Dim sum

Yesterday was my grandma's birthday, so we brought her to dimsum today in Flushing. The place is called 廣州酒家/Guang Zhou Restaurant on 37th Ave., right up the hill from Joe's Shanghai. Supposedly my parents think it's the best dimsum place, but I still want to try the one across the street, called 明都/Jade Palace that other people said was the best they had.

First some people pics. Here's one of my grandma, dad, and mom:


Picture of me & my brother:


Picture of me, my brother, grandma, & dad (not sure why they don't like to smile in pictures):


And here are pictures of the food! This place had some pretty unique dimsum dishes in addition to the traditional ones. Some of the pictures are of half eaten dishes, but that's because I forgot about taking pictures until after someone's already dug in.
A "group" picture of some dimsum dishes...the yellow roll cake is 馬拉卷. The plate to the upper left corner is 裹蒸粽...rice wrapped in bamboo leaves with meat, chestnuts...it wasn't the best. The rice tasted kinda powdery...blah. The dish under that is 潮州粉果...dumpling with leek, peanuts, meat. The last dish is 豆苗餃...snow pea tips dumpling. This had a very light snow pea tips flavor, had shrimp in it too. Pretty good.


叉燒包/Steamed Roast Pork Bun. They seem smaller in size than most other places, but still not bad.


山竹牛肉/Steamed beef meatball. I'm used to seeing three lumps of meat, rather than 4 smaller lumps, but it was still decent. The water chestnut pieces could've been smaller since I don't ever remember those pieces falling out. Now that I think about it, this is one of the few dishes that I need sauce on...o急汁/Lea&Perrin's Worcestershire Sauce or else it wouldn't taste right.


燒賣/Shumai. This tastes just like any other shumai from other dimsum places, nothing special.


炸両/Fried dough wrapped in rice flour sheet. Not even sure if the second Chinese character is the right one, but I've never really seen it in writing...that's how it sounds in Cantonese. Basically it's 油條 wrapped in the same rice flour mix they make 腸粉/Rice flour sheet(?) with. In addition to some sweet soy sauce drizzled on top, there's also some sesame and hoisin sauce on the side.


蝦腸(粉)/Shrimp in rice flour sheet. This dish also has sweet soy sauce drizzled on top.


蝦餃/Shrimp dumpling. These are huge! The filling can be seen through the clear wrapping, and it's bulging out! Tasted better than most places...


Now for the dishes not readily available at other dimsum places.
排骨鳳抓飯/Stemed rice with spareribs & chicken feet. This dish brings back memories...my mom & I used to order that every time we go have dimsum before she drops me off at school in the afternoon. This also came with sweet soy sauce to drizzle over the meat and rice. The rice and meat are steamed together in their individual containers so the flavor seeps to the rice. Very similar to 煲仔飯.


灌湯餃/Soup drenched dumpling. My brother & dad each ordered one of these. It comes with a little bit of red vinegar + baby ginger to get rid of some seafood taste. The dumpling pretty much takes up the whole container. It's filled with lobster meat, veggies, and other stuff.


西米布甸/Tapioca Pudding. It was a little too sweet, but interesting. It tasted eggy, the top reminded me of the 葡國蛋撻/Portguese Egg Tart from 大班/Taipan Bakery.


榴蓮酥/Durian Pastry. This was surprisingly good! Never seen it at other dimsum places before. The filling had the distinct Durian flavor, but not too strong. It was the first thing we ordered, and probably the last thing we ate. The crust was flaky as it should be and the filling was still warm!

Casual homemade dinner

Nothing extraordinary...just wanted to take some pictures of the 餸/dishes we had for dinner tonight.

瘦肉蒸雞蛋 Ground pork steamed with eggs. My mom's made this dish ever since I was a little girl, and this is one of our favorite dishes since it just makes the rice so much easier to eat. 容易落口&餸飯...as they say it in Cantonese.


西洋菜炒牛肉 Watercress stir-fried with beef. The beef is short-ribs meat, cut into small pieces and marinated in the Kalbi BBQ marinade. After the watercress is briefly boiled and strained, the beef is stir-fried. No additional seasonging needed!


We also had clam meat soup...fresh littleneck(?) clams boiled, taken out of the shells, then the water it was boiled it is used to make soup...no salt! 原汁原味/Au naturale!

Thanksgiving Dinner...

...sans the turkey!

Tonight for dinner: Korean BBQ! I also made the cilantro + ham salad...surprisingly my parents like it! We've never really eaten cilantro raw...or cooked, as a matter of fact, I only started eating it when meanie's parents made them when we went to their house for lunch. The salad's super simple to make....cilantro, ham, sesame oil, soy sauce, and salt!


We bought this grill from HMart this afternoon...it sits right over the gas burner. Pretty nifty gadget! There's a reservoir under the pan so the grease can accumulate there, and the handles make it easy to...well, handle.

