excellent barrister! As usual, I came up with a list of dining options, and we all settled on Costa del Sol, a happening little Salvadoran joint at the northeast corner of Cameron Rd. and 183. Due west across Cameron is where we used to go in high school for the nearest drive-in movies; it was closer than the drive-in at Koenig and Lamar. I knew that whole Cameron Rd. area like the back of my hand. Now, not so much. It's a whole new scene.

Costa and El Zunzal (immediately west of the HEB at Pleasant Valley and E. 7^th) are my two spots for Salvadoran chow, and it just depends on which one I’m closest to when the Salvadoreño jones hits. Costa makes nods to Mexican food as well, but we go for the excellent Salvadoran food. Shane ordered enough food for three and ended taking a lot of it home; Diego ordered sensibly and cleaned his plate, while helping us with our overload. I was somewhere in the middle, between those two.

I ordered one of their excellent “green” corn tamales ($2), which is basically a tamale made with fresh corn masa instead of dried corn masa. I also ordered a pork tamal, which is made with succulent shredded pork stuffed inside. Both of the masas are light as a cloud, loaded with savory flavor, and the banana leaf-wrapped Salvadoran tamal is larger than the typical Mexican tamal. They are served with a side of crema, the Latin American version of sour cream; richer and less tart than crème fraiche, but with more flavor than American sour cream.




"green" corn tamal on right, pork tamal underneath, cheese pupusa on top, puddle of crema right


I also ordered a cheese pupusa ($2.25), which is a Salvadoran tortilla stuffed with a layer of farmer’s cheese before it has the edges sealed and is griddled. I wanted cheese with loroco, the indigenous edible flower from Central America, but they were out. Loroco can be used fresh, frozen, or pickled, and has a flavor kind of like a cross between artichokes, squash, and broccoli with a slightly nutty finish; usually only the flower buds are used. The pupusas here are excellent; worth the trip all by themselves.





refried beans left, plantains middle, and crema right. carnitas top left, chiles toreados center top, and salsa top left.


For my main dish I ordered a pair of fried (griddled) sweet plantains (AKA pláanos maduros, $8), which comes with a big side of rich and refried beans (subbed by me for the usual savory stewed black beans), and a generous serving of crema. Think of the sweet plantain as being a little tart and sweet at the same time, but the sugars caramelize as it cooks, lending a burnt caramel quality. I also got a side of carnitas ($2.50), which are meaty, porky, unctuous chunks of pig meat cooked in lard; oh-so perfecto with a squeeze of citrus and a dab of salsa. I also got a side of chiles toreados ($1.50), jalapeños that have been blackened on the griddle. A nibble of them makes for a spicy interlude between bites of pork and plantain.





Shane's pastor taco, pork tamal, and black bean and cheese pupusa





Shane's carne guisado plate





Diego's pair o' pupusas: cheese and black bean with cheese



The meal started with a basket of totopos and a nice, zippy salsa (need larger container please, it would save me and the server a lot of refilling effort). And we also got a large communal container set on the table of Costa’s wonderful curtido (sorry, no pic), a salad-like lagniappe that all Salvadoran joints have at the table. Their version is lightly pickled cabbage, onion, garlic, carrot, chile, with oregano; addictively delicious stuff. I waddled out of there stuffed to the gills, and happy as a pig in a wallow. The UT work homies loved their food as well.

There is a bonus found at this little strip center. Two doors west is a lively little Honduran joint, Antojitos Hondurenos, that has tamales that may even be better than those at Costa del Sol. This is the only spot I know where you can literally do a Central American food crawl in the same little strip center. Also highly recommended at Costa is the award-winning Regia Cerveza, ($6, for the big bottle). Great stuff. They also do humongo bowls of specialty soups on the weekends. Fantastic food, great service, good prices.
  

Costa del Sol
7901 Cameron Rd., 512/832-5331
http://restaurantcostadelsol.com/

Mick Vann ©

My previous Austin Chronicle review from 2009:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/food/2009-08-14/costa-del-sol/

My previous article on Honduran food in the ATX:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/food/2010-06-04/honduran-food-comes-to-austin/

           

Pre Cinco de Mayo at MRII

Mi Ranchito Dos 5.02.2014

This Saturday Art and I were having a restaurant consulting meeting about a couple of our ongoing projects and we both became a bit peckish; well, actually, seriously peckish. What with Cinco de Mayo a couple of days away, and with Mi Ranchito II being five or so minutes to the south of Art’s house, we made a run in that direction.

