Yuki

Least Favourite Smell: Stuck on a plane with everyone eating instant noodles as snack, I felt like throwing up after smelling instant noodles air for an hour. Dirty Oil Smell from restaurant, especially Chinese restaurant and fast food restaurant. I love both the taste and smell of durian.

If the fish is fresh, then simple preparation is usually the best. It is mostly steamed and then green onions, ginger, soya sauce, and a splash of hot oil. If it is eel﹐then it is chopped up and steamed with black bean and ginger, or filleted and pan fried until the skin is crispy. Mullet can be poached to get rid of the dirt taste, or steamed with preserved lemon, or plum. My grandma mostly poach the fish to get rid of their frozen taste(doesn't really help, still taste frozen to me). I am so sick of badly frozen fish now, just throw them all in a pot for stock. Even the "fresh" fish in the market, doesn't taste all that great. I should learn how to fish........

They are called 牛肝菌 because some mushrooms in the B. Edulis family look like cow's liver.

牛肝菌 = Boletus Edulis I saw them in stir fry and hot pot before.

I would be cooking kabocha corokke and kabocha tempura..... if only I have more than 250ml of oil in the house. There is a Chinese dessert that is served in a really good Hong Kong restaurant, they stuff egg treasure sticky rice into a kabocha and steam it. Then it is served with flower honey.

I cooked half a kabocha with mashed up red miso, soya sauce with katsubushi and konbu, brown sugar, soya sauce and some chopped up ribs. It tasted pretty good even though I just added whatever condiments I thought would taste good. Another favourite way of eating kabocha is to make it into a salad with mayo and chopped eggs, I had it in a food festival. Anyone would like to share their kabocha's recipe?

Thanks for sharing your trip on here, seems like you ate lots of "unknown" food. Even though I am Cantonese, have to say I perfer the style where the rice grain is visible. It is kind of hard to get a good Cantonese congee....... takes too much time and patience. About the worm shapped pork, it is not uncommon to have that kind of knife skill in China. The wonton noodles you had in Singapore is probably more suited the local noodles because traditional Cantonese wonton noodles doesn't use thick egg noodles and have hot pepper. Speaking of which, it is hard to get the traditional wonton noodle's soup anymore, even in Hong Kong where wonton noodles are everywhere. The traditional soup uses many dried fish and shrimp shells but most places now don't make it anymore.

I think it depends on the breed too, the chicken I get in Hong Kong, even if it is from the supermarket, have a much stronger chicken taste and less meat than the chicken I can generally get in Canada's supermarket. Lots of chicken in North America probably got a breast implant too.......... One of the best chicken I tasted was during a hiking trip, the hike took around a couple hours and eventually we reached a shack on the mountain side. Their specialty is chicken congee, you can see chicken walking near the shack. They kill the chicken on the spot and put it in the congee.

It is just a Chinese version of Spam. The brand that is the most popular is Maling.But there are so many fack one out there, be careful. I need to restrain myself from eating a whole can in one sitting, they should sell some mini can version here.

Heh, the luncheon meat made in China is much better than Spam. East over eggs and pan fried luncheon meat over instant noodle is great for breakfast or anytime. Vienna Sausage is common during party, we like to put it on a toothpick with pineapple....... But now, I think most Hong Kongers would not buy it since there is a larger variety of sausage available.

In Cantonese, "foo yong" means delicate and soft things.

Is "egg foo yong" steamed eggs with some other chopped up ingredients?

I just made a batch of dumplings tonight, but realized that I made a huge mistake. I forgot to taste test the fillings before wrapping them. When I pan fried some of them, the taste is good but seems to be missing something. Forgot to add the ginger juice which is needed to get rid of the porky smell/taste of pork. I am so mad.... because the pork took me forever to chop by hand.

How do you eat your stinky tofu? I like it either deep fried and then covered with lots of hot sauce and sweet sauce or steamed with chopped vegetables and pork. I can't imagine substituting my beloved stinky tofu with cheese. Who would eat deep fried cheese with hot sauce and sweet sauce? Or steamed cheese?

