Cheung fan (腸粉) are soft fresh sheets of rice flour batter steamed till set with a little filling - shrimp, beef, pork, or whatever - then folded over, drizzled with a soy sauce, and minced scallion on top to garnish.
Usually they are slashed or cut when served, to allow any condiments you add to penetrate, and for ease of chopsticking.
In commercial establishments, a wet sheet of cloth is tightly stretched over a rectangular steamer, then rice flour batter is ladled on and smeared flat, a little bit of filling material is strewn over one side, and within mere moments the cloth is lifted with the now cooked noodle sheet on it, and another cloth put in place. Meanwhile a deft hand with a spatula separates the cheung fan, dexterously jiggling it into a loosely folded wedge or roll.
At home you do not have a large rectangular vat of fiercely boiling water with a perforated metal plate on top.
But you have a steamer.
So what you can do is use pie pans instead of taught wetted cloth, either lightly oiled or with a little Pam sprayed on. The steaming time is a little longer, because your cheung fan will be thicker. And instead of nice sharp-edged rectangular rolls, yours will be a little thicker around the middle.
Salad plates in lieu of pie pans will also do - the result will be cute little cheung fan which are quite suitable as a mid-day snack.
CHEUNG FAN: BATTER
One cup plain rice flour.
Quarter cup tapioca flour.
Two TBS cornstarch.
Two TBS oil.
Half a teaspoon salt.
Cold water.
Sift dry ingredients together. Slowly stir water into it, add the oil, and keep adding more water while stirring till you have a batter that looks like heavy cream - approximately 1¾ to 2¼ cups water in all.
Let it stand an hour, re-stir.
It is now ready for use.
Grease a pie pan, ladle in enough batter to thinly cover the bottom, and place in the steamer. After about a minute to a minute and a half, add the filling along one side. Steam for another four to six minutes, depending on how thick your layers are. Remove the pie pan from the steamer, and prepare a second pan while the first one cools.
As soon as you have added a filling to the second cheung fan, separate the first one from its pan with a flexible spatula, rolling as you go. Proceed in this manner till all the batter is used up. There should be about eight or nine cheung fan stacked on the plate when you're done. Drizzle a little sesame oil over for fragrance, slash into segments to show the filling, and garnish with minced scallion.
CHEUNG FAN: FILLING
You can us thin slivers of of beef (remember to rinse a bit, or soak in a little rice wine briefly to remove that charnel-house fragrance that adheres to the meat), or very fresh shrimp, peeled and veined, or even minced fresh cilantro, which will lend a soft fruity-herby-floral tone to the noodly sheets.
Chopped char-siu or rehumidified dry shrimp are also common.
炒粿條
If you make the cheung fan without any filling, they can be sliced into broad strips and served with ripped roast chicken and vegetables, or stirfried in pork fat with oysters and shrimp, like kway teow. Add some beansprouts (芽菜 ngaa choi、豆芽 dau ngaa) and scallion or chives, plus a drizzle of soy sauce, and serve with sambal on the side.
NOTE: this is a "reprint" of a recipe from two years ago, in this post:
LEFT-OVER TURKEY: CHEUNG FAN, RICE FLOUR NOODLES IN SOUP, AND JOOK.
Some people asked for it.
So here it is.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Showing posts with label 腸粉. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 腸粉. Show all posts
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Friday, November 25, 2011
LEFT-OVER TURKEY: CHEUNG FAN, RICE FLOUR NOODLES IN SOUP, AND JOOK
Here it is, barely twenty four hours after you feasted on turkey with a number of other things - too much food, your stomach feels a wee bit stressed - and you're wondering what you can do to make some of the left-overs disappear.
And how to be kind to your stomach (see previously mentioned stress).
It's a valid question.
You can make cheung fan.
火雞腸粉
SHEET NOODLES THAT 'POETICALLY' RESEMBLE INTESTINES
Cheung fan (腸粉) are soft fresh sheets of rice flour batter steamed till set with a little filling - shrimp, beef, pork, or whatever - then folded over, drizzled with a little soy sauce and sesame oil, minced scallion to garnish.
Cut into segments of folded roll and dipped in a little hot sauce, mmmm, tasty!
Very heaven.
In commercial establishments, a sheet of cloth is tightly stretched over a rectangular steamer and wetted. Then the rice flour batter is shplooped upon it, smeared flat, a little bit of filling material is strewn over one side, and within mere moments the cloth is lifted with the skin adhering and another put in place and wetted. Meanwhile a deft hand with a spatula separates the already steamed skin, dexterously jiggling it into a loosely folded wedge or roll. It is sliced across into segments, garnished, and promptly served.
At home it is not made thus, because you do not have a large rectangular vat of fiercely boiling water with a perforated metal plate on top.
But you have a steamer.
So what you can do is use pie pans instead of taught wetted cloth, either lightly oiled or with a little Pam sprayed on. The steaming time is a little longer, because your cheung fan will be thicker. And instead of nice sharp-edged rectangular rolls, yours will be a little thicker around the middle.
If no pie pans, salad plates will also do - the result will be cute little cheung fan, quite suitable as a mid-day snack.
CHEUNG FAN BATTER
One cup plain rice flour.
Quarter cup tapioca flour.
Two TBS cornstarch.
Two TBS oil.
Half a teaspoon salt.
Cold water.
Sift dry ingredients together. Slowly stir water into it, add the oil, and keep adding more water while stirring till you have a batter that looks like heavy cream - approximately 1¾ to 2¼ cups water in all.
Let it stand an hour, re-stir. It is now ready for use.
Grease a pie pan, ladle in enough batter to thinly cover the bottom, and place in the steamer. After about a minute to a minute and a half, add the filling along one side. Steam for another four to six minutes, depending on how thick your layers are. Remove the pie pan from the steamer, and prepare a second pan while the first one cools.
As soon as you have added a filling to the second cheung fan, separate the first one from its pan with a flexible spatula, rolling as you go. Proceed in this manner till all the batter is used up. There should be about eight or nine cheung fan stacked on the plate when you're done. Drizzle a little sesame oil over for fragrance, slash into segments to show the filling, and garnish with minced scallion.
CHEUNG FAN FILLING
Well, yesterday was Thanksgiving, so some minced cooked turkey comes to mind. Even though very few Chinese people would think of that - more on what Chinatown folks would do with left-over turkey later.
The traditional fillings are thin slivers of of beef (remember to rinse a bit, or soak in a little rice wine briefly to remove that charnel-house fragrance that adheres to the meat), or very fresh shrimp, peeled and veined, or even minced fresh cilantro, which will lend a soft fruity-herby-floral tone to the noodly sheets.
Chopped char-siu or rehumidified dry shrimp also can.
But you could experiment. I often use dried mushroom and codfish silk jerky re-humidified and chopped, with an equal amount of lap cheung (臘腸), and a bit of finely minced of ginger.
The filling should be slightly savoury, slightly sweet, nicely fresh tasting, and not too much. Only a tablespoon or two per noodle sheet.
NOTE: The amount of tapioca flour can be reduced, replaced with a quantity of glutinous rice flour, or it may even be increased slightly. It depends on the mouthfeel that you wish to achieve. An all rice flour batter yields a noodle that isn't very interesting and lacks the tacky toothsomeness that you like. The oil which is added to the batter sweats out slightly during steaming, thus making it easier to lift the cheung fan off the cooking surface.
The same batter can be used for Teochew-style char kwee teow ('fried cake noodle': 炒粿條). Just steam the sheets without any fillings, peel them off the surface, and cut them into broad strips. After cooling they may be used for stir-fried rice noodles with clams, shrimp, and oysters, and bean sprouts. Use pork fat to fry it for that authentic Teochew flavour. Add minced scallion (or chives) and a thin omelette cut into strips, plus some sweet soy sauce and chili paste, and serve it hot from the pan.
火雞粉湯
RICE FLOUR NOODLES IN SOUP
Last night you probably dumped turkey carcass bits and bones into a cauldron with a stalk of celery and an onion to simmer. If you left it on the stove for a few hours you now already have a respectable broth, with ONE minor problem: a certain cloudiness. For a nice clear soup, strain it well. There is no orthodox way to do so.
I use the regular strainer, leaving the solids in the pot, then carefully repeat the process with a tea strainer - the same process also works for bacon grease, by the way.
Rice flour noodles, whether the thin rice stick (mai fun 米粉), or the thick kind (ho fun 河粉) which are called 'river noodles', need very little preparation. All that is really required is a rinse, and brief period in boiling water, and draining, after which they can be dumped in a bowl. Then you inundate them with hot broth.
The key thing is that what you then add to them is simple, flavourfull, and clean tasting. On the day after Thanksgiving, naturally you would use chunks and thick ripped shreds of bird, with cilantro (yuen sai 芫茜) and chopped scallion (ching tsong 青葱). Lots of cilantro - it's good for the stomach.
Some very finely minced ginger is also a splendid idea, as well as one or two grinds of white pepper.
Why rice noodles instead of wheat, egg, or Italian pasta noodles? Because like the sheet noodles mentioned above, they comfort the stomach.
You need this; you ate too much yesterday.
火雞粥
TURKEY JOOK - COMFORTING GLOOP
Jook (粥), also called congee, is rice porridge. Simple, yet satisfying. But just like the two previous items, it is best to combine everything right before serving - merely jumbling stock, rice, meat scraps, and whatever into a pot and praying for a tasty outcome doesn't work - doing so may make excellent cat food, but not stuff that a human should eat.
Prepare the stock separately, strain, and simmer down to concentrate the flavour.
Then measure out the rice: between a twelfth of the volume of the liquid, to as much as one eighth. Less rice in proportion will yield a thinner soup, more will give you a thicker porridge.
Rinse the rice thoroughly, put it in a heavy pot on high with water to cover, and cook till the grains have swollen and look like roiling clouds (and this explains why you needed to concentrate the stock - you're using plain water to precook the rice, some of the liquid will be taken up).
Drain off the excess water, then place a heat diffuser between the bottom of the po and the flame, add the turkey stock, and turn it low.
Stir regularly to keep the porridge from burning.
You must it cook till the grains have partially fallen apart and the jook is smooth, which will take a few hours.
A totally unorthodox shortcut is to turn off the heat immediately after the rice has swollen and become soft. Let it cool to a temperature for comfortable handling, then whirr it in the blender till reasonably smooth. After which proceed as usual.
It will require far less stirring and simmering, and the chance of burning the bottom of the pot is enormously lessened.
In either case, add large boneless scraps of turkey, plus a few pieces of chopped carrot, about half an hour before the end.
To serve, bowl it up, and put some chunks of bird with the nicely roasted skin on top, plus a little chopped scallion for colour.
Add a few drops of Chinese sesame oil (ma-yau 麻油) for fragrance, and perhaps a dash of soy sauce.
NOTE: There are many yummy additions to plain jook that you will find in Chinatown - pork slivers and preserved egg (pei dan sau yiuk juk 皮蛋瘦肉粥), pork and dried oysters (ho-si sau yiuk juk 蠔豉瘦肉粥), or fresh sliced raw fish that poaches perfectly in the heat of the porridge (yi-pien juk 魚片粥), blanched chicken curls porridge (gai kau juk 雞球粥), slivered pig liver (chu gon juk 猪肝粥), even cooked beef bits.
For a paradoxically luxurious quick lunch, try abalone and chicken jook (bao yu kwat kai juk 鮑魚滑雞粥), jook with roast duck (fo ngaap juk 火鴨粥), or fresh shrimp jook (sang gwan ha kau juk 生滾蝦球粥).
All of these are perfect cold weather or late night soup.
Further note: 生滾 (sang gwan), meaning ' fresh boiled', indicates that the shrimp, fish, or pork is cooked in the heat of the porridge.
MERELY A SUGGESTION......
If you were wondering what to do while your mom and all your aunties go shopping-crazy down in Union Square today - something that actually bores you rigid - now you know.
Prepare something delicious, and leave plenty for them when they return.
It will fool them into thinking that you can cook, actually really well too! Perhaps they can find a man crazy enough to marry you even if you did major in Mediaeval Studies (history of the First Crusade, thesis on Arabic borrowings into the Lingua Franca, emphasis on terminology for Frankish cannibalism at the siege of Maarrat en-Nouman)!
And while you've got them snookered, you plot your escape.
Hmmmm, saved-up funds, job lined up in the Romance Language Department of a college somewhere in Kansas, sleeping bag, books shipped overland, and that nice dashing short intellectual with the goatee and the sad mysterious past.........
You'll have to know how to prepare tasty food anyway, there's nothing good to eat in Kansas.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
And how to be kind to your stomach (see previously mentioned stress).
It's a valid question.
You can make cheung fan.
火雞腸粉
SHEET NOODLES THAT 'POETICALLY' RESEMBLE INTESTINES
Cheung fan (腸粉) are soft fresh sheets of rice flour batter steamed till set with a little filling - shrimp, beef, pork, or whatever - then folded over, drizzled with a little soy sauce and sesame oil, minced scallion to garnish.
Cut into segments of folded roll and dipped in a little hot sauce, mmmm, tasty!
Very heaven.
In commercial establishments, a sheet of cloth is tightly stretched over a rectangular steamer and wetted. Then the rice flour batter is shplooped upon it, smeared flat, a little bit of filling material is strewn over one side, and within mere moments the cloth is lifted with the skin adhering and another put in place and wetted. Meanwhile a deft hand with a spatula separates the already steamed skin, dexterously jiggling it into a loosely folded wedge or roll. It is sliced across into segments, garnished, and promptly served.
At home it is not made thus, because you do not have a large rectangular vat of fiercely boiling water with a perforated metal plate on top.
But you have a steamer.
So what you can do is use pie pans instead of taught wetted cloth, either lightly oiled or with a little Pam sprayed on. The steaming time is a little longer, because your cheung fan will be thicker. And instead of nice sharp-edged rectangular rolls, yours will be a little thicker around the middle.
If no pie pans, salad plates will also do - the result will be cute little cheung fan, quite suitable as a mid-day snack.
CHEUNG FAN BATTER
One cup plain rice flour.
Quarter cup tapioca flour.
Two TBS cornstarch.
Two TBS oil.
Half a teaspoon salt.
Cold water.
Sift dry ingredients together. Slowly stir water into it, add the oil, and keep adding more water while stirring till you have a batter that looks like heavy cream - approximately 1¾ to 2¼ cups water in all.
Let it stand an hour, re-stir. It is now ready for use.
Grease a pie pan, ladle in enough batter to thinly cover the bottom, and place in the steamer. After about a minute to a minute and a half, add the filling along one side. Steam for another four to six minutes, depending on how thick your layers are. Remove the pie pan from the steamer, and prepare a second pan while the first one cools.
As soon as you have added a filling to the second cheung fan, separate the first one from its pan with a flexible spatula, rolling as you go. Proceed in this manner till all the batter is used up. There should be about eight or nine cheung fan stacked on the plate when you're done. Drizzle a little sesame oil over for fragrance, slash into segments to show the filling, and garnish with minced scallion.
