THE ESSENTIAL NOODLE OF IT ALL

It's Autumn. Yesterday's weather proved that. Which leads, almost directly, to a phrase in an article on a local newsmedia site which is extraordinairy: "It's fall in the Bay Area, which means 'tis the season for soups, warming curries and as much pumpkin and squash as possible." Well, soups are a customary favourite at this time, it's ALWAYS time for curries, and pumpkin is only barely edible at best.


"It's fall in the Bay Area, which means 'tis the season for soups, warming curries and as much pumpkin and squash as possible."
------Best soups and other comfort foods [--], Madeline Wells, SFGATE


When did this happen? Not the soup or nasty gourds and cucurbits, but the curry? When I was the fierce snarling cashier/bookkeeper at a local Indian restaurant, curry was, in many people's minds, not seasonable, and certainly not customary cuisine anywhere in the Bay Area.
We were all regarded as right freaks, working there.
There has been some improvement.
Not that much.

One of the other things that glaringly stood out (!) in that article was this: "While vegan Singaporean-Chinese spot Lion Dance Cafe's seasonal pumpkin laksa is not quite back on the menu yet, you can still satisfy your laksa cravings. Try their laksa lemak, loaded with yuba, tofu puffs, rice noodles and sweet peppers in a rich coconut broth."

Yuba?!?! Tauhu pok?!?!?

Laksa is Peranakan and Indonesian seafood and chicken soup with rice noodles. There are two general kinds of laksa: coconut curry soup, and sour (tamarind broth) soup.

Either way, it should contain dried toasted ground dried shrimp, kemiri nuts pounded in the mortar and pestle, plus fresh seafood, shredded cooked chicken, and beansprouts. With rice stick noodles. A thin coconut soup, made with chicken broth, touch of shrimp paste (蝦膏 'haa gou'; pâté de crevette), and a little fried garlic. Adding a roasted tomato, skinned and chopped, and a pinch of sugar to the broth is good. A shortcut for the bumbu (home made spice paste) would be to use a spoonful yellow curry paste. Add a dash of fish sauce and a dash of a vinegar-based hot sauce. Also minced scallion or chives.

More rice noodle than chicken, more chicken than shrimp, crab, or chunked fish. Also fresh basil and a hefty squeeze of lime to finish, along with a squeeze of Sriracha sauce from Huy Fong, plus a spoonful oily sambal badjak.
My preference is far more coconut milk than tamarind.
Seafood doesn't benefit from too much acid.
But it always needs heat.

I can not recognize Lion Dance Cafe's vegetable coconut curry soup, which is probably very nice, as 'laksa'. Nothing in the description of it suggests 'laksa'. Far be it from me to mention 'stupid white people', but, nevertheless, stupid white people.

Nor will I make a trip to Oakland to try it.
Life is too short for Oakland.



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