liuzhou

There is possibly a better place to post this but I couldn't find anywhere just to say "this looks interesting". I'm not at all a cookbook collector, but I'm tempted to buy this one. This is an interview with the author rather than an independent review but I thought to share and perhaps get thoughts back. https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/travel/food-writer-most-underappreciated-culinary-city-2756826 By the way, Dhaka airport is the worst I've ever been in and I've been in a lot! Love the country and people, though.

This afternoon I ordered a six pack of the local brew from my local beeratorium. They arrived 20 minutes later and it turned out that they had also thrown in a seventh as a thank you gift for my custom! I have been buying from them for about 15 years so ...

Breakfast this morning was that Sino-Italian classic - leftover pizza from last night. Served - 冷 (lěng) , freddo. No picture. You know what cold, leftover pizza looks like.

Now that I'm out of the bed I lay in for over four months, I am back to my favourite snack. It's (con)fusion snacking. Irish Cheddar Cheese on Chinese seaweed crackers with Japanese nori and peppered with black pepper from Vietnam. I remember AnnaN being intrigued when I mentioned it before, but will now never know whether she tried it as she said she would like to.

Next up, hard dried tofu. This is what it says - ultra-dried to the point it becomes dense and chewy. Often served as a snack item. It comes in two varieties. This one has also been smoked. and This one has been treated with 5 spice powder. Both from Sichuan.

Shoe removal on entering homes is standard practice over most of Asia, especially East and South-East Asia. Every home, including mine, has an abundance of house slippers just inside or even outside the home for residents and visitors to use. It makes sense. No one wants the dirt, mud, detritus and unidentifiable but suspect crap from the street (or unpaved paths is some places) inside their homes. I remember one guesthouse in Thailand where the owner sat at the door all day and most of the night in case one guest dared to so much as put so much as one shod shoe over her doorstep. She would scream at offenders and have the entire guesthouse fumigated and exorcised if anyone ignored her. But the best was when I was teaching in a Hunan university. All faculty and their families lived on campus in a special dormitory area. Shoes were left outside the doors as normal. As a pre-graduation prank, the students crept in one night and stole all the shoes then laid them out on the school basketball grounds in mismatched pairs. In the morning, all the staff were to be seen scuttling around in their house slippers attempting to find and match their shoes, all of which looked remarkably similar, while the students lined their overlooking dormitory balconies howling with laughter. Fortunately, most of the staff saw the funny side and no retribution took place. I was spared as I lived in a separate area. Anyway, in order to remain on topic, I will add that I've never heard of anyone having a foot accident in a domestic kitchen in China, although I supposed it must happen sometimes, but not enough for it to be considered an issue.

Week ago I posted here a version of 宫保鸡丁 (gōng bǎo jī dīng), Kung-po Chicken in America. That one was OK but not great. Tonight I tried again and bought this from an actual Sichuan restaurant. It was freaking hot and freakin good. Maybe the best I've eaten outside Chengdu, Sichuan's capital. It did cost the equivalent of $5.00 USD compared to last week's $2.50, though. Money well spent.

Yes. Some of the lobsters I can buy find here are frozen Canadian, but most of them are from New Zealand and they are shipped by air both live and frozen. But lobster, fresh or live, is very much an expensive luxury and therefore a tiny niche market.

This one is a bit odd, at least to my mind. Here it is always sold as ‘Japanese Tofu’. I guarantee you it has never been anywhere near Japan. It is actually 蛋豆腐 (dàn dòu fu), ‘Egg Tofu’. Now I’m not denying that Japan also has ‘egg tofu’ but so do many any other places. As the name suggests, it is a mix of egg and tofu. Usually sold here in these plastic prophylactics. Squeezing your mouthful out of its condom, you are rewarded with this semi-erect sausage of eggy tofu. It is slightly firmer than silken tofu (which did originate in Japan) but marginally more handleable with care. It is usually eaten in restaurants, particularly during celebratory banquets but using many different cooking techniques. It can be eaten raw, fried, roasted, toasted, boasted and ousted. The most common, in my experience is a very light fry on scallop shaped discs and served with soy sauce. I find it OK but wouldn’t go searching for it.

The fresh food in that supermarket is very fresh. You can see, smell and taste the difference. The Chinese shopper is fanatical about freshness. Fish and other seafood is almost always bought live. That is one important reason why there is so little frozen food available. Are you suggesting flash frozen than live? Japanese restaurants in many countries are legally required to freeze fish to be sold raw on sushi or as sashimi, not to preserve it but to kill parasites.

