Latest news with #CalvinEng
WIRED
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- WIRED
MSG Is (Once Again) Back on the Table
May 11, 2025 6:30 AM Monosodium glutamate has a poor reputation in the US, which is both unfortunate and based on misinformation. A spate of new cookbooks highlighting its powers is here to awaken our senses. Photo-Illustration:All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. Making a recent dinner, my wife Elisabeth put together Sohla El-Waylly's 'hot and tingly' smashed cucumber salad, a wisp of a recipe that combines favorite ingredients like cukes, chili crisp, salt, sugar, and rice vinegar, along with something less commonly used in our household, MSG. Tucking in, it wasn't a surprise that the salad was good, but the monosodium glutamate gave it an extra savory deliciousness that made me wonder if Elisabeth intentionally set the salad bowl out of my reach. In my decades living in North America and Europe, MSG was an unfortunately infrequently used ingredient, yet here it was making our tongues happy. Being drawn to it now was inspired by a trend I picked up on while reading some of the best new and recent cookbooks. Easiest to pick out is the just-released Salt Sugar MSG , by Calvin Eng and Phoebe Melnick, that's a Cantonese-American extravaganza of deliciousness. Tu David Phu and Soleil Ho made regular use of MSG in 2024's The Memory of Taste , and Meathead Goldwyn makes a plea for its use with a special section way up on page five of his brand-new cookbook, The Meathead Method . Plugging MSG into Eat Your Books, a subscription service that allows you to search recipes from within your own cookbook collection, I could see that among my cookbooks, El-Waylly makes great use of it in her 2023 James Beard Award book, Start Here . Helen Graves has a recipe for an MSG martini in her BBQ Days, BBQ Nights , along with a warning that—I'll paraphrase—you'll likely get hammered if you have more than one of them. Salt Sugar MSG , By Calvin Eng with Phoebe Melnick. Buy it at Amazon ($29), ($35), or Powell's ($38) Courtesy of Clarkson Potter/Crown Publishing If I searched Eat Your Books for MSG but took out the results from these books, the list dried up to almost nothing. That's a shame considering what great work the ingredient does in the kitchen. El-Waylly uses it in that cucumber salad, a cauliflower and coconut soup, and a cool pistachio ranch fun dip made fun because she loves ranch. Meathead likes it on chicken, mac and cheese, and meat in general. Tu David Fu uses it with stir-fried clams, sticky rice dumplings, and tomato-braised salmon belly. Calvin Eng uses it on just about everything. "I keep salt, sugar, MSG on my counter all the time," says Eng who's such a fan that he has a little MSG heart tattoo on the back of his left arm. A self-professed "lover and user of MSG on a massive scale," he still has aha moments with it that help him appreciate its power. His favorite example is Cantonese chicken broth with scallions, garlic, ginger, and Shaoxing wine, finished with salt and MSG. Once for a private dinner, he featured a head-to-head tasting of the broth with salt next to broth with salt and MSG and was deeply impressed at the difference. "It adds so much umami," he says, referring to the savory "fifth taste" that accompanies salt, sweet, sour, and bitter. "It adds a layer. It makes you want more." Indeed, I tried little head-to-heads with mugs of my own broth and enjoyed getting a hang of its effects and how to use it. Salt adds depth, but salt and MSG can make broth bigger, deeper, rounder, and more delicious. Seasoning with MSG takes practice. Eng mentions that he didn't fully understand it until he worked in restaurant kitchens, but offers a simple suggestion on how to get used to using it. "Have it on your counter next to your salt," he counsels. 