Cha Xiu Bao

Guo Li Zhuang (鍋裡壯) is a restaurant for suckas, and I wonder why

All-dick-you-can-eat at Guolizhuang, Beijing.

The weirdest dick I've ever tried is that of snake (in a snake-all-the-way banquet somewhere in Dongguan) -- if salamander's isn't. Both very ill-endowed, by the way. [picture courtesy of The Times]

Wampee 黃皮

Sharing below is a piece about wampee, a fruit indigenous to the Canton region. I dug it up from the food columns I once farmed in a local papers called Ming Pao. It was the debut from a series of Chinese food article that appears on the lifestyle section of the papers every Sunday, dating almost 2 years ago.

Unfortunately this part-time food columnist career of mine didn't last long. For one it's fairly draining to write on the upwards of 2,000 words every week outside a full-time job (umh, and keeping up this blog too) -- for the 2 months I wrote, I sleep less than 4 hours a day, at times 3 only -- I breathed and walked thinking about the deadline and the proses of my own work. More importantly, the editor was really getting on my nerves for various reasons that I'm too gentleman to mention here, or anywhere. So our marriage ended right after I did the interview with Nigella Lawson the kitchen diva.

Still, it's a very rewarding ride. It doesn't matter I didn't charge a single penny for the columns all way through because for me it's about the experience and knowing the very fact that I can impart wisdom, I can pass on the torch of knowledge about Chinese food to someone who doesn't know. Reading my own writings, in a larger than life full page on the newspapers no less, just gives me a feeling of power transfusion because I know I'm sharing the glories of Chinese food culture that I'm so proud of.

All the articles are published under the pen name 米傲(Mei O), which literally means "the pride of rice". Please enjoy if you can read Chinese.

Double-header I for 10/1: First Banquet of State Inauguration

Tomorrow is the day we celebrate the founding of the People's Republic of China. The nationhood of our country was established on the 1st of October 58 years ago with the proclamation made by Mao Zedong at Tiananmen Square. As far as I know, two hours after the ceremonial military parade and the five-star national flag be raised, the legendary "First Banquet of State Inauguration" 開國第一宴 was held at the hall of then state-owned Beijing Hotel. The scrumptious cuisine from the Huiyang regions proved to be an unforgettable indulgence for all guests of the banquet.

You'd easily understand why Huiyang cuisine was chosen over all other styles China has to offer by just skimming through the Banquet Honglou Meng pictorial showing below. I don't know, it just gives me the impression that these cooks from Huiyang can spruce up even the simplest or the direst peasant food into an object d'art with their exquisite craftsmanship.

Poached dried tofu 'si' 水煮干絲

I could use words like juliennes, slivers, splinters, shreds or even strings to describe the threads cut finely for the tofu dish in the collage above but I resisted after deliberation, for I never believed any of them could quite make the case as justly as the the Chinese word si '絲' in showing the immaculate slenderness to readers of the west. Lost in translation is inevitable and thus, it is sometimes better to keep the term as it is when it is advantageous to do so as does to leave it to the faculty of translation when it's the easy way to get the message across in an adequate capacity.

China's most famous: Yangzhou fried rice

Unmistakably and ubiquitously, Yangzhou chaofan, or Yangzhou fried rice is the hardest to miss dish at its hometown for the host to end a feast with. Yet, for every visitor, this Hobson's choice is like the ultimate test of will to get through an ever-enduring bout of banquet. Eight appetizers were downed without batting an eyelash. Likewise, 8 or even 9 mains are downed again -- breaking some sweats along the way but still nothing you can't handle -- "I've been around, you know," you said to yourself.

But just when you start to think you've displayed a marvelous job of courtesy to the host by swilling all he has to offer mirror-clean, your host presents you what he's been hiding all along: a plate of chaofan enough for a garrison en masse. It's mauvais quart d'heure all over. Get over this, dear guest! Eat it until your eye roll back to your head.

We eat to full our stomach. But the most fulfilling article on the table is the least preferred these days. Here's an irony.

One of China's most famous exports, a rice of a dish (or is it vice versa?) that is so repeated-to-death in Chinese restaurants all over the world actually belongs to a place in China no one knows anything about.Who cares about where the devil is the fat of the land named Yangzhou? It piteously occupies only 4 pages in a brick-thick guidebook of China written in English. Here's another irony.

As much as its people would like to have you believe, Yangzhou isn't the place where the Yangzhou chaofan we're eating now came from. Just like any authentic Hainan chicken rice isn't indigenous to Hainan, the simple truth is that Yangzhou fried rice was born in Hong Kong at the turn of last century by some cooks from Yangzhou to please a body of glided youth living in sybaritic style. Before its "yi jin huan xiang" (衣錦還鄉, a Chinese idiom literally means "to return to one's hometown in bling-bling"/a most glorious homecoming), it was lyrically and figuratively called gold and silver fried rice --  a cheap and easy comfort food to feed and fuel the commoners. The sea cucumber, green peas, shallots and chopped ham (in Hong Kong we use chopped cha xiu instead) are just some frivolous smearing to gussy up what otherwise a downright meek recipe: leftover rice fried with eggs. It was the cook who's from Yangzhou, not the recipe.

Affluent dandies toyed by cooks with leftovers and the world follows. Here's yet another irony.

But you know what the biggest irony is? The bureaucrats of Yangzhou Province actually went a great deal of length two years ago to obtain a patent for their Yangzhou chaofan. They were trying to gazette the recipe of Yangzhou chaofan and start asking royalty from every bowl of Yangzhou chaofan fried around the world. Patenting and trying to get rich with something not belong to yourself. This is not just irony. This is classic at its purest.

