Late Zhong

Yes, I know its been almost two weeks since Tuen Ng Festival but I've been busy stuffing my face with 'zhong', the official food of Tuen Ng.

I looove zhong but have been discouraged from eating it most of my life from friends and family whose concern that my body shape looks more zhongzi like by the mouthful.

However, my mother thankfully brought back some that a family friend wrapped herself. Being Taiwanese, these were Taiwanese zhong, somewhat smaller than its Cantonese counterparts and chubbier in status than its Shanghainese ones, which are elegantly long. Who says we're not what we eat?

Unlike the zhong that I blogged about during previous Tuen Ng Festivals, these were filled with glutinous rice, salted egg yolk, stewed pork, dried conpoy and shrimp as well as soft blanched peanuts. Rather than dark soy or granulated sugar, the Taiwanese prefer sweet chili sauce as accompaniment. Sweet with a slight tangy kick, it is perfect with the rich, fatty tasting zhong.

Definitely worth looking like a zhong for.

D'oh!

Sometimes I feel like the female equivalent of Homer J. Simpson. A walking idiot whose brain and tongue don't work in perfect harmony.

I'd been home three days when Susan invited me over for a dinner party yesterday. Despite the 5 hour advance notice, this is not something you turn down. Susan was cooking. 'nuf said.

Anyhow, lo and behold I'm there early and get to meet the Fuschia Dunlop. In those five minutes before someone else saved me from digging myself deeper into the pit of mortification, I have managed to a) insult London, where, unbeknownst to me, she was living; b) admit that I didn't really know who she was; and c) tell her that Londoners were unfriendly.

Upon coming home and googling her, I find out that I've had her books on my Amazon wishlist. D'OH!!!!

I'm an absolute idiot.

However, the dinner party was fabulous fun and Fuschia incredibly gracious. Although I didn't know many of the guests besides Susan and Sunday Driver, they were very nice and thankfully forgiving even after the sharing of embarrassing anecdotes. It wasn't upon coming home that I found out that some of these ladies were professional foodies... I'm actually glad I wasn't forewarned. I think that while I wouldn't have backed out (did I mention Susan was cooking?), I would have been very intimidated. As it was I think I was a little too loose with my tongue.

The food.... well... what can I say? It was delicious of course! My favorites being the pork neck and the desserts. Desserts consisted of Susan-made Meyer lemon sorbet, mango sorbet and the intoxicatingly addictive chocolate cherry ice cream. That's not all though... there were canneles.

Yes, you heard right, deliciously rich with a caramelized crunchy exterior giving way to a plush, chewy, pudding-like interior... painstakingly made with molds specially bought from France, beeswax ordered online to brush the molds with and an hour of baking of the thumb-sized treats.

And if you feel like learning to cook in Hong Kong, check out Corner Kitchen!

F-odd: Clothes make the Man

Recently, while browsing in some of the stores in Hong Kong, I came across a number of food themed useless items.

First of all was the incredibly life-like slab of braised pork belly phone decorator, then it was the stuffed chicken wing phone decorator (complete with "cleaning function"... a terry cloth side you can use to wipe down your phone after you made it greasy with your face apparently).

But this beats them all.

Yes, you saw that right. It's a bacon scented bacon print tuxedo.

If only I saw this before the boy and I got hitched.

Hairy crabs

Today's lesson is not about some kind of STD, thank you very much! We're a food blog so obviously we're going to talk about the hairy crabs you can eat..... um, hang on a minute ... I meant the shellfish once again.

So anyhow, back to the eating.

While I was back in Hong Kong (yes, I'm now back in the city of light), I was lucky to be there during the delicious hairy crab season. A delicacy enjoyed by my whole family... although I'm not sure my brother is so dexterous with the extraction of crab meat from its hairy claws. But yes, it is much loved by many and thanks to my Aunt and the absolutely charming Cha Xiu Bao, I got to eat them with much enjoyment.