They have added some new dishes lately, the latest in a long string of their ever-growing menu. One of those was Supermigas, with the choice of bacon, sausage, or chorizo; Art went with the chorizo, as they make a great version there. I felt like naming them SUPERmigas ought to mean that you get all three of the meats, but that’s not the case. Art liked the migas just fine, and loved his side carnitas taco okay, but I definitely won the ordering competition.



Supermigas, with refried beans....
 

We decided to split an order of their wonderful guacamole, which is basically avocados mashed up a la minute with lime and garlic, and some of their salsa bar pico de gallo. You get to customize it anyway you want with their excellent salsas. It’s thick and rich and unadulterated; you have to spoon it onto a totopo or the chip shatters from the density of the avocado.



Roasted tomato-guajillo and spicy green avocado salsas, with pico de gallo and a big wad of fresh guacamole


I came SO close to going for one of their fantastic huge burgers, but was suckered in once again by the chicken mole enchiladas. I’ve ordered these the last 4 or 5 times I’ve been there, because they taste so damn good. The rich dark sauce dances along on the fine edge of sweet and savory, with many complex layers of spices and flavor, and a nice jolt of heat on the finish. The chicken is moist and tender, and was pulled off of a carcass that morning.




Chicken-mole enchiladas, with excellent rice and refried beans. I usually get the charro beans or black beans, but was suckered in my the richness of refrieds.

 

I had to go for a couple of side tacos, since I hadn’t eaten all day and this was going to be the big feed for the day, so I added a chorizo-nopale taco, which had sautéed onions in the mix, and came topped with Chihuahuan white cheese. There was a little liquid fat run-off, but it was liquid and not grease; the flavor was superb. I also got a pork carnitas taco with onions and cilantro, and as usual, their pork was tender, juicy, and loaded with porky flavor. Add some of the amazing salsas, and these babies are top-notch.




Chorizo-nopale left, carnitas right

 
The hot green salsa with avocado was especially piquant Saturday, and the mild green with avocado was silky and rich, with a nice layer of spiciness. The roasted tomato-guajillo was excellent, as always, and the tomato-tomatillo was a recent arrival, loaded with big taste. Their salsa cruda/casera is always a safe bet, as is the pico de gallo, where they actually include lots of fresh chiles, lime, garlic, and lots of cilantro.

I hate to keep harping on this joint, but it consistently turns out some of the best Mexican food in Austin. It’s up there with Taco More and El Taco Rico in my book.

Mick Vann © 

Lunch at John Mueller Meat Co.

John Mueller BBQ with Mick




Monday the 28^th I went to lunch with old pal Michael "Mick" Corenblith, to John Mueller Meat Co. I’ve been leading him on a tour of the great barbecue joints in town, so he can kick his Pok-E-Jo’s obsession. He usually has a flight back to L.A. to catch, and I’m away from UT for lunch, so time is a concern. We got there right at 11am and were some of the first customers there. Matter of fact, we waited in the alley with one other group until they un-padlocked the gate. They didn’t have turkey or pulled pork that day, but had all the other menu hits. Personally, I was worried that after the Food and Wine Festival the previous weekend, they might have been wiped-out and closed. Not to worry.

We got a couple of trays loaded down with two thick slices of fatty brisket, off of the point. We asked for a big, honkin’ beef shortrib to split, dividing it into halves. We got three pork ribs; we were going to get one each, but they looked so damn good that I had to have an extra one (and then they threw in a gorgeous meaty, crusty chunk of an end as well). We got a link each of the regular sausage, and one of the jalapeño sausage. We topped it all off with a serving each of the meaty green beans and the cheesy baked squash. An assortment of white bread, sweet onions, dill pickles slices, and a couple of waters, and we were ready for some serious gluttony.




 Brisket: moist and meltingly tender, with the unctuous fatty portions being like the semi-rendered fat on a slice of bacon, but smokier. The bark is sparkling with sugar cookies of caramelized fat, and loaded with black pepper. The smoke ring is thin (they cook a little hotter than many) but it has ample smokeossity. This is excellent brisket.

 



The beef rib has a deep caramelization penetrating the surface of the meat and a bark comparable to the brisket. The meat eases off the wide, long bone with ease, yielding deeply beefy-flavored meat that is tender and fine as hell. Pity John didn’t enter our Beef Rib Smackdown; good news for first place winner Tom Micklethwait that John decided to not enter and stayed home.

