aprilmei
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Posts posted by aprilmei
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They're called "iron eggs" and they're a Taiwanese speciality. The ones I've had are jet black, shiny, extremely dense and slightly chewy. I love them.
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I am very impressed.
How much did you make? and were you (and your friends/family) able to eat it all? I can only eat a couple pieces at a time so I'll probably never make it unless I move to a place where I can't buy it.
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Another good place is Xiao Nan Guo for Shanghainese food. There are several branches but I've only been to the ones in Central and Causeway Bay. The menus are slightly different - CWB has more dishes, including a mapo doufu with rice in clay pot. I like these restaurants for dinner and yumcha (although the yumcha selection isn't as extensive as at Victoria).
Central: 2259 9393
CWB: 2894 8899.
I should add that the Central branch is a little fancier and on several occasions I've spotted several local "celebrities" (famous and infamous) including Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong's ex-chief executive. He's Shanghainese which sort of says something of the quality of the food.
The CWB branch is quieter and smaller.
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My favourite place to yum cha is Victoria City in Sun Hung Kai, Wan Chai. Excellent stuff... I bring lots of people there and they've always loved it. They have Cantonese items on the menu but their speciality is Shanghainese. Try the XO cheung fun (the best version I've ever tasted), xiao long bao with hairy crab roe, pan-fried Shanghainese meat dumplings, char siu soh (they don't always have them), steamed blood with leeks (I believe it's only available on Sundays), shark's fin dumplings, egg tarts... actually everything I've eaten there is good.
It's one of the few restaurants I have on my mobile phone: 2827 9938.
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Wow, the meal has changed almost completely from when we went in April. Only three dishes are the same - the olive, caviar and peach bonbon.
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I've been on eating holidays in Taiwan with my Taiwanese cousin-in-law, only to Taipei, sadly. Love the food there. There's a lot of Japanese influence, as you'd expect, and also from Korea. From what my cousin's husband tells me, the sushi/sashimi restaurants are excellent but I haven't tried them. But as Pan says, it's difficult to generalise about mainland Chinese food, the country is just so vast. Taiwanese food - what I've had of it - seems very intensely flavoured. Hotpot there is very spicy and has chunks of pig's blood in it. They eat lots of innards, it seems. We also ate some things that I had never tried before going there - dried mullet roe and "iron eggs" which are jet black, dense, chewy and delicious. And the zhoong have very little filling other than rice but they're really good - much lighter in texture and not as sticky as the Cantonese ones I'm used to. Oh, and the savoury soybean milk is also good - it's eaten for breakfast.
For sweets, they make delicious pineapple cakes and delicate cakes made with mung beans and sesame seeds. And shaved ice with condensed milk and jelly and beans - very refreshing when it's hot outside.
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If you like good "modern Thai" (cooked by an Australian chef) you should try Lotus on Pottinger Street. I highly recommend it; we went there when it first opened (about two months ago) and it was excellent. My boyfriend looked at the menu and asked "why are we having Thai food when we can have it at home?" (he has a Thai maid who's a good cook) but the food was much better than hers. There were six of us and we probably tried at least half the menu (it's not big) and we loved almost everything we ate. The cocktails are also innovative and delicious.
Lotus
37-43 Pottinger Street
Tel: 2543 6290
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I don't think it's defective; I think it's meant to be eaten although you're right, it doesn't add anything to the taste. All the ones I've had have been like that - stuck to the candy.
and yes, it also reminds me of communion wafers. Which I haven't tasted in years...
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My favourite are pork-and-mushroom balls. I love them in hotpot.
You should check out Hakka and Chiu Chow restaurants - they seem to specialise in certain types of "balls". And in Singapore they seem to have a huge variety.
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I believe it's rice wafer.
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Our meal had at least two airs: one was parmesan with home-made meusli and the other I can't remember.
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The dishes you had are very different from the ones we had at the beginning of the season (April 14). The only ones that were the same were the olives (delish), melon caviar, steamed brioche, the peas, tomatoes, morels (ours were very gritty), oysters and peach liquid. So assuming we had the same number of dishes (30 plus the "morphings"), they changed more than 2/3 of the menu.
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My mother's made salted eggs. She did basically what Seitch said, but when the eggs sink to the bottom, they should be ready. Osmosis (I knew that word would come in handy some day) - the salted water goes through the pores of the eggs and makes them heavier.
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Do you "shake" the eggs? My grandmother used to do that to test them. Problem is, I can't remember if there's supposed to a lot of movement inside the shell, or if they're not supposed to move a lot.