I only had a total of 5 crabs during my 6 week holiday back in my homeland but they were memorable... not least because my Mom exclaimed her enthusiasm loudly in the middle of a popular spa that she "loved the males due to the sticky white stuff!". I shushed her immediately and lead her immediately to a quiet corner, admonishing her to refer to the CRAB please least they think her a woman of the street.

Anyhow, back to the crab. I was lucky enough to have all males, which made for lots of yumminess. You can tell the male in the picture I have on the left, which has a pointy middle bit. A female will have a rounded bit.


First though, we received them as per above, all splayed out and ugly, then we had to dissect it. Everyone has a different way of doing so. My aunt likes to rip off all the legs first and put that to one side, then rip off the shell and attack the insides.

Personally, I prefer to peel out the middle bit and ripped that off, then turned it over to rip off its shell then rip off the two, hairy claws. Then we have to remove it's 'heart' (not sure if its really its heart but it is inedible), its gills and all the tiny inedible parts.

Just look at that ooey gooey stuff and all that roe! Doesn't it make you want to attack it?

What I do after this is take a tiny spoon and eat everything from the top, then pour a tiny bit of the dark vinegar in its shell to dip the crab flesh in later.

Then, being careful to not let any roe spill, I crack it in half, eat all the roe then slowly start eating everything else. Very delicious and fun to eat (in my mind at least). I always wish I could eat more to my heart's content but given its high price as well as its high cholesterol content, it might be best to limit myself.

I'm very slow and messy at eating hairy crabs so it takes me approximately an hour to eat one. And apparently I really, REALLY shouldn't be allowed to eat this in public. The mess, the sucking and and the concentration makes me the worst dining partner ever. All I can say is thank you Cha Xiu Bao and others for still actually speaking to me. I hope that I'm not struck off the invitee list next time!

I'm smarter than you

I'm still here, I'm still in Hong Kong!!!

And still eating excessive amounts of food... Unfortunately due to a hiccup with my service provider (*coughpccwcough*), I have been struggling with some odd hours in which I can get online. Anyhow, back now.

Thought I'd start off with a quick Muji post. Muji, much loved by many for their practical, simple designs. Muji, much loved by me for their quirky and odd-ly named and manufactured products such as 100% Peas and Cheese and Cod snacks. I love the fact that I can find Muji in Paris but I bitterly mourn the fact they don't carry snacks.

This time it was an innocuous piece of "black charcoal cake", formally named:

In any case, my Mom is very fond of their Baumkuchen, multi-layered cake. However, peering closely through the packet, I was convinced it was all a con and there wasn't any layers, just a lump of cake. My Mom bet me there were layers.

I was sure I was right. After all, I had my contacts on so had the eyesight of a, um... thirty-something year old. While she, on the other hand, buys mobile phones based on the size of the numbers on the screen. Besides, I was university educated, very..um..well read (comic books, to be sure) and unemployed while she is the manager of two offices, in Hong Kong and in China, raised two seemingly normal children but incredibly gullible, as evidenced by many odd purchases throughout the years, conned by fast talking salespeople.

So, here is the evidence.

I was wrong.

BUT, I said, I bet you can't eat the layers separated!

I hadn't even finished the sentence when my Mom pulled apart the layers, wrapped it around her finger and stuffed it in my mouth.

So, the conclusion is, Mom's always right. No matter how gullible they appear. As evidenced by her immediate purchase of a broken bit of wire the sales lady convinced her was a miracle hair tool.

Oh and the cake? Very nice! Not much sesame flavor, lightly sweetened and wonderful with a cup of tea.

Busy, busy...

*chomp, chomp*

*sluuurp*

*burp*

Sorry, just got back to Hong Kong, am too busy eating to blog.

Off to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow!

Hope to check out a few fabulous recs from friends.... to work up your salivary glands for what I'm going to consume, check out the fab blog EatingAsia. Not recommended viewing on an empty stomach....

Do you...?

Do you love Hong Kong?

Do you love traditional street markets?

