eG Foodblog: therese - Hey, wanna play a game?

[Pan]

[...]We all got egg custard, which is actually chess but of course so few people actually know the difference that they describe it as egg custard and call it a day.

←

What is the difference?

Sorry you had a poor dinner.

[hzrt8w]

I know what the dried stuff on the right is called in Cantonese...it is something from a young bamboo shoot, I believe. It's one of my favourite vegetables! It has a really "soong" (crunchy?) texture when you bite into it, even though it's soft and holds a lot of sauce because it's so porous.

And yes, the one of the left is abalone.

←

Help identifying the other items I photographed would be welcome:

←

I can try...the first one is "sert yee" (snow fungus in English?), the second one I see all the time but I don't remember what it is. I was going to guess shark fin but the pieces look too small. The third is just Chinese dried black mushrooms...you use them in soup or you can braise them in sauce and serve them on a bed of Chinese greens, and the fourth one I'm also not quite sure about, but it looks ike "fish maw" or "fa gao" in Cantonese (fish stomach? fish bladder?) and it's used in soup. Fish maw soup is one of my favourite Chinese soups, but only if it's of excellent quality. I like it even more than shark fin.

←

Is the second one fu chuk (sp)? It's like sheets of dried tofu-ish. Things.

←

I know what you are talking about, but I don't think it is. Foo Chuk is usually more crinkly.

I think it's snow fungus and fish maw too.

←

I don't have a blown up view so it may be hard to tell. It is customary for Chinese to showcase the most expensive/hard-to-get dried ingredients at the restaurant. It is highly unlikely that it is foo chuk (beancurd sheet), US$1.50 a bag. I believe those are shark fins, albeit small ones, which are typically showcased in Cantonese seafood restaurants.

So from left to right:

- Shue Yee [Cantonese], white/snow fungi

- Shark fins

- Dried black mushrooms

- Fish maw (fish bladder blown up and deep-fried and dried)

Hey therese!

Is this one of the spongy desserts? I noticed you got the daikon cakes as well. Did they have a sautee cart for those and some of the other dumplings? What was in the egg roll sprinkled with sesame seeds?

←

That's Chestnut cake, the fried one. You can get it steamed too.

←

I believe these are called "Ma Tai Goh" in Cantonese, made with water chestnuts not chestnuts.

[hzrt8w]

.

There's also a cool display case of dried this and that:

←

Dried WHAT? There's a FACE in there!!

←

I'm reasonably certain that the left picture is abalone, but I've no idea what's the stuff in the right bottle.

Great blog Therese!

←

I agree with Pan that the one on the right is bamboo pith, or "Jook Shang" in Cantonese. And dried abalone on the left, of course.

Bamboo pith is not particular expensive, nor is it particularly tasty. Actually it has no taste of its own. It does have an interesting texture (like cloth but very crunchy) and it soaks up the flavor of whatever sauce it is cooked in. We use it to add texture contrast in a dish, usually braised dried seafood of one kind of another (oyster, conpoy, abalone, etc.).

[hzrt8w]

The eggroll sort of thing was actually a baked pastry with a sweet glaze on top, savory meat filling inside. We liked them so much we got a second order:

←

This is called "Cha Siu So" in Cantonese (BBQ Pork Puff Pastry). The filling is made from BBQ pork + onions and typically oyster sauce/soy kind of flavoring (thus savory). The crust is made with skin dough quite similar to the crust of the egg tarts you had.

[therese]

This is called "Cha Siu So" in Cantonese (BBQ Pork Puff Pastry).  The filling is made from BBQ pork + onions and typically oyster sauce/soy kind of flavoring (thus savory).  The crust is made with skin dough quite similar to the crust of the egg tarts you had.

←

I thought it might be the same pastry as the tarts, as it was super flaky.

[therese]

I believe these are called "Ma Tai Goh" in Cantonese, made with water chestnuts not chestnuts.

←

Do you know what the jelly matrix is flavored with, if anything?

[therese]

Since we've now had a number of definitions for dishes that were not quite as common I'll go ahead and mention details about some of the others:

Nothing too obviously interesting about these actually, apart from the fact that I can never remember the name of this slippery rice noodle, but these were actually a bit different. When I asked the server what was inside she had difficulty telling me, shaking off my suggestions of beef or pork, and finally writing the word "OX" in the palm of her hand. So possibly made with oxtail?

Nobody remarked on the jellyfish, and perhaps that's because everybody else orders jellyfish as a matter of course. I've only had once or twice before, at big banquet Chinese dinners in California where a Chinese host is ordering, and neither my husband nor kids had ever tasted it before. We all liked it, and they found it less weird than expected, more like a vegetable than either fish or meat.

These were very good, each stuffed with a large shrimp. The casing was a very sticky starch, very similar (or that same as) the one used for sesame balls.

