Jul/100
ironic maoism
yeah, i know, china is about the least ironic country in the world, well, maybe except for north korea. and the fact that shanghai is rife with ironic t-shirt wearing, skinny jeans wearing and fixie riding hipsters. but they’re not drinking ‘reeb’ – but a couple days ago i got this email titled “i think we need to try this place.”
linked within may have been china’s most ironic restuarant. or maybe it has to do with the chinese mao-era edict of “remembering the bitterness of the past to savor the sweetness of the present.
no. 9 factory restaurant – a sichaunese restaurant located in shanghai stadium, decorated to look like a 1970s era Factory.
Jul/100
spanish new gastronomy festival
wow. how awesome is this?
i would really like to go to juan mari azrak or martin berastraguei’s dinners. anyone want to join me? no, i’m serious. hit me at the email if you want to go.
Jul/100
eating in hong kong #4: lamma island
no, i didn’t go back to hong kong again. just cleaning up some of the photos off of my camera.
lamma island is one of the outlying islands in hong kong – a 30 minute ferry ride from the central ferry piers, you have your choice of two villages to take the ferry to. we arrived too late (or early) to take the ferry to sok kwu wan, we got on the ferry for yung shue wan.
well, getting there, i didn’t know which of the seafood restaurants to pick (i’ve only been to sok kwu wan before) but there was certainly lots of seafood to choose from. we picked one at random and had a feast.
photos after the jump
Jun/100
tofu fa
down the street from homefeel in causeway bay, my friend abbie insisted we get hong kong style dessert. and she recommended this tofu shop.
tofu fa – or silken tofu is a cantonese style ‘tong sui’ – or literally ‘sugar water.’ made with fresh tofu and served with a ginger simple syrup, it can be a refreshing end to a meal.
this particular shop specialized in tofu of all sorts – fried, baked . . .and dessertified.
the tofu fa here was excellent. served with a lot of different flavors
instead of the usual ginger simple syrup, i went with almond flavor.
Yan Wo Dou Bun Chong (causeway bay branch)
55 jardine’s bazaar
causeway bay
under $40 hkd
[post edited to change out the double photos]
Jun/100
eating in hong kong #2 home feel ???
last time i was in hong kong over chinese new year, my friend licia took me to a restaurant in causeway bay called homefeel – check the address bar for the name of the restaurant – or click through to here
cantonese home cooking is something i actually don’t get a lot of. here in shanghai – and even in hong kong, restaurants concentrate on the banquet or the dim sum or the fast and quick barbeque or noodle dishes. homefeel makes the sort of food that mom makes at home. and that sort of hearty cantonese food was just what i was craving.
with my friend abbie we ordered grandma’s chicken, the “old fire” or daily soup. let me just stop here a second and go talk about soup – so important for any cantonese meal or even cantonese life. when you’re looking for a girlfriend or a wife – your cantonese friends will say “make sure she knows how to make soup.” If you’re going home, your cantonese friends say “Oh, you’re going home so that your mom will make soup for you.” If you’re sick, soup. If you’re feeling good, it must be because of soup. If eating is the reason for existence for Cantonese – and it is – than soup is the alpha and omega of that existence.
but since i’m not truly truly cantonese – or i’m only half way there by way of pittsburgh, los angeles and berkeley, what i really was craving for was steamed pork loaf. kind of a cantonese meat loaf. yeah, doesn’t sound too appetizing. nor does it look that great.
but this is the sort of food that my mom made for me growing up. with a salted duck’s egg and a bowl of rice, this is home for me. sure they make it with a slightly fattier pork than at home, which makes it slightly tastier.
oh and grandma’s chicken
the signature dish of the restaurant – it was kind of expensive for $95hkd for a half a chicken, but man, they make a good bird. equal parts sweet and savory, with the nice tang of a reduced soy sauce glaze contrasting with the moist juicy bird. a little bit like a hainan chicken rice chicken, but juicier and more succulent, if that was even possible. i don’t make a lot of specific recommendations, but grandma knew what she was doing when she gave out the recipe for this chicken.
for those of us of cantonese extraction, the feel good food of home feel brings us back to a place where mom is cooking for us and the smell of rice steaming pervades the home. and that’s a nice place.
C, 7/F, Lee Theatre Plaza,
99 Percival Street, Causeway Bay
Hong Kong
$100 HKD per person
Jun/100
eating in hong kong #1 goldfinch
again? wasn’t i just there?
yes. and yes. man, do i love hong kong or what? so i went back with a colleague who is new to china/hong kong and had spent her first week in hong kong eating at the grocery store near the office. as her time in asia is limited, i was rather disappointed and told her that that was no way to see hong kong, especially if her visits to hong kong would be minimal in the future.
now it just so happened that i wanted to go to hong kong anyways, since it had been since chinese new year that i had been there last, so i invited her along to see my hong kong, which of course consists mainly of eating.
Apr/100
sunny brunch in shanghai: downstairs at urbn
what used to be room28 (run by the wagas group) at the urbn hotel on jiaozhou lu near beijing lu is now downstairs with david laris (he of laris and, *cough* the barbie cafe).
with a sunny sunny saturday and my friend zafar in town from the states, we chose a perfect brunching day to go try out the still-under-soft opening restaurant. and its good that its still a soft opening because they have a bunch of kinks they need to work out – or actually one big one.
but first, let’s start with the good. the space was perfect for a nice sunny day. a little urban (or urbn) oasis in the sun, away from the jing’an traffic. keeping with the carbon neutral theme of the hotel, much of the produce and ingredients are locally sourced, organic and free-range. the prices that one is paying here for all of this goodness? well they’re well in line (or under!) lots of western oriented brunch places in town – with dishes ranging from 50-120 rmb. so, yeah, not lanzhou la mien cheap, but not overwhelming wallet draining either.
how’s the food? well, it was decent, if not exactly super memorable. it wasn’t exactly a typical brunch menu – oh sure, they had brunchy things like eggs benedict, the coddled eggs over toast – which were all pretty good, but they were also some items like spaghetti and meatballs which deviated from the traditional brunch fare. one standout dish was the macaroni and cheese with black truffles – assuming they used yunnan truffles to keep with the sustainability and locally sourced product theme. the mac and cheese was both parts creamy and earthy with the delicious truffles. its the high end mac and cheese i’ve lusted for ever since tiffany put it on her menu during the very first season of top chef – which was, what, like 2006? the prices were good and the food was good and surroundings were outstanding – what wasn’t to like?
well, i’ll tell you. we were the second table seated and ordered at 11:50pm, with one additional order coming at around 12:05. From then until 1pm, our food came out sporadically, in 20 minute intervals. randomly. until we were finally all served (some had finished obviously) at 12:55pm. That’s an hour and 5 minutes. Fine, they have a slow kitchen or a small kitchen right? Well, during that time, at least 7 other tables sat down, ordered, were served and many FINISHED their meals – including several who had ordered the same things as us before our dishes were served.
i’m not a particularly demanding customer – having worked in the service industry, or just having worked in general, i understand mistakes get made. hell, i won’t get mad. just let us know – “sorry, we forgot to place the order” or “we’re in the weeds, your stuff will be out in 10 minutes” something. give me an update. but all they could tell us was “it will be out immediately” – then it was another 15 minute wait. or only one dish would come out.
the manager came to apologize after our lawyer friend left, but he gave us some run-around about how 2 and 4 tops could be served quicker than 6 tops and how having a split order (since one of my friends showed up late) was causing havoc in the kitchen, but i don’t buy it. why did one spaghetti come out 25 minutes before the other one? if you were waiting to fire the entire 6-top together, why did our dishes come out a such long intervals – and everyone elses’ came out together? just admit it was a screw up, give us a discount (he did buy us a round of drinks and offered to re-fire the cold eggs which my friend andrew got, but that actually got me more aggrieved because it took them 5 minutes to bring out a fresh set of coddled eggs. why did it take that long in the first place?
the food was decent to good, the patio was perfect for the breezy summer – i really wanted this restaurant to work. heck, they even serve the cheapest bottle of voss water i’ve ever seen (45 rmb for the big bottle!) i think they’ll fix their service problems soon – i realize i violated the rule about not going to a restaurant within 2 weeks of the opening (which is what it was) but the issue isn’t about the mistakes it was the way it was handled. i really couldn’t care less about the delivery of the food (well, not that’s not quite true), but please just be honest and upfront about it. that’s all i ask as a customer. i will be returning, but perhaps not until the middle of summer when they fix their service issues.
downstairs at urbn
160 jiaozhou lu near beijing lu
brunch: 75-200 rmb (depending on how many bloody marys you down)
@ urbn by [Terence], on Flickr”>
@ urbn” />
Apr/100
eating in hong kong (airport) – popeye’s fried chicken
so normally when i’m in the hong kong airport i’m either arriving in hong kong or leaving hong kong. its not often that i transfer through chep lap kok.
and even when i do – its a time when i’m longing for char siu rice or something or other hong kong related. but this time i got this huge craving for popeye’s fried chicken.
Apr/102
eating in singapore: samy’s curry house
“indian” i said to sandra. “i want to eat indian.”
“well we could go to tandoor at the holiday inn – its quite nice with table cloths or we could go to samy’s curry and eat off banana leaves”
well, i like fine dining as much as anyone, but anytime you have a chance to eat curries off banana leaves, i say you need to take it. besides i can get decent restaurant indian food here in shanghai (vedas, masala arts, etc.) but indian food meaning cheap curries on rice? sign me up.
Mar/104
eating in singapore: chicken rice lah!
in my life i talk a lot about chicken rice. when i mentioned i was going to singapore, i told people “i’m going for chicken rice.” i enjoy the movie “the chicken rice war.” i once spent an entire day in singapore eating nothing but chicken rice – 6 different plates.
8 years ago when i visited singapore with my parents, my friend sandra took us to boon tong kee on balestier road and we ate chicken rice street side on the sidewalk . . . and it was good.
so when i came back to singapore, i put in a request to sandra . . . and we made our way to boon tong kee again, but things done changed.
that’s right! an indoor restaurant where the sidewalk stand used to be! i’m not sure it is an improvement – i did like eating on the side of the road, but it was more comfortable.