Do you love the old pushy woman clothed in blue who elbows you out of the way to get to the best bit of the wintermelon?

Do you love the slippery slide of the squished fruits and veg between the stalls?

Do you love talking to shopkeepers who advise you what to put in your soup to make it more nutritious?

Do you love going to the market to gawk at the different types of fruit and veg that you've never seen before? (Fresh wasabi root anyone?)

In short, do you want to save the street market in Central?

If so, click here to vote to save the Central street market.

If you want more info, please also click there to read more than this questionable post has to say about it.

PS. Brought to my attention by the wonderful blog, EatingAsia.

Wah Good Beef!

Last night being one of the final dinners with my parents and the boy, we went to one of the boy's favorite meals, the all-you-can-eat crab hotpot at En.

Luckily for us, if you have 4 or more diners, you are able to have the crab AND Wagyu beef hotpot, which of course, being a greedy family, we did.

And OH MY. Was the beef good. The very marbly, thinly sliced meat, warmed and quickly cooked in the mild broth hardly needed chewing.

The crab was less good than usual but the beef...the beef....my usually less carnivorous Mom barely stopped to chat, too busy she was trying to fight my Dad for the beef.



*Last post from Hong Kong!!!

Dai Pai Dong

Big License Stand is the formal translation but it is usually used to refer to stands which traditionally did not own a license but would open up to serve food after most of the shops had closed. Nowadays though, they are often licensed restaurants that spill out onto the streets which serve basic, affordable food, making it popular for late night meals with late eaters and party goers.

I adore Dai Pai Dongs despite my squeamishness of dark alleys and places close to wet markets (rat phobia). I adore them because of my memories of going there with my father. As a little girl, I did not see my father frequently as he worked long hours often entertaining in the evenings. However once in a little while I would still be up when he came home from work. On those evenings, absolutely ravenous, he'd be looking for a little company while he ate. My mom not being keen to eat so late and with us not having much time to spend with my dad, I was sometimes allowed to go to Dai Pai Dongs with him for a snack. Being allowed to stay up late, walk outside in my pyjamas to go sit outside and eat late at night, was to me, at the time, some of the most exciting and fun times.

My Dad took us to one tonight, across from the Bowrinton Road Market near Times Square and it was much like I remembered, dirty, rundown and delicious.

We started with a dish of bamboo clams fried in black bean sauce. Slightly spicy, with strong preserved black bean sauce, it was perfectly cooked with the sweet bamboo clams.


The second dish to come was the steamed pork with shrimp paste, very salty with a pungent kick from the lavender shrimp paste.



The fish was tender, flaky and almost boneless, cooked with Chinese celery, slivered radish and straw mushrooms.



We had this with fish congee and the fried soy sauce noodles with bean sprouts and chives, sprinkled with sesame seeds. The noodles were delicious, slightly charred and cooked to perfection with plenty of "wok hei", literally breath of the wok, which provides that smoky, slightly charred delicious taste.

For those of you wondering, no, my clothing of choice was not pyjamas this particular evening.

Arm's length

There's just something about having huge foods that make me happy.

Before you sit back in your computer chair, all arms crossed and judgemental, think about the last time you bought a foot long hot dog. Come on. Admit it. It was the FOOT long that sold you more than the hot dog itself, didn't it?

Of course.

Well one of the dishes we ordered last night at Khana Khazaa had the seemingly innocent (to my ignorant fool brain anyways) name of "Paper Dosa Masala".

"Mmm", thought I, "Thin crepe/bread wrapped with curried potatoes....MMMMMM"

So of course I ordered it.

When it came, it was big.


Really big.


As in longer than my arm big.


The Dosa was at least the width of the table and longer than my arm.


I was happy.


Arm's length happy.



Khana Khazana Vegetarian Indian Restaurant
1/floor 20 Dannies House
20, Luard Road
Wanchai
Tel: 852 25205308

The restaurant serves up delicious vegetarian Indian food but oddly also serves up Mexican and Italian food as well...

