When Every Taste was Gorgeous

Maureen, Me, Zaki at Restaurant Daniel

 I am used to traveling to another country and being swept away by the newness of wonder of the local cuisine. However, it is not so often I get to return the favor.  It is even less often that I get the opportunity to showcase the very best of New York food.  And no, I’m not talking Murray’s Bagels and Bleecker Street Pizza (though both are great representatives).  I’m talking about Restaurant Daniel.

A couple of months ago we were lucky to have two employees of Room to Read visiting from their home countries of Bangladesh and Zambia.  For Maureen, the director of literacy programs in Zambia, it was her very first time to the city.  For Zaki, country director of Room to Read Bangladesh, this was his second time, but on his first visit he had never strayed much farther than his relative’s house in New Jersey.

When two loyal Room to Read supporters offered to take everyone out to dinner- Zaki, Maureen, John, and me- Daniel was their first suggestion.  I’m never one to turn down dinner at Daniel (among the best anywhere in the world), but what would our guests think?  Would the pomp and circumstance of such a formal dining experience be too much?  Would they understand and like Daniel Boulud’s signature style of fresh seasonal, ingredients grounded in classical French technique?

The night of the dinner I was seated next to Zaki at the large, round corner table.  Opening the menu I quickly set out to help him navigate his choices.  Most native English speakers would have difficulty understanding some of the ingredients, let alone a Bangladeshi.  Rather than translate the extensive menu word for word we narrowed down his choices based on more basic concepts. “For your starter, would you like soup, salad, pasta, or meat?”  “Are you feeling more like fish tonight, or meat?  There is wild game and beef.”

Sweet Finish: Passion Fruit Jelly with Meringue

Our hostess steered him toward one of the night’s specials: white asparagus flown in from France. But before that was served came the requisite amuse bouche: a trio that evening on the theme of broccoli.  I watched anxiously as Zaki and Maureen picked up their dainty silver utensils and dipped into the Lilliputian porcelain dishes.  The plates were almost universally licked clean.  Even my broccoli-averse beau John scraped out every last drop in his small cup of broccoli veloute. 

Two thirds of our table went with the white asparagus.  To be a contrarian, I ordered a duo of octopus.  It was sublime, meltingly tender.  I passed a piece onto Zaki’s plate for him to try.  “What do you think?”  He chewed slowly, concentrating on each morsel.  He turned his head. “Amy, the last five bites I’ve had”- amuse bouches and now appetizers- “have been completely new tastes for me.  And each one has been gorgeous.”

Across the table Maureen and our hostess were caught up in their own private conversation, like old friends gossiping over a casual girls’ night dinner.  Maureen ate every bite of the white asparagus and appeared to clean her plate with the main course as well.  I saw Maureen the next day and finally had the chance to ask her what she thought of everything.  What did she think of the food? 

“Amy, as I was going home in the cab last night I had a moment where I realized I had been smiling for hours.  I was still grinning ear to ear from that dinner. 

“My father passed away six months ago.  Last night was the first night since he died that I allowed myself to be happy.  It was wonderful, just wonderful.  And I said to myself, Maureen, this is what he would want.  He wants you to be happy.”

I have had transcendent moments with food sitting on a street corner eating from a cart and I have had revelatory experiences in the plush cushions of four-star restaurants.  But I’ve never known until that night whether that translated across cultures and continents, not the words but the transformative, inspiring, healing power of a dining experience.  Zaki, an accomplished home cook back in Bangladesh, had that experience eating food after food he had never tasted before.  While Maureen found, in the company of friends, in a beautiful dining room, being served exquisitely prepared cuisine, the healing power of a great meal.  That is a beautiful, gorgeous, thought indeed.  

Amy Powell is a food and travel writer based in New York City. She is a graduate of Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration and the French Culinary Institute. Follow her on Twitter @amymariepowell

A "Passion" For Balinese Fruit

Passion Fruit 

It is fruit season in Indonesia.  Or at least that is what the hotel employees tell us as we bat flies away left and right while trying to have a quiet lunch outdoors.  The flies may bother me, but it is a small price to pay for eating Bali’s wealth of tropical fruits in their peak season.

I have always gorged on papaya when traveling in South East Asia but this trip I have been drawn to even more exotic fruit.  Spikey, gooey, pulpy, I can’t get enough of the abundance of weird tropical fruits in this part of the world.

Driving through central Bali, it is hard not to notice the abundance of the region.  Lining the roads through the vibrant green terraced rice paddies, fruit trees hang heavy with durian the size of dinosaur eggs while bamboo big enough to be a giant’s straw stands at attention.

In a place this enchanting, it is no wonder some of my favorite fruits are the strangest looking.  The custardy filling of a durian with the stink of gorgonzola is not one of my favorites.  But for every durian that are even more baby bananas, mangosteen, passion fruit, and rambutan.

Rambutan when removed of its husk is often mistaken for the more common lychee. Both have milky sweet fruit flesh surrounding a hard brown pit.  But it is the skin of the rambutan that makes it special.  Brilliant red and covered in soft, hairy spikes, it looks not of this world.

Passion fruit, my latest obsession, is quite the opposite of rambutan in looks.  From the outside, it appears not so much different than a smooth, unripe orange.  The skin, though hard, is quite thin.  Once pierced with a butter knife, or thumbnail, the shell easily gives way.  But I tear gently in two so as not to disturb the prize inside.

Beneath the shell is a treasure of gooey pale yellow translucent fruit bundled together against the foam interior walls.  Inside each pea sized pod is suspended a miniature brown seed, crunchy and edible.  These little blobs then attach to each other, a mass of alien eyes. 

I spoon out the pulp or, if I’m feeling particularly greedy, I gently prod the seeds to release them from the skin, tilt my head back, and let the fruit slide right into my watering mouth.  Sweet, tart, crunchy, silky- passion fruit seeds are a taste experience quite unlike any other.

Passion fruit are becoming easier to find in the US at stores that stock a special section for exotic produce.  When I’m not in a tropical climate, it is nice to give the fruit a little more attention worthy of its overseas journey than a simple “cut and slurp”. 

At a hotel I was recently given a dish of sorbet, topped with passion fruit seeds and ginger beer served in a martini glass.  At home this would be a simple, unusual dessert for a dinner party- store bought sorbet in lemon or orange, half a passion fruit per person, and some good ginger beer.  A cannot imagine a more elegant presentation to show off those delectable little seeds. Then again, classy or not, eating them straight from the shell is pretty delicious too.

Passion Fruit Ginger Beer “Martini”

Serves: 6

1 pint lemon sorbet

3 passion fruit

1 ½ cup ginger beer

Mint leaves for garnish

Place a scoop of sorbet in each of six chilled martini glasses.  Remove the seeds from the passion fruit.  Divide up among glasses on top of the sorbet.  Top each glass with a couple of ounces of ginger beer each.  Garnish with mint leaves.  Serve immediately. 

Amy Powell is a food and travel writer based in New York City. She is a graduate of Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration and the French Culinary Institute. Follow her on Twitter @amymariepowell