I've been curious about Ned Ludd for a while, as it seemed to be part of that Portland hipster-foodie family. It's on an odd stretch of MLK Boulevard, so I'd never even seen it, despite the fact that it's not too far from my new house. Somewhere while indulging in my almost daily habit of reading restaurant menus online, I checked up on theirs and saw things like rustic old-school pickles and puerh tea kombucha on the beverage menu. That, along with all of the homemade meats and diversity of vegetable dishes really got me interested. Then, I checked back on their website and saw that they'd taken over the empty lot behind the restaurant and turned it into a community garden, and I was sold.

Initially, I didn't rush to Ned Ludd because most of the menu comes out of their wood-fired oven. When I hear that, I immediately think "pizza," and since I jumped off of the wheat train a while ago, I was hesitant. What I discovered last night was that the fruit wood smoke in that oven lends a deep, well rounded flavor to many other things (fish, meats, vegetables), and I didn't even see a pizza on the menu (the bread served there comes from Fressen bakery - specialists in rustic whole grain breads).

When I walked in to the restaurant, I immediately fell for the rustic atmosphere - salvaged wood, mismatched chandeliers and brick. My friend and I started our meal last night with the charcuterie and pickle plates. Normally, I don't order charcuterie because - why would I want to pay extra for salami that I can just go to a deli and buy myself? But this was all homemade, and really interesting. My favorite thing in the spread was a gelatinous cockscomb terrine (yes, that thing on a rooster's head) - a chilled , delicious treat that had the flavor of the richest chicken stock crossed with Thanksgiving stuffing. The lamb rilletes were tasty but unusual, and their housemade bresaola was thin and delicate. The plate also included a rabbit pate, salami and pickled onion.

The pickles! This simple $5 selection may have been what impressed me most - five different fruits and vegetables, each with such a delightful and different taste: blueberries, zucchini, cucumber, red onion, and pattypan squash.

That lovely start was followed by a lovely salad of lettuce, gravlax (salmon cured in the woodfired oven), and pinkish peppers. Then, I finished this garden vegetable extravaganza with their roasted vegetable plate that included chanterelle mushrooms, new potatoes, acorn squash, peppers and other wonderful things topped with a "salsa verde" which was more like an herb toppping or sauce gribiche. We asked for some of their harissa aioli on the side - a great call. My friend ordered a hen leg in mole which was nice though I'm not a fan of mole in general.

We were stuffed, and I was sad to see food left on our plates. Despite that, my friend couldn't resist ordering the smores,since they're cooked in that oven, and I couldn't resist taking a bite. Okay, eating half. The way the chocolate oozed out with the marshmallow...

Lunch at Ping - annihilated.

My favorite parts: baby octopus skewers, tea-soaked eggs, pork knuckle meat over aromatic rice with a spicy sour dipping sauce, thai stir fried glass noodles (piquant, fishy goodness), and yam yai salad. Texture! Flavor! Color! My mouth is watering just thinking about it...

How many of you, like me, have had a perfectly delicious looking burger/sandwich/salad placed in front of you in a restaurant, only to discover that the entire dish had been ruined by the presence of a subpar tomato? Those pinkish, mealy, industrial-ag tomatoes should just be left off of the plate, as far as I’m concerned. Anyway, poor tomato quality has been such a consistent theme in food service establishments that the gorgeous red and dark plum colored heirloom tomato slice sitting under my burger last night immediately caught my eye. I think that the Gilt Club might be serving Portland’s best burger.

The details: Painted Hills natural beef. Gruyere. Housemade aioli (on the side!). That tomato. Butter lettuce. Homemade pickle (sweet and spicy, on the side). Cooked with a little char, pink inside, to medium-rare perfection. Served with a huge steak knife. Hand-cut (skinny) fries—no, frites, piled on the side (salted AND peppered). Sesame topped brioche bun from Grand Central Bakery. I needn’t say more.

I used to really love the Slowburger at Slow Bar, which, when glancing back at the menu just now, has basically the same elements (from the same producers), with the addition of a fried onion ring. But that burger at Gilt was perfection, and you don’t have to sit in a dive bar to get it.