Yum yum black sheep, have you any meat?

A good friend had just arrived in town and being the laziest of hostesses, I went for something easy in da ‘hood. The Bay o’ Causeway.

I was thinking about something local but decided to celebrate the teensy drop in weather by going to the Mongolian hotpot restaurant with the cute little lamb with strange gleaming eyes (check out the huge neon sign outside of the building!).


The large and popular chain restaurant is littered with little sheep images. From the ubiquitous sign to stranger decorative items such as little wax soap figures to our body less chaperone above the table. Being incorrigible carnivores with a total disregard for the sacrifice of cute little four footed friends when in comes to food, the boy, the friend and I dug right in.



We ordered to special duo soup* hot pot which had impressive stock base, one of which was laced with garlic cloves, chillis and numbing Szechuan peppercorns and the other one seemed much more dull but was surprisingly hearty with a good dose of thickly sliced ginger, garlic cloves and some other Chinese medicinal herbs.

To dip in the boiling soup we ordered:




‘premium’ thinly sliced mutton and mutton rib*,




‘premium’ beef*,





frozen tofu (this is tofu which, I *think* has been frozen, the water squeezed out and then frozen some more, which makes for a very spongy texture which is very soft and soaks up a lot of the soup),



a basket of assorted fish, shrooms and veg,



a bowl of hand-pulled noodles (looked more machine-cut but were nice, thick and chewy), a half dozen mutton soup dumplings, and a bowl of ‘tung ho’ vegetables, which is a leafy green vegetable with a slight bitter taste and is very common in winter. It is one of my favorite vegetables but is a bit of an acquired taste.

I didn’t take many of the ‘cooked’ photos as they didn’t look too appealing once we had dunked it in the soup and overcooked it due to much chatting but my friend and the boy loved the meal to bits. With special deliciousness points given to the soup dumplings by the boy.

It was a good restaurant to go to with friends you know well (the licked chopsticks being dunked in the same soup base may gross some of you out), for a chat and a meal with lots of activity. Right now there is 50% off some of the more common dishes (my dishes above with an * were discounted).

The total, including two large Asahi beers was HK$400.

Reservations are recommended and expect a 5+ minute wait even with reservations.

Little Sheep Hotpot
2/F Causeway Bay Plaza Phase 2
463 Lockhart Road
Wanchai
Hong Kong
Tel 2893 8318

Macaron, macaroon, macaroni

Driven nearly mad with envy at The Girl Who Ate Everything’s description and ingestion of Macarons, I was determined not to be left out.

However, I still suffered a slight confusion of what a macaron was. The first thing I thought of was those deceptively light shredded coconut cookies drizzled or dipped in chocolate. However, what I saw others eating were more like light meringue type cookies with a ganache filling. So I wikipedia-ed both words: macaroon and macaron. Research done, I went ahead to fulfill my eating destiny.

Luckily for me, I live in a city which loves trends, especially those of the sweet nature, as evidenced through crazes of ‘light’ Japanese cheesecake, Portuguese egg tarts, not to mention the long queues at Beard Papa. Unluckily for my waistline, living in a district comprising of one of the most expensive retail space in Hong Kong, I have seen many a trendy food pass by within a short walking distance from my house.

Although the macaron trend has not been taken up with such mass enthusiasm, I was still lucky to get my paws on some at the new European style chocolate and cake shop in Sogo, Antique, and purchased two, one chocolate (bien sur!) and one earl grey (HK$10 each).

I decided to try the earl grey one first as I was afraid that the chocolate one would overwhelm my senses.

The small grayish white macaron was speckled with black and was crisp and yielding at the same time. The outside ‘shell’ was incredibly crisp giving way to a very light airy crumb with a delicious caramelly ganache. It was delicately perfumed with earl grey tea but did not overwhelm. It was delicious and I had to restrain myself from shoving the rest in my mouth at one go.

The chocolate one was similar in that it too had a crisp shell with a soft moist crumb giving way to a ganache of chocolate which was not as rich as it looked but still very sweet and tasty. It was good but I preferred the earl grey macaron by a large margin.

