the confined nomad

A disclaimer:  Cambodia is one of my favorite countries in the world.  I spent three weeks there in December 2003, and fell in love with the landscape and the people, and developed a long-standing fascination with the country’s painful history.  I will add that although it is not one of my top 5 food destinations in the world, I have some great culinary memories from Cambodia: fresh crab purchased right off the fisherman’s boat; whole grilled frogs; a chicken nabbed from the yard, plucked, and served piping hot 20 minutes later; fruit shakes at roadside stalls; lots of cold Angkor beer.  Now, I assure you I was not expecting to re-create these experiences on a cold rainy fall day in NYC.  But maybe I was just hoping for a few reasonably priced dishes, an un-pretentious dining atmostphere, and warm Khmer smiles. Too much to ask? read more »

Bordering Rwanda and plagued by similar, simmering ethnic tensions that have led to years of political strife and civil war, Burundi is one the poorest nations on earth.  Despite also having one of the highest rates of emigration, we were unable to locate a Burundian restaurant in the New York metropolitan area.  So, we once again cooked at home.

Burundian cuisine is heavily dependent on staple crops like sweet potatoes, corn, and beans.  Meat intake is very low by Western standards.  The cooking itself was not difficult at all, but time-consuming because the main ingredients, notably beans and bulgur wheat, had to be soaked for a number of hours. read more »

Not much progress was made in our alphabetical eating during September, but there’s good reason.  Supereg was in Las Vegas and then England for a couple weeks, while Noquar and I spent three weeks in the Netherlands, Istanbul and Greece.  As one might expect foodies like us, we spent a lot of time eating and drinking.  Every place we went offered fantastic new tastes and textures.  We snapped a few photos to savor the moments, and share with our dear readers. read more »

I last left you outside of aptly named Taste Good Malaysian restaurant in Woodside, where we tried to approximate a Bruneian meal.  Since we were unable to find a specifically Bruneian restaurant, we decided to compensate by trying to find the ingredients to cook something up ourselves.

We had learned that a lot of the Bruneians who live in the area do their shopping at Top Line Supermarket, right around the corner from Taste Good, so that’s where we headed. I had chosen two dishes from the Brunei Tourism website, which has a great collection of Bruneian recipes. Udang Sambal Serai Bersantan is a red prawn curry. Serondeng Padang is chicken in a coconut-milk sauce. Most of the ingredients we needed to find were really straightforward.  We found some good frozen coconut milk, ground coconut, a chunk of frozen lengkuas (better known as galangal), some halia (or ginger), serai (or lemongrass), fresh chilis, and some fine looking tiger prawns.  That left us with just one ingredient left to find, the pandan leaf.  I asked a couple of people, got some vague directions, and proceeded to wander the store slowly losing my mind.  I finally gave up. I had run out of English-speaking store clerks to ask, and we were tired and ready to head home.  As I stood in line, resigning myself to failure and how it might affect my attempts at replicating Bruneian food, the Nomad made a last-gasp tour of the store.  I was stepping up to the checkout counter when she came bounding toward me triumphantly holding aloft an 18-inch, vacuum-packed, frozen leaf, yes, the pandan leaf.  So we were set. read more »

Several factors went into our decision to eat Burmese rather than Myanma food.  We here at the Nomad have our fingers firmly on the pulse of geopolitics.  As a citizen of Great Britain – emphasis on the “Great” – I was strongly in favor of recognizing the colonial-era anglicism of the country’s name.  From 1886-1948, the Brits not only built schools, railroads and most importantly, prisons, but also exploited Burma for its abundant natural resources and relegated the Burmese people to third-class citizens beneath the Chinese and Indian workers who were brought in to accelerate integration with the rest of the Raj.  I say. Well done!  I certainly didn’t want our global influence as participants in the World Wide Web to go towards legitimizing the present corrupt military government.  Noquar, on the other hand, being a militaristic fascist at heart, argued that we should follow the UN and respect Myanmar’s self determination by using the junta’s Western phoneticization of the country’s name.  Since 1962, the junta has crushed dissent, destroyed the economy, and left its citizens nearly completely cut off from the international community. Boo, hiss!  Ultimately, the solomonic Nomad herself settled the debate by pointing out that, in fact, regardless of whether it’s spelled Burma or Myanmar in the Latin alphabet, its pronounced exactly the same way on the streets of Rangoon. Or is it Yangon?  Whatever, the most important determining factor for our alphabetic gymnastics was that the annual Myanmar (ignore them) Baptist Church Fun Fair was being held on the Saturday directly following our Burkina Faso mission.  Fun fair?  Yes, please. read more »