CHEUNG FAN FILLING
Well, yesterday was Thanksgiving, so some minced cooked turkey comes to mind. Even though very few Chinese people would think of that - more on what Chinatown folks would do with left-over turkey later.
The traditional fillings are thin slivers of of beef (remember to rinse a bit, or soak in a little rice wine briefly to remove that charnel-house fragrance that adheres to the meat), or very fresh shrimp, peeled and veined, or even minced fresh cilantro, which will lend a soft fruity-herby-floral tone to the noodly sheets.
Chopped char-siu or rehumidified dry shrimp also can.
But you could experiment. I often use dried mushroom and codfish silk jerky re-humidified and chopped, with an equal amount of lap cheung (臘腸), and a bit of finely minced of ginger.
The filling should be slightly savoury, slightly sweet, nicely fresh tasting, and not too much. Only a tablespoon or two per noodle sheet.
NOTE: The amount of tapioca flour can be reduced, replaced with a quantity of glutinous rice flour, or it may even be increased slightly. It depends on the mouthfeel that you wish to achieve. An all rice flour batter yields a noodle that isn't very interesting and lacks the tacky toothsomeness that you like. The oil which is added to the batter sweats out slightly during steaming, thus making it easier to lift the cheung fan off the cooking surface.
The same batter can be used for Teochew-style char kwee teow ('fried cake noodle': 炒粿條). Just steam the sheets without any fillings, peel them off the surface, and cut them into broad strips. After cooling they may be used for stir-fried rice noodles with clams, shrimp, and oysters, and bean sprouts. Use pork fat to fry it for that authentic Teochew flavour. Add minced scallion (or chives) and a thin omelette cut into strips, plus some sweet soy sauce and chili paste, and serve it hot from the pan.
火雞粉湯
RICE FLOUR NOODLES IN SOUP
Last night you probably dumped turkey carcass bits and bones into a cauldron with a stalk of celery and an onion to simmer. If you left it on the stove for a few hours you now already have a respectable broth, with ONE minor problem: a certain cloudiness. For a nice clear soup, strain it well. There is no orthodox way to do so.
I use the regular strainer, leaving the solids in the pot, then carefully repeat the process with a tea strainer - the same process also works for bacon grease, by the way.
Rice flour noodles, whether the thin rice stick (mai fun 米粉), or the thick kind (ho fun 河粉) which are called 'river noodles', need very little preparation. All that is really required is a rinse, and brief period in boiling water, and draining, after which they can be dumped in a bowl. Then you inundate them with hot broth.
The key thing is that what you then add to them is simple, flavourfull, and clean tasting. On the day after Thanksgiving, naturally you would use chunks and thick ripped shreds of bird, with cilantro (yuen sai 芫茜) and chopped scallion (ching tsong 青葱). Lots of cilantro - it's good for the stomach.
Some very finely minced ginger is also a splendid idea, as well as one or two grinds of white pepper.
Why rice noodles instead of wheat, egg, or Italian pasta noodles? Because like the sheet noodles mentioned above, they comfort the stomach.
You need this; you ate too much yesterday.
火雞粥
TURKEY JOOK - COMFORTING GLOOP
Jook (粥), also called congee, is rice porridge. Simple, yet satisfying. But just like the two previous items, it is best to combine everything right before serving - merely jumbling stock, rice, meat scraps, and whatever into a pot and praying for a tasty outcome doesn't work - doing so may make excellent cat food, but not stuff that a human should eat.
Prepare the stock separately, strain, and simmer down to concentrate the flavour.
Then measure out the rice: between a twelfth of the volume of the liquid, to as much as one eighth. Less rice in proportion will yield a thinner soup, more will give you a thicker porridge.
Rinse the rice thoroughly, put it in a heavy pot on high with water to cover, and cook till the grains have swollen and look like roiling clouds (and this explains why you needed to concentrate the stock - you're using plain water to precook the rice, some of the liquid will be taken up).
Drain off the excess water, then place a heat diffuser between the bottom of the po and the flame, add the turkey stock, and turn it low.
Stir regularly to keep the porridge from burning.
You must it cook till the grains have partially fallen apart and the jook is smooth, which will take a few hours.
A totally unorthodox shortcut is to turn off the heat immediately after the rice has swollen and become soft. Let it cool to a temperature for comfortable handling, then whirr it in the blender till reasonably smooth. After which proceed as usual.
It will require far less stirring and simmering, and the chance of burning the bottom of the pot is enormously lessened.
In either case, add large boneless scraps of turkey, plus a few pieces of chopped carrot, about half an hour before the end.
To serve, bowl it up, and put some chunks of bird with the nicely roasted skin on top, plus a little chopped scallion for colour.
Add a few drops of Chinese sesame oil (ma-yau 麻油) for fragrance, and perhaps a dash of soy sauce.
NOTE: There are many yummy additions to plain jook that you will find in Chinatown - pork slivers and preserved egg (pei dan sau yiuk juk 皮蛋瘦肉粥), pork and dried oysters (ho-si sau yiuk juk 蠔豉瘦肉粥), or fresh sliced raw fish that poaches perfectly in the heat of the porridge (yi-pien juk 魚片粥), blanched chicken curls porridge (gai kau juk 雞球粥), slivered pig liver (chu gon juk 猪肝粥), even cooked beef bits.
For a paradoxically luxurious quick lunch, try abalone and chicken jook (bao yu kwat kai juk 鮑魚滑雞粥), jook with roast duck (fo ngaap juk 火鴨粥), or fresh shrimp jook (sang gwan ha kau juk 生滾蝦球粥).
All of these are perfect cold weather or late night soup.
Further note: 生滾 (sang gwan), meaning ' fresh boiled', indicates that the shrimp, fish, or pork is cooked in the heat of the porridge.
MERELY A SUGGESTION......
If you were wondering what to do while your mom and all your aunties go shopping-crazy down in Union Square today - something that actually bores you rigid - now you know.
Prepare something delicious, and leave plenty for them when they return.
It will fool them into thinking that you can cook, actually really well too! Perhaps they can find a man crazy enough to marry you even if you did major in Mediaeval Studies (history of the First Crusade, thesis on Arabic borrowings into the Lingua Franca, emphasis on terminology for Frankish cannibalism at the siege of Maarrat en-Nouman)!
And while you've got them snookered, you plot your escape.
Hmmmm, saved-up funds, job lined up in the Romance Language Department of a college somewhere in Kansas, sleeping bag, books shipped overland, and that nice dashing short intellectual with the goatee and the sad mysterious past.........
You'll have to know how to prepare tasty food anyway, there's nothing good to eat in Kansas.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, June 04, 2011
INCURABLE ROMANTIC AND DIM SUM, OR PERVERT WITH CRUSTACEANS, THAT IS THE QUESTION
Several people I know went out together for dim sum today. It must say something about me that I neither knew about these events till a few hours ago, nor was included in any the three parties.
Truth be told, I am not a particularly social man.
The multiple-person social dynamic can be stressful.
I like people though, it's just that it often feels like they're from a different planet.
Especially in groups.
Besides, there's something far too erotic about dimsum (點心) for me to deal with at present.
Think of the appearance of many of the items: little dumplings, buns, pastries......
Are we talking nipples and breasts? Yes, I think we are.
Shan't even mention what no mai kai (糯米雞) resembles!
"Women are America's Little Dumplings"
--------President Ronald Reagan
Please consider what the standard chicken bun (雞飽) or charsiu bun (叉燒飽) looks like: a smooth-surfaced half-globe broader than it is tall, with a pinched part at the top, and sometimes a red dot to differentiate one type from the other.
Some places make larger ones, but most would fit comfortably into an 'A' cup with room to spare.
Pale, rounded, and warm to the touch. An eloquent and delightful assertion of femininity!
Ha gau (蝦餃) and siu mai (燒賣) are in their own way distinctly nipplish with their surface textures, wu gok (芋角) present an almost over the top erotic textural experience to the mouth, haahm sui gok (咸水角) have an elasticity and a surface sheen which is most suggestive, and ma lai go (馬拉糕) is far too sweet and innocent to be believable.
Dim sum: it's a veritable panoply of temptation!
All in all, given the complete absence of love in my life, even I would not trust myself around a teahouse.
It isn't that food is necessarily sexual (although crustaceans definitely are).
But shared food is very 'conducive', and small bites suggest intimacy.
Dining is a sensual experience.
Dim sum particularly.
BRIEF EXPLICATA: TEA HOUSE FOOD
Dim sum (點心): 'dot heart' - little snackypoos, both savoury and sweet, some steamed, some fried. Traditionally eaten from morning till early afternoon while engaged in drinking tea (yam cha: 飲茶), often with friends or family.
No mai kai (糯米雞): glutinous rice, chicken, and other ingredients for taste, wrapped in a lotus leaf and steamed until the rice has absorbed the wonderful savoury flavours and the whole is steamy soft goodness. It is cut open at the table upon serving.
Gai bao (雞飽): a steamed wheat dough bun filled with chopped spiced chicken, plus often a slice of Chinese sausage (lap cheung: 臘腸) and a few slivers of dried mushroom (dong gu: 冬菇).
Charsiu bao (叉燒飽): steamed wheat dough bun filled with red roast pork.
Ha gau (蝦餃): Steamed bite-size pleated pasta pouch filled with coarsely chopped shrimp. The skin is made of wheat and tapioca flour mixed to a dough with boiling water, which yields a dumpling that is slightly sticky to the touch, springy enough to hold together when picked up with chop sticks, yet thin and translucent.
Siu mai (燒賣): ground pork and mushrooms cupped in a thin pocket of lye-water dough such as is used to make noodles (though regular wheat flour dough can also be used), pinched to hold it together but left open at the top, steamed.
Wu gok (芋角): mashed cooked taro molded around a minced pork filling, deep fried and served piping hot. Crispy flaky fluffy savoury.
Haahm sui gok (咸水角): layer of rice-flour dough flavoured with chopped fatty pork, steamed, cut into squares, fried on one side.
Ma lai go (馬拉糕): a soft golden-hued steamed sponge cake precisely evocative of warm cheeks or lovely bare arms.
There are other zesty offerings!
Tsien tsang go (千層糕): multiple layer cake, soft and sweet.
Dan tat (蛋撻): little egg tart - a rich yellow custard in a puff-pastry cup. Creamy!
Tou fu fa (豆腐花): smooth soft sweetened tofu. Velvety!
Fu pei kuen (腐皮捲): 'curd skin roll', a sheet of tofu skin rolled around shrimp, pork, bamboo shoot, steamed and served with a little of the condensate. Do NOT ask me what this makes me think of. No, it isn't that!
Cheung fan (腸粉: rice sheets, with various fillings.
Ngau yiuk kau (牛肉球): steamed meatballs with slightly sweet aromatic spicing.
Dau si pai gwat (豆豉排骨): black-bean spareribs. Mmm, savoury, salty, juicy, meaty! A very tactile food.
Chun kuen (春捲): spring rolls.
Etcetera.
THREE LITTLE GIRLS FROM SCHOOL
Several years ago I introduced some Shanghainese to dim sum. As was to be expected, they weren't too impressed.
Most Chinese are fiercely chauvinistic in their food tastes, and will easily find fault with another region's cuisines. Shanghainese people in particular have a tendency to regard their own city as the centre of the universe, Canton as odd, Hong Kong as crass, and Toishanese San Francisco as rather backward.
Surely there is very little good to eat here?
I should mention that there is nothing quite so beguiling as young ladies putting food in their mouths, particularly with chopsticks. And many women look downward slightly when doing so. Very charming.
Those three girls were a feast for the eye as they ate. Boy did they eat!
Because of the nature of dimsum, that being a variety of small mostly bite-sized snacks, one often doesn't realize just how much one has put away.
I paced myself, they didn't.
Feeding them was very pleasing to the eyes. Worth every moment!
Especially when one of them ate the tou fu fa (豆腐花).
You see, it's jiggly and slithers on the spoon.
And it came in a gently rounded bowl smaller and shallower than regular rice or soup size......
PLATES, VOICES, HANDS
I really need to FEED someone. Food and female companionship are a natural match. But at this point in time dimsum is out of the question - too frustrating, too stimulating.
Too public.
Perhaps I can invite a discrete young lady out for steak at Harrah's, if an opportunity arises?
Glistening silver ware, sparkling glasses, deep comfy banquettes.
We can always save dimsum for later.
If and when we're more comfortable in each other's presence.
Having someone pleasant across the table would be very good.
We can talk about crustaceans at a future date.
They too are very erotic.
Lobster!
***
Heavens, will you look at the time! I should go get myself a slice of mediocre pizza!
Breakfast!
Yay!
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Truth be told, I am not a particularly social man.
The multiple-person social dynamic can be stressful.
I like people though, it's just that it often feels like they're from a different planet.
Especially in groups.
Besides, there's something far too erotic about dimsum (點心) for me to deal with at present.
Think of the appearance of many of the items: little dumplings, buns, pastries......
Are we talking nipples and breasts? Yes, I think we are.
Shan't even mention what no mai kai (糯米雞) resembles!
"Women are America's Little Dumplings"
--------President Ronald Reagan
Please consider what the standard chicken bun (雞飽) or charsiu bun (叉燒飽) looks like: a smooth-surfaced half-globe broader than it is tall, with a pinched part at the top, and sometimes a red dot to differentiate one type from the other.
Some places make larger ones, but most would fit comfortably into an 'A' cup with room to spare.
Pale, rounded, and warm to the touch. An eloquent and delightful assertion of femininity!
Ha gau (蝦餃) and siu mai (燒賣) are in their own way distinctly nipplish with their surface textures, wu gok (芋角) present an almost over the top erotic textural experience to the mouth, haahm sui gok (咸水角) have an elasticity and a surface sheen which is most suggestive, and ma lai go (馬拉糕) is far too sweet and innocent to be believable.
Dim sum: it's a veritable panoply of temptation!
All in all, given the complete absence of love in my life, even I would not trust myself around a teahouse.
It isn't that food is necessarily sexual (although crustaceans definitely are).
But shared food is very 'conducive', and small bites suggest intimacy.
Dining is a sensual experience.
Dim sum particularly.
BRIEF EXPLICATA: TEA HOUSE FOOD
Dim sum (點心): 'dot heart' - little snackypoos, both savoury and sweet, some steamed, some fried. Traditionally eaten from morning till early afternoon while engaged in drinking tea (yam cha: 飲茶), often with friends or family.
No mai kai (糯米雞): glutinous rice, chicken, and other ingredients for taste, wrapped in a lotus leaf and steamed until the rice has absorbed the wonderful savoury flavours and the whole is steamy soft goodness. It is cut open at the table upon serving.
Gai bao (雞飽): a steamed wheat dough bun filled with chopped spiced chicken, plus often a slice of Chinese sausage (lap cheung: 臘腸) and a few slivers of dried mushroom (dong gu: 冬菇).
Charsiu bao (叉燒飽): steamed wheat dough bun filled with red roast pork.