Conclusion?

I want more!

The macarons very sweet but very delicate and although it was slightly small for my taste, but I enjoyed being able to try different flavors without becoming bored. Besides, two was absolutely perfect with a strong cup of tea.


You can find Ancient at Sogo in Causeway Bay, just under the escalator going up.

Cooking with Brassiers

One of the best things of having your own food blog is the delightful places that friends keep recommending you to.

Yesterday I was invited by a friend to hotpot. It was near TST East and called Tai Fong Lau and she raved about the food. I can't say that I met her suggestion with enthousiasm. After all, she is not local and hotpot during summer?? But obviously the lure of her sparkling company and that of her new husband plus the promise of foods worthy a try couldn't be resisted.

So after finding a clothing shop at exact address I was given, I text a "help" message to my friend before looking up and seeing the huge neon green sign pointing to a place around the corner.

D'oh!

I walked in and immediately asked if there were any Westerners in the house (hey-ay!). They were easily identified, greetings given and hotpot ordered.

I have to admit. I was confused. My lovely friend kept going on about this is the only place which had hotpot in a brassier. Hmm.... I wondered how that would work. I've never cooked anything in my brassier and to be honest, besides holding the girls up, didn't think they had any other function in life. It turned out, quite obviously to those English speaking natives reading this, that it was a braZier. Something in which to hold charcoal. Ah ha. It was all coming together now....

A tray of sauces were given and instructions to mix to our heart's content. We were told that the base of our sauce should contain the peanut paste which is featured on the upper right, looking like runny poo (not my words, I swear!) and the others to be mixed in according to preference. Going clockwise, there was vinegar, soy sauce, chili oil, rice wine, fish sauce, sesame oil, the whites of Chinese leeks, cilantro and ending with the bright red preserved spicy, fishy tofu (fu-yue). In the middle was sugar and preserved olive leaves.

We then ordered a plate of lamb, beef, shitake, enoki, dried beancurd sheets, tofu, water spinach, a plate of dumplings (handmade so I couldn't resist) and finally glass noodles. I was seriously worried it wouldn't be enough but as you can see, the plates of meat were piled up very high and it turned out to be just the right amount for all of us (with me eating the lion's share) except we couldn't finish the water spinach.

It was different because I had never eaten hotpot with a huge steaming kettle of charcoal heating my soup before and I loved making my own sauces and sharing with friends. The staff were friendly enough and gave us deep fried balls of dough stuffed with red bean and sprinkled with sugar for dessert.

Would I go back? Yes but probably more for the Peking duck, of which we saw more than half a dozen rolled out to be skinned at the table.

The brazier is different butI felt that the soup base could be more flavorful and the side effect is that my hair, even after two washes, still smells of burning charcoal.

That being said, cooking with the brazier is getting rare in HK and is worth doing at least once, especially if you had the fabulous company I had.


Tai Fong Lau
Official address to be provided later but here are the 'directions' to restaurant:

Go to 29-31 Chatham Road South, look above your head and see the Tai Fong Lau big ass neon sign, turn into Hart Avenue and it's on your left, upstairs on the 2nd floor.

Food Expo-sed

Today is the last day of the food expo in Hong Kong.

So it’s a good thing the boy and I went yesterday.

I must admit. It wasn’t planned well. We went after dim sum and we were going to a crab fest dinner that night so in-between eating was a bit daunting. But we soldiered on and we actually didn’t end up sampling much.

The reason?

The crazy crowds!

Check this out.

People going mad for soy sauce…














Weird display of a huge rotating abalone…















‘Baked Alaska’ with ice cream filling being blow torched…











Squid production line of cutting, flattening, grilling and shredding…












15 feet high chubby faces with stuffed mouths…












Huge packets of flaming ‘hot’ instant noodles…










And the man with the BIGGEST belly I EVER met flogging chopped pork and ham. Mmmmn... I love me some cold canned meat! I swear that this man's waist in inches is at least the same as his height. Let this be a lesson to 5'1" me...






