Duvel

Headed out today to 208 on Hollywood road, an osteria with a nice brunch buffet (and a kid's playroom for a relaxed morning*). Buffet was good, a lot of seafood (crabs, octopus salad, home-cured salmon, ...) and salads. Extensive antipasti section as well. The offer comes with a main as well and I opted for Eggs Benedict. It was just ok. Bit then again, even a mediocre Eggs Benedict is still very satisfying ... * all the guys attending made fun that it would be an even more relaxed morning if we would take the free flow of wine & beer offer as well. Strangely, none of the ladies attending made any attempt to agree ...

Still pretty full from lunch, but the little one has to eat (what a convenient excuse ...). Quick pizza: 10h room temperature poolish started this morning, topped up with same amount of flour, some water and salt. 30 min fermentation, rolled out and put whatever was in the fridge (in this case passata, brown champignons, olives and lardons). 8 min @ 250 oC, directly on the bottom of the oven. Sharp cheddar and mozzarella added at 5 min. Panorama & crumb shot ... (after the little one ate half of a 1/8th slice, I had to finish the rest, right ?)

@BonVivant Great choices ! Have you ever tried "Salsa Espinaler" with the clams ... it takes even the cheaper ones to a whole new level !

Ok, then lets close in: Shoots at all ? Ginger/Galangal/Ginseng/Turmeric ?

Today was our semiannual IKEA run. There are three IKEAs in Hong Kong, and contrary to any I have seen prior coming to HK they are located in either two upper floors or two basements in different shopping centers. We opted for the one in Sha Tin, because next to it is Snoopy World, a (small) free Snoopy-themed amusement park for the little one. I vowed to myself not be lured in by the Køttbullar, and managed to avoid the restaurant altogether. As a reward I found a Din Tai Fung in the adjacent shopping mall. We had: Xiao Long Bao, house appetizer (tofu, kelp, vinegar) and pork trotter jelly Stir fried pea shoots and Bao Zi Wild mushroom and mustard greens dumplings Pork & shrimp steamed dumplings Dan Chao Fan for the little one Won Ton soup (technically also for the little one, but he just drinks the soup). Everyone happy !

Lemongrass shoots ?

Dinner was simple: half a bottle of Schneider Riesling No.1, some whipped together Schupfnudeln with caramelized onions and smoked ham shavings and a piece of Chaource for good measure. Life is good!

Yesterday, my annual order of wine arrived. Being an expat in HK, I am quite lucky that my German mother company takes well care of their delegates, at least as alcohol is concerned. Once a year, we can order (at German prices) wine from the company, which is an excellent deal in both price and quality. In order to celebrate, we had some Brazilian friends over for semi-dry Riesling from Deidesheim (Palatinate), Flammkuchen and - because for our friends the needs to be some meat involved - Lahmacun, Turkish lamb mince pizza. Didn't get minced lamb at the local supermarket, so I simmered minced pork with an Oxo lamb stock cube. Worked like a charm ...

Last night we had BBQ dinner with some friends and colleagues. "HK style" BBQ takes usually place on beaches or rented properties as usually no one ever has a space big enough to put even the grill, let alone host more that half a dozen people. The food is straight forward: Marinated skirt steaks, turkey wings, pork cheeks, all types of interesting "fish" balls and frankfurts, veggies and garlic bread. All grilled over fairly high heat and at the end basted with "BBQ honey", a golden syrup that just caramelizes on the surface. It sounds weird, but somewhat works. On top, the place provided us with two (professionally roasted) suckling pigs. I got both snouts! As the place we rented only serves beer it did not charge corkage for wine, so we had an eclectic range of German wines (just arrived the same day, my annual order), Sake and Baiju. Needless to say it was good fun, very filling and only caused the tiniest of headaches this morning ...

Lunch at a rather new Izakaya-style restaurant at the midlevels, Etsuya. Sampling set lunch, all in all for 150 HKD, a steal.

I did not manage to visit a Japanese curry house last week in Tokyo, so clearly there was a distinct craving lingering in my head for a couple of days. Fixed it today with spicy Tonkatsu pork curry with udon at Shirokuma ("Polar bear"), Shun Tak branch. It's not the most glorious, but it hit the spot ... Oishii !

