Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Mexican Street Thai in Tulum

While Mexicans do enjoy pasta dishes like Fideos and Mexican Noodle Soup,  my personal Mexican noodle adventure was born when,  cycling through dusty downtown Tulum, my noodle radar alerted me to a heaping plate of delicious looking Pad Thai at an outdoor cafe. It had a wonderful, rich, color and wasn't at all what I was expecting to see on the streets of a small Yucutan city. While there are some very fancy Thai restaurants in Tulum near the seaside, the sleepy town itself has only a couple of Asian restaurants, most of which look like seedy NYC take out joints. After doing a double take, I circled back and decided it was time to try something exotic.

The aptly named "Thai Restaurant" in Tulum     

Obviously I had to try the noodles, and I also decided to have some Tom Kha Coconut Curry soup and well as melon juice. The melon juice was amazing and fresh, and I got a whole liter of it for 40 pesos- or about three bucks. Unfortunately, it was the highlight of the meal..

Tom Kha Gai and wonderful melon Juice

The Tom Kha soup had some extremely fresh vegetables in it but the broth itself lacked depth of flavor and had very little heat. I didn't notice any lemongrass or galanga- which are possibly hard to come by in Tulum. It was fine though- I really wasn't expecting much. I was here for the noodles, and soon they arrived.

Beautiful looking Pad Thai

The color of the Pad Thai was a deep, rich, amber and the serving was abundant. I had been drawn to this dish, nearly yanked off my bike seat really, as a moth to the flame. Unfortunately, I was badly singed. Upon closer inspection, the noodles were kind of gloppy, slightly underdone and way too chew. These undercooked noodles seemed to be missing key ingredients, like egg, and they were swimming in a starchy, bland sauce. Sadly I only ate about a quarter of these pretty noodles.

Street noodles Mexican Style

The meal wasn't that cheap either- both the noodles and the soup were around $7 each-- I could have had 14 fresh Quesedillas for that amount-- or I probably could have had this meal in NYC, but I'm glad it was in Mexico... and I wasn't even sick! It's been a long "workcation" in Mexico and tomorrow I head back to NYC after 10 days here in Tulum. If you happen to make it to Tulum there is plenty of great food to be found, including the amazing and world renowned Hartwood . I've included a couple of bonus shots of a meal I had with some friends at Hartwood below.


Hartwood is beautiful at night





Yogi Dinner Panorama


Locally sourced, fresh, and very tasty food at Hartwood


Monday, April 14, 2014

Blame it on the Bassanova

I met up with Ian and Jasmine to try something novel- Japanese noodles in the heart of Chinatown at Bassanova Ramen. Bossanova recently squeaked into the NY Times top 10 Ramen list on the strength of their Green Curry Ramen. They also serve two other fascinating Ramen variations that I have never seen anywhere else, Tom Yum and Lemon Pepper Ramen. Since curry noodles are my favorite, the Green Curry Ramen was an automatic choice for me, but I would especially love to try the Tom Yum Ramen on another visit.

No you can't have any

We kicked things off with an order of pork buns. For some reason, they had run out of a few items from the menu when we went, including the Gyoza which I would have liked to try. Curiously, they were also out of eggs, so no hard-boiled egg for my lonely Ramen. The pork buns were nice but nothing to flip out over- I have a strong preference for the ones they serve at Ippudo, which are softer and more savory.

Pork buns


They have a heavy hand at Bassanova, my green curry broth was delicious but just a little too intense. I loved the perfect, toothsome noodles and the unexpected addition of a spring mix, okra, and red pepper. The soup was loaded with garlic, which was delicious, but could prove burdensome to some friendships. I liked the pork here too, it benefited from it's time in the broth.Still, I think the soup would have been better if the broth had just a little bit less of an edge.


