It's Monday, and you know what that means, another edition of the first time I ever. Today's dish…roasted Peking duck. I'm not going to lie, this is not going to be easy. I was an extremely young kid when I had Peking duck for the first time. So I'm going to remember it as much as I could. I had to be at least 6 or 7, and I was in my parent's restaurant in Blackwood, NJ. Ku Fu Kitchen I believe it was, anywhoo I remember my father coming back from Chinatown in Philadelphia, and he carried with him these two greasy brown paper bags. As a little kid looking up from the metal prep table, I saw him pulled out two giant birds, one was a brown smooth roasted chicken, and the other? The succulent, lacquered dark skin beauty, with the waft of cinnamon, soy, ginger, garlic, and so much other spices in the air. What was this magical animal that my dad was chopping up, and I'll tell you what it was, it was the magical Peking duck.
I remember how my dad set it up, plate, breast side on one side and the dark meat on the other with the drumstick sticking out. Since I was the youngest and most spoiled, my dad gave me the best part, the drumstick. I remember dunking it in the delicious sauce that it came with on the side, and I took my first bite. It was this savory bite of this delicious meat, not gamy at all, and the skin, oh my god, the skin. It was this crispy sweet taste and delicious with the savory meat and dripping with grease and salty sauce. I took that whole thing and made sure I dipped off all that sauce into my rice and gobbled that entire thing down. I was pretty happy about the experience from what I remember, because every chance I get, I order duck. Oh, and if you are going to complain to me that that is not peking duck, well fudge off. I didn't have hoison sauce and I didn't have pancakes.
Well that's how that goes, now i wish I had more Peking duck right now. Mmmm…tasty.
This is by far my favorite food on earth. If I was dying and I had to request a last meal, it would be a John's Roast Pork cheesesteak with American Cheese and fried onions. Ahhh, death wouldn't be so bad with one of these things in the wings.
However my first foray into Philly cheesesteaks wasn't JRP, I went down the path of so many other Philadelphians and tourists. My first cheesesteak was at Pat Olivieri's. Pat's King of Steaks. I remember it being the best thing I've ever had. Now mind you this wasn't my first cheesesteak ever, but my first Philly Cheesesteak ever, everything else was a Jerseyian steak, with American cheese and mushrooms. However Pat's, everything was a process, where to park, ordering it, where to eat it, what can I get, do I order drinks or fries? Everything was a process. I remember my first approach at ordering, I made sure I had the lingo down, all I ever heard was, make sure you order it correctly don't fuck up the ordering process. Just remember these two words, wiz wit, or if you don't like onions, wiz witout.
I always remember parking close to 10th and E. Passyunk, and then walking a block towards Federal to get there, not a far walk, but enough to get me to memorize those to words. I remember standing there at 1 a.m. with my brother, still in middle school and watching all the drunk people stumbling and ordering their sandwiches. My brother let me order it on my own, and I order my first wiz wit. I remember asking him where did he want to eat, we were going to sit on those red benches, but someone took our seats, so we walked backed to our car and got ourselves ready for a meal. This wasn't my brother's first, but I remember him waiting for my reaction. I took my first bite, and everything burst out of it, cheese, onions, grease, steak. It was a glorious greasy mess, a delicious greasy mess. I remember the chopped up ribeye, those oh so tender chopped onions, and that luscious tasty tasty molten lava of cheese wiz.
When you have your first Philly steak, you're going to remember it, I sure did. I've gone on to have many many many more cheesesteaks in Philly some great, some not so great, but I always remember my first, and boy was it mighty mighty tasty.
I decided it has been a little bit since I've wrote a new blog, and well since I'm writing a new blog in August I wanted to do an entirely new segment called, "First Time I Ever." This segment will consist of me explaining my experience of eating whatever it is I ever ate for the first time ever. I figure I'll do this every Monday, and for today, I'll let you know how my first time I ever ate pho went. So with that, on to the show.
Ahhh…pho, who doesn't like a big brothy delicious bowl of goodness with meats, noodles, and veggies. I guess the first time I had pho was in Philadelphia in 99. Still in high school, still young wild and free; and food to me was good, but never as important as it is to me now. Growing up in a Chinese restaurant, I was so sick and tired of eating Asian food at this point, but pho was different. It reminded me of something that I never had before, and all these flavors and spices were just amazing.
However, I ate pho like an idiot as a child. I hate herbs as a kid. I hate spices, I hate the way anything that wasn't to my liking tasted. I was such a novice eating pho. I took this vibrant delicious noodle soup dish and just demolished the likes of it. I added and not added things that needed to be added. Sriracha, hoison, bean sprouts, and jalapeño. This is all okay to add, but I ate it like an idiot and just added things without even trying the damn soup; oh, and herbs, no Thai basil for me, so stupid. Anyway lets go back to that first spoonful.
I still remember my very first spoonful. Soup, rare steak, and a little onion. That first bite was just amazing. I muddled that clear soup with hoison sauce and sriracha, but it gave me this deep and spicy spoonful. The meat was cooked and so tender and that bite just bit right back. I could taste everything, spicy, salty, rich, and just a hint of sour due to that squeeze of lime. It was this amazing amalgamation of flavor and definitely sensory overload. Now I knew why this dish was so famous and popular, across the sea. It was everything you want in a bite of food and was just amazing.
I'll always remember my first time I ever ate pho, and I may eat it a little differently now, but that first time will be forever ingrained in my memory. Just so you know, how I eat pho now goes like this. I start with tearing all of my Thai basil and place them in my soup. I skip the jalapeño and bean sprouts, and add a touch of black pepper and sriracha, just a touch. I take that first slurp from my spoon of that amazing full body soup, and a little piece of that basil, and all I can taste is this rich and pepper soup from the basil and it's so so so good.
Ah, my first memory of pho…great.
Well, until next time…watch some Doug Funnie and have a clue of my first experience for my next food. It's a sandwich.
