YOGAYUGA

I totally understand now how to cook western style Chinese food after I watched “Take Home Chef”. Every time when I had Chinese food in overseas, I always found the taste and style are very different from our food in Hong Kong and China. The chefs of those overseas Chinese restaurants are also Chinese, so I don’t think there is any reason related to it. It’s definitely related to the way they cook. They cook in western ways that suitable for taste of westerners.

The Aussi chef of Take Home Chef showed how to cook Chinese barbecue porks on his show. The way he did it, which is totally different from our traditional way. We have the pork fired in the big oven, but he did it with a Chinese wok. Basically, he fried it with Cantonese style barbecue sauce. No wonder when I saw the Chinese barbecue pork in Chinese restaurants overseas that looks like stir fry sliced pork.

I like watching this programme as the chef spots strangers in the supermarket, and cooks them food at their homes. It may not be real, but they act so natural. It’s very entertaining. Western chef teaches how to cook Chinese food, which is the most interesting part of the show. He even showed how to make fortune cookie. This is funny enough. We all know that fortune cookies only appear in Chinese restaurants overseas regardless in the U.K., the U.S., N.Z., France and even Hungary. Perhaps, chefs of Hong Kong don’t even know how to make those cookies. This is such fabulous idea of the show. I love it!

Well, the photo is not clear enough to show what the western Chinese barbecue pork looks like, but I guess Chinese can tell.

Yes, I made it!! My dad taught me. This is so complicated to cook. Well, certainly, I am not good enough for it but at least I tried. We bought the Chinese abalones last week, and prepared it for a whole week. I had them dried under the sun for several times during the past week. It’s very important that you have to be sure that they are absolutely dry before you keep them in a proper container. It has to be soaked in the water for few days before you cook it. This is how I did it:

After the abalones being soaked in the water, it became soft. I made soup with it together with chicken and dry scallops, then its flavour will be brought into the soup. After the soup has been cooked for more than an hour, I took the abalones away from the soup and cooked it separately. The abalones were still not ready on this stage, because they were not soft enough to eat. I cooked it with dry scallops again in another pot for almost another three hours. I served it on a plate without any sauce. It tastes good though I knew there was something missing. I didn’t prepare sauce for it. It’s better to eat it with Chinese mushroom in seafood sauce. It doesn’t look good without sauce, but it’s good to taste its pure flavour. I cooked four, so we had one each. It’s much economical to have your self made abalones at home because the same standard of abalones as what we had in the restaurant usually costs around HKD300.00 each. Anyway, I will make it even better next time.

I learned to cook this dish from the cook book of Cat Cora. I have read through her book, but found most of the ingredients can’t be found easily in here, so I can’t try many. I only can choose some dishes with simple ingredients such as Spiro’s Brisket.

I followed to use most of ingredients from the book apart from the sauce and the herb. I used Lee & Perrin sauce instead of Worcestershire sauce for marinating. I think they are actually the same things, as they taste the same. I didn’t use any fresh oregano at all, as I don’t know what it exactly is. I only know it’s a type of herb. I doubt I can find it here easily anyway. I didn’t use charcoal grill as we only have oven at home. I bet the taste of grill is much better. I used mushroom for major vegetable, which is not included in the original recipe. The book suggested marinating the beef for at least 30 minutes or up to 24 hours, but I marinated it for 1 hour. It also suggested cooking for 2 hours, but I did it for 45 minutes.

Anyway, I am happy with what I cooked tonight though I did have a bit of stomach pain this morning. It couldn’t stop me cooking delicious food at all.

This is the most delicious Spicy Chicken Panini I have ever had. Apart from Spicy Chicken, they also offer Tandoori Chicken, Simon and steak on the menu. What I love the most is the mixed flavour of Mozzarella cheese and the chicken once they have been heated in the grill. It’s just too delicious to explain…. ^_^ By the way, this Italian sandwich bar is located inside Three Sixty, the new food court of Landmark.

This is my first dish I learned from Cat Cora! Oh well, I just followed the recipe of the cookbook written by Cat Cora. Most of her dishes are with seafood. The one I chose to cook is Chicken Stewed in Wine, Garlic, and Cinnamon. I don’t know what the original taste is supposed to be like, but I guess my cooking skill is not too bad.

I like this cafe. It’s a very very local cafe located at Ya Ma Tei and nearby Temple Street with over 40 years of history. There are only few such kinds of cafe survived in HK. I don’t only like their interior, and also love their food. Their coffee and tea are excellent. The Mince beef sandwich and French toast are absolutely delicious. There are black and white western movie photos being hanged along their stairway. Those western movies were taken in HK during 50s. This cafe was being used as movie scene of several international HK movies as well as some western TV movies. I really like their coffee cups, are all printed with brand name of “Black and White”. You can only find milk product of this brand in this cafe. This cafe is a good local place to visit for tourists, where you can see the real local eating scene of HK. Unfortunately, their menu is not in English at all, though they offer HK style western dishes.

I had the Thanksgiving meal in American Union Bar and Grill of IFC, which was a really good meal. I can’t finish the whole meal even I shared with my friend. The full course meal included turkey with stuffing, apple salad with blue cheese, pumpkin soup, apple pie with ice cream. Every dish was in large portion. They served the same meal whole day on Thanksgiving Day. The restaurant was so packed, and fully booked. I was going to Main Street Deli, where is a popular place for Thanksgiving meal but was totally booked up. Anyway, I had a cheerful day. Happy Thanksgiving!

This is the best Vietnamese coffee I have ever had. The restaurant food is fine, but the coffee is definitely good. Gosh! I don’t even notice the name of this restaurant but just learned that it’s very popular in Causeway bay.

I eventually tried the “Four Treasures of Chinese Scholar” in South Beauty tonight as I missed it in the last visit. Four Treasures of Chinese Scholar is the tool of traditional Chinese calligraphy. The following pictures show how they get this idea into dessert. Basically, they all are traditional Chinese sweets, but made in the form and shape of the calligraphy tool.

The spicy chopped duck meat with Chinese bun is great too!

I had dinner at the new Quarterdeck tonight, where is located in Ocean Terminal. I love their window view by the water. Seriously, I do think their food is better than the Quarterdeck in Wanchai. The one in Wanchai you can enjoy outdoor sitting, but the view is very limited. Their view is almost occupied by the nearby reclamation construction site.

The Prawn Cocktail I had tonight, which make me think of the one I saw in the restaurant of Catalina Island in L.A.