Ha gau (蝦餃): Steamed bite-size pleated pasta pouch filled with coarsely chopped shrimp. The skin is made of wheat and tapioca flour mixed to a dough with boiling water, which yields a dumpling that is slightly sticky to the touch, springy enough to hold together when picked up with chop sticks, yet thin and translucent.
Siu mai (燒賣): ground pork and mushrooms cupped in a thin pocket of lye-water dough such as is used to make noodles (though regular wheat flour dough can also be used), pinched to hold it together but left open at the top, steamed.
Wu gok (芋角): mashed cooked taro molded around a minced pork filling, deep fried and served piping hot. Crispy flaky fluffy savoury.
Haahm sui gok (咸水角): layer of rice-flour dough flavoured with chopped fatty pork, steamed, cut into squares, fried on one side.
Ma lai go (馬拉糕): a soft golden-hued steamed sponge cake precisely evocative of warm cheeks or lovely bare arms.
There are other zesty offerings!
Tsien tsang go (千層糕): multiple layer cake, soft and sweet.
Dan tat (蛋撻): little egg tart - a rich yellow custard in a puff-pastry cup. Creamy!
Tou fu fa (豆腐花): smooth soft sweetened tofu. Velvety!
Fu pei kuen (腐皮捲): 'curd skin roll', a sheet of tofu skin rolled around shrimp, pork, bamboo shoot, steamed and served with a little of the condensate. Do NOT ask me what this makes me think of. No, it isn't that!
Cheung fan (腸粉: rice sheets, with various fillings.
Ngau yiuk kau (牛肉球): steamed meatballs with slightly sweet aromatic spicing.
Dau si pai gwat (豆豉排骨): black-bean spareribs. Mmm, savoury, salty, juicy, meaty! A very tactile food.
Chun kuen (春捲): spring rolls.
Etcetera.
THREE LITTLE GIRLS FROM SCHOOL
Several years ago I introduced some Shanghainese to dim sum. As was to be expected, they weren't too impressed.
Most Chinese are fiercely chauvinistic in their food tastes, and will easily find fault with another region's cuisines. Shanghainese people in particular have a tendency to regard their own city as the centre of the universe, Canton as odd, Hong Kong as crass, and Toishanese San Francisco as rather backward.
Surely there is very little good to eat here?
I should mention that there is nothing quite so beguiling as young ladies putting food in their mouths, particularly with chopsticks. And many women look downward slightly when doing so. Very charming.
Those three girls were a feast for the eye as they ate. Boy did they eat!
Because of the nature of dimsum, that being a variety of small mostly bite-sized snacks, one often doesn't realize just how much one has put away.
I paced myself, they didn't.
Feeding them was very pleasing to the eyes. Worth every moment!
Especially when one of them ate the tou fu fa (豆腐花).
You see, it's jiggly and slithers on the spoon.
And it came in a gently rounded bowl smaller and shallower than regular rice or soup size......
PLATES, VOICES, HANDS
I really need to FEED someone. Food and female companionship are a natural match. But at this point in time dimsum is out of the question - too frustrating, too stimulating.
Too public.
Perhaps I can invite a discrete young lady out for steak at Harrah's, if an opportunity arises?
Glistening silver ware, sparkling glasses, deep comfy banquettes.
We can always save dimsum for later.
If and when we're more comfortable in each other's presence.
Having someone pleasant across the table would be very good.
We can talk about crustaceans at a future date.
They too are very erotic.
Lobster!
***
Heavens, will you look at the time! I should go get myself a slice of mediocre pizza!
Breakfast!
Yay!
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
STOCKTON STREET: EATING THE WOMBAT!
Actually, wombat is NOT available on Stockton Street. I’m not entirely sure if wombat is even edible. Australian recipes for wombat do not prove anything, as Ozzies also eat spaghetti sandwiches and vegemite.
So perhaps the only thing that can be established is that they have a sense of humour.
EAT HERE NOW
There is no wombat on Stockton Street.
Try some dim sum instead. Noodles? Maybe phở gà? How about bánh mì thịt nướng?
All of that and more can be found within mere seconds of getting off the number one California bus.
There's a row of four honest food places just awaiting your happiness in that first block between Clay and Washington.
YOU'S DIMSUM 得意糕點
937 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
Little more than a hole-in-the-wall, but there are tables at which you can sit while eating. This place defines 'lack of ambiance', unless you like unadorned eateries that make no apology for merely providing flat surfaces for your very temporary convenience.
Cheap, no-frills Cantonese snacky offerings. When the taro croquettes ('wu gok' 芋角) are fresh out of the hot fat, they are delightful little blobs of scorch-your-mouth heaven. Even cold, the yummy crust just flakes away.
Jindui (煎堆), which are fried balls of glutinous rice flour dough stuffed with lotus paste ('lienyong' 蓮蓉) and covered with sesame seeds, are also delicious when hot, though less so when cold. Still good, though.
The selection in the morning is far better than during the afternoon, but even then you will be able to find many of your favourites: shrimp hargau (蝦餃), siumai (燒賣), various types of rice-noodle sheet (cheung fan 腸粉), and especially charsiu buns (叉燒包), which most tourists cannot resist.
Standard items also usually available: spring rolls ('tswun kün' 春捲), radish cake ('lo bak gou' 蘿蔔糕) and water chestnut pudding ('ma tai gou' 馬蹄糕).
Prices are low, the quality and selection is decent, and the staff may not understand your questions at all, so just point.
Please don't ask about vegan edibles, they don't have any.
If you want vegan, you are in the wrong place.
Possibly even the wrong universe.
LITTLE PARIS COFFEE SHOP 小巴黎咖啡室
939 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
A variety of Vietnamese sandwiches, including ones with ham (foh tui 火腿). Some of the best phở in town, also a selection of other dishes and snacks, and specialty drinks. But you should really come for the sandwiches, or pho, and a cold glass of cà phê sữa đá (ka-fey nai bing 咖啡奶冰 - Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk and ice cubes).
The same people have been running it since the years when I lived nearby, and they still have the same customers.
A very comfortable place to just sit and relax while the coffee drips. You'll be wired to the eyebrows soon enough.
At times it is pleasantly noisy.
Go on, have something more to eat. And perhaps another coffee.
SAN SUN RESTAURANT 三陽咖啡餐屋
[麵飯粥粉]
941 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
Mien - fan - jook - fan (wheat noodles, cooked rice dishes, porridge, and rice noodle).
A very extensive selection of noodle dishes, plus fish balls that are just about divine.
This place is quick, tasty, and affordable. Many people praise the satay sauce, but personally I know mine is better (a recipe may show up on this blog later - or not).
Excellent Hainan chicken ('Hoi-naam kai fan' 海南雞飯).
Their ingredients are fresh, their bowls and cutlery are stainless steel, their prices are low.
Because their menu is long and intimidating, and this restaurant is popular with both students and people revisiting the old neighborhood for the day, I don't go here often at all.
JOY HING B.B.Q. NOODLE HOUSE 再興黄毛雞粉
943 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
A small friendly place that specializes in soup made with 'yellow fur chicken' ('wong mo kai' 黄毛雞), which is a leaner and more flavourful free-range bird than the bland supermarket pullet. But they also have an extensive menu of other things.
The wong mo kai features in their phở gà: Vietnamese noodle soup (phở) made with chicken (gà) instead of beef. A superior dish, very comforting and satisfying.
They also do a nice version of wonton soup noodle (雲吞湯麵).
Particularly good offerings listed on the wall but not in the menu:
清湯牛腩粉 Clear broth brisket rice-noodle.
黄毛雞湯圓 Yellow fur chicken soup balls.
鮑魚粥 Abalone congee.
鮑魚滑雞粥 Abalone and chicken congee.
火鴨粥 Roast duck congee.
生滾蝦球粥 Freshly cooked shrimp curl congee.
生滾肉片粥 Freshly cooked pork slice congee.
香菇牛崧粥 Black mushroom and meat floss congee.
[Note: in the last-named, 崧 is used as an elegant substitution for 松, with which it is homophonous. And 松 (pine tree) is itself merely a script substitute for 鬆.]
The last time I was there I had fish with blackbeans over rice (豆豉龍利魚球) and Vietnamese coffee ('yuetnaam kafei' 越南咖啡 - cà phê sữa đá). I have no idea what kind of fish 龍利魚 actually is, but it's sweet in taste and not laden with bones. It was very good.
Watching the white couple at another table quarreling was also very good.
The gentle young waitress managed to keep a straight face during their snap & scratch fest.
She's a calm diplomat. I would've smacked them fiercely.
Kudos.
COFFEE, TEA, CHAOS
For a sweet snack and some hot milk tea or coffee, you also have a number of choices on Stockton Street. Cantonese people just love their snacky-time. They are very European in that regard. Surely it's always time for coffee and a pastry?
NEW CAFÉ HONOLULU 新檀島咖啡餅店
888 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
[Formerly the South Hollywood Café, to distinguish it from sister-enterprise North Hollywood on Pacific Avenue.]
This place has the usual selection of Cantonese bakery items, plus some nice pastries. Table service, or to go. Plus bubble tea, hot lunch specials, and some semi-American fast-food offerings. Hamburger over rice? That's about as old-school Chinese-American as you can get!
Sometimes the wait-staff seems a mite preoccupied, so I don't go here much.
They bake good bread, and they have charsiu bao in case you were wondering.
GOOD MONG KOK BAKERY 好旺角包餅店
1039 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
This is where you go to pick up mantou and large bao in Chinatown. My roommate swears by this place, but I seldom go there myself, as I do not wish to poach on her turf - especially since we're no longer romantic partners. It might prove sticky.
Even so, their steamed chicken buns ('kai bau' 雞包) and stew-meat and vegetable buns ('choi yiuk bao' 菜肉包) are something I am very fond of. There's often a line of people outside, and you'll have to be quite resolute. But it's worth it.
NAPOLEON SUPER BAKERY 拿破崙餠屋
1049 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
Fresh high quality baked goods, including some very interesting chive and cheese rolls if I remember correctly. Not so many traditional Chinatown pastries. This is a good place for you to try something new. I remember something crumbly and rich with red bean paste - sort of a rolled sweat bread with a texture halfway between cake and streusel, enfolding a blob of sweet paste similar in some ways to bakery marzipan.
The chestnut cake is highly praised, as are the egg-tarts.
There are tables, there is coffee.
THE AA BAKERY & CAFÉ 永興餅家茶餐廳
1068 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
Marvelous cakes ('dan gou' 蛋糕) in various sizes, consisting of fruit chunks in whipped cream between layers of angel food. You can have a birthday wish enscribed while you wait, or you can special order a cake and really make a good impression at the party. In early autumn, they have a staggering selection of mooncakes, including some very weird fillings - durian and salted egg yolk?!? I'm sure that the quality of that last item mentioned is very good, nevertheless I think Hell will freeze over before I try it.
They have tables where you can sit and watch the tourists get all confused. The stuff looks very good, but the counter staff cannot really explain what it is to people who have never had it before.
Hint: just point and tell them you want one - it ain't gonna bust the bank. You can ask them what it's called at the same time, and figure out what it actually is later.
Usually there's a lady selling joong (粽) at the front door. Glutinous rice ('noh mai' 糯米) filling with pork and a salted egg yolk wrapped in bamboo. Because of the "disinfecting" qualities of bamboo, it will keep for a while.
Buy a few for snacking at home or lunch at the office.
MORE MEAT
After reviving yourself with a hot beverage and a bakery product, go off and pick up some roast meat product (siu mei 燒味) or savoury stewed odd meats (lo mei 滷味). You can take it home to fress as is, serve it along with other dishes at dinner, or incorporate some into a fabulous new creation never before seen.
Roast duck ('siu ngaap' 燒鴨), barbecue pork ('charsiu' 叉燒), roast pork ('siu yiuk' 燒肉), salt water chicken ('lo sui kai' 鹵水雞), white boiled chicken ('paak jek kai' 白切雞), soy-sauce chicken ('si-yau kai' 豉油雞), crispy chicken ('ja-ji kai' 炸子雞), painted octopus ('lo sui mak-yu' 鹵水墨魚), goose ('ngoh' 鵝), plus gizzards, and simple side dishes that go well with such things.
GOURMET DELIGHT B.B.Q. 新凱豐燒臘店
1045 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
Tender roast pork, delicious roast duck. Fried chicken also worthwhile.
My roommate prefers the roast duck and roast pork from a different place in Chinatown, which is indeed very delicious. But when I want to stuff myself on tender juicy full-flavoured roast duck, this is one of the places I think of. Man, I could eat an entire bucket of this! I have never been disappointed here. This place just about screams good old-fashioned 燒味 and 滷味 counter. 嘩, 真係好食!
Yeah, you can please be mighty glad that you don't see me feasting.
Duck grease all over my face. Oh lordy yes.
PREPARE TO PUSH
The next two places will probably not appeal to many Caucasians. This is the most crowded part of Stockton Street, so know what you want before you wade in, and it definitely also helps if you have an open mind and can spot what's good and fresh.
Other customers are not necessarily your friends, and the people who work here are far too busy to babysit you.
DUK HING CHINESE DELI & MEAT 德興燒臘肉食公司
1151 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
More 滷味 than 燒味. If you can't recognize what it is, just point.
WING SING DIM SUM 新永勝點心快餐
1125 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
Crowded, cheap, and extremely popular. Lots of dim sum, plus low-priced lunch specials.
Yes, they have char siu bao.
* * *I'm hungry again.
That was predictable.
==========================================================================
Please refer to http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2011/02/stockton-street-your-other-food.html for previous mention of Stockton Street, and also note the clickable label 市德頓街 ("si-tak-twun kai") below.
Other useful labels: 唐人街 (Tong Yan Kai - Chinatown), 真好食 (delicious!), 腸粉 (cheung fan - sheet rice noodle).
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
So perhaps the only thing that can be established is that they have a sense of humour.
EAT HERE NOW
There is no wombat on Stockton Street.
Try some dim sum instead. Noodles? Maybe phở gà? How about bánh mì thịt nướng?
All of that and more can be found within mere seconds of getting off the number one California bus.
There's a row of four honest food places just awaiting your happiness in that first block between Clay and Washington.
YOU'S DIMSUM 得意糕點
937 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
Little more than a hole-in-the-wall, but there are tables at which you can sit while eating. This place defines 'lack of ambiance', unless you like unadorned eateries that make no apology for merely providing flat surfaces for your very temporary convenience.
Cheap, no-frills Cantonese snacky offerings. When the taro croquettes ('wu gok' 芋角) are fresh out of the hot fat, they are delightful little blobs of scorch-your-mouth heaven. Even cold, the yummy crust just flakes away.
Jindui (煎堆), which are fried balls of glutinous rice flour dough stuffed with lotus paste ('lienyong' 蓮蓉) and covered with sesame seeds, are also delicious when hot, though less so when cold. Still good, though.
The selection in the morning is far better than during the afternoon, but even then you will be able to find many of your favourites: shrimp hargau (蝦餃), siumai (燒賣), various types of rice-noodle sheet (cheung fan 腸粉), and especially charsiu buns (叉燒包), which most tourists cannot resist.