And my personal favorite, a personal 'time-out' by the little old lady, hiding from her family and seeking comfort in ice cream...


It was a bit crazy with companies bundling foods at cut prices left right and centre.






And what did we end up with?


- 3 bottles of Lee Kum Kee sauces: sesame, Japanese curry and Korean fire chilli (it almost became 7 sauces because of these craaaazy deals but I resisted!)
- 6 boxes of konjaku flavored jellies (hey, they have no fat)
- 1 4-cup sized measuring cup, plastic spray bottle and squeezy bottle
- 1 bottle of soju
- 2 mini dark chocolate covered handmade German gingerbread (yep, this one lonely man came all the way here to sell them)
- 4 packets of pasta
- 2 packets of wafers with honey
- 1 bottle of ginseng alcohol
- 1 jar organic lemongrass ginger stir fry sauce

I had to physically pull the boy away from the Durian mooncakes, grilled squid tentacles, the huge hairy crabs and wipe the drool from his mouth.

Honestly, what kind of nice English boy, reared in Wales of all places, has an affinity for stinky foods?

Nunchucked Nanxiang

Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant is famous for not for its namesake but for its “xiao long bao” (literally small steamer buns) or steamed pork buns, which are traditionally made with pork and jellied stock which is meant to melt when steamed to produce a mouthful of soup when the eater bites into the thin but sturdy dumpling wrapper.

The boy absolutely adores xiao long bao and due to its popularity and fame, we queued for 1 hour at Yu Yuan in Shanghai to buy a dozen of these buns. We were sorely disappointed. Despite its reputed deliciousness, they felt short of expectation. The dumpling wrapper was stodgy and gummy and the dumpling completely devoid of soup.

So when my Aunt suggested the Hong Kong branch of Nanxiang for dinner, I was skeptical but as it was her birthday, I agreed to try once again as neither she nor my Mom had been, despite its opening in October last year.

My Aunt, being very prepared, had waited in line so I managed to jump the enormous queue to get to our table by 7:30. The décor was quite nice, dark paneled wood with a modern Chinese feel that is favored by new restaurants, and I was lucky enough to be seated next to the window to the dumpling making part of the kitchen. I believe this is to mimic the Shanghai restaurant, which boasts a large window on the ground floor through which you can see dozens of cooks wrapping dumplings. Oddly, this was not near the entrance but on the small side of the restaurant so I assume it is not meant to tempt passersby.

We were asked what tea we wanted ($8) and I got chrysanthemum due to the ‘eet hei’ nature I had been experiencing lately. This was served in a glass cup with the chrysanthemums in a separate strainer and was refilled regularly.

Dishes were already decided by the time I got there but I managed to sneak in two more favorites after seeing the small nature of the dishes. We went for more of the famous dishes in order to taste what the masses were clamoring for. Prices were quite low but portions were quite small.

We had:

Braised Pork Belly in Soya Sauce ($36), which was very nicely done but they could have done with skimming off some of the oil resting in the bowl!

The meat was sweet, soft and succulent and the skin was chewy and rich.


We had these with steamed man tou ($?) which you could choose to have fried as well. These were served with a small dish of condensed milk but we preferred to eat them with the pork belly.


Hot and sour soup with noodles ($33) was extremely disappointing, it was lukewarm for one thing, which is definitely a turn off for these types of soup that is often thickened with cornstarch. The noodles were ok and not too mushy but added nothing to the flavorless soup.


The steamed vegetable buns ($24 for 4) were ok. My Mom liked them but I thought the bun itself was too think and spongy and the filling not flavorful enough. The ones I had for $0.80 in Shanghai had loads of vegetables and thin slivers of dried tofu.


We had to have the xiao long bao ($30 for 6), which were quite different than the ones I had in Shanghai. These had a beautiful think wrapper and tender, flavorful pork. Unfortunately for some reason, both of mine didn’t have any soup but my Mom and Aunt said that the soup was not greasy.


