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Jaymes: I agree with you that Popcorn should test the water and see what meal the guest of honor prefers before deciding on the best dinner arrangement. However, we Chinese have a different viewpoint about eating in a foreign country. While your example illustrates how some Americans travelling in China would prefer to have local Chinese food. Chinese who are touring in America may not think in a reciprocal way. Most Chinese prefer Chinese meals wherever they travel - even with the understanding that what the Chinese food they get in a foreign country may be inferior to what they can get at home. (Of course, Chinese food is the best! ) Seriously, most Chinese prefer to stick to what they are comfortable with and are less adventurous in food sampling. You can see that most Hong Kong based tours traveling in European countries (or USA/Canada) would emphasize "dining in Chinese restaurants every night" throughout the whole trip as a marketing point (rather than "trying out the exotic local meals every night"). Since Chinese restaurants are pretty much everywhere, so it is not too difficult to arrange. And... being that Chinese are more implicit, Popcorn you probably don't want to ask the guest directly. As if you do, he will say "it's up to you, I'll eat anything". (mostly for being polite). So the burden is back on your shoulder to figure this out. You probably want to check indirectly and ask those who knows him well, or ask the organizer of the trip what your guest prefers. Popcorn: It is admirable that you think of cooking a full Chinese course at home. But to do it well, this is a major undertaking. Mostly because: (1) you need special equipment to cook Chinese food well (high-heat burners, wok, steamers, etc..) and (2) timing is very crucial. See, Chinese do not like eating food cold. Stir-fried dishes have to come right out of the kitchen and go quickly to the dinner table. With a typical of 8 courses in a banquet-style Chinese meal, and each entrie should be served within 5 minutes of each other, it challenges even the most experienced Chinese chef doing by him/herself, let along doing this in a home environment. Besides, if you spend most of your energies preparing and cooking the meal, who does the hosting? Unless you just want to serve 2 to 3 entries and along with some BBQ/fried-rice/noodles take-out items as supplements, your best bet would probably either hire a caterer or treat in a Chinese restaurant. I would opt for the former choice if I have a nice home and I want to entertain with more than just a meal. (e.g. with live music or Tai-Chi demonstration or something)

Ben: you are a man eater? (or girl eater)? Gastro: nice work. It would be really helpful if you have a picture of the finished product. Have you fried your Gai Loong yet?

It can't be. It didn't exist in Chinese cooking more than a couple hundred years ago. Since (I heard) it is imported from the Portugese via Macau to Hong Kong, the Portugese gotta be the master of these Custard Tarts. I learned through another forum the following recipe of Pastéis de Nata (Cream Custard Tarts) Looks about right.

Oh my goodness... an egg roll that is 2 inches in diameter and 6 inches long! What is this? A burrito? A chimichanga? But... I know I know... it is true. In many American-Chinese restaurants, that's what customers buy. When you have an egg roll so big, invariably the skin could not be made crispy. That's what you see in the earlier picture: soft egg roll skins with brown dots all over. To make the egg roll crispy, you must use dry fillings, thin egg roll skins and less filling in each roll... and high temperature deep-frying. Spring roll, egg roll... yeah, some restaurants use the name spring roll (closer to the Chinese translation). But just the naming does not dictate what it is. When I used to work as a waiter and I mentioned the name "spring roll", most of the customer would say "Huh???" Many restaurants got with the game and named the item "egg roll". Spring roll, egg roll, what it is... depends on how the given restaurant makes it really.

I think this link (Plum Sauce from LKK) may be your "duck" sauce. If you want to make it from apricot, I have a suggestion: Get a jar of apricot jam. Make your own "duck" sauce: - oil, saute some minced garlic, add chopped fresh chili pepper - add white vinegar, apricot jam, water, sugar. Bring to a boil. - If the sauce it too thin, thicken it with some cornstarch slurry (keep heating), cook it to the right consistency.

Dejah: You need to plan a trip to visit Hong Kong to reclaimate some of the Cantonese food culture. Plum sauce for Cantonese roast ducks. Egg rolls - worchestershire sauce. Hoisin /(sweet sauce) - for cheung fun.

