Hong Kong stories: Foie Gras sushi

Wow... people always told me how food in Hong Kong was cheap and tasty, but I was still truly surprised by the cheapness and the tastiness. Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to blog everyday, but to briefly mention the gastronomic highlights of the past few days:

Wonton soup noodles and lemon tea for... $3 AUD...!!! The wontons actually taste like wontons as well. I think I will really struggle to fill my stomach for 3 AUD in Australia. I mean a sandwich is like... 3.50 at least?

Had 'oil sticks' the other day for breakfast as well. Needless to say, it was dirt cheap, and extremely fatty. For those who don't know, 'oil sticks' are deep fried strips of flour.

Here are some pictures from the French-Vietnamese restaurant we went to. The presentation was excellent. The taste wasn't spectacular, but it was tasty nonetheless. My favourite dish was probably the lobster soup:

Their 'handmade' fish sauce and Luoc Mam (did I spell that right?) were impressive too. Unknowingly, my relatives ordered a kiwifruit salad, but I managed to enjoy the rest of that salad without killing myself so that was good :D.

The culinary highlight so far has definitely been the day my cousin Suet and her friend Ming took us out to Causeway Bay. For dinner we went to this Japanese restaurant where we had an assortment of dishes.
We had a hotpot:

Scallops:

Kimchi fried rice:








Japanese Pizza:

Soft Shell Crab Salad:

Despite the tasty dinner we had, it was unfortunately not as spectacular as the experience we had at lunch. Suet and Ming took us to this sushi bar next to the World Trade Centre, where reputedly people have to line up for hours to get a seat. Fortunately, we managed to get in fairly quickly (about 1.5 hours). The range of sushi on offer simply blew my mind away. I think the offer about 6 to 7 times more variety of sushi dishes than your typical sushi bar in Australia. Here are some dishes we had:

One of our favourite dishes was the grilled salmon sushi. The chef slaps a piece of salmon fillet on a rice ball, and then sears the top of the fish with a blowtorch, to amazing effect. And at 9 HKD (less than 1.5 AUD) for 2 of these sushis, it's an absolute bargain! It's a great time to be Australian :D

However, our favourite dish in our time in HK so far is the Foie Gras Sushi. I've never had foie gras (goose liver) before, and I don't really know how to describe the taste, but I think the best word is luxurious. It just melts in your mouth *drools*! My brother Derek said this after leaving the sushi bar, which I think sums up the foie gras suhi pretty well: "We should have taken the foie gras off the sushi, eat the rice, and then eat the foie gras, then drink or eat nothing for the rest of the day so that the taste of the foie gras is retained". For someone who can't tell between salty and sweet, I think that says a lot :D. Can't wait to go back! Stay in tuned for food shopping experiences in HK.

2 minute noodles of another kind

I've been making fresh pasta lately. Although both dried pasta and fresh pasta both have their merits (fresh pasta aka egg pasta is just a different type of pasta to dried pasta, as opposed to dried being unfresh), there's something wonderfully warm and wholesome about fresh pasta. Or maybe it's just that I haven't made fresh pasta for a long time.

Anyway, last night I cooked a parmesan sauce pasta for lunch today:

Freshly grated parmesan (40 g) was added to melted butter (50 g) in a saucepan, then heated and stirred for 5 minutes. The freshly cooked pasta was drained, to which double cream (4 tablespoons) and freshly grated parmesan (40 g) was combined in a fry pan over low heat. The butter and cheese mixture was added and combined with the pasta, then served with cracked pepper in a pure white dish.

It only took one bite to reaffirm my decision to never have pasta from a restaurant, because I can make it for so much less money and better at home.

For dinner, I tried a tomato based sauce. Canned roma tomatoes (400 g, along with the juices), salt (half teaspoon), sugar (half teaspoon) and garlic (3 cloves, crushed) were added to a saucepan and heated on a very low heat, with lid covered, but without stirring, for 40 minutes. The tomatoes were mushed, then cooked for a further 20 minutes. The sauce was allowed to cool, followed by addition of extra virgin olive oil (4 tablespoons).

The silver spoon also says to add basil, but I didn't have any. It sounds so simple but it's an absolute classic sauce. You can taste the flavours of each ingredient because of its simplicity, and when served with fresh pasta, it also allows the flavours of the noodles to speak for itself. The addition of olive oil at the end is somewhat analogous to the addition of sesame oil at the end of asian dishes. The combination of the sweetness of the tomatoes, boldness of the garlic, and the fragrance of the olive oil is just simply superb. The addition of basil to add that extra aroma would have been delightful. Don't overlook this simple sauce!

So, to explain the meaning of the title: the pasta I made were very thin, very delicate and light, and takes literally 2 minutes to cook. Since you can store fresh pasta in the freezer, and this tomato sauce in the fridge too, this could be an ideal healthy substitute for 2 minute noodles!

