Pssst. I’m cheating.

See, I’ve got something I want to write about for the newest edition of Dine and Dish from The Delicious Life, but I need to break the rules.

It’s not that I intend to write about something other than a restaurant that serves small plates — oh, I’m all about multitudes of small plates (just ask the nurse who weighed me in at the doctor’s office today) — it’s that time frame thing that’s got me in a pickle.

More specifically, this, Sarah’s rule #2:

Go eat any time betwixt now and Monday, February 27, 2006.

(”Now” being February 3rd when Sarah posted her announcement.)

First, can I tell you where we’ve eaten betwixt February 3rd and February 27th? Aside from around our dining room table or in front of the telly laughing at melodramatic ice dancers, that is?

   The pub.
   The Thai place for lunch.
   The pub again.
   The crappy Chinese place when the pub was unexpectedly closed.
   Oh, yeah, and the pub again.

Note the alarming trend. The trend that screams: It’s Off-Season! It’s the pub or (almost) nothing, baby, cuz until the spring tourists arrive, this place is all about wonky restaurant hours and tiny paychecks.

Yup, winter on the island; so not conducive to culinary exploration.

Not that we’ve got much of that to begin with, mind you. Take this month’s Dine and Dish theme, for example. Amazing Graze? Small plates? I can think of one — yup, one — restaurant that falls under that category on this island, and go figure, we already covered it back in Dine and Dish #3: The Freshman.

Now the Thai place could count as a small plate venue — if we were to write about their spring rolls — but we got that one back in Dine and Dish #4: Rachael Ray for a Day.

And the pub? Hah. Been there, done that in Dine and Dish #1: Barfly. Not that their plates are even remotely small, mind you.

So, nothing left to write about. Or, I cheat.

Which (after this absurdly long preamble), brings me to the place I want to tell you about. The place that’s 251 miles (plus ferry ride) away and we haven’t been to since Christmas. Chopper’s and my favorite dim sum joint, Fong Chong, in Portland’s Chinatown.

Now Fong Chong isn’t much to look at — in fact it’s got detractors who bitch about the lack of atmosphere (as if that’s more important than a damn fine steamed hum bow) — but we’re not here for pretty décor. I can find plenty of places that scream heavenly temple and serve up deep fried MSG-laden crap any day of the week. Well, any day I’m in an actual city, mind you.

No, Fong Chong is not about elegance. It’s a cavern of a space with scuffed floors and smudgy windows, but it holds a special place in our hearts and come hell or high water, when we take a trip to Portland, we make a stop at Fong Chong.

My first time dining out with Chopper’s parents was at Fong Chong. It was one of those early, get-to-know-the-folks meals, and we couldn’t have picked a better place. At any other restaurant we’d of run the risk of gulfs of silence; each of us engrossed in our own private plate, only occasionally exchanging pleasantries.

How’s the salmon? Oh, good. How’s the steak. Fine. Vegetables are over-cooked though.

Not at dim sum. Here, we shared the excitement of approaching carts together. Is that ginger chicken? Yes! Oh, and yu chee gow. Score! We sampled our favorites together and together we came just inches away from the big dim sum Do-We-Dare Challenge: Chicken feet.

In the months that followed, Fong Chong became our spot, and Chopper and I were such regulars we even had a favorite server who recognized us on sight and popped by our table soon after we were seated. “Two Tsingtao?” she’d ask after every greeting, to which we’d invariably say “of course,” because we could never resist a crisp Asian beer to follow up a good chomp of dim sum.

We had our favorite dishes – mine was the har gau, Chopper’s the siu mai, but every so often we’d venture out of our safety zone and try something we’d never tried before. Sometimes it was a one-shot deal, but more often than not we’d finish the meal exclaiming “I can’t believe we waited this long to try that one! We are idiots! Gah!”

(Yes, that last line should be read in a Napoleon Dynamite voice.)

