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

Eating Thai in Namibia and Other Surprising Food Finds

Ever play the Chinese restaurant game? John taught me that one. It’s a game we have been playing during our summer travels. The first person to spot a Chinese restaurant on arriving in a new town scores a point. The idea being, that no matter where we are in the world it seems every city, town, and village can lay claim to a Chinese restaurant. To win, we just have to be the person to spot it first.

Finding a good Italian restaurant in Lusaka is not that much different than having a Chinese restaurant sign pop up while driving through the rural cow covered Swiss countryside: both are familiar yet strangely out of place. Though chow mien in Switzerland may not be our thing, sometimes eating the local food can also mean being open to cooking styles half way around the world from wherever we happen to be at that moment.

I initially noted Cai Tai in Swakopmund, Namibia, a Thai restaurant, because the sign was written in English and Chinese. I did not score a point for the sighting as the restaurant turned out to be Thai, not Chinese, but our interest was piqued. This coastal, German town with its Bavarian hotels and brauhaus was not the place I expected to find a Thai restaurant. But after weeks of dinners dominated by large slabs of game meat, the idea of a nuanced Southeast Asian lunch was too attractive to pass up.

Cai Tai was not good African Thai cuisine, it was just good Thai. Inspired by the grey coastal weather, I ordered a soup starter to warm up. No generic tom yum here, instead a bowl of glass noodles mixed with pickled vegetables and bits of ground pork were steeped in a spicy aromatic broth. It was the sort of soup I would want my grandmother to make when I’m sick, if my grandmother were Thai. The mutton came highly recommended by the Bangkok born chef/owner. It was thinly sliced and seasoned heavily with whole cumin seeds and chilies, seared in a wok and tossed with green onions and sliced celery.

Finding unexpectedly good food is part of the pleasure of traveling out of my comfort zone. I could rationalize that my standards are lowered when out of the developing world but no, I am very sure that Portico restaurant in Lusaka, Zambia was excellent Italian food, period. The night in question, a large group of us were asked to choose from a set menu which included a couple of African style meat dishes, a few pastas, or any pizza we might want off the standard list. I went basic, pizza with red sauce, cheese and pepperoni. Basic was delicious.

Judging by the many empty plates, most of these belonging to well traveled folks with good taste, the others in the group were not disappointed by Portico’s version of Italian food either. The pizzas came out thin crust and with just the right amount of char around the edges. The ravioli and tagliatelle were homemade and the sauces were authentic. We may have been eating in Africa, but the food was pure Italian.

Even in Singapore I was treated to a surprise, this one a happy stumble upon a newish Spanish tapas bar in the hip neighborhood of Duxton Hill. Singapore is known to excel in the import of cuisines from around the world but Singaporean food expert Seetoh was the first to admit Spanish cuisine is one area where this famous food city has typically not fared as well.

Sabio immediately impressed with its long, room length bar plated in glass with full view of the cold tapas on offer- a good sign of authenticity even if the black and white chic of the walls and tables suggested more style than substance might be found there. Not every dish was a success- the special of skewered chicken and manchego was still raw in the middle upon cutting into a piece- but the rest succeeded to an extent that even if I didn’t exactly think we were in Barcelona, I could have closed my eyes and would have sworn we were at least somewhere in Western Europe, not Southeast Asia.

The gambas al ajillo came plump and juicy with the sort of wine and garlic sauce that begs more bread in order to wipe clean the dish. The chorizo was spicy and rich and the Iberico jamon tasted of the Spanish highlands. It was not perfect, but it was mostly very good. When I knew there would be no shortage of Asian food to eat during our visit, tapas were a breath of fresh, Espagna air.

After two months of playing Chinese Restaurant, I’m not sure who’s ahead. But if we hadn’t been playing that silly game, we might never have found Cai Tai and we might never have known the pleasure of eating authentic Thai cuisine in Africa. It is always good to eat local, but on occasion its not so bad if that locally prepared food comes under the influence of a country half way around the world.

African Pizza

I was stumped. A thirteen-year-old girl was standing in front of me waiting for an answer to what to her was a very simple question. "What is your staple food?" she asked.

I was at Chinyunyu Basic School less than 100 kilometers east of the capital of Zambia. Forty girls milled about me and twenty other visitors, all there on behalf of Room to Read. These girls were recipients of scholarships and life skills training as part of Room to Read’s Girl’s Education Program, their families too poor to pay the small tuition needed to keep them in school were it not for the scholarship.

In hindsight the question was not so strange. We all eat food, no matter where we come from. When surrounded by a group of strangers with limited English in common, food would seem a good place to start to learn about each other.

What is my staple food? I eat oatmeal every morning when home in New York but I’d hardly consider oatmeal a staple food. Other than that no one food would stand out as an essential component of my everyday diet- sushi one day, ramen the next, salad with fish, green beans with chicken- I am a spoiled American who can and does eat anything I want pretty much whenever I want it.

Buying time, I threw the question back. What is your staple food? “Nshima!” Four girls shouted together.

Driving the dirt road to their school this answer was out every window of our bus. Nshima is a cornmeal-based porridge not unlike very bland polenta. It was mid July, harvest time in the region, the subsistence farmers who lived around the school were bringing in their corn supply and storing it in large reed silos next to their round huts made of packed earth and thatched roofs. With the harvest, corn was plentiful which meant nshima was on the table often and bellies were full.

Having had nshima a few times that week and not minding it at all, I still cringed to think this might be their only source of food- nshima by itself hardly made for a balanced diet. I was reassured by Room to Read’s country director that most families supplement nshima with chickens and goats raised on their plots as well as beans. Roadside stalls sold tomatoes, onions, potatoes, and hardy greens, all nutritious additions to the nshima diet.

“But what is your staple food?!” the girls demanded again. I guess pizza and pasta, I said. Americans eat a lot of pizza and pasta.

Blank, puzzled faces looked back at me. Then the girls looked at each other and burst out giggling. They had no idea what pizza or pasta is.

I asked them if they knew what pizza is. The spokesman for the group said no and shook her head. I tried to explain.

I told my young friend that pizza is like bread that is a big circle. Tomatoes are cooked into a sauce and spread over the round bread. Then cheese is cut and placed over the sauce. The whole thing goes on a very hot fire until the cheese melts and the round bread is cooked.

Nods of comprehension assured me that my description was not completely terrible. But the girls looked back at each other and raised their eyebrows, a fit of giggles started again, no doubt wondering why someone would eat round bread with smashed tomatoes and cheese as a staple food.