Toa Toa in Sunrise

Dim Sum "Of The Heart"

By Richard Pachter

In business, we're taught to always have a "Plan B," but I'd add that it's wise to make sure that the alternative is as good or better than the original.

In other words, when you're dealt lemons, don't just make lemonade — make a lemon daiquiri!

One recent afternoon, I invited a group of music producers and audio teachers from The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale for lunch at a west Broward Japanese-Thai-Vietnamese emporium, but when I arrived early, it was closed!

Fortunately, Toa Toa, one of South Florida's very best Chinese restaurants, was nearby and for our group, the substitution turned out to be fortuitous.

Situated in a cool corner of an expansive shopping center in Sunrise, Toa Toa is a reliable purveyor of Cantonese, Mandarin, Hunan and Szechwan favorites. It also excels in the popular dishes customized for American palates such as chicken chow mein, shrimp with lobster sauce, beef lo mein and the like.

But the best thing about Toa Toa is its delightful dim sum. Dim sum, which means "of the heart," originated in Canton's tea houses.

Each order consists of a single, small portion of steamed or fried dumplings, buns, stuffed vegetables, noodles, meats, fish, or steaming bowls of soup with noodles, shrimp, fish, meat, and vegetables. A meal consists of an array of these small plates, usually shared among several people, family-style.

For business lunches, a meal of dim sum at Toa Toa is a powerful catalyst for instant conviviality. You might not want to invite a stuffy, uptight client or boss for lunch here, unless, of course, they are predisposed toward lightening up a bit or you know they love Chinese cuisine.

But its scrumptious little plates, efficient service and reasonable prices make Toa Toa the ideal spot for a friendly repast, for business or pleasure. Plus, the variety and staggered arrival of each dish provides convenient pauses for lively conversation.

Our group of eight was seated after a very short wait. The server handed us a slender paper menu listing each of the available items in English and Chinese. A "regular" menu was also included, as was a laminated pictorial guide to the dim sum dishes, along with a pencil.

I wrote the desired number of portions of each item on the menu and handed it back to the server after announcing the choices our group would share to my assenting guests.

Shrimp dumplings are usually a favorite, so four orders of the four-dumpling dish were requested. We also ordered multiple portions of siu mei (wonton skins filled with a pork and shrimp mixture); stuffed eggplant; beef rice paste (a flat rice dumpling filled with chopped and seasoned beef); steamed pork and chicken dumplings (which had an airy pastry-like texture); fried crab claws and silver noodles, which resembled malformed bean sprout shafts combined with strips of scrambled egg, shrimp and roast pork. Yum!

Each dish arrived at our table hot from the kitchen. First up were the shrimp dumplings. A splash of soy sauce and a drizzle of (spicy) chili oil gave them an extra kick.

Audio engineer Ed Mashal, one of my guests (check the credits of your copy of the Eagles album "Hotel California"), declared that it was "fantastic!" He doesn't eat meat, so he passed on the siu mei, which appeared shortly thereafter, but Russ Ben-Ezzer and Brian Campbell, partners of StepBrother Productions (www.stepbro.com), devoured them with gusto — and chili oil.

Ray Dawson of Deerfield's Zero Digital noted that "the prices here are amazing."

Indeed. They ranged from $2.45 for the shrimp dumplings to $5.95 for the silver noodles (take-out and dinner prices are slightly higher). The eight of us stuffed ourselves for under $80 plus tip. True, if we'd ordered drinks, the tab would have increased, but the hot tea was the ideal accompaniment for the steamed and fried dishes.


Logistics

• Rating: Terrific food — and the price is more than right.
• Details: Located in an outdoor shopping center with ample parking.

The Basics

• Address: 4145 NW 88th Ave., Sunrise (Pine Plaza). 954-746-8833.
• Type of food: Mandarin, Hunan, Szechwan and Cantonese favorites, especially dim sum.
• Average prices: Approximately $10 per person for lots of small plates and hot tea.
• Service: Friendly, helpful and non-intrusive.
• Atmosphere: Broward neighborhood, family Chinese.
• Best for: Inducing or reinforcing instant conviviality and a spirit of sharing among business colleagues.
• Linger factor: Until drowsy.
• Hours: Monday, Tuesday and Thursday: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday: 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.; Sunday: 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Closed Wednesday.
• Credit cards: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover.
• Reservations: Not necessary, but not a bad idea for larger parties. 
• Website: http://www.toatoachineserestaurant.com

Originally published 2005 in the Miami Herald

MasterChef Magazine

 

Masterchef

I used to subscribe to several— well, many — food and cooking magazines; Gourmet, Food & Wine and a zillion others on and off over the years. And like most gourmands, I dig the hell out of reading cookbooks. In fact, I'll be posting some reviews soon of some of my old faves and new ones, too.

I'm not a regular viewer of Gordon Ramsay's TV shows. I hear he's a terrific chef, but the shouting, drama and humiliation don't appeal to me. I did like a solo show by Ramsay (Gordon's Great Escape) where he toured several Asian countries and cooked. That was a blast!