Even so, we never quite got up the courage to face the chicken feet. That is, until a day we arrived and found Fong Chong so busy they were seating multiple groups of diners at their large, Lazy-Susan centered tables. Not that this hadn’t happened before; we’d shared tables many times — it was just that this time was different. We landed at a table with an absolutely charming and loquacious Chinese couple who’d just come into town from Astoria out on the coast. Fong Chong, they told us, was a necessary stop to their every Portland trip, and then they proceeded to recommend their favorite dishes, including — oh look, there they are on the next cart! — chicken feet.

How could we resist?

And y’know? Those crunchy collagen-filled feet, they aren’t half bad.

(I could go on, but remember, I’m terrible at waxing eloquent about flavors. See, I even admitted it. Ooh, the chicken toes, so crunchy yet tender in my mouth! They make me happy! They are happy feet! [giggle])

Actually, I’m lying. The chicken feet were just a little too fatty collagenesque strange for my liking. Chopper, on the other hand dug them so much I feared this would lead to a new culinary extremity trend. Pig’s feet, frog’s legs, lizard toes…

When Chopper started culinary school full time, we had to cut back on our visits to Fong Chong, sometimes going without dim sum for two to three months at a time. (Agony!) Meanwhile, we were working hard, saving what we could for our absurdly DIY wedding, which we’d foolishly planned for month number eight of Chopper’s schooling.

The day after the wedding (which I may write about sometime after our second anniversary, when I’ve fully recovered), we were so utterly dim sum deprived, we had to make the Fong Chong trip. Nothing else mattered. Presents? They could wait. Cleaning up the mess from our 11th hour wardrobe construction? Feh. What’s a living-room full of fabric scraps, anyway? A sign of creativity, that’s what!

So, off we went with visions of sesame balls and onion buns dancing in our heads.

As luck would have it, the new (and newly married) manager was working that morning, and she was so tickled to learn we’d made Fong Chong our choice for First Meal Out as a Married Couple, she knocked the price of the food right off our ticket. All we owed for was beer and tip — and a good thing too because oh did we pig out that day!

Now, you might think that my ode to Fong Chong will end on a melancholy note. That things have changed or that we’ve moved on to a new favorite spot. Not a chance. Even after our longest dry spell — a gap of nearly half a year without a Fong Chong visit — our return was just like old times. Last December, halfway down I-5, driving late at night after catching the 10:15 ferry (Chopper having hightailed it from pastry station to ferry line), the urge kicked in.

“You realize what we need to do tomorrow,” I said.

Chopper glanced at me from the driver’s seat to check my expression. He saw my smile and returned it.

“I mean, we’re getting into town at what, 2 a.m. at the earliest,” I said. “We can get ourselves out of bed by 10:30, and…”

“Fong Chong,” Chopper said.

“Fong Chong,” I echoed. I was grinning from ear to ear now in the dark car; the anticipation of har gau, hot chili oil, lotus leaf rice… it was almost too much to bear.

We were there within 45 minutes of waking the next morning. And there, first at our table, was our favorite server.

“Two Tsingtao?” she asked.

“Yes, yes, oh YES!” we answered.

Fong Chong
301 NW 4TH Ave
Portland, OR 97209-3882
(503) 228-6868

Fri-Sat 10:30am-10pm
Sun-Thu 10:30am-9pm

Best time to go: Fong Chong opens for business at 10:30, but they don’t really get rolling till a little after 11. Show up between 11 and 11:30, before the line kicks in, and you’ll be there when the carts first hit the floor with goodies fresh from the steamers.

On the table: The hot chili oil (that fire orange liquid in a jar) is a must. Pour it on your plate. Lots of it. Don’t be shy.

Thirst quenching: We love our Tsingtao and think you should too, but if you’re not in a beer mood, don’t worry, the house tea that comes with every meal is a light jasmine blend that tastes great even if you’ve been sitting at the table for an hour letting the tea pot go cold.

What is on those carts, anyway? You might not be able to understand everything the servers say, but here’s a tip: Just try it anyway. You can hardly ever go wrong, and at just two to three bucks a serving, the experimentation’s worth it. P.S. Chicken feet. Chopper insists on it.

We taunted you back on Valentine’s Day with this shot of Chopper’s scrumptious Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake. Recipe to be posted later, we said.

Well, guess what! It’s later!