The most dominant cheese product in the refrigerator of most supermarket is probably processed cheese slice(talking about introducing good cheese to the Chinese agh.....). Cream cheese is also popular probably due to Hong Kong's obsession with cheesecakes. Other types of cheese such as mascarphone for tiramisu and flavoured cream cheese are also common now. But over all, eating cheese alone is probably not popular. And now, everyone in Hong Kong seems to be on a diet, so eating large amount of fat is probably not recommended by the nutritionist. Anyways, can anyone think of a way to incorportae Cheese into Chinese cooking? I know that Tofu is now can be used in many Western dishes, but how about the reverse?

Actually, I think food in Hong Kong is not very expensive. But you got to know where you are going and constantly ask people for advices. A seafood dinner for 9 cost around $600 CDN, and included fresh abalone, soft shelled crab, huge prawns, a specially caught fish cooked 3 ways, scallops, and other ingredients. A dinner for 4 in a lower/middle class Cantonese restaurant cost around $25 CDN, and we ordered 6 dishes. We found this restaurant from the magazine, "drink eat man woman". Don't expect extraordinary meal here, this is for when-mom-don't-feel-like-cooking. A lunch outside in a fast food type place cost around $5.00 CND for a beef curry with rice and a drink(coffee, milk tea, or pop).

The comment about HK as a food city is certainly true but I am not too sure about Beijing and Shanghai. My last visit to Shanghai and Beijing was at least 10 years ago but from what I heard from people, they are still behind HK's food culture. I went to Guangdong this summer and ate many meals during my 3 days trip. The quality of Chinese food is very high but I did not see any Western restaurant on a busy street and mall(unless you consider Mcdonald and KFC as restaurant). Maybe I am not in the right place but it seems like most people go out for Chinese meal rather than food from around the world. I don't think ethnic food is available to the general public yet, since prices are too high and not enough locations. It is true that lots of Hong Konger are obsess with food....... you could see line up at popular restaurants and shop. The magazine "Drink Eat Man Woman" is an essential part for planning family's weekend activities and meal. Even though I don't live in Hong Kong now, I still read that magazine and copy down the restaurants that I would like to try. Phone calls to relatives in Hong Kong makes me extremely jealous since they are raving about the new dishes and new restaurants they discovered. Also, there are so many food I can not get here..........

I like the mochi bread with melted chocolate in the middle! But I only know of one shop that sells them and I am thousands of km away from it.........

I saw beer being served in a bowl only once in Hong Kong. The beer is cold and the bowl is also chilled. I think using bowl rather than glass/cup makes it easier for restaurant to store/chill them. Stacked up bowl takes up less space than stacked up glass/cup. There is a type is alcohol that is usually being served with crab, but I don't recall its name. It is pretty good if it is not the cheap stuff, some people like to throw in a preserved plum.

Of course it has to be waffle cone, especially the kind with milk/dark chocolate at the bottom.

The sauce can include chili oil, chopped green onion, minced garlic, soya sauce, Sichuan Pepper powder, vinegar, sesame oil, some kind of preserved vegetable, and many more secret ingredients. I think MSG would be among the secret ingredients.

It came from the Sichuan Province of China, where it is call 紅油抄手. 紅油 - red oil 抄手 - the name given to dumplings in Sichuan. What do you want to know about it? Would you like a recipe?

Popular gifts from Hokkaido to Hong Kong Royce Chocolate Rokkatei's Chocolate coated dried fruit Shiroi Koibito (this is probably the most popular one)

I tried many mooncakes this year at the Hong Kong food festival and I would have to say that the trend is the冰皮月餅 Not sure why people like those mooncakes, but I guess they are viewed as more healthy and light. My favourite kind of mooncake is the 潮州月餅 with taro paste, it is also the mooncake that contains the highest amount of fat. Ice cream mooncake is also very good.

I like shaved ice with stewed taro and condensed milk. I think it is a combination from Taiwan.