Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Ginger Milk!!!

Long Break...

Long break since my last post. So many things have happened: the biggest event being traveling to Vancouver, Toronto, visiting family at SF and Mike's family at St Louis... Such a refreshing and awesome trip! Will post pictures of the trip later.



But First...

Topic of this post though is not about the trip (which can wait). What can't wait is my excitment from my "virgin" attempt at making Ginger Milk (姜汁撞奶) !! Everybody knows how much I love dessert. ^_^ Especially steamed milk, steamed egg, and sweet tofu type of Chinese desserts.


There is a really yummy traditional Chinese dessert place near my apartment. I visit them regularly each week to satisfy my sweet tooth. One of my favorite from that place is their hot ginger milk dessert. I accidentally found a recipe, and it looks simple enough with just 3 straight-forward ingredients: ginger, milk and sugar. Surprisingly, it tastes as good as the dessert house!! ^__________^ hohohohoho~


DSC_6593_1.jpg

It tastes as smooth and yummy as it looks ;) And the best thing is - it's cheap and easy to make!!!



DSC_6595_1.jpg

Looks like I am going to stock up on some milk in my fridge from now on!! hahaha~ ;)




Published via Photo Goodness

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Din Tai Fung @ Tsim Sha Tsui

After being trapped at home for almost 2 whole weeks, my hand's burned injury is finally approaching a "stable recovery" state. The outer burned skin (now blacken) was slowly peeling off, while the new inner skin (very red and sensitive) is glowing, slowly and "itchily".


Though still far from 100% healed, I couldn't wait to break out from my recovery "cage" and went to a restaurant that Mike and I have meant to try for a long time, the recently-opened Din Tai Fung at Tsim Sha Tsui.



New Restaurant, Yay!!


Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐) is a must-visit restaurant in Taipei, famous for its "little dragon buns" (Shanghai style steamed buns with meat fillings). They have chains in lots of countries and cities (unfortunately not in SF). They just recently opened their first one in Hong Kong.



DSC_4845.JPG

Mike LOVES the Taipei main branch of this restaurant. We visited twice in our last very short three-days Taipei trip. He was willing to give up an opportunity to try other yummy restaurants just for this, so you know....



DSC_4840.JPG

Not to mention that he alone ate 15+ steamed buns in our second visit....




Other Yummy Food


Besides steamed buns, we also tried a bunch of things that we didn't try last time when were in its Taipei branch.


DSC_4841.jpg

Such as this tofu veggie vermicelli soup.



DSC_4842.jpg

"Dan Dan Noodles" with peanut sauce.



DSC_4843.jpg

It always made me soooooo happy to see all the yummy-looking, freshly made food steaming all at once in front of me on the table !!



The Hungry Couple


DSC_4846.jpg

"Itatakimasu!!!"


Yup... and that would be my "bundled-up" injured hand that you saw from the picture.


Luckily my recovery was finally at a state where I could hold my own chopsticks, otherwise I'd need to use my "un-chopstick-trained" left hand and I'm sure there would be lots of food dropping and sauce splashing, or Mike would have to feed me very "lovingly".... haha... ^_~


DSC_4847.jpg

See how relieved (or .... cynical?) he was knowing that he didn't need to hand-feed me!!



DSC_4839.jpg

The steamed buns were juicy and fresh, but just.... hmm.... didn't seem to be as yummy as the ones in Taipei.


Also, they cut the number of buns served in each order. In Taipei, you get 10 for each order, but it's only 6 here. The missing 4 made this dish look less "fulfilling"....



DSC_4849.jpg

Regardless of the slight decrease in quality, I was just too happy to be out and enjoying delicious food, after almost two weeks of "cage-life"!!! =D (I know I know... it's for the sake of my own hand's recovery, but still...... I was almost bored out of my mind starring at my poor blistered hand with pain for soooooooo long!!)



More, please!!


Apparently we still had room for more after what we ordered. I told Mike to "go totally out" and ordered whatever he wanted! And guess what....


DSC_4850.JPG

Yup, he has been having the Japanese-style fried pork cutlet craving for awhile now, and here we are! Taiwanese fried rice with pork cutlet it was!!



DSC_4853.jpg

Close up!


And it was absolutely delightful! Easiest the most delicious dish of the night!



DSC_4854.jpg

I would totally come back to this restaurant just for this dish! haha....


Even for Mike, who is a pseudo-vegetarian (i.e., he likes to pretend to be a vegetarian most of the time, except when he goes eat burgers and sushi), helped me clean the entire plate (not including the 3 dishes that we finished prior to this one).



DSC_4858.jpg

By the time we left, there were already giant queues outside. We were glad that we got in early to avoid the busy dinner crowd on a Saturday night!! =D



Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Mike's Mapo Tofu

As everybody knows (well... everybody who knows me will know), Mike has talent cooking and I have talent eating. (well... plus that I cook slow and don't cook as well as he does). And and and... I am LUCKY!!! hahaha~

So... I get to cross my arms and legs every night to wait for hot, fresh, home-cooked meals cooked by my "Little Chef"!! hehehe~ =D


And he cooked something really yummy last night ^_^ Well... His cooking is usually yummy, but last night was extraordinary!!! (hahaha, yea, have to give compliments from time to time to keep the little chef happy and "keep him in the kitchen"!!! ) =p



Anyways, let me introduce to you - Mike's newest recipe -


Very Authentic Sichuan-Style Mapo Tofu

DSC_3614.JPG

It was DELICIOUS!!!! Spicy and savory and just a hint of sweetness all mixed together!!!