The steamed glutinous rice dumplings with Chinese ham ($20 for 4) came next. It was a dim sum dish of think rice paper wrappers wrapped around glutinous rice flavored with Chinese ham and then steamed. I didn’t like these. I found them gummy and again, flavorless.


I choose the dish of clear rice noodles with chicken in sesame dressing ($?). This is a simple dish I am usually quite fond of with thin julienned cukes and shredded chicken atop clear, think and chewy rice noodles. However, we were suspicious as it did not smell like sesame and with one mouthful, we realized they had used peanut butter instead of sesame sauce. It wouldn’t’ have been so bad had they at least used sesame oil to flavor the sauce but this was left out, as was the mustard which gives it a kick and sharpness. The rice noodles themselves, usually the disappointing factor, were actually decent but was too overwhelmed by the sauce.

I also choose a dish which, unknowingly, neither my Mom nor my Aunt is fond of. Drunken pigeon ($56). I adore drunken chicken, served cold and flavored with wine and thought that the pigeon would be a nice change. It was good. However, it was horrifyingly presented. Because of the cooking method, the skin looked gray and it was plated like a splayed corpse. Very unpleasant.


We finished off with steamed glutinous rice cake with Osmanthus ($20 for 4). This was quite chewy but very sugary with a flowery aftertaste. We could only finish 2 between the three of us.

Verdict?

Cheap but not worth the wait.

Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant
3/Fl. Causeway Bay Plaza 1,489 Hennessy Road,
Causeway Bay
Tel: 3690 2088
Reservations can only be made by ‘VIPs’
To become a VIP, collect 10 stamps of 100 each within 3 months.

In another saga of crazy Sui Mai family, while I was trying to take a photo of my Mom and Aunt with the birthday cake, but it turned out blurry due to the violent tug of war going on over the bill. While I sat there absolutely mortified, my blood relatives were pulling and pushing, knocking over cups of tea and trying to grab the waitress who stood there slightly shell shocked as my Aunt yelled at her to take her card. I couldn’t stand it and begged my Mom to let my Aunt pay and said we’d pay next time. We finally achieved peace as my Mom relented but I got berated for being rude the whole way home. Over a $300 restaurant bill.

I've got a secret and I'm going to tell!

Ok, I admit it.

I’ve been hiding something from you all…

But I couldn’t reveal the surprise until now….

I met Susan Jung!

Yay!!

*wild applause ensues*

Susan Jung for those of you who aren’t in HK, is the Food and Drink Editor for the South China Morning Post and has the enviable job of reviewing restaurants, writing features about food and introducing recipes on Sundays.

However, don’t be fooled into thinking it is an easy job, she has to maintain neutrality in the face of what might be strong opinions, as well as churning out high quality writing a few times a week.
This week, she has chosen to feature food bloggers, of which the most excellent Cha Xiu Bao, the witty Sunday Driver, the not-yet-met HK Foodie and myself were featured. (that’s right, run now to your nearest newsstand and grab that coveted food blogging edition of SCMP… go go go!!!)

I also got a special treat you see. I had asked Susan if she would allow me to ask her 3 or 4 simple questions for Sui Mai…

She graciously assented.

One of my questions, being a cheeky chubby, was going to be whether I could go on a review with her. Quite honestly, I wasn’t expecting a yes. I was preempted from asking this question by Susan asking me if I would mind the interview being conducted over a review!

To say I was excited is a *slight* understatement.

So I apologize in advance for this very long, marathon post. I highly suggest you have a nice cup of tea and a sit down, together with a biscuit before carrying on.

For the record, we went to Cru on Staunton Street and we had:

- proscuitto wrapped figs with gorgonzola cheese
- sesame seared tuna salad
- Blue swimmer crab pasta
- Lamb fillets
- Blueberry crepe
- Caramel tart with wild berries

First the food…

While I love fresh figs, I felt that the saltiness of the proscuitto and the heaviness (and slight gloopy nature of the sauce), overwhelmed the poor fig, who didn’t manage to show its true colors. Still ate them all though!