The second portion of our double-barreled blast of Confined Nomad  weekend fun came just hours after leaving Menahata, the disco we hit up as part of our quest for Bulgarian food.  We fell asleep around 5, woke up late the next day and got in the car, heading to New Jersey via the Holland Tunnel in Manhattan.  This was a mistake.

The Deadly Mantis (1957) attacks the Holland Tunnel

The Holland Tunnel is a marvel of modern engineering, at time it was built it was the longest tunnel ever engineered for the movement of vehicular traffic.  Its designers confronted enormous challenges, including how to diffuse the lethal buildup of carbon monoxide gases and how to alleviate the symptoms of nitrogen poisoning that tunnel workers suffered as a result of their labors in the highly pressurized tunnel.  In order to solve these problems, a ventilation system, consisting of 42 blowing fans and 42 exhaust fans, running at 6,000 horsepower, was created that replaces all of the air within the tunnel, continuously, in just 90 seconds.  In addition, a system of airlocks was constructed so that workers could properly acclimate to working underwater.  Absolutely amazing stuff. read more »

What happened to all of New York City’s Bulgarian eateries?  The most well-known, Bulgara, closed earlier this year. None of the leads we found at FindBulgarianFood.com panned out: phone numbers had been disconnected or were actually fax numbers, a restaurant called Cafe Albona is now the RSVP Lounge, and some, like the Oomonia Cafe, just plain don’t serve Bulgarian food (we stopped by to check).  The only thing we could confirm via telephone and the web was that the Parrot Coffee Shop in Astoria is a Bulgarian grocery store, and that the Mehanata Bulgarian Bar, previously on Canal and Lafayette, had moved to Ludlow and Delancy Streets. read more »

As I was skimming through blog headlines on my Google Reader, trying to digest the absurd events of the week in 5 minutes or less, a Boing Boing post called “TIME on unsustainable farming practices,” caught my eye.  After reading their quick excerpt of the article, I was motivated enough to head over to the TIME website and read the entire article, “Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food,” by Bryan Walsh.  My interest was partly because I was surprised to see this story in TIME, and partly because I’m actually very interested in this topic. read more »

Brunei Darussalam?  Surely that doesn’t count.  It’s really just part of Malaysia in all but name, right? A tiny sultanate that only exists independent of Malaysia because it elected to remain a British protectorate rather than join the Malaysian Federation when it declared independence from the Brits. Now we’re just nitpicking, and I’m the one stuck trying to locate this “cuisine” in NYC?  Well loyal readers, nitpicking is what the Nomad crew does best.  Ask Noquar.  He complains about it nearly every time we go out.  Brunei is a UN member state, so it’s on our list. This isn’t Nam; there are rules. read more »

Unfortunately, Botswanan cuisine is not easy to find in New York City. We did our best to scope out possible hidden restaurants tucked away in outer borough neighborhoods, but had no luck. In the final act of desperation, we relied on the old standby – the UN Mission – and the staff there told us that in fact, no, there are no Botswanan restaurants in the city. Bummer.

Ultimately, we used the last resort option of cooking the meal at home. I actually like when we get to cook because (1) I get to do the cooking (and I like to cook), (2) I get to try new cooking methods, and (3) Looking for all the ingredients is an adventure in itself!  If you can find all the ingredients you need to cook a meal from Botswana, you can experience the flavors of that country in your NYC home.  A true Confined Nomad experience. read more »