Some of our grill items: short ribs/kalbi (of course)...shrimp...oysters...mushrooms...littleneck clams...squid (not pictured). The clams took way too long to cook, but everything else was good! Kalbi was marinated with Kalbi marinade...the marinade had I think 12% pear juice, which made it tasty.


Grilling...the meat cooked in record time! It's like the summer barbeques we have outside...but now we can have it indoors!


Part 2 grilling...there's meat, clams, squid, mushrooms, shrimp...


My parents just made us some genmai tea...supposedly gets rid of the greasiness...also called 消濟 in Chinese.

On another note...what are you thankful for? For myself, I am certainly thankful for all the great things that have happened this year...also thankful for the not-so-great things, because without them, everything else would just be blah and boring. I am thankful for my awesome family who's supportive...and for meanie.

Gobble Gobble

As one of the two holidays my parents have off in a year, we've decided to have lunch at Mitsuwa and buy groceries for dinner tonight at HMart in Little Ferry. First, let's start with pictures of us that we took with my awesome camera!!!!

My parents...


My brother...


Me...


My brother & me...


And now for the food!
Surprisingly, Boom Boom Chicken was open! Got an order of chicken wings from them, half mild, half spicy. The spicy flavor was too much for me, so I just stuck with the mild side. It's probably the best chicken wings ever! It took about 25-30minutes from the time we called in to order to when we actually got the food. But it was worth the wait. It came with a side of Korean pickled radish and a can of Coke. We got an order of B - large "Gold Chicken" that has wings and arms. I still can't get over why they call it "arms"...hahaha. Mild ones are not spicy at all, and the outside is so so crispy...almost like a cracker. According to the description in the store, the mild flavor is with soy sauce and garlic, spicy is sweet and hot. The chicken gave off strong sweet and garlic aroma in the car, and not the bad kind either!



On the way to Mitsuwa, we stopped by the Parisienne bakery on Main St., just down the road from Boom Boom Chicken in Fort Lee. There's a Beard Papa cream puffs shop in there, so we got some puffs. Too bad they didn't have any special flavors today, only the regular kind. In the bakery, we got some vanilla pudding, cream bread, and pear pie.

Here's the other bread we bought from Parisienne bakery. It's got vanilla/regular cream sandwiched in the middle on one half, and mocha cream on the other half. My cousin loves it so much she asked us to buy two for her.


So we finally got to Mitsuwa...there were a decent amount of people there, but not nearly as much as the amount of people that shows up during their special fairs.
In any case, here is our lunch! My dad, brother, and I all got ramen from Santoka. Their ramen came with bamboo, seawood, scallions, one piece of naruto, and a pickled plum. The soup flavors available were Shio, Shoyu, Miso, or Spicy Miso. I ordered the regular Shio (salt) Ramen that came with two pieces of pork.


My brother got the Toroniku Shio Ramen...special pork cheek meat that almost melts in your mouth. I think that's why they put the meat on a separate plate.


My dad got the Shio Ramen + salmon roe rice set...


My mom got a platter from China Table Tokyo Hanten. The Tofu Steak + Seafood. We got to see them make the tofu steak, they put it on the flat grill, add some water, then cover to let it sizzle so the steam can cook the tofu while it browns it...almost like how you'd make gyoza. The green + white strips were seaweed salad and shredded radish with mayo...my mom at first thought it was vermicelli. The small cup next to it (even though it looks like tea, was actually soup). The tofu was a little bland, it could use some seasoning. The seafood was a little too saucy and on the sweet side...nonetheless, my parents said it went very well with rice.


After lunch, we walked around Mitsuwa. Stopped by the bakery within Mitsuwa: St. Honore bakery. Of course, there special Boloniya bread was sold out for the day. The bread is also fluffy, and has a hint of vanilla extract. The price recently increased by $1, but it still sells out everyday! They also limit people to buy only 2 per group. I placed an order for a Mont Blanc Christmas cake. It's normally $30, but if we order before 12/15, then it's $24! So we'll have to pick up the cake on 12/24...hopefully I'll remember because I paid for the whole thing already!

Tried a new ice cream item today..milk tea popicles. The packaging was super nice...it even says "milk tea ice" on it.


Here's a picture of the individual popicle...it was very cold. But tasted like rich, creamy milk tea. The inside is filled with cream, although I can never bite into a popicle because it's so cold.


A picture of some of the snacks we bought. Why does Japan get all the cool KitKat flavors? Grape? And McFlurry?! The HiChew candy were on sale...and the seafood-shaped crackers just looked cool!


Also got these snacks...Pizza flavored Doritos. The packaging says Cream Cheese and Smoke Fresh Ham "Italiana" flavored. Also had brown sugared Cheetos...never tried those before either. I like how Japanese once again has better flavored American products. The crackers underneath are similar to the ones we used to get, except it's got assorted apple and honey flavors (I think that's why there's apples and honey on the packaging, right?)


