ONE AFTERNOON IN CHINATOWN - M KOI NEY!

Went across the hill to Chinatown this weekend, as there are times when you just need to feed the inner Tsim-tung gangster. That’s no trouble when you are a bachelor, as I am once again. You do not need anyone to tag along, and you can eat and buy whatever you please - stuff that might elicit a "what the heck is that" from the average suburbanite, things that might demand explanation. These are foods one doesn't really want to talk about.

In some ways, I am more Chinese than Savage Kitten – I take certain ingredients for granted, without batting an eye-lash.

[In other ways of course I am much less Chinese than Savage kitten – her ancestry is rooted in Toishan (臺山), and she has skin of a pale ivory hue, a soft golden velvet. My ancestors are mostly verkrampte Calvinists, with some odds and ends thrown in (including a fraction of Native American), and my skin is glow-in-the-dark white, unappetizing and pasty by comparison. My eyes are a disconcerting battle-ship grey, my hair is old-mouse brown, and my round eyes and beaky nose just about scream darn foxy Kwailo.
I am, in Cantonese terms, sahp-fan ji sahp Lofan (十分之十佬番) - out of ten parts ten barbarian. Oh, plus I usually think in English - you can't really get more Lofanish than that.]


First stop: A hole in the wall for Cheung fan and Siu Mai - the breakfast of champions. Cheung fan especially is good for the stomach after a late night, which was another reason I wouldn't want a tag-along - I am not conversationally able with post- Irish Whiskey digestion. The Cheung fan were fresh shrimp, the Siu Mai were pork.
I watched several tourists doing the 'what's that' routine.

"What's that? Ew, ick! What's that?!? Huuuuuinh!! What's that?!?!? Eyewwwwww!!! What's that?!?!?!? Jesus Christ yuuuuuuuck!!!! Okay, we'll have some of those."

[Siu Mai: 燒賣 - small steamed wheat flour wrapper dumpling filled with minced pork or shrimp. Cheung fan: 腸粉 - rice flour batter ladled on a flat surface in a steamer, thinly. It is done after about five minutes of steamheat, whereupon the flat noodly sheet is peeled off and loosely rolled. In the first minute of cooking a filling is added along one edge - shrimp, or chopped meat, or black mushrooms. In Malaysia they often pan-fry it after steaming and cooling, and serve it with a sweet slightly hot sauce. In San Francisco, you add a smidgen of hot chilipaste and a drizzle of soy. They are very easy on the digestion, and delightfully soft on the tongue.
Among the various 'ew' foods: Lo Mai Gai: 糯米雞 - glutinous rice and chicken wrapped in a lotus leaf and steamed. Luo Bak Go: 蘿蔔糕 - Turnip cake with a little Chinese sausage and dried shrimp, steamed, cut into squares, and pan-fried. Ma Tai Go: 馬蹄糕 - Horse hoof (water chestnut) cake. Wu Tau Go: 芋頭糕 - Taro cake. These are all very good. Why they should elicit 'ew' is beyond me. Some people are morons.
What the 'ew' tourists eventually bought: Charsiu Bao (叉燒包 - Barbecued Pork Bun). They always buy charsiu bao, they don't want anything else. They seemingly don't know of any other comestible. Charsiu Bao: it's tourist kibble.]

After enjoying the spectacle of incomprehension and mental blinkers provided by the non-locals for a while, I got up and left. I needed to buy some things.


日本蠔豉 * 臘腸 * 五香粉
YATBOON HO SI, LAHP CHEUNG, NG-HEUNG FAN

At a store on Stockton Street which had its merchandise attractively arranged in an orderly manner, I purchased some Japanese dried oysters, Chinese Sausage, and Five Spice powder.

蠔豉 DRIED OYSTERS

Dried oysters, among other things, are excellent in jook (rice porridge: 粥). One soaks them in warm water for about 30 minutes, rinses them, and cuts them up before adding them to the simmering rice, about fifteen to twenty minutes before the end of cooking at least. It is especially nice if pork is also added to the jook. Additionally, they feature in a famous Cantonese good luck dish: 髮菜大蠔豉 Black Moss and Big Dried Oyster, which is homophonous with 'strike it rich' (fa tsoi 發財) and 'great success' (daai ho si: 大好事). The Cantonese have a number of dishes which you will seldom see on restaurant menus, because if you are not Chinese you might balk, and if you don't understand their language, you wouldn't get the pun, wordplay, or joke. These usually show up at family celebratory events, especially Chinese New Year.