'Use both, but use less salt than you normally would, and taste as you go.' More Than This MSG is derived from glutamic acid (one of the amino acids) and is naturally occurring in delicious, umami-packed foods like anchovies, parmesan, tomatoes, and kelp. When I asked chef turned food scientist, author, and fermentation expert David Zilber about how MSG makes things so delicious, he responded with his own question: "Shall I put this in Cheeto terms for you?" My response was an emphatic yes. "Glutamate is one of the most abundant amino acids in the living world. When you take it out of its natural context and add it to other foods in large quantities, it gets you to eat more," he explains. "They are like the signals in nature that the human body looks for when searching for the most digestible and nutritious foods. It hacks ancient and primal physiology to make bland foods more palatable and moreish." Perhaps this makes my whole ritual of keeping a damp cloth next to my snack-touching hand on my annual (?) Cheeto binge make more sense. Cravings are certainly affected by what we do and don't like, Zilber explains, "but at the chemical level, smell and taste are the most 'hands in the dirt' senses our body has." Courtesy of Clarkson Potter/Crown Publishing For as helpful as it is for making food better, the ingredient has had a tough go of it in North America. MSG "is derived from glutamic acid, one of the 22 amino acids," says my 2007 copy of The Food Lover's Companion , which calls the ingredient a popular flavor enhancer in Japan and China. It also says "some people have reactions to MSG that caused them to suffer from a variety of maladies, including dizziness, headache, flushing, and burning sensations," information that is, like my copy, dated. This stems from a 1968 letter from Robert Ho Man Kwok printed in the New England Journal of Medicine, citing symptoms like dizziness, headache, and nausea that were dubbed 'Chinese restaurant syndrome' and prompted many Chinatown restaurants around the world to hang glowing neon 'NO MSG' signs on their front windows. Problematically, it appears that either Kwok's story was more anecdotal than science-based or an orthopedic surgeon named Howard Steel penned the letter as part of a $10 bet with a colleague to see if he could get it published in a prestigious medical journal. Regardless, the Journal never made enough of an effort to correct things as they spiraled into a problem and a faux syndrome was born. (More on this in act one of this April 2025 episode of This American Life .) Stuff like this makes for yarns that would be a lot more enjoyable if they didn't trail a 50-year xenophobic stink in their wake, and the "MSG is bad for you" stereotype persists. Too much of it can be harmful to you if you're ingesting ridiculous quantities. As El-Waylly writes, 'If you have 1/2 cup of it on an empty stomach without food, you might feel ill, as you would from eating 1/2 cup of salt.' The dose makes the poison. Eng's solution for promoting MSG, and one he encourages other chefs and food professionals to mimic, is right there on the cover of his book: Talk about it. Normalize it. Try it out. Personally, I grabbed the aforementioned books and started cooking from them. Along with the hot and tingly cuke salad, El-Wally's dill pickle cucumber salad with pickle brine, onions, and toasted coriander seeds is another great place to start, and something that nearly set off a dinnertime squabble over who got the last bowl at a Ray-family meal. I tried Eng's popcorn recipe, which also features a dusting of toasted Szechuan peppercorns, fried garlic, MSG, and melted butter. I riffed on his sour cream and green onion dip, making mine with caramelized onions, then showering it with chives from my garden, quick-pickled onions, black pepper, and crumbled store-bought fried onions. Not long afterward, I made a rather exquisite bagel with butter, cream cheese, smoked salmon, shallot, scallion, salt, pepper, and MSG. It's hard for something with ingredients this fantastic not to be delicious, but I started thinking that the MSG turned them all into the best versions of themselves. There's a ways to go before MSG is anywhere near as mainstream as salt, but until then, I invite you to join me on the Normalization Team and, like Eng suggests, keep a container of it on the counter, right next to the salt.