[On that last note I will put in a word for the greasy burgers at the equally greasy Twilight Room up on Lombard in North Portland. They serve up one of my favorite combos: bacon, barbeque sauce and onion rings on their Western BBQ Burger - the kind of thing that you can only get in a roughed up tavern, paired either with a cheap draft, or rootbeer. Mmm…]

I got a little taste of what's to come from Olympic Provisions when it opens (hopefully) next month. At a little soiree held in a suite at the ACE Hotel, guests chewed on these little chorizo sausages and sipped cocktails mixed with the aromatic gin and small batch rum of House Spirits. I was totally into the sausage, and probably chopped off one too many from the string that sat in the bowl on the table in the center of the room. (Since these tasty morsels do come on a string like this, the hungry Hawaiian in me immediately wondered if some could be purchased and tied into a lei with which to adorn foodie friends on their birthdays. Gross, or just greasy?)

I got to ask Olympic Provisions' owner Nate Tilden a few questions about the new place, which made me so excited to check it out.

Here's the scoop: A small restaurant housing Oregon's first salumeria (they've had to lobby for the rights to cure meat at the USDA in WA D.C.), industrial part of town, long bar, and only 30 seats, including a chef's table in the back. As the Owner of Clyde Common, the food will no doubt be edgy, meat heavy, and reaking of regional goodness. Inspiration comes from the tapas bars of Spain. I can't wait...

So, I finally sit down to catch up on some blogging, and found this one that I started back in June. Maybe I held back in posting it because of the guilt? Maybe because it's sloppy and rushed. Oh well, I'll post it anyway, but let me say that since then I've come to my senses and am cooking a LOT MORE in the kitchen at my new house!

6-28-09
Cooking my first meal at home in a while (kale, sausage and eggs for breakfast), I reflected on this extremely decadent week of dinners I’ve had. Seafood city! My bank account is totally empty, so I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t, basically, but it was good, and thought I’d gain something of what was lost in recording it.

Monday: Canceled a dinner date because of what was foreseen in the days ahead. I think I ate yogurt and blueberries.

Tuesday: Out in Hood River for work (stand-up paddling=awesome), I was lucky enough to dine at Celilo. Chef Ben Stenn cooks seasonally like most, but the care he puts into each simple but perfectly executed dish is apparent. His menu actually had more seafood on it than most that I see in Portland (closer to the coast). I shared a scallop appetizer, and had seared halibut on a bed of sauteed chard with a Walla Walla onion puree. That piece of halibut was one of the best I'd ever had - what a treat.

Wednesday: Intending only to meet my friends at the Victory for House Spirits Distillery’s “Recession Proof Mixology” Wednesdays (where I had the best cocktail, the Aquavit Delicious: Portland-made Aquavit, lime juice, simple syrup and mint). My friend had just finished the last exam of finals week, and I was persuaded to join them at a celebratory dinner at Nuestra Cocina, my favorite upscale Mexican restaurant in town. Usually, I go for the slow roasted pork, but this time I had a refreshing salad of jicama, mango, greens in an avocado vinaigrette, and a chili stuffed with shredded pork, almonds and raisins (refreshingly not fried).

Thursday: I wasn’t quite ready for an order like this, but I joined a friend whose boyfriend is the chef at Beaker & Flask, one of the most highly anticipated restaurants opening in Portland. It was opening night,and she said that their mac & cheese was a star, and it was: made on the lighter side (for this dish), with chevre, cheddar and herbs, topped with a slice of homemade blood sausage to mix through. Incredible, the way these flavors (a.k.a. fats) blended. I ordered the scallops as my entree, which were perfectly seared, and served with pickled fennel and aioli. So good, but so rich. My cocktail, El Morocco, was nice, but I was coveting the Zanahorita, a margarita-like drink made with carrot juice.

Friday: Walked over a mile from work to Sushi at Bara off of Clinton Street in my neighborhood. We sat on an outside table on the front porch (it’s housed in the bottom floor of a restored Victorian house). The setting was beautiful, but the sushi was okay - at least it was a lighter meal. I've said it before and I'll say it again - quality sushi is hard to find in this town. But I do like Bamboo Sushi (that would be the sushi there, not the lazy service). At Bara though, I did have kampachi nigiri, which just reinforced its place as my new favorite (by the way, if you ever want to make your mouth water, just google "kampachi sashimi").

