Christmas With The Chans

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Elizabeth and Alfred Chan owners of Little Rangoon Taste of Burma

From China King in Chandler to Szechuan Palace in Phoenix over to Totties Asian Fusion in Scottsdale today on Christmas day, we have had the opportunity over the last couple of months to try some new foods. These are our guides on our path into Dim Sum and more traditional Chinese food: they are owners of Little Rangoon – Taste of Burma restaurant. They are Alfred and Elizabeth Chan. Most of our time with the Chans who are from Burma has been as diners at their restaurant. On the rare occasion that their own restaurant is closed such as on a holiday, we have been able to join them for lunch such as on Thanksgiving and now today on Christmas. Sadly, I don’t foresee another holiday coming up any time soon, but, since their restaurant is closed on Mondays I have met them a couple of times then. Today, Caroline and I visited Totties with Alfred, Elizabeth, and their daughter Rosalind and were treated to more than a half dozen items prepared by Tottie herself for us to sample, along with a dessert sampler tray of nine different ice-creams and a kabocha squash custard – all was yummy. Our thanks go to Tottie and her family for welcoming us to such an opulent treat today.

Over the past few years, we have met some great people including Sonal Patel and her immediate family along with her extended family which seems to be nearly every other Hindu in the Phoenix area. We have enjoyed our time shared with Rob and Jerry out at Tonopah Rob’s Vegetable Farm as we do the rare moments with an old friend down in Tucson, Arturo Silva. Recently a Turkish friend and his German girlfriend stepped back into our lives for a short few days – how we wish we had far more time to spend with these two. But this is our problem with these people who we come to enjoy being with, we have too little time to divide our attention among these really wonderful friends but would like to let them know how much we appreciate this rare ability to laugh with one another.

On Monday, the Chans and I will be meeting for lunch again, hopefully at Great Wall Cuisine on Camelback in Phoenix and then going to Alfred and Elizabeth’s to watch part of the original Chinese five-hour version of Red Cliff with Tony Leung (one of Caroline’s favorite Chinese actors, the other is Andy Lau). So, Sonal, if you are reading this, when are we going out on a Monday when your shop is closed?

Engagement

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Rachna Patel on the day of her engagement to Niral Patel in Phoenix, Arizona

On Saturday morning we arose early and drove around the block to Suru and Anju Patel’s so I could begin taking photos of their daughter as she prepared for her engagement later in the morning. It was about five years ago we went to our first Hindu wedding when their older daughter Alka was married. Today, though, it was Rachna’s turn at beginning the process of moving towards marriage. The engagement ceremony was held at her fiance’s parent’s home. Dinesh and Panna welcomed about 40 friends and family to witness Niral and Rachna become engaged. Mrs. Rajaguru presided over the formalities, she is Kushbu and Shital’s mom and it was Kushbu who was the second engagement we attended. After the ceremony, we took a short drive to a local clubhouse for a reception with approximately 75 guests invited for this part of the day’s activities. Lunch was catered by a local temple that prepared undhiyu (a favorite of mine), tindoora, rice, puris, and one of my other favorites, shrikhand, for dessert. Sonal’s daughters Kushbu and Hemu performed a dance number with Satchi and Poorvi as a small entertainment moment in between speeches given to honor Rachna and Niral – the two are to be wed next fall.

Farm Update

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The herb sorrel sprouting at Tonopah Rob's Vegetable Farm in Tonopah, Arizona

A few days after my last plot update I replanted some lettuce, planted a bunch of herbs and fenugreek, transplanted two cauliflower seedlings, and did some thinning. Today’s photo is of sorrel that is now two days old. The cress and Genovese basil have also sprouted, I’m still waiting on parsley, chervil, lime basil, Thai basil, and lettuce leaf basil. The fenugreek started sprouting within a week of dropping it into the soil. It appears I planted the original planting of lettuce too deep, the new crop is already coming up and looks great. Maybe the corn mache was also too deep as it’s been slow to sprout so next to those rows I dropped some southwest greens called quelite and huazontle into the dirt with a thin cover, slowly they are emerging. Other failures in my plot are my golden beets which seem related to the viability of the seed while the red mustard seems to have suffered the same fate of the lettuce with being buried too deep. Now I know that the tiniest of seeds need the shallowest planting. I’ve been thinning cabbage every so many days as I try to choose the most robust plants to take to maturity – sauerkraut here we come. Eleven cloves of garlic have sprouted, every time I go to the farm they are the first things I check on. The plot was seeded on September 21st and my first harvest occurred on October 27th only thirty-six days later. On that day I pulled half a pound of radishes and cut a mix of almost two pounds of arugula, mezuna, and Tokyo bekana – we are still eating salads from those greens. On October 29th I picked a half-pound of radishes and then on the 31st another half pound of radishes along with a half-pound mix of arugula, mezuna, and Tokyo bekana that was all used for a salad shared on the farm for dinner. Yesterday I picked a bit more than a pound of radishes including my first mantanghong “Beauty Heart” radish – my favorite.

