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Posted on 05.03.06 by Meagan
The entrance to the market.
Gorgeous dried fruits, nuts and fruit juices. This stuff sure is a lot cheaper in Asia!
There is nothing like the ham in Spain…
I can never get enough of mussels!
Butifarra con Mongetes While Matt and I were in Barcelona last summer, we stayed discovered the Mercat de la Boquera right off Las Ramblas. I love outdoor food markets, so I was in heaven! One of the things I love about Asia is that the food markets are filled with such unusual foods, many of which I have tried but may never know the name of. However, it was nice to be at a European food market…everything was arranged very elegantly and everything was super clean. In the back of the market there was a very cute bar area where you could order tapas that were made right in front of you. We basically let the cooks serve us whatever they wanted, and it turned out well…everything was delicious. (Oily, but still delicious.) My favorite was the Butifarra con Mongetes, which I have since heard is a classic Catalan dish. Filed under: dinner and munchies and spain Comments: 6 Comments |
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Posted on 11.18.05 by Meagan
On the last day of my trip to Inner Monolia, my friend Audrey and I walked aroung Hohhot. Hohhot is the capital of Inner Mongolia, and it pretty much looks like lots of other Chinese cities that I have been to. The most notable difference is that things were written in both Chinese and Mongolian characters, but for the most part it was just a very Chinese city. My favorite part of our exploration of Hohhot was - surprise, surprise! - the food. Since we had only arrived in China 2 weeks before, much of the food that the street vendors were selling was new to me. My favorite thing was this nut loaf that this Uygur man was selling. Uygurs are the people that live in the far west of China, in the Xinjiang Province. They don’t look like Han Chinese people, they look more middle eastern and many have features that look Caucasian. I have been told that I look like a Uygur! The nut loaf that this Uygur man was selling was delicious. It consisted of a bunch of chopped nuts (I am not sure what kind) and seeds (I think sesame) held together by a sweet sticky substance. It wasn’t caramel, but it was just as chewy and delicious. It was soft, so that if you broke a piece off, gooey strands of the sweet mixture would pull between the chunks. The top was covered with a gorgeous array of chewy candies. This is something that my Grandma Hardy would LOVE! While I was eating it, I thought about how I wish I could send her some without it going bad or getting hard. She loves nuts and peanut brittle and chewy, sweet, rich desserts. The Uygur man was curious about Audrey and I, and was very eager to talk to us. Luckily, my friend Audrey speaks Mandarin and was able to tell him where we were from and what we were doing there. He asked if we had boyfriends and whether we wanted a Chinese boyfriend! Filed under: munchies and dessert and china Comments: 6 Comments |
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Posted on 08.13.05 by Meagan
On my trip back home the USA, I went to my old favorite frozen yogurt place, Paradise Yogurt in Mission Valley. I used to go there every day after work, and then on to the gym. After living in Asia for a year, it shocked me how huge the servings were. The frozen yogurt shown above is a small! Yes, a small. That thing is like the size of my head! Portion sizes are alot smaller in Asia. Of course, this frozen yogurt is non fat and low calorie…you don’t really find too much low fat/low calorie stuff in Asia! In Hong Kong, two ice cream places abound: Ben and Jerry’s and Haagen Daz. Haagen Daz in the hands down favorite of Hong Kong locals. I think their marketing strategy of touting their ice cream as a high class luxury really appeals to the business, money focused mind set of Hong Kongers. I personally don’t like Haagen Daz, it is too rich and it doesn’t have chunks really. It