Food & Adventure

I have been to a lot of unique place to eat before in my life and I have tried a lot of different kinds of food. I have tried anything that was every put in front of me from raw filet minion that was pounded out to a thin slice covered with a different blend of oils and spices to deep fried Oreos that are gooey on the inside to squid that is cut freshly right in front on me and grilled almost instantly in a downtown Chicago market. Even with all of these crazy explorations of food I have found that I hold some foods higher than other the three highest being: Roy’s, Yang Chengs, & some of the Saudi Arabian food my friends cook me. Each one has its’ own cultural background that is different from our own and each one also serves authentic dishes from that particular culture.

Roy’s is a very unique restaurant chain that is located in a few larger cities. I got my taste of the cuisine in Chicago and New York. As claimed by Roy’s website they serve a fusion of the world’s finest flavors, with a Hawaiian state of mind. Meaning the cuisine consists of many usual American dishes with a little Hawaiian flavor added to them. The Hawaiian’s use lots of pineapple so most of the dishes either come with pineapple or are cooked with them. The restaurant specializes in more seafood dishes with its “From the Sea” section as well as the “From the Land” selection which is a very selected collection of original takes on finer dining meals such as filets, ribs, and duck breast. When I went the first time I ordered the Roy’s trio which had Chief Roy Yamaguchi’s three custom dishes all in one. It included grilled salmon, blackened ahi, and Hawaiian style butterfish. The dish cooked just right and everything tasted fresh like it had just been caught that day and the way the dish was prepared very meticulously so that every mouthful would be a burst of new favor to indulge in. The restaurant was layout so that the corners of the room would be a growth of the vegetation typically found in the Hawaiian atmosphere while the rest of the room would be a contemporary setting of formal table ware and dining utensils. The best part of the whole experience was the desert. There is only one desert availably at Roy’s, a chocolate soufflé with a molten chocolate inside that is perfectly crafted and rich with flavor. To enjoy the fine desert you must notify the waiter when you arrive so there is enough time for preparation of the delicate morsel.

Another favorite restaurant of mine is Yang Chengs. I cannot be found on the internet or even in some yellow pages. It is small “hole-in-the-wall” business right outside downtown Indianapolis on the east side. The chief in that owns the restaurant is not famous nor has he ever written a book. He has simply owned this nice quiet nook since he graduated from the CIA, Culinary Institute of America. The main reason I had visited the place for my early years was because my father had also graduated the same year as the chief who owns the restaurant. Within the Chinese culture of food preparation there are eight different cuisines, depending on what region the chief comes from, that can be focused on and within each cuisine there are two or three different styles of preparation. The cuisine that is used at Yang Chengs is known as the Shandong cuisine and the style that the chief uses is known as the Jinan style. This form of cooking is represented by a clean, non-greasy preparation of the food along with a unique style of soup, which play a large role in the Shandong cuisine. The lighters soups, like egg drop soup, are clean and usually very airy with fewer flavors where as the thicker soups which tend to be darker, such as hot and sour soup, are full of flavor and usually consist of more ingredients. The Jinan style of cooking uses forms of deep-frying, grilling, pan-frying and stir frying to create and more subtle taste and less fats than the other forms of preparation. Some of the few dishes I have tried include Prawns, which is very similar to shrimp, with a special blend of spices and a dish known as Pear Balls which are exactly that pears that have been constructed into little balls often covered with some sort of syrup, honey was the syrup I had on mine. The restaurant’s décor consists of many authentic Chinese artifacts and sculptures that the chief himself brought over when he came to America to study at the culinary even the mats underneath the plates are Chinese zodiac calendars with Chinese writings.

Although I have not visited a restaurant yet I have been able to partake in certain Saudi Arabian dishes that are very unique to the culture. Some people know this but Muslims are forbidden to consume any form of pork. Most Saudi dishes do not contain pork for that exact reason so they replace the meat with chicken or fish usually. I have grown close to the group known as the SSO, Saudi Student Organization, on my campus and most of the guys know me because I lived a floor above them all and one member roomed with me. One morning I was invited to participate in a breakfast with a few of the members so I went to the president’s apartment. The dish was prepared right in front of me on the stove and was served on a large plate so everyone could sit on the floor around it and consume the food. The dish was known as Kabsa it is a traditional Saudi food that contains rice, chicken, tomatoes, and green peppers. They are cooked with salt and pepper added to spice the dish. After being cook it is eaten with tortillas using your hands as utensils. My friend also served Hummus, a spread that is made from mashed chickpeas, with the meal which we would scoop then roll with the tortillas to create a filled almost pastry.