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It is September 28, 2004 Tuesday. Since I heard "Eastern Bakery" mentioned a few times... can anybody tell me the street it's on (and the cross street)? I will be in SF again tomorrow and would like to drop by and pick up a few to try. Anybody knows the Chinese name? (In China Town, Chinese business names are much more prominent than their English ones)

The pictures on this website looked like those hand-painted ones made in the 40-50's. I am not sure what the green filling is.

Sorry I ran out of time. I will be out of town for a few days. I will post my recipes after I come back.

Sure. I will post it once I get a chance to type in the recipe. Probably tomorrow. My wife and I like lean lean pork. I know it's less flavorful, but that's one big reason why we don't buy the fatty BBQ pork from restaurants. The others would be the red food dye, and that most restaurant burn the tips of their BBQ pork. In places like San Francisco or San Gabriel Valley, I like the taste of the BBQ pork they make in restaurants. Very tasty. But I now live in Sacramento, so far I haven't found any restaurant that can make BBQ pork up to par. I am not sure on the name of the cut. Probably shoulder loin? I like the cut with no fat at all. Jo-mel: maybe I had mis-spoken. I made Shrimp with salt and pepper (椒盐虾) It's fairly dry. I shouldn't have said "salt and pepper sauce". Let me know if you still would like to know how I make mine. Would be happy to share. The image uploading at Gullet is very easy. In recent year, turkey fryers are popular. I like those turkey fryer burners. When in family gatherings, I like to borrow the burner and the wok from my brother-in-law and make some more restaurant-like Chinese dishes (with wok-chi) in their backyard.

I don't have an tandoori oven. My wife has already been complaining that I have too many gadgets in the kitchen. Can you imagine if I bring in a tandoori in the backyard just for making tandoori chicken??? Just baked in a conventional oven. For that same reason (too many gadgets), I don't have a wok either. All my Chinese food dishes are made on a 12 inch flat pan. It's funny I see some people... when they get excited about cooking Chinese food, the first thing they do is to buy a wok as if it is a prerequist. For some thirty odd years of cooking, I have never owned a wok. My digital camera went to heaven some time ago. Maybe it's time to shop for the new generation models. Recipes to follow.

Dejah: To parallel your weeklong food blog, I have a food blog of my own. Nothing extravagant like yours, just the day to day, authentic Chinese cooking. No breakfast (maybe sometimes slices of toasts), lunch is time for finishing left overs, dinner is the only meal I spend time making. In the weekend, perhaps, I can afford the time to make some lunch. Thu 8/5/04: Soy sauce chicken, green beans with sa-cha sauce Fri 8/6/04: Ma Po Tofu, Ong-choy with shrimp paste Sat 8/7/04: Lunch: Pot stickers. vegetable soup Dinner: Steamed chicken with black mushrooms and woodear/lily-buds, pea shoots with dried scallops Sun: 8/8/04: Lunch: Wonton with rice noodles Dinner: Indian tandoori chicken, green bean with curry sauce Mon: 8/9/04: Shrimp with salt and pepper sauce, stir-fried mustard greens Tue: 8/10/04: Freshly baked Chinese BBQ pork, bitter melons with fooyu/garlic Wed: 8/11/04 (plan) Hot braised tofu with BBQ pork and black mushroom, baby bok-choy I cook Chinese dishes about 90% of the time. As for the rest, I experiment with Italian, Thai, Japanese, Vietnamnese, Malasian/Indonesian, Indian, etc.. We can exchange recipes if you see anything that interests you.

Here is the info I gathered about this delicacy: Chinese name: 老鼠班 Common name: Mouse grouper, humpback grouper Scientific name: Cromileptes altivelis, serranus altivelis, chromileptis altivelis Here is the picture of a real fish: Cromileptes altivelis Isn't it pretty? Note the characteristic humpback. It is very unique. I don't usually do that much research in the food species that I eat. The more I know about them, the more I wouldn't want to eat them. Are most zoologists vegetarians?

I too am waiting for our forum participants living in China to comment on this. My experience is a little more recent: 1999. Most of the places do not expect or accept tips. Those which do (typically in big cities like Beijing or Shanghai) would impose the mandatorily customary 10% service charge (or 15% in some upscale places). In either case, tips have been included in the bill when you pay, so usually patrons just pick up all the changes. Read the fine prints on the menu. Mandatory service charge is very common in Europe and Asia. North America is the last place where this is not a common practice. (And thank goodness for that) When I used to work as a waiter, I hated European customers. They all assumed that tips were included in the bill (which weren't) and usually just left me with a quarter or a dime for tips.