Sesame seared tuna salad was a major disappointment. The salad was over-dressed which made the leaves all wilted and overly sweet and the tuna was average.




The pasta was quite nice, cooked perfectly but the crab was not tossed through but was clumped on top, which made it difficult to get a good pasta to crab ratio per mouthful.



The lamb was good but it came sprinkled with crushed pecans of which some were slightly stale, according to Susan. It was also accompanied by a broken aioli, which looked extremely unpleasant with a thick layer of oil.

It was a lot of food but with our dessert stomachs in place, we soldiered on (I didn’t take much convincing…)

The blueberry crepe was gorgeous! The crepe came in two huge rolls absolutely stuffed with blueberries and a small dish of freshly whipped cream and another one of vanilla ice cream. The amount of blueberries per crepe was quite astonishing and we wondered whether it was really blueberries inside or plumped with cream. It turned out to be blueberries which were slightly crystallized to form a thin crunchy coating which lent texture to the crepe. There must have been at least a good pint of blueberries in the two crepes. It was delicious and I ate my whole crepe….and it was huge.

The caramel tart with wild berries was nicely plated with a beautifully buttery crust and a gooey caramel filling, the berries and the cream were also generous.

On the whole, I was much more in love with the desserts than the mains.


But onto the fun bit! My ‘interview’ with Susan:

**Disclaimer: Wordings may not be exact but this is what I tried to remember, despite my excitement!

...

Sui Mai: What was your favorite sneaky treat as a kid?

Susan: Chocolate! My parents thought I was allergic to chocolate, which I might very well have been and wasn’t allowed to have it very often. Good thing I outgrew whatever allergy I might have had!

Sui Mai: Guilty pleasure or sneaky treat you enjoy now?

Susan: Taiwanese ‘iron’ eggs(*)!

Sui Mai: So when you were a child sneaking chocolate did you ever think that you would become a food critic?

Susan: Well, I am definitely doing something that I’ve always wanted to do. My background is as a pastry chef and my parents were appalled when I told them I wanted to be a cook but they are much happier with my job now. I came into this job a little by chance. I had started to write for the SCMP for a few months when this job came up and they offered it to me. I suspect that my neutral writing style also helped.

(SM: For your reference, the lovely Miss Susan Jung has a background in journalism and has worked as a chef in many recognizable and respectable kitchens around town…how’s that for street cred?)

Sui Mai: What is one food you wish was more readily available?

Susan: Good Mexican food

Sui Mai: What is a food you enjoy but others may find strange?

Susan: Chicken hearts…. When I was studying, chicken hearts were a cheap source of protein but I did enjoy eating them.

Sui Mai: !?!!?! I love chicken hearts!! I got in trouble in kindergarten back in Canada when my teacher thought I was lying about eating 20 of them! I’ll eat chicken hearts with you anytime!

...

There were lots more conversation and lots of food questions flying around in addition to a shared puzzlement over the British male obsession with Bird’s Custard. In my opinion the absolute best way to spend an afternoon with a friend I just met.

So lots of props to Susan and a sincere thanks for a lovely afternoon and putting up with my slightly hyperactive excitement.

Cru
44 Staunton Street
Tel: 2803 2083

(*) I couldn’t find a good explanation but Taiwanese iron eggs but these originated from Dan Tsui area of Taipei (or is it Taiwan...?) and as the story goes, an old lady couldn't find enough customers for her tea eggs and as she was very poor, she cooked the same old eggs every day, let them dry out, and then cooked them again so that they became very hard but extremely flavorful and chewy, which, to her surprise, attacted more people than the normal tea eggs! This is a popular treat in taiwan, small quail eggs which have been cooked and treated (to speed up the process) to become hard little nubs of chewy egg. According to Susan, they sell them at Sogo for the outrageous price of 7 for HK$7!