Ahh...this one we bought last week from somewhere, and forgot to take a picture. Pancake flavored koala bear cookies!!!


We went to HMart to buy food for tonight. We are having Korean BBQ at home! Bought a grill top for our gas burner that we use for hotpot usually. More pictures to come later from dinner.

Kimchi Hana

Went to Kimchi Hana for dinner tonight when we went to go pick up our Turbo Turtle...haven't been there in such a long time since we've been there I forgot about it until last night when we went to have Korean BBQ with my uncle & aunt.

Anyways, here's some pictures I took with my phone...came out kinda blurry, but better than nothing! We ordered the Korean Seafood Pancake, Kalbi, Bul-go-gi, and dumpling+rice cake in beef broth soup. The side dishes they gave us were kimchi (of course), bean sprouts, watercress, fried tofu pieces, Chinese eggplant, some jelly-like thing, mini-pancakes and my favorite - potatoes!!! When they first came out, the potatoes were still warm. Yumm...


Here is the seafood pancake...very crispy! Wish there were more other kinds of seafood, it was mostly shrimp, scallions, red peppers, and some pieces of squid.


The soup wasn't as white as I expected it to be, but it was still good. The rice cake was nice and soft but still chewy, the small pieces of seaweed added some nice flavor, the dumplings were just ok.



The Kalbi!!!! Beef short ribs were definitely better than the Bulgogi, hence I didn't take a picture of the Bulgogi. They use the same marinade, but the short ribs meat definitely tasted better..the Bulgogi almost fell through the grill...and they took the short rib bones away without asking us if we wanted them!!! I had to ask the girl where the other girl went with the bones...lol.


After we got the bill, they gave us 3 pieces of orange...but I had to ask fro the Shikhye...Korean rice drink...not sure why they weren't gonna give us any!

Next time we are bringing my dad to Kimchi Hana with us...

Tofu "flower"

Not sure what the correct English name for this is, but it's the tofu custard dessert that you eat with syrup. 豆腐花 in Chinese...like I mentioned earlier, we found this one store in Chinatown that makes the best tofu custard. Usually they're made in a giant batch, then they scoop you a large or small container when you tell them you want one. Those ones turn out to be super watery by the time we get home, and when they're supposed to scoop them out in thin 1/2" layers, they just scoop them out however they feel like it. These ones are actually made in individual containers (no scooping!)...even though the containers are smaller than the other places, I personally think it's worth it. Plus, they give you the same sized syrup too. Speaking of syrup, I really hate the ones with a ginger taste...usually try to avoid getting tofu dessert from those places just coz the syrup isn't good.

Getting back to the dessert itself, these ones are already refrigerated, which is one we like eating them anyways! Saves us the time to put them in the fridge just to cool them...not that we eat them right away usually, but still. There's also no strong soybean aftertaste, which is another plus!!!



Here's a picture of the same container, with syrup poured over. I made slits in the custard so the syrup can seep through.



Edit: Never mind...this is the second time the tofu has gone bad. Last time we thought it's been too long since we left it in the fridge, but this time, we JUST bought they yesterday!!! And it's already sour...argh. Does that mean we have to revert back to other places? At least theirs don't go bad as fast...

Congee

My parents went to Flushing + Chinatown today and picked me up some congee with fish from Great NY Noodletown 利口福. Never had congee from there before...there's strips of lettuce and ginger in the congee, giving it a completely different smell compared to congee from other 粥粉麺飯 places. I still prefer minced beef congee the most because that has ground beef + vermicelli pieces. Nonetheless, this fish congee was pretty good too. They also got me Tofu dessert/custard 豆腐花 from what has become our favorite place to get that in Chinatown or Flushing...pictures to come later when I actually eat it...haha.

First, here's a pic of the congee:


Update: Be careful when eating the fish! There were still bones...almost choked me...twice!!!

Mango

Yumm...

Finally got around to put up pictures from the Mango cake and crêpe we bought from Mitsuwa during one of their food fairs.

First is the mango crêpe. The crust of the crêpe is super light and thin, with a light egg aroma. Inside is filled with mango bits and cream and also a thin (1/8" inch?) of cake. The sweet, fresh mangoes bits inside perfectly compliments the texture of the crêpe...mmm...

Next up is the Mango Roll Cake. It's pretty similar to the roll cakes typical bakeries in Chinatown sell, except this has mango bits inside. Of course, the texture of this cake is a lot different too! The Japanese signature light and fluffiness of their cakes makes this mango cake a close competitor to Iron Chef Sakai's roll cake that we unfortunately missed out on earlier this year...

I've decided to create a blog besides the xanga one I've been using for the past few years...not 100% sure what I'll write about here yet. Maybe food...wedding planning...anime...video games...? As my title suggests...it'll be about things I care about...or else, why would I bother taking the time to write about it? ^_^