BBC News
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Where to get New York City's best Chinese food
Where to get New York City's best Chinese food 8 minutes ago Share Save Kate Heddings Share Save Ernesto Roman (Credit: Ernesto Roman) Proud New Yorker chef Calvin Eng is known for his daring reinterpretations of Chinese cuisine. Here's where he goes when he wants homestyle Chinese food, from dim sum to egg tarts. Though its original Chinatown in Lower Manhattan – dating to the 1870s – is the most well-known, New York City is actually home to nine official Chinatowns spread across its five boroughs; each reflecting the rich regional diversity of Chinese cuisine. The city's first Chinatown took root when Chinese immigrants, many from southern China, arrived either directly or relocated from the US's West Coast, fleeing anti-Chinese sentiment. Early businesses were mostly rice shops and teahouses, but by the early 1900s, full-service restaurants emerged, drawing curious diners from all over New York. By the mid-20th Century, Chinese food, in all its glorious forms, had become as associated with New York City as the humble bagel or the New York slice. The SpeciaList Brooklyn-born Calvin Eng is the chef and owner of Bonnie's, which has been praised in the New York Times, The New Yorker, Grub Street, Eater and Bon Appétit. Eng is a James Beard Emerging Chef finalist, a Food & Wine Best New Chef, a Forbes 30 under 30 recipient, a StarChefs Rising Star and a two-time James Beard Best Chef: New York State Semifinalist. His cookbook, Salt Sugar MSG, was published on 18 March 2025. Among the new generation carrying this legacy forward is chef Calvin Eng, the owner of Bonnie's; a Cantonese American restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, that has been lauded for its inventive interpretations of Cantonese cuisine. Eng grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, learning to cook the food of Guangdong (formerly known as Canton) from his mother, the eponymous Bonnie. Weekends were spent visiting his grandparents on Bayard Street in New York City's Lower Manhattan Chinatown, where he developed a deep connection to the neighbourhood and its food. "There's just so much good food in such a small area," Eng says. "You learn what's worth lining up for and what's best eaten on a subway platform." These days, Eng gets his Cantonese fix at a variety of New York's Chinatowns, from Sunset Park to Bensonhurst, each offering its own take on Chinese flavours – from the seafood-heavy dishes of Guangdong to the bold, spicy flavours of Sichuan and Hunan. Despite the breadth of regional styles found across the city, Eng's focus remains rooted in the cuisine of southern China. Unlike other styles, Cantonese food is known for its lightness and simplicity, emphasising fresh ingredients, particularly seafood – a reflection of the region's coastal geography. Heavy spices are rare, and rice – not wheat – is the dominant starch. "Cantonese food is very low on acid and heat," Eng explains. "We use minimal ingredients that allow the main ingredients to shine." Here are Eng's favourite places to get Chinese food in New York City. Ernesto Roman Yi Ji Shi Mo on Elizabeth Street is a hole-in-the-wall serving Eng's favourite cheung fun (Credit: Ernesto Roman) 1. Best cheung fun: Yi Ji Shi Mo (Lower Manhattan) Insiders know that in Chinatowns across the world, some of the most unassuming places have the best food. Yi Ji Shi Mo – a tiny, below-street-level hole-in-the-wall on Lower Manhattan's Elizabeth Street – is no exception. Here, the specialty is made-to-order cheung fun; Cantonese-style steamed rice rolls filled with shrimp, beef, pork and other savoury ingredients. Cheung fun can be found all over New York City's Chinatowns, but Eng says what makes the offerings at Yi Ji Shi Mo stand out is their rice wrapper: it's perfectly thin with a satisfying chew and bounce. "They mill the rice into flour fresh every morning to make the batter," he explains. "Then they steam it, fill it, roll it up, pop it in a takeout box, give you a packet of their seasoned soy sauce, and you're on your way." Eng eats cheung fun for breakfast, lunch or just a snack whenever he's in the area. The wait can be a bit long since everything is made fresh, but he says it's worth it – or you can try calling ahead. "My go-to is always the large – which isn't even that large – with beef, scallion and cilantro," he says. "And I just douse it in their soy sauce." Address: 88 Elizabeth Street, New York, NY 10013 Phone: +1 646-233-6311 Ernesto Roman When the Grand Street Skewer Cart is open, the aroma of Xinjian-style meat skewers perfumes the block (Credit: Ernesto Roman) 2. Best for Xinjian skewers: Grand Street Skewer Cart (Lower Manhattan) A little slice of Xinjian, an autonomous region in north-western China, can be found at the iconic Grand Street Skewer Cart on Lower Manhattan's Grand Street. The vendors are a husband-and-wife duo