THE CHINESE FOOD YOUR MOTHER WARNED YOU ABOUT!

Many of us grew up with severe parental warnings about Chinese food. It lacked subtlety (sweet and sour pork), there was no nutritional value in it (chow mein American restaurant style), it made you sick (if you ate too much, yes, but that was not the fault of the food), and on the whole it just wasn't a good solid meal. By "a good solid meal" was meant something that stayed with you for hours, rather than leaving you hungry after you ate it. And by that standard, muck from MacDonalds is "a good solid meal", because it's damned well indigestible, and will indeed stay with you.

A burger from most fast-food places is lousy company.
No wonder Americans drink like Scotsmen!

Whisky alleviates digestive angst.


Americans, for the longest time, cooked like Brits.

I can still vividly remember my last visit to England, which was culinarily horrendous. My ex-girlfriend insisted that we try the traditional English breakfast, and while she suffered no ill-effects, suffice to say it left me pondering the meaning of life for three ghastly days.

She's Cantonese, and has the digestion of a horse.
I'm a Dutchman, and consequently more delicate.


Hong Kong food, however, can keep both sides happy. Much of it is impossibly hearty and satisfying, and much of it is as delicate as a refined snooty person might desire.

Being a Dutchman, I cannot claim an excess of refinement. But a good meal that leaves me happy as a clam is something worthy of praise.

Baked porkchop over rice with tomato!


鮮茄焗豬扒飯
['sin ke guk chü paa faan']

2 - 3 cups freshly prepared egg-fried rice.
2 pork chops.
1 TBS sherry or rice wine.
1 TBS soy sauce.
1/2 tsp sugar.
2 TBS flour.
1/2 Tsp. finely ground white pepper.
2 cloves garlic, minced.
1 small onion, sliced.
5 ripe tomatoes, coarsely chunked.
2 TBS ketchup.
Dash of Worcestershire.
Quarter cup or more shredded mild cheese.


Marinate the pork chops with sherry, soy sauce, and sugar for an hour. Combine the flour and the ground white pepper and dust the pork chops with this, shaking off the excess. Fry the pork chops over medium heat on each side till browned. Remove the chops from pan.

Fry the garlic and onions till gilded and fragrant in the greasy pan. Lower the heat, add the tomatoes, ketchup and the dash of Worcestershire, and cook till the tomatoes are soft and the sauce is thick.

Now spread the egg-fried rice in a casserole or baking dish. Put the pork chops over the fried rice, glop the tomato and onion sauce evenly over the chops and rice and sprinkle the cheese on top. Stick it in an oven preheated to 425 - 450 degrees Fahrenheit (approximately 220 - 230 degrees Celsius), or under the broiler, and bake till the cheese is bubbly.



Baked tomato porkchop over rice is a tea-restaurant (茶餐廳 'chaa chanteng') classic, which often makes or breaks the reputation of the enterprise. Variables that must be mastered are how much to fry the chops depending on their thickness, how much sauce is required and how thick, the moistness and oil content of the egg-fried rice, and what type of cheese plus how much of it you really need. Ideally the chops should be tender and juicy, the rice underneath hot and comforting, and the tomato flavour more dominant than the cheese.

Naturally you wash it down with hot milk-tea (港式奶茶). Plus a cup of regular Oolong (烏龍) or Sui Hsin (水仙), or whatever semi-fermented tea you normally have with meals.


Most people do not do this at home, but prefer to go get it on the spur of the moment at a neighborhood place, so that they can people-watch while eating. Hong Kong style tea-restaurants are, when busy, the perfect place to do that.

Just like the Baked Portuguese Chicken Rice I mentioned last week, this is sustenance for the single diner, though it can easily be shared. Imagine, for instance, that you went to your bank to pick up cash for the weekend, then to Walgreens to add forty dollars to your transit card, and then decided "ah what the heck I don't feel like cooking this evening, perhaps I should get a bite to eat, then have a smoke while wandering around the old neighborhood".

Which was an excellent idea!

The poor waitress was somewhat disconcerted by the kwailo (鬼佬) speaking Cantonese. Instead of gongsik naaicha (港式奶茶), she brought me gwan seui (滾水). Which didn't sound like what I asked for at all.
No matter how horrendous my pronunciation.
I politely corrected her on that score.


好食啊。



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