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gyzymHERE IS A THING I HAVE NOT YET TOLD YOU GUYS: I have been to Hawaii before! And now I'm going to talk about it, kind of, ish. Sadly, this post is not about:
a) How beautiful it was
b) How wasted that trip was on my 15 year old self (I had a bit of a stick up my ass at fifteen, if by 'a bit of a stick up my ass' you mean 'an inability to take out my headphones and reign in my overwhelming teenaged bitchiness for five minutes')
c) SERIOUSLY SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL OH MY GOD
d) How ridiculously lucky I was to have the experience or
e) All of the totally amazing things I got to do there.
I could talk about all of those things--at length, oh man, fucking Maui, so incredible--but this is a post about chasing dragons.
Food dragons.
So, right, I'm pretty sure the term 'food dragons' is one of those that my family just made up (remind me to tell you guys the bijillipede story one of these days), so I will explain. There are certain things that you eat, okay, that are so good they stick with you, and you remember them fondly--everyone has these things. Normally, you just cook/order these dishes again, and have them another time. But sometimes, for whatever reason--location, restaurant goes out of business, ingredient stops being available, what have you--the item in question is no longer available.
Then it becomes a food dragon, and you are, officially, chasing it.
I have a couple of major food dragons. There was this place we went to for lunch sometimes when I was a little kid that sold the best French fries in the world, for example, and all other French fries still pale in comparison; there's a bar in my college town that sells this cucumber vodka that I long for on a regular basis.
But my greatest food dragon--the one I am forever chasing--is ahi poke.
So poke, right, is a traditional Hawaiian dish, that can be made with many different kinds of fish (everything from ahi to octopus, dfdsfhdskf SO MUCH FISH OH MY GOD *SALIVATES*). Ahi poke is the most common form of it nowadays, and it is...you guys, okay, it is the freshest most delicious raw yellowfin tuna in this world, chunked and covered in this like. This fucking sauce, oh, Christ, the sauce, that somehow manages to be salty and a little bit spicy and, look, AHI POKE IS THE FOOD OF THE GODS.
The first day we were in Hawaii, I ordered it, because the words "raw yellowfin tuna" have been my siren song since I was old enough to know what they meant. And then I literally ate nothing but ahi poke for, seriously, the rest of the trip. You can buy it in the grocery store, okay, I ordered it at every single meal, I ate so much of it that my father was like, "One of these days I am going to turn around and you are going to ACTUALLY BE A TUNA."
I rolled my eyes, because me being 15 wasn't pleasant for anyone, and ate another piece of fish.
But here's what happened, you guys: ahi poke ruined me for all other tuna. I can't eat seared ahi, because even when I order it rare (the words "No, seriously, as raw as you will give it to me, preferably still swimming" have been uttered by me at many a restaurant) it is not rare enough. I can't eat tuna sashimi, because it is never as fresh, and it is never coated in that sauce. I can't make it myself, because every time I have tried it is inferior. I can't eat ahi poke made here in Cleveland--I've found it on menus a couple of times--because it just does not taste right.
Ahi poke is a food dragon to such a degree that I have to actively avoid thinking about it, because it makes me want to do crazy things like spend all my money on a plane ticket to Maui and eat nothing but it for the rest of my days. And by and large, I have shaken my thoughts of it.
BUT HAWAII FIVE-0 IS MAKING IT DIFFICULT. And so mostly this post exists to say: I love this show, I do, I really do, but every time they mention food I think WAAAAAAH AHI POKE FDJHSFHDSKF, and it is making it hard to concentrate.
In conclusion: there will be a new H50 fic up later today, and probably more this week, but I'm weeping on the inside, you guys. Weeping for my lost food dragon, forever ahead of me in the mire of inferior foodstuffs I choke down on a regular basis.
I know. My life is deeply tragic. I'm sad for me too.
a) How beautiful it was
b) How wasted that trip was on my 15 year old self (I had a bit of a stick up my ass at fifteen, if by 'a bit of a stick up my ass' you mean 'an inability to take out my headphones and reign in my overwhelming teenaged bitchiness for five minutes')
c) SERIOUSLY SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL OH MY GOD
d) How ridiculously lucky I was to have the experience or
e) All of the totally amazing things I got to do there.
