Delights of the Sea!

This was truly a special at our favourite Chinese place, Dim Sum Dynasty. It just so happened they had these big, fresh oysters on hand when we decided to go for dinner. They were simply steamed with a black bean sauce, but that's all it needed to pair with these soft, juicy morsels from the sea. Each bite was heavenly and filled my senses with a taste of the sea. Mmm!! I could go for more...

New Green Bo, Chinatown NYC

Located at 66 Bayard St., I'd heard great reviews about this northern Chinese place. After looking over the menu for a while, we decided to give a shot at Shanghai Kau Fu (I know it as Hau Fu), Fried fish fillets with vegetables, Scallion pancakes, Siu lung bao (soup dumplings), Stir fried rice cakes without meat and Vegetable spring rolls. Overall, we found it cheap and yummy!

The fish fillets were nicely soft and fatty but had a disappointing companion in the vegetables of this dish. It included baby corn, straw mushrooms and snow peas. It was like cheap takeout in that sense.

The rice cakes were soft yet slightly chewy (versus stick to your mouth) with lots of "wok hay" or the taste of the wok. Yummy! The vegetables again were uninspiring with the shredded cabbage, sliced button mushrooms and sprouts(?).

The Scallion pancakes were wonderfully crispy on the outside, but perfectly soft on the inside while the dipping sauce tasted delicious. I'm not sure what they added but it was definitely different from the other dipping sauces I've been served with these pancakes. As for the crisp:soft ratio, that seems to be a rather regional preference where some folks like it mostly soft, others like it totally crispy. Usually, I like mine crispy all the way through but this place is the only one thus far where I liked their softness consistency.

The Hau fu was great too! Again, different from other versions in that no bamboo shoots were included, and it was light on the sesame oil (phew!). Interestingly, it had a distinct gingery flavor. Whatever they did to it, I thoroughly enjoyed it! Very refreshing taste-wise as well as temperatures-wise in relation to the summer heat. ;)

The spring roll was eh (for me). Everyone else liked them, but then, I'm not a huge fan of spring rolls in general.

The siu lung bao was so-so. It was too salty with an overbearing beef flavor. Plus, it was not tender enough. Well...it was a South American dude rolling out the dough. Who knows who made the filling. The dumplings didn't look good either...like very sad sacks with strangly lumpy innards. For these dumplings, I'd much rather go to Flushing unless I find a suitable place in Chinatown.

If you find yourself trekking out here, be forewarned that it's a super busy place. If we'd gotten there 5 minutes later, we'd have had to wait for a table. There was a mad rush of lunchers arriving in their business suits in hordes!! Many had to turn away in search of another establishment due to their own time constraints for lunch.

The above picture shows almost all of what we ate! Right in front is the fish fillet dish, behind it is the rice cake dish with the spring rolls to its left while the shiny metal container has the soup dumplings. Then far in the back and to the right of the metal container is a plate of the scallion pancakes.

Matsushima III

Yes, it's that place again. Would I be disappointed this time around? I think at most is I'd start to tire of eating this sort of stuff from the frequent visits. ;P This time around, we devoured:

*Pork Kakuni: this slow-simmered fatty pork was a winner last time and a winner this time
*Sashimi Platter: when it comes to raw, no negative connotations here. It's all good.
*Nasu Tataki: tender eggplant smothered in scallions and a japanese sprout, whose name I forget, all flavored with a light soy.
*Kaki Furai ("Fry"): I couldn't resist prefectly fried juicy oysters
*Simmered Sweet Summer Tomato: the freshest and sweetest tasting tomato in cooked form. A bit of coarse sea salt (on the side for sprinkling) enhanced the sweetness. Very well done as it still provided a good firm bite. I was surprised by how simple yet delicious this was.
*Grilled Eringi: nice and meaty mushroom with lots of grilled flavor.
*Toro Salmon Misozuke: noticed the trend to reorder fatty stuff yet?
*Chilean Seabass Saikyo Miso: aw, you should have known this would be ordered too.
*Unagi Agedashi Tofu: an interesting twist of eel for this perennial favorite. As I've not seen this variation before, I thought I'd share. Behold:

Unfamiliar Lychees

Over the years, I've had lychees on and off if I came across them during a trip to Chinatown, or if someone gave them to us (very nice of them). However, I'd only known of the red ones ("red robe" lychee) but apparently, there is also a white version (really more like a yellowish cream with a bit of blushing) called "glutinous rice ball" lychee or something like that. This is what I'm told, and it's rather a rough translation I believe. I found these white ones (in foreground) to be very similar but more flowery fragrant, yet not as sweet as the red ones (in background). Also, it was a bit bitter near the stem. The seeds are way smaller than the red lychees. Overall, it's a lighter/milder flavor than the red ones thus not as heavy in the "lychee" flavor I'm familiar with. Still good. Still lychee flavored. An interesting experience.

