First-Time Flavors

Scott Hardie | September 13, 2023
What's the last food you tried for the first time, and what did you think of it?

Steve West | September 13, 2023
A seasoning that's apparently common in African food stores called Maggi. I tried the shrimp flavor to season a hamburger I grilled. It was surprisingly good.

Scott Hardie | September 13, 2023
Nice! I've heard of Maggi because of its catchy corporate jingle (thanks Food YouTube) but have never tried it. I will seek it out.

Today I just tried saag, which was underwhelming. I liked it fine, but I guess I have come to expect bold flavors from Indian food. Perhaps this was made mild for American consumption.

I also recently had my first lobster roll. 45 seems like a late age at which to try that food, but in my defense, I don't live in New England. :-\ Anyway, I liked it fine and would certainly have it again, but it wasn't spectacular.

The last time that I can remember loving a dish at first bite was loco moco some months ago. It's a basic Hawaiian dish -- and I mean that in a self-deprecating sense, as in, I'm a basic bitch for liking something so ordinary -- but the precise combination of flavors was a novelty all the same. I couldn't get enough.

This reminds me of a recent pet peeve of mine: Poke bowl restaurants (which are very much a fad right now) being called Hawaiian restaurants. No! That's technically true but misleading. Imagine searching online and discovering six Italian restaurants in your vicinity and being excited to try them, and then discovering that each one only serves pizza by the slice. Poke is just one subset of Hawaiian cuisine; when I think of Hawaiian food, I think of spam musubi and lau lau and plate lunch and saimin, not just poke. That's why I'm bummed when I search for Hawaiian restaurants online (ever since Sarasota's L&L closed), and instead discover ever-growing numbers of these counter-service poke bowl chain restaurants. That's like being in the mood for Mexican for dinner and having to settle for Chipotle because that's the only "Mexican restaurant" in your area.

Has anybody tried anything else new recently?

Denise Sawicki | September 22, 2023
Japanese kewpie mayonnaise. It's like regular mayonnaise, but a stronger flavor. I wouldn't really eat it plain but it's fine mixed into something.

Samir Mehta | September 22, 2023
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Denise Sawicki | September 22, 2023
Those sound like such fun things to try, Samir. The only Mexican breakfast I had really heard of before this moment was huevos rancheros!

Samir Mehta | September 22, 2023
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Denise Sawicki | September 22, 2023
It was honestly just similar to regular mayonnaise but stronger/eggier. It did make a tasty addition to fried rice. They had it at Walmart here, so it might not be too hard to find!

Scott Hardie | September 23, 2023
I've long wanted to try Kewpie! I've heard that it has a bit of a bad rep for taking over a dish, similar to Miracle Whip -- when you put it on everything, everything tastes like it -- and so I'm disappointed that one of my favorite food YouTubers tends to put it on everything: instant noodles, regular noodles, hot dogs, fried rice, tuna salad, you name it. But I haven't personally tried Kewpie, so I have no idea if that reputation is fair. It doesn't sound so from your description, Denise. I'll seek it out.

The saag that I tried was just a frozen meal from the grocery. I like most of Saffron Road's frozen dishes but this one didn't excite me. Come to think of it, their two biryani meals are good but also bland compared to the biryani that I've had in restaurants, so maybe toning down the flavor of foreign meals is their thing? They're named after spice! Anyway, I'll get the saag again and give it another try, and maybe add something to it.

That is a brilliant point about foreign breakfasts, Samir! And yes, typical Americans (including me!) almost never even think about them as an option. I bet if you asked a bunch of random people to name a Mexican breakfast dish, most would say a generic "breakfast burrito" and at least one would say a "breakfast Crunchwrap." Come to think of it, I love the "Irish people try" videos on YouTube (formerly Facts, now TRY Channel), but they had a similarly limited imagination about "Mexican breakfasts." Those dishes that you listed all look great, Samir!

Denise Sawicki | September 29, 2023
Next new thing for me: Japanese-style mochi donuts. I was surprised that this is available in Fargo, ND (since June). I expect other parts of the country have had these for a few years! I tried the ube-coconut flavor and the churro flavor. Will try strawberry soon. It is always mentioned that other countries do not have as sweet of desserts as we have in the US. It is true the dough was not sweet, but the frosting was *very* sweet. This is also my first time trying anything ube flavored, but to me the frosting was pretty much sugar-flavored.

Scott Hardie | October 5, 2023
I've enjoyed seeing photos of your mochi donuts on Facebook! I will seek those out too, but I don't know if they're available around here. Our neighborhood Shipley Do-Nuts just went out of business, a few years after we lost our favorite donut shop in the area; apparently the donut competition is fierce in this town.

There's an Amish breakfast buffet that we like to visit, and Kelly is more creative there than I am. Her latest innovation is assembling bacon and apple butter between two biscuit halves, and I wouldn't be surprised if she upgraded that to two donut halves.

The closest I've had to new food lately is barbecue-flavored chicken salad, which was unfortunately bland. It just tasted like the non-barbecue kind. Maybe I'll make my own.

Erik Bates | October 13, 2023
Samir -- I am on board with the foreign breakfast restaurant idea. Breakfast is, by far, my favorite meal of the day. If I go out to eat, I prefer to go somewhere I can get a good breakfast on a Saturday morning.

(Knead Bakehouse + Provisions, and Southwest Diner are solid choices for the St. Louis crowd)

To answer the topic question, though... I don't recall the last time I tried a new flavor. I'm rediscovering old flavors that I forgot I liked, though. Simple things like the yellow curry from Mai Lee.

Scott Hardie | October 19, 2023
I, too, love a good breakfast out, but it's so hard to get that on a Saturday morning here. Owing in part to so many local places being closed on Sundays for religious reasons, it feels like every breakfast-oriented restaurant is overwhelmed with customers from 8am onwards on Saturdays, with waits of an hour or more. The one exception is the enormous Amish breakfast buffet, but that's because they expanded to have a dining room that can seat several hundred. Weekday breakfasts can still be busy with so many retirees in the area, but at least you can usually get a table. The upside of all of this is, if you want something like IHOP or Bob Evans at night, they're empty and you get served right away.

Scott Hardie | October 20, 2023
Today I tried boxty, except it wasn't like that article describes. This version was potato balls stuffed with mozzarella cheese and deep-fried, served with pomodoro sauce. It was more like Italian dough balls than pancakes. I liked it and would have it again, but it didn't seem like Irish food to me. I ordered it because I was at an Irish restaurant and it was sadly the only exotic thing on the menu, which was otherwise familiar staples like Irish beef stew and shepherd's pie. Bummer. :-\