The Umami Reader: Would You Eat Pooping and Puking Dim Sum?
- Dim Sum Icon in Hong Kong has become famous for its vomiting and pooping dim sum. The restaurant – themed around the Sanrio character Gudetama – make buns shaped and then filled with chocolate or custard to look like the personified lazy egg yolk is getting sick when customers poke the buns' orifices. Gross? Yes. Delicious. Possibly. Would I eat it? Most definitely. Watch this video. (Thrillist/Daily Dot/ETtoday; via Sean Montgomery)
- Unfamiliar with Gudetama? You probably need to brush up on your Japanese food characters! Check out this history of kawaii anthropomorphised food, including red bean bun superhero Anpanman, peach-boy Momotaro, peach-pig Momobuta, and the salmon steak with a face, Kirimi-chan. (Tofugu; via Mark Frey)
- If I could get into a time machine and be anywhere, at any point in time, it might be as a guest at one of Salvador Dalí's dinner parties. The legendary surrealist and his wife, Gala, were known to throw extravagant costumed banquets that were as surreal as his paintings. Since time machines don't exist yet, I'll have to make due with Les Diners de Gala, Dalí's cookbook filled with decadent recipes by famous French chefs and mind-blowing illustrations by the iconic genius with the twisty mustache. Only 400 copies of the original cookbook, published in 1973, are known to exist, but Taschen is about to release a reissue, which is currently available for preorder. (MyModernMet)
- Speaking of surreal foods, have you heard of Impossible Burger, the vegan burger that bleeds? Impossible Burger "looks, handles, smells, cooks and tastes like ground beef from cows" but is made entirely from plants. Based in Redwood City, Impossible Burger made its debut this week on the menus of three California restaurants: Jardinière and Cockscomb in San Francisco and Crossroads Kitchen in LA. This summer, it'll also be available at Momofuku Nishi in NYC. (Impossible Foods, Inc.)
- My god, there's some good Middle Eastern food in Los Angeles. Thanks to the influx of Middle Eastern immigrants, who arrived in the city from the ‘50s through the ‘90s, LA has wonderfully vibrant enclaves of Persians, Syrians, Lebanese, Armenians, and other Middle Easterners who've introduced and shared their delicious cuisine with the rest of us. KCET's "The Migrant Kitchen" takes a look at the history and impact of Middle Eastern cooking in Los Angeles. (KCET)
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