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What makes a restaurant popular? It's clearly not just the food. There are plenty of so-so restaurants in the Zagat survey, with its frightening Frankenstein reviews. The hidden gems are always nice to find; it's fun to feel smug about them. And then once in long while, you stumble upon an obscure restaurant that lies so far outside the known cuisinosphere that there is no chance it will end up in a guidebook--yet the food is so honest and unpretentious, it's a wonder that the world isn't beating a path to their door. Islands Market and Restaurant in East Palo Alto is just such a place. Islands Market serves Tongan food.
The first time I visited Islands Market, I made my way past shelves of canned mackerel, Fijian music CDs, and crates of taro to the dim interior, where a steam tray was manned by a friendly guy. Several other patrons--regulars--stood around, happily chatting in a language I had never heard before.
"What is this stuff?" I asked. The man behind the counter shrugged, then pointed at the offerings: squid in coconut milk, whole fried fish, corned beef and cabbage, taro, green bananas, yams. What I assumed to be a tray of roasted quail were actually turkey tails; at that point, I knew I was onto something big. "It's good!" he concluded. The selection seems to change often. On a subsequent visit, the woman behind the counter recommended the New Zealand lamb, cooked in coconut milk with bele(*): spinach-like greens "which grow on the islands." More recently, they offered mutton ribs, chow mein (an island variant: big, translucent noodles, with corn), manioc (cassava), and yet another lamb-coconut-greens stew. There's no menu; just point and ask.
Of all the dishes I've tried at Islands Market, my favorite was the squid in coconut milk--far richer than any southeast Asian dish, and not spicy. For some reason, only the tentacles were used. I keep hoping for this dish to reappear. The lamb in coconut milk stew is also very tasty and rich; the first time I tried this dish, I thought the lamb was too fatty, but on a second trip, the lamb seemed far leaner and the leafy vegetables, like southern-style mustard greens (**), added texture and bite.
The coconut milk in the lamb stew went particularly well with the manioc, which looked and tasted like a curiously neutral potato. I prefer the taro and green bananas (which the man, upon seeing my curiosity, thoughtfully added to my styrofoam tray).
The mutton ribs had been prepared simply: seasoned with salt, then baked until they were a beautiful golden brown.
Finally, I could not resist trying a turkey tail. The cynical and unadventurous are quick to claim that the U.S. uses the Pacific Islands as a third-world dumping ground for turkey tails, an export item which would otherwise go into pet food. I counter that turkey is turkey, even if it looks like the pope's nose, and the Pilgrims in New England once turned their noses up at lobster. For the record, a turkey tail has a good amount of meat on it, and is definitely not just gristle and fat.
It's likely that location plays a part in Islands Market's obscurity. Their building lies behind the Highway 101 sound wall, so you have to go out of your way to find it. East Palo Alto contrasts unfavorably with next door Palo Alto, with its million-dollar bungalows, and many Bay Area denizens won't stop in EPA for a decent meal. Their loss. Go. Get the turkey tail.
(*) bele - a plant in the hibiscus family: hibiscus manihot
(**) possibly sow thistle
Islands Market & Restaurant
1491 Bayshore Road
East Palo Alto, CA
(650) 326-6087