I could talk about all of those things--at length, oh man, fucking Maui, so incredible--but this is a post about chasing dragons.
Food dragons.
So, right, I'm pretty sure the term 'food dragons' is one of those that my family just made up (remind me to tell you guys the bijillipede story one of these days), so I will explain. There are certain things that you eat, okay, that are so good they stick with you, and you remember them fondly--everyone has these things. Normally, you just cook/order these dishes again, and have them another time. But sometimes, for whatever reason--location, restaurant goes out of business, ingredient stops being available, what have you--the item in question is no longer available.
Then it becomes a food dragon, and you are, officially, chasing it.
I have a couple of major food dragons. There was this place we went to for lunch sometimes when I was a little kid that sold the best French fries in the world, for example, and all other French fries still pale in comparison; there's a bar in my college town that sells this cucumber vodka that I long for on a regular basis.
But my greatest food dragon--the one I am forever chasing--is ahi poke.
So poke, right, is a traditional Hawaiian dish, that can be made with many different kinds of fish (everything from ahi to octopus, dfdsfhdskf SO MUCH FISH OH MY GOD *SALIVATES*). Ahi poke is the most common form of it nowadays, and it is...you guys, okay, it is the freshest most delicious raw yellowfin tuna in this world, chunked and covered in this like. This fucking sauce, oh, Christ, the sauce, that somehow manages to be salty and a little bit spicy and, look, AHI POKE IS THE FOOD OF THE GODS.
The first day we were in Hawaii, I ordered it, because the words "raw yellowfin tuna" have been my siren song since I was old enough to know what they meant. And then I literally ate nothing but ahi poke for, seriously, the rest of the trip. You can buy it in the grocery store, okay, I ordered it at every single meal, I ate so much of it that my father was like, "One of these days I am going to turn around and you are going to ACTUALLY BE A TUNA."
I rolled my eyes, because me being 15 wasn't pleasant for anyone, and ate another piece of fish.
But here's what happened, you guys: ahi poke ruined me for all other tuna. I can't eat seared ahi, because even when I order it rare (the words "No, seriously, as raw as you will give it to me, preferably still swimming" have been uttered by me at many a restaurant) it is not rare enough. I can't eat tuna sashimi, because it is never as fresh, and it is never coated in that sauce. I can't make it myself, because every time I have tried it is inferior. I can't eat ahi poke made here in Cleveland--I've found it on menus a couple of times--because it just does not taste right.
Ahi poke is a food dragon to such a degree that I have to actively avoid thinking about it, because it makes me want to do crazy things like spend all my money on a plane ticket to Maui and eat nothing but it for the rest of my days. And by and large, I have shaken my thoughts of it.
BUT HAWAII FIVE-0 IS MAKING IT DIFFICULT. And so mostly this post exists to say: I love this show, I do, I really do, but every time they mention food I think WAAAAAAH AHI POKE FDJHSFHDSKF, and it is making it hard to concentrate.
In conclusion: there will be a new H50 fic up later today, and probably more this week, but I'm weeping on the inside, you guys. Weeping for my lost food dragon, forever ahead of me in the mire of inferior foodstuffs I choke down on a regular basis.
I know. My life is deeply tragic. I'm sad for me too.
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 06:06 pm (UTC)My greatest (largest?) food dragon is a fishball noodle stall that had just vanished. It was at a mall near my high school. I went there at least thrice a week. I stopped during an exam week and it was gone when I returned. I don't even know the name of the stall, and I despair of ever finding it again.
This entry made me smile, and has left me craving for my noodles. Also, yay for more fic.
