It's probably the only time you were amazed and not disgusted by a food enthusiast rat running the kitchen.
Does Remy capture the essence of every tourist looking at the Eiffel Tower? (link)
When Linguini discovers his fridge is stripped bare, Remy is preparing breakfast for two! (link)
At Linguini's new home after becoming the new chef owner at Gusteau's (link)
Of course, I'm referring to Remy, a young rat gifted by his highly sensitive senses of smell and taste. Inspired by his favorite idol, Chef Gusteau, he stumbles upon Paris to become Linguini's "little chef," making his famous Ratatouille dish that warmed even the coldest critic's heart in Anton. :)
Real life ratatouille in The French Laundry (link)
I have to admit, I haven't heard of ratatouille until watching this movie, but it definitely sparked my interest for it! According to Black Napkin, Chef Thomas Keller from The French Laundry was a valuable consultant for the movie and helped design the finished ratatouille dish. The layering and roasting of the veggies make this dish look very appetizing, and I hope that I can make a similar ratatouille someday!
I found this inspiring ratatouille recipe through Smitten Kitchen. Ratatouille can be eaten in different ways as well, such as over risotto, over pasta (I recommend fusilli for the complementary swirly design), in a crepe, in a salad, or even over crusty French bread! :) There are so many possibilities with how you eat it and the ingredients you put in the ratatouille as well. For my ratatouille, I would love to put in tomato, zucchini, yellow onion, yam or sweet potato, and apple.
I realized that milk was scarce in the area. On a random morning, I was craving for milk and a bun, which is normally what I eat for breakfast at home. My grandma bought me a small plastic pouch of milk that you poke a straw into to drink. (Milk carton vs. milk bag? I say carton for ease of carrying, bag for going green, tie for ease of opening.) My grandma says that it's common for Chinese to not drink milk due to lactose intolerance. Just a guess - maybe less milk drinking accounts for their smaller body frames? Milk is a staple that I cannot live without in my diet, so I missed drinking milk during my stay.
Nonetheless, a congee (粥: "juk") and rice noodle roll (腸粉: "chern fun") stand along the main road outside my grandparents' apartment invited us with fresh, hot comfort food. I remember needing to wake up around 6 to 7 in the morning to get there in time (they open until they run out of food for the morning, which is typically by 9 am). I'm not usually a morning person, but it was worth every minute.
It was my first experience seeing front-of-house cooking, literally. There were two cooking stations outside of the restaurant: 1) stoves for congee and stir fry; 2) rice noodle tray steamer. The back-of-house was the general seating area similar to a "dai pai dong" (open air food stall well known in Hong Kong) with foldable tables and plastic stools.
Yummy congee making with fresh ingredients on the side!
A really cool foodservice equip I haven't seen before. Each "drawer" is a sheet that steams a rice noodle sheet. As soon as the chef takes it out when it's ready, she sprinkles the ingredients on top and scrapes the noodle sheet to form the rice noodle rolls! Fresh and ready to eat!
Beef congee with crullers ("you tiu"), deep fried dough that you dip into congee. Similar concept to biscotti & coffee?
Beef & lettuce cherng fun (牛肉腸 "au yuk cherng") over sweetened soy sauce. Absolutely the thinnest rice noodle, freshest, & tastiest I ever had!
Dim sum (点心):
Restaurant tables are reserved as early as 6:00 in the morning. Frequent dim sum-goers are retired elderly who enjoy mingling with family and friends and reading the newspaper. My grandparents like to say that they'd like to return to Guangzhou permanently to do the same. Personally, I enjoy dim sum no matter where I go :)!
For the dim sum restaurants here, you are given a weak tea called clear tea (清茶: "cing cha" in Cantonese) as soon as you are seated to wash your tableware. Also, you serve your own tea. A waiter will ask you which tea you would like, and then provide you with a small plastic bag of loose leaf tea per person and a tea pot of boiling hot water over a candle. You pour your desired tea (mine is jasmine) into another tea pot to customize your own tea.