Green Curry Ramen




Pretty pork


Jasmine ordered a cold noodle bowl with fresh bamboo shoots, shrimp, spring mix and mushrooms. When mixed together it reminded me of cold sesame noodles, but with a briny, shrimpy flavor. To be honest though I prefer sesame noodles over these. Ian ordered the Truffle Oil Ramen. It had thinner noodles which I didn't like as much as mine, and Ian said he couldn't taste any truffles at all. He also said he had a tougher piece of pork from the end of the rump in his soup. Those should probably only be served when requested.

Mix n' serve Ramen - served in a artisinal bowl


The Professionals



I enjoyed our meal at Bassanova but I really can't say it's in my top ten. It was a pretty good $15 bowl of noodles, but I'm not sure what they have done to preserve the premium, although we did hear the soup bowls were made by an artist in Japan and cost $50 each. I don't think anything was organic, and I didn't read anything about the provenance of the pork we were eating. The restaurant is surrounded by many Cantonese places serving great Hong Kong style bowls of noodles for 5 or 6 dollars. Big Wong, a half block away, is a classic, and they BBQ their own ducks. I think next time I may venture over there instead. It's nothing personal, the Ramen is still pretty good, but the competition is stiff, and sometimes you've just got to blame it on the Bassanova.




Saturday, April 12, 2014

More Silly Valley Noodles - Maruichi Ramen in Mountain View

I wonder what Mountain View, CA looked like 50 or 100 years ago. The half mile main strip known as Castro Street must have beckoned the farmers of this lush valley, laden with apple and apricot orchards. If the transistor hadn't been discovered almost 70 years ago, would the town of Mountain View be jam-packed with Asian restaurants as it is today, supported by a diaspora of engineers drawn to the Mecca of all technology? Would the orchards only a stone's throw from my company headquarters still be Superfund cleanup sites?

Mountain View, CA around 1907

1940's or 1950's's Mountain View





Castro Street 2014 is lined with Asian restaurants

I can't answer any of the questions that I posed, but what I can say, without any doubt, is that there are more inexpensive noodles in the 40 mile stretch of valley than I could ever taste in my lifetime. Yet I remain undeterred.

My colleagues and I descended on the Ramen Soup at Maruichi like locusts awoken from a long slumber... which is to say, we massively over-ordered.  I loved the atmosphere of this Ramen shop, with a "U" shaped noodle bar one might find in any Tokyo neighborhood, and a box of Kimchi on every table. That's right- FREE Kimchi. It felt just like Korean Christmas.

Chris, Tom, and some other colleagues who wished to avoid the stain of appearing in my blog (which can never be removed no matter how hard you scrub) decided to get busy by ordering some cold noodles for the table. The order was larger than I was used to, and we had two of them to boot. The best part about the Soba was the shrimp tempura that came with the noodles- they were tasty little bastards and they died for a good cause. The Soba noodles lacked textural complexity or even much flavor. I'd skip these the next time around.


Soba Noodles with shrimp tempura

We also ordered some California Rolls (when in Rome) along with our Ramen-- these were interesting little calorie bombs, was that cream cheese in there? They were tasty, but above all, they were dirt cheap. An order of three was $1.90...Wuuuuuuut?

Summer Rolls

It's hard to resist a bowl of Miso Ramen, and  if you call it SPICY Miso Ramen it's impossible. They do have a very dark looking bowl of Shio Ramen that I'd love to try next time.

Spicy Miso Ramen at Maruichi

The Ramen was very tasty and the noodles were springy and obviously fresh. I wasn't sure about the broth, I think it may be better to order the attractive, creamy looking Miso Ramen I saw and spice to your own temperature with Japanese pepper or Kimchi. But I really loved the combination of the noodles with plenty of bean sprouts- aren't bean sprouts just peachy in soup?

Left to Right. Tom, me, and Chris getting about our noodle business


The check came to about $90 for five of us, which is pretty amazing for any Ramen place, but was especially reasonable since we had ordered half the menu.  I will definitely come back here, however my colleagues recommended two other Ramen places not far from here that we I need to try first.  The choices really are endless. After lunch we went back to our office. I wanted to crawl under my desk and go to sleep but that's the price one has to pay to live this amazing noodle life.