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Date: 2011-03-06 06:12 pm (UTC)I am, however, glad to have made you smile :D
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Date: 2011-03-06 06:14 pm (UTC)i won't mention that here on the west coast i could get you decent ahi poke. nope, won't mention that at all [*whistles innocently*]
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Date: 2011-03-06 06:16 pm (UTC)DFHSJKFHDSJFDSLJ DO NOT TALK ABOUT AHI POKE OH GOD DFJDSKFHDJS
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 06:18 pm (UTC)I've been to hawaii about...four times. Possibly have been there six. Anyway, I've been to hawaii. a lot. I think I maybe liked it when I was really little, except how I always lost my favorite toys there, almost drowned, my sister floated out to sea, etc. Then we moved back to California for a few years and I developed the association that anything sunny and sandy was hell. So, the last few times we've been to Hawaii have been completely wasted on me. (no really, i don't eat fish, at all. Pretty much, we go to hawaii and I don't eat anything except breakfast the whole time, because we would go to this burrito place for lunch and I also don't eat burritos. I'm going to stop talking about all the things I don't eat now, becasue this is getting ridiculous).
tl;dr, I don't like the majority of the hawaii experience, minus snorkling and hiking to this waterfall. I could probably give someone directions at least around kauai, if not maui, despite the fact I can't give directions around the town I've lived in for seven years. Because Hawaii is pretty much the only trip my family ever takes. Either way, lots of sun = terrible headaches and bad sunburns even through SPF 100. There is a reason i live in a place where it rains about 340 days of the year. So, definitely the most wasted on me :/.
But mosquitos don't eat me over there! So that's good, because my sisters get eaten alive.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 06:22 pm (UTC)I fucking loved Hawaii, even though I'm not really much of a sand person, because it was just so fucking gorgeous there and, seriously, FISH, ALL OF THE FISH. But everyone has their likes and dislikes, you know? :D
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Date: 2011-03-06 06:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 06:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2011-03-06 06:24 pm (UTC)There's this little shop in my town that makes sandwiches with this like ... cucumber-y yogurt sauce on them, and it's like CRACK. I've never had anything else like it, and I can never, ever move because SAMMICHES. D:
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Date: 2011-03-06 06:28 pm (UTC)CONVERSATION I MEANT TO TELL YOU ABOUT W/ BURRITO LAST NIGHT, BTW:
Burrito: Is the Boston Aquarium the biggest one in the country?
Me: I've got...no idea, actually. I think there's a bigger one in Atlanta, but I'm not sure.
Burrito: Atlanta, Georgia?
Me: Yeah.
Burrito: Oh, well. Everything's bigger in Georgia.
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Date: 2011-03-06 06:30 pm (UTC)Luckily, the cheezy Cheetos poofs they have in Canada have somehow replicated the flavor, if not the texture, of the Cheez Ball, so I manage to keep from killing myself most of the time.
Heh. Cheez Balls.
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Date: 2011-03-06 06:40 pm (UTC)Hooray for finding things that come close, though. Sometimes that is all you can do to scratch the itch.
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From:no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 06:31 pm (UTC)Actually, I have another. Once I ate Cheerios with milk when I had the flu, and so my sense of taste was completely altered, and the Cheerios tasted... I don't know. Different. Better. For a year or so I made sure to eat Cheerios every time I was sick, but they've never tasted like that again. I... was a weird kid.
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Date: 2011-03-06 06:39 pm (UTC)you've got to be wondering why I told you that. IDK either.
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Date: 2011-03-06 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 06:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 06:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 06:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 07:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 09:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 07:28 pm (UTC)My mouth is watering and I'm hungry and it's all your fault! haha
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Date: 2011-03-06 09:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 07:30 pm (UTC)Er. I mean, my greatest sympathies with the ahi pake quest.
(Also your journal is plaid, when did that happen? I could have sworn it was all clouds the last time I went fic binging.)
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Date: 2011-03-06 09:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 07:51 pm (UTC)My food dragon is a lavender créme brûlée, of which I am sad that you cannot experience due to your dairy intolerance, for it is all sorts of wonderful win.
