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

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.

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.

The unexpected noodle is the tastiest kind

I didn't want to do it. When I had the unexpected luck to travel to Europe for work last week,  I told myself I'd just enjoy the local, delicious food in Switzerland and Germany. I was in London for a day too, but England understandably gets a pass, because curry is what I always want to eat there. I find it hard to shake off my original impression of bland English food no matter what the food press has to say about the offal revolution occurring in their "gastropubs". For once, I told myself, I wasn't going for noodles, at least  in Zurich or Germany that is... but ten days is an awfully long time.

Let me start off by saying, regional varieties of a cuisine can be quite charming and just as fascinating as indigenous food. Witness the harmonious marriage between Chinese and Cuban food. Chinese cuisine is the prime example, it's different in just about every country depending on local produce, tastes, and the region of the people that emigrated to that country. Its usually very interesting to try, with the exception of one traumatizing  experience in Dublin when an order of Orange Chicken arrived swimming in concentrated orange juice.  Italian cuisine is another great example. The heavy, tomato-sauce centered dishes that came to the US along with Southern Italians would not be recognized as bonafide by a modern day Italian, Southern or otherwise. The fried chicken and cheese combination smothered in tomato sauce we call Chicken Parmesan sounds like a horrific nightmare to most Italians, but to me it's just delicious.

The softening of my resolve had begun the night before in Cologne. The kitchen had already closed at the local German restaurant I had wanted to try and I found myself outside the only restaurant still serving food after 11 PM, a Turkish restaurant called Osman Bey. I had an incredible meal there that really put the Turkish food we are getting in NY to shame. So I was a little more open the next day when I wandered past an unassuming Chinese restaurant near the train station in Dusseldorf called 'Track 21". I did a double-take as I passed because I noticed that the restaurant was full of East Asians. They also had a menu outside where I saw this horribly grainy but wondrously authentic looking hot pot advertised. 

Hot Pot Dusseldorf style

I was lured in by the great variety of Sichuan dishes I saw on the menu, the notable absence of aryans, and an incurable noodle addiction.  The restaurant looked like the type you should find in the vicinity of a train station- bare bones and unpolished - just like our favorite noodle joints in NYC.  Usually I try the Dan-Dan noodles in a Sichuan restaurant, but I needed noodle soup and went for the another Sichuan perennial offering, spicy beef noodle soup. I started out with a little cold boiled chicken in chili sauce which was  pretty divine. I love when chicken comes with the bone on as opposed to anonymous, chopped up, and dried out pieces. 

Tasty boiled Chili Chicken

The soup was very spicy and the broth was light but very flavorful. The noodles were e a thicker egg variety like Dan Dan noodles and served soft, but not so soft that they were runny and flaky. I drank the fiery broth down to the last drop.

Spicy Beef Noodle Soup

I was really surprised to get such a good bowl of noodles in Dusseldorf. I expected mainly to find Asian restaurants that catered to local German tastes but I was delighted to be proved wrong. If Track 21, despite it's godawful name, was in NY, I would actually go to it, and regularly. In the meantime, if you ever find yourself craving noodles near the central station in Dusseldorf, you've got the spot.

Wicked Satay noodles in the heart of Silicon Valley

I changed roles at work in January and as a result I have been spending more and more time in Cali. There are so many great Asian places to eat at in Silicon Valley that I fear I'll never really make a dent in them, but I'm having fun trying. I decided to head out to Rengstorff Pho in Mountain View with my colleagues and product managers extraordinaire Roupen and Saurabh. I chose Rengstorff Pho because I had read it was famous for it's Satay style noodle soup. a drool-worthy dish I hadn't tried before.

Witness the deliciousness- Satay noodle soup

 Any restaurant in the valley that's any good at all is overun with customers around lunch time, so we walked into the half-empty restaurant with some slight trepidation. This turned out to be a false alarm though, because by the time we were ready to order 5 minutes later, all of the seats had filled up. As we walked in, I noticed a plate of chicken rice on a table, one of my all time favorite things to eat, so of course we had to add that to the order.

Roupen (left) and Saurabh (right) know they are in for a good meal.

We all picked at the chicken rice, which I thought was very good- but nothing mind blowing. I liked it as a shared appetizer. I would definitely order this again, but I'm interested to know, where is the best chicken rice in the valley? A blogworthy topic in itself, especially for a Singaporean, who are famous for their love of this dish. Thank god I finally found a place to share random, useless, and esoteric knowledge like that.

Tasty Chicken Rice

We also asked for some summer rolls- always an automatic order for me-  which were about twice as long as the ones that  I'm used to and were utterly fresh and delicious.

Great summer rolls (or whatever they call them out West)

 For our main course, we unanimously decided to try what seems to be the de-facto house special,  the Satay noodle soup. We washed this down with some fresh young coconut juice that I would definitely recommend ordering--  I love it when there are fresh slices of coconut in my drink.

Don't be jealous

The soup was the vibrant color of a good tomato or Mulligatawny soup and was thick but not overly so like a bisque. The broth, which had a perfect medium level of spiciness,  was laced with peanutty goodness and fat, broad rice noodle similar to Ho Fon. I also like these noodles in thicker beef based broths like the beef stew at Yogee Noodle back home in NYC. In the Satay broth, having more surface area on the noodle increases the intensity of flavor. Speaking of flavor intensity, Rengtorff Pho claims not to use any MSG on their website- always a great thing.