Red wine risotto with venison sausages

Having finished my thesis (YAY!) I decided to treat myself with some nice food because for the last week and a bit I've been eating only to keep myself from starving. Went to the german butcher near the Mater Hospital to get some handmade sausages. I decided to make a risotto to go with the venison sausages I got. 'The Silver Spoon' has a recipe for a sausage risotto, but that requires breaking up the sausage and cooking it with the rice. Since I wanted to taste the sausages by themselves, I decided to just make a red wine risotto instead.

I also realised that I had no butter, so I had to use olive oil instead, which probably takes away from the flavour of the risotto. After gently frying some a small onion in olive oil, I added about a cup of Arborio rice. Then, after the rice had been coated with oil (or butter if I had butter), half a cup of red wine was added (cheapo clear skin red wine... sigh), allowing it to evaporate. Over the next 20 minutes, ladles of boiling beef stock (750mL) was added one at a time into the rice, stirring and allowing it to absorb the stock. Meanwhile, the venison sausages were pan fried. The oil from the sausages was added to the rice to allow it to absorb the venison flavour.

I've never been too fond of how risotto looks... they look pretty sloppy and so on, but fortunately I'm not the only one who thinks that. Nonetheless, I'll add my photo anyway. The sausages were slightly dry from the cooking (I shouldn't remove ALL the oil next time), but the risotto was pretty good considering it was the first time I made risotto. The funny thing is, I have never cooked rice before, because I always just stick it in the rice cooker! Anyway, these venison sausages are simply superb and you'll do well to get your hands on some from that butcher. Such strong meaty flavour rounded off with an equally well rounded selection of spices and herbs. As it turns out, the owner is retiring soon, so better get in quick!

Another Pizza

Dinner with Pastor Yip turned out great :D Here's one of the pizzas I made (salmon and parsley):

Sunday lunch adventures: Sushi at Oishii

Oishii is probably one of the better japanese eateries I've been to. Interestingly, it's owned by a malaysian (or was he indonesian?), but then again, I haven't been to many sushi places owned by japanese (they're always taiwanese).

My favourite dishes at Oishii are probably the tempura soft shell crabs (and the sushi variant: the 'spider' roll), and just your good old sashimi. The octopus balls were also delectable, and reminds me of that cartoon I used to watch in HK where this little kid magician really really loves the squid balls from the street vendor (incidentally I also love squid balls :D).

The service at Oishii is not that great though. Then again, it's probably due to the fact that it's not really run by japanese, who I've found to be quite hospitable and friendly people. If it wasn't for the food there, I would not go simply because the service and the manners aren't that great. The overall cleanliness is pretty good though, which is not something you'd expect when you think of a place with bad table service. The fact that you can see right into the kitchen (and watch them prepare your dishes) shows that they are very clean (and I guess they'd have to be with an open kitchen like that).

Sunday lunch adventures: Korean BBQ

One of the highlights of my week is sunday lunch with my church folks. It's a time when I get to spend time with them, and we almost always have a great time. But knowing me, it's also a time to tuck in to some good food (although my willingness to depart with double digit amounts of $ isn't always matched by others hehe).

One day we went to Korean BBQ (Seoul BBQ next to Altandi Station if you're interested). We were tossing up between going to Seoul BBQ or the new one near pinelands, but after our meal at Seoul, someone (who has been to both) said that they liked Seoul better, and it was also cheaper, so that was good.

Since we had a group of 14 people or so people, we needed a few tables. My table went for chilli pork belly, marinated beef and some other sort of beef. It was quite excellent. The other table had the $70 meat plate and it certainly looked a better deal than ours. Part of the fun of korean BBQ is that you cook it yourself, and that added quite a lot to the experience, although towards the end the novelty sort of died out and I just wished someone would cook it for me. The other table also gave us some of their meat, for example, their Waygu beef, which was so exquisite! I know what I'm getting next time!

Of course, you can't go to a korean restaurant without kimchi, and we probably had 15 or so different kimchi dishes. Fortunately for me, no one else wanted any so I pretty much ate all of it. My favourite is still the pickled chilli cabbages. I didn't know that pan fried spam ham with egg wash was also a kimchi (or is it?)!

I was too busy eating to take many photos, but here are some.

(Ok, blogger is having some trouble atm, I will upload later)

Pastor is coming over for dinner!

Apparently we're inviting our new chinese pastor for dinner. Parents want me to make pizzas (yay!), and so this thursday is the day. I'm more surprised that we're actually having guests over, let alone a pastor (!). I don't even remember the last time my parents over for dinner. Might take a day off on thursday to cook :D

The plan is apparently to make four pizzas (scallops, salmon, mushroom, and semi sundried tomatoes with cheese), and dumplings. Dessert is tiramisu. I've done pizzas and tiramisu half a dozen times now, so personally I'm a bit bored of it, but I guess my parents aren't, and hopefully our pastor will like it. Just like a musician needs an audience, a cook needs... people to eat!