Cha Xiu Bao

Happy Year of Ox

I want to wish everyone a very healthy and tasty Year of Ox.

You know what, one downside of living with a dog is that it leaves you to think certain food is only meant for pets.  Take beef paddywack for example.  "Most commonly found in the pet department of stores where it is packaged dried as a dog treat/food," is the only accolade I managed to find when I looked it up on the net.  

But once again, having ate so many eccentric dishes in China over the years, I know very well our dining table is the last place on earth for anyone to think in conventional terms. It's a place that time and again puts leftover and scraps into the most insanely exciting delicacy.  Beef paddywack for one and the epiglottis of beef, the alignment muscle between throat and tongue -- like a beef tongue isn't mind-blowing enough? For the sake of yumminess, throw me some please!

In the meantime, share your meals with those you love and let's not forget those who don’t have the same access to great food like many of us do. Last year may not be as spectacular as it could be. But if we work it hard this year, maybe we can make something fabulous out of the trims too.  

Here's to a fantastic and feng yi zu shi ("to be well-fed and well-clothed" 豐衣足食) Year of Ox!

Michelin HK & Macao 2009, my two cents worth... (Part II)

Apart from showing the combination of perverse, hubris and lack of sportsmanship, there's also an all too familiar denial symptom one can find from a pimp when told his best stripper has huge cellulite problem. Shortcomings? Hell, no.

Ostriches can get away with sticking their heads in the sand, but the sad fact is, Chinese cuisine in Hong Kong is, overall, in a slump.  We need this wake-up call bad to make us look into the underlying problems of the self-proclaimed "paradise of gastronomy" before it's too late. Here are some lessons we could draw.

One, the diffusion of regional cuisines. 
Hong Kong is a land of utilitarianism. Under the veil of handy choices, what really going on is restaurateurs are herding all regional cuisines of China under a roof so that they aren't missing out any up-and-coming, cash-generating fad. That's why we've so many mishmashes called "Beijing, Sichuan & Shanghai" Jing-chuan-hu 京川滬 around town where cook imports from Guangdong are cropping up all-of-the-above food for you. In the course of it, we forget our roots and we show no sign of faith, and hence, no sense of direction, which earns us no recognition whatsoever. 

Two, the high turnover of chefs. 
Hong Kong will prove to be one the toughest places for Michelin to keep apace with the change of chefs. Kitchen in Hong Kong is a furious place with low loyalty steaming.  Restaurateurs plough through dozens of obstacle to achieve stardom only to find the guy who holds the hoak and wok is gone for good days before the guide publishs. High turnover of chefs equals to low consistency of food quality.

Three, settings and services suck.
This might be the rudiment for the omission of some local favorites. For instance, what adjourning to the entrance of Tin Heung House is nothing other than a public toilet. The staff of some famous noodle shops, on the other hand, excels in mimicking the pilgrim for beef brisket noodles to a visit to the most unruly mosque. More still, toilets that make insalubrious an understatement are not uncommon at all.  We all like good food and we really don't mind compromising in the quest of it, but chances are, people who keeps saying food is the only thing that matters are either someone who lives on CSSA (that is, Comprehensive Social Security Assistance) or someone who just got released from Guantanamo Bay. Or even more likely, never needs to pay.  We do deserve more when we fork out good money.

Once again, I welcome the Michelin debut because I think it's doing a good job in highlighting one of the biggest shortcomings we need to overcome: too many pour settings and services for restaurants with damn good food.  To the extent it's as much a crime as selling Patek Philippe in Wal-Mart! A little realignment won't be bad. 

Food critics en masse, don't get fooled by your own vaingloriousness. Dance to the music  -- read this, Chinese food is invented by us but it's not ours. Restaurateurs, be honest with yourself. Roll up your sleeves and work on the mistakes. Reel in one inch at a time and gradually you will make it big. Trust me, soon we'll see the coming of Michelin Osaka, Michelin Taipei, Michelin Singapore and so a myriad of it for cities in the East, it will be damn hard, if not embarassing, to pin up the "paradise of gastronomy" poster with only one three-star in your pocket by then.

Michelin HK & Macao 2009, my two cents worth... (Part I)

So far, the blather among the local press focuses on how biased is the list and how ridiculous the ranking is. All said, the first attempt of Michelin for a Hong Kong guide isn't receiving any star treatment.