Standard items also usually available: spring rolls ('tswun kün' 春捲), radish cake ('lo bak gou' 蘿蔔糕) and water chestnut pudding ('ma tai gou' 馬蹄糕).
Prices are low, the quality and selection is decent, and the staff may not understand your questions at all, so just point.
Please don't ask about vegan edibles, they don't have any.
If you want vegan, you are in the wrong place.
Possibly even the wrong universe.
LITTLE PARIS COFFEE SHOP 小巴黎咖啡室
939 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
A variety of Vietnamese sandwiches, including ones with ham (foh tui 火腿). Some of the best phở in town, also a selection of other dishes and snacks, and specialty drinks. But you should really come for the sandwiches, or pho, and a cold glass of cà phê sữa đá (ka-fey nai bing 咖啡奶冰 - Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk and ice cubes).
The same people have been running it since the years when I lived nearby, and they still have the same customers.
A very comfortable place to just sit and relax while the coffee drips. You'll be wired to the eyebrows soon enough.
At times it is pleasantly noisy.
Go on, have something more to eat. And perhaps another coffee.
SAN SUN RESTAURANT 三陽咖啡餐屋
[麵飯粥粉]
941 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
Mien - fan - jook - fan (wheat noodles, cooked rice dishes, porridge, and rice noodle).
A very extensive selection of noodle dishes, plus fish balls that are just about divine.
This place is quick, tasty, and affordable. Many people praise the satay sauce, but personally I know mine is better (a recipe may show up on this blog later - or not).
Excellent Hainan chicken ('Hoi-naam kai fan' 海南雞飯).
Their ingredients are fresh, their bowls and cutlery are stainless steel, their prices are low.
Because their menu is long and intimidating, and this restaurant is popular with both students and people revisiting the old neighborhood for the day, I don't go here often at all.
JOY HING B.B.Q. NOODLE HOUSE 再興黄毛雞粉
943 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
A small friendly place that specializes in soup made with 'yellow fur chicken' ('wong mo kai' 黄毛雞), which is a leaner and more flavourful free-range bird than the bland supermarket pullet. But they also have an extensive menu of other things.
The wong mo kai features in their phở gà: Vietnamese noodle soup (phở) made with chicken (gà) instead of beef. A superior dish, very comforting and satisfying.
They also do a nice version of wonton soup noodle (雲吞湯麵).
Particularly good offerings listed on the wall but not in the menu:
清湯牛腩粉 Clear broth brisket rice-noodle.
黄毛雞湯圓 Yellow fur chicken soup balls.
鮑魚粥 Abalone congee.
鮑魚滑雞粥 Abalone and chicken congee.
火鴨粥 Roast duck congee.
生滾蝦球粥 Freshly cooked shrimp curl congee.
生滾肉片粥 Freshly cooked pork slice congee.
香菇牛崧粥 Black mushroom and meat floss congee.
[Note: in the last-named, 崧 is used as an elegant substitution for 松, with which it is homophonous. And 松 (pine tree) is itself merely a script substitute for 鬆.]
The last time I was there I had fish with blackbeans over rice (豆豉龍利魚球) and Vietnamese coffee ('yuetnaam kafei' 越南咖啡 - cà phê sữa đá). I have no idea what kind of fish 龍利魚 actually is, but it's sweet in taste and not laden with bones. It was very good.
Watching the white couple at another table quarreling was also very good.
The gentle young waitress managed to keep a straight face during their snap & scratch fest.
She's a calm diplomat. I would've smacked them fiercely.
Kudos.
COFFEE, TEA, CHAOS
For a sweet snack and some hot milk tea or coffee, you also have a number of choices on Stockton Street. Cantonese people just love their snacky-time. They are very European in that regard. Surely it's always time for coffee and a pastry?
NEW CAFÉ HONOLULU 新檀島咖啡餅店
888 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
[Formerly the South Hollywood Café, to distinguish it from sister-enterprise North Hollywood on Pacific Avenue.]
This place has the usual selection of Cantonese bakery items, plus some nice pastries. Table service, or to go. Plus bubble tea, hot lunch specials, and some semi-American fast-food offerings. Hamburger over rice? That's about as old-school Chinese-American as you can get!
Sometimes the wait-staff seems a mite preoccupied, so I don't go here much.
They bake good bread, and they have charsiu bao in case you were wondering.
GOOD MONG KOK BAKERY 好旺角包餅店
1039 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
This is where you go to pick up mantou and large bao in Chinatown. My roommate swears by this place, but I seldom go there myself, as I do not wish to poach on her turf - especially since we're no longer romantic partners. It might prove sticky.
Even so, their steamed chicken buns ('kai bau' 雞包) and stew-meat and vegetable buns ('choi yiuk bao' 菜肉包) are something I am very fond of. There's often a line of people outside, and you'll have to be quite resolute. But it's worth it.
NAPOLEON SUPER BAKERY 拿破崙餠屋
1049 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
Fresh high quality baked goods, including some very interesting chive and cheese rolls if I remember correctly. Not so many traditional Chinatown pastries. This is a good place for you to try something new. I remember something crumbly and rich with red bean paste - sort of a rolled sweat bread with a texture halfway between cake and streusel, enfolding a blob of sweet paste similar in some ways to bakery marzipan.
The chestnut cake is highly praised, as are the egg-tarts.
There are tables, there is coffee.
THE AA BAKERY & CAFÉ 永興餅家茶餐廳
1068 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
Marvelous cakes ('dan gou' 蛋糕) in various sizes, consisting of fruit chunks in whipped cream between layers of angel food. You can have a birthday wish enscribed while you wait, or you can special order a cake and really make a good impression at the party. In early autumn, they have a staggering selection of mooncakes, including some very weird fillings - durian and salted egg yolk?!? I'm sure that the quality of that last item mentioned is very good, nevertheless I think Hell will freeze over before I try it.
They have tables where you can sit and watch the tourists get all confused. The stuff looks very good, but the counter staff cannot really explain what it is to people who have never had it before.
Hint: just point and tell them you want one - it ain't gonna bust the bank. You can ask them what it's called at the same time, and figure out what it actually is later.
Usually there's a lady selling joong (粽) at the front door. Glutinous rice ('noh mai' 糯米) filling with pork and a salted egg yolk wrapped in bamboo. Because of the "disinfecting" qualities of bamboo, it will keep for a while.
Buy a few for snacking at home or lunch at the office.
MORE MEAT
After reviving yourself with a hot beverage and a bakery product, go off and pick up some roast meat product (siu mei 燒味) or savoury stewed odd meats (lo mei 滷味). You can take it home to fress as is, serve it along with other dishes at dinner, or incorporate some into a fabulous new creation never before seen.
Roast duck ('siu ngaap' 燒鴨), barbecue pork ('charsiu' 叉燒), roast pork ('siu yiuk' 燒肉), salt water chicken ('lo sui kai' 鹵水雞), white boiled chicken ('paak jek kai' 白切雞), soy-sauce chicken ('si-yau kai' 豉油雞), crispy chicken ('ja-ji kai' 炸子雞), painted octopus ('lo sui mak-yu' 鹵水墨魚), goose ('ngoh' 鵝), plus gizzards, and simple side dishes that go well with such things.
GOURMET DELIGHT B.B.Q. 新凱豐燒臘店
1045 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
Tender roast pork, delicious roast duck. Fried chicken also worthwhile.
My roommate prefers the roast duck and roast pork from a different place in Chinatown, which is indeed very delicious. But when I want to stuff myself on tender juicy full-flavoured roast duck, this is one of the places I think of. Man, I could eat an entire bucket of this! I have never been disappointed here. This place just about screams good old-fashioned 燒味 and 滷味 counter. 嘩, 真係好食!
Yeah, you can please be mighty glad that you don't see me feasting.
Duck grease all over my face. Oh lordy yes.
PREPARE TO PUSH
The next two places will probably not appeal to many Caucasians. This is the most crowded part of Stockton Street, so know what you want before you wade in, and it definitely also helps if you have an open mind and can spot what's good and fresh.
Other customers are not necessarily your friends, and the people who work here are far too busy to babysit you.
DUK HING CHINESE DELI & MEAT 德興燒臘肉食公司
1151 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
More 滷味 than 燒味. If you can't recognize what it is, just point.
WING SING DIM SUM 新永勝點心快餐
1125 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
Crowded, cheap, and extremely popular. Lots of dim sum, plus low-priced lunch specials.
Yes, they have char siu bao.
* * *I'm hungry again.
That was predictable.
==========================================================================
Please refer to http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2011/02/stockton-street-your-other-food.html for previous mention of Stockton Street, and also note the clickable label 市德頓街 ("si-tak-twun kai") below.
Other useful labels: 唐人街 (Tong Yan Kai - Chinatown), 真好食 (delicious!), 腸粉 (cheung fan - sheet rice noodle).
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, February 06, 2011
CHAR SIU BUNS ON JACKSON STREET
It seems like everybody who visits Chinatown has only ONE thing on their mind: charsiu buns.
Which is a bit odd, perverse even. There is so much more there to stuff your face with, why do they only go for this one thing?
My guess is that they don't really know anything else. Most Americans judge an entire cuisine by one signature dish, which in their limited view outranks all others.
[Gross generalization here, and yes I do know that YOU are different - feel free to tell me precisely how much so in the comments.]
Whether it's Thai, Italian, Indian, or Mexican, people almost always order their favourite. They had the same thing last time (actually the last ten times), they don't want anything else, and experimentation might force them to eat stuff they don't like.
If they really wanted something else, they'd go to a different ethnic restaurant.
Fortunately, with Chinese food, there are several things they KNOW they like: Sweet and Sour Pork, Chicken Chowmein, Chop Suey, Fried Rice, Mongolian Beef, Kung Pao Shrimp...............
[Sweet and Sour Pork: 咕嚕肉 ('gu lou yiuk'). Chicken Chowmein: 雞丁炒麵 ('kai ding chou min'). Chop Suey: 雜碎 ('jaap suei'). Fried Rice: 炒飯 ('chau fan'). Mongolian Beef: 蒙古牛肉 ('mang gu ngau yiuk'). Kung Pao Shrimp: 宮保蝦球 ('gong bou haa kau').]
......... and charsiu bao!
[叉燒包!]
TEA TIME SNACK IN C-TOWN
I often wander around the neighborhood looking for something different to eat, or a new place to try.
But this afternoon I went to one of my favourite tried-and-true places, because with a mild hang-over I wasn't feeling very adventurous.
園林點心735 Jackson Street
San Francisco, CA 94133.
415-399-0888
The two nicest things here are the fresh shrimp rice-sheet noodle and the charsiu (!) flaky turnovers, especially when they're piping hot, fresh out of the kitchen.
[Fresh shrimp rice-sheet noodle: 鮮蝦腸粉 ('sin haa cheung fan'). Charsiu flaky turnover: 叉燒酥餅 ('cha siu so peng').]
That's not what I had this time - chose a few things I hadn't eaten there before. Thoroughly enjoyed my meal.
But the best part of teatime was the constant stream of people coming in and asking worriedly whether they had charsiu buns. An entire white family, seven fat people. Several Chinese-Americans from the avenues with chunky offspring. A disapproving white couple. One hungry Swedish girl. A Philippino family with two chubbalicious teenage daughters. Some more white people. Plus a pudgy hippy.
"Do... do... do... you have... CHAR SIU BUNS?!?"
[Catch in the throat, anxious whimper, fevered quiver.]
I have never tried their charsiu buns. If I do, I will probably order a bun in a whisper, then scurry furtively back to my den on the other side of the hill.
I may even try to sound like a Southerner and drawl, in the hope that I will not be recognized.
Yes, they have charsiu buns. They're not crazy, they know those things sell like hot cakes.
The tourists get them bronzed for Aunt Mabel back in Poughkeepsie.
A perfect memento!
If you want to eat them with a semblance of secretive privacy, please note: 雅坐上樓 ('elegant seating upstairs'). No one will watch you, and you can do with your buns whatever you wish. There are bottles of sweet and sour sauce on the tables for your convenience.
But you are much better off downstairs at one of the sticky communal tables, seeing the fresh stuff that comes out of the kitchen.
Wait for the charsiu turnovers, then snatch-buy several. They're covered with sesame seeds, and just pure flaky goodness.
I'm going to have to go there earlier to snag the 煎堆 when they're fresh out of the hot fat. They're probably excellent.
STOP GUESSING, AH YEE!
叉燒包就得嘅喇!
Watching the aunties behind the counter facing the customers was rather bittersweet.
One plaintively tried to interest the outsiders in other offerings - "you try wutaogok, lobogau, siumai.... very GOOD!!!". The other one, with equal optimism, attempted to figure out what they might want - "noodle, potsticker, springroll?"
Upon seeing blank looks of incomprehension they would patiently start explaining what these things were, only to be cut off by "charsiu buns charsiu buns charsiu buns, you got charsiu buns yes charsiu buns we want charsiu buns!"
I hear the charsiu buns are quite good. They also have wonton noodle soup, various hot dishes, and fruity milk-tea with tapioca balls. Their cheung fan is excellent.
Locals seem to like the place.
One other thing - they used to serve everything from the take-out counter on flimsy paper plates.
Now they have sturdy Hello Kitty plastic ware.
I'm totally cool with that.
Table condiments: Soy sauce. Chili paste. And something labeled 'sweet and sour sauce'.
食咗飽了, six bucks only. Very affordable.
HOUSE OF DIM SUM: 735 Jackson Street, San Francisco.Many non-Asians on Yelp hate the House of Dim Sum, but given that they say crappy things about every other joint in Chinatown and wouldn't know decent food if it came up and bit them, you might as well ignore what they say. It's called 'yelp' for a reason.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Which is a bit odd, perverse even. There is so much more there to stuff your face with, why do they only go for this one thing?
My guess is that they don't really know anything else. Most Americans judge an entire cuisine by one signature dish, which in their limited view outranks all others.
[Gross generalization here, and yes I do know that YOU are different - feel free to tell me precisely how much so in the comments.]
Whether it's Thai, Italian, Indian, or Mexican, people almost always order their favourite. They had the same thing last time (actually the last ten times), they don't want anything else, and experimentation might force them to eat stuff they don't like.
If they really wanted something else, they'd go to a different ethnic restaurant.
Fortunately, with Chinese food, there are several things they KNOW they like: Sweet and Sour Pork, Chicken Chowmein, Chop Suey, Fried Rice, Mongolian Beef, Kung Pao Shrimp...............
[Sweet and Sour Pork: 咕嚕肉 ('gu lou yiuk'). Chicken Chowmein: 雞丁炒麵 ('kai ding chou min'). Chop Suey: 雜碎 ('jaap suei'). Fried Rice: 炒飯 ('chau fan'). Mongolian Beef: 蒙古牛肉 ('mang gu ngau yiuk'). Kung Pao Shrimp: 宮保蝦球 ('gong bou haa kau').]