I can see it now: Belly Timber readers shaking their fists in our general direction. “Later? You call this Later? Later is all about hours, not days or — harrumph — weeks! Shame on you, depriving us for so long!”

Yes, we’re evil that way.

Or distracted.

Or frightfully busy.

You decide.

(If I weren’t so A. evil, B. distracted, or C. frightfully busy, I’d create a poll wherein you could all vote.)

Three notes regarding Sin, Quantified:

1. You need a 9-inch springform pan to do this. Use of any other pan would be folly. Parchment is also a must.
2. Chopper makes this cake at work. Patrons weep tears of joy over it. I, however, can eat no more than one tiny bite per sitting due to the ultimate evil known as “heavy cream.” If you make this cake and love it, please weep for me.
3.This is a three-part recipe. Needless to say, you should proceed in the proper order, otherwise you’ll end up with a very strange cake. I’m sure it’ll still taste good, though.

The thing I hate about pruning is when you have to let go of a branch and it sproings back at you and slaps you in the face.

That and Platelicker’s land mines, buried so nicely in the newly-tall weeds. Aw, thanks pooch, you shouldn’t have.

Meanwhile, two small hints of things to come:

Also, soon appearing on our sidebar: an exciting two-word phrase containing the initials R.A.

(No, not Rodent Alert, you doof.)

So it’s gettin’ near lunch — time to make some burritos.
Let’s put in something weird!
Like a big bag of Cheetos?
That’s gross!
Yeah I know – hey this’ll satisfy your wishes: Mr. Pibb + Pork = Crazy Delicious!

Yes we know. There is a special place in hell reserved for us for this post.

Never mind that until the execs at NBC got pissy about it, Lonely Island’s Lazy Sunday clip was in heavy rotation on my YouTube favorites (along with Hasselhoff’s Hooked on a Feeling, so now you really know I’m going to burn in hell), truth be told, Mr Pibb and pork do indeed make a burrito Crazy Delicious.

What, you ask? Soft drinks in food? Are you insane? Oh, if only I could find photographic evidence of Iron Chef Chen’s Cola stewed piglet…

I mean, holy crap, someone even wrote an entire book about it. Look: Classic Cooking with Coca-Cola, it’s called, and yes, I’ll admit, it frightens me. Almost as much as this recipe for Dr. Pepper Chocolate Cake frightens me, but here’s the thing: Sometimes really frightening food combinations taste good.

The trick is to just not tell your snobby food friends that you dumped a can of Coke into your stew, right Chen? (Hey, don’t knock it; he won that episode.)

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Tuesday bird blogging?

A quick drive up the road and down toward the beach with the dog, and there, sitting just a few feet from the old split rail fence at the top of the bluff, is a huge bird. Dude, quick! Turn the car around, I say to Chopper, and he does, and I scramble to get my camera ready and within a minute we’re parked and I’m stealthily climbing out — or rather, I’m klutzedly attempting to climb out and set the camera’s exposure at the same time.

And the bird, which I now realize is a Golden Eagle, looks at me from about 20 feet away and then takes off. So I point and click and am completely amazed that I managed to get the entire bird in the frame. (So many times I have tried this and failed.)

Needless to say, the beach jaunt that followed was a bit anti-climactic. Leaping dolphins might have helped, you know.

But of course now I’ve got that Steve Miller song stuck in my head and I keep thinking about the opening lines and wondering if it’s something mystical or if it’s just about looking at the calendar and saying Holy Crap, it’s halfway through March, already? Why the HELL does time keep on slipping, slipping into the future?

We’re edging toward tourist season faster than we’d like, and we’re definitely not ready for it. Oh, sure, there’s a plus side. Soon we’ll be adding hours upon hours to our daily work schedules and soon, like so many islanders, we’ll be busting ass to make up for the lean winter months. Bills will get paid, but our leisure time — our time to putter in the garden or play in the kitchen; our blogging time — will dwindle to tiny portions.

Last summer — our first summer here and our first summer of blogging — we struggled and stumbled and I never quite found the balance that allowed me the unexhausted hours I needed to write with frequency or joy. This year, I’m hoping — no, make that striving — to avoid a repeat performance.