who prepare Xinjian-style meat skewers (yang rou chuan) straight out of a cooler; you can smell the sizzling aroma of roasted lamb and spicy cumin from over a block away, says Eng. "I don't know what their schedule is, but when they're there, it's a treat, like a special surprise," he says. "If it's raining, snowing or even just a little cold, they're probably not going to be there. But when the weather's nice, you have to take the chance and go." The cart is set up just outside a busy train station, and like many commuters, Eng buys a bunch of the inexpensive skewers to eat on the subway ride home to Brooklyn. The selection is impressive: lamb, beef, chicken, fish balls, mushrooms, onions, leeks – even aubergine. "Whether you get it spicy or not is up to you," Eng says, "but the spicy skewers are very, very tasty." "The cart is really special and unique – you don't find anything like it in Chinatown," he adds. "Restaurants aren't doing this kind of thing because it's live fire and not easy to pull off. Getting to experience that on the street is very cool." Address: Corner of Grand St and Chrystie Street, New York, NY 10002 Ernesto Roman Hop Lee has been serving bountiful Chinese banquets in New York City's Chinatown since 1973 (Credit: Ernesto Roman) 3. Best Chinese banquet: Hop Lee Restaurant (Lower Manhattan) The Chinese banquet experience is a joyful multi-course feast typically shared at big, round tables to celebrate birthdays, weddings or even just a fun night out with friends. Eng's go-to for a classic banquet is Hop Lee on Mott Street; a beloved Chinatown institution since 1973, with all the essentials: oversized tables, lazy Susans and a vast menu. "They have the old-school stuff you can't get all in one place anymore," Eng says. Highlights include razor clams in black bean sauce, honey walnut shrimp and a wide variety of chicken dishes: half, whole, poached, fried. But one dish in particular stands out to Eng: the eternally popular Cantonese lobster with pork. "It starts with the Chinese trinity of ginger, garlic and scallions," Eng explains. The lobster is broken down Chinese-style, which means it's chopped into 14 easy-to-eat pieces, so there's no need for cracking shells. "The flavours of the trinity really come through in the wok," he says, "and they stir-fry it with ground pork, which adds this whole extra layer of depth that most lobster dishes just don't have. It's delicious." Website: Address: 16 Mott Street, New York, NY 10013 Phone: +1 212-962-6475 Instagram: @hop_lee_nyc/ Ernesto Roman Roasted meats like char siu reign supreme at King's Kitchen in Chinatown (Credit: Ernesto Roman) 4. Best roasted meats: King's Kitchen (Manhattan, Brooklyn) Throughout the winding streets of Manhattan's Chinatown, roast ducks, chickens and slabs of pork hang in steamy restaurant windows. For Eng, King's Kitchen stands out for serving the best of these iconic barbecued meats. With multiple locations across Manhattan and Brooklyn, the purveyor offers a vast menu, including dim sum, but it's the roasted meats that keep Eng coming back. Insider tip: When ordering char siu, Eng says you can request your preferred cuts. "You can order lean, you can order fat or you can order half and half," says Eng, who orders his half fatty, half lean. "The guy at the counter will know which cuts to pull and chop for your order. If you don't specify, they just give you whatever." But, he adds, "I think it's a very different eating experience to get what you prefer. I love the half-and-half bites." "The char siu (roast pork) is perfectly balanced – sweet and salty, charred and glistening because it's always fresh," he says. The marinade, a blend that includes bean paste and Chinese five-spice, is rubbed inside the cavity of the pig, giving the meat deep, rich flavour all the way through. "King's Kitchen does steady business, so they're popping out fresh things all the time," Eng adds. "This way you know the meat is not just sitting there all day." Website: Address: 92 East Broadway, New York, NY 10002 Phone: +1 212-966-7288 Instagram: @jinhuanggroup/ Ernesto Roman BK Seafood Market in Sunset Park is Eng's go-to for the freshest Chinese-style seafood (Credit: Ernesto Roman) 5. Best seafood: BK Seafood Market (Sunset Park, Brooklyn) When he's in the mood for seafood, Eng heads to Brooklyn's Sunset Park neighbourhood to hit BK Seafood Market – a large restaurant with rows of bubbling tanks filled with live fish, crustaceans and molluscs. Diners can pick exactly what they want and have it cooked to order, just minutes from tank to table. "It's a rare opportunity to eat something that was literally swimming two minutes before it was cooked," says Eng. One of his favourite orders is king crab prepared three ways, a "massive feast of king crab", he says. He also chooses a fresh whole fish and asks for it steamed with soy sauce, ginger and spring onions. "When the seafood is this fresh, you don't want to ruin it," he