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Date: 2011-03-06 09:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2011-03-06 07:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 09:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 08:51 pm (UTC)My food dragon is this napoleon pastry at this bakery (that sells this amazing egg tart which luckily they still sell). They haven't sold it for fifteen years now. Mmmm, layers of puff pastry, cream, and a layer of this walnut cookie thing that was crispy, chewy, melts in your mouth a little bit, and somehow manages to stay that way even if it's been the refrigerator for awhile (we buy it in bulk and sometime is ends up in the back of fridge and when I find it again, it's like a treasure). It's that walnut cookie layer that makes that the best napoleon pastry ever. I'm still longing for. How does it not turn hard or soggy in the fridge and be an delicious as the day I bought it. I'm still trying to figure it out how to make it myself as I have accept the fact that it's not sold anymore ;_; What's the secret, mysterious chef that left the bakery ;_; I will figure it out one day...or not and be sad about it forever
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Date: 2011-03-06 09:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2011-03-06 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 09:09 pm (UTC)Oh man, so, the other really strong memory I have of Maui is...we went to this, I don't even know how we found it, I think we were on some tour, but it was this waterfall and this little teeny tiny freshwater pool it fell into. And we were allowed to swim in it--god, in retrospect, this is such a touristy story, but WHATEVER--I swam in this pool, and it was so much deeper than it looked, there was sunlight coming over the edge of the rocks surrounding it, and all this lush, verdant green everywhere, and it was maybe the most beautiful moment of my life.
I am right there with you on wanting to go back now, when I can properly experience it, because it is just such a transcendentally gorgeous place. And, I mean, also so I can eat fish until I fall over and die, but I feel like the post got that across :D :D :D
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From:no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 10:18 pm (UTC)Ahem. Hi? Your writing is excellent, and so is the term food dragon. I wish you luck in getting more ahi poke, it sounds amazing.
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Date: 2011-03-06 11:07 pm (UTC)...This fandom has been HORRIBLE with the making me homesick, I am so lucky I had already decided to move back before I got sucked into it.
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Date: 2011-03-06 11:36 pm (UTC)My favourite soup (which is chili-like). My favourite salad dressing. My favourite cereal, and my favourite granola. All of these things have been discontinued by the manufacturers. The soup and the salad dressing have been gone for ten years or more and OMG, I WOULD KILL FOR A SUPPLY.
(Also, I reeeaaalllly need to get into H50)
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Date: 2011-03-07 02:45 am (UTC)I had perfect lemon chicken accompanied by fresh starfruit juice years ago when I spent 3 weeks in Kuala Lumpur. I lived on this stuff. Every night we'd go out and I'd pick it up from the same stall. I have never found lemon chicken anywhere as good as that was (the version over here in the UK are either too sticky and sweet or too viciously lemony) and the starfruit juice was a fucking revelation. NECTAR OF THE GODS!
The hotel we stayed in also did a mean naasi goreng which I used to have for breakfast *G*
And now I am hungry. *frowns*
food dragon
Date: 2011-03-07 04:05 am (UTC)My dragon is David's BBQ in Gainesville, FL. They are at 5121 NW 39th Ave, I was at 415 NE Blvd. In a city set out on a grid that put me 80 blocks from them. I rode my bike there to get the manna. (15.2 miles roundtrip, per Bing - yes, they were that good.) Sometimes I'd eat in, and sometimes I'd load my sub-Tupperware into my panniers and haul it home. When I devised a diet whereby I could only eat out once a week but could go wherever I wanted, I went to David's weekly.
They still exist but I have foolheartedly moved away to St. Louis. What was I thinking? Oh, wait: better employment opportunities, closer to the family, clement weather (hah! me funny), there must be plenty of fine barbeque in St. Louis. Good lord, there's even a style of ribs (the only barbeque I bother with) named for the place - how can it go wrong? (I know, I know - famous last words.)