It's Dominos.

Fancy a cup of tea with your tofu. No problem. This is medium firm tofu braised in tea, then left to marinade in the tea for a few hours, before being dried. This particular sample is from Sichuam, but it's also made elsewhere.

Is the package labelling in Chinese? If so, if you post a picture, I may be able to translate for you. That said, there isn't really any 'correct' type to use other than to be 'mein', they must be wheat noodles.

皮蛋瘦肉粥 (pí dàn shòu ròu zhōu), century egg and lean pork congee. First thing I've cooked in almost five months.

...and another. This one's from Shaoyang, a city in Hunan. It is a firm type, again smoked but over firewood and given a much heavier smoke than the Sichuan type above. It heavy smoke is typical of Hunan, not only for tofu, but meats and sausages, too.

I kind of forgot about this topic. There are still many more tofu types. Here's another. Dried smoked tofu from Sichuan.

A water damaged menu from the Titanic has been sold in London for ₤84,000 / $103,000 USD. Full story here.

'Chinese knives' doesn't mean they're from China. Maybe China style. I can't find any trace of any such company anywhere in China. In fact, even in America it is only listed on your beloved Amazon with a mere trace on Walmart. The Chinese name on the blade is nonsensical.In Japanese it means monarch or champions, but I can find no trace of that company or brand in Japan, either.. Anyway, I only mentioned the name in passing. My real point is that you have bought a butcher's knife for chopping bones.

I've never seen anyone in China using a dumpling cutter. Every kid is taught to do it by hand as soon as they pass toilet training! Well made Chinese dumpling wrappers are hand rolled with a tapered roller to ensure the edges are thinner than the centre. You can't achieve that with a cutter. Jiaozi (dumpling) tools

We need a picture. Or at least some dimensions. Preferably both.

I don't know, but I can find no evidence that it is a Chinese brand. The name in 'Chinese' does not equate to Enoking and using the 'Chinese' name on an internet image search only returns a bunch of images from garish looking comics. No knives. Not to say that they don't make good knives. To over-simplify, there are basically two types of Chinese cleavers. What we call a 菜刀 (cài dāo) which literally translates as 'vegetable knife' but really means kitchen knife or chef's knife. This is most cooks' go to in China. Mine weighs 434 grams. 菜刀 (cài dāo） The second is 切骨 切 (qiē gǔ dāo), literally meaning 'cut bone knife', sometimes (incorrectly) translated as meat cleavers. These are considerably heavier and meant for butchering. They are designed specifically for cutting through bones. They are much less common in domestic kitchens. Mine is almost three times heavier than the cai dao, being 1.2 kg. 切骨 切 (qiē gǔ dāo) From your description, the heaviness and the image on Amazon, I think you may have bought the second type. To my amusement, while trying to find any reference to Enoking, I came across Serious Eats article on the best Chinese cleavers. Not only was there no reference to Enoking, but all the Chinese cleavers they recommended were Japanese! Seriously?????

I have to share this image of the front page of a British "newspaper" yesterday. The Star is the dregs of journalism and makes the National Enquirer looks almost intellectual! Celebrity trivia, fake news, hysterical nonsense and reportage that seems to think that soap operas are real life documentaries and regularly publish their plot twists as breaking news. You know the sort of thing. But this amused me.

Why do you think that? Where do you get that information?

河内熟牛肉粉 (hé nèi shú niú ròu fěn), Hà Nội Phở Bò, Hanoi Beef Phở Beef tendons, beef brisket, scallion, red chilli, bean sprouts, Thai basil and mint and rice noodles in a rich beef broth. Came with a mean ¼ of a tiny Vietnamese lime. Phở Bò in China From the my local Vietnamese restaurant named 西贡 (xī gòng) which is Sài Gòn in Vietnamese and Saigon in English. The restaurant isn't bad but ludicrously overpriced. This was ¥36 while I can get a not too dissimilar Chinese beef noodle dish for ¥12. I can't see many locals biting. There are a lot of Vietnamese students in the local colleges. They definitely won't be coming. I can't remember how much I paid last time I was in Vietnam (2018), but much, much less for a better bowl and unlimited lime. Phở Bò in Vietnam

One supermarket here trialled four self-checkout checkouts. Didn't save them a penny in staff costs as they had to employ more staff to help customers navigate the idiotic system. They were abandoned after about six months and the supermarket closed for good one month later.