shaken beef is not chinese food
what I cooked this week and why I confused cuisines throughout childhood
Last week, my partner’s mom – who sniffs out good grocery deals like a shark sniffs its prey – found a sale for prime rib at a whopping $6.99/lb (compare that with the usual $15-30/lb price tag at most markets). There were only 3 left so naturally, she bought all of them and gifted us a rack. Granted, it was pre-frozen and probably on the older side, but of course, it’s nothing we can’t work with. I’m not much of a steak purist; I only buy it a couple times a year and when I do enjoy steak, I don’t usually cook it in the “traditional Western” format, ie. pan-seared, butter-basted with garlic and herbs, salt and pepper, etc. In fact, the one time I’ve had the privilege of eating A5 Miyazaki wagyu, it was hotpot. While we did order pan-seared wagyu, I enjoyed the hotpot one more, frankly (don’t @ me).
Every once in a while, I will give steak another go, say, when I am gifted five pounds of it from aunties. I also heard that yuzu kosho goes well with steak and bought some on a whim, waiting for the next opportunity to see for myself. To prep, I broke down the prime rib into 3 ribeye steaks, leaving one of them on the thicker side (~2inches) for the traditional pan-sear-then-roasted route. After generously coating with salt, I let the hunk of meat sit in the fridge on a rack to season for two days.
With the remaining 2 ribeyes, I cut them further down into bite-sized cubes, taking the opportunity to try making what might be my favorite way to enjoy steak: bo luc lac, or shaken beef. This particular dish sends me back to dinner dates with my a-ma (my father’s mom) in the San Gabriel Valley, where the dish has been adopted and tweaked by other immigrant restauranteurs, each with their own spinoffs. Back in the day, Chinese restaurants may have listed it as “Stir-fried Filet Mignon with Black Pepper” (not to be confused with Black Pepper Beef) or something of the like, so I actually grew up believing that it was a Chinese-Taiwanese dish. It wasn’t until very recently – when I began revisiting some childhood favorite foods – that I learned of the dish’s true name and origin, bo luc lac from Vietnam (though Cambodia sometimes considers it as one of its national dishes).
I’m unsure of who started putting it on menus in the SGV but Newport Seafood Restaurant often gets the street cred for popularizing it in an upscale, banquet-style setting. Its owners, Wendy Lam and Ly Hua, are of Teochew descent (with family roots in Guangdong) but were born in Cambodia before their lives were upturned by war and the Khmer rouge regime. Like many others who were displaced, Lam and her mother’s lives tumultuously meandered throughout Southeast Asia – first seeking asylum in Vietnam, then Thailand, then the Philippines – before finally settling in the States. Ly’s family, on the other hand, was able to flee Cambodia to Hong Kong before the conflict escalated. The two met while working at the same restaurant in Santa Ana, California, where their nascent partnership would eventually birth one of the most acclaimed restaurants in Southern California.
Newport Seafood is an amalgamation (and portfolio, of sorts) of the Wendy and Ly’s family-cultural roots and life experiences; it traces the movements of many others within the Teochew diaspora and the unique confluence of cuisines that resulted from their turbulent migrations. Growing up, I didn’t realize I was surrounded by so many Teochew restaurants, oftentimes frequenting other mom-and-pop joints in the same strip malls. Before my deep dive into Chinese gastronomy and regional cuisines, I was largely unaware of Teochew-American immigrant foodways but they’re particularly intriguing to me now as I’m realizing just how similar they are Taiwanese and Cantonese food cultures.
History trip: before the mass exodus of mainlanders to Taiwan in 1949, the vast majority of “Taiwanese” were descended from Fujian settlers who crossed the straight for centuries prior (including my ancestors). Chaoshan actually sits in the Northeastern corner of Guangdong – between the Hakka highlands and Fujian’s southern border; naturally, their cuisines bear close resemblance to each other. You can see it in their tasteful use of preserved, dried goods, the omnipresence of seafood in every meal, and a mutual obsession with shacha and xiānwei. In fact, the Chaoshan, Southern Fujianese, and Hakka share so many similarities in their food that they often claim each other’s recipes as their own – Sesame Oil Chicken Soup (mayouji) and Oyster Omelet, being a few examples. Aside from being geographic neighbors and having a shared/similar terroir, they are believed to have common ancestry as Han Chinese who fled the North (All Under Heaven, Carolyn Phillips). While many Southern Fujianese and Hakka crossed the Taiwan straight, the Teochew headed southward towards Southeast Asia; thus, Chaoshan is now considered the ancestral homeland to most Viets, Cambodians, Thais, Malaysians and Singaporeans of Chinese descent.