Very mildly sweet, steamed dough layered with perhaps sweet potato and dried fruit? A bit heavy, and we didn't finish it.

[therese]

[...]We all got egg custard, which is actually chess but of course so few people actually know the difference that they describe it as egg custard and call it a day.

←

What is the difference?

←

There are lots of recipes for chess pie out there, but most call for a little bit of cornmeal in the filling (which cooks as the pie bakes and gives the filling some body), more sugar, and lemon juice (or sometimes vinegar). It's not as intense as the filling in a lemon meringue pie, but not as delicately flavored as usual custard pie.

Although the pie was the best part of the meal, it was definitely not the best chess pie I've ever had. Were Miss Mary Nell to serve this pie to my family, perhaps having brought it to a church supper or holiday meal or wake, they would politely take small portions and then somehow manage to not actually eat it.

[therese]

Sorry you had a poor dinner.

←

You and me both, believe me.

I have been to this restaurant before, once in person and once or twice for take out. Back when we were remodeling our house and kitchen we lived in an apartment in the same neighborhood as the car dealerships and Indian restaurants. I didn't cook too much in the apartment, and when the family tired of Indian we tried Maddy's. It had previously been called Rockin' Robs, a place that featured some excellent bbq but questionable hygiene.

I will give Maddy's credit for consistency. We keep hoping it will get better. But as my husband pointed out last night as we were getting ready for bed, "Pulled pork should have some, um, texture."

[therese]

Lunch quandary:

Pack my own? Or risk eating what's provided by the vendor?

The latter option means that I'm forced to attend the meeting, which would actually be a good thing, as I like the people there and it's an easy way for me to get face time with a lot of them at once and create good will yadda yadda. And it also means that I don't have to try and find my lunch box. I couldn't find it yesterday and so packed it in a small shopping bag from some chi chi boutique.

Where the heck is my lunch box?

[therese]

Oh yeah, breakfast:

Fiber One

Skim milk

Peach

Tea with milk

[therese]

Make that two peaches.

Heard an add on the radio yesterday evening for Krogers (bleah, hate Krogers) for cheap blueberries, so blueberries are coming into season somewhere. Will be keeping a sharp eye out for them.

[tryska]

don't get them from Krogers tho.

it took exactly 12 hours for the pint of strawberries i bought last saturday to get all moldy. and i picked through the pile for the best looking of the bunch.

I'm making a DFM run at lunch time today. gotta get the chicken hearts.

Sorry about the Maddy's experience - have you checked out a Shane's Rib Shack yet? i don't know if it's strictly OTP - they opened one up by me - it's not that bad as far as BBQ goes.

oh and I suggest the coupe - better gas mileage and a smaller footprint.

[therese]

Sorry about the Maddy's experience - have you checked out a Shane's Rib Shack yet?  i don't know if it's strictly OTP - they opened one up by me - it's not that bad as far as BBQ goes.

←

We get ours from Dusty's, which has very respectable meats, cole slaw that doesn't suck, and very good brunswick stew. The potato salad is made of cubes of styrofoam, and the corn on the cob is frozen (yes, even in the middle of summer), but one can't have everything, can one?

We don't usually eat there, though, as the dining area features excessively rickety chairs, smeary tables, and lots and lots and lots of pig-related, um, art and bibelots. There's one very large picture that features a very forlorn-looking pig on the far side of a fence (barbed wire? possibly) that's so realistic that it sort of freaks out my son.

The last time we ate in there was with my sister-in-law from Texas, who kept on muttering, "Pork? Barbecued pork?" Clearly an idea so foreign to her that we might as well have been serving her barbecued earth worms.

[therese]

Source of this quote:

"Don't you blaspheme in here!"

[C. sapidus]

Source of this quote:

"Don't you blaspheme in here!"

←

Aretha Franklin in the Blues Brothers movie. Aretha ran the soul food cafe.

(edited for more information)

Edited June 1, 2006 by C. sapidus (log)

[Daniel]

You can see a little bit of char on the meat in the foreground, but its mostly so mushy you could use it for baby food.

←

Wow, that looks all types of terrible.. Sorry that your meal was bad, hopefully you have saved another person from having to go there.

[MarketStEl]

I probably would have gone to the BMW dealer and asked where they kept the Minis.

Back to the food, though: Oh, dear--this was looking so promising! All the right visual cues and atmospheric vibe, but then this:

Our food arrives in good time, and here's where things get dicey:

I've got pulled pork, which is cooked beyond done to mushy, and the sauce on top doesn't help. The cole slaw was clearly made in a factory someplace far, far away. The mysterious item with a plastic spoon sticking out of it is Brunswick stew. In addition to pulled pork (non-mushy pulled pork) it should contain corn, tomatoes, and (often) lima beans.  This picture actually makes it look better than it really was---those yellow specks are appear to be corn, but in fact they cannot be discerned by either taste or texture from the background mush.