Recently, I got a copy of a cooking magazine based on his MasterChef show. The publisher (actually, its publicist) referred to this as a "bookazine," and though I'm not nuts about that clunky neologism, the 144-page issue is brimming with recipes, features, profiles and absolutely gorgeous photography — all devoted to food and technique, with a little bit of personalty stuff larded through the text, though thankfully not enough to dominate the proceedings.

Along with Ramsay, fellow MasterChef hosts Joe Bastianich and Graham Elliot are featured. (Bastianich, by the way, is business partners with my old pal, Mario Batali. Nice!) And sure, there's little tidbits about their lives and personalities — even something about their moms (Joe's is the famous Lidia Bastianich, no slouch herself!) but not enough to turn this into a pie-eyed celebrity magazine, thankfully.

In addition to those guys, there's a nice piece on crab cakes by ubiquitous food writers Jane and Michael Stern (with recipes, of course), as well as plenty of content from the show's participants, all pretty good chefs in their own right. There's also a helpful recipe index in the back, like all good food magazines and books!

I'll have to run a few of the recipes here. Some are a little too precious and froufrou for me, personally, but there's a bunch that are appealing and relatively straightforward. Pollo Con Futtas looked really tasty!

In any event, it's on newstands now and if you'd like to grab something worth reading and rereading, and will probably get stained by sauce and oil and whatnot from your kitchen while you're cooking some of the things herein, give MasterChef a shot.

Mario Batali Cooking Class!

He was promoting his sauce.

Potluck Potato Kugel

You can make kugel with zuchini, potatoes and probably lots of other vegetables. It's basically an egg pudding.
Here's a version I threw together last night that was quite good.



Potluck Potato Kügel

Feel free to add and subtract things that make sense (ex. cooked or grated carrots).
This will probably work with up to a cup of leftover mashed potatoes. I had about 2/3 cup.

Add about 1 tbs. each chopped green pepper, celery and onion. 1 minced garlic clove. Salt and pepper to taste. (I used white pepper.)

2 jumbo eggs.

A little (1-2 tbs.) matzo meal, cracker meal or breadcrumbs.

A dash of turmeric (for health and color.) A dash of smoked paprika (can't hurt!)

1 tbs. rendered chicken fat or olive oil if you're not into the schmaltz.

Mix well with a fork. Pour into a greased oven-proof dish (I used a Pyrex bowl). Allow room for it to rise about 50%.

Bake in a tabletop convection oven (a/k/a glorified toaster oven) at 425° for approx. 25 minutes until golden (not burnt) brown.

Allow to cool slightly before serving.

Probably works in a conventional oven, too. Lemme know.

Feed a cold and feed a fever

Got a cold? Feel one coming on? Or just feel blah. Here's what you need...

Almost every neighborhood Chinese restaurant I've encountered has something on the menu called "house special won ton soup" or "ten-ingredient soup," made up of broth, roast pork, chicken, shrimp and vegetables plus a few won tons. (If you don't eat meat or chicken or shrimp, decent restaurants will be happy to accommodate your needs and if not, keep going until you find one!)

The soup is usually pretty good as-is but if you can get it to-go, grab a quart (about $5-$6), bring it home, add some raw onions, chopped fresh garlic, celery, cayenne and any other vegetables you have around: Carrots, bell pepper, mushrooms, jalapenos... like that. And if you have any cooked chicken, why the hell not. Tofu, too, if you like.

Tabasco or other hot sauce should be added to taste.

And if you want to dump in some cooked rice or noodles, sure. Ramen noodles will work, too.

You will feel better while you eat it, at the very least, guaranteed.

Deep Fried Turkey Parts

Well, after extensive research, I've concluded that it's not worth doing. If you like deep frying a whole turkey, well yeah, do the parts separately in the same drum or other conveyance you do the whole bird in — preferably outdoors.

But doing parts in oil on the stove? Nah.

I tried it and though the turkey was edible and actually pretty good, it's more trouble than it's worth in terms of mess and fumes and such.

Besides, braising a turkey is even better. Roasting is fine, too. You can even make osso buco out of the drumsticks. I'll have to post the full recipe soon. (And maybe I will.)

Hainanese Chicken With Rice

Saw this recipe in the New York Times along with a blog post and video from Mark Bittman.

Had actually made something similar a few years back, as well as a variation with pork. But I really liked the simplicity of this dish, which I modified slightly then left a comment about it on the Times website.

If you prefer dark meat, as I do, just use legs or thighs or leg quarters. Take the skin off to reduce the fat, or leave a little on for flavor; most chickens have plenty of fat anyway.

If you have leftovers, make fried rice with the extra and either add some chopped-up chicken when done or heat the leftovers and serve alongside.

This dish is a favorite comfort food in many Asian counties so feel free to poke around a bit and look for the "best" version, which varies per local pride.