Saturday: This is where the guilt really kicks in: this was supposed to be a quiet (cheap) night at home, but my friend who just got back from 3 weeks in Turkey calls...So needing to hear the stories, we end up at Noble Rot. I always go there intending to just have a glass of wine, but then there's always something on the specials board that I can’t resist. On this night (again, at an outside table on the top floor balcony, overlooking downtown), I had the sturgeon – locally caught, with roof-top garden grown baby carrots, sugar snap peas, pickled shallots and harissa. Really good.

Oh man, at this point, I guess I should also divulge what happened the Saturday prior: Simpatica dining hall. It was a four course meal, so i won’t give you indigestion just reading it, but the highlight was local black cod...

To read about a wonderful, spontaneous summer evening that I had with my new roomate on Sauvie Island last weekend, click here.

I think it’s time to share my dirty little secret: afternoon escapism. Specifically, an escape to chocolate bliss. At least once a week (if not five times), I sneak across to the street to Cacao for a cup of Dark Hot Chocolate. One rich, foamy sip and I’m in heaven, or Paris, or… somewhere that is not my desk. A cup of this will take you to a warm and cozy place of bittersweetness. This isn’t just Hershey’s and milk: it’s the real deal – whole milk and cream, blended with 72% Arriba dark chocolate by the Swiss chocolate company Felchin.

Thank you, Cacao. You are my Calgon.

All I've wanted to eat this summer is something from Tanuki, Pok Pok or Por Que No. Sassy street food. Well, in a restaurant. It's just those vibrant flavors - bright, salty, sour, citrusy - I can't get enough. So I took myself out to Tanuki the other night, and took a seat up at the rail along the streetside window. Just after I decided on my drink, the Saké Shandy (ginger beer, carrot juice, lime and saké), the server walks up. "Hi," she says, you've been here before, right? The one thing we're out of is the goat."

I love that place.

I've been constantly craving the food and atmosphere at Por Que No? on Hawthorne all summer. I can't get enough. This menu really says it all (chipotle shrimp tacos with local raspberries!!). Needless to say, I ordered everything on it, including the (fresh) blueberry margarita.

It is rare that I walk smiling through the doors of a coffee shop on a cloudy morning, before I’ve had my coffee. Actually, unless I’ve been chatting with a friend, I honestly can’t remember ever doing that. But I did just that today, when I finally found New Cascadia Traditional’s bakery, right in my neighborhood. Not only is it a brand-new permanent outpost for my favorite booth at the Portland Farmers Market, but the place is really cute, too. Full of light, lots of windows, and filled with the smell of fresh baked goodies. I was impressed to find that they make Stumptown coffee right – smooth and clean, not burnt tasting.

The bakers here are geniuses – no – they’re magicians. I am amazed every time I try one of their pastries – so buttery –so savory, AND—gluten free! This morning I had a marionberry muffin (I never eat muffins, but I can’t resist anything seasonal that they make, and their pastries are never too sweet), an excellent Americano, and a soft, “everything” pretzel for later. I keep their seeded bread sliced in my freezer, and sometimes bits of their sourdough baguettes for crostini. For anyone avoiding wheat, this place is a godsend. And for everybody else, New Cascadia Traditional has joined the ranks truly wonderful bakeries in Portland, gluten-free or not. I mean, take a look at the pastries in this picture - believe it or not, they taste even better than they look…

New Cascadia Traditional's bakery is located at 1700 SE 6th Avenue at Market Street
(2 blocks south of Hawthorne). Call for hours: 503.887.4392.

There are enumerable reasons why living in Portland is paradise to a foodie. Especially in the summer. Because this is so perfect, I thought I'd repost Simpatica Catering's wonderful newsletter for this week, which pretty much says it all:

Simpatica Catering & Simpatica Dining Hall
Week of July 21, 2009

"Man, it's weeks like these that make it all worth it. Sure, it's darn hot out there, and humid, and it makes you sweat. However, that's just the impetus many of us need to head to the river, where the water is still cool most of the day, dunking our heads whenever the broiling sun becomes a bit too much. And the time is now for really enjoying a lot of the bounty that Oregon has to offer, besides the beautiful weather, the cool mountain streams, the beaches...

Like picking blackberries off of our neighbor's bush this morning, or picking plums off the tree in our front yard to make a sauce for tonight's dessert. The dessert of course is what follows dinner, which was some truly incredible albacore caught yesterday by my wife's brother who is a crab fisherman right here on the Oregon coast (and who catches albacore and black cod in the off-season). The time is right and the time is now to enjoy what Oregon has to offer. I just hope this email is maybe a little reminder to those of you who get caught up in the everyday to stop for a second to enjoy what's around you. Sure, it's gratifying to complain about, well, everything (it's too hot, it's too cold, it's too sunny, it's too cloudy, etc.). But isn't it much more pleasant to instead enjoy what those times bring? The fruit is awesome right now, and so are the vegetables. The land around you is bursting with opportunity, like hiking, swimming, fishing, camping, etc. And when the clouds come back - and they will - who cares? So it's raining - what better time than stay in the house with the family and undertake a cooking project, or a baking project?

Before my overwhelming (and all too fleeting) sense of optimism and enthusiasm wane, I should share with all of you the menu for this weekend at Simpatica Dining Hall. Unfortunately, Friday night is sold out. But, hey!, there's still Saturday night, right? That's right! And check out the menu - Albacore! Beans! Cherry tomatoes! Peaches! Yes!"
-Benjamin Dyer
www.simpaticacatering.com

The beauty of the high quality of the food in the Bay Area might just be its effortlessness. I might just walk into all the right places, but it seems that everything just seems so fresh, so creative, so delicious, from the corner bakeries to the smallest cafes. Not to mention the herbs, fruit, and vegetables that people have growing practically wild, in their yards and gardens. I think that the meals that I had on my trip best exemplify what I mean, with no further description:

Day 1:

Breakfast: Coffee from Peets (for a chain, even in Portland, I must admit, they make impeccable espresso drinks), and pastries from La Farine in Albany. Back on the gluten train, I was completely overwhelmed by the choices here - sweet or savory? Pastry or roll? Classic or creative? My uncle got the "Swiss Twinkie," a croissant stuffed with ground almond paste (really good, and not too sweet unlike most almond filling), while I got a tasty ham and cheese puff pastry wedge and split a buttery, cinnamon-y morning bun with my mom.

Lunch: A leisurely 2 hour lunch overlooking San Francisco's marina at Greens. This meal deserves its own post, which it will get. My mom, uncle and I shared numerous dishes (all vegetarian), including their vegetable tacos. Let's just say that my uncle, who has lived in California his whole life, proclaimed "these are the best tacos I've ever had, meat or no."

Dinner: Still savoring our lunch at Greens, in the late afternoon we thought that the best idea would be to create a meal from the vegetable garden in my uncle's backyard. So, we stopped at the Berkeley Bowl (a wonderful, beautiful market with an incredible produce department) to pick up some lamb chops, then on to the house to pull up some vegetables. From what we foraged and bought, we all cooked a lovely summer dinner of the lamb chops, fresh tzaziki, roasted beets/potatoes/carrots from the garden, and some sauteed beet tops. And, of course, great bread, this time it was a firm Odessa Rye.

Day 2:

Breakfast: Ripe blueberries, boysenberries (so juicy and fragrant!), and sheep's milk yogurt. This was a first try on the yogurt - with it's earthy taste, I think the sheeps's milk works better with savory, such as in a creamy dressing or sauce, not sweet.

Lunch: At the Ferry Building. I've probably written here numerous times that this is one of my favorite places in the world, and on this sunny day, I was so happy that we had chosen it for lunch outside. I resisted one of my favorites, Delica rf-1 Japanese deli, and instead tried Mijita, the Mexican restaurant that I'd had my eye on the past few times I visited. My lunch did not dissappoint, in fact, it was much more food than I expected, and delicious. I started with a cantaloupe agua fresca. There is something so exotic to me about melon juice. It was so thick and refreshing. I reluctantly passed up the daily special, a squash blossom quesadilla, in favor of a carne asada taco (yum), jicama salad (tossed with grapefruit and topped with cilantro, roasted pumpkin seeds, avocado and jalapeno), and pinto beans with queso fresco. Delicious!

Dinner: It was the 4th of July, and some friends invited us up to their backyard bbq in Berkeley. After that lunch, I didn't have much of an appetite, but greatly enjoyed a barbequed pork rib and potato salad. The icing on the cake was a strawberry crisp with vanilla icecream that one of the young guests just decided to make last minute, because her sister's CSA had an overflow of strawberries. One man's trash is another man's treasure: I couldn't think of something more decadent at that moment than a pan of sugared, bubbling strawberry goodness.

