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One of the things that makes eating dim sum in New York City exciting is the seeming endless variety of savory and sweet morsels. Even veteran dim sum eaters are rewarded by new discoveries every so often.
An initial visit to Chatham Square Restaurant for lunch last Friday yielded just such a find. One of the dessert carts had flaky green pastries that resembled caterpillars. Oddly colored desserts are fairly common in dim sum restaurants. What made these sweets interesting is that they were made from durian. That’s right, durian, the king of fruits which Anthony Bourdain describes in A Cook’s Tour as smelling "like you'd buried somebody holding a big wheel of Stilton in his arms, then dug him up a few weeks later."
It’s not unusual to find frosty durian shakes in Vietnamese restaurants around town, but pastries made from the spiky Southeast Asian fruit were a first for a table of eaters that including a Hong Kong native and several others with deep dim sum experience. The flaky liulan soo came to the table piping hot filled with a bright yellow pudding. It had a kinder, gentler flavor than fresh durian, which has a funky undertone that can linger for quite some time after one has swallowed the last creamy bit. In fact the green and yellow treats were so tasty that almost as soon as the first plate was finished another was ordered. Nothing against Chinese desserts, but the number of times this happened can be counted on one finger.
If your curiosity about these delectable durian treats has been piqued, you’ll have to hold out a few more days; Chatham Square Restaurant only serves them on weekends.
Chatham Square Restaurant, 6 Chatham Square, 212-587-8811
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Many hotels in Southeast Asia check the bags of guests entering the hotel to make sure they haven't picked up any durian fruit during the day. The god-awful stench is almost impossible to remove once it's been in a room. Bourdain's description is fairly on the money.
Reminds me of my favorite public transportation sign..
I like how the fine isn't listed.
Oh man, I hate the smell of durian.
So good! And certainly the easiest way to enjoy durian (you may say the secret ingredient is sugar). They also have them in Jin Fong in Manhattan's Chinatown as well, but the best ones I've had are at World Tong in Brooklyn. You can really taste the durian...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59445098@N00/2255207101/
Everyone says that durian is an acquired taste. I don't think I'll ever be able to acquire it.
Not knowing what a durian was, I once bought a package of durian-flavored sugar wafers at an Asian grocery. They looked good, and I assumed--wrongly--that they'd be good. I guess I was expecting a citrus-y appeal... Oh, how wrong I was.
The smell from opening the package alone was bad enough, but I had to try it. Surely it couldn't taste as bad as it smelled, right? It's a sugar wafer. Wrong again. It was worse.
Seriously--it was so bad, I immediately sealed the whole thing up, disposed of it, and ran to my computer to find out WTF a durian was anyway.
I still can't believe somebody would disrespect a sugar wafer like that. "Durian-flavored." Wow.
Another name for durians in China is the emperor's poop.
i fucking hated durian when I was a kid. Motherfucking hated it with a passion that knew no bounds. then when I went to college I had a banh mi addiction from my roommate who was asian. Now, I can't get enough Durian shakes and the shakes are so good cause they seal off the smell. I won't eat durian fruit unless it's cold as hell though. I've noticed that many things I hated when I was younger I like now, and you have to realize that when you are young your taste buds are in a narrow group and just want sweet things and when you get older they expand and you can taste different subtleties.
i fucking hated durian when I was a kid. Motherfucking hated it with a passion that knew no bounds. then when I went to college I had a banh mi addiction from my roommate who was asian. Now, I can't get enough Durian shakes and the shakes are so good cause they seal off the smell. I won't eat durian fruit unless it's cold as hell though. I've noticed that many things I hated when I was younger I like now, and you have to realize that when you are young your taste buds are in a narrow group and just want sweet things and when you get older they expand and you can taste different subtleties.
Nice find! I like durian myself, but for folks who'd prefer a gentler introduction to the king of fruits, the durian custard at Bonobo's Vegetarian Restaurant is about as easygoing as they come. It's popular enough that they make it fresh almost every day and sell out by early afternoon.
Just thinking about this is bringing back the memories. Of burping fucking durian - dead ass, rotten-chicken-tasting, motherfucking durian - for an entire fucking night. Fuck that shit. Fuck it to death.
i fucking hated durian when I was a kid. Motherfucking hated it with a passion that knew no bounds. then when I went to college I had a banh mi addiction from my roommate who was asian. Now, I can't get enough Durian shakes and the shakes are so good cause they seal off the smell. I won't eat durian fruit unless it's cold as hell though. I've noticed that many things I hated when I was younger I like now, and you have to realize that when you are young your taste buds are in a narrow group and just want sweet things and when you get older they expand and you can taste different subtleties.
fuck
it should be spell liulian 榴莲
It's a Malay word, so Durian is the correct spelling in English.
I'm guessing that trogdor is telling us that if we've got a taste for durian in a Chinese restaurant, we should look for liulian (not liulan, as it was spelled in the original post), just as we'd look for sau rieng at a Vietnamese joint. New one on me, however you spell it.
Actually, I like durian, grew up in a country where Durian is the king of fruits. I mean, you grow up around it, you develop immunity, and affinity to the scent. Kinda like cheese. I can't stand the smell of cheese and always stay away from the cheese areas in grocery stores.
If you think durian is bad, wait till you encounter tempoyak, a delicacy made from fermented durian. Now, that is another story...