DSC_3616.JPG

I couldn't stop myself and ate 3 full bowls of rice!! ^_^


DSC_3619.JPG

I tried cooking this before and it usually ended up being.... Mapo Tofu PASTE instead of these beautifully shaped tofu cube!!


HOW DID HE DO IT?!?!!!!!!!!!!!! >.< What is the SECRET?!!!


(My curiosity did suffer a bit, but my tummy was totally satisfied!!! I'd say it's a very GREAT deal overall !!!! hahaha~)


Sunday, January 06, 2008

Taipei Trip Day 4 - End of a spectacular journey

Time flies by the fastest when one is happy, which is exactly how I'd describe our Taipei trip. Today was already the last day of our trip. We were taking the flight at 4pm back to Hong Kong. That means we pretty much had only half a day before we had to head to the airport (which took a bit over an hour bus ride to get to). We treasured our remaining limited time to -- EAT !!! =)


More Yummy Yummy Food


One of my favorite Taiwanese food was this pepper pork buns.


There was always a long line (sometimes more than one) at this apparently very famous corner shop, which specializes in making them, across from our hotel.


They made every single one of their pepper buns in front of their customers. Everything was meticulously clean, from the ingredients like the meat, the green onion, the dough, down to the tools like the counter-top, the chopsticks and even people's hands.


They sprinkled white sesame on top of the buns before they were put in the oven. Watching them make the buns is like an art. They were incredibly skillful and efficient.


This is the special oven used to bake the yummy pepper pork buns. The buns were stuck on the side of this deep, cylindrical oven. The shape and the way to arrange the buns supposedly give the buns optimal heat, so the buns will be crispy in the outside and the meat inside fully cooked with all the juice preserved. I've never seen an over like this before, so it's really eye-opening for me.


After about 15 minutes, the buns were done and ready to be sold. Everyone swallowed much saliva into his throat when the oven cover was opened, because it smelled SOOOOO GOOD !!!!!


Yay!! Happy gal got two fresh, juicy pepper pork buns!!


Crispy outside, juicy inside!! Right amount of pork and green onion, well flavored with pepper! Isn't it beautiful??!?! (It made me want to cry - such perfect food, such perfect art!!)


I can't wait anymore!!!! Itatakimasu!! (Let's eat in Japanese)


It's not until we inhaled the buns that we realized we needed something to drink, haha... Now you know how yummy and tempting the buns really were~ While queuing up for our drinks, our minds were already on what's next to eat!!


While searching for the next target for our hungry stomachs, we ran into this gigantic queue... What were they queuing for...???? Whatever it was, it must be GOOOOOOOD!!!


Answer was - Japanese Curry!!!


Though Mike and I could make pretty good Japanese curry at home, we trusted the locals. Judging from its popular demand, it must taste REALLY GOOD! So we became part of the gigantic queue without any hesitation.


And ooooohhhhooooo, it WAS indeed delicious!!! Almost comparable to our favorite Japanese curry shop in Tokyo, Little Spoon!! (We missed that restaurant a ton!!)


Mitsukoshi Food Mall

We somehow wandered into the basement food mall in the Mitsukoshi shopping center. Like its counterpart in Japan, they had tons of yummy-looking food there.


Fried rice that looked as good as its taste (or even better?)


Colorful Japanese rice-cake dessert.


Gigantic turnip cake?


And the popular Yakitori and Okunomiyaki - Japanese BBQ and pancake.


Numerous small food stalls selling different types of snacks in the food mall.


As expected, the sitting area was so crowded with people, with all kinds of yummy-looking, interesting food.


Last glimpse of the city

Finishing our long, enjoyable food round, it's time for us to get ready and say goodbye to this wonderful city! Taking my last chance to appreciate the city view....


The surroundings around Taipei Main MRT station. Heavy human and car traffic most of the time.


We passed by this small cafe and saw a guy working on his hardware class project through the cafe glass window. Interesting...


Sad moments at the Airport


We were sad that we were leaving...


I'll really miss this wonderful few days and Taipei!! Hopefully we'll come here again soon!!


Fun moments at the Airport


Mike had this huge, really heavy backpack containing all our clothes and laptop gears. I asked to swap with him to lessen his burden. He laughed.... (Help.... my shoulder!!!)


Why do Taiwanese people need a Hello Kitty Land in their airport??!?! Scratching my head....


Funny robot and goofy girl~


On the Plane


We saw this really pretty sea of colorful clouds. I couldn't help but keep snapping pictures. Somehow I was able to captured the beauty through the no-so-clean plane window though! =)



With that spectacular skyline view, our wonderful Taipei journey came to an end!!

We love Taipei!!! ^_________^