The pork ribs are sublime. Definitely the best pork ribs I have ever gotten at JMMC. They were thick and moist, with a crunchy, spicy, smoky bark. Each tender bite left a perfect tooth impression in the meat, yet it didn’t fall off of the bone; in the eyes of a competition judge, as good as it gets. Fantastic pork ribs, especially the tender chunk of burnt end he threw in as a lagniappe.






Mueller’s sausage is legendary, and this visit was no exception. The casing is smoky and very snappy gut. The forcemeat filling is coarse-ground, spicy, beefy, and delicious; unlike it’s cousins down the road in Lockhart, it retains full flavor and moistness without a river of grease pouring out when sliced. The jalapeño content could have been jacked-up a bit more for my taste, but exemplary smoked sausage.

The green beans were like granmaw beans, where she puts a pot of snaps on with chunks of pork and it simmers for hours. It’s almost like a beany soup; none to very little crunch left (but that doesn’t mean they weren’t delish). The squash dish is more like steamed squash mixed with chile con queso; even if you dislike waxy yellow squash the way I do, it somehow manages to still taste great.

Summation: Yet another fantastic barbecue meal at John Mueller’s, and we didn’t get yelled at by John, and all the neighborhood homies inside Kellee’s Place were chill while sucking down their late morning brews. Street construction is finished and there is plenty of parking. It still really bothers me to see those damn new condos catty corner from Kellee’s, but at least East Poultry still glides along at the far end of the block.

Mick Vann  ©            

Sap's II Open in Allandale!

The New Sap’s, or Sap's II
5800 Burnet Rd, Allandale Village
512/419-7244
http://www.sapsthai.com/ 

 ...check out the new menu options for vegheads

       

...the sculpture on the back wall is a cascading fountain.

Sunday I ate at Sap’s newly opened restaurant, at the southern bend of the Allandale Shopping Center, on the southwest corner of 2222 at Burnet Rd. It’s across the street from where the original Frisco Shop stood for decades. It has just opened a couple of days, and is sporting a big "Now Open" sign. When you walk in the door, you are transformed by the calming sound of gurgling fountains, and myriad colors from Sap's now-famous umbrella ceiling, as well as the colorful artwork and décor. There is a series of hanging, folded-up paper umbrella lamps that are very unique, all glowing in pastel colors.

...facing bar, pointing west



...facing bar, looking east, towards the entry




...looking across part of dining room, towards the bar


On the right said is the bar, if you want to come in for a beer or wine and get a nosh without taking up a table of booth (I wish he would add mixed drinks, it would be a perfect cocktail spot for the neighborhood). Most of the seating is in comfy over-stuffed booths, with a line of tables running left-center. On the far left side is a separate party room-overflow seating area that can hold up to 60, and Sap doesn't charge for the room. It is made up of all tables, so the space is flexible.




...the party room


My dining partner was a bit of a wimp, spice-wise, so the menu choices reflect her piquant semi-aversion. That fact might prove refreshing for those afraid that Thai food is all way too spicy for them. We started with the Fresh Spring Rolls with Shrimp (S-A2), tender rice paper wrappers around a filling of poached shrimp, rice noodles, crispy lettuce, basil, and mint, served with a smooth peanut and tamarind dipping sauce; always a perfect starter, especially on a hot day.

.....fresh spring rolls with peanut-tamarind dipping sauce
 

For entrees we ordered the S-P2, Pad Ga-Tiem Prik Thai, a delicious dry-style stir fry that’s an old hybrid Thai-Chinese dish, using dark soy and fish sauce, with lots of garlic and liberal black pepper. The prik Thai part of the name literally translates to “Thai pepper”. Before the Portuguese imported chiles in 1529, the original Thai pepper was peppercorn. It grows all over the country, but down in the southeast around Chanthaburi, known as “The Fruitbasket of Thailand”, there are huge peppercorn fields and it is a regional specialty. When you go to the markets, you see big bags of pristine black and white peppercorns for sale everywhere, and in season at the massive Noen Sung Fruit Market, baskets of crunchy, piquant emerald green young peppercorns. The area produces about 75% of the peppercorns in Thailand, and Thais feel that the pepper from Chanthaburi is the finest available. Tender, garlicky, and with just a little peppery bite, this is a very satisfying dish.




