A Siberian layover near Lake Baikal

December 19, 2017 by Shan Li in Grub

By day four on the train, I was ready to jump into the nearest body of water for a quick bath. Luckily, I had scheduled in a few days in Irkutsk, a city in Siberia that is one of the most popular stops along the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Irkutsk itself has some beautiful sights, including historic churches and museums. The city's cultural legacy stretches back to the early 1800s, when military officers and nobles were exiled here for their part in the Decembrist revolt against Tsar Nicholas I. They transformed Irkutsk into a cultural and educational hub deep in Siberia, and their influence is still evident in the intricate and colorful wooden buildings scattered throughout town.

For most foreigners, Irkutsk is not the final destination, but serves as a staging ground for trips to nearby Lake Baikal. Known as the Jewel of Siberia, Baikal is the largest freshwater lake in the world (and home to an exclusively freshwater species of seal, the Baikal seal).

The nearest lakeside town to Irkutsk is Listvyanka, reachable in about 1.5 to 2 hours by bus or car. I opted for a minibus, which cost a little over 100 rubles, or $2, each way.

I arrived there in an early October afternoon. By then, the cold temperature and strong winds required a heavy coat and thick scarf, and perhaps a nip of vodka (a friend who had visited just a few weeks earlier survived -- despite only wearing a light jacket -- by downing a small bottle of spirits. I do not recommend this. Wear a coat!).

That day, Lake Baikal was an ethereal, broody blue. The water was so clear that the pebbles underneath the waves were visible near shore. It's easy to while away a few hours just walking by the lake, admiring the fishing boats bobbing along and the snow-covered mountains on the far side of Baikal.

There are plenty of hiking trails in the hills hugging Listvyanka. But simply walking through the narrow side streets will bring you closer to golden foliage (at least in fall) and the town's lovely aged wooden buildings.

You will also encounter many vendors, from restaurants to tiny roadside stands, hawking the Baikal specialty: omul, a fish endemic to the lake, most commonly smoked and trussed up with toothpicks. They are deliciously salty and meaty, especially when fresh, and perfect with a few slices of bread and a beer.

Jan ver der Crabben via Wikimedia Commons

Many travelers stay a night or two in Listvyanka to enjoy the restaurants and scenery. I opted to go back after walking around for an afternoon (even with a wool coat, I was freezing by the end). However, I'm tempted to come back and stay in this charming Russian layer cake of a hotel. It's a bite-sized version of the Grand Budapest Hotel.

Trans-Siberian Railway Part 1: Moscow to Irkutsk

Trans-Siberian Railway

December 13, 2017 by Shan Li in Grub, Etc.

Riding the Trans-Siberian Railway is one of those classic adventure dreams, like climbing Mt. Everest or driving cross-country. I blame my obsession with railroad travel on too many Hitchcock movies and Agatha Christie mysteries as a kid -- several were set on trains stacked with exotic locales, glamorously dressed passengers, restaurant cars with real tablecloths, and of course, intrigue and murder.

During my own journey, alas, no platinum blonde in a beaded evening gown fell through the doorway to warn about impending doom. Instead, I got a glimpse at the birch forests of Siberia, colorful Russian towns, the flat expanse of the Gobi Desert and stunning rivers and lakes all along the way. If you do it in one go, the trip spans 4,740 miles, and takes five days and six nights. Most tourists get off at least once; I disembarked twice, in Siberia and in Mongolia.

There are 1st, 2nd and 3rd class accommodations. I booked tickets the whole way through in 2nd-class 4-berth (or bed) compartments called kupé. The other options are 1st class 2-berth compartments, called spalny wagon, and 3rd-class bunks called platskartny (essentially open-floor cars stacked with two rows of bunks. It's important to keep in mind that if you buy a 3rd-class ticket for an upper berth, you will be unable to fully set up in bed, unless you are a child or have an extremely short torso).

Also, only 1st- and 2nd-class have compartments that come with locking doors, which is reflected in the price. I booked through Real Russia, a reputable travel agency, and paid $735 for all three legs.

Below is an account of the first leg of the journey from Moscow to Irkutsk in Siberia.

Train 4, which leaves from Moscow every Tuesday close to midnight, departs from Yaroslavskiy Railway Station. It's fairly easy to reach by metro, although leave plenty of room for error because Yaroslavkiy is located right next to Leningradskiy Railway Station and across the square from Kazanskiy Railway Station. I spent a good 20 minutes wandering around trying to figure out which station was which. Once there, you can stock up on water or snacks.