The meat was the same kind that is used in Pho Tai,. That meat is usually referred to as "eye of round" on a Vietnamese menu and is essentially a thinly sliced and raw roast beef that cooks in the hot soup. The quality of the beef was excellent but in a powerful Satay broth, it's the meat that absorbs the flavor of the broth rather than the meat flavoring the broth as it does with Pho. Saurabh mentioned that each bowl must have at least 1,000 calories with all those peanuts and noodles. While that's a buzzkill, it's really all about balance. It's perfectly fine to go out and binge all night on hookers and coke every odd evening as long as you go to church the next day.

Wutup soup!

A handsome man and his noodles.

Great thick noodles perfect for the Satay broth

We loved this place and I would definitely go back.  The three of us ate like kings for about $20 each. Next time, even though I'm really into the Satay soup, I may just check out the regular Pho, unless of course I'm planning to go to church the next day.

Tom Chang loves spicy beef noodles

If there is one thing I’ve learned over the almost two years I worked for Tom Chang at our Silicon Valley startup, MobileIron, it’s this. Tom Chang LOVES spicy beef noodles.  I joined him and our colleague Bennet Woodward as he was he was half way into a 3 day marathon of spicy beef noodle soup eating. Tom had already eaten the same for dinner the night before and was looking forward to eating them again the next day a at his favorite Las Vegas noodle bar at the Venetian Hotel. I’ve eaten those noodles before, at his suggestion, and they are very tasty.  Las Vegas is actually a wonderful place to find authentic Asian food, but I digress. What I actually want to say here is this- Tom Chang loves spicy beef noodles. 

Bennet (left) and Tom (right)-  smiling in anticipation

Silicon Valley Chinese food can be really excellent. The closer you get to the heart of tech and the Asian engineers that actually make the world run, the more authentic Asian choices you are going to find. There are plenty of Asian malls at major intersections just jam-packed with interesting looking restaurants to explore. Ai noodles in Cupertino was in one of those developments with at least 15 restaurants—it would be a great place to do a noodle crawl one day. The first item listed on the menu at Ai noodles is the spicy beef noodle soup, and as we walked in I noticed many people eating it. Here’s a little tip for the uninitiated, when you see  lots of Asian people all eating the same thing in a restaurant, order whatever they are having- you probably can’t go wrong. We started out with a little spicy, garlicky cucumber snack which I always love to order. Make sure you aren't going on a date after eating these.

Spicy cucumbers

Tom also likes a scallion pancake

 The cucumbers are essentially a ubiquitous chinese cruditee-- one of the few vegetables I've seen in the panoply of Chinese cuisine that isn't served cooked. These were tangy and crunchy but not too terribly spicy. They have a very decent scallion pancake here too that is fried just the perfect amount. We topped off the appetizer parade with an order of spicy Sichian Wonton-- I thought these were just OK- the filling seemed to be a little chewy- Charsu BBQ pork perhaps?

Sichuan Wonton - not so special

Finally the piece de résistance arrived- the spicy beef noodle soup. It's offered with thin or thick noodles and all three of us opted for the thick noodles. They had a floury, homemade texture and they were fresh. They were also perfect sopping up the broth. They were served al dente- have I mentioned that gloppy noodles, with a few exceptions like Dan Dan noodles, are gross? 

The main feature- spicy beef noodle soup

Thick homemade noodles perfect for this soup

There was a thin meniscus of oil on the soup but that's nothing to be deterred by, sometimes us soup lovers just need to soldier on. The broth was beefy and just spicy enough that I managed to work up a sweat towards the end of the bowl. Tom was a little disappointed by the beef that day, it had some tendons in it but I actually enjoyed the texture. The meat is supposed to melt in your mouth but I didn't mind that it was a little chewy.  My favorite element of the soup was the noodles themselves- but everything working in concert made a really excellent $7 lunch.  How lucky are we to love food that also happens to be dirt cheap?  In an alternate universe, I wouldn't bat an eyelash to pay $20 for a meal like this. I no longer working for Tom since I changed roles with the new year, but I'd say our noodle future is still very bright. Plus, I continue to kick his ass at Words With Friends, but that's a story for another day.

Noodles for Dessert? Yes please.

Last night we stopped into one of the Tong's favorite ChiuChow restaurants in Richmond, JC Kitchen. The Tongs go there for the fantastic sweet and sour pork among other things. The food was delicious but the blogworthy item was what we had for desert- pan fried noodles with sugar and vinegar. 

Big Plate O' fried noodles

Served with sugar and Chiangking vinegar

The noodles are crunchy on the outside and warm and chewy in the center- the sugar on the noodles made me think of cereal, but the counterbalance of the vinegar reeled me back in to the more savory nature of this desert.

Carved up like a pizza- and sprinkled with sugar and Vinegar to taste

Crispy on the outside - chewy on the inside.

These noodles loosely approximate well-done shoestring fries in texture. They are also slightly reminded me of shredded wheat.

A big hit with the Tongs

Ian's sister Carol mentioned that there was also a Jewish tradition of making sweet noodle casserole dishes-- we call them Kugels, or noodle casseroles. Somehow that had escaped me- probably because I'm not a big fan. I think it will be time to revisit that notion at the next big Jewish festivity. Many thanks to the Tongs for the excellent meal and company, and for introducing me to my first Chinese noodle dessert!