Little Rangoon

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Oil, lemon, onion, chili, and salt are the simple ingredients that make this Burmese salad

Recently we have been frequenting a Burmese restaurant in Scottsdale called Little Rangoon. In short order, we came to know the owners, Alfred and Elizabeth, and probably due to the fact we are eating at their place once or twice a week and on occasion with lunch thrown in, three times a week, we have become very familiar with Little Rangoon. So much so that we are now the recipients of tastings of Burmese food items that are not on the menu. A couple of weeks ago we tried pigs’ ear salad, tonight I will be trying some oxtail curry. Today for lunch though I had an excellent salad, a salad without a name which I was told was typical for the kind of food that a peasant or person of small means might eat on a regular basis. I enjoyed the sample so much that I just had to order a larger portion and asked if I could photograph the salad being made and jot down the recipe. Elizabeth graciously welcomed me into her kitchen and one of the cooks prepared a plate of all the ingredients that were in my Onion Chili Salad (see above). Is that all? While the list of ingredients is indeed small, even simple, the chemistry that occurs as these items are mixed is nothing less than extraordinary. Using about 1/2 cup of thinly sliced red onion, about 2 tbsp of crushed red chile (very spicy and hot), 1 tsp coarse salt, the juice of a wedge of lemon, and 1 to 2 tsp vegetable or canola oil, the mixture is turned over and mixed by hand. There is no need to let this sit, it is eaten right away with a side of steamed rice. The finished dish looks like this:

Onion Chili Salad from Little Rangoon Restaurant in Scottsdale, AZ

The real reason we are so in love with Little Rangoon though is not only the exotic samplings we are offered but the exquisite, complex, and flavorful foods of Burma as served up by Elizabeth and her kitchen staff. I can not choose only one favorite, I would have to be split amongst four items. First is the green tea salad followed by the ginger salad, pork belly curry, and then the falooda for dessert. The green tea salad is like nothing else I have ever had, it is sublime. Elizabeth starts with a number of ingredients imported from Burma including fermented green tea, sesame seeds, crispy garlic, crunchy yellow peas, peanuts, and smoked ground shrimp. She then adds more ingredients purchased locally including tomato, cabbage, and oil. The ginger salad is a variation on this theme with the green tea swapped for a mild fermented ginger. I have enjoyed these two dishes together for lunch or dinner – I am in love with them and feel I could easily eat them two or three times a week. The pork belly curry is quite the indulgence. Just like bluefin tuna belly (also known as Toro in sushi houses), the belly of the pig is tender and slightly fat, but the kitchen does great work trimming a lot of the fat leaving the tender and flavorful chunks of pork that are cooked with a tomato, pepper and onion curry and served on rice. Try it once and you’ll be addicted.

To top off a meal at Little Rangoon I would do backflips for the falooda. On one of our first visits, Alfred and Elizabeth shared some of their semolina cake with durian – not something they would bring out for just anyone, especially considering the smell of durian, but we loved it. However, it was the falooda that locked onto my taste buds. Falooda originates in India but is popular in the Middle East, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and of course Burma (now known as Myanmar). Sometimes it is the complexity that arises from the simple that can make a thing stand out so much further than the otherwise average ingredients would suggest and so it is with falooda. Using vanilla ice cream, milk, tapioca pearls, egg custard, thin spaghetti-like noodles made of agar jelly, and the main ingredient that brings it all together, rose syrup. They offer a small for $3 and a large for $5 – don’t be silly and order the small, go with the large or you’ll just be forced to order a second one.

My Veggie Patch

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A 12 foot by 14 foot vegetable garden in Tonopah, Arizona sprouting various vegetables

This is my little vegetable garden out at Tonopah Rob’s Vegetable Farm. Because I volunteer out on the farm and help with Rob’s website I was given a 12 foot by 14-foot patch to plant what I wanted to. The area with little growth in it is supposed to be lettuce but these really small birds that can fit through the chicken wire are nipping off the tender leaves before much of the lettuce gets a chance to take hold. Most everything else is doing well though, as you can see. I have planted three types of chard, red mustard, orach & chual (two native southwest greens), green wave mustard, Tokyo bekana, mizuna, arugula, cilantro, salad burnet, spinach, mache, chives (which have not sprouted yet), five types of carrots, two types of radish, beets, collard greens, rutabaga, turnips, broccoli, cabbage, and borage. In the center row of the plot I planted about a dozen different varieties of garlic, the first clove just sprouted yesterday. I still have an old bathtub sitting next to my plot where I need to plant more herbs. The herbs are special for Caroline so we can make a Frankfurt specialty called Grüne Soße (Green Sauce) made of borage, sorrel, cress, chervil, chives, parsley, and salad burnet – its been fifteen years since she last tasted this famous Frankfurt culinary treat.