[Hakka Chinese will frequently cook the black moss (a dried vegetable), and dried oysters with pigs trotters, for a similar wordplay good luck wish. Their version is usually tangy, and rich with collagen from the trotter: 發財就手 (getting richness in hand).]


臘腸 CHINESE SAUSAGE

Dried Cantonese sausage (lahp cheung: 臘腸) can be used on its own, simply fried or steamed, but is more often used in small amounts sliced, to add fragrance and a little meaty fatness to other dishes, such as steamed chicken buns, joong ("Chinese tamale", a glutinous rice cone with fillings wrapped in bamboo leaves and steamed 粽), lo mai gai, and many stirfried dishes. The casing can be removed easily if you blanch it. The sausage is made from fat and lean pork coarse chopped, sweetened, dried, and sometimes slightly smoked. Some versions have duck liver included for richness - yun cheung (膶腸).
The ones I bought were made by Orchard Sausages, Inc. in Brooklyn.
I've never tried this brand before, but they look very nice, and have a springiness to the touch.


五香粉 FIVE SPICE POWDER

Five Spice Powder is a prepared spice mixture much used in Chinese cooking, especially so by Hakka Chinese and in some northern cooking styles. It is also popular in Cantonese cuisine, but as a far more minor addition. The key thing you will notice is the fragrance of anise - both from star anise (baat gok: 八角) and fennel seeds (siu woei heung: 小茴香). The other components are cinnamon (kwai pei: 桂皮), Szechuan pepper (fa-chiew: 花椒) and clove (ding heung: 丁香). All of which may be purchased whole, as many people do. The five spice combination really brings out the flavour of fatty meats and roasts, and can be used much like the French quatre epics in charcuterie. No red-stew is complete without at least a hint of star anise.


雪梨香 SUUT LEI HEUNG

After also buying some vegetables and condiments not easily available outside of Chinatown, there was only one thing left to purchase: Snow Pear Fragrance (suut-lei heung: 雪梨香).
This is an incense which I particularly like, which renders a dry floral woodsiness to the air. Very pleasant. Scholarly, but not too much.

It has one added advantage - it discourages mosquitoes.

You see, since we are no longer a couple, Savage Kitten and I do not sleep together anymore.
She sleeps in her room, I rest in mine. And because mosquitoes really like her, she uses a mosquito net I purchased for her a few years ago around her bed at this time of year.
While mosquitoes do not like me (see unappetizing pasty skin mentioned above), they will eat me if nothing else is available. So, being too lazy to put up my own mosquito net, I prefer to discourage their presence in my room by lighting a little snow pear fragrance. The net result is that they do not hang around, but instead head on over to the room where a delicious juicy young lady with golden skin is just about oozing deliciousness.
Behind an impenetrable mosquito net. Bzzz, bzzz, bzzzz!
I feel for them.
I am vicariously enjoying their frustration.

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NOTE: 唔該你 M KOI NEY

The non-English phrase in the title of this post means 'please', 'thank you', and often also 'excuse me' in Cantonese. When requesting service or a portion of something, you say 'm-koi', when you wish to thank someone for giving you what you asked for you say it, when politely trying to get through a crowd of people on Stockton Street or Grant you say it.
It literally means "you needn't". Really, there is no obligation.
For 'please' used invitationally, the formal word is 'cheng' (請), for a more proper 'thank you', say 'doh-jeh' (多謝), and for 'excuse me', deui m-chew (對唔住) or rarely satkeng (失敬).
You are welcome, in Cantonese, is 'm-sai m-koi (唔使唔該), literally meaning "there is no need to m-koi".

The reason why I appended m-koi to the title of this post is that in only a few short hours on Stockton Street, Jackson, and Washington, I probably said it over a hundred times.
It is the most useful phrase in the English language.



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