Bouffe / Chow

Afternoon in Chinatown During 40th New York’s AAPI Heritage Celebration

2019-05-202019-05-21

40th Annual Asian American and Pacific Islander Celebration

It was a gorgeous late spring day in New York this Sunday, so I decided to jump on my bike and head down to Chinatown for the 40th Festival for the Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

I already missed yesterday’s opening of the #StarringJohnCho exhibit at Pearl River Mart, so decided I would not miss going there again, and added it to an expanding list of spots I needed to visit during my stroll.

Before going anywhere, I essentially took care of the essentials, first catching the last act of the festival, a choreography by the MoustacheCat Dance about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Got a pre-summer haircut and did my Chinese groceries.

40th Annual Asian American and Pacific Islander Celebration (last act, a choreography on internment of Japanese Americans during WWII)

Mott & Pell during the 40th Annual Asian American and Pacific Islander Celebration

Taiwan/Republic of China flag on Mott & Pell

I thought, why is the Taiwan flag (probably more thought of as a Republic of China flag) so prominent in 2019? Maybe because this is Chinatown? (Like, in Montreal’s Chinatown, they still had a branch of the Kuomintang 10 years ago, perhaps just nominally related?)

I also stopped by Chinatown Fair, a video arcade that opened in the 40s and whose original incarnation existed until 2011, re-opened since under management. I don’t know any of that information first-hand, but I will return to Chinatown on Thursday to check out the screening of The Lost Arcade documentary on it, at MoCA ($15, at 6:30-8:30 p.m.).

After the supermarket run at Hong Kong Supermarket to replenish my stock of instant noodles and affordable veggies, I went to MoCA to check out the current exhibit. I saw that it was called Moon Represents My Heart, after the Teresa Teng song, thinking it would be something on the Taiwanese mother of Mandopop. In fact, it was a very personally interesting exhibit on music identify for hyphenated Chinese that I only had about 20 minutes to enjoy.

In my last years in Montreal, before moving to Hong Kong, I used to run a music show on the community radio about alternative styles of music sung in, primarily, Chinese languages (which I have mediocre control of). It was during that period that I found out about all sorts of Chinese rock bands under labels like Modernsky and Maybe Mars, twee pop Hong Kong bands like the now-defunct The Marshmallow Kisses or the still alive and kicking My Little Airport, or large music festivals in Taiwan dedicated to (more) independent music like Spring Scream.

So, definitely I would have to go back this summer. It’s on view until September 15.

Moon Represents My Heart at MoCA (May 2-Sept. 15, 2019)

I found out bumping into a friend at MoCA that Banana Mag was launching its 5th edition, aka 005, on the same day. I think it was after that friend spotted my collection of Giant Robot that he spilled the beans about Banana, a beautifully-produced magazine with stylish photography and original reporting that include interviews with high-profile New York Asian American cultural figures, food recipes, discussions on cultural trends. They do share some common themes that take me back to the mid-2000s when I discovering my identity as an Asian-Canadian.

I also got my hands on an elusive copy of long-gone 001! Here’s the preview, of me flipping through pages with greasy with hot wings fingers:

Banana Mag 005 launch at Canal Street Market

Next and last stop of the day would be the Pearl River Mart, the chinoiserie shop that re-opened on Broadway and Walker, on the Tribeca side of Chinatown, which now also hosts an art gallery for their artist-in-residence program, in the back mezzanine.

Worth seeing for yourself, if you’re in the area. The current exhibit is from William Yu, the artist-activist behind #StarringJohnCho. It’ll be on view until July 7.

#starringjohncho at Pearl River Mart (May 18-July 7, 2019)

Making xiao long bao

2017-03-31

Let me tell you, homemade xiao long bao (aka those pesky exploding dumplings) are still an elusive one on my lifetime food to-do, for a good reason. (This was a lone attempt in 2004!) Somehow, you need to get gelatinous parts of pork with pork meat mixed together in the right proportion so that it’s … Continue reading “Making xiao long bao”

The skins are probably the hardest part. If you make dumpling skins on your own, as we’ve tended to have done during our 2004-09 dumplings parties in Montreal (I’ve abandoned the practice in Hong Kong), they have always been on the thick side. I’ve never researched why they always seemed to inflate, but with my current bread know-how, I guess it’s the gluten contents of your flour.