......... and charsiu bao!
[叉燒包!]
TEA TIME SNACK IN C-TOWN
I often wander around the neighborhood looking for something different to eat, or a new place to try.
But this afternoon I went to one of my favourite tried-and-true places, because with a mild hang-over I wasn't feeling very adventurous.
園林點心735 Jackson Street
San Francisco, CA 94133.
415-399-0888
The two nicest things here are the fresh shrimp rice-sheet noodle and the charsiu (!) flaky turnovers, especially when they're piping hot, fresh out of the kitchen.
[Fresh shrimp rice-sheet noodle: 鮮蝦腸粉 ('sin haa cheung fan'). Charsiu flaky turnover: 叉燒酥餅 ('cha siu so peng').]
That's not what I had this time - chose a few things I hadn't eaten there before. Thoroughly enjoyed my meal.
But the best part of teatime was the constant stream of people coming in and asking worriedly whether they had charsiu buns. An entire white family, seven fat people. Several Chinese-Americans from the avenues with chunky offspring. A disapproving white couple. One hungry Swedish girl. A Philippino family with two chubbalicious teenage daughters. Some more white people. Plus a pudgy hippy.
"Do... do... do... you have... CHAR SIU BUNS?!?"
[Catch in the throat, anxious whimper, fevered quiver.]
I have never tried their charsiu buns. If I do, I will probably order a bun in a whisper, then scurry furtively back to my den on the other side of the hill.
I may even try to sound like a Southerner and drawl, in the hope that I will not be recognized.
Yes, they have charsiu buns. They're not crazy, they know those things sell like hot cakes.
The tourists get them bronzed for Aunt Mabel back in Poughkeepsie.
A perfect memento!
If you want to eat them with a semblance of secretive privacy, please note: 雅坐上樓 ('elegant seating upstairs'). No one will watch you, and you can do with your buns whatever you wish. There are bottles of sweet and sour sauce on the tables for your convenience.
But you are much better off downstairs at one of the sticky communal tables, seeing the fresh stuff that comes out of the kitchen.
Wait for the charsiu turnovers, then snatch-buy several. They're covered with sesame seeds, and just pure flaky goodness.
I'm going to have to go there earlier to snag the 煎堆 when they're fresh out of the hot fat. They're probably excellent.
STOP GUESSING, AH YEE!
叉燒包就得嘅喇!
Watching the aunties behind the counter facing the customers was rather bittersweet.
One plaintively tried to interest the outsiders in other offerings - "you try wutaogok, lobogau, siumai.... very GOOD!!!". The other one, with equal optimism, attempted to figure out what they might want - "noodle, potsticker, springroll?"
Upon seeing blank looks of incomprehension they would patiently start explaining what these things were, only to be cut off by "charsiu buns charsiu buns charsiu buns, you got charsiu buns yes charsiu buns we want charsiu buns!"
I hear the charsiu buns are quite good. They also have wonton noodle soup, various hot dishes, and fruity milk-tea with tapioca balls. Their cheung fan is excellent.
Locals seem to like the place.
One other thing - they used to serve everything from the take-out counter on flimsy paper plates.
Now they have sturdy Hello Kitty plastic ware.
I'm totally cool with that.
Table condiments: Soy sauce. Chili paste. And something labeled 'sweet and sour sauce'.
食咗飽了, six bucks only. Very affordable.
HOUSE OF DIM SUM: 735 Jackson Street, San Francisco.Many non-Asians on Yelp hate the House of Dim Sum, but given that they say crappy things about every other joint in Chinatown and wouldn't know decent food if it came up and bit them, you might as well ignore what they say. It's called 'yelp' for a reason.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
CHINATOWN BAKERIES: DOW SA BING AND OTHER BING THINGS
When I first moved to San Francisco I frequented a coffee shop and bakery on Grant Avenue.
Several times a week I ended up there, reading the newspapers, swilling coffee, and scarfing down ONE pastry.
Only one, because in those days I was rather low on funds.
Often it was a flaky red bean paste bun ('dow sa bing' 豆沙餠). Which is something the tourists may not like - European and American travelers are predisposed to scoff at local foods wherever they are, and Chinatown is the best of both worlds in that regards - no matter where you're from, the food in San Francisco Chinatown is NOT the real Chinese food you know.
[Examples of places with 'REAL' Chinese food: New York (USA), Bombay (India), and Schiermonnikoog (Netherlands). I've heard from numerous people that what we have here just isn't real. And you can't even find decent chopsuey in Chinatown!]
Other wonderful snacky things were the steamed chicken bun ('kai Bao' 雞包), lotus seed paste pastries ('lienyong bing' 莲蓉餠), wintermelon pastry ('lo po bing' 老婆餠 "old wife biscuit"), various mooncakes .......
Again, please understand that these things are NOT "real" Chinese food.
It's just stuff that Cantonese people eat.
[Wintermelon pastry (老婆餠): the filling is chopped candied wintermelon mixed with glutinous rice flour, shortening and water, and sugar. The crust is made by rolling an oil dough and a water dough together to make layers, after which the filling is enfolded, an egg wash applied, and the result baked for half an hour at 375 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Each pastry is no more than palm size. When fresh, they are crumbly-flaky.
And very delightful.]
But, because my stand-by snack was the red bean paste bun, I acquired a nickname: 豆沙餠先生 ('Dow-sa Bing sinsang').
One of my friends was 臘腸包 - Steamed Sausage Bun ('Lap cheung bao').
His older sister was 'Coffee Crunch Cake miss'.
Some one else had the name 阿粽哥 ('Ah-Joong go').
[Joong (粽) consists of glutinous rice with fatty meat and peanuts wrapped in bamboo leaves and steamed for a long time till the filling has melded together. Ko (哥) means 'older brother'.]
There was also someone nicknamed 蛋撻 ('Dan Tat' - egg tart).
Every Chinatown bakery has a customer with that handle (except for the Golden Gate Bakery, for reasons which will become apparent).
I remember their names, because they were delicious.
There are, of course, many bakeries in Chinatown that are worth frequenting. The open-minded eater will find much that bears repeat visits.
[Wikipedia: Chinese Bakery products . And please note that there are a number of errors in that article, as well as in related (linked) entries.]
But where to start?
THE AA BAKERY & CAFÉ
永興餅家茶餐廳 ('wing hing bing ka tsa tsan teng')
1068 Stockton St
San Francisco, CA 94108
(415) 981-0123
Beautiful cakes ('dan go' 蛋糕) - angel food layers with fresh fruit and whipped cream - that demand a second and third slice. The birthday cakes ('sang yat dan go' 生日蛋糕) come in various sizes, and can be special ordered. At the end of summer, they have the largest selection of mooncakes (traditional fillings surrounded by a thin crust, often including a salted egg yolk for contrast and extra richness).
Tables and hot coffee.
This place is on my regular list.
EASTERN BAKERY
東亞餅家 ('tung ah bing ka')
720 Grant Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94108
(415) 433-7973
Coffee crunch cake, superb mooncakes, various small pastries. The custard pie is very good too. As are also the steamed pork and chicken buns. Many Manila-Town regulars remember this place, as it was a regular haunt before the International Hotel was torn down and they had to relocate. Their children still come here to pick up the cakes they remember from childhood.
Tables and hot coffee.
GARDEN BAKERY
嘉頓餠家 ('ka twun bing ka')
765 Jackson Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
(415) 397-5838
Pineapple buns and cocktail buns.
GOLDEN GATE BAKERY
金門餅家 ('kam moon bing ka')
1029 Grant Ave
(between Jackson St & Pacific Ave)
San Francisco, CA 94133
(415) 781-2627
The same selection of small pastries that most Chinatown bakeries have, plus the same cafeteria coffee machine. But honestly, what everyone lines out the door for are the egg custard tarts ('dan tat' 蛋撻), which are conceivably the best in Chinatown. Hot and fresh several times a day. Some people say that there are better ones, but that's a matter of opinion.
Golden Gate's little egg custard tarts are well worth your joining the waiting throng.
Tables and hot coffee - but good luck sitting down.
GOOD MONG KOK BAKERY
好旺角包餅店 ('ho wong kok bao bing diem')
1039 Stockton Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
Not only an extensive selection of bakery items, but also very good steamed snacks of the typical Chinatown variety. Chive dumplings!
PLUS: Charsiu bao (叉燒包), choi yiuk bao (菜肉包), kai bao (雞包), and Northern type steamed bread ('mantou' 饅頭) - all excellent.
And a line of people out the door.
Tables.
[Three SMALL tables, but at least two of them are usually covered with stacked boxes and stuff. So good nei ge luck. My ex loves this place, by the way.]
MEE MEE BAKERY
美美餅食公司 ('mei mei bing sik kongsi')
1328 Stockton Street
San Francisco, CA 94133.
(415) 362-3204
Mooncakes. Primarily mooncakes. Highly recommended..... for mooncakes.
It's a fortune cookie factory - were you really expecting to sit down?
NAPOLEON SUPER BAKERY
拿破崙餠屋 ('na po lun bing ok')
1049 Stockton Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
(415) 951-8133
Freshness and softness are two major characteristics of the Napoleon Super Bakery, though much of what they offer may not be familiar to you. Try the custard rolls and the egg tarts, and of course the chestnut cake. Much of what they do is 'nouveau' by Chinatown standards.
But they do it very well.
Tables and coffee.
YONG KEE
容記糕粉 ('yung kei kow fan')
732 Jackson St
San Francisco, CA 94133
(415) 986-3759
Charsiu bao (叉燒包), choi yiuk bao (菜肉包), kai bao (雞包), and Northern type steamed bread ('mantou' 饅頭). You'll have to stand in line with old ladies (really vicious old ladies!), it's that good.
Hole-in-the-wall with a counter.
[Update: Yong Kee no longer exists. There's a new place there now named Wong Lee Bakery ('hou wong lei' 好旺利). They have big chicken buns.]
Plus, as a lagniappe:
LITTLE PARIS COFFEE SHOP - 'FRENCH SANDWICHES'
小巴黎咖啡室 ('siu ba lei ka fei sat')
939 Stockton Street
San Francisco , CA 94108
Top-notch Vietnamese sandwiches. Also a variety of cooked food, but go there for the sandwiches and the cà phê sữa đá ('ga-fei nai bing' 咖啡奶冰 - Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk and ice).
There are of course other bakeries and dim sum counters in Chinatown. The list could be very extensive if I listed them all.
Just remember, there's more to Chinese bakery items than just the baked charsiu buns you can get all over San Francisco, and do not assume that it's sweet because it looks flaky - two of the best things are the curry puffs ('ka-lei kok' 咖哩角) and the charsiu turnovers (叉燒酥).
And, if you're green from too much partying the night before, glutinous rice sugar pudding ('pak tong go' 白糖糕 "white sugar cake") as well as steamed sheet-noodle roll ('chu cheung fan' 豬腸粉) are marvelous choices - tasty, and very gentling on the savaged digestive membranes.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Several times a week I ended up there, reading the newspapers, swilling coffee, and scarfing down ONE pastry.
Only one, because in those days I was rather low on funds.
Often it was a flaky red bean paste bun ('dow sa bing' 豆沙餠). Which is something the tourists may not like - European and American travelers are predisposed to scoff at local foods wherever they are, and Chinatown is the best of both worlds in that regards - no matter where you're from, the food in San Francisco Chinatown is NOT the real Chinese food you know.
[Examples of places with 'REAL' Chinese food: New York (USA), Bombay (India), and Schiermonnikoog (Netherlands). I've heard from numerous people that what we have here just isn't real. And you can't even find decent chopsuey in Chinatown!]
Other wonderful snacky things were the steamed chicken bun ('kai Bao' 雞包), lotus seed paste pastries ('lienyong bing' 莲蓉餠), wintermelon pastry ('lo po bing' 老婆餠 "old wife biscuit"), various mooncakes .......
Again, please understand that these things are NOT "real" Chinese food.
It's just stuff that Cantonese people eat.
[Wintermelon pastry (老婆餠): the filling is chopped candied wintermelon mixed with glutinous rice flour, shortening and water, and sugar. The crust is made by rolling an oil dough and a water dough together to make layers, after which the filling is enfolded, an egg wash applied, and the result baked for half an hour at 375 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Each pastry is no more than palm size. When fresh, they are crumbly-flaky.
And very delightful.]
But, because my stand-by snack was the red bean paste bun, I acquired a nickname: 豆沙餠先生 ('Dow-sa Bing sinsang').
One of my friends was 臘腸包 - Steamed Sausage Bun ('Lap cheung bao').
His older sister was 'Coffee Crunch Cake miss'.
Some one else had the name 阿粽哥 ('Ah-Joong go').
[Joong (粽) consists of glutinous rice with fatty meat and peanuts wrapped in bamboo leaves and steamed for a long time till the filling has melded together. Ko (哥) means 'older brother'.]
There was also someone nicknamed 蛋撻 ('Dan Tat' - egg tart).
Every Chinatown bakery has a customer with that handle (except for the Golden Gate Bakery, for reasons which will become apparent).
I remember their names, because they were delicious.
There are, of course, many bakeries in Chinatown that are worth frequenting. The open-minded eater will find much that bears repeat visits.
[Wikipedia: Chinese Bakery products . And please note that there are a number of errors in that article, as well as in related (linked) entries.]
But where to start?
THE AA BAKERY & CAFÉ
永興餅家茶餐廳 ('wing hing bing ka tsa tsan teng')
1068 Stockton St
San Francisco, CA 94108
(415) 981-0123
Beautiful cakes ('dan go' 蛋糕) - angel food layers with fresh fruit and whipped cream - that demand a second and third slice. The birthday cakes ('sang yat dan go' 生日蛋糕) come in various sizes, and can be special ordered. At the end of summer, they have the largest selection of mooncakes (traditional fillings surrounded by a thin crust, often including a salted egg yolk for contrast and extra richness).
Tables and hot coffee.
This place is on my regular list.
EASTERN BAKERY
東亞餅家 ('tung ah bing ka')
720 Grant Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94108
(415) 433-7973
Coffee crunch cake, superb mooncakes, various small pastries. The custard pie is very good too. As are also the steamed pork and chicken buns. Many Manila-Town regulars remember this place, as it was a regular haunt before the International Hotel was torn down and they had to relocate. Their children still come here to pick up the cakes they remember from childhood.
Tables and hot coffee.
GARDEN BAKERY
嘉頓餠家 ('ka twun bing ka')
765 Jackson Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
(415) 397-5838
Pineapple buns and cocktail buns.
GOLDEN GATE BAKERY
金門餅家 ('kam moon bing ka')
1029 Grant Ave
(between Jackson St & Pacific Ave)
San Francisco, CA 94133
(415) 781-2627
The same selection of small pastries that most Chinatown bakeries have, plus the same cafeteria coffee machine. But honestly, what everyone lines out the door for are the egg custard tarts ('dan tat' 蛋撻), which are conceivably the best in Chinatown. Hot and fresh several times a day. Some people say that there are better ones, but that's a matter of opinion.