As a side note, beware of very red lychees that don't seem quite right either because they should be out of season or because they're just too red in a strange way. It's probably because they've been dyed! Just as salmon these days have color enhancers added, lychees are getting this treatment as well. =( How they can be allowed to deceive consumers with what amounts to the same idea as "snake oil" is beyond me.

Note: The picture's color is a bit off...

Kingly Rescue

I leaped beyond Prince Charming to rescue me, and went straight for the King, but no ordinary king. King Arthur to be exact. I needed bread! A call for bread! Rice, potatoes or other starches just wouldn't do. It was not so much that sandwich meat doesn't go quite right layered on top of a bowl of rice. Rather I was putting together a picnic meal where the main object of consumption was a pile of flaky-tender meat. Not quite pulled pork, but similar enough. Yes, rice would be perfect with this dish, but it's a minimalist picnic! Fingers as utensils don't require major washing afterwards nor produce additional waste. Just wash up and you're good to go!

I didn't want just any bread, but something that would acceptably complement the dish like plain white rolls of some sort versus say cornbread or biscuits. Heck, I really wanted something soft like potato rolls but the recipes I had required potato starch. Fortunately, I found this recipe from King Arthur Flour for Amish Rolls that use a cooked potato instead. It also seemed relatively easy to make particularly since I could have the bread machine do all the work for me while I prepped the other dishes.

As it turns out, the recipe was a huge amount that overflowed the bread machine's bucket. Either that or my yeast were throwing a party. In shaping the dough into rounds, I found my dough to be quite sticky. I floured heavily as a result. When the rounds poofed up again, they had overtaken every last inch on the baking sheet as I liked the idea of having them be 'pull apart' rolls (a suggested option in the recipe). I was quite worried I had a disgusting, inedible mess on my hands as I threw them in the oven. Checking on them at regular worry-induced intervals, they looked tasty enough but would they be? Towards the end of the baking time, they looked downright lovely with their golden-brown tops. With much salivation and haste, I took them out, buttered their tops and popped one in my mouth burning my tongue along the way. Ouch! But mmm! A tad on the yeasty side but otherwise, good. Slather enough butter on, or pair it with food (sandwich, etc...) and you'd never notice. Hooray! As long as I remember to take everything along, this picnic should be just fine...as long as I don't give anyone food poisoning...At some point, I will try to remake these to see if I did something wrong the first time. Even if so, it was still a tasty mistake. ;)

Flat Fish Fiasco

Doesn't look particularly appetizing eh? I really should have my radar up when a recipe has the word 'style' in it, as in Thai-Style Flounder in this case. The closest it got to being Thai was with the coconut milk and ginger, but that's not exactly Thai specific, eh? I learned long ago that a lot of those "Chinese" recipes out there are just plain nasty, and even those Americans that claim to love Chinese food, don't really know what Chinese food is all about. Not to insult such people (how would they know, ya know?), but more as an illustration of how a recipe can fail to meet expectations. This recipe turned out to be too simple in taste to match the quickness by which this meal can be brought to table. It neither smelled delicious in the oven nor felt delicious going down. I can't say it looked deceptively delicious either. What I had hoped to be a promising meal became flatter than the flounder itself. Ah well.

Matsushima Round II

How could I return after such a delightful first time? I'd been eagerly awaiting a return trip to indulge once more in some fatty goodness. This time, though, I brought the posse, aka my family. Happily, this place didn't disappoint and even won new fans (the family). Though a bit pricey, it's well worth every penny. Many other places with comparable prices can't compete with the quality of ingredients and skill of the chef. Delicious!! Even my baby nephew loved it, particularly the pork kakuni, a slow simmered pork belly dish. Obviously fatty, but melt-in-your mouth goodness that's infused with intense flavour. He knows what's tasty. This time around, I ordered up some repeats (for my personal enjoyment) as well as new stuff to try. The new stuff were:

Pork Kakuni- slow-simmered fatty pork
Kaki Fry- fried oysters
Chilean Sea Bass Saikyo Yaki - grilled Chilean sea bass with sweet white miso paste
Chawanmushi - steamed egg custard with mushrooms, root vegetables and herbs
Beef Negima - scallions rolled in beef
Taro dumpling something- soft taro root ball, fried and then simmered in sauce
Cream Anmitsu - dessert of agar agar, red beans, other beans, syrup, fruit and a dollop of ice cream

All of it was very delicious! I think I could go eat there everyday. Since I can't remember the name of the taro dish, nor describe it well, I present a thousand words instead:

Brazilian Shrimp Stew

From the same "ad-azine" as the spiced chocolate chip walnut cookies (but not from the same issue), this recipe sat around for about a year as well before I finally got around to trying it out. What was I waiting for?? It's not that hard to make yet tastes pretty good! You could easily swap in other proteins (other seafood, white meat, red meat, tofu) if you're not in the mood for shrimp. Never having had much Brazilian food, I can't say how authentic this dish is. Ah, but how can I deny the deliciousness of coconut milk? ;) Indeed, it has a very nice hint of the coconut melding with the lemon juice. No one flavor really overpowering, but a nice balance. There was plenty of sauce to slather over rice or...ooh!! jacket potatoes! Now that's an idea! I'll definitely have leftovers like that tomorrow! =9~ Update: It smelled wonderfully shrimpy fragrant upon opening up the container. I slathered it over a jacket potato, and as predicted, it was delicious!! Heck, even better!! I'm eating *all* the leftovers like this!

Japasia: Asian Fusion Cuisine

We decided to try out this restaurant for lunch on July 4th. Perusing the menu for its fusion selections, I started wondering whether there were some hidden or missing pages. I couldn't seem to find where the "fusion" was. It was pretty standard Japanese fare and then some Chinese entrees, but no fusion nor other "Asian" in the mix. They should have called it Chinese cuisine with a sushi bar as many other restaurants do these days. In that sense, I was thoroughly unimpressed. Even in the Japanese part of the menu, it was a paltry selection. It comprised of very typical rolls and teriyaki bento boxes. There wasn't even sushi or sashimi on the lunch menu. We had to special order it off the dinner menu. The decor was not bad but way over the top for its ratty location on this stretch of highway.

We ordered up some sashimi and rolls to see how they compared to our favorite Japanese establishments. Well...I won't be going back. The presentation was nice but the taste did not fare so well. Their sashimi was sliced into very thick hunks; maybe too thick for my taste. While my favorite fatty fishes were nicely fatty, I did not find them enjoyable. After some thought, I may have been turned off by what I can only guess to be the taste of frozen fish. I honestly don't know if that's true but elsewhere, the fish tastes of freshness. Eating here conjured feelings of cold, icy waters barren of taste but with the texture of fish flesh. The huge slices did not help in the matter as it felt as if I were chomping down on a whole fish. None of the delicate, melt-in-your-mouth ecstasy I usually experience. I cringed with eat bite. I *wanted*, no *needed* rice to accompany the fish. Truth be told, what I really wanted was to leave.

In the rolls department, we got something called 'Eel Cake'. It was ok, but I found the sauce too sweet. The disappointment continued with the other rolls (yellowtail, salmon and the like). The seaweed was cheap stuff-too thick and chewy, and it overpowered the other ingredients.

For dessert, we got fried ice cream as I'd been hankering for some ever since eating a delightful version at a Mexican hole-in-the-wall. When it arrived, I became a bit worried. There was one dollop of ice cream deep fried in batter, and what looked like half a banana executed in the same manner. Unfortunately, it was not destined to be the highlight of the meal. It became just another supporting player in a humdrum performance. The fried ice cream was the strangest thing. It tasted like it had been wrapped in a Twinkie and then deep fried with a thin batter for crunchiness. Upon closer inspection, there was indeed a layer of cake around the ice cream and then a thin outer layer of fried batter. I assume this was prefabbed stuff to protect the ice cream and to make it easier to fry up. It was such a far cry from the Mexican place whose batter was thick and crispy all the way through without any oilyness. Not only that, the cold ice cream contrasted wonderfully with the hot outer batter. Mmmm!! Great memories! Back to the present, at least the banana was decent but it's hard to go wrong with that...well...except the batter which wasn't all that crispy. Well, this place was definitely consistent...everything was disappointing.

Spiced Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookie

Flipping through an "ad-azine" from the local hospital, I spotted this tasty looking recipe. Considering we always seem to have more walnuts than we know what to do with, I cut it out to try. Unfortunately, I forgot about the recipe for about a year. By then, the walnuts were rancid so I actually *bought* walnuts to try these cookies. Turns out to have been a good gamble as these cookies are quite tasty! Being drop cookies, they're very easy to make too. I forgot to toast the walnuts before throwing them in which turned out to be a good idea since I don't much like the taste of walnuts. Toasting brings out the flavor of walnuts so I couldn't taste them in the cookies. =D The next batch I made, I did toast them for the sake of others who do like walnuts. Of course, I wasn't so found of the 2nd round.

I now have leftover walnuts though, but at least I know what a potential outlet is. Plus, I could really use them up making 2 batches of this stuff. One for me (untoasted walnuts) and one for everyone else (toasted walnuts). More for me! But how can I polish off an entire batch?!? Well, the good thing is that these cookies are so tasty, walnut lovers don't complain if given the "irregular" batch.