Eventually, the right train popped up on the electronic boards, listed with its number and corresponding track. Passengers hustled along with luggage in the dark of night. We stood in line as the attendant for each car checked everyone's ticket and passport.

Both 1st and 2nd class cars have sliding doors that open into private compartments. There is a bathroom on either ends of the car, which come equipped with a toilet and a sink. Depending on the train, the hallways may have a few power outlets to charge up phones and tablets.

Each bed comes with a mattress pad, a sheet, a pillow, a pillowcase, a comforter and a duvet cover. If possible, book a lower berth so you can use the table (comes with a tablecloth!). I didn't know, but the travel agency thankfully nabbed lower-berth tickets for me for the entire way. The lower bed opens up to reveal a storage space underneath that's perfect for luggage.

The swaying of the train has an almost hypnotic effect on people, akin to a rocking cradle. Many travelers whiled away the time napping, reading or watching movies. I was sick with a cold when I first got on, and within two days all that enforced rest had cured what ailed me.

Food

The first leg comes with a restaurant car serving Russian cuisine (which is switched out in Mongolia for one offering Mongolian food, and again in China for a Chinese restaurant car). The restaurant wasn't quite what I had in mind -- granted, I probably would have been disappointed with nothing less than white linen, candles and diners in full evening wear.

But the menu was extensive, serving soups, appetizers, entrees and drinks. Think standard Russian fare, heavy on the meat and potatoes. Prices ranged from about $10 (for appetizers) to $30.

Most passengers, however, will only go to the dining car for a snack or a drink. Each car is equipped with a hot water samovar that the attendant keeps full. So many people bring aboard their own food, such as instant noodles, bread, sausage, apples, coffee and tea. (This is what I brought as well, without consulting any guides. They just seemed like the most logical foods).

Stops

A short stop at Perm, a city in Russia near the Ural Mountains.

The train made stops once every few hours, to reload on coal and pick up and drop off travelers. Many of the stops last for only 10 to 20 minutes, although we have stopped for nearly an hour sometimes. And all bets are off at the border -- it took many hours to cross from Russia to Mongolia, and again from Mongolia into China.

It's a chance to get out, stretch your legs, and buy more food and drink from the local stands or inside the station itself. The stations are also good people-watching, as passengers from all over the world disembark to get a break from the rocking train.

The Sights

The three days and four nights it takes to get to Irkutsk are spent passing through Siberia, full of birch forests and little towns full of wooden homes painted vibrant shades of purple, blue and red. (I did have trouble capturing the scenery outside through the smudged windows!). It was a beautiful sight, but became a bit monotonous after the first day.

On Saturday morning, four days after coming aboard in Moscow, I disembarked in Irkutsk, just a few hours away from Lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake in the world. More to come on that!

Recipe: Shrimp in Black Bean Sauce

November 21, 2017 by Shan Li in Grub

*I actually took the photos in this post months ago, when I was testing out my camera and figuring out how this blog worked. But I was reminded after making this dish again a few days ago. This time, it was especially delicious, made with live shrimp (!) bought at a wet market in Kowloon. If you visit Hong Kong or China, you have to check one out. They typically sell fresh produce and meat, and sometimes live animals such as chicken, frogs, etc.

Those of you who know me well know that I'm not very domestic.

I don't like to vacuum, wash dishes or cook. Dusting confounds me, and I have yet to hear a convincing reason for why making the bed is a good idea. Very few people ever saw the inside of my apartment in Los Angeles. It's not because I didn't like my friends; it's because I was afraid their delicate immune systems would collapse under the sheer squalor. (I'm currently staying with a longtime pal in Hong Kong, and he has a Hercule Poirot-level pathological love of neatness, cleanliness and symmetry. I'm hoping I can get by on sheer sparkle and charm before my inner slob forces him to kick me out.)

However, I love to eat. And over the years, I've learned to make a couple of things (Literally, two dishes. This, and sausage jambalaya) that I especially like. When I was up in the Bay Area visiting my lovely friend Hannah, I decided to make this for her one night after she had endured a long day at her law firm.

This recipe is not mine. For years, I used one from some website that collected Chinese recipes. Then that site disappeared, which prompted a mini-panic before I found this one (which is exactly the same as the old one. Did that other site evolve into the Spruce?).

So go on over to the Spruce if you want the original recipe. Continue reading here if you'd like my tweaks and commentary. I mostly just want to write this down here so I don't freak out if it vanishes again.

Ingredients

-- 1 pound (or half a kilo) of shrimp (the Spruce recipe says peeled. I say to leave at least the heads on, because sucking out the brains is unbelievably tasty. Seriously, go ahead and try it. Food of the gods).