Kale

I love kale because it's so good for you, and it lasts so long in the fridge. Besides frozen vegetables (which I rarely use), kale is the only green thing that I can rely on to have in the house at all times (the organic stuff lasts about a week). Thus, I've been forced to get creative with what I do with it, usually in a hurry. Here are a few of my recent favorite quick kale meals:

1. The soup that I'm enjoying right now:
Sauté one whole sliced onion and about 3 sliced garlic cloves until clear. Add a few cubed red potatoes, and a can of chickpeas. Throw in some sea salt & fresh cracked pepper, a few dashes of smoked paprika, and about a teaspoon of fennel seeds. When that sizzles, throw in a bunch of sliced curly kale. Cover all of this with broth - this is the key: you want to use homemade chicken or beef stock, which is such a good thing to have in the freezer. Let it all simmer for about ten minutes, and serve. (Serves 2)

2. Kale/black bean bowl:
-Brown 2 cloves of crushed garlic in olive oil. Before it gets too cooked, shake a bunch of ground cumin into the oil so that you can smell the aroma. Before it burns (this can happen quickly), add one can of rinsed canned black beans. Set aside.
-Sauté a piece of sliced garlic in olive oil, add rinsed kale (you may need to add a bit more water)and stir to cook/wilt it. Season with salt and pepper, and a bit of apple cider vinegar or lemon juice.
-Put the kale in a bowl, top with the beans, and sprinkle a generous amount of chevre over the top. (Serves 2)

3. Summer Kale salad*:
De-stem kale and chiffonade. Chop some hard salami into tiny cubes, and do the same with a good hunk of aged, salty cheese like pecorino, parmesan or manchego. Mix up a dresssing with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and a bit of dijon mustard. Toss all together. You can add a little something sweet, like dried cranberries or golden raisins, to balance out all the saltiness. This salad keeps in the fridge and gets even better when it gets a little soggy.

*I adapted this one from Michelle's soon-to-be-famous recipe

Checking in on my Facebook account this morning, I saw that a friend posted a link to the website for the new documentary film, "What's On Your Plate?" The trailer briefly swept me away to New York City, where kids were exploring where their meals comes from, and what goes into the foods they eat. It reminded me of my own trip to "the city" last month, and my short exploration of Brooklyn. That trip took me to Fort Greene, and Brooklyn Flea - a market full of stylish vintage, crafts, and food. There were fresh, gooey pizzas coming out of an oven on a trailer, homemade granola, pickles, fruit, gourmet snacks - many things that I passed by because I see similar things at the Portland Farmers Market. What I had to try were the Pupusas. Salvadoran women stuff little balls of masa with beans, meat, and cheese, creating a little flying-saucer shaped treat. They are cooked to golden perfection on a flat top, and to my pleasant surprised, topped with tart pickled cabbage salad, jalapenos, salsa and crema. Oh so good.

Wow, it's been over a month since I've written here -- which reminds me, I have a whole article to write based on my trip to Kauai for a wedding in late May. I've been in a bit of a daze since. Restless. Watching the produce in the market change from mostly green and white to rainbow. It was really colorful in the produce department yesterday - a mix of spring (sugar snap peas, late asparagus) and early summer (cherries, Walla Walla sweet onions). It kind of baffled me. I skipped the farmers market this week and instead went to my co-op (People's in Southeast), and was excited to find that they are carrying interesting "live" foods - particularly a local company that's making coconut milk yogurt. My favorite food cart, Sip (parked right out front in an old aluminum trailer)is serving it up in a parfait with fresh local strawberries, blueberries and granola. It was really good. I love their green smoothies too, which are full of kale, spinach and yummy tropical additions like pineapple. It's my favorite way to start a morning -- I just wish they opened a little earlier.

Am I on a tropical kick or what? The sun comes back, and there my tastebuds go, back to my Hawaii roots. When I was in New York, I definitely enjoyed the diversity of food choices, in everything from restaurants to corner delis. One thing that I noticed was an abundance of tropical fruit, mostly sold by Latin-American street vendors. I know - it's not local, or sustainable - but these flavors definitely called out to me. While there, I picked up a cup of cubed papaya from a deli one morning for breakfast, topped frozen yogurt with mango one afternoon, bought a cup of watermelon at a street fair, and finally - saw this amazing display at a flea market in Brooklyn. It was so beautiful, and perfect for a hot day. What I was most fascinated by were the mangoes that you can barely see in the back - peeled, sliced in a feather pattern, and sold on sticks. How beautiful, no?