Ordering dim sum is through a menu checklist, where items are arranged by different price categories (small, med, lg, special). After checking off items on the list, the waiter collects the list and the checked items are delivered to your table. Moreover, dim sum carts are pushed around the tables to offer other menu selections you may be interested in. There was one dim sum restaurant where customers go directly to the dim sum preparation area to pick up items to bring back to the table. Some of my favorite dim sum include dumplings (ie. 蝦餃 "haa gow", 小籠包 "siu lung bao"), rice noodles, black bean spareribs (排骨 "pai gwaat"), chicken feet (鳳爪 "fung zao"), turnip cakes (蘿蔔糕 "lo baat gou"), mango pudding (芒果布甸 "mong guo bou din"), and silky tofu dessert (豆腐花 "dou fu fa").
Dim sum table setting at the famous White Swan Hotel's Banquet Hall International
Steamed jumbo shrimp dumpling (蝦餃 "haa gow")
These shrimp & yellow chives rice noodle rolls were light, delicate noodles enveloping crisp & succulent shrimp!
Snacks:
Snacks, sweet, savory, spicy, hot and cold are plentiful, and many Chinese like to eat afternoon and late night snacks from food vendors in busy shopping districts. I wish these snacks are available at home too..
Spicy squid on a stick was the most appealing and appetizing 3-S snack! The smell and sound of crackling squidded kebobs on a teppan averted my attention from shopping. My grandma caught me eyeing them, and offered to share them with me. Three sticks for 10 yuan, what a great deal!
Even after the squids are done sizzling with the spices, you are still given the option to roll them over add'l chili powder. Did I do it? Why of course!
Black sesame tong yun is one of my favorite hot dessert soups! Tong yun (湯圓) are glutinous rice balls that can be filled with sweet or savory fillings, like red bean paste, peanut paste and minced pork. I enjoy black sesame tong yun the most, because of its delicately sweet sesame taste. Plus, who doesn't like a black and white dessert?
Black sesame tong yun soup at one of my grandpa's favorite snack shops. The shop plays "Mai Tang Yuan" song non-stop at the storefront to lure customers in. It got us in :)
Shrimp & garlic chives dumplings ("gau choy gao") were pan fried to my grandpa's delight at another outdoor food stand, despite the pan oil popping in our faces. He told me that he enjoyed eating them freshly made for years. They were greasy, but they tasted very fresh and savory!
While I was in Hainan for about a week, my grandma ordered roasted little bird on a stick. The story is that the little birds are still in their nest homes while their mothers fly away to get food. They still don't know how to fly yet, but hunters climb trees to pick them up to be eaten. =( I was hesitant to try it, but I tried one taste. I was pleasantly surprised; it tasted like a cross between chicken and quail.
When I wanted a light lunch or dinner, I would head on to a noodle soup shop to eat wonton noodle soup (雲吞麵: "wen tun mein"). The wonton were delicately wrapped pork and shrimp medley, and the thin egg noodles were cooked al dente, soft yet chewy... I felt like Naruto slurping up ramen. It was my best comfort food during the cold and rainy days.
Shrimp & pork wonton noodle soup, best served with red vinegar & white pepper!
And that wraps up the final chapter of the Guangzhou series! :) Who wants to go to China now?
Compared to the standard 3 meals for Americans, Chinese have 5 meals per day, including breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and late night snacks. My grandma likes to say that they like to enjoy by eating small frequent meals. It definitely takes awhile to get used to though, because I felt like we were eating all the time…not like that is a bad thing. My justification is that I walk off most of the calories I eat, or at least I hope I did!
Guangzhou's trading port draws in a diverse array of imported foods and other fresh ingredients. Cantonese cuisine focuses on enhancing the natural sweetness of the main ingredient, be it a starch, meat or vegetable, not overpowering it. Thus, spices used are limited and herbs are often used as garnishes for fresh foods (and the reason for overpowering seafood with spices could be to recycle stale inventory...but that's a different story). Steaming and stir frying are the most common cooking methods, but braising and frying are also used.
The economy in Guangzhou thrives on small individual businesses, and restaurants are closing down and opening up everywhere. My grandparents travel to Guangzhou yearly, and they notice big changes every year. Their favorite restaurants may or may not be there anymore, and they get to experience new ones. My mother requested my grandparents to take me to a noodle shop that sells multicolored noodles that I enjoyed very much during my first trip, but the shop closed down years ago.
I posted up a cooking video in my previous post. CY got it correct, it's a noodle making video! A Northern Chinese style restaurant called Noodle King features a partial open kitchen for making dumplings and pulled noodles from scratch. Seeing the soft wheat noodles dance up and down into the huge boiling pot was simply magical flexibility. End result: fresh, bouncy, chewy, twist your fork-able (if you could, we were only provided chopsticks) noodles!
Noodle King ("lo mein deem" in Cantonese)
炸酱面 ("za jerng mein" in Cantonese): "fried sauce noodles" with stir fried ground pork, fermented soybean paste and spices
Steamed pork dumplings with black rice vinegar
My grandparents' apartment is along a busy road of small shops, supermarkets and restaurants. We went to this restaurant after I finished getting my hair straightened at a nearby barber shop (which I experienced the most relaxing scalp massage ever, and my cousin likes to call it "taan gan sai gai" (lit. meaning relaxing on earth)) for choy, steamed fish and rice.
Chinese mustard greens ("gai choy" in Cantonese), garlic braised and tender
Freshly steamed grass carp ("wan yu" in Cantonese) with filleted delicate fish slices and diced green onion
After paying respects to my great grandparents, we arrived to a hot pot (火鍋: "foh woh") restaurant for lunch. A large communal metal pot was placed in the middle of our table over firewood for simmering goose stew with purple taro root and garlic chives. Everyone stuck their chopsticks and spoons into the pot to pick up the sweet and savory hearty stew. While I was slowly savoring the stew, my grandma's younger sister sitting right next to me commented that I shouldn't eat "tai see man" (mannerly) and I need to eat faster. She has such a lively personality.
Hot pot style braised goose (鵝: "ngo") stew with purple taro root and sprinkling of garlic chives
Since goose isn't served in Chinese restaurants in my area, my grandma especially likes eating goose, roasted or stewed. It's similar to the taste of duck, but it has a greater gaming taste and tougher texture (which imo, may be due to less fat, less tenderizer). Even braised in stew, I still felt that it could be more tender (stews tend to taste better after several days anyway). My grandma argued that goose is a Chinese delicacy and duck is beggar's food, and thought I was crazy for my duck preference. I rather listen to my taste buds.
White cut chicken with diced garlic and onion on top of soy sauce
A food I frequently ate with my grandparents was white cut yellow feathered chicken (白切黃毛雞: "bak cherk wong mou gei"). "White cut" means that it is salt marinated and soaked in ginger chicken broth during cooking. Crispy skin chicken (炸子雞: "za zee gei") is also popular, due to the tender and juicy meat with its crisp, garlic skin. It's traditionally served with prawn crackers, but on the many occasions I've tried it, prawn crackers weren't given. Salt and pepper weren't given either. The replacement was sweet chili sauce, which pairs excellently!
Overall, my most memorable meal was homemade at my grandma's sister's house. Her husband is a great cook! He bought yellow feathered chicken and roasted goose from the market, and he prepared goose stew, fish balls and freshly steamed garlic infused prawns! He split the prawns halfway lengthwise and stuffed minced garlic to enhance their delicate and fragrant taste.
Freshly steamed garlic infused prawns
Rainbow colorful light up bridge on Pearl River
Their apartment was right next to Pearl River, so we got to see the colorful lights and tourist popular night cruises. The blue dotted line lights below the bridge actually move in one direction to depict water movement. It's peaceful to walk beside it with family, friends or a significant other, considering that the majority of rest of the city is very crowded and noisy.
Some interesting things to note:
- Be prepared to squat! Squat toilets are most commonly used everywhere, including restaurants. Bring your own tissue and hand sanitizer.
- Of course if you're expected to bring your own tissue, it's no surprise that you should bring your own napkins to the table when you eat. Some restaurants offer complimentary toilet paper in tissue holders.
- There is no complimentary water when you eat at restaurants. There is tea, which is complimentary or charged per person at your table.
- Your rice bowl is your "plate." It is held close to your face while you eat with chopsticks. My relatives thought I was weird for using a plate as my dining dish.
- If you have a small party, be prepared to possibly share a large table with another group if a small table is unavailable.
- For large parties, restaurants have private rooms available for reservation. Typically, there is one host treating the entire party. The host is in charge of choosing the menu, and makes a toast before everyone starts eating.
- When there is not a designated host, be prepared to witness a fight for who gets to pay for the bill. Many sayings of "you'll pay next time" or "you are being unfair" are exchanged back and forth while they both snatch for the bill from the waiter and quickly pay before the other party can say another word.
- Restaurants are not "no smoking" areas. I've experienced many times where I start to enjoy the whiff of my food, then the cigarette smoke tainted its smell.
- Cooked rice at restaurants were sub-par to home cooked rice, which was disappointing.
- Waiters in Guangzhou are predominantly Mandarin-speaking. As Guangzhou is a Cantonese city, my grandpa was frustrated that he couldn't communicate clearly with the waitstaff.
- Other specialty foods not mentioned: fresh lotus root, quail, pomelo and other fruits
Stay in touch for the third and last post: dim sum and snacks! I save the best for last. :)
For my long-awaited post-grad trip, I spent about a month in Guangzhou, China with my grandparents to visit long time no see relatives, go shopping for my family and most importantly, eat yummy authentic foods! Previously, I traveled to Guangzhou once with my family when I was eight turning nine. My memories included piggybacking on my grandpa while touring sights, steering a motorcycle with my uncle, taking studio pictures, and singing karaoke while eating a private room dinner for my birthday.
上下九路 ("serng ha gau lo" in Cantonese): Popular shopping district along a pedestrian-only street
Colorful display of lights outside McDonald's
Highlights of the trip were seeing beautiful sights, bargain shopping for good deals (which my grandma is a master of), and eating fresh and authentic Cantonese cuisine.
Since fast food is heavily commercialized as American food, my relatives automatically assumed that I only knew how to eat fast food. They would jokingly ask, "So all you eat is hamburgers and hot dogs?" and comment that my curvy figure is too big for their standards. When we eat out at a Chinese restaurant, I am amused when they ask to see if I am accustomed to eating their food. I smile knowing that I am fortunate to live in such a diverse community where food choices are unlimited in flavor and variety. Not that I'm ashamed of my own culture, but it's sad to learn that those relatives only eat their own food and choose not to try others. It's easy for them to judge Americans by what they see through media, but I hope they choose to visit the US someday and experience it for themselves.
I had to admit though, I was tempted to try the fast food menu items that catered to Chinese, like KFC chicken porridge and McDonald's taro pies. My grandparents aren't fans of fast food though - so maybe on a trip next time.
Advertisements are everywhere. I rode on buses with my grandparents a lot, and the buses were literally moving advertisements! There were small tvs inside the bus that play short movie clips, shows and ads as well. Here's an Ariel Lin ad posing with a tea drink (any Ariel Lin fans?). Bottled tea drinks are popular in Guangzhou, especially when the dry weather makes your throat itch. My solution? Refresh yourself with a cold honey tea.
Last but not least, here's a video teaser. Guess what food this is?
Find out the answer in the next post ;) so stay tuned!
Before you go trick-or-treating or crash into halloween parties, fuel yourself at Chipotle for free. No, it's not a trick but a treat! All Chipotle asks is that you blend in with them.
What's my favorite burrito? A chicken fajita burrito with lemony parsley white rice, onion/bellpeppers, pinto beans, grilled chicken, medium green salsa verde, pico de gallo, sour cream, corn and lettuce! It is so comforting to hold the warm burrito in your hands, bite into the soft tortilla and medley of rice, beans, chicken and veggies inside! Squeeze some lemon for that extra citrusy kick, and you end with a perfect 3-s burrito.
Have a safe Halloween tomorrow everyone! As for me, I'll be flying for my China trip tomorrow morning. I wonder if they'll decorate the plane to be a haunted plane, the dishes served will be spookified and the flight attendants to be dressed in costumes? I'll find out, and I'll be sure to record my China trip adventure when I return.
Unlike other dumplings, this is a dumpling look alike. 小籠包 ("siu lung bao" in Cantonese) are made from thin, partially leavened dough for the skin. You can tell that it is a bun because the dough is pinched at the top crown, whereas dumplings are pinched on the side. You can put a variety of meat, seafood, and/or vegetable fillings inside the 小籠包, but pork filling is traditionally used.
小籠包 are referred as soup dumplings in English, because aspic is also included in the filling. Aspic is a gelatin made from stock or naturally found in the meat. When the 小籠包 are steamed atop napa cabbage in the bamboo basket, the aspic melts into soup! This is where the dough is important, because a good dough will not break apart, keeping the juicy goodness retained inside the buns.
Freshly steamed 小籠包 at home <3/ See the pool of soup on the bottom? It means one of the buns popped :(
Because 小籠包 is so popular, it is mass produced and available in Asian supermarkets. Sometimes for a quick fix lunch or dinner, my dad would steam several batches of 小籠包 to treat us! :)
My favorite 小籠包 I've eaten at restaurants is pork w/ minced crab meat. At Koi Palace, they serve a whole dungeness crab with the 小籠包 (see 2nd page on the menu). You delicately dip the buns in the Chinkiang vinegar or red rice vinegar with ginger slivers, and slurp the entire thing in your mouth! It's so satisfying to taste the sweet and savory flavors from the soup and meat filling burst into your mouth! :) Personally, I prefer eating this rather than a dumpling soup; it's a dumpling soup in every bite!
Have you tried 小籠包; what do you think of this unique bun? What are your most favorite dumplings?
Going to school in Davis, I always wanted to visit Napa for their high quality restaurant food and wine tasting. I was delightfully surprised to arrive at Bistro Don Giovanni, just moments off of their Howard Lane exit on Hwy 29. Their lush, green garden, inviting outdoor terrace and vineyards made me feel very relaxed and "away from it all," and their decor and alfresco dining truly embodied the Napa wine country feel.
Restaurant front entrance. The greenery just pulls you right in :)
Arriving at the restaurant early for lunch (literally the first customers for the day), we were served promptly with our beverages and freshly baked focaccia bread. The fresca strawberry lemonade was a great balance of sweet and tart, but I especially enjoyed their sport iced tea. The tea was a refreshing medley of sweet and herbal notes, and it tasted very crisp. It definitely prepared our palates for the delicious foods to come.
From left to right: Fresca strawberry lemonade, fresh focaccia, sport iced tea
I have never tasted as fresh of a foccacia bread until this day. The bread was very warm with a spongey texture and seasoned savory spices; I never knew that foccacia would ever taste this great. We dipped the bread in olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette while admiring their garden and fountain from our table. We ordered at least two extra plates during the meal, because it was that great! I felt like I could just snack on focaccia and drink the iced tea all day, so next time, I should just ask for three orders of focaccia and iced tea to go, to take on a picnic. ;)
The waiter offered to de-bone my fish; that's great service! :)
I ordered out of their seasonal menu specials, which was a Montery Bay sanddab in a lemon-caper sauce, and sauteed broccolini on the side.The fish flaked very easily and easily absorbed the citrus flavors, so its moist texture melted in my mouth at every bite. The crisp and savory broccolini were delicious to nibble on, so this dish was an overall good dish. I am surprised to not see this item on the current online menu for the restaurant, but we'll try something else next time. :) I heard through Yelp that they serve really great olives, so I'm looking forward to trying that!
Front entrance on the far left revealed a quaint wine shop
After leaving the restaurant, we commenced to do our wine tastings at Hagafen Cellars, where they offered free tastings for two through their website. As a white wine fan, I purchased the 2008 Napa Valley White Riesling. I loved the wine for its light-bodied texture and sweet fruity tastes from litchi, cherries and peaches. It would be great to serve this sweet wine to offset the flavors of pungent and spicy foods in a homemade meal, or to serve with chocolate, cheese and crackers and/or complementary fresh fruit.
After wine tasting, we strolled around Napa Premium Outlets to window shop. Having been to the outlets at Gilroy and Vacaville, the Napa outlet lot is much smaller in comparison. It was fun to window shop around the U shaped outlets, especially stores like Coach, The Cosmetics Company Store (love love discounted, clearance makeup/skincare items), CK, and Banana Republic, just to name a few.
Have you driven to Napa recently? What are your recommended restaurants and wine tasting cellars? :)
Chili is a recent UC Davis graduate who studied Communication and Clinical Nutrition. She loves to dream, smell, and taste food. She wants to express and share her passion for good eats across cultures, as her lifetime dream is to travel around the world to sample ethnic cuisines.
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