Cantonese... plum for the roast ducks Northern China (e.g. Beijing)... hoisin/sweet brown bean sauce for Peking ducks Apricots? Err... French? I really don't think a Chinese restaurant in New York (East Coast) would serve Peking ducks with plum sauce, while one in California (West Coast) would serve Cantonese roast ducks with hoisin sauce.

No wonder symposia on the concern of human obesity are always conducted over an all-you-can-eat buffet.

There are so many recipes out there in making tarts. Can you describe the recipe that you were following where the result was not up to par?

Did you use only egg york or both egg york and egg white in making the filling? I think egg tarts are very difficult to make well. That's why I am disappointed by many Chinese bakeries in my neighborhood. May be they have the same issues. Keep trying. I am sure you can make some good ones in the end. I understand tarts are western bakery concepts. But are Egg Tarts a unique Hong Kongers' creation? Anybody knows?

I think what Yuki described was very typical of Hong Kongers' dim sum habits in Hong Kong (reading newspaper and eats little), especially among the retirees. The dim sum culture in Rhode Island, or in general North America, is very different. While I do see patrons reading newspaper at the table (my FIL ), you don't find them to be as common as you would in Hong Kong. To Hong Kongers, dim sum is so readily available everywhere, everyday, any time (okay okay, morning and lunch, but they are working on changing that unwritten rule too to offer dim sum at night now, and dim sum at Hong Kong style "fast food" outfits)... so it is not a big deal. You can fill up your stomach with it to your heart's content. Or, you can eat just a little bit and then have a something-over-rice plate at lunch. In North America, dim sum is mostly lunch, or brunch. I have not seen a dim sum restaurant open before 10:00am, except those in large China Town such as San Francisco. If this is a once-a-week or even once-a-month event, sure you probably treat it as a full meal. When I was 19, I got out from my Outward Bound training which lasted 26 days (during which there was a training event called "solo" where each person was sent to stay on an island without food for 3 days). All the trainees in the camp were deprived of any decent meal. So four of us got together the first Sunday morning after the camp and had dim sum in a restaurant at the Ocean Terminal, Tsim Sha Tsui. Back in those days, they left every empty dim sum dish at the table so that in the end the waiter would tally up how many dishes you ordered and then calculate the total on your bill. Between the 4 of us, we had 40 plates!!! Empty dishes and bamboo steamers, large or small, were stacking up to my eye-level! We can't even see each other's face towards the end of the meal. Boy, I had never eaten so much dim sum all in one meal in my life, before or since.....

This one is for you, Gastro888. You said you have never heard of "Dan San". Here is a picture of it: http://www.leisure-cat.com/frm_1114.htm Ingredients: Flour, corn starch, baking powder, lard, egg, water, salt... Hmmmm, I think we need to add some nam yu in it too...

If you can read Chinese, here is a recipe of Dan Tart in Leisure-Cat.com: http://www.leisure-cat.com/frm_1176.htm

When I was in Hawaii for the first time and saw some manapua, I thought that was scarily big! Where do you find the paper-thin, grapefruit size siu mai wrappers?

I agree. That is most Hong Kongers' habit. For 20 years since he retired, everyday my father went to do his morning walk, followed by visiting one of the few of his favorite dim sum places and read newspaper for an hour. He always ordered only 1 or 2 dishes of dim sum. I can't have dim sum everyday. No... Just can't do it. May be once every 2 days!

That's what a Nikon and a 1000mm telephoto lens is good for! Spying on what people eat even in a restaurant across the street!

Isn't Fujian the same as Fuzhou? They mean the same region in Mandarin. Fujian = two words [Fu Jian]. Zhou in Mandarin just means a province (or a state). Fu Zhou is the Fu Jian province.

Hmmmm, you are right. I asked my wife for some clarifications. She said her mom puts in ginger to cook vegetables so that it would NOT be too Leung. I totally misunderstood it. Hmmm... I need to crash lesson in Toisanese dialect. Dejah/Ben/et.al. do you offer online Toisanese lessons?