says. "Steaming keeps it clean and simple and that's how you taste how good it really is." Website: Address: 842 64th St, Brooklyn, NY 11220 Phone: +1 718-836-6888 Instagram: @bkseafoodmarket1/ Ernesto Roman The menu at Park Asia offers a huge selection of seasonal and rotating dim sum specials (Credit: Ernesto Roman) 6. Best dim sum: Park Asia (Sunset Park, Brooklyn) "If I want the full dim sum experience, I go for a big location – a place with, like, 1,000 seats," says Eng. For that, he heads to Park Asia; a sprawling two-storey space with high ceilings and a bright, bustling vibe. "It's where I had my son's 100-day party [a celebration marking a child's first 100 days in Chinese culture] with 100 people," he says. For Eng, the ideal dim sum restaurant offers the most variety. "When I get dim sum from a cart, I want a lot of different things on the table," he says. And the key to a good spot? "It should be packed. That means the food's fresh, and nothing's been sitting on the cart for more than half an hour." The selection is huge, from pork siu mai and shrimp dumplings to specials that rotate with the seasons. In the evenings, Park Asia shifts into banquet-style dining, but the dim sum crowd is always out in full force – even on a Monday morning. Website: Address: 6521 8th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11220 Phone: +1 718-833-1688 Instagram: @parkasiarestaurant/ Ernesto Roman The dan tat at Xin Fa Bakery are always hot and fresh (Credit: Ernesto Roman) 7. Best Hong Kong-style egg tarts: Xin Fa Bakery (Sunset Park, Brooklyn) For the best egg tarts in the city, Eng makes a beeline to Xin Fa Bakery. But he doesn't just buy one. "You get a dozen," he says. "They're always hot and always fresh." These are the classic Hong Kong-style dan tat – small, flaky tarts filled with silky egg custard. For Eng, the perfect one has a wobble. "When you bite into it, it should be jiggly and almost fall out of the crust," he explains. "You don't want it to be fully set. And you definitely don't want to see your teeth marks in it." Website: Address: 5617 8th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11220 Phone: +1 718-871-2889 BBC Travel's The SpeciaList is a series of guides to popular and emerging destinations around the world, as seen through the eyes of local experts and tastemakers. -- If you liked this story, sign up for The Essential List newsletter – a handpicked selection of features, videos and can't-miss news, delivered to your inbox twice a week.
The Herald Scotland
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
A chef's favourite restaurant for Chinese food in Edinburgh
It was named "Restaurant of the Year" by the Asian Catering Federation in 2023, and Au was named "Best Asian Chef in Scotland" by the Asian Catering Federation in 2024. At only 27 he has been identified as 'one to watch' by the industry, making Code Hospitality Bulletin's 30 Under 30 list for 24/25. This week, he answers our chef Q&A. Pictured: Jun Au, chef patron at Pomelo in Edinburgh (Image: Supplied) What was your first kitchen job? The Grain store in Edinburgh. It was such a great place to start out as a young chef. Carlo Coxon taught me quite a lot, and had lots of patience with me. Where is your favourite place to eat out? Casually? China Bowl in Newington is a great Chinese food spot. If we are celebrating something, either Fhior as I think Scott Smith is a great chef or Fazenda on George Street. It's such a good deal, I love all you can eat restaurants. What is your guilty pleasure meal? Chippy steak and chips! It tastes so good, but for my health? I can compare it to putting diesel fuel in a petrol car. Can you share a memory of your worst kitchen disaster? I was in charge of making roasties when I was younger at a pub and used sugar instead of salt. It was so brutal, I had to throw away around four gastro trays. Hand-ripped noodles! I don't think I would be doing what I'm doing without this dish. Who would you say is your biggest inspiration? It's a cliche, but my parents. In the industry? It's Calvin Eng, author of Salt Sugar MSG and Brandon Jew from Mister Jiu's in San Francisco Brandon Jew or Calvin Eng. They are the people I aspire to cook like. What is one of your pet peeves working as a chef? Making a mistake, then trying to hide it or make excuses. If you messed up or made a mistake, own it. If you weren't a chef, what do you think you'd be doing with your life? Something to do with sports, I loved playing sports at school and being in a competitive team environment. Pictured: A selection of dishes from Pomelo in Edinburgh (Image: Supplied) What's your favourite trick for making cooking at home easier? When making sauces, take time to reduce stocks a little more than you think. It increases the depth of flavour of the dish What has been the one highlight that stands out in your career so far? Probably being named in CODE's 30 under 30 this year, or being in the OFM awards 2023.