--2 tablespoons (about 30 ml) of some kind of oil (I never measure. Just eyeball it).

--2 tablespoons (about 30 ml) of black bean sauce with garlic (the most crucial ingredient, besides the shrimp. You can find this at most neighborhood supermarkets. My local Vons carried it.)

--2 teaspoons (or about 10 ml) minced ginger

--1 bell pepper, any color works, cut into pieces

--sometimes I'll toss in half an onion, diced into large chunks. In which case, you should probably up the black bean sauce to 3 tablespoons.

--1 green onion, chopped into little pieces

Marinade

--1 tablespoon (about 30 ml) rice wine (Google tells me white wine would work as well)

--The Spruce recommends 1/4 teaspoon (about 1 ml) of salt. Never done this, because the soy sauce + black bean sauce + chicken broth is salty enough.

Sauce

--3/4 cup (about 180 ml) chicken broth

--1 tablespoon (about 15 ml) rice wine (again, white wine probably works.)

--1 tablespoon (about 15 ml) soy sauce

--1 teaspoon (about 5 ml) sugar

Cornstarch mix

--1 tablespoon (about 15 ml) cornstarch

--2 tablespoons (about 30 ml) water

Directions

1. Rinse the shrimp, and also peel if needed. The Spruce recommends patting them dry. I have never done this, and it's been fine. Then put the shrimp into a bowl and pour on the marinade ingredients (rice wine and optional salt). Let it sit for at least 15 minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure the rice wine coats all the shrimp.

2. In a bowl, mix together the sauce ingredients. Then in another container, mix the cornstarch and water.

3. Heat your saucepan and add some oil to roughly coat the pan. I toss in the ginger as well, because I don't like waiting for the oil to get hot. Once it does start sizzling, add in the black bean sauce and stir for a few seconds.

4. Add the shrimp. Do NOT get confused and add the bell pepper first, which I've done before. If you do this, the bell pepper will soak up the bulk of the black bean sauce, and your shrimp will be sadly under-sauced. Stir fry the shrimp for maybe a minute, and then push them to the sides of the pan.

5. Add the bell pepper. If you have onion, throw that in as well. Stir-fry for a minute or two. If the pan starts getting dry, toss in some more chicken broth or water.

6. Push the shrimp, bell pepper and bonus onion to the sides of the pan. Sir your sauce one more time, and then pour into the middle of the pan. Bring the entire concoction to a boil, before stirring the cornstarch mix again and then pouring into the sauce. Stir the sauce. It should star thickening right away.

7. Stir the entire thing, shrimp, bell pepper and all. Then pour in the green onion bits, and give it another stir.

8. Serve with freshly made rice. Try not to drool.

This recipe supposedly serves 3 to 4 people. I have eaten all of it in one setting and wished for more.

Pouring in the cornstarch mix to thicken the sauce.

I'm telling you. Shrimp heads are really good! Just suck out the brains, don't eat the shell. Especially satisfying while watching the Walking Dead or my favorite so-bad-it's-good science fiction movie, Starship Troopers.

I haven't been to this lounge at the Wellington International Airport in New Zealand yet. But it's on the list (Phillip Capper).

An Ode to Airport Lounges

October 28, 2017 by Shan Li in Etc., Grub

For years, I was like 99% of the world's flying population, dreading the hours wasted between passing through security and boarding a plane. That dread fossilized into hatred in May, when I decided that a 19-hour layover at the Johannesburg airport was a trifling hardship compared to saving $100 on a ticket.

It was a decision I deeply regretted ten hours later, after I had piled on every piece of clothing in my backpack and sprinted around the terminal like a deranged racehorse on the last leg of the Kentucky Derby. Hell is cold, and probably resembles an airport at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Then I got a lounge membership, for free, through my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card (this is not an ad, by the way).

I grew up in a family that stayed exclusively at motels with numbers in their name, with a father who suffered unimaginable deprivation during China's Great Leap Forward. I believed in the old saw that suffering built character, and part of suffering involved flying as economically as possible while still getting to your final destination (also that Spam is a perfectly acceptable picnic food, but that's a story for another time).

I'm not sorry to say that those principles melted in the first hour of my very first visit to a lounge inside Terminal 2 of the Cairo International Airport.

Friends, that hour was a warm embrace into a secret club. The kind that serves you piles of ham sandwiches, a pyramid of croissants, and occasionally comes by to offer a juice pack of orange or apple, take your pick. Travelers lounged on comfy, garishly colored leather chairs, silently wolfing down free pastries and fruit. I was one of them.

