NakedSushi

When I picture a restaurant named Bon Mar Che Bistro, I picture a small cafe with cozy tables covered with white tablecloth where I can order a charcuterie plate, a glass of wine, and relax with a good book.  That’s absolutely *not* what Bon Marche Bistro is about.

Instead, it’s a small, family-owned restaurant tucked behind a strip mall in Monterey Park.  It’s famed for ‘home styled’ Chinese food and more specifically, a dish which involves lots of cooked food layered in a wooden bucket.  Unlike other Chinese restaurants in the area, Bon Marche’s kitchen is fully visible, taking up one half of the restaurant.  Standing up and looking over the counter topped with plastic baskets of produce, you can watch the chef toss sizzling bits of food in the wok with expertise.  It reminded me a little of the hole-in-the-wall eateries in China where there was just a giant wok in the middle of the sidewalk.

On my first visit to Bon Marche, the woman working there was enthusiastic about the menu and the food offered.  I was still perusing the menu while waiting for my dining companions to arrive when she came up and explained their bucket dish and suggested I order it.  But I was really in the mood for claypot rice!

Luckily, when the BF arrived, he ordered a vegetarian version of the bucket dish, so the pressure was off me and the lady let me order the claypot rice with beef and egg.  Our dining companion got stir fried shrimp after helpful suggestion from the lady again.

The claypot rice arrived and I learned my lesson.  The rice to topping ratio was very skewed — a giant pot of rice and a few pieces of beef, a fried egg, and a small dish of sauce.  If I was given more sauce, which tasted great, the dish would have been better; as it was, it was lacking. The beef was tough and had a strange, unfresh taste.

The stir fried shrimp dish luckily was better. It tasted just like something my mother used to make for dinner.  The sweet shrimp and the salty sauce played on each other nicely.  When the woman delivered the dish, she exclaimed how special it was because no other restaurants served it and that other restaurants tended to overcook the shrimp.  It was a good spiel and all, but the shrimp was a bit overcooked and while it tasted good, it wasn’t something that I’d never had in any other Chinese restaurant.

Then came the highly acclaimed (by the staff anyway) bucket dish. The restaurant’s specialty. Was it all that it lived up to?  Well, considering we got a vegetarian version of it, it’s not really fair to judge, but it certainly was the best dish of the visit.  Layered on top of vermicelli noodles were baby bok choy, mushrooms, tofu, and sauce.  Everything was cooked perfectly and the sauce dripping down to the noodles underneath made them a treat to slurp up.

Despite its shortcomings, Bon Marche Bistro lives up to its “home styled” Chinese food description.  None of the dishes we ordered then and on subsequent visits were spectacular, but they certainly tasted like something that could be made at home.  A couple of dishes I got on a later to-go order had some weird tasting meat, but maybe that was just the danger of a to-go order. People visiting the restaurant shouldn’t expect fancy, banquet-style Chinese food.  The restaurant’s menu is full of unpretentious, simple, home-cooking dishes that may not look great, but at least it tastes home-made.

331 W Garvey Ave
Ste D
Monterey Park, CA 91754
(626) 236-3932

Thorn Queen by Richelle Mead

4 of 5 stars

I dove eagerly into Thorn Queen as soon as I finished reading Storm Born. Richelle Mead is a straight-forward writer and an excellent story-teller. Her descriptions of the other world and supporting characters made it incredibly easy to relate to Eugenie Markham, the main character. (Yes, that’s the main character’s name. I hated it at first, and I still cringe sometimes when I read it.)

So much happened around the main plot in Thorn Queen that it wasn’t until I was halfway through the apex of the storyline that I realized that that was what the book was about. The relationship and internal character angst distracted me from seeing that there was an ever larger conflict and mystery to be solved by the main character.

The last quarter of the book sped by quickly because everything was so tense that I couldn’t put it down till things were resolved. There was action scene after action scene, and then after that, it was a bedroom action scene. I literally finished the book while waiting for a light to change on the street because I was walking while reading. That’s how hard it is to put down.

Even though when I started this series, I thought I’d have trouble believing a story about a woman who spends half her time in the real world and half her time in some other dimension fairy world, it actually works. Towards the end of this book, I started thinking of the fairy world as more permanent and real than the human world that Eugenie also inhabited.

Thorn Queen has enough lead up into the story for people who never read the first book in the series, but I highly suggest reading the first book to just get the emotional baggage and background of all the characters. It makes the interactions in this book all the more worthwhile. Although the plot was decent and the mystery not bad, what I really liked about Thorn Queen was the way characters related and hated each other. It was like fast-paced, magical, soap opera.

SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP
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Storm Born by Richelle Mead

4 of 5 stars
I discovered urban fantasy after reading the Sookie Stackhouse series and then reading Felicia Day’s post about the genre. But after reading a book in the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series and not liking it, I wondered if maybe that genre just wasn’t for me. Luckily, I gave it another try and started Storm Born, the first book in the Dark Swan series.

Storm Born stars Eugenie Markham, a typical 26 year old girl with typical 26 year old girl problems, but with an atypical job — she’s a shaman. She banishes fairies, spirits, and various other-worldly creatures from her world as a profession. When I first read that description, I was highly skeptical. It sounded like bad fan-fiction.

But I have to say, now I’m hooked. Richelle Mead writes an easy to read introduction to the series. Her characters, even the fairies (called gentry in these novels) are believable in their interactions and their dialogue flows naturally and even comically in some parts. Best of all, there’s a lot of timely humor and self-referential jokes with regards to the fantasy series. It’s hard not to like a book that makes fun of the genre it belongs to.