Golden Gate's little egg custard tarts are well worth your joining the waiting throng.
Tables and hot coffee - but good luck sitting down.
GOOD MONG KOK BAKERY
好旺角包餅店 ('ho wong kok bao bing diem')
1039 Stockton Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
Not only an extensive selection of bakery items, but also very good steamed snacks of the typical Chinatown variety. Chive dumplings!
PLUS: Charsiu bao (叉燒包), choi yiuk bao (菜肉包), kai bao (雞包), and Northern type steamed bread ('mantou' 饅頭) - all excellent.
And a line of people out the door.
Tables.
[Three SMALL tables, but at least two of them are usually covered with stacked boxes and stuff. So good nei ge luck. My ex loves this place, by the way.]
MEE MEE BAKERY
美美餅食公司 ('mei mei bing sik kongsi')
1328 Stockton Street
San Francisco, CA 94133.
(415) 362-3204
Mooncakes. Primarily mooncakes. Highly recommended..... for mooncakes.
It's a fortune cookie factory - were you really expecting to sit down?
NAPOLEON SUPER BAKERY
拿破崙餠屋 ('na po lun bing ok')
1049 Stockton Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
(415) 951-8133
Freshness and softness are two major characteristics of the Napoleon Super Bakery, though much of what they offer may not be familiar to you. Try the custard rolls and the egg tarts, and of course the chestnut cake. Much of what they do is 'nouveau' by Chinatown standards.
But they do it very well.
Tables and coffee.
YONG KEE
容記糕粉 ('yung kei kow fan')
732 Jackson St
San Francisco, CA 94133
(415) 986-3759
Charsiu bao (叉燒包), choi yiuk bao (菜肉包), kai bao (雞包), and Northern type steamed bread ('mantou' 饅頭). You'll have to stand in line with old ladies (really vicious old ladies!), it's that good.
Hole-in-the-wall with a counter.
[Update: Yong Kee no longer exists. There's a new place there now named Wong Lee Bakery ('hou wong lei' 好旺利). They have big chicken buns.]
Plus, as a lagniappe:
LITTLE PARIS COFFEE SHOP - 'FRENCH SANDWICHES'
小巴黎咖啡室 ('siu ba lei ka fei sat')
939 Stockton Street
San Francisco , CA 94108
Top-notch Vietnamese sandwiches. Also a variety of cooked food, but go there for the sandwiches and the cà phê sữa đá ('ga-fei nai bing' 咖啡奶冰 - Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk and ice).
There are of course other bakeries and dim sum counters in Chinatown. The list could be very extensive if I listed them all.
Just remember, there's more to Chinese bakery items than just the baked charsiu buns you can get all over San Francisco, and do not assume that it's sweet because it looks flaky - two of the best things are the curry puffs ('ka-lei kok' 咖哩角) and the charsiu turnovers (叉燒酥).
And, if you're green from too much partying the night before, glutinous rice sugar pudding ('pak tong go' 白糖糕 "white sugar cake") as well as steamed sheet-noodle roll ('chu cheung fan' 豬腸粉) are marvelous choices - tasty, and very gentling on the savaged digestive membranes.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, November 22, 2010
OUCH, HOT, HOT, HOT! EGG ROLLS, RICE SHEET NOODLES, CHAR KWEE TEOW!
The first time I ever had what Americans insist on calling egg-rolls was before I even hit the double digits.
My auntie Ietje had made them, and I saw the entire process.
Unfortunately I didn’t take careful notes, so I can’t give you the recipe.
Sorry.
What I do remember is that they were small and tasty.
Which I subsequently discovered made them quite a bit different than the abortion sold in 'Chineesch-Indische' restaurants in the Netherlands.
The Dutch Chinese-Indonesian restaurant eggroll is slightly smaller than a burrito, filled with lots of bean sprouts and a small amount of pre-cooked meat scrap. The skin is some kind of soggy compound which bubbles up, and due to the construction of the roll a chopstick has to be shoved through the beast after removing it from the deep fryer to drain the excess grease.
As you can probably guess, it is quite one of the nastiest comestibles on the face of the planet.
The Netherlandish natives love the thing.
What it was modeled upon, it does not resemble in the slightest.
LUMPIA
The Indonesian-Chinese eggroll or spring roll is no more than three or four inches long, and hardly one inch to an inch-and-a-half thick. The filling consists of slivered vegetables - carrot, yard long bean, water chestnuts, black mushrooms, celery, etcetera - augmented with a little meat or seafood, and maybe some minced fresh herbs. What really sets it apart, however, is the skin.
[Lumpia (潤餅) is the common term in most Indonesian and Philippino languages for this item, as well as in Dutch (spelled 'loempia'), derived from the Hokkien pronunciation of the words, and meaning a "smooth" or "generously filled" 'wafer' or dough skin. It is similar to popia (薄餅), which is the name that the non-fried version goes by. In most other Chinese dialects the second word (餅) does not mean wafer or dough skin, and the term 'Chun Kuen' (春捲 spring roll) is used instead.]
The best lumpia skins are made by sweeping a ball of dough quickly over a hot surface with one hand, peeling the skin thus left behind with the other hand and stacking it. It's a sensuous, sinuous process. Shploop with the right hand as the left pulls the damp cloth from the pile already made, pull the dough ball away while the left hand swoops in to peel the new skin off and stack it.
Very spare motions, very regular and rhythmical, very elegant.
If your auntie has arthritis, you can peel the lumpia skin off the hot surface for her.
Go on, be helpful - that's what nice young people are supposed to do.
She'll giggle every time you burn your fingers.
A dough ball yields over two hundred skins.
It is a mark of defeat to use a batter instead of a dough ball - the skins will not have nearly as nice a texture. And commercially bought skins, while adequate, are not really proper, nor as tasty.
OUCH! HOT! HOT! HOT!
So instead, let us talk about Cheung Fan (腸粉). Which is rather similar, intellectually speaking.
Though in actual practice, there is no resemblance whatsoever.
Cheung fan are soft fresh sheets of rice flour dough steamed with a little filling - shrimp, beef, pork, or whatever - then folded over, drizzled with a little soy sauce and sesame oil, minced scallion to garnish. Cut into segments of folded roll and dipped in a little hot sauce or tiem jeung (甜醬) it is heavenly. Very kind on the stomach, the breakfast of champions. Eppes tasty.
The resemblance to spring roll is in the manufacture. There is heat, and there may be scorched fingers.
Oh, and it likewise requires an accurate eye. Let judgment be your guide.
[Don't worry, it will come to you - but if you are uncertain, perhaps best to do the first batch experimentally and quietly deep-six the results, so that you can flabbergast your housemates later with nicely made cheung fan. Let subterfuge be your other guide.]
In commercial establishments, a sheet of cloth is tightly stretched over a rectangular steamer and wetted. A rice flour batter is ladled over quickly, smeared flat, filling is strewn over one side, and within mere moments the cloth is lifted with the skin adhering and another put in place and wetted. Meanwhile a deft hand with a spatula separates the already steamed skin, dexterously jiggling it into a loosely folded wedge or roll. It is sliced across into segments, garnished, and promptly served.
At home it is not made so efficiently, because you do not have a large rectangular vat of fiercely boiling water with a perforated metal plate on top.
You have, perhaps, a really big steamer.
So what you can do is use pie pans instead of taught wetted cloth, either lightly oiled or with a little Pam sprayed on. The steaming time is a little longer, because your cheung fan will be thicker. And instead of nice sharp-edged rectangular rolls, yours will be a little thicker around the middle.
If no pie pans, salad plates will also do - the result will be cute little cheung fan, quite suitable as a mid-day snack.
CHEUNG FAN BATTER
One cup plain rice flour.
Quarter cup tapioca flour.
Two TBS cornstarch.
Two TBS oil.
Half a teaspoon salt.
Cold water.
Sift dry ingredients together. Slowly stir in some water, add the oil, and keep adding more water while stirring till you have a batter that looks like heavy cream - approximately 1¾ to 2¼ cups water in all.
Let it stand an hour, re-stir. It is now ready for use.
Grease a pie pan, ladle in enough batter to thinly cover bottom, and place in the steamer. After about a minute to a minute and a half, add the filling along one side. Steam for another four to six minutes, depending on how thick your layers are. Remove the pie pan from the steamer, and prepare a second pan while the first one cools.
As soon as you have added a filling to the second cheung fan, separate the first one from its pan with a flexible spatula, rolling as you go. Proceed in this manner till all the batter is used up. There should be about eight or nine cheung fan stacked on the plate when you're done. Drizzle a little sesame oil over for fragrance, slash into segments to show the filling, and garnish with minced scallion.
CHEUNG FAN FILLING - SUGGESTIONS
Dried mushroom and codfish silk jerky re-humidified and minced, with an equal amount of lap cheung, also minced, and slight quantity of ginger. Maybe re-humidified dry shrimp, or whole peeled fresh shrimp. Perhaps chopped ham. Or thinly slivered beef.
The key thing is that the filling be slightly savoury, slightly sweet, nicely fresh tasting, and not too much - you are eating a noodle, not a meat pie. So only a tablespoon or two per noodle sheet.
TIEM JEUNG (甜醬)
Four TBS Hoisin Sauce (海鮮醬 HoisinJeung).
Two TBS Soy Sauce.
One TBS sugar.
One Tsp. Chili sauce.
One Tsp. Vinegar.
4 - 6 TBS water.
Simmer while stirring till thick. Serve with cheung fan, lumpia, or popia.
Please note that the cheung fan batter given above can be modified, after due experimentation, as you see fit. Either the amount of tapioca flour can be reduced, replaced with a quantity of glutinous rice flour, or it may be increased slightly. It depends on the mouthfeel that you wish to achieve. So please, do experiment like topsy!
An all plain rice flour batter yields a noodle that isn't very interesting, it has to have some tackiness to it. I'm still experimenting too, in case you were wondering.
The oil, however, is essential, so do not omit it, though you may reduce or increase the quantity. It sweats out slightly during steaming, thus making it easier to lift the cheung fan off the cooking surface.
The same batter can be used for Teochew-style char kwee teow ('fried cake noodle': 炒粿條). Just steam the sheets without any fillings, peel them off the surface, and cut them into broad strips. After cooling they may be used for stir-fried rice noodles with clams, shrimp, and oysters, and bean sprouts. Remember to use pork fat for that real flavour. Add minced scallion (or chives) and thin omelette cut into strips, plus some sweet soy sauce and chili paste, then imagine that you're eating by the side of a busy street in Georgetown.
There are some "cheerful" working men in stained tee shirts next to you with cigarettes and beer. The aroma of wood smoke and gasoline drifts over from elsewhere in the cool air of evening. Some place distant a tire is burning.
Yes, this is precisely how you imagined the day ending. Bon appétit!
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
My auntie Ietje had made them, and I saw the entire process.
Unfortunately I didn’t take careful notes, so I can’t give you the recipe.
Sorry.
What I do remember is that they were small and tasty.
Which I subsequently discovered made them quite a bit different than the abortion sold in 'Chineesch-Indische' restaurants in the Netherlands.
The Dutch Chinese-Indonesian restaurant eggroll is slightly smaller than a burrito, filled with lots of bean sprouts and a small amount of pre-cooked meat scrap. The skin is some kind of soggy compound which bubbles up, and due to the construction of the roll a chopstick has to be shoved through the beast after removing it from the deep fryer to drain the excess grease.
As you can probably guess, it is quite one of the nastiest comestibles on the face of the planet.
The Netherlandish natives love the thing.
What it was modeled upon, it does not resemble in the slightest.
LUMPIA
The Indonesian-Chinese eggroll or spring roll is no more than three or four inches long, and hardly one inch to an inch-and-a-half thick. The filling consists of slivered vegetables - carrot, yard long bean, water chestnuts, black mushrooms, celery, etcetera - augmented with a little meat or seafood, and maybe some minced fresh herbs. What really sets it apart, however, is the skin.
[Lumpia (潤餅) is the common term in most Indonesian and Philippino languages for this item, as well as in Dutch (spelled 'loempia'), derived from the Hokkien pronunciation of the words, and meaning a "smooth" or "generously filled" 'wafer' or dough skin. It is similar to popia (薄餅), which is the name that the non-fried version goes by. In most other Chinese dialects the second word (餅) does not mean wafer or dough skin, and the term 'Chun Kuen' (春捲 spring roll) is used instead.]
The best lumpia skins are made by sweeping a ball of dough quickly over a hot surface with one hand, peeling the skin thus left behind with the other hand and stacking it. It's a sensuous, sinuous process. Shploop with the right hand as the left pulls the damp cloth from the pile already made, pull the dough ball away while the left hand swoops in to peel the new skin off and stack it.
Very spare motions, very regular and rhythmical, very elegant.
If your auntie has arthritis, you can peel the lumpia skin off the hot surface for her.
Go on, be helpful - that's what nice young people are supposed to do.
She'll giggle every time you burn your fingers.
A dough ball yields over two hundred skins.
It is a mark of defeat to use a batter instead of a dough ball - the skins will not have nearly as nice a texture. And commercially bought skins, while adequate, are not really proper, nor as tasty.
OUCH! HOT! HOT! HOT!
So instead, let us talk about Cheung Fan (腸粉). Which is rather similar, intellectually speaking.
Though in actual practice, there is no resemblance whatsoever.
Cheung fan are soft fresh sheets of rice flour dough steamed with a little filling - shrimp, beef, pork, or whatever - then folded over, drizzled with a little soy sauce and sesame oil, minced scallion to garnish. Cut into segments of folded roll and dipped in a little hot sauce or tiem jeung (甜醬) it is heavenly. Very kind on the stomach, the breakfast of champions. Eppes tasty.
The resemblance to spring roll is in the manufacture. There is heat, and there may be scorched fingers.
Oh, and it likewise requires an accurate eye. Let judgment be your guide.
[Don't worry, it will come to you - but if you are uncertain, perhaps best to do the first batch experimentally and quietly deep-six the results, so that you can flabbergast your housemates later with nicely made cheung fan. Let subterfuge be your other guide.]
In commercial establishments, a sheet of cloth is tightly stretched over a rectangular steamer and wetted. A rice flour batter is ladled over quickly, smeared flat, filling is strewn over one side, and within mere moments the cloth is lifted with the skin adhering and another put in place and wetted. Meanwhile a deft hand with a spatula separates the already steamed skin, dexterously jiggling it into a loosely folded wedge or roll. It is sliced across into segments, garnished, and promptly served.
At home it is not made so efficiently, because you do not have a large rectangular vat of fiercely boiling water with a perforated metal plate on top.
You have, perhaps, a really big steamer.
So what you can do is use pie pans instead of taught wetted cloth, either lightly oiled or with a little Pam sprayed on. The steaming time is a little longer, because your cheung fan will be thicker. And instead of nice sharp-edged rectangular rolls, yours will be a little thicker around the middle.
If no pie pans, salad plates will also do - the result will be cute little cheung fan, quite suitable as a mid-day snack.
