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Asian Food Trip – Hong Kong – Part 2

March 27, 2017 7:51 am , Leave a Comment , Winnie N

One of the best things when travelling with people who know the place is their recommendation on where to eat. Since my mom goes to Hong Kong every year, she has either tried or heard of somewhere good to eat. She doesn’t use computers or any fancy restaurant apps. She just knows from being there and talking to her friends to find out where to go.

I, on the other hand, rely on technology to find places to eat. I actually discovered the Openrice website and app while searching for restaurants in Hong Kong. This app might be better than Yelp because it’s what locals use to search for restaurant recommendations. It’s actually great because it’s in both English and Chinese. So you can match up the Chinese characters from your app to the restaurant if the sign is in Chinese only and you don’t read Chinese 🙂 .

Aberdeen Fishball & Noodles Restaurant (香港仔魚蛋粉) is one of the places that we stumbled upon when travelling around in Mong Kok. There are many locations around and it seems like some locations are better than others. The reason we went in was because my mom knows that it’s one of the popular chain places. This place is famous for their fish ball soup noodles.

Fish Ball Noodles – Don’t remember being spectacular but the fish broth was pretty tasty. The broth is made with water chestnuts and dry bean curd sticks hence the milky white broth. The homemade chili oil goes great with this dish.

Fish Ball Noodles

Sei Kee Congee (西記粥店) is one of the places we go back to every time we visit Hong Kong. There seems to be three locations but we always go to the one on Prince Edward Road. It’s a hole in the wall and the first place my dad took us to when my husband went to Hong Kong the very first time. This place is famous for their “fresh boiled” congee (生滾粥) which means they cook all the ingredients as you order them. My husband has fond memories of this place especially the minced beef congee—his all-time favourite Memorable Dish. My favourite congee to order in Hong Kong is the Boat Congee (艇仔粥). It has a mix of different ingredients but mostly seafood, hence the name “boat”. This congee is quintessentially Hong Kong and every restaurant makes it slightly different.

Minced Beef and Boat Congee – Just like how I remember them. Standard taste like all other congee places I had but very hot and fresh.

Youtiao (Chinese fried cruller) and Cheung Fun (rice noodle roll) – I don’t remember seeing them making these in-house. They taste ok, nothing spectacular.

Minced Beef and Boat Congee (right), Youtiao (Chinese fried cruller) and Cheung Fun (rice noodle roll) (left)

When travelling to the same place more than once, we tend to go back to the same restaurants over and over again. The food might not be the best but we tend to go back anyways. I think it’s because it brings back nostalgic travel memories for us. Sometimes it’s not about the food, but it’s about the company.

Read in the series:

Asian Food Trip – Hong Kong – Part 1
Asian Food Trip – Hong Kong – Part 3

Posted in: Places Visited, Special Meals , Tagged: cheung fun, congee, fish ball, Hong Kong, noodles, youtiao

Asian Food Trip – Hong Kong – Part 1

March 20, 2017 8:04 am , Leave a Comment , Winnie N

Dinner at Tao Heung - Crispy Chicken, Sautéed Pea Shoots in Broth, Steamed Garlic Giant Grouper (龍躉) Slices, Fish Fragrant Eggplant (鱼香茄子)

I can’t say I’ve had bad meals in Hong Kong. Some places might be mediocre but they are never “bad”. I think it’s because Hong Kong eaters have such a discernible taste that you cannot possibly serve bad food and stay afloat.

When I decided to go on a girls trip with my mother and my toddler girl, I researched on Yelp and online for restaurants and food places to check out. I don’t know if I ended up hitting any of the places on my list! Once I was there, we were eating on the go. Food is literally everywhere—big restaurants, little restaurants, fast food, fast but good food. If you’ve been to Hong Kong, you know what I mean. One can never go hungry.

We ended up eating at places we visited and nearby areas. My mother also knew of some places to check out from her previous trips (she pretty much goes once a year). Plus my older brother who works between mainland China and Hong Kong took us to different places to eat. Even people we met gave us recommendations on where to go. I have to say all Hong Kong people are food lovers!

When we think of chain restaurants in North America, we picture cookie cutter places that serve consistent but mediocre food. However in Hong Kong, chain restaurants could sometimes be better than the one off restaurants. They have standards to adhere to and the staff are usually friendlier than other local restaurants. Having said that, we did check out a restaurant that was famous for their roast goose but we were rather disappointed.

We had our first meal in Hong Kong at Tao Heung (稻香) near our hotel. We literally stepped outside of the hotel, looked around and saw their huge sign at a nearby local mall and headed towards it. Since we know it’s a chain restaurant, we were sure it would be decent. We were super hungry so we ate half of the food before I even took the photo.

Crispy Chicken – Standard at Cantonese restaurants. I find North American chickens to be blander. But in Asia, they are so much tastier.

Sautéed Pea Shoots in Broth – Fresh, tender and delicious. Even my 2-year old child could distinguish the taste of fresh vegetables versus not so fresh ones. She was gravitating towards them and couldn’t stop eating these yummy veggies.

Steamed Garlic Giant Grouper (龍躉) Slices – My mom said that you cannot eat it whole because it’s too big to steam on its own. Restaurants usually sell them in pieces instead of whole. They sliced them and steamed them like they would with whole fishes.

Fish Fragrant Eggplant (鱼香茄子) – This dish is a misnomer because there’s no fish in it at all. It is a seasoning mixture in Chinese Sichuan cuisine, and also refers to the resulting sauce in which meat or vegetables are cooked. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuxiang) It was very tasty with a hint of spice. Cantonese adopted this dish and made it not as spicy.

Dinner at Tao Heung – Crispy Chicken, Sautéed Pea Shoots in Broth, Steamed Garlic Giant Grouper (龍躉) Slices, Fish Fragrant Eggplant (鱼香茄子)

Below are the photos of the infamous roast goose restaurant. Tourists can actually buy it freshly roasted and the restaurant has a system of packaging it so that you can fly back to your home country with it (providing your flight isn’t that long and your country allows you to bring back meat items.) My brother took us there because we happened to be in the area so we gave it a try. This infamous roast goose restaurant was not as good as expected, and quite expensive for what it is. The roast goose was drowned with this brown sauce. It’s almost as if they were trying to disguise the lack of crunchiness of the goose skin. However, some might like that style of roast goose. But I prefer the crispy skin.

Roast Goose – Drowned with brown sauce. Why would they do that?

Lai Fun (瀨粉) in Broth – Usually people eat lai fun with roast goose. The lai fun’s texture was perfect and the broth was pretty tasty.

Roast Goose and Lai Fun

Qilin (麒麟) Tofu – The layers resemble the scales of Qilin (a Chinese mystical, mythical lucky creature). It is made up of tofu, Jinhua ham (金華火腿), and Chinese mushroom. The tofu is very soft and pairs very nicely with the salty ham and mushroom.

Qilin Tofu

Century Eggs (皮蛋) with Pickled Ginger – I have to admit it was one of the best century eggs I had. Apparently it’s their house specialty (soft yolk)—paired nicely with the pickled ginger.

Sautéed Chinese Mustard Greens (芥菜) with Chinese Mushrooms – Tender and tasty cooked in oyster sauce.

Century Eggs and Chinese Mustard Greens

There are more yummy Memorable Dishes to come as I travel through Hong Kong with my mother and daughter. Every time I come back to visit, there is always something new to discover!

Read in the series:

Asian Food Trip – Hong Kong – Part 2
Asian Food Trip – Hong Kong – Part 3

Posted in: Places Visited, Special Meals , Tagged: century eggs, crispy chicken, eggplants, giant grouper, Hong Kong, lai fun, pea shoots, roast goose, tofu

Ratatouille

March 13, 2017 10:02 am , Leave a Comment , Winnie N

I have never been a fan of ratatouille. Maybe I’ve only had bad ratatouille. Until my George Brown College cooking class when my teacher opened my eyes to what good ratatouille could taste like, I avoided it like the plague. Before then, my encounter with ratatouille had not been a favourable one. I might have had mushy ratatouille as a side dish at restaurants but I don’t quite recall how I have come to block this dish from my culinary memory.

Coincidentally, while I was prepping to write this blog post, I came across a ratatouille recipe from Anthony Bourdain’s cookbook and he shared my own sentiments about ratatouille. He mentioned that he couldn’t stand that “ratatouille is traditionally sort of sludgy.” I couldn’t agree more. Because you cook all the vegetables together without taking into consideration of each vegetable’s cooking time, the dish ends up being one big mushy vegetable stew. Bourdain’s recipe requires you to cook each vegetable separately and then mix in the seasonings afterwards. This prevents the vegetables from over cooking.

Mushy vegetables stewed together in one big pot was what I knew to be ratatouille until my George Brown culinary teacher introduced me to a new way of cooking it. He separated the vegetables like Bourdain’s recipe but he kicked it up a notch by roasting the vegetables. I couldn’t believe my tastebuds when I had the ratatouille tasting in my class after he prepared it. Wow!

Ratatouille has now become my all-time favourite vegetable dish. This Memorable Dish is not difficult to make. It’s just a bit more time consuming because you have to roast each vegetable separately. However, it’s a great dish to make ahead of time even overnight. All you have to do is reheat it in the oven until it’s warmed through. It tastes best at room temperature. If you have a phobia of ratatouille, please give this dish a try because it will change what your mind and taste buds think of traditional ratatouille.

Ratatouille

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Serving Size: 6-8

Ingredients

2 Red Peppers
2 Green Peppers
1 Eggplant
2 green Zucchinis
2 yellow Zucchinis
2 Roma Tomatoes
1 Onion (medium)
4 cloves of Garlic, chopped
Few sprigs of fresh Thyme
Basil (optional)
Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper
2 tablespoon Tomato Paste
1/4 cup Stock (chicken or vegetable)

Preparation

Preheat oven to 450°F and line roasting pan with foil.
Cut all vegetables in 3/4 inch cubes.
In a bowl, toss each vegetable separately with olive oil and salt & pepper.
Roast each type of vegetable separately until they are done. (Red and green peppers together, then eggplant, and then green and yellow zucchinis.) It’ll take approximately 20 minutes for each type of vegetable depending on your oven. Check and toss vegetables around with a spatula if needed.
Mix the tomatoes and onions together to roast. When roasting the tomatoes and onions, cook them when they are 3/4 done (approx. 10-15 min.) Then toss in the chopped garlic and thyme sprigs and continue roasting until done.
Put all the cooked vegetables into one large bowl and set aside.
In a small saucepan, bring chicken/vegetable stock to a simmer and then add tomato paste and bring them to a boil.
Pour the tomato paste mixture and basil (if using) and gently mix with the vegetables so they don’t break apart.
Eat at room temperature.

Notes

Note #1: I didn’t have basil on hand when I made this recipe. Instead, I used flat-leaf parsley. Of course the flavour is different but using parsley gives the dish a more refreshing taste.

Note #2: To save time, you could roast the vegetables in different pans and put them in the oven at the same time. However, you’ll have to adjust the cooking time because the vegetables on the top rack will take longer to roast.

https://www.memorabledishes.com/ratatouille/

Recipe by Memorable Dishes | www.memorabledishes.com