You can see a little bit of char on the meat in the foreground, but its mostly so mushy you could use it for baby food.

This tastes of potassium benzoate, not cabbage.

The ribs (my husband ordered these) are the best meat option. I find them a bit flabby, but at least there's a bit of char.

←

Want me to have a slab of ribs shipped to you from Gates'?

[ludja]

Since we've now had a number of definitions for dishes that were not quite as common I'll go ahead and mention details about some of the others:

Nothing too obviously interesting about these actually, apart from the fact that I can never remember the name of this slippery rice noodle, but these were actually a bit different. When I asked the server what was inside she had difficulty telling me, shaking off my suggestions of beef or pork, and finally writing the word "OX" in the palm of her hand. So possibly made with oxtail?

...

←

I've actually had a very tasty version of this--rice noodles with XO sauce. This dish could be tricky to navigate for someone with shrimp or scallop allergies; it's not obvious that they are a component of the dish.

Here's a definition from wikipedia and a link to recent eGullet thread discussing the components and recipes for the sauce.

XO sauce from wikipedia

XO sauce (Chinese: XO 醬, Simplified Chinese: XO 酱) is a spicy seafood sauce, which was developed in Hong Kong Cantonese cuisine in the 1980s. The sauce is made of roughly chopped dried seafoods, such as scallop, dried fish and shrimp that has been cooked with chilli, onion, garlic and oil. Once a prestigious concoction confined to gourmet seafood restaurants, XO sauce can now be found as a pre-made product on grocery stores shelves, produced by Asian food companies like Lee Kum Kee and Amoy.

eGullet thread on XO sauce

[therese]

I've actually had a very tasty version of this--rice noodles with XO sauce.  This dish could be tricky to navigate for someone with shrimp or scallop allergies; it's not obvious that they are a component of the dish.

Here's a definition from wikipedia and a link to recent eGullet thread discussing the components and recipes for the sauce.

XO sauce from wikipedia

XO sauce (Chinese: XO 醬, Simplified Chinese: XO 酱) is a spicy seafood sauce, which was developed in Hong Kong Cantonese cuisine in the 1980s. The sauce is made of roughly chopped dried seafoods, such as scallop, dried fish and shrimp that has been cooked with chilli, onion, garlic and oil. Once a prestigious concoction confined to gourmet seafood restaurants, XO sauce can now be found as a pre-made product on grocery stores shelves, produced by Asian food companies like Lee Kum Kee and Amoy.

eGullet thread on XO sauce

←

Aaaah. Well, that solves that mystery. I couldn't tell you what the meat inside the noodle was. The XO certainly could be a problem for somebody with a shellfish allergy, and our server was in no way capable of conveying that info. Of course, if I had a shellfish allergy I wouldn't come anywhere near a dim sum restaurant.

[therese]

Wow, that looks all types of terrible.. Sorry that your meal was bad, hopefully you have saved another person from having to go there.

←

I seriously just don't think people know how good this food can be, and how terrible so much of it is. This place stays very busy, and it's not just the music and vibe, as a lot of the business is take out.

[therese]

I probably would have gone to the BMW dealer and asked where they kept the Minis.

←

I may sneak in a visit to BMW this evening, but I probably won't get a mini. I'm not cute enough to drive a mini.

Back to the food, though: Oh, dear--this was looking so promising! All the right visual cues and atmospheric vibe, but then this...Want me to have a slab of ribs shipped to you from Gates'?

No need. Just a heartfelt acknowledgement of my effort on behalf of eG'ers everywhere.

[Jensen]

What animal interrupted my night?

←

I'm just getting caught up on my eGullet reading so have no idea whether this has been answered yet or not but...

Is it a flying squirrel? Those big eyes look vaguely familiar.

[therese]

Source of this quote:

"Don't you blaspheme in here!"

←

Aretha Franklin in the Blues Brothers movie. Aretha ran the soul food cafe.

(edited for more information)

←

Strong work.

Yes, this is exactly what Aretha's character says to the shady characters who are trying to get her husband to go back out on the road. The significance of this quote in this instance was that the band leader last night used the quote at a certain point (about the time they were passing the tip jar, in response to something somebody in the audience said), and then proceeded to attribute it to another character, in another movie (I can't recall which one at the moment).

I corrected him, nicely, and he agreed. The highlight of the meal.

Who can tell me what the Blue Brothers order to eat in Aretha's restaurant?

And for bonus points, what does John Candy's character order to drink while watching the show at the end of the movie?

Finally, what food item beloved of orphans everywhere is the subject of a song in the movie?

[therese]

[i'm just getting caught up on my eGullet reading so have no idea whether this has been answered yet or not but...

Is it a flying squirrel? Those big eyes look vaguely familiar.

←

Yep, and already answered, but you get partial credit.