Arr... thank you, Laksa. I knew it was in the grouper family but not sure which one. Isn't it pretty to look at?

It might have gotten this name because of the 2 filler-like thing sticking out from the tip of the mouth, which make it look like the fish has 2 bony tongues. Here is an enlarged head of Osteoglossum bicirrhosum:

When you said "floating" restaurants, I assume you mean the boat restaurants like Jumbo in Aberdeen. I cannot recall if I had seen an aquarium fish tank at Jumbo as I ate there long time ago. You can pretty much tell if a given water tank is an aquarium tank or food tank. Aquarium tank: water much clearer with air pump, decorative sand or pebbles at the bottom, and the fish in the tank are much prettier (like tropical coral fish, carp, swordfish, angel fish, gold fish, bony tongue, etc.). Food tank: (it is for show too... just to show you how fresh your food is) water very murky, no decorative items, only fresh catches. The tank can contain all kinds of fish or lobsters or crabs or shrimps or geoduck clams, etc.. Like Herbacidal said, your food fish is usually not too pretty to look at. (Except a few. One of which is called 老鼠班 (not sure what the English name is), really pretty just to look at and it is a delicacy.) Urrr... shall I do some research again???

Dejah must have cloned a few of her daughters as well.

The England Queen better speaks clear English. Speaking the language clearly without slurring is probably a requirement of any news readers. I enjoyed watching the news reported by Beijing TV Station and admired so much the standard Mandarin pronounciations. Likewise I also enjoyed watching Jade TV Station in Hong Kong for the (well, more or less) standard Cantonese pronounciations.

Well... there is an example of anomaly of Cantonese from standard "official" Mandarin-based Chinese. You are right about the single syllable pronounciation and there are 2 situations: 1. Moh as a fast spoken version for "Mm Ho". Kind of like "gonna -> going to", gotta -> got to", "kinda -> kind of", etc.. 2. Actually in Cantonese there is a distinct word Moh, which is the exact opposite of 有 (Yau). It is written as 有 without the 2 horizontal strokes in the middle. This is not recognized by official Mandarin. In Mandarin, you always have to say 没有 [mei2 you3] as two distinct words. In Cantonese, we married them and formed "Moh". But Moh should be an adjective, means "have not", and shouldn't be used in conjunction with a verb. (Well, people do it anyway). The word on the left is Yau (means have or yes), the one on the right is Moh (means have not or no). 不好 is the official language saying "don't". In Cantonese it's always said as "Mm Ho". If you say "Pak Ho" (or "Buk Ho"), people for sure know you are not a native Cantonese speaker.

Guys, let's teach (or confuse) aunt jo-mel some more, shall we? There is a small difference between "Mm sai" and "Mm ho". "Mm sai" means "not necessary", it's a passive no. In Mandarin, it is 不用 [bu4 Yong4] "Mm ho" means "Don't", it's a more forceful no. In Mandarin, it's 不要 [bu4 Yao4]. "Jahm" means chop. In Mandarin, it's 斩 [Zhan3]. "Tsee, chee, chit" means cut. In Mandarin, it's 切 [Qie1]. So, it's up to jo-mel to use the different phrases according to the situation. 不用斩 "Mm Sai Jahm" (no need to chop) [bu4 Yong4 Zhan3] 不要斩 "Mm Ho Jahm" (don't chop) [bu4 Yao4 Zhan3] 不用切 "Mm Sai Chit" (no need to cut) [bu4 Yong4 Qie1] 不要切 "Mm Ho Chit" (don't cut) [bu4 Yao4 Qie1]

