mmmmacau: lai kei, wong chi kei and tai lee loi kei

The Chinese really like their kei’s. It’s almost like the Cantonese version of the Japanese attachment of ‘-san’, except there’s a greater sense of closeness and familiarity when tacking ‘kei’ onto the end of something. It’s casual and homely.

Like snippets of a daydream, my recollections of my trip to Macau this August are hazy. But one look at the photos I took there and like some Pavlovian puppy, I start to salivate. How embarassing. Here are three of the best places I went to (though I only went to four, Solmar wasn’t really worth mentioning even though it claims to be the best, and the oldest, Portuguese restaurant in Macau).

1. The nostalgic ice cream joint

hong kong food expo 2007

Or rather, the annual junk food parade and venue of agonisingly slow taste testing. It took us nearly three hours to navigate the sea of people surging throughout the convention hall, in all I think I only managed to sample about 10 things. Somehow, I’m just not convinced that hanging around a stall that is already five-deep with people to sample instant noodles passed out in a thimble like vessel (and eaten with two toothpicks) is worth it. I waited for the dumplings instead (served WHOLE! Not cut up into mice-like portions! In a watercooler paper cone!), salivating each time the girl manning the boiling pot lifted the lid away, allowing my nostrils to be filled with the steamy aroma of meaty stock. That was worth it. Maybe.

a week in food

Work has been keeping me occupied, rendering me pretty much comatose by the time I get home at night. While I still have the energy to cook up a proper dinner, by the time the food is gobbled up and the dishes done (or not), there isn’t any time left for posting! So here you go, a week in food- in bitesized chunks. You can click on the smaller image to go to the full-sized photo on my flickr page!

July 5th : Fusion spaghetti

A continuation of the tobikko themed dishes, I made the “fusion” spaghetti I was thinking of making. I had eaten this style of pasta in lots of Japanese-style cafes (like Pokka Cafe in Hong Kong, and the fantastic Wired Cafe in Shibuya, Tokyo) where there’s a clear Asian influence on the otherwise traditional Italian pasta. I made a cream sauce with milk, using butter and flour as a roux (I would have preferred to use single/double cream but didn’t think to buy any), along with garlic and onions (would have preferred shallots, but again…). Stirred in the cooked spaghetti, and then the tobikko. Topped with shredded nori. Delicious and simple!

July 7th : Coconut pudding

Yuki and I went to Happy Gathering, a Chinese restaurant in Cardiff that does dim sum as well. They also do one of my favourite desserts- coconut pudding! Little squares of joy. I love anything coconut-flavoured, and these puddings are smooth, creamy and just plain delicious. They’re relatively hard to find in restaurants these days in Hong Kong (apparently they are harder to make than it may seem), so it’s great that a restaurant all the way out in Wales would have it on their menu. I actually attempted to make coconut pudding myself the other day, using gelatine, coconut cream and egg whites like in this recipe, but I didn’t manage to get it to the same stodgy pudding consistency like the ones I’ve had in restaurants, and it was far too sweet. Will try again, substituting the gelatine with agar jelly (because I feel sick at the thought of using beef gelatine) and using less sugar.

July 7th : Lemon herb roast chicken and potato dauphinoise

That night I carved a whole raw chicken for the first time! So I roasted the legs and wings and had it for dinner with a side of potato dauphinoise, saved the rest, and used the carcass to make chicken stock for vietnamese chicken noodles the next day. It doesn’t look attractive but it was yummy. The potatoes could have done with a bit more seasoning though, and I actually forgot to add any herbs. Oh well!

July 10th : Tangy chicken and vegetable stir-fry

Stir-fries are so versatile, and is great for when I can’t decide on what to eat- just choose a little bit of everything and toss it all into the wok! This particular version had chicken, red chilli, onions & garlic, broccoli, cabbage, spinach and tomatoes. Seasoned with ground coriander seeds, cumin, lemon juice and soy sauce and served on basmati rice. The fresh vegetables lend a sweetness to the dish, the soy sauce gives it a deep salty flavour, the chilli gives it spice, and the lemon juice gives it that tang. So delicious. And provides me with at least two portions of my 5-a-day!

July 14th: Afternoon tea :)

Spent my Saturday cleaning the kitchen (not the most savoury of tasks), and by the end of it I was famished. So a little afternoon tea of toast two-ways was perfect. Ham and avocado, and one with condensed milk (a very HK style thing to do). Unfortunately I’ve succumbed to white bread lately instead of wholegrain… but all is not lost, for this is the so-called ‘Best of both worlds’ bread- white bread with goodness of brown! Why do I buy into these things, I’ll never know…

July 14th : Phở gà aka Vietnamese chicken noodles

Back in London I carved another chicken, and made a chicken stock with it. One half went to a fragrant Portugese curry I made (which I forgot to photograph), and the other half went in my phở gà.

Now, traditional phở gà is a lot more complicated, because the most important component is the broth. They are incredibly complex, involving a lot of different ingredients (like star anise, cinnamon stick, kaffir lime leaves, peppercorns, etc.) and of course, the resulting flavours are indescribably good. I didn’t have much in the way of spices and herbs, so I made a simplified version, which I think tastes pretty darn good anyway. I used the chicken stock I’d made from before (lovely, lovely chicken stock that had simmered for a very long time to draw out as much chicken flavour as possible), sliced onions, a pinch of ground cinnamon powder, red chilli, fish sauce and lime juice. I added a chicken leg to the stock when it was heating up, and I let it cook until the meat became tender and would fall away from the bone. To my noodles I just added bean sprouts and chopped spring onions, and to me, that was just perfect. Phở gà is such a hearty, warming dish that everyone should try making at home!

a little amuse bouche

… I have far too many food pictures backlogged on my computer and flickr, so I thought I’d just start nice and easy with a little introduction to what I’ve eaten today before I get into hardcore blogging. Consider it something of an amuse bouche (how I adore that phrase)!

Today, after a rather boring stint at the library I needed a little light pick-me-up before dinner. So what better than to make a little appetizer-like dish to satiate the palate before an actual meal? And especially because I had several new taaaasty treats to try out, such as the salami that Yuki brought back from Italy, and a free cheese!

As you probably won’t know me, you wouldn’t have known that for the past month I’ve been working at a publishing company that has titles such as Country Life and other such magazines in its portfolio. So on Friday morning I waltzed into the office to a slightly strange smell and much of the office moaning about a certain ‘cabbagey’ odour circulating around the building. Turns out the culprits were boxes and boxes of these homemade soft cheeses that the wife of someone who works at Country Life had donated ;) So happy days, we all got to take one home, double wrapping them just in case the strong smell escaped our handbags/briefcases. I swear there must be something wrong with my nose though, because I could hardly smell the intense odour they were all complaining about!

The cheese is very much like Brie, but with a slightly stronger sulphur-ish tinge to it, and slightly more peppery. I’m not quite sure how much I like it at the moment, but it was a nice combination with the salty salami and sweet, crisp Fuji apple I had on the side. The olives (bought at last minute on Friday afternoon from Borough Market) were an afterthought, but an excellent one.

So there it is, here’s to happy blogging from now on!