Since then, waiting to fly out has turned into pure joy. I downloaded the app that accompanies my membership, and eagerly plot out the best lounges to hit in the limited amount of time I have. I will even rush to the airport hours early, just to kick back and enjoy the over-salted soup. In Beijing, I snacked on shrimp shumai. In Beirut, I silently cheered a delayed flight, which allowed me to go back to the lounge and indulge in unlimited beers.

In September, I had another long layover, this time about 11 hours at the Domodedovo International Airport in Moscow. Instead of curling up on a skeletal bench, I pushed together two squishy armchairs and drifted off to sleep, awakening occasionally to enjoy a frothy cappuccino and smoked salmon sandwiches.

My membership expires next April. I would actually consider plunking down money to renew it, when the dreaded day comes.

Baking injera in Ethiopia

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

August 16, 2017 by Shan Li in Grub

When visiting Ethiopia, it is almost impossible not to eat vast quantities of injera, the slightly sour flatbread whose versatility puts many kitchen tools to shame.

As big as a towel and spongy to boot. injera is the foundation of every Ethiopian meal, the supporting actor that allows stews and vegetables to shine on top. It is a fork and spoon in one, a delivery vehicle used to ferry everything else to your mouth. For messy eaters, it comes in handy as a napkin.

Most Ethiopians eat it at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Families often bake it twice a week. During a month in Ethiopia, I downed enough injera to carpet a house -- it was sometimes the only constant in a whirl of doro wat (chicken stew), kitfo (raw minced beef), shiro (chickpea stew) and tibs (stir-fried meat).

So I was ecstatic when my friend Elisabeth, a German working in the capital of Addis Ababa, invited me over to her company's cafeteria to watch the cooking process.

Well, only half the process. Injera is a three-ingredient food, traditionally comprised only of water, salt and teff, a tiny and iron-rich grain (sometimes other grains like wheat or barley act as replacements). The trio is mixed together and then left alone for several days to ferment. That resting time produces the trademark sour flavor.

By the time I got there, the dough had already sat for three days. Mariam, one of the cooks who kindly allowed me to paparazzi her, said they usually bake the bread on an electric stove with a flat circular surface specifically built for that purpose.

That's if the electricity is on. That day, the power had cut off (It often did that month. The rainy season wreaks havoc on the country's power grid). So Mariam moved next door to the traditional wood-fired stove. She spent a good 10 minutes stoking the flames that flickered out of the stove's clay mouth.

Then she scooped up a pitcher of the thick liquid, bent over and began to smoothly pour it, starting from the outside and swirling it in a circular motion until the heated plate was papered over in a thin layer. She was mesmerizing to watch, a maestro of injera with decades of technique under her belt.

A few minutes later, and it was cooked. She lifted the piece up onto a woven straw mat.

Elisabeth and I both took a turn. Keeping your balance while crouched over, while ensuring a steady speed and consistent drizzle, is no easy feat. Our injera looked like poor also-rans next to the perfection that were Miriam's creations.

My first bunny chow in Cape Town! Along with dal and gravy.

Bunny Chow, the fast food of South Africa

April 26, 2017 by Shan Li in Grub

It's easy to find burgers in South Africa. Ditto with french fries (called chips here). I've also eaten some delicious tacos that would be right at home in California. But this country's most famous fast food is one that is uniquely its own invention: bunny chow.

I assumed initially that bunny chow would contain, well, bunnies. But no, the main elements of this particular dish are 1) a hollowed out loaf of white bread standing on its side like a glorious carb tower, and 2) some form of curry swimming inside. The version pictured is mutton, but I've seen many varieties offered at restaurants everywhere. The only utensil needed is your hands.

The exact origins of bunny chow are unknown. There are myths that it was invented during the Great Depression when people were looking for a cheap meal, or during apartheid when non-whites had to order take-out instead of eating at restaurants.

But there is consensus that it was invented among the South African Indians, who were brought here in waves starting first as slaves and later as indentured workers to work the sugarcane fields (and then as paid passengers who voluntarily immigrated). Many settled around Durban, now the third largest city in South Africa that is home to a huge Indian population and considered the epicenter of bunny chow-dom. The name supposedly comes from Bania, which refers to an Indian caste comprised of merchants and traders.

This stuff is delicious and very filling. Bread is the perfect delivery vehicle and mop for curry. Even a quarter of a bunny chow is enough for one meal, with a mandatory nap afterwards.