The Art of Eating In - Cathy Erway [157]
“So what else do you do or think about? I feel like we always talk about food,” he said suddenly at one point. For once, I was stuck for a response. I stammered, searching for an accurate answer.
“I don’t know. I guess I’m just trying to learn as much about food and cooking as possible,” I told him.
“Fair enough.”
Our appetizers came quickly. The pork buns surprised me at first sight. I had expected to see a traditional Cantonese-style steamed bun that completely encapsulated a reddish, barbecued shredded pork center, but these buns opened up like thick, puffy tacos. Tucked in their creases was a filling of thick slabs of pork belly coated in dark sauce and garnished with cilantro.
I gulped down the last bite of one of them and sat in wonder.
“That was amazing. It’s like an open-faced pork bun. Who’d have thought of that?” I said.
“They’re good, right?” Michael said, working on his.
“They kind of have a little more sauce than I would have expected ...,” I began to say.
“But it keeps it moist, right? I hate it when they’re too dry.”
I had to admit, he did have a point. David Chang’s pork bun might have been an improvement on the age-old classic in this regard. Or perhaps, I thought again, the unorthodox ensemble more closely resembled a heavily dressed sandwich and so was more appetizing to the Western palate. The pig’s tails, however, were quite the opposite. Instead of curlicue tails, they were walnut-sized chunks of bone surrounded by strings of tender meat, like a turkey’s neck, or oxtail, only they had been glazed heavily in a deep brown, hoisin-based sauce. Michael didn’t seem to be much of a fan. I enjoyed working the pieces of meat off the bone with my teeth and found the flavor pleasant. Although, novelty factor aside, I wasn’t sure how great the meat of pig’s tails really was. Perhaps these could have been cooked a little more.
The steaming bowl of ramen came to our table two minutes later. Floating on top of the noodle soup was a delicately arranged selection of different cuts of pork, a fish cake or two, some spinach, and a poached egg. We asked our waiter for a small bowl, and I made a separate portion for myself.
“This is the best part,” Michael said, lifting up a chopstick pinch of some braised shredded pork. He also marveled at the perfect poaching of the egg.
“I bet you that’s seventy-one degrees Celsius,” he said.
“What?”
“The egg. It’s poached to seventy-one degrees. That’s the perfect temperature. It gets the white fully cooked, but the yolk stays liquid. Watch,” he said, and delicately punctured the middle of the egg with a chopstick. The creamy orange liquid spilled into the soup.
When we had finished our noodles and the waitress came by to take our plates, Michael stopped her as she was leaving.
“Could you tell me what temperature the egg was poached at?”
The waitress looked confused. “I don’t know. But I could ask one of the cooks,” she offered.
“That would be terrific, if you could. Thanks so much,” Michael said.
She came back a few minutes later, reporting that it had been poached to seventy-one degrees Celsius. Michael snapped his fingers and thanked her. The waitress handed us our check as she took our plates.
“I’ve got this one,” Michael said, hastily snatching away the check.
“What? No! Let me get half,” I insisted.
“No, really. I owe you for all the times you’ve cooked for dinners,” he said.
I sighed. I never imagined that during opposite week, I might end up spending less than I spent