I laughed. Not out loud, though, because Glen's threats aren't always idle. "You gotta trust me," I told him. "You'll like the place. And it's better than the bird food you've been eating lately."
Glen's doctor put him on a diet -- a very strict, red-meat-free, fat-free, low-cholesterol regime -- that's relegated him to eating nothing but, in his words, "grass clippings and ginger ale." And actually, it wasn't just one doctor, but three. After the first told Glen it was a medical miracle that his heart hadn't already exploded right out of his chest, he went to get a second opinion. Then a third. All three concurred that my buddy Glen was a goddamn dinosaur of a man -- a huge creature, angry and omnivorous, for whom the hourglass of evolution had long ago run out -- and that if he wanted to live to see the other side of fifty, he had to do something about his bad habits. All of them. And quickly.
"Fine," Glen said. "I'll give it a try. But I'm serious about that bean-sprout thing. You know what's happened since I started this diet?"
"You've become a happier, healthier, more well-adjusted man?" I ventured.
"No. I've put on three pounds. And you know why?"
"Why, Glen?"
"I ate a vegetarian. Thought it would be healthier than a cow."
Though I no doubt deserve them, I don't have Glen's health problems. My metabolism runs like a Japanese street bike tuned for racing and, thus far, all the terrible things I've done to desecrate the temple that is my body have yet to catch up with me. Whether it's good genes or just plain dumb luck, I don't know. Most of my friends see me as a standing testament to the possibilities of evil living, but to hedge my bets, I recently started jogging.
(Okay, not jogging exactly. I went out and bought all the stuff, tried it once, didn't much like it and stopped immediately. But the shoes are comfortable and make me look fast, even when I'm standing still.)
And standing there with Glen, I was thinking what a smart purchase those kicks had been, because we were going nowhere fast waiting for a table at Moongate Asian Grill. Although this itty-bitty, two-year-old Chinese/ Vietnamese/Japanese/Thai joint looks rather unassuming from the outside, it packs in the customers; plus, it does a booming take-out and delivery business. The dining area (which hardly qualifies as a room, because it only seats about twenty customers, providing none of them have extreme personal-space issues) is cheerful, bright and airy, with any possible claustrophobia alleviated by two full walls of windows. There are modern-art-style silhouette cutouts of happy people near the door, polished wooden waves hanging among the track lights, a palm tree and a giant backyard propane tiki-torch taking up floor space and plenty of culinary-themed Pier One clearance-rack decorating items, which include a candy-colored swordfish sculpture hung on the back wall with its sword pointed toward the kitchen doors, and a big smile on its face like it just can't wait for its chance in the pan.
"Stupid fish," Glen said, as we finally were able to wedge ourselves into the only available table -- a two-top pressed up against the windows. "The hell is he so happy about?"
In an attempt at winning my terminally grouchy friend over to the joys of healthy eating, I ordered edamame -- steamed soybeans in the pod. I love it when the menu at an Asian restaurant tries to give you advice along with the description of each dish. Here, the menu promised the edamame was "Packed with protein and fun to eat!" I pointed this out to Glen. He shrugged.
"Know what else is full of protein?" he asked, splitting a pod with his thumb and popping three tender, slightly nutty beans into his mouth. "A fucking steak."
"Yeah, but most of the time you can't eat steak with your fingers, Glen."
"You can if the cow is moving slow enough."
Whimsy never being his strong suit, Glen was clearly not enchanted by either the decor or the happy sounds coming from other diners. But then came the soup course. Miso for me, which Moongate does as a simple, subtly flavored broth clouded with miso, filled with cubes of squishy tofu and given an earthy depth by the addition of green seaweed. For him, it was the Thai hot-and-sour soup, with shrimp and Kaffir lime leaves (the bay leaf of Thai cuisine), shaved galanga root (often substituted for ginger in Thai cooking, though considerably more intense and also used as an aphrodisiac -- I didn't tell Glen about that last part) and a single note of lemongrass that lasered through every spoonful, tempering the hot spice. "You name it, it's there in this authentic Thai Tom Yum Goong soup," the menu had predicted, and it wasn't kidding. The soup had everything but the kitchen sink.
Glen knows that because these are working meals for me, he has to eat what I tell him to. He also knows (though is loath to admit) that if he doesn't do something about his blood pressure and cholesterol, his heart is going to seize up like the block of an old monster Chevy. So he didn't put up too much fuss when I made him order the Buddha's Feast -- an all-veggie entree in a mild brown sauce. "No sprouts," he growled halfheartedly.