Well, I would have access to a GC (actually to quite some machines) and one of the largest compound spectra databases. Care to send me a bottle ?

Lunch at small, somewhat run down Sichuan restaurant in Causeway Bay, HK, called "Yu". Marinated eggplant, Husband & wife lung slices (albeit with beef shank instead), Dan Dan mian and Dumplings in special broth (very thick chicken broth, a house specialty). Delicious and filling. My mouth is still tingling from the Sichuan pepper ...

Regular item on German dinner tables: Thickly sliced sourdough rye, buttered, spiced pork tartare ("Mett") and raw onions. Heaven ...

One of the (very few) spoils of a long business trip is that you might have a "free" weekend to enjoy Tokyo. It has been 13 years since I studied in Japan and in my free day I have to first pay homage to my spiritual home Kyoto and have a Kansai institution: Tenkaippin's Kotteri Ramen. An ultrathick chicken broth with extra-chewy noodles and all the works. And two draft beers at 2 in the afternoon. God, how I have missed this ...

Business trip to Japan, visiting a joint venture partner. This is the canteen food served at a large petrochemical site in Ciba prefecture, along with the view from said canteen. In late autumn it looks even nicer ... Nice place to work (and eat).

Thanks - as unusual as interesting. Please let us know how it turns out as a final dish ... As for the noodles' bracken fern origin: a rather long time ago while doing my PhD thesis in organic chemistry I developed a synthetic pathway to certain chemical structures that are very closely related to Ptaquiloside, a glycodside found in bracken fern and related plants. The major interested in those structures was that they are very reactive and react with DNA in living cells (good if you can target specific cells, bad if you alkylate just anything as the ptaquiloside does). My methodology never really produced anything workable, but I read the entire literature on bracken fern toxicology back and forth. And have not eaten it since then ... maybe your noodles might be a worthwhile (re)start. Further reads: http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/ptq/ptqh.htm

Chris, I really enjoy your readings. Please keep it up !

I'd go with pâté brisée as well. And probably a much higher rim as well as far more fat in the custard ... And while I do own a couple of French cookbooks I find the best recipe (at least to my taste) comes from Thomas Kellers "Bouchon"

Black tea (qimen hongcha) ?

Joppie sauce ("Joppiesaus" in Dutch) is a popular mayonnaise-based sauce for mostly French fries, but ultimately everything else deep fried from your local Snack shop. It goes well with Frikandel and its brothers (all kind of shaped and deep fried minced meat products). In Belgium, "Joppie" was flavour of the year for Lays's once. Its a slightly sweet mayonnaise with curry and a pinch of mustard. Some shops have sweated onions added, some just use onion and garlic powder. When I was living in Brussels in my local Friterie people were ordering Joppiesaus on their (deep-fried) hamburgers. I still prefer Bicky, though ...

Its a German brand. Not uncommon to find those in foil packages, but usually Sauerkraut in its home country comes in a can. 425 mL or 850 mL. Probably 90% of my Sauerkraut intake at home was in can form. Does not require refrigeration either and 425 mL is a regular single serving.

I own both books. They are informative and the drawings are beautifully made and fully sufficient to support the recipes (e.g. different ways to score different fishes). In a way they fit the overall design of the book much better than some stylish photos would have.

Whenever I am able to go back to Germany, my first meal is always a "Mettbrötchen": A rye bread roll, lots of butter and "Mett", raw minced fatty pork with raw onions and some spices. Hits the spot everytime and tell my body (specifically my gastro-intestinal system) that I am home ...

"Salt and Vinegar seasoning". If it contains more than salt and vinegar, the rest is artificially added. And yes, Maltodextrin is not found in nature as such, but has to be hydrolised from corn starch by non-enzymatic methods (because otherwise it would not be found on this label). Malic acid could be isolated from fruits, but to be used in this commodity its food-grade synthetic (and cheap). And "natural flavours" means only that they are derived from natural sources, nothing less So - as far as I am concerned - this is the same artificially flavoured stuff as Tikka, or Numb&Spicy and Cucumber flavoured chips. And just for the record (if you have read my previous contributions to this topic): the fact that it is does not change its appeal to me ...