Taner and Verena

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Taner and Verena from Berlin, Germany visiting John and Caroline Wise in Phoenix, Arizona

After a sixteen-year gap in communication, where not a word is spoken, an email exchanged, or a phone call made, it might be more typical that two once compatible personas have grown apart and, upon meeting that long lost friend, the spark that once brought the friendship to bear is simply no longer there. A week ago after an anonymous nearly cryptic email challenged us to remember someone from our past we learned that Taner would be visiting the United States and he would be traveling with his girlfriend Verena.

Last night, after arriving in Las Vegas a few days earlier from Berlin, Germany, Taner and Verena were knocking at our door. Would we like Verena? We know German women and they are typically tight-lipped and not easily amused. Would we still like Taner’s company? Caroline’s and my life is greatly different from our bohemian, decadent, hedonistic, and self-indulgent days when we lived in Frankfurt. Who would Taner be after all these years, a button-down business guy, an elitist art snob, a junkie? As they pass through our door and polite handshakes and hugs are exchanged I need a few minutes to stare into Taner’s face to find him behind the greying hair and beard. Meanwhile, Caroline gets busy talking with Verena. The chemistry is still there. Sixteen years of time are compressed and erased. We are about to find common ground that will likely rewarm a long-dormant friendship. As our talk extends into the late night, Caroline and Verena laugh while Taner and I reminisce and talk about our move to Phoenix and his to Berlin. They leave around 1:30 a.m.

Early in the morning, we get together again to continue where we left off just hours before. With time short as I understand the necessity to get on the road no matter how wonderful it might be to find yourself back with an old friend where one can’t help but wish there was more time available than reality is dictating, we get in the car and onto the road so I can give Taner and Verena a small sense about the city we live in. Our first stop is at Tonopah Rob’s farm. Coming from Berlin I felt they would appreciate the surreality of farming in the desert and I wanted them to meet Rob’s turkeys which I was fairly certain these two would never have seen before. Having not eaten breakfast these two were hungry by early afternoon and were wanting the best hamburger I knew of. Claim Jumper won out over In-N-Out with the Widowmaker burger being ordered for both Taner and Verena who said it was the best burger they’d ever had. I couldn’t disagree, it’s my favorite too.

After lunch, we picked up Caroline and drove to a local Walmart for them to witness our American consumption a la Gargantua. The patrons of Walmart in all their glorious peculiarities didn’t miss a beat in earning the awkward stares of tourists in shock at how extreme not only the variety offered on the store shelves are but the diversity of strangely clad obese people driving rascals through the autobahn wide isles of America’s shopping behemoth can be. From Walmart, it was a drive across Phoenix to Lee Lee’s Oriental Market. The colors, packaging, and exotic new products were too much for Taner who was soon armed with Caroline’s camera so he might be more discreet in capturing the fish heads, neon, and brightly packaged foodstuffs without having a store worker asking him to leave. As the theme seemed to be working we once more got in the car and this time drove to Ranch Market on Roosevelt Street.

Ranch Market is a Mexican grocery with blaring music, fluorescently bright pink, yellow, and green cakes, and entire cow heads on display in the meat counter. Our first stop was at the aqua Frescas counter to buy a horchata (rice milk), jamaica (hibiscus), Sandia (watermelon), and a limonade. We walked by the prepared hot foods, the tortilla makers in the corner, and inspected the chicharrones (fried pig skins), mountains of chili peppers in various shapes and sizes, coconuts, tamarinds, and nopales (cactus). Caroline and Verena wandered one way, Taner and I the other – this was better than nightclubbing. After Taner shot a few dozen photos a very polite security officer informed us that one or two photos were ok but that we should put the camera away.

Dinner for Caroline and I was at Lone Star Steakhouse, Taner and Verena were still full from the burger. Back at our apartment, Taner and I tried to work out a loose itinerary they might use as inspiration for the rest of their three-week American southwest vacation. We talked and planned until nearly three in the morning before we pushed them out to their hotel. In the morning I made a breakfast of potatoes, eggs, and bacon for the four of us, packed them an ice chest with frozen mango, walnuts, almonds, dried apple rings, dried apricots, and some other assorted snacks, then armed them with road maps before printing the itinerary with a few last-minute changes and, finally, encouraging these two to get going on their road trip that might take them to Monument Valley, Moab, across Nevada, into Oregon, the Redwoods, San Francisco, and back to Vegas. We had a blast visiting with Taner and Verena and sincerely hope that we’ll see these two again much sooner than later. How very perfect this last forty-eight hours have been – thanks Taner and Verena for including us in your travels.