CHEUNG FAN BATTER
One cup plain rice flour.
Quarter cup tapioca flour.
Two TBS cornstarch.
Two TBS oil.
Half a teaspoon salt.
Cold water.
Sift dry ingredients together. Slowly stir in some water, add the oil, and keep adding more water while stirring till you have a batter that looks like heavy cream - approximately 1¾ to 2¼ cups water in all.
Let it stand an hour, re-stir. It is now ready for use.
Grease a pie pan, ladle in enough batter to thinly cover bottom, and place in the steamer. After about a minute to a minute and a half, add the filling along one side. Steam for another four to six minutes, depending on how thick your layers are. Remove the pie pan from the steamer, and prepare a second pan while the first one cools.
As soon as you have added a filling to the second cheung fan, separate the first one from its pan with a flexible spatula, rolling as you go. Proceed in this manner till all the batter is used up. There should be about eight or nine cheung fan stacked on the plate when you're done. Drizzle a little sesame oil over for fragrance, slash into segments to show the filling, and garnish with minced scallion.
CHEUNG FAN FILLING - SUGGESTIONS
Dried mushroom and codfish silk jerky re-humidified and minced, with an equal amount of lap cheung, also minced, and slight quantity of ginger. Maybe re-humidified dry shrimp, or whole peeled fresh shrimp. Perhaps chopped ham. Or thinly slivered beef.
The key thing is that the filling be slightly savoury, slightly sweet, nicely fresh tasting, and not too much - you are eating a noodle, not a meat pie. So only a tablespoon or two per noodle sheet.
TIEM JEUNG (甜醬)
Four TBS Hoisin Sauce (海鮮醬 HoisinJeung).
Two TBS Soy Sauce.
One TBS sugar.
One Tsp. Chili sauce.
One Tsp. Vinegar.
4 - 6 TBS water.
Simmer while stirring till thick. Serve with cheung fan, lumpia, or popia.
Please note that the cheung fan batter given above can be modified, after due experimentation, as you see fit. Either the amount of tapioca flour can be reduced, replaced with a quantity of glutinous rice flour, or it may be increased slightly. It depends on the mouthfeel that you wish to achieve. So please, do experiment like topsy!
An all plain rice flour batter yields a noodle that isn't very interesting, it has to have some tackiness to it. I'm still experimenting too, in case you were wondering.
The oil, however, is essential, so do not omit it, though you may reduce or increase the quantity. It sweats out slightly during steaming, thus making it easier to lift the cheung fan off the cooking surface.
The same batter can be used for Teochew-style char kwee teow ('fried cake noodle': 炒粿條). Just steam the sheets without any fillings, peel them off the surface, and cut them into broad strips. After cooling they may be used for stir-fried rice noodles with clams, shrimp, and oysters, and bean sprouts. Remember to use pork fat for that real flavour. Add minced scallion (or chives) and thin omelette cut into strips, plus some sweet soy sauce and chili paste, then imagine that you're eating by the side of a busy street in Georgetown.
There are some "cheerful" working men in stained tee shirts next to you with cigarettes and beer. The aroma of wood smoke and gasoline drifts over from elsewhere in the cool air of evening. Some place distant a tire is burning.
Yes, this is precisely how you imagined the day ending. Bon appétit!
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, October 18, 2010
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.
-----------------------------------------------------------
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.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
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.
-----------------------------------------------------------
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.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
RICE SHEET NOODLES
One of the marvelous cheap eats in Chinatown that I have loved for as long as I can remember is steamed rice-sheet noodle, commonly called Cheung Fan: 腸粉 - also sometimes referred to as Chu Cheung Fan: 豬腸粉 (pronounced 'chee cheong fun' in Singapore).
Neither of these appellations is attractive in translation, as the first term (腸粉) means "intestine (腸) rice-noodle (粉)", and the second term, chu cheung fan (豬腸粉) could be interpreted to mean "pig (豬) guts (腸) rice-noodle (粉)".
There are no guts, nor anything porky, in this comestible.
The unlovely name evokes the appearance, with quite a bit of poetic license.
It is a soft tender sheet of rice-noodle with flavourful inclusions, translucent white, slightly glistening, moist and smooth on the tongue, very easy on the digestion. It is rolled over after cooking, hence the perceived similarity with digestive organs.
NOTE: 腸 (cheung) is perhaps best approximated by pronouncing it as 'cherng'.
腸粉
To make cheung fan, a mixture of rice flour and water is poured into a sheet pan and steamed, the finished product then rolled loosely, and cut to form chopstickable segments.
Common variations are shrimp roll (Ha-Cheung: 蝦腸), dry shrimp roll (Hamei Cheung: 蝦米腸), and beef shreds roll (Ngau-yuk Cheung: 牛肉腸). The amount of flavouring ingredient is not very great, so chopped chive or scallion will often be added-in before cooking, or strewn over when serving.
Cheung fan are eaten warm or at room temperature with a drizzle of soy sauce or a smidge of 'sweet sauce' (tim jeung: 甜酱 - usually just another term for hoisin jeung: 海鲜酱).
They are also very good with a dash of hot oil or chili paste.
Cheung fan are a comfort food beyond compare. And the breakfast of champions.
RAINY DAY ESURIENCE
On New Year's Day I ambled over Nob Hill in mid-afternoon, enjoying the soft drizzle that cloaked the vistas of both bridges and silvered the sky, till at last I descended into Chinatown via Jackson Street.
I was peckish at this point, and I knew what I wanted.
However, a beloved restaurant, where I happily snacked for years, seemed to have disappeared.
This was disconcerting - Chinatown has been hit hard by the economic downturn, and as always this close to Chinese New Year (年初一 is on the fifteenth of January in 2010) many business are so strained for cash to pay off debts (customary at this time) that several close their doors for good.
That restaurant was a fixture, one of the Chinatown classics. It would be sorely missed.
What I did not realize until AFTER snarfing down cheung fan, radish cake (Lobo Gau: 蘿蔔糕) and some lovely flaky char-siu rolls (with what must have been the nastiest, most perverse, gut-dissolver coffee ever!) at a different place, was that the restaurant which I missed had simply moved across the street and down hill.
Oh crap.
Same people. Same food. Same thriving business.
No, I shall not mention the name of the place. No way, no how.
Reason being that ALL the reviews on YELP make it seem like a hell-hole.
The only good thing people say about it, and this is pretty consistent, is that eating there did NOT make them sick - some of them waited for several days before confirming this, as they had believed that at any moment daemons would awaken in their stomachs after eating there.
It is described as cheap, nasty, unsanitary, utterly disgusting...... and even worse.
The reviews are absolutely horrific.
But, you see, I like it. And so do many other people.
Did I mention that it has been around for years?
They must be doing something very right indeed to have thrived for so long.
Never mind what the various internet 'cognoscenti' think.
What the devil do white people know about Chinese food anyway?
Hah!
=====================================================
CORRECTION
January 6, 2010 Quote: " ...... and as always this close to Chinese New Year (年初一 is on the fifteenth of January in 2010)".
This turns out to be totally wrong. I misread my calendar (free, courtesy of 聯合銀行 - United Commercial Bank). Didn't notice which month began on January 15.
The beginning of the next year (正月初一) is actually on Sunday, February 14; one entire month later. Evenso, the pattern still holds true - many businesses tend to close their doors forever at this time due to the tradition of paying off all debts BEFORE the new year.
By the same token, new businesses scramble to open shop too.
It is a period of changes.
If you are an unmarried youngster, Chinese New Year is when you can really score big - all your relatives, and your friends' parents, will be handing out red envelopes with money.
Called 'Hong Pao' (red packet: 紅包) in Mandarin, Lay-see ('profits affirmed': 利是) in Cantonese, such monetary gifts are customary at happy occasions and certain celebrations, and, not at all surprisingly, are also an excellent method for bribing officials or co-opting people.
Children make out like bandits during this time, as even neighbors and shopkeepers will give them lucky money.
Elderly bachelors and old-maids are somewhat ambivalent about the whole deal - the take is seldom big enough to give them any joy, and the (deliberate) reminder that really they should be married by now can be irritating. Very intensely irritating.
In some families it is customary for all junior members, even if grey-haired, to be given lay-see by the older generation; it's a way of reaffirming the pecking order.
Family hierarchy, in the Chinese environment, is quite as important as profit.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Neither of these appellations is attractive in translation, as the first term (腸粉) means "intestine (腸) rice-noodle (粉)", and the second term, chu cheung fan (豬腸粉) could be interpreted to mean "pig (豬) guts (腸) rice-noodle (粉)".
There are no guts, nor anything porky, in this comestible.
The unlovely name evokes the appearance, with quite a bit of poetic license.
It is a soft tender sheet of rice-noodle with flavourful inclusions, translucent white, slightly glistening, moist and smooth on the tongue, very easy on the digestion. It is rolled over after cooking, hence the perceived similarity with digestive organs.
NOTE: 腸 (cheung) is perhaps best approximated by pronouncing it as 'cherng'.
腸粉
To make cheung fan, a mixture of rice flour and water is poured into a sheet pan and steamed, the finished product then rolled loosely, and cut to form chopstickable segments.
Common variations are shrimp roll (Ha-Cheung: 蝦腸), dry shrimp roll (Hamei Cheung: 蝦米腸), and beef shreds roll (Ngau-yuk Cheung: 牛肉腸). The amount of flavouring ingredient is not very great, so chopped chive or scallion will often be added-in before cooking, or strewn over when serving.
Cheung fan are eaten warm or at room temperature with a drizzle of soy sauce or a smidge of 'sweet sauce' (tim jeung: 甜酱 - usually just another term for hoisin jeung: 海鲜酱).
They are also very good with a dash of hot oil or chili paste.
Cheung fan are a comfort food beyond compare. And the breakfast of champions.
RAINY DAY ESURIENCE
On New Year's Day I ambled over Nob Hill in mid-afternoon, enjoying the soft drizzle that cloaked the vistas of both bridges and silvered the sky, till at last I descended into Chinatown via Jackson Street.
I was peckish at this point, and I knew what I wanted.
However, a beloved restaurant, where I happily snacked for years, seemed to have disappeared.
This was disconcerting - Chinatown has been hit hard by the economic downturn, and as always this close to Chinese New Year (年初一 is on the fifteenth of January in 2010) many business are so strained for cash to pay off debts (customary at this time) that several close their doors for good.
That restaurant was a fixture, one of the Chinatown classics. It would be sorely missed.
What I did not realize until AFTER snarfing down cheung fan, radish cake (Lobo Gau: 蘿蔔糕) and some lovely flaky char-siu rolls (with what must have been the nastiest, most perverse, gut-dissolver coffee ever!) at a different place, was that the restaurant which I missed had simply moved across the street and down hill.
Oh crap.
Same people. Same food. Same thriving business.
No, I shall not mention the name of the place. No way, no how.
Reason being that ALL the reviews on YELP make it seem like a hell-hole.
The only good thing people say about it, and this is pretty consistent, is that eating there did NOT make them sick - some of them waited for several days before confirming this, as they had believed that at any moment daemons would awaken in their stomachs after eating there.
It is described as cheap, nasty, unsanitary, utterly disgusting...... and even worse.
The reviews are absolutely horrific.
But, you see, I like it. And so do many other people.
Did I mention that it has been around for years?
They must be doing something very right indeed to have thrived for so long.
Never mind what the various internet 'cognoscenti' think.
What the devil do white people know about Chinese food anyway?
Hah!
=====================================================
CORRECTION
January 6, 2010 Quote: " ...... and as always this close to Chinese New Year (年初一 is on the fifteenth of January in 2010)".
This turns out to be totally wrong. I misread my calendar (free, courtesy of 聯合銀行 - United Commercial Bank). Didn't notice which month began on January 15.
The beginning of the next year (正月初一) is actually on Sunday, February 14; one entire month later. Evenso, the pattern still holds true - many businesses tend to close their doors forever at this time due to the tradition of paying off all debts BEFORE the new year.
By the same token, new businesses scramble to open shop too.
It is a period of changes.
If you are an unmarried youngster, Chinese New Year is when you can really score big - all your relatives, and your friends' parents, will be handing out red envelopes with money.
Called 'Hong Pao' (red packet: 紅包) in Mandarin, Lay-see ('profits affirmed': 利是) in Cantonese, such monetary gifts are customary at happy occasions and certain celebrations, and, not at all surprisingly, are also an excellent method for bribing officials or co-opting people.
Children make out like bandits during this time, as even neighbors and shopkeepers will give them lucky money.
Elderly bachelors and old-maids are somewhat ambivalent about the whole deal - the take is seldom big enough to give them any joy, and the (deliberate) reminder that really they should be married by now can be irritating. Very intensely irritating.
In some families it is customary for all junior members, even if grey-haired, to be given lay-see by the older generation; it's a way of reaffirming the pecking order.
Family hierarchy, in the Chinese environment, is quite as important as profit.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, October 31, 2008
PONG TEH
WET WEATHER STEW
It always surprises me how much the first rain of the season improves San Francisco. For several months we become used to the dense fragrance of the city, then a bit of rain washes it all away, and the air smells earthy and fresh again. It is a blessing.
Today is not cold, nor particularly wet. In fact, it feels rather like a smooth summer day, albeit one in a far moister climate than here. A warmer climate, too. And it smells like it also.
--- --- ---
Two dozen years ago, in a city inhabited mostly by Chinese.
Downstairs is a Kopi Tiam - a small restaurant specializing in coffee, milk-tea, snacks (including 香饼 Heung Peng - filled sweet buns), and a few home-style dishes. This one also had 肠粉 (Cheung Fan - steamed rice sheet noodles with savoury fillings), which I remember particularly because that is what I had for breakfast - they're very good if you drank too much the night before.
Unless you drench them with chilipaste and dark vinegar. Which I did. My stomach told me I was an idiot the rest of the morning.
After breakfast I went out and was rained upon. The water came down in a steady hard drizzle that cooled the air and made everything smell clean. There were many vehicles, few actual pedestrians. And despite the precipitation it seemed very bright outside.
By two o'clock I was desperate for something to settle my stomach, and I returned. Common sense dictated 河粉汤 (Ho Fan T'ng - river noodles in chicken and ginger broth with fresh herbs).
So naturally I made the worst choice possible and had something rich and heavy instead.
One of the dishes which has the soulfood ta'am for many people of Chinese ancestry in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia is a Hokkien dish that can be made with either chicken or pork. Or chicken AND pork. People with kashrus concerns will probably not want to consider the pork version. But do not worry - it tastes fine made with chicken, and you could even use duck. If the meat is fatty, serve a fresh pickle alongside. It is a very lovely dish.
PONG TEH
One pound fatty pork (ng-faa yiuk, 五花肉), cut in large cubes.
Sixteen dried black mushrooms, soaked in water to soften, then de-stemmed.
Two cups sliced bamboo shoots.
One onion, chopped fine.
Half a dozen cloves garlic, crushed.
A small thumb of fresh ginger, also crushed.