Surprise by all this? Here's some more malarkey about names and places I find not so foolish: Fujian fried rice isn't came from Fujian; neither is "Singchau" fried noodles (星洲炒米) from Singapore; nor Sai fried rice (西炒飯) from the Occident. Cooks of Hong Kong again, and again, get credit for them all. 

Yangzhou Eats: Chaxiubao Dreaming Wuding Baozi

昔者叉燒梦为五丁，栩栩然五丁也，自喻适志与！不知叉也。俄然觉，则蘧蘧然叉也。不知叉之梦为丁与，丁之梦为叉与？叉与丁，则必有分矣。此之谓物化。

~叉燒梦丁 

Once Chaxiu Bao dreamt he was a wuding baozi, a wuding baozi fluttering around, enjoying himself! He didn't know he was Chaxiu Bao.       

Suddenly he awoke and there he was, solid and veritably Chaxiu Bao. But he didn't know if he was Chaxiu Bao who had dreamt he was a wuding baozi, or a wuding baozi dreaming he was Chaxiu Bao. Between Chaxiu Bao and a wuding baozi there must be some distinction. This is called the transformation of things.

~An adaptation of "Zhuang Zhou Mengdie"

 

Legend has it that wuding baozi was invented during one of the many Jiangnan visits by the Qianlong Emperor. When asked what he wanted for breakfast, the always indulged emperor had this to say: "I want my breakfast nutritious but not too supplemental; delicious but not too luscious; juicy and flavorful but not too cloying; crackling but not too rigid; and tender but not too mushy."(滋养而不过补，美味而不过鲜，油香而不过腻，松脆而不过硬，细嫩而不过软。)

Since none of the kitchen staff was a rejectedmember of Mensa like I was, they were all between the deep sink and a hot wok to this free as wind request from the emperor. Finally, a baker from Yangzhou surnamed Ding, who was well reputed for having a bao in his bonnet, came to the rescue by chopping sea cucumber (nutritious), chicken (delicious), pork (juicy and flavorful), bamboo shoots (crackling) and shrimp (tender) into tiny dices -- so nothing would be excessive -- and made buns with these ingredients. The uncompromising king tasted the newly invented bun and was totally fascinated by the great taste of it. In due time, the recipe of wuding baozi spread outwards from the palace of the son of Heaven and soon thereafter, it became one of the best known baozi in the whole Jiangnan area.

 

What the World Eats vs. What My Family Eats

What a family in Beijing eats according to the book "Hungry Planet". (via Q's, thanks for sharing!)

(To be honest, I'm very uncomfortable with the junk lies on the coffee table -- not trying to be fussy but I think parents anywhere in China could do much better than that, no matter how much the spending is!)

A feast at my great uncle's in Yangzhou, all in all for merely RMB400.

Talking Carp

Carp, pronouced li in Mandarin, is the fish for China. As Mencius once said: "I like fish but I also like bear's paw," the fish here was referring to the carp. Such a delicacy was carp that Confucius even went so far to name his only son Li (孔鯉) simply because the Duke of Lu gave him a carp as gift when the baby was born (okay, can someone please make me name my kid FerrariBeluga Caviar?).

Hangzhou Eats: Kuiyuanguan Noodle Shop

I went inside, sat down, and rested my stuff. "Noodles, quickly, host," I called.

My first bowl came. It was the fried eels and shrimps noodles. Signature noodles of my host.

 

The eels are the freshest pick from the market, not too young nor too old. The bowl exhuded a compelling aroma one could smell feet away, a result of the famous "three-oils" recipe devised by the restaurant.  First, shelled shrimps are lightly and quickly fried in vegetable oil; next, the eels are stir-fried with lard and finally, the noodles are briefly boiled with sesame oil, the magical bond between different oil and ingredients derived from centuries of  tried and true wisdom. The shrimps were crunchy, the eels crisped to perfection.  And the noodles... what good is a bowl of noodles if the noodles themselves are not good? The very personafication of al dente. No. Forget about al dente, who am I kidding?! That's wimpy. These noodles ARE the Viagra of pasta, each toothsome length; every bite of it a raging potent shot straight at my nervous system. It powered me into the mightiest eating machine the world has ever created... 

One downed. 

My second bowl is bianerchuen (片兒川), a variety of noodles you can only find in Hangzhou, with a name only the Hangzhou locals can understand. "Hmmh, you haven't been to Hangzhou if you haven't eaten bianerchuen." Hosts in Hangzhou like to address their guests with this old saying when these noodles show up. The noodles were same as good as the last but the toppings are different - pork, bamboo shoots and preserved cabbage are the definitive ingredients for a bowl of bianerchuen. The pork was a bit too lean for my liking but all tasty still. The crunchiness of the bamboo shoots was a perfect contrast to the chewiness of the pork while the preserved cabbage added a brittle zest to the finish.

Second downed.

The third one looked idyllic at first: "come on, pork liver, just?!" But to me this is the holy grail of good noodles. Nothing extravagant needed. Lets be frank for a moment: good noodles aren't about keeping up with the Joneses. Say, a bowl of wonton noodles, beef pho or dandan mian. It's about simple, fresh ingredients with nicely-cooked noodles to give sheer gratification at a very reasonable price.

Downed the third, and my last. The total sums up at RMB 60 odds. Finally, I walked away with a hysterical giggle... 

 

Shaoxing Eats: Xian Heng Tavern

I read in somewhere recently there's someone in Taiwan calling his drugstore "震旦藥房 (Zhen Dan Drugstore). Quite a colorful, striking name I would say and I do hope it sells what it says: vibrating balls. For "震旦" zhen dan is a slang in Cantonese suggesting indubitably that, zhen for vibration and dan for balls. I picture this as tasteful as a father naming his newly born daughter Chasey, Jenna, Raylene, or, much worse, Paris...