TANUKI
Deciding between dishes last night at Tanuki, the server stepped in with a suggestion and description for something I was debating: "Delicious - it's like a kim chee snow cone - with clams!" She was serious, and so was this dish, a neat pile of super-fresh clams, boiled and chilled, topped with a shaving of this intensely flavored shaved ice. And thus began an unbelievable meal in a tiny Portland saké bar that, if replated and presented in a fine-dining room, I have no doubt would recieve rave reviews and critical acclaim.

But the chef here loves her drinks, loves her bar, and, I think, loves calling the shots. She is adamant about her "no kids allowed" policy, and sends out daily irreverent messages to her Twitter followers like this recent one about her Monday night pork belly special, "if a pig was willing to give his life for me to boil his belly in booze the least ya'll can do is come & eat him." Her style is pretty brash, but the flavors in her food are exceptionally elegant, like another dish we shared of warm, tender, barely poached scallops in a chili-lime broth, adorned with fresh mint and cilantro leaves. Her stuff is so innovative an experimental at the same time - soft scrambled eggs topped with toasted coconut and whole dried anchovies, fried in something tasty plus palm sugar. None of her seafood is fishy, it's just hands down delicious. And so well balanced. We also had the night's $3 special rib bowl - short ribs cooked till tender in a tamarind sauce, over rice with an asian pear and radish salad on top. The kim chee itself was full of ginger and citrus rind...I could go on, but I'd rather just go back - as soon as possible!

Yet another delicacy brought to me by Tin, my gelatin-genius coworker. She mixes the water from a young coconut with gelatin, then pours it back into the coconut and places it in the refrigerator to solidify. The result is one of the most refreshing (hardly sweet)snacks for a hot day - her kids love this. When you eat it with a spoon, you get part ice-cold gelatin, part tender spoon-meat. I really can't believe I never saw something like this in Hawaii, it seems like the perfect compliment to a shave-ice or smoothie stand. Just one more thing that makes me want to travel to Southeast Asia...

So I’m on my lunch break, walking through the Galleria in downtown Portland, when I can’t help peering over the shoulders of this well-dressed couple, sitting on the stairs and huddled over some type of food wrapped in a large sheet of crumpled butcher paper. They were too engaged in their chewing and moaning to notice that I eyed their lunch for a few moments before I asked “where’d you get that?”

It looked a lot like “chicken rice” the ever-popular Singaporean street food that I loved when I was in Asia – steamed chicken breast over rice, both flavored equally with this gingery chicken infusion. They told me that this was Thai, and amazing, procured from a food cart recently opened by a former cook from Pok Pok. The plan to eat leftover quinoa salad for lunch was quickly dismissed as I raced up Alder street to get my own.

Nong’s chicken is moist and flavorful, and lays over a bed of rice – tasting somewhere between Jasmine and sticky (my favorite). There is a dipping sauce that she serves it with – made from soybeans (fermented?), ginger, garlic and chilis. I was overjoyed, even before I tried the food, to see that the meal comes wrapped simply in a piece of butcher paper, instead of a large single-use plastic takeaway container. And, they give you a little cup of piquant and savory chicken broth to cleanse the palate afterward. I’m sure that this is what she does with the chicken bones, and I love every bit of this minimal waste-super efficient, delicious entrepreneurial venture.

Nong only serves this one dish, called Khao Man Gai, along with various add-ons (chicken liver, extra rice, etc.), and a few Thai beverages, like a creamy coffee drink.

Nong’s Khao Man Gai – 10th and Alder, across the street from Jake’s Grill - Portland, Ore.

I was always a fan of rainbow JELL-O. When we were kids, two of my best friends' moms would make it for birthday parties, held down by the beach. Cold, sweet, and layered in jewel tones, it was one of my favorite things - only to be had once, or twice a year. Making this treat is a bit of a laborious process - waiting for each layer to harden,then alternating that with the creamy layer.

A coworker of mine took this to a whole new level this weekend, and could not have given a piece to a more appreciative person. I could not believe how beautiful this little creation was. Her family is from Vietnam, where these are a party tradition. Her sister brought these plastic molds back from Asia. I think this is incredible. The gelatin is made with agar agar, so it's firm, and flavored with coconut juice. The colors were brilliant. And, she made 50 of them, in multiple designs and color combinations for a birthday party attended by her whole family!