...beef with garlicky-pepper sauce

      
Next up was S-P28, Sap’s Sweet and Sour, and we ordered it with ground pork. When you think of sweet and sour, the immediate image is of Americanized-Chinese thick, gloppy ketchup and vinegar sauce. Thai sweet and sour is nothing like that in the least. It has soy and fish sauce, palm sugar and vinegar, tomato paste and chile sauce, lemongrass and Thai lime leaf, and a healthy dose of garlic. The texture of the sauce is more like a velvety soup and the effect is one of lightness, barely coating the ingredients. It came with chunks of fresh pineapple, onion, cloud ear mushrooms, crunchy green beans, and quartered baby long eggplants, perfect with the sweet ground pork. I like to get it with a little of the incendiary naam jim talay garlic-green chile sauce on the side that comes with the grilled seafood skewers; it’s a perfect match.

 


....ground pork with sweet and sour sauce
  

We got one of my old standby’s, S-F11, Guay Tiew Kua Gai, flat sen yai rice noodles stir-fried with ground chicken, egg, bean sprouts, sweet-sour pickled radish, a soy-based mother sauce, and a big salad on the side. I love this dish. It also comes with a clear sweet chile sauce to garnish it with, and then I like to add a little Siracha sauce to balance the sweet. Notice I spelled it Siracha instead of Sriracha, like the dreaded Rooster Brand. That’s because Amphoe Si Racha, a seaside district just south of Bangkok and north of Pattaya, near Chonburi, is where the THAI fermented chile sauce originated. The Thai chile version, from Si Racha, is infinitely better than the jalapeño version made in south L.A. by the Vietnamese Rooster Brand. Word-up: if you ever see the rare yellow Thai chile version of Si Racha Sauce in any Asian market, grab and cherish every drop of its spicy lusciousness. You can find it over there, but seldom over here.

....the famous SF-11

Last was the magnificent Tiger Cry, S-P48, Seua Rong Hai. Tiger Cry is an Isaan dish of sliced, marinated grilled meat accompanied by a spicy Jaew dipping sauce. It can be eaten as a salad (not my way of thinking of this dish) or as an entrée, and is very popular over there as a snack eaten to accompany cold beers or shots of whiskey. When you see this dish offered by Thai restaurants in the States cooked as a stir-fry, you can be assured that it is not an authentic preparation. In less chile-tolerant America, this old traditional dish has taken on a new meaning as being a “dish so hot that it makes even a tiger cry,” but that is far from the original translation of the dish in Thailand, where seua means “tiger” and rong hai means “crying”. 
            
Originally, the dish was made using only meat from water buffalo that had gotten too old to continue working the fields. A water buffalo is too valuable as a farm work animal, especially in the rice paddies, to be raised for food; they are only eaten after having lost their ability to contribute. In Thailand it was known as “tiger cry” because the meat of the older water buffalo was so tough and hard to chew that it made even a tiger cry. Although water buffalo meat is still eaten in Thailand, especially in poorer outlying districts, the growth of the Thai beef cattle industry, and the import of beef from Australia, the U.S., and South America has made high quality affordable beef available nationwide. Thankfully the tiger cry cooked at Sap’s is a misnomer; it is remarkably tender, and spicy, but not intolerably so.
         
Sap’s kitchen uses high quality sirloin steak, marinated simply in garlic, soy, and fish sauce. The beef is char-grilled to medium-rare, rested, and sliced thinly against the grain, yielding delicious, juicy, smoky, fork-tender steak strips. These slices are wrapped with romaine lettuce leaves and red onion, and dipped into a thin jaew sauce of lime, lemongrass, fish sauce, soy, dried roasted chile, scallion, and cilantro, thickened slightly with nutty ground roasted rice, with just a touch of palm sugar to give a little balance to the citrus; this sauce is like crack for char-grilled meat. The sticky rice is eaten with the fingers, shaping it into little footballs, to soak up the succulent meat juices. The flavor of tiger cry is extraordinary and it’s so tender it melts in your mouth; it's one of the best meat dishes on the menu. We ended up fighting over that last bite. A glass of water and a pot of ginger tea with a little brown sugar and we were completely satiated, happy as can be.




....tiger cry: a tender mound of char-grilled steak strip deliciousness. the foil packet holds the sticky rice. the steak knife is superfluous.  


Sap’s new outlet is superb, and a delight for the eyes. What was a funky spot on the wrong end of the strip center has been magically transformed into a temple of Thai cuisine, soon to become a new anchor for the strip. Go there, you won’t be disappointed.  

 Mick Vann ©