Chung Shan [Cantonese] is where the father of Modern China Dr. Sun Yat-sen was born! Famous place. That's the benefit of living in a highly concentrated Chinese immigrant community like Vancouver. Best tasting Chinese food at reasonable prices. If you live in Sacramento, you may not want to eat out. What's the point of eating out if you can cook better than the chef in those restaurants?

Would you like to make the egg look perfectly square like the ones in breakfast sandwiches offered by Burger King? They look very artificial! I like ginger in many dishes, but usually not stir-fried with vegetables. My mother-in-law put ginger with every vegetable she cooks (chinese cabbage, bok choy, choy sum... gosh... everything). She kept saying ginger is "Leung" (cool, opposite to hot), it's good for you... May be this is the Toisan/Hong-Kong difference. I don't put ginger in to cook tomato beef. Not oyster sauce either for that matter. To me, the characteristics of tomato beef should be a bit sweet and sour. Catsup is a too salty to my taste. I usually use plain, canned tomato sauce. So my typical process is: Break 3-4 eggs, make a scrambled-egg, remove. Beef slices (or chicken, or turkey, whatever) is to be marindated first (soy sauce, white pepper, corn starch, sesame oil), then pre-cooked over light oil. Remove. Tomatoes cut in wedges. Finally: light oil, sautee some chopped garlic, and wedges of onions, add salt. Dash in vinegar (a bit more than other stir-fried dishes because you want to bring out the "sour" taste), add tomatoes, chicken broth (or water), 1 can of tomato sauce, and adequate amount of sugar. Bring to a boil and cook for a few minutes until tomato turns soft. Thicken the sauce with corn starch slurry. When it is at the right consistency, re-add the scrambled eggs and beef. Sprinkle chopped green onions on top if I feel like it (or cilantro). I think the addition of onions makes a big difference in the taste. Doing egg-drop kind of "dissolves" the eggs into the sauce and you really can't taste the texture of the eggs. And this dish is NOT to be eaten with fu yu, period!

Well said, Yuki. The sesame paste you buy in jars is very thick, and should be mixed with more sesame oil when used on cheung fan. My experience is, over time (you probably won't mix the paste with oil all in one shot) the ratio is probably 3:1, or even more.

Boy. It seems awefully lonely to be non-Toisaynese on eGullet! I am a non-Toisanese Chinese too, but I married to one. So I still have one foot in the Toisanese thread in case things don't go too well! I'm a many many generation Chinese... just a second generation Hong Konger, and a first generation Chinese immigrant to the USA. Mother was born in Hong Kong. Father was born near Guangzhou and took a train to Hong Kong at the age of 13 and never looked back. That's before WWII. Many of the mainlanders went to Hong Kong in the 50's because of communists and that Hong Kong had a loose border back then. Growing up, many of my schoolmates have non-Guangzhou dialects (such as Shanghai, Chowzhou, Hakka, Mandarin, etc..) I have not heard of the Toisanese dialect until I came to the US for college back in late 70's. I have been living in California since for over 20 some years. hzrt... hzrt... talk about food! Talk about food!!! Oh, yeah... *cough* *cough* Many of the toisanese dishes posted in this forum... I found them almost identical to the daily family meals we eat in Hong Kong. (such as lap cheung, salted fish, steamed ground pork, etc..) I am just wondering if these are just all in general Cantonese, or more precisely Guangzhou Cantonese dishes. Hong Kong has been under the influence of so many different food cultures: some from overseas such as British, French, Malasian, Indian, Japanese, Korean and so on, while many from other regions of China. While I was a teenager, when I bit into something I automatically presumed that's Cantonese food!

Dan Tart? How long is your sister's journey? I am afraid the Dan Tart may not survive! The egg filling may shrink, crack... not easy for transportation. Shouldn't we have asked char sui bao for the recipe of char sui bao???

I found a couple of on-line maps to show you where Toisan is relative to Hong Kong and GuongZhou (Canton): Here is the map of South China. With Hong Kong at the center. In the following map, the areas circled are Toisan (roughly), GuangZhou and Hong Kong.

Which city in Malaysia? I may have a business trip opportunity flying in to KL in coming months. Is Ah Hee in KL? If so, what's the address? BTW: do you know about that "Fay Teen Ong Choy" show? Is it in Malaysia too?