Finding Taiwanese mandarins in Hong Kong

2016-04-172019-05-20

When I was living in Canada, I used to consume citrus fruits purchased in bulk with my family — a whole box of 30+ orange from Costco or crates of clementines from the supermarket. They make for a great quick snack, especially clementines, that are seedless and very easy to peel. In Hong Kong, oranges … Continue reading “Finding Taiwanese mandarins in Hong Kong”

In Hong Kong, oranges are easy to find, but not so much for clementines. Since moving to Hong Kong, mandarin oranges (or 柑/kam in Cantonese) are the alternative. They are bigger, but usually have the trade-off of not coming in a seedless variety and are still somewhat harder to peel.

Mandarin oranges sold in Hong Kong usually overwhelmingly come from mainland China. Despite knowing about the Taiwanese ones, it wasn’t until recently, after consuming a lot of them as I was trying to shake off a seasonal cold back in March, that I paid attention to them. I even bought some a few years ago in my neighbourhood, but never realized how different they could be.

The mainland variety peels a lot easier, but the ones that I bought have always been drier and of varying quality (they taste fermented). Taiwanese mandarins are a lot sweeter and considerably juicier.

The Taiwanese ones are harder to find and you have to look to find them. According to a FAO estimate, 15.2 million tonnes of tangerines, mandarins, clementines, satsumas were produced in mainland China in 2013, compared with only 185,000 tonnes in Taiwan (around 80 times less).

In Taipei, I bought 8 for 100 TWD (~3 USD, so one is close to 40 cents) at a fruit shop outside Songjiang Market. The ones I bought on Friday were 6 HKD each, which is 77 cents, so roughly double the price. But if they’re specifically selling the fruits as coming from Taiwan and that the difference in taste and texture are so noticeable, it’s not surprising that there would be a market for them.

Sichuanese at the Shek Tong Tsui cooked food centre

2016-04-092019-05-20

I really enjoy going to cooked food centres, natural descendants of the Hong Kong dai pai dong. One of my favourite ones is on the 2/F of the Shek Tong Tsui market, in the west of Hong Kong Island, close to HKU. I’ve never known it by name and simply called it “the Sichuanese” (for … Continue reading “Sichuanese at the Shek Tong Tsui cooked food centre”

I really enjoy going to cooked food centres, natural descendants of the Hong Kong dai pai dong. One of my favourite ones is on the 2/F of the Shek Tong Tsui market, in the west of Hong Kong Island, close to HKU. I’ve never known it by name and simply called it “the Sichuanese” (for the record, it’s called 良品 / leung ban) and used to go there with friends after work.

We returned to that market for the first time in maybe a year or two, and ate at the Sichuanese, where we hadn’t been back for even longer (last time, we had hot pot nearby). The bright yellow signs that served as menu were gone and replaced with something a lot more sober. I was initially afraid that the place closed down, but upon asking whether they had their trademark “saliva chicken” dish, to which they answered positively, I was at least sure that if it was new management (not sure if it was), they kept their old dishes.

I did the ordering: saliva chicken, green beans fried with ground meat, pork slices with garlic and shrimp with a salted egg “sandy/golden” sauce. And we shared two large bottles of cheap lager, which is what you definitely should have with a cooked food centre meal. Back in the days, they even kept Pabst Blue Ribbon in the freezer (or a very cold refrigerator), and the bottles would be covered in frost from summer’s humidity.

It’s too bad that I forgot to take photo _before_ eating. But it was just simply too delicious.

Saliva chicken is really more like a “mouthwatering chicken” than being made from any corporeal fluid. It’s a boiled chicken that’s then served with a mixture of chili oil, spices (including peppercorns) and maybe peanuts, garlic if you like that.

With bowls of rice and drinks, it was only HK$105 per person, and we were definitely full.

Making a Montreal smoked meat in Hong Kong

2016-04-032019-05-20

On almost every trip home that I make, I would bring back a piece of my home back with me to my new home. This is my third attempt to recreate what Eastern European Jews brought to Montreal a hundred years ago, which soon became synonymous with Quebec’s metropolis (on par with poutine and bagels). … Continue reading “Making a Montreal smoked meat in Hong Kong”

On almost every trip home that I make, I would bring back a piece of my home back with me to my new home. This is my third attempt to recreate what Eastern European Jews brought to Montreal a hundred years ago, which soon became synonymous with Quebec’s metropolis (on par with poutine and bagels). The other times, I tried with pieces of beef brisket that were simply too small or cut for stews where you weren’t expected to cook the piece whole.