Firstly, in St. Louis they don't give you garlic bread with your rib plate. The standard is a couple of slices of thick white bread, to sop up the extra sauce. Passible, but in no way superior or even equivalent to the combination of spicy sauce and garlicky bread. Secondly, all the restaurants up here cut of that knob of meat at the end of the spare rib (the only ribs worth knowing), so you're left with 90% bone by weight. At over $10.00 per rib plate, I'd really like my knob, please. (hehe. Dirty!) Also, with the meat knob gone, I miss out on the gristle rods. They may be the best part of the whole thing. Throw in David's superior onion rings and barbequed beans and I'm left pining - bereft in a sea of inferior smoked meat. I should mention that their onion rings are singular, too. Not the pretty, perfect rings with thick golden coats that are served everywhere, nono. These are hand-battered on site, with crumbly, cracking, falling off, perfect skins of buttermilk batter. They neither be adequately described nor reproduced. Nor frozen, sadly - if they could I'd've been ordering David's over the internet all along. It's just not right without the beans and rings.
I used to visit Florida to see a friend, and I'd go to David's at least twice, plus grab a couple of meals to bring back. I'd have to eat the beans and rings over the next three or four days, but the meat could go in the freezer for urgent needs throughout the year. Then she moved to Asheville, the wench, so no more David's for me. :sigh:
On a slightly up note: Bandana's serves garlic toasted baguette slices with their meals. A shame I don't like their meat, huh? Anyway, I can grill ribs myself, with knobs on. I can buy and bake garlic Texas Toast. I can even approximate barbeque beans. I can't batter, though. Never caught the knack. So onion rings elude me, as do gizzards. Any tips, anyone?
Side note: When I flew to N. Ft. Myers in 2003 for my 20th high school reunion, my sister had me go to a certain wing joint in Ft. Myers and buy four big pans of hot wings for her husband. They paid for them all, as well as the rolling cooler and freezer packs to sustain them in the cargo hold on the way home. It turns out that the TSA is pretty understanding about food dragons. Luckily, I'd figured out that I should let them inspect inside the cooler before duct taping the hell out of it, just in case the wings leaked through their triple Ziploc layers. (They didn't, so the other stuff I'd stashed in there [read books, worn clothes - all in their own survival sacks] arrived unsauced.) That was the happiest my b-i-l has ever been to see me. :grin:
Wow! Long comment is loooooooooooooooooooong. Apparently I have strong food dragon feelings. :grin:
no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 04:09 am (UTC)When I was 15 I went to New Caledonia for a couple of weeks as part of a school trip, and I stayed with a French family. Ever since then I've been madly in love with Quiche Lorraine but nothing I've been able to find tastes anywhere near as good as what the mother of that family made.
Also, I have been known wax lyrical about having real, fresh baguettes everyday *om nom nom* I'm still deeply sad that I can't just stroll down to the local corner shop every day and buy delicious bread, the way we did over there.
You WOULD post this the day before payday when I have $0 & have been living off rice for days.
Date: 2011-03-07 04:27 am (UTC)I have a ton of food dragons, but the absolute worst are foods I got a taste for while overseas.
Like, when I studied abroad in London, our housing was in a Cypriot Turkish neighborhood. I didn't know till later what that actually meant, but what it definitely meant was amazing food. The building right next door sold nothing but four flavors of exquisite homemade ice cream. The one next to that was like a Turkish fast-food shop, that sold among other amazing things lamb shish-kebabs where they would cook the chunks of lamb over a wood fire right in front of you when you ordered. Basically my favorite days were ones where I ordered a lamb shish, then walked next door and got a lemon ice cream (and I do not even like the taste of citrus anything, but seriously that shit tasted like sunshine). It was bliss.
I thought about that food every day for months after I came home. At one point, while asleep I dreamed I was back in that kebab shop. I looked up at the menu board and realized This is it, I can finally have that lamb shish again.
I got so excited I woke myself up.
I can't even tell you the number of foods I miss on a daily basis from my time in Prague. Fried cheese and tartar sauce (they fry all kinds of cheese there, not just mozzarella. Fried bleu cheese is genius). Beef goulash with thick slices of potato dumplings to sop up the gravy. Roast duck with two types of sauerkraut (red and white), crispy fried onions, and more dumplings.
Oh my god I might die of hunger just thinking about this.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 08:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-08 10:32 am (UTC)Also palak paneer is sort of a food dragon for me, because there is only One True Palak Paneer (Tamana's North Indian Diner, King St, Newtown, Sydney), and I never have the time to go there any more and I can't figure out how to recreate it.