In fact, I’ve got nefarious plans in place for that very purpose. Well, almost in place. Providing I can get anything done before tourist season kicks in.

What was that?

I’m working extra hours this week? Already?

Damn.

It’s like this. Chopper leaves for work and I say goodbye with a quick acknowledgement that I’ll get a post up tonight. And then I stare at the words. All those words. All those messy, messy words in half-written posts in the bursting Post-in-Progress folder. That Post-in-Progress folder that’s beginning to look like a curse rather than a blessing.

(It taunts me, it does. Gives me nightmares. You know the kind; the kind where you’re back in school and it’s the final exam and it dawns on you that you never attended a single day of class and you haven’t the first clue about the mating habits of the English stoat and their impact on allegorical portraiture of the latter 16th century.)

(Oh, and you’re naked. Always with the naked, those dreams.)

So, I close the folder. Later, I tell it. Go away.

I’ll dig through it when I’m in the mood, but for now, submitted for your approval, a gratuitous fish wrapper on a lightbox and a brief expression of longing for more seafood. We are on an island and we long for seafood. So much so, that I am sorely tempted to sign up for the San Juan Nature Institute’s Sea Urchin Lab (”in which you will see the process of fertilization and the early development of sea urchins”), just so I can raise my hand halfway through and say “that’s all good, but when do we get to eat them?”

Shhh. I may look like I’m just lazing about in the garden with the daffodils, but actually, I’m on duty. Mommy’s not feeling well so I’m guarding the blog until she returns. (Feline enemies, beware! I know your hiding places. Well, most of them, anyway.)

Now don’t get me wrong, we love our local pub. They brew great beer, their Manhattan chowder is a godsend for my tragically lactose intolerant tummy, and on St. Paddy’s day, they served Chopper one hell of a mean steak and kidney pie.

But, sometimes we long for the Horse Brass, that brilliant British pub on Portland’s eastside. It’s not the darts we miss so much, or that crazy Randall hopper they’ve got hooked up like a hooka at the bar.

It’s not even the bangers and mash.

No, it’s the most horrific, fattening, demonic temptation on the menu we miss: the Scotch egg.

Imagine if you will, a hard boiled egg (and already you’ve got some dietician’s voice in your ear, yammering away about bad cholesterol).

Now imagine covering the egg in a layer of deep fried sausage.

Yes, Scotch eggs are that evil.

And they’re that tasty.

So tasty, that Chopper figured out how to make ‘em at home. Now all we need is a dart board, about thirty beers on tap, a way to keep out the zombies, and we’d never leave the house.

Bonus link: Still confused about the Scotch egg? Ricky Gervais from the BBC comedy The Office explains it all to you.

“Of course! Lager! The only thing that can kill a Vindaloo!”
– Dave Lister, Red Dwarf

We can’t help it. Someone mentions Indian food, and soon enough someone mentions vindaloo, and the next thing you know, we’re off on tangents involving curry monsters from outer space. Silly DNA modifiers, acting up again.

But, where the vindaloo mutations on board the good ship Red Dwarf are quite dangerous and must be dealt with (Leopard Lager into the beast’s maw generally does the trick), here on Earth, and at Casa Belly Timber, we find the notion of vindaloo mutations quite intriguing and potentially delicious.

And so, even though we’ve been horrifically busy of late, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to join this month’s From my Rasoi event over at Meena’s Hooked on Heat, and create a bit of Indian fusion of our own.

This month’s theme: Pick a favorite international dish and give it an Indian flavor. Now we mulled this over a bit, pondering pasta, contemplating enchiladas, but in the end we agreed that there was nothing we wanted to do more than tame a wild vindaloo and turn it into the perfect Red Dwarf party food, because if a bunch of scifi geeks like us are going to get together to watch episodes of our favorite British science fiction comedy, the last thing we should do is order our pizza from Domino’s.

That’s right, pizza! Delicious, steeped in the flavors of India, lamb vindaloo pizza. Or, as Chopper calls it, because he just can’t help himself…

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