Unfortunately, it’s not all good. Some parts were rough to read, and not rough in a good way like the steamy love scenes Eugenie partakes in. Without going into spoilers, when Eugenie Markham learns the truth of her profession the explanation about why she never thought about it was so corny and such a cop out that I almost put the book down. The plot device used is about as unbelievably coincidental as the amnesiac protagonist in role playing games. I’m glad I continued to read the book since the events that followed made up for it, but I’m still a bit miffed that the title of this book was such a spoiler.

Even though I was apprehensive about the book in the beginning, all doubts melted away after I got to the last page. The book makes urban fantasy believable without making the story seem too realistic or explaining too many things away. For me, a fantasy book is good if when I get to the last page, I wish that something like what I just read could really happen.

Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
2 of 5 stars

This book can be read through two frames. While the author was observing and remarking how quaint and backwards the natives were, I was observing how quaint and backwards the author’s views on Africa was. I had to keep reminding myself of the decades this book was written in to keep from rolling my eyes too much.

The vignettes are enjoyable and I was genuinely interested in some of the inhabitants of the farm, but the long passages describing the scenery, expatriates, and colonialism were tiresome and boring.

I wouldn’t have finished the book if not for the fact that it was chosen as a book club book and I felt an obligation to complete it. At least that way, I can give it a review without feeling like I was cheating because I only read half of the book.

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An experiment with seville orange juice led to this gin sour.  It sounded like a good idea at the time, and it was certainly drinkable, but it was lackluster.  No flavors really stood out, and it just tasted smooth and sweet.  Maybe next time, leaving out the simple syrup would let the seville oranges stand out more since they’re sweet enough to not need extra sugar.

Gin sour recipe:

2oz plymouth gin
1oz seville orange juice
less than 0.5oz of 2:1 simple syrup

Shake, double strain, serve in cocktail glass with a flamed peel.

The whiskey sour with seville orange juice was a more successful experiment.  The whiskey taste was strong but tempered by the tartness of the orange.

Whiskey sour recipe:

2oz bourbon (we used Woodford Reserve)
1.5oz seville orange juice
8ml of 2:1 simple syrup

Potstickers and dumplings are some of my favorite things to eat. They’re more of a pain to make for a weekday dinner, but if you make a big batch of them, you can freeze them easily.

The filling ingredients:

• baby bok choy (I used about 12-20)
• 3 squares of baked tofu
• 4 dried shiitake mushrooms that have been reconstituted so that they’re tender
• 1/4 cup Chinese pickled vegetable (zha cai)
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 1 tsp toasted sesame oil
• 3 scallions (just the top part)

Rinse the baby bok choy really well because sometimes there’s a lot of grit.  Drain and put them in a microwavable bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap.  Put it into the microwave and cook on high for about 3-4 minutes, until they’re wilted and tender.  Leave it in the bowl covered with plastic for a few minutes to steam. Alternatively, you can steam them on the stove top till tender, or boil them, but the microwave is the fastest.

While the bok choy is cooking, cut the 3 squares of baked tofu into chunks the size of your thumb and throw into a food processor with the rest of the filling ingredients. Pulse and process until the filling is chopped, but not mush. Remove and set aside. If no food processor is available, you can do it by hand by chopping everything finely.

Pull the bok choy out, drain and squeeze to release most of the liquid. You don’t want the filling to be watery. Put the drained bok choy into the food processor and pulse until chopped finely.

Combine the chopped bok choy with the rest of the ingredients and add salt to taste.

Place about a tablespoon of the filling on the wrapper and wrap it however you like.  I need to do a better video of my dumpling wrapping, but here’s an animated gif version.

Frying method:

Put a flat bottomed pan with a cover (I used our cast iron one) onto medium-low heat and put in enough oil to coat the entire bottom. It doesn’t have to be deep-frying high, but every part of the bottom of the pan should have oil on it.  Gently place the dumplings into the pan, flat side to the bottom. You can crowd them so that they’re touching, but don’t press them against each other.

Once all the dumplings are in the pan, pour in 1/4 cup of water and cover immediately. This steams the top and inside of the dumpling.  Keep covered for about 7 minutes, and then check.  The tops of the dumplings should look cooked, and not floury or white.  If not, cover for a minute more. If the water’s already evaporated, add a few tablespoons more and cover.

When the tops of the dumplings look done, take the cover off. If the water’s all gone, and the bottom of the dumpling are browned, they’re ready to be removed from the pan and served. If not, let them sit on the heat for longer.  Once they’re sufficiently browned, they should release from the pan easily.

Steaming method:

Line a steamer with napa cabbage.  I used kale because that’s all I had in the fridge.  Place the dumplings in the steamer, cover, and steam for 20 minutes.

The dip:

Peel ginger and cut into tiny slivers.  Top with black vinegar.

To celebrate Chinese New Years week, the BF and I decided to make Chinese food dinners for the whole week.

Braised tofu sheets, bittermelon and scrambled eggs, and stir fried bok choy. I think this is the first time the BF attempted to make 3 dishes for one meal.

The next night, I made vegetarian pot-stickers. Because I didn’t make the wrapper from scratch, this actually didn’t take that long. The only time consuming thing is wrapping the dumplings, but with two people, one package of wrappers goes by fairly quickly.

We wanted to take a break from eating too much greasy and savory stuff, so the BF made porridge one night. The porridge is about 1:9 rice to water. So that it’s not so plain, he topped it with chopped onions and shiitake mushrooms sauteed together. We also had some tea eggs in the fridge, so we threw that in there too.

I was at work late and wanted to cook something quick and easy, which is why I decided on broccoli stir fry on my last night of cooking. Maybe broccoli beef is more Chinese American food, but it was still good. For the sauce, I used soy sauce, rice wine, water, garlic, and some potato starch to thicken.