One tablespoon taucheo (salted yellow soybean, 豆瓣酱), mashed smooth.
Two tablespoons sherry or rice wine.
Two tablespoons ketjap manis (Dutch or Indonesian sweet soy sauce), plus a dash regular soy sauce.
Three cups water.
Three whole star anise.
A piece of cinnamon (approx one inch).
One or two whole cloves.
First gild the onion, then add the garlic and ginger. When the garlic starts to turn add the taucheo and sherry and seethe a bit, then add the meat chunks and colour on all sides. Now add the mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and ketjap manis. Stir for a few minutes, add the whole spices and water. Simmer on low for about an hour and a half. Garnish with sliced chilies. Serve with steamed rice and warm crusty French bread for sopping.
Note: if you cannot find bamboo shoots (where ARE you living?!?!), you may substitute potatoes cut in chunks. Add them later, about half-way through cooking, as they will fall apart otherwise. Personally, I feel that doing so is simply making another version of Irish Stew. A fine product in its own right, which I almost never touch. I do not live in Ireland, and my mule has not passed away.
Another note: For a really Cantonese flavour, add a small jigger of oyster sauce. All treif tastes better with oyster sauce. And hot sauce.
--- --- ---
The kids of the family that owned the kopi tiam sat at a table in the back, doing their homework and being quiet, while the customers sat nearer the front, and enjoyed the cooling breeze - the entire front was open, like most such shop-house businesses.
From my table along the wall I could observe the entire place - the pimply young man with an oversized leather biker jacket out front, the Cantonese housewife talking animatedly with (in other words, shrieking at) the owner directly opposite, the elderly skeleton sipping hot milk-tea while reading his newspaper with one foot up on his chair at the middle table, and the three kids in the back, obediently bent over their books.
No fuss, no misbehaviour, no noise. Cute kids - so studious, so well-behaved!
But such deception.
All three of them had skinned knees, and dirt-scuffs on their school clothes.
Two hours earlier I had seen the nine year old chasing a boy down the street, screaming at the top of her lungs 'faan-pei ngoo-ah' (give it back), while trying to whack him with a bamboo pole. Classmates scattered before them as he tried to escape with her school bag. The little spit-fire eventually caught him.
She's probably grown up to be a real tiger by now.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
It always surprises me how much the first rain of the season improves San Francisco. For several months we become used to the dense fragrance of the city, then a bit of rain washes it all away, and the air smells earthy and fresh again. It is a blessing.
Today is not cold, nor particularly wet. In fact, it feels rather like a smooth summer day, albeit one in a far moister climate than here. A warmer climate, too. And it smells like it also.
--- --- ---
Two dozen years ago, in a city inhabited mostly by Chinese.
Downstairs is a Kopi Tiam - a small restaurant specializing in coffee, milk-tea, snacks (including 香饼 Heung Peng - filled sweet buns), and a few home-style dishes. This one also had 肠粉 (Cheung Fan - steamed rice sheet noodles with savoury fillings), which I remember particularly because that is what I had for breakfast - they're very good if you drank too much the night before.
Unless you drench them with chilipaste and dark vinegar. Which I did. My stomach told me I was an idiot the rest of the morning.
After breakfast I went out and was rained upon. The water came down in a steady hard drizzle that cooled the air and made everything smell clean. There were many vehicles, few actual pedestrians. And despite the precipitation it seemed very bright outside.
By two o'clock I was desperate for something to settle my stomach, and I returned. Common sense dictated 河粉汤 (Ho Fan T'ng - river noodles in chicken and ginger broth with fresh herbs).
So naturally I made the worst choice possible and had something rich and heavy instead.
One of the dishes which has the soulfood ta'am for many people of Chinese ancestry in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia is a Hokkien dish that can be made with either chicken or pork. Or chicken AND pork. People with kashrus concerns will probably not want to consider the pork version. But do not worry - it tastes fine made with chicken, and you could even use duck. If the meat is fatty, serve a fresh pickle alongside. It is a very lovely dish.
PONG TEH
One pound fatty pork (ng-faa yiuk, 五花肉), cut in large cubes.
Sixteen dried black mushrooms, soaked in water to soften, then de-stemmed.
Two cups sliced bamboo shoots.
One onion, chopped fine.
Half a dozen cloves garlic, crushed.
A small thumb of fresh ginger, also crushed.
One tablespoon taucheo (salted yellow soybean, 豆瓣酱), mashed smooth.
Two tablespoons sherry or rice wine.
Two tablespoons ketjap manis (Dutch or Indonesian sweet soy sauce), plus a dash regular soy sauce.
Three cups water.
Three whole star anise.
A piece of cinnamon (approx one inch).
One or two whole cloves.
First gild the onion, then add the garlic and ginger. When the garlic starts to turn add the taucheo and sherry and seethe a bit, then add the meat chunks and colour on all sides. Now add the mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and ketjap manis. Stir for a few minutes, add the whole spices and water. Simmer on low for about an hour and a half. Garnish with sliced chilies. Serve with steamed rice and warm crusty French bread for sopping.
Note: if you cannot find bamboo shoots (where ARE you living?!?!), you may substitute potatoes cut in chunks. Add them later, about half-way through cooking, as they will fall apart otherwise. Personally, I feel that doing so is simply making another version of Irish Stew. A fine product in its own right, which I almost never touch. I do not live in Ireland, and my mule has not passed away.
Another note: For a really Cantonese flavour, add a small jigger of oyster sauce. All treif tastes better with oyster sauce. And hot sauce.
--- --- ---
The kids of the family that owned the kopi tiam sat at a table in the back, doing their homework and being quiet, while the customers sat nearer the front, and enjoyed the cooling breeze - the entire front was open, like most such shop-house businesses.
From my table along the wall I could observe the entire place - the pimply young man with an oversized leather biker jacket out front, the Cantonese housewife talking animatedly with (in other words, shrieking at) the owner directly opposite, the elderly skeleton sipping hot milk-tea while reading his newspaper with one foot up on his chair at the middle table, and the three kids in the back, obediently bent over their books.
No fuss, no misbehaviour, no noise. Cute kids - so studious, so well-behaved!
But such deception.
All three of them had skinned knees, and dirt-scuffs on their school clothes.
Two hours earlier I had seen the nine year old chasing a boy down the street, screaming at the top of her lungs 'faan-pei ngoo-ah' (give it back), while trying to whack him with a bamboo pole. Classmates scattered before them as he tried to escape with her school bag. The little spit-fire eventually caught him.
She's probably grown up to be a real tiger by now.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
IF YOU DON'T SHUT UP, I'LL KICK YOU IN THE NUTS!
That was the succinct message delivered in a shrill girlish voice, with a slight Chinese accent. It was uttered during a momentary quiet on the bus, and consequently everyone heard it. I saw several people trying not to smile.
I saw the person who had uttered those promising words too. She was standing right next to me.
Fortunately, she had not directed those words at me, but at her companion. Who was probably at least three or four inches taller. And also female. Not even five feet high herself. Both girls were in their early teens, both of them wore glasses. Neither one of them resembled Eric Cartman from Southpark in any way - too small and petite.
I had surreptitiously listened in on the conversation that lead up to the threat against the nuts. It had started with a perfectly innocent detailing of spending money immediately available, and items that desperately needed buying. To whit: twenty dollars and coins, versus 'A Gal's Guide To Dating A Geek' (I think it's about fourteen dollars) plus a Hello Kitty Halloween something-or-other (fifteen dollars).
It's interesting listening in on innocent little maidens talking about spending like maniacs - at their age, maniacal spending is so very much more modest, and much more eccentric; they have not quite settled into a pedestrian adult appreciation of clothing, tattoos, and lipstick.
They were at odds about the book - apparently it is only available on the internet, and neither one of them has a credit card.
Maybelle (the one who rhetorically at least owns the nuts) has a brother named Percy who has a credit card - but apparently he's a 'conniving creep', or something, and Winnie (the shorter of the two) doesn't want to impose upon him, or be in any way beholden to him ("Why not? He LIKES you!"), because he's a 'total jerk'.
Maybelle is desperate for the book ("It's like a total roadmap, you know?"), and ambivalent about the Hello Kitty whatever-it-is ("EVERYONE has it already, so what's the point?") and heck, the "only reason YOU want it is so that you can give it to Jason!" .
At this point, miss Cartman solicitously offered to kick her in the nuts. Maybelle then offered to 'step' on her, bee-aitch. The argument went no further because they noticed they were already at Stockton Street - "Homes, let's go get some NOODOOS!"
The noodles probably helped them resolve their difference of opinion (in addition to wiping out the surplus cash). Nothing speaks so much to the Cantonese-American female as food. It is the great be-all, end-all, answer-all of Cantonese-American feminine life.....
Food. Food! FOOD!!! Don't interfere with my food, unless you want to DIE!
Chinatown is aswarm with chopstick-packing mamas on the prowl for something to eat; don't come near if you look edible.
Savage Kitten is like that. The prospect of a delayed dinner makes her wail, and whenever I ask if she needs anything at the store, she hopefully suggests lobster. The word 'cake' is the ultimate expression of a happy prospect, the phrase 'deep-fry that sucker' is so innate to her that she utters it in her sleep, and 'soooo-o-o-oup!' is almost the ultimate utterance of temptation and comfort. "Soup! With noodoos! And tasty bits!"
The word 'delicious' is often replaced with "got any more?"
Cantonese girls like food. Did YOU know that?
If the lobster-aliens ever land their spaceship in Chinatown, we will never know. They'll be hunted down by small Cantonese-American women wielding clackitty chopsticks, and not even scraps will be left to show that they had even visited.
Heck, it has probably already happened. They did not stand a chance!
A swarm of hungry females swooped down upon them and used their flying saucer as a giant wok - Now we'll NEVER be allowed into the Intergalactic Alliance!
On the other hand, we won't be herded into pens and sold to bug-aliens for fertilizer either.
Yes, you may go ahead and thank the small Cantonese-American women wielding clackitty chopsticks.
Their hunger saved us.
"Got any more?"
=========================================
Note: A large part of the speculation above about Cantonese-American women is based on Savage Kitten's personality. Other Cantonese-American women may not be entirely like that. I have been blessed.
Further note: If you are dating a Cantonese-American woman, FEED HER! There is no more damning a statement about a date than "he didn't feeeeeed me!" uttered by a small Cantonese-American woman. The man may be nerdy, pudgy, and short, but all is forgiven if he makes pronto with the food. Food is the great social lubricant, the great pacifier, the great diplomatic overture. Rather than planning a night's entertainment, decide upon a restaurant, and make sure that there is a tempting variety of dishes. She will like you if you do. And after you've seen her safely off home (before nine o'clock!), she'll have warm happy feelings about you. It's the most effective approach you can make. It shows you care.
Yet another note: Cantonese-American women have bird-like appetites. Some birds can eat up to twice their own body-weight on a daily basis. Especially if they are cold. This is valuable information to have.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I saw the person who had uttered those promising words too. She was standing right next to me.
Fortunately, she had not directed those words at me, but at her companion. Who was probably at least three or four inches taller. And also female. Not even five feet high herself. Both girls were in their early teens, both of them wore glasses. Neither one of them resembled Eric Cartman from Southpark in any way - too small and petite.
I had surreptitiously listened in on the conversation that lead up to the threat against the nuts. It had started with a perfectly innocent detailing of spending money immediately available, and items that desperately needed buying. To whit: twenty dollars and coins, versus 'A Gal's Guide To Dating A Geek' (I think it's about fourteen dollars) plus a Hello Kitty Halloween something-or-other (fifteen dollars).
It's interesting listening in on innocent little maidens talking about spending like maniacs - at their age, maniacal spending is so very much more modest, and much more eccentric; they have not quite settled into a pedestrian adult appreciation of clothing, tattoos, and lipstick.
They were at odds about the book - apparently it is only available on the internet, and neither one of them has a credit card.
Maybelle (the one who rhetorically at least owns the nuts) has a brother named Percy who has a credit card - but apparently he's a 'conniving creep', or something, and Winnie (the shorter of the two) doesn't want to impose upon him, or be in any way beholden to him ("Why not? He LIKES you!"), because he's a 'total jerk'.
Maybelle is desperate for the book ("It's like a total roadmap, you know?"), and ambivalent about the Hello Kitty whatever-it-is ("EVERYONE has it already, so what's the point?") and heck, the "only reason YOU want it is so that you can give it to Jason!" .
At this point, miss Cartman solicitously offered to kick her in the nuts. Maybelle then offered to 'step' on her, bee-aitch. The argument went no further because they noticed they were already at Stockton Street - "Homes, let's go get some NOODOOS!"
The noodles probably helped them resolve their difference of opinion (in addition to wiping out the surplus cash). Nothing speaks so much to the Cantonese-American female as food. It is the great be-all, end-all, answer-all of Cantonese-American feminine life.....
Food. Food! FOOD!!! Don't interfere with my food, unless you want to DIE!
Chinatown is aswarm with chopstick-packing mamas on the prowl for something to eat; don't come near if you look edible.
Savage Kitten is like that. The prospect of a delayed dinner makes her wail, and whenever I ask if she needs anything at the store, she hopefully suggests lobster. The word 'cake' is the ultimate expression of a happy prospect, the phrase 'deep-fry that sucker' is so innate to her that she utters it in her sleep, and 'soooo-o-o-oup!' is almost the ultimate utterance of temptation and comfort. "Soup! With noodoos! And tasty bits!"
The word 'delicious' is often replaced with "got any more?"
Cantonese girls like food. Did YOU know that?
If the lobster-aliens ever land their spaceship in Chinatown, we will never know. They'll be hunted down by small Cantonese-American women wielding clackitty chopsticks, and not even scraps will be left to show that they had even visited.
Heck, it has probably already happened. They did not stand a chance!
A swarm of hungry females swooped down upon them and used their flying saucer as a giant wok - Now we'll NEVER be allowed into the Intergalactic Alliance!
On the other hand, we won't be herded into pens and sold to bug-aliens for fertilizer either.
Yes, you may go ahead and thank the small Cantonese-American women wielding clackitty chopsticks.
Their hunger saved us.
"Got any more?"
=========================================
Note: A large part of the speculation above about Cantonese-American women is based on Savage Kitten's personality. Other Cantonese-American women may not be entirely like that. I have been blessed.
Further note: If you are dating a Cantonese-American woman, FEED HER! There is no more damning a statement about a date than "he didn't feeeeeed me!" uttered by a small Cantonese-American woman. The man may be nerdy, pudgy, and short, but all is forgiven if he makes pronto with the food. Food is the great social lubricant, the great pacifier, the great diplomatic overture. Rather than planning a night's entertainment, decide upon a restaurant, and make sure that there is a tempting variety of dishes. She will like you if you do. And after you've seen her safely off home (before nine o'clock!), she'll have warm happy feelings about you. It's the most effective approach you can make. It shows you care.
Yet another note: Cantonese-American women have bird-like appetites. Some birds can eat up to twice their own body-weight on a daily basis. Especially if they are cold. This is valuable information to have.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
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