Before Easter, last week, I went to a butcher shop called Feather & Bone on Gage Street in Central that sold chilled Australian beef at a reasonable price (about 1/2 of what you normally pay at City Super). Beef brisket was HK$135 per kilogram (per comparison, 1 kg of smoked meat is sold CA$18/kg or HK$100). I got a portion worth HK$220, about half of the piece that the butcher had at hand.

I took out the extra fat covering the chunk of meat and covered it with a mix of curing salt (hard to find anywhere — I had to order it online and had it delivered to my parents in Canada), and spices in seed form (coriander, mustard and pepper), and a little bit of Schwartz’s mix (not necessary if you have stuff like onion powder, garlic powder or paprika).

For six days, I let the salt and nitrites in the rub be absorbed by the meat in my refrigerator. On Thursday, I put my brisket in cold water and put it back into the fridge. And did the same on Friday. Then on Saturday, I started the smoking, which consisted in having some wood chips be lightly burnt in a large pot that I destroyed in a previous attempt at making smoked meat. You could probably substitute this with liquid smoke, as suggested in the Lady and Pups recipe.

I steamed for two hours, but the result was pretty tough, like a roast. From previous experience with stews, I could definitely tell I didn’t steam it long enough.

Today, I steamed it again for myself and guests, and this time in a much smaller pot and for longer (around three and half hours). The result was absolutely perfect and felt and looked like what I expected buying at the best delis in Montreal.

(If you try this at home, salt and spice quantities are relative to your meat, maybe a tablespoon of curing salt per kg of meat, around the same quantity of regular salt. Spice mix should just be enough to cover the piece, and you could get creative, but coriander + mustard + pepper sounds just right. You’ll just need to prepare some more spice mix to rub again after desalinating.)

After the steam today, you could cut into the meat as it was butter. The meat filaments would lightly break up and crazy delicious when picked from the plate mixed together with the beef fat and leftover seeds. The slices were served in homemade rye bread that I made on Saturday with yellow mustard spread all over the place.

If I had to change something next time, I’d probably try to source my pepper better. I’m not sure if what I got was correct (a random HK brand selling seeds from Malaysia). But more importantly, I’d probably use less salt and curing salt (with has 6% nitrites — which gives the red tinge to cooked meat). Despite desalinating for one day in fresh water twice, it was still too salty in the end.

The only effort really was in grinding the spices and waiting for the smoking to work. If I substitute for liquid smoke, maybe this could be extremely painless and a sure winner for future parties.

I’m always extremely happy to try making things myself, like back in the days on this blog when I explored for Chinese food in Montreal. Nowadays, it happens more often with Western food that I try to make on my own, because the restaurant equivalents are either out of price (for what they are) or denatured beyond acceptability.

Le cristal chinois (BBQ) 水天一色／燒臘

2013-10-20

A new shop for siu mei, or siu lap, opened in the past couple of weeks. It’s called Le cristal chinois (水天一色 or literally “water sky one color”, aka the horizon), which is also the same name as the restaurant in the same building (presumably the same management). This sort of Cantonese-style BBQ (the only … Continue reading “Le cristal chinois (BBQ) 水天一色／燒臘”

This sort of Cantonese-style BBQ (the only sort, really) is popular in Chinatowns across the world, with its BBQ pork (char siu/叉燒), roasted duck (siu aap/燒鴨), white cut chicken (bak chit gaai/白切雞) and, my favourite, roasted pork (siu yok/燒肉, literally roasted meat, as if it were pig equaled default meat).

The counter at cristal chinois

Full on pork. Ask for the ribs part, if you can!

Despite raving regularly about Chinese food in Montreal and elsewhere over the years, Comme les Chinois has never written about siu mei. Siu mei is probably something just so default, so easy to pass over: my family has always ordered it for takeout when we were young and I would buy it on my way home when I didn’t have time to cook.

When I moved to Hong Kong four years ago, I would be constantly enthused to find it anywhere I go, including at the university cafeteria (at ridiculously low prices too — CA$3 for a rice and meat lunch). It’s simple, cheap and nourishing. And tasty. What more can you ask?

In Montreal, there aren’t so many takeout places anymore. In Chinatown, you got the one up on St-Laurent on the east side of the street, north of de la Gauchetière, and in the mall with the Kam Fung, across Dobe & Andy. Restaurant Hong Kong used to be the classic place for siu mei, but their counter shrank to the point that I wonder whether they still make their own. There may be some other places on de la Gauchetière on the pedestrian stretch, and I think Le rubis rouge restaurant has a stand attached.

However, the most prized item, the rice and meat (and double kinds/雙拼) lunch box, is a rarity and not frequently offered for takeout.

It’s hearty chunks of meat for $6 a box, with a side of Chinese cabbage, and $7 if you take a double kinds of meat of your choice. Too bad there isn’t enough volume to do suckling pig “on-demand” (as far as I know, in Montreal it’s only available as pre-order for takeout or in restaurants).

You can get the rice and meat combo at Restaurant Hong Kong for about the same price across the street, but it just isn’t the same in terms of your experience (no counter to check them meats out). Probably also at other siu mei places across town if they have warm rice on hand.

The menu and market prices

My double kinds of meat: roasted duck and roasted pork

Du caca pigeon avec ça ?

2013-10-14

En général, Toronto est synonyme de bouffe chinoise. Du chinois de Hong Kong, du chinois de Shanghai, du chinois de Chaozhou. Du chinois. Pour faire changement, je suis allé bouffer ce midi chez Samosa King Embassy Restaurant, qui est également un comptoir à emporter. Scarborough, sur Finch, c’est près d’où mes grandparents maternels vivent, et … Continue reading “Du caca pigeon avec ça ?”

En général, Toronto est synonyme de bouffe chinoise. Du chinois de Hong Kong, du chinois de Shanghai, du chinois de Chaozhou. Du chinois.

Pour faire changement, je suis allé bouffer ce midi chez Samosa King Embassy Restaurant, qui est également un comptoir à emporter. Scarborough, sur Finch, c’est près d’où mes grandparents maternels vivent, et c’est aussi à la confluence des communautés chinoises et indiennes (ou sud-asiatique).

» C’est du caca pigeon «, dit le paternel. Le caca pigeon, ce n’est pas exactement ce qu’on voit sur la photo avoue mon père, mais c’est comment ils appelaient le mélange de machins frits et d’herbes et de légumineuses séchées, un genre de party mix qu’ils vendaient au magasin de mes grandparents paternels à Madagascar. Mon père aidait ma grand-mère à préparer ce mélange, que je présume était d’origine sud-asiatique.

Mada, c’est aussi un haut lieu de mélange culturel. Une grande île sur la côte sud-est de l’Afrique, elle est au carrefour des cultures africaine, arabe, indienne, chinoise, et française.

Un des plats de prédilection qu’on a adopté dans la famille avait sans doute des saveurs de cette région : un ragoût de boeuf au gai choy (feuilles de moutarde), avec des tomates et une pincée de mini crevettes séchées. Lorsque j’étais enfant, je dormais l’été dans des draps venus de Madagascar aux couleurs indiennes.

Yung Kee, a Chinese BBQ and cured meat shop in Marham

2013-10-14

When I come to Toronto with my parents, we will inevitably do a trunkload full of Chinese food that you can’t find in Montreal. It’s less and less the case nowadays, with places like Kim Phat and others like C & T in Ville Saint-Laurent, that opened while this blog was busy living in Hong … Continue reading “Yung Kee, a Chinese BBQ and cured meat shop in Marham”

When I come to Toronto with my parents, we will inevitably do a trunkload full of Chinese food that you can’t find in Montreal. It’s less and less the case nowadays, with places like Kim Phat and others like C & T in Ville Saint-Laurent, that opened while this blog was busy living in Hong Kong. There are however still some items that you wouldn’t be able to find at the same level of freshness or quantity of production or year round availability.

One of those things is the Hong Kong-style cured meats. We went to Yung Kee BBQ (Market Village, Unit A10) to grab some of those. The shop sells the regular siu mei, but also had the regular kinds of cured meats that are typical in Hong Kong. In Montreal, as far as I know, you can only purchase them vacuum-sealed in Chinese grocery stores. Not that having them exposed in ambient air is a sign that it is fresher, more “home-made”.

My mom, browsing the meats

When we were growing up, we typically had Chinese sausage (dried, uncooked, Chinese spirit-flavoured) in the refrigerator drawer alongside dry Italian cheese, western-style cold cuts and Chinese dried fish. The other items that we bought yesterday, namely the cured duck, was a bit more of a rare sight. The preserved pork belly (I think they use a mixture of soy sauce as a base) was even rarer.

How do you prepare them? We did them in the rice cooker, while cooking rice. It seems like the typical way of preparing Chinese cured meats for the eating. You can either put them directly on the rice in the mid-stages of rice cooking, for extra flavouring (and fat all over the place), or just on a plate over the rice. It could probably work on a plate in a steamer too.

The sausages are cured, so could you eat them raw? I’m too used to eating them steamed to try, but some people do argue that they are cooked and edible, thus as good as eating those pepperoni sticks. :S

Preserved duck pieces

Preserved pork belly

Chinese sausage (“lap cheung”)

A new siu mei shop in Chinatown!

2013-10-12

Was lunching in Chinatown today and stumbled upon a new siu mei shop on St-Laurent at the ground floor of the Swatow. Le Cristal chinois probably opened a few days or weeks ago. Siu mei (BBQ pork, roasted pork / duck chicken) used to be my default lunch when I lived in HK. I’m always … Continue reading “A new siu mei shop in Chinatown!”

Was lunching in Chinatown today and stumbled upon a new siu mei shop on St-Laurent at the ground floor of the Swatow. Le Cristal chinois probably opened a few days or weeks ago.

Siu mei (BBQ pork, roasted pork / duck chicken) used to be my default lunch when I lived in HK. I’m always excited when something new opens in Chinatown.

I peeked inside and saw that they had rice boxes with a roast for 6$, only written in Chinese. Will try it out in the couple of weeks.

Kam Kuen Food 金卷: Lamma condiment shop opened by Montrealers

2011-01-17

I always thought I was the only Lamma resident of Chinese origin from Montreal. Well, that’s no longer the case. You might think that in an overcrowded city of seven million people like Hong Kong, you would not know your neighbours. This is not true on Lamma Island, a sparsely populated locality of about 6,000 … Continue reading “Kam Kuen Food 金卷: Lamma condiment shop opened by Montrealers”

I always thought I was the only Lamma resident of Chinese origin from Montreal. Well, that’s no longer the case.

You might think that in an overcrowded city of seven million people like Hong Kong, you would not know your neighbours. This is not true on Lamma Island, a sparsely populated locality of about 6,000 people, where it was in fact my cross-balcony neighbour who tipped me on other Montrealers living on Lamma.

I wanted to make a fresh dish of tofu tonight, and needed to buy a good chili oil. I remembered about the Chinese condiments shop on the main street that my neighbour was telling me about, stopped there on my way home, found the chili oil I wanted, and started chatting with the two owners, who confirmed their Montreal origin. In fact, they were as surprised as I was originally, saying how small the world is.

The lady said she grew up in Montreal, and finished her university there. I was told they were even of one of Lamma’s old families. Montreal has a tiny Chinese community compared with Toronto (or even Calgary, a much smaller city) and it’s always remarkable to find other Montrealers settling back here in Hong Kong. Some like actress Christy Chung (鍾麗緹) and Cantopop singer Denise Ho (何韻詩) even achieved household-name level of success here.

I’ll have to chat longer with these newly found Lamma-Montrealers next time. This island is definitely a place where you can’t possibly be anonymous in your immediate physical environment.

They are called Kam Kuen (金卷), Golden Roll in English, and are situated on the main street, next door to Green Cottage cafe, and diagonally across from Emily’s ice cream parlour. The small pot of chili oil with garlic was HK$20 (CA$2.54), and they said that they had a new variety of chili oil that also contains dried shrimp (蝦米) and smelled just like it — grandma would probably like it. Now that I know that the owners have a Montreal connection, I can probably feel good about buying tourist stuff from Lamma to bring back to my folks back home (it’s all made by hand in their shop)… G/F 32A, Yung Shue Wan Main Street, Lamma Island. Phone: +852 29820812

…now, how exactly can you use chili oil? With wonton noodles is a good idea, and stir-frys too. But tonight, it was, like I said, for cold tofu: