Street Food Challenge: Mei Mei Street Kitchen

MEA CULPA.  MEA MAXIMA CULPA  Jim here.  This blog is about 2 weeks late.  It's all my fault and I feel bad.  Of course, one of the reasons I feel bad is that I have to follow Bri's hi-larious post about Deb's Towers of Tofu Terror (which were delicious, by the way.)  I guess I have to just accept that some of us are witty and some of us are...late?  slow? procrastinators? horrible people?

Thus endeth the self flagellation.


Thus beginneth the blog

Street food is a major part of Bri's life and Mei Mei Street Kitchen is at the top of his list.  He still waxes rhapsodic about the fiddlehead fern tempura and we wish he'd stop as it's making us all jealous!

Today Bri decided to take the menu posted on Mei Mei's tumblr account and make several of the dishes based on nothing more than the descriptions on the menu.  Challenge accepted!  Look out Mei Mei, we're coming for you.

Here's the menu:

Deb returns from her first Qigong class.  Qigong Deb is breathing fire, as one does after all that Qigonging.  (Honestly, I have no idea what they do besides pissing off the Chinese government.)

  I tell her about my dream from my afternoon nap.  I dreamed that we came to supper club and it was her turn to plan the meal and she decided to cook "Qigong food", which in my dream isn't food at all.  In my dream[Nightmare]world, Qigong practioners don't need food, so they only smell things.  Dinner consisted of fresh herbs, a slice of lemon in a tupperware container and for dessert, a vanilla bean.  I think my subconscious confused them with the Breatharians.

Sichuan Asparagus with slow poached egg

http://www.food.com/recipe/szechuan-asparagus-334740

• 2 bunches fresh asparagus
• 3 ounces oyster sauce
• 1 white onion, thinly sliced
• 1/4 ounce ginger root, freshly grated
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 ounce chili paste
• 1/4 teaspoon cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon olive oil
•  
• 1 poached egg per person

Directions:

1. In a wok or large skillet, flash fry asparagus and onion in olive oil for about 2 minutes.
2. Add garlic, ginger, chili paste, pickled veggies and saute for 1 minute.
3. Add oyster sauce and corn starch and saute for 1 minute.
4. Add sesame oil and saute for 30 seconds to one minute.

Is where we started.  However, there was discussion about whether to do the traditional version or modify it by adding the seasonings and such to a breadcrumb batter type thing.  Since we couldn't decide, we used Bri's dice app to decide for us.  Even = traditional, odd = nouvelle.  Nouvelle it is.  However, we tried one with rolled in panko breadcrumbs and it just wasn't working so back to the traditional method for us. 

Cheddar Scallion Bread Pudding

Seasoned with salt, garlic and lemon.  The cheese is  a smoky cheddar made in Maine. This was a "get punched in your face" cheese.

We used vanilla almond milk and eggs as the binder (because we had no regular milk.)  The scallions were sauteed in butter with a little lemon juice.

[UPDATE]  Bri went to Mei Mei when they did their Cheddar Scallion Bread Pudding and while theirs was delicious, he said that ours was better.  YAY Us!!!!



"Delishus" Kale Salad

Kale, chopped
1 lemon juiced
4 cloves garlic, pressed
salt & pepper
Feta
Bread crumbs, sauteed in butter
 

Rhubarb Cheesecake Custard

It should be noted that 75% of us, including the menu planner, despise rhubarb.  Nasty, vile stuff.

I won't bring more ugliness into the world by giving the recipe out.

	Alex	Brian	Deb	Sarah	Jim
"Delishush" Kale Salad	B  I liked the feta and wouldn't have expected the kale and feta to go together.  I would have appreciated other things to make it more special.  Raisins, roasted red peppers, etc	B+  But you have to bear in mind that I don't much care for kale and don't like feta.  So a B+ is a pretty high grade	B+  An elegant delicious side salad that I wouldn't bother to make again.		B+  If the kale had more of a chance to marinate in the lemon juice and got more soft and delicious, it would have been an A
Sichuan Asparagus with Slow Poached Egg	B+  Major novelty points for the poached egg.  Never would have thought of that.  Sauce was good.	A-  Sauce was a lot of fun and a pleasant surprise and combined well with the poached egg.  I would happily eat it again.	A-  Definitely eat it again.  Love the sauce!		B+  I don't care for asparagus and this was a very pleasant surprise.  I think if the asparagus had been roasted the one true way it would have gotten an A
Cheddar Scallion Bread Pudding	B  Thought that most of the flavor I got came from the cheese and I'm not a fan of smoked cheese.  I wonder about the consistency.  It comes apart in chunks and maybe that detracts from it's "pudding-itude"	A+  I never had bread pudding growing up and this is the archetypal Northern New England food. Not so nutritious, cheesey goodness.	A-  The cheese was the dominant flavor.  Maybe a whole wheat bread would have made it more toothe-some		A  This would have been an A+ if we had cut the smokey cheese in half with regular cheddar.  Damn fine.
Rhubarb Cheesecake Custard	C-  The texture was a litttle cottage-cheesey and the flavor was off.  The rhubarb was the best part.  (alex hates rhubarb	C-  I'm wondering how it will taste after another 6 hours chilling.	D  It failed as a cheesecake and it failed as tasting like rhubarb.    I want to make a red cheesecake.		F+  (the + is due to peer pressure)  It was better than the blueberry tapioca pudding, but only barely.  It wasn't sweet enough.  It tasted cream cheesy not cheese cakey.  Add in the rhubarb and it's a total blech.