Otaku welcomes Year of the Snake to Port Arthur

 

Welcome to the Year of the Snake. It means spring is near! Otaku Food Festival hit Port Arthur’s Central Mall a third time this past weekend and it was as packed as ever with fans enjoying unusual culinary adventures, cosplay and anime vendors. Port Arthur’s Dragon Dancers paraded throughout the mall.

            Sweet, strong Vietnamese coffee, a crazy long fried potato and some spicy meat and rice were some of my favorite flavors. All manner of fried fare, Luffy’s Meat on Bone truffle garlic noodles…. These vendors were selling things I’d never seen. And locals were eating it up.

            Here’s some tips on how to honor the Lunar New Year, which falls into the snake category. This creature symbolizes wisdom, intuition and transformation while offering chances for personal growth and change. Jan. 29 to Feb. 12 is when we honor the season. Some first-day lunar year no nos:

• No washing clothes or hair or bathing.
• No sweeping the floor or taking out rubbish.
• No eating porridge.
• Do not urge someone to get out of bed.
• Do not give New Year's greetings to someone still in the bed.
• Avoid using needles, knives or scissors on the first day.

“Carnivore in the Kitchen” – While some are going meatless as a New Year’s Resolution, Courtney Luna is waving a stick of butter on the cover of her new cookbook and saying the meats are here. Subtitled “A Fresh an Fun Approach to Meat-Based Meals, she’s got some yummies including a bread with pork panko in the mix. Ever heard of pork panko? Consider it like powdered pork rinds. I was fascinated by her fried egg yolks, a yolk rolled around in this panko. Mine did not come out like the photo on the first try, but it was good. Save the egg whites to use for wraps and noodles, she suggests. This carnivore mixes cottage cheese into an egg scramble for extra protein and makes piggy bites. I’ll bet these sausage appetizers wrapped in bacon with cream and goat cheese disappear quickly. Luna did make this a fun read.

Is That Coffee in Your Pocket? – Craving coffee at a stoplight? No need to pull into a drive through. No drinks allowed in class? PriFa to the rescue again. A little tin of tablets gets you what you want from coffee with no brewing or water. Flavorful pick-me-ups come in: “the boldness of espresso shots (30mg of caffeine), the warmth of cardamom (15mg of caffeine), or the creamy sweetness of a latte (10 mg of caffeine) with every tablet.” One packet is like 25 ups of coffee. These are conversation starters. Offer some to friend and they may consider you a Culinary Thrill Seeker with the all the new goodies. The flavor is good and this is an espresso buzz you’ll want to get in on. Learn more from Amazon.

Darragh Doiron is a Port Arthur area foodie celebrating all the newness of the year. darraghcastillo@icloud.com