Laksa: you are right. I was confused and I used the wrong picture for posting. I did some more research, I found that osteroglossum bicirrhosum (Arawana, Arowana, Arrowana) lives in the Amazon, and scleropages formosus (Asian Arawana) lives in Indonesia. The picture I posted yesterday was an osteroglossum bicirrhosum, not scleropages formosus. The fish I saw at the San Francisco aquarium was scleropages formosus. I got them mixed up. I have seen both species in fish tanks in Chinese restaurants. Come to think of it, it's probably because the restaurants in Hong Kong use scleropages formosus (Asian Arawana) since Hong Kong is close to Indonesia, while the restaurants in USA use osteroglossum bicirrhosum (Arawana) since the USA is close to South America. Both species are beautiful. After taking a closer look, I think one major difference (which you can tell right away) is the back fin. Arawana has a much longer, blade-like back fin than Asian Arawana. Here is the corrected picture of scleropages formosus. I put in the picture of osteroglossum bicirrhosum here too for comparison. Chinese: 龙吐珠 Common name: Asian Bonytongue, Chinese Dragon Fish, Asian Arawana Latin: Scleropages formosus Family: Osteoglossidae Picture of Scleropages formosus: For more information, click here or here. -------------------- Common name: Arawana (or Arowana, Arrowana) Latin: Osteoglossum bicirrhosum Family: Osteoglossidae Picture of Osteoglossum bicirrhosum For more information, click here or here. -------------------- Jo-mel learned Chinese because she read the Chinese word "three" on a menu once. Who knows, I may become a biologist because I want to find out the name of a fish in a Chinese restaurant... Does China-46 have either one of these?

Dejah is so busy this weekend, let me play as her assistant for a minute. Those shown in the pictures are Gluten rice in lotus leaves, not joong (which is gluten rice and mung beans and lap cheung etc. wrapped in bamboo leaves). They taste similar but different. Yow tieu is made from wheat flour, not gluten flour. Yow tieu (salty) is eaten mostly as breakfast and snack. The gluten balls (sweet) you mentioned, with sesame on the outside and lotus or redbean or mung bean paste on the inside, are usually eaten as dim sum or dessert.

In a trip to the San Francisco Academy of Science Steinhart Aquarium, I learned the English name for this fish commonly kept in the aquarium tanks in Chinese restaurants. [Edit notes: I had posted the wrong picture in this original post. Please see my later posts for corrected information. I have deleted this incorrect picture.]

Sometimes, I think it would be easier with just a simple big shout of "NO CUT" (or "MMMM CUT"?). It would probably work too.

Perhaps make a print out of this and show it to the BBQ master: It means "don't cut" in Chinese regardless of dialect. In Mandarin, the pronounciation is "Bu Yao Qie". In Cantonese, you can say (I take them from Dejah, Laksa and Ben) "Mm Ho Chit". Not a word for word translation, but the meanings are the same.

Are you saying in Lu Cai, Chuan Cai, Huai Yang Cai, they mainly use soy sauce to cook? I thought they use chili bean sauce 豆板酱 and brown bean sauce just as often. Maybe you don't consider those as sauces?

Traditional restaurant = you are served by a waiter/waitress; you sit down and order; dishes are made to order; you pay after you eat. Versus Fast Food = self serve, cafeteria style; you order and pay first then pick up your order (or they will bring it out to you); dishes are mass-produced, you have only limited choices from the menu of the day.

I think the duck you mentioned is not Beijing Kao Ya (or more well-known as Peking Duck), but Cantonese roast duck. Peking ducks are made to order, therefore would not be hung behind the window. (If they are pre-made and hung behind the window, I wouldn't want them.) Peking ducks are served fresh out of the kitchen. The waiter/waitress/manager would slice the skin off in front of you. Some would take the rest of the duck back to the kitchen. The chef will carve out the rest of the meat and use it to cook a stir-fry dish (typically with some vegetables), and use the bones to make a soup. Customarily Peking Duck skins are eaten wrapped in a thin pancake along with some sliced scallions, cucumbers and a bit of hoisin sauce. Cantonese roast ducks, on the other hand, are chopped up like you described and customarily served with the roasting liquid (rich in five-spice fragrance) and plum sauce.

Couldn't find what you were referring to. Can you provide a link?

I am not so sure about the consistency and the quality part. When I used to live in Hong Kong, the experience of going to one Cafe de Coral could be very different from another. It seems that each kitchen hires its own cooks. Some are just not as good as the others. While most meals are acceptable, occassionally (well, more often than I liked) I got served overly salty dishes, burnt deep-fried chicken thigh, and bland dinner soup and so on. Did Cafe de Coral go bankrupt? Hardly. I think convenience and low-price are the major factors that made those chained fast food places so successful... even though millions of Hong Kongers know they can get much tastier meals in local restaurants. Do I go to a Cafe de Coral because I long for their "high quality" coffee or fried chicken wings? Not a chance. On the other hand, U.S. Franchises like McDonald's can really claim their consistency and quality marks. Not that I like hamburgers much, but I remember tasting the McDonald's in London, Paris, Cologne, Singapore, Hong Kong and Beijing and found them to be very much like the ones I had in the USA. Well... it's just hamburgers. The cooking process (and thus quality control) is much simpler.