I thought it would be funny to see Glen grimly shoveling pea pods and baby corn into his big maw, like a sulky kid forced to eat his Brussels sprouts. I also thought there was a pretty good chance that just the sight of tofu on the plate might cause him to keel over. But here was the surprising thing: Green food didn't kill the big lug. Sure, he poked at it suspiciously for a few seconds, but once he got a taste, he dug in with gusto. I managed to rescue a few pea pods and sticks of what might have been bamboo from the marauding tines of his fork, and I was impressed. The mildly spiced brown sauce didn't overpower the flavor of the veggies, which were fresh and had been gently handled by the kitchen so that much of their crunch survived. The Buddha's Feast came with fried rice (as does every lunch entree and dinners on request) that was truly fried, rather than just steamed and tossed with soy sauce. The short, plump grains had been cooked in a dry pan with some egg and a scattering of cubed vegetables until, like garlic, they took on a little brown and opened up with a nice, starchy flavor.
For myself, I'd gone with the two seafood entrees that the menu demanded I "must try." Fish in black bean sauce brought more of that excellent fried rice and hunks of tender, juicy white fish as big as a child's fist, covered in a soft batter and set swimming in a beautiful, glossy sauce that lapped at the edges of the plate. Balanced precariously on the side was an egg roll, which I had to keep away from Glen by menacing him with my fork. He knew there was meat in there -- pork, along with julienned veggies and vermicelli noodles, all wrapped up in the crisp, golden-brown skin -- and could smell it coming from twenty yards away.
I didn't let him get near the rest of the dish, either. Pumped up with a rainbow confetti of bell peppers and split black beans, not overly sugary but with definite hints of maple and sweetened black-bean paste, the sauce was light enough to add a glaze of flavor to the fish without clinging too thickly. And the fish itself stood up well, retaining its texture and firmness even if the batter did go a little gooey after sitting.
My second entree was One Night in Bangkok (yup, just like the song): two breaded softshell crabs, sautéed in butter and served with a side of sweet curry jacked with coconut milk that was so good I would've drunk it straight if the waitress had dropped in a couple ice cubes. Softshells are tough to work with; they're cooked whole, so the kitchen can never verify the quality of the critters inside. One of mine was good -- meaty and delicate, having put on enough muscle to make for a few bites gently flavored with salt and sea funk -- but the other was too scrawny and soft (meaning too young) to be really enjoyable.
Even so, Moongate's Asian non-fusion was a far sight better than at most of Denver's Far East offerings, and it kicked the hell out of the gloppy baby food slopped out by the chains. While other storefront Asian restaurants in town all seem to be working from one common How Not to Scare the Round-Eye cookbook, Moongate's kitchen isn't afraid to challenge American appetites. There are no "sweet and sour" dishes on this menu, no battered chunks of gristly pork slathered in melted Sweet Tarts. The closest Moongate comes to such pseudo-food is a pineapple curry with chicken, beef, tofu or shrimp that infuses the sweet fruit with a gentle curry, but even this dish doesn't come too close. It's not the color of candy-apple coating, and you can taste both the pineapple and the curry without having to pick one out of the other.
Before my dinner with Glen, I'd gone to Moongate at the suggestion of several readers who wondered why the restaurant's sesame chicken and sriracha beef were so much better than the same dishes served elsewhere. The answer? Because they aren't the same dishes served everywhere else. They happen to have the same names, but that's where the similarity ends. Moongate's sesame chicken isn't batter-dipped chicken parts in a cotton-candy sauce with a few seeds sprinkled over the top; it's whole pieces of white breast meat that are, yes, batter-dipped and fried, but then glazed with a nutty sauce made with actual sesame oil that tastes like actual sesame oil. And the sriracha beef uses fat hunks of steak -- not stringy Steak-Umms -- braised with broccoli, as well as white and green onions, in real Vietnamese Sriracha red chile sauce.
Moongate's aim is true. When the menu says the kitchen's cooking with sesame or lime or mushrooms or authentic Chinese spices, then that's exactly what it's doing. With food this good, Moongate could easily fill a space five times its current size. But for now, I'm kind of glad this one little spot is all there is. Let the crowds go somewhere else -- that way, there will always be space for me here.
And for Glen. He's been to Moongate three or four times since our dinner together; eating his veggies and sucking down tofu like it was the most natural thing in the world. Unfortunately, now that he's eating better, his doctor has suggested yoga.
I told him to look into jogging. It's done wonders for me.