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I've tasted lots of XO sauce - the more expensive Chinese restaurants often serve it as a condiment, and hotels like to send jars of their "homemade" (really hotel-made) XO sauce as gifts. So when I decided to make my own (just for the hell of it) I knew what I wanted and didn't want. I've always preferred the versions without salted fish and ham - I like it with mostly conpoy and just a little dried shrimp. The "better" hotels make their versions this way: I think because conpoy is much more expensive than the other dried ingredients and ham.
The flavour of mine was excellent but if I ever make it again, I'd steam the conpoy much longer - it needs to be very soft. I thought it would soften while being cooked with the other ingredients and while aging in the fridge, but it didn't. The shreds of conpoy are very chewy.
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Interesting, the addition of laap yuk. I've never had it that way. The versions I've tasted have all been Sri Lankan crabs buried under a pile of garlic, chillies and spring onions. Sometimes it has black beans.
The fried garlic tastes wonderful in plain congee. Although I dont think it's possible to eat all of it - it makes me very thirsty.
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Some restaurants here make cheung fun stir-fried in XO sauce. It's delish if they don't skimp on the XO sauce.
I haven't tried any seafood versions.
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Has anybody ever tried Sylvia Plath's way of eating avocados (as described in The Bell Jar): halve the avocado and fill the centre with melted grape jelly. I've been curious about that ever since I read it. She (the character) says it's wonderful but then of course, she was mentally ill (not that being mentally ill precludes the ability to enjoy food).
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I was on the Far East panel (I'm one of the Asian names); none of the restaurants I selected for this region made it on to the list (if I remember correctly, we were allowed to pick only two - or was it three? - from our own region). I agree with Pontormo that our region was a remarkably large area to cover. I know there are incredible restaurants in Japan but I don't know many of them so of course I didn't pick any; I stuck with what I know best (Hong Kong).
But I'm happy that Felix (at the Peninsula) didn't make it onto the list this year (as it has in the past); everybody in Hong Kong agrees you don't go there for the food. I always thought it was outrageous that of all restaurants the past-panellists could pick in Hong Kong, it was that one.
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jeanlim, I also heard about Q having moved, and I don't know their new location. If I find them, I'll PM you.
Are you talking about Q in Quarry Bay? I was their pastry chef when they opened. It's long gone - about two years ago it changed to Cafe Einstein and right now, they're closed because of renovations. I don't know if they're re-opening with a new name and concept or it will still be Cafe Einstein.
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In Spain they call it "aceite de humo", something like "smoked oil". They cook sliced leeks in a low oven untli burnt. Then they powder it in a food processor (or blender) and mix it with olive oil. Season and serve as a sauce. What it does is it gives the dish some smokiness (without actually smoking anything).
Yes, that's how they did it here - mixed it into olive oil and served very sparingly as a sauce.
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I had leek ashes at a Juan Mari Arzak dinner in Hong Kong. (Arzak wasn't here but one of his chefs cooked). It was a sauce - very dark, tasted like burnt leeks (but it was not unpleasant) and had a very slight gritty texture on the tongue.
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Yes, I should have added that there's probably more than one type of dipping sauce than the one I tasted; it's not like there's only one type of nam prik in Thai cuisine.
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I remember that dipping sauce. I asked what was in it and it contained something unexpected - water buffalo!
I just looked back at my notes of my trip; here's what I wrote:
A recent visit to Luang Prabang in Laos yielded some surprisingly delicious food: excellent grilled water buffalo sausages seemed to be available everywhere; salads and soups perfumed with juniper (juniper berries are used to make gin) and lots of fresh watercress in salads. The local food market is huge and fascinating. There were unusual items such as fried rats and other less easily identifiable creatures, tomatoes the size of large peas and piles of exotic fruits. Dried goods are the best foodstuffs to bring back, especially local specialities of kaipen (riverweed), which is sprinkled with sesame seeds, garlic and other flavourings before being dried, kowkiep or sweet-potato wafers that look like pappadums and which are deep-fried before eating, and a buffalo and chilli paste called jau bong.
Theres's a Hong Kong company called California Food and Wine Consultancy; the guy (Mark) imports the riverweed; I believe he sells to some chefs in the United States. If you're interested, PM me and I'll give you his contact details.
Making Dragon's Beard Candy?
in China: Cooking & Baking
Posted
Ken, how many times were you able to pull the strands before they broke?