It kind of blows my mind that we all somehow ended up here in the same, suburban pocket of Southern California. Whether through civil war and violence, or government repression from the KMT, or simply the allure of American aspirational living, our paths converged once again, sharing the same homes, neighborhoods, and strip malls. The San Gabriel Valley became the perfect incubator for cultural confluence, being the home so many immigrant communities. Ideas were shared, techniques were “borrowed”, heirloom recipes were traded and adapted to their new contexts. Restaurants featuring hyper-regional specialties might still break character and serve a dish from a competitor but rebrand it as their own (a classic Chinese-American entrepreneur tactic). The resulting melange was a cuisine of its own, a cuisine of diaspora. Though our peoples are of shared ancestry, our culinary and cultural inheritances have aged differently from generations of being apart. But we ended up in the same place again, in a land far from “home” but ripe for another round of cross-pollination.
It’s no wonder that I confused bo luc lac for a Chinese dish at an early age. Even now, to parse through the distinct ethnic groups and foodways of Asian Americans is a daunting, and baffling, task, no less in a place as diverse as the SGV. I’m coming to terms with the fact that much of my journey and personal work with food is this very task of piecing together the big puzzle that is the Asian-American cuisine of the San Gabriel Valley. For me, pursuing authenticity in food traditions is not so much about food that’s authentic in Taiwan (though a small fraction of recipes may be that), but food that’s authentic within the SGV, circa late 90’s-2010’s. When I first recognized that, I was admittedly a little disappointed. Perhaps it was an acknowledgment that I couldn’t really do “true” Taiwanese food, only Taiwanese-American food, unless I were to move back to Taiwan to study (things aren’t looking too bright on that front). But it took me learning from other minority, immigrant, and BIPOC food professionals who celebrate their quirky, immigrant family recipes to accept that the cuisine of diaspora is nothing short of beautiful and miraculous. It may not look or taste exactly like how it does on the motherland but it is still worth savoring, craving, even studying, finding immense pride in, and growing nostalgic for.
And finally, the part you and I have been waiting for. How did it taste? Well, not quite what I was looking for, predictably so. I cross-referenced David Nguyen’s recipe with Pailin’s from Hot Thai Kitchen (along with some reddit recipes), as I often do when trying a dish for the first time. The result was quite delicious (my favorite part is dipping the steak cubes in lime juice, then stamping it with black pepper) but it didn’t taste how it was “supposed” to. Nostalgia can be like that sometimes. I’m motivated to try this again, perhaps with filet mignon and a different marinade, but I’ll probably wait until a-yi finds another deal on steak.
Not going to lie, I almost forgot to write about the other ribeye steak I saved in the fridge two days ago. Well, you probably know how this one goes. Season with salt and pepper, sear it in a cast iron pan while basting with butter, garlic, and rosemary, then finish in the oven. I’ve only pan-seared so many times in my life, but I think this steak takes the crown. Though I doubt it has much to do with my steak-cooking abilities and more so the sheer size of that thing (~2inches thick), as bigger steaks are simply that much easier to cook. The exterior was impossibly crusty (hence the two-day fridge period), like almost too crusty that the roof of my mouth was getting scraped up, but it was delicious and juicy nonetheless. I then whipped up a yuzu kosho dressing with cilantro and lemon juice to balance things out a bit. Not pictured: leftover steak tacos the next day!
…
In light of recent events, I’d like to just leave this here. Stay safe, friends.
personal things from the week
Listening to: Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar, THE FUNK WILL PREVAIL by Kaelin Ellis
Watching: The World Between Us (my first tw drama! very good 👍 )
Reading: How Food Became the Perfect Beachhead for Gentrification, Pascale Joassart-Marcelli (in participation of Studio ATAO’s latest townhall meeting)
Drinking: Camber Coffee Luis Chasoy (V60), Verve Coffee Sermon Blend (espresso)
Nice thing I did for myself this week: bought fresh, handmade pasta (pappardelle with pesto)