On the first argument, many a Chinese food critic says the guide is undependable because the French doesn't know a thing about Chinese food.  However, for the sake of argument, I think it holds as much as appeal as one of the followings:

• I can't never date a French panty model because I am not French;
• Natalie Portman won't kowtow to my sheer hotness because she knows Jack about Chinese manhood;
• a online porn video store rejects my purchase of "Where The Boys Aren't IX" because I'm not a lesbian; and
• I can't never tell fresh spinach from rotten ones because I'm not a fucking farmer.

The ill appeal aside, I can guarantee you, as if there's nothing new under the sun, the same bunch of estimable Chinese food writers will muster their kind advices to readers like pants were on fire in a not so distant future on, guess what, French food! Tips on when and how to sample oysters from Brittany, milk-fed lamb from Pyrenees and et al...

Granted, the intrinsic values and sentiments of Chinese food could be mind-blowing, but there's no stopping for anyone to appreciate the beauty of it on face value. I also need to point out the peril to presume a Chinese must know the menu well given the vastness of China and complication of Chinese cuisine.  I mean, which Chinese we're talking here? Do you think a Sichuanese knows for sure the fine points of a good bowl of wonton noodles? Or conversely, for a Cantonese to understand something indigenous to Sichuan, and/or to some dishes from the other twenty odd provinces of China?  

The conspicuous absence of some all-time favorites and the shameful inclusion of some tourist traps also leave some critics to conclude the ratings on the list a gaffe.

Well, in the fullness of time, we'll see the guide is all about movement.  It is overall a very good list on dining ideas, even though I must confess I'm training hard to put the head of a chef from one of the two-star joints into a blender and slam his crotch with axe. Sloppy food he cooks, the dining experience is nevertheless compensated by a reasonably good settings and service.

Fact is, with all established parameters, the guide is never just about food. And what the media missing is the fact that the guide marks the very first time an international standard with well-known objectivity and discipline lands Hong Kong. Tokyo, with 10 Michelin 3-star restaurants, is the most star-studded city in the world with Paris gets stride for stride by 9 Michelin 3-star eateries.

But how many Michelin 3-star we got? Only One. For a place that takes pride in being the "gastronomy paradise," this is a real slap on the face to suggest a case otherwise, especially when you check out the population of the 3 places: Tokyo, 12 million; Paris, 11 million. Hong Kong? 7 million.

Ouch, the truth hurts.

Peasant food in China: a silent witness that says nothing's changed

"Ha, I wonder has she ever struggled against me during criticism meetings," my mom said it with a shrug after I watched her biding farewell to an acquaintance met on the street of Wuhan last November.

I was quite shocked, to be honest, by the insouciance accompanied the encounter because few words in China share the same level of grievousness with the word pi dou 批斗 ("struggle against"), back then an impalpable sucker punch devised by Mao Zedong solely to emaciate all intellectuals and elitism day to day across China.  In the name of revolutionary fervor, down was the enjoyment of the easy life, and so was the seeking of material incentives. As never seen before in the history of mankind, old customs, old habits, old culture, and old thought were eliminated with a single, immediate expurgation orchestrated by the Great Leader Chairman Mao.

To any chou lao jiu 臭老九 ("old and stinky No.9" -- being the lowest possible in the social class by the order of nine), a derogatory tag for the intellectuals, the agony and upheaval never rested in such tumultuous era. You sign endless letters of repentance just because you are born a zou zi pai 走資派 (the "fraction of bourgeois"); you got spit on the face because you are a landlord who knows no shame. The merciless fates for the creme de la creme, if yo could live it through when the curtain fell were all the same -- shang shan xia xiang 上山下鄉 ("climb the mountains and go down to the villages"). In a purge that swung a decade long, more than 17 million teenagers were sent to communal farms.  What awaited were dire days and poor food.

While this era seems singular, in fact it was not. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Look what we have now. Every kid wants to born rich as a zou zi pai. It is transpired, it's again good to be a chou lao jiu.  Shameless landlords, on the other hand, are rehabilitated to become the happiest and richest people alive in China. People leaving hometown are now moving back. The times they are a changin'.

Thirty years on, in comes the recurring love for peasant food, nong cun cai 農家菜. Nostalgia or health-consciousness, or anything else, the movement is here again.