I’ve said it before: Taka-san runs an awesome blog! He’s funny, straight up honest, and also a master of dropping knowledge. Yesterday, he ran an educational post on tekka-don, natto and a few other healthy Japanese classics (that’s his picture above).
He provides us with a brief history of natto (a fermented Japanese soybean), a visceral explanation, and a detailed break down of all the vitamins, basic nutritional benefits, minerals, and so forth. I must admit though, I think a good bit of the content was copied straight from the label! I love Taka’s broken English and much of it was notably well-written. Thankfully, chief sushi educator that he is, Taka dropped a distinctly classic note at the very end:
Nagaimo, I call Japanese Viagra. This is naturall, no side effect. Yu can cut it dices or grate. I use this for our okonomiyaki.
The aforementioned typos are simply just the result of Taka’s writing. Dude’s English is way better than anything I can ever hope for with my Japanese. Most importantly, Taka’s food and personality make his eponymous restaurant a win-win.
While I was preparing my first impressions on Double Zero Napoletana, I reached out to the Verace Pizza Napoletana Americas (VPN) for some clarification on a few “pizza rules.” The VPN is an international organization that seeks to “cultivate the culinary art of making Neapolitan pizza.” The Americas division is their outfit in our hemisphere, so I felt they were best equipped to handle my question.
I was most perplexed by DZ’s claim that,in accordance with VPN guidelines, they will not serve cut pizza. I wanted to see what the guidelines for serving cut pizza were and here is the response I got:
The VPN standards are related to the way a Neapolitan style pizza is made. The way people eats the pizza depends on habit and culture.
Italians doesn’t share the pizza. Everybody order and eat their own pizza. This is the main reason that the pizza is served uncut.
In the American culture, the pizza is still considered a food to share, either you are eating at the restaurant or sitting on a sofa at home watching TV. This is the main difference and this is the reason that in our restaurant we serve the pizza uncut, exactly in the same way we serve a steak or a chicken dish.
If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Have a wonderful day.
Donato/VPN Americas
If you’d like to learn more about VPN, you can visit their website. After spending some time looking through their criteria, I am actually curious to see how many of the pizzerias around town that claim to adhere to the VPN standards, actually do that.
It’s not often that I get holiday cards that I hold onto for more than a few days. Sorry … it’s true. However, this past New Year’s Day I was pleasantly surprised when I got this short epistle:
Pretty kick ass if you ask me. The artsy little ode to pickles is a succinct and easy to execute method courtesy of Ryan + Jen Hiding, known around these parts as the couple behind Staplehouse. If you don’t want to print out that card, I’ve taken the time to transcribe it for you after the jump!
In addition to being one of the dumbest cooks on Earth, Steve may have the worst laugh in the world. Witness: what happens when you take gnocchi (those little Italian dumplings) and try to deep fry some.
Maybe I’ll get back to restaurant stuff one of these days …
Chinese Soup Dumplings (xiaolongbao and tang bao) courtesy misoponia
In Atlanta, and many other cities across the states, the popularity of Asian cuisine seems to be growing. In years past, it was essentially relegated to take-out status whereby hurried families grabbed their nearest American-influenced Chinese food (see: Mongolian Beef, General Tso’s Chicken, etc…). Nowadays, we just can’t seem to get enough of the stuff. Thanks in part to the education doled out by blogs like Take Thou Food (website), Chow Down Atlanta (web), and Eat, Drink Man (web), foodies from all walks of life can’t seem to get enough of that far off cuisine that drapes Buford Highway.
Though the methods used to both execute and consume Chinese food are as varied as the people themselves, I see many a people anxiously dive into dumpling buckets in a fashion that might not be ideal for the task at hand. This habitual flocking of forks and hands leads me to ask and answer two questions: What are soup dumplings? and How do you eat them?
Mark August 21st on your calendars ladies and gents. In a joint event with the Japan American Society of Atlanta (website), Taka Moriuchi, the knife slinging leader of Taka Sushi in Buckhead, is hosting a cooking class. It starts at 11 am and lasts until 2pm. For reservations, you need to email axistaka@msn.com. At only $30/head, this is a steal. Not only do you get to learn, but you also get LUNCH!!! Dishes on the schedule include soba and udon soup, okonomiyaki (Japanese pancakes), and gyoza (dumplings).
Jerry Garcia, the rock god of granola, wasn’t just a snazzy dresser and a hell of an axe man. Nope, turns out, the Grateful Dead’s front man was also Chef Jerry. Oh yeah, in case you didn’t know it, Jerry wasn’t a health nut! I must say though, I’m not surprised to find out he was an accomplished baker. Enjoy …
I’m starting to think that I should do most of my writing after the witching hour … it’s amazing what you see late at night. As I ho-hum here and poke around the net, this tweet showed up in my twitter feed. My goodness, maybe twitter isn’t completely useless. For those of you who don’t want to do a lot of click hunting … here’s what all that translates to.
This past Sunday, Adam and I went to Rathbun’s in Inman Park for their farm-to-table cooking class. There is a whole lot to say about this as I have about 200 pictures and a notebook full of scribble. Luckily, the two videos I shot came out half-decent. While they are nothing close in quality to the videos put out by Rowdy Food, I was reasonably pleased that my camera skills didn’t completely suck. As for the audio … well … it is what it is.
While there is a whole mess of stuff to say on this (so be on the look out), I thought we’d start ya’ll off with a few short videos. The star of the shows is chef Adam Williams, a 24-year-old wunderkind, who helped take Team Two to the promise land. In his spare time, Williams serves as one of Kevin Rathbun’s devout minions chefs. Enjoy!
By now, you almost certainly know that Atlanta’s own Kevin Gillespie, the chef/partner at Woodfire Grill, is kicking ass and taking name on Top Chef: Las Vegas. His latest accolade came on the heels of an impressive quickfire performance in which he prepared snail fricassee with bacon jam, parsley puree, Brussels sprouts, and mushrooms. Lucky for us, Bravo posted an instructional video on their website. So here it is in all it’s glory:
