a taste of home

I made my annual trip home this past Thanksgiving, and rather than telling you the details of my wonderful trip, I’ll just show you…

These lovely fried balls of dough were hollow (some are filled with bean paste or meats) but super chewy.  Perfect with a lemon HI-C juice box!

More fried dough (油条)…classic Cantonese dim sum…

My favorite, egg tarts! Mm…custardy, flaky, buttery….delicious!

Golden roasted duck and chicken among other meats at a local HK dai pai dong (open air food stall).

Yet more dim sum…this time it’s loh bat goh (fried turnip cake) dotted with pieces of pork and browned on a flat top stove by the side of the road.  $4HKD for a peice? What a steal! (that’s 50 cents folks!)

What would Thanksgiving be without turkey? Here’s the glorious bird…

And all the fixins’

That is a good lookin’ plate, don’t you think?

And two desserts!

A small produce shop on the way home selling an interesting mix of tropical fruits.  Starfruit and the most fragrant guava I’ve smelled since Pakistan…

Australian bush berries.  Sour and tangy when fresh, but mom made them into a great jam for breakfast!

Thai pommelo…I dream of this sweet, chilled, juicy fruit.  Think  grapefruit, only 10x more scrumptious.

My Malaysian kuih! I found a tiny little shop selling every kind I could ever want while shopping for the day in TST (Kowloon).

Layers of pandan and coconut jelly glistened underneath those plastic wrappers.  Just waiting for me to pull them apart and devour! Good thing I bought three…

Chestnuts (really) roasting on an open fire.  10 years ago these tiny mobile kitchens roasting chestnuts were the norm in HK.  The smell would waft down the streets, reminding everyone that winter was near.  Now, it’s a stroke of luck if you can spot one.  Sad.

Mom’s Hainan chicken.  Soy sauce chicken from my local dai pai dong, and some fragrant rice with garlic sauce.  It just doesn’t get any better than this.

Popcorn at the movie theater.  Or should I say movie theater at the popcorn?  I go for the popcorn.

Caramel popcorn AND butter popcorn.  It’s a match made in heaven.

On the streets of Causeway Bay, on another shopping expedition, mom and I stopped for these glistening coins of sweet fried chicken and pork sausage…

Oh and of course I tried the chili bacon…

Nata de coco is fermented coconut water, and so much fun to eat.  It’s not quite rubbery, not quite solid.  I love these packages from Singapore…so cute! And the name “jubes” is fun to say too. Go on, try it! Jubes. jubes. jubes.

Fluffy white bread, sweet and salty pork.  Char siu bao is my favorite!

A pomello, mango, coconut concoction from Hui Lau Shan (my healthy mango snack shop).

Little Sheep hotpot! Here’s the beef…how beautiful and marbled it is…

Lobster balls! They cook in the pungent bubbling broth and soak up all that spicy goodness.  Perfect for a cold winter’s day.

Xin Jiang lamb! Just as I remember from Shanghai.  Liberally covered in a cumin-pepper spice mix and licked to perfection over an open grill.

Fresh lotus root.  Also wonderful in hot pot.

Buffet style all-you-can-eat Mongolian BBQ at Nomads (once was Kublai’s, one of my favorite food memories from high school).

The best part? The sauce bar…

There are recommendations for sauces…

But my tradition is to load up the goods and just pour a little bit of everything on.  Yep, everything.

YUM.  Bits of burnt corn and garlic, vermicelli noodles mixed with some rice, slices of beef and bits of fatty bacon, crunchy onions and lots and lots of sauce.

And last but certainly not least, here is mom during one of her cooking classes.  Waiting for the “students” to arrive, everything is laid out and prepped for an evening of daal, masala and curry cooking!

So there you have it! My 7 days in HK were jam packed and full of the foods I love.  I would have it no other way.

我爱香港!!!

some like it hottt

Have you ever had a soup so hot it made your eyes water? Or numbed your tongue til you couldn’t speak? Or cleared your sinuses so good you could breath freely for at least a week?

If you answered no, then you have never enjoyed (or suffered through, depending on your tolerance for spice) huǒ guō 火鍋, also known as hot pot.

Hot pot is a famous Mongolian dinner event popular in China and Hong Kong where the food is served raw and cooked (by you) in a pot of boiling, bubbling broth.

Apparently, hot pot originated in Mongolia while Gengkhis Khan was preparing for a battle.  Khan did not wish to fight on an empty stomach, yet his cooks didn’t have enough time to prepare his meal of lamb.  There was enough time, however, to drop some slices of lamb meat in boiling water.  Khan ate this impromptu meal and went on to beat his opponents.  Behold, the birth of huo guo.

While there are many variations of the hot pot in all the regions of China, my favorite has to be the Si Chuan Hot Pot, 麻辣, also known as “numb and spicy.”

In many popular hot pot restaurants in HK, you can get a pot split into two sections – one for the broth full of red chillis and mouth-numbing spices and one for the mild vegetarian broth.

The array of raw fish, meat and vegetables to choose from is quite astounding.  You can get any part of any animal, most kinds of root known to man, some obscure fish you’ve never heard of before and plenty more at a hot pot restaurant.

But I have a few staple favorites…

Sliced beef

lobster balls (top), beef balls

assorted mushrooms

lotus root

If you doubt the seriousness of the Si Chuan hot pot, feast your eyes on this…

And if a pot bursting with red peppers isn’t good enough, you can always pep up your dipping sauce with any variety of chilies, pepper, garlic and onions…

It’s certainly not an easy meal.  Your eyes start to water, and if you mistakenly swallow (let alone chomp on) a clove then time yourself out for a couple minutes…you’ll need them to recover.

It’s also somewhat of a hands-on experience.  You can’t really drop in your food and sit back as it all cooks quickly in piping hot water, especially thin slices of meat.  And you don’t want to banish anything to the depts of the chili broth for too long, otherwise your food will either disintegrate or become so spicy, it loses any real flavor.

Besides, when you drop in a favored item (a lobster ball or lotus root in our case), it’s important to keep an eye on it as someone may fish it out and eat it up before you notice.

I might be painting a very scary picture of hot pot, but don’t get me wrong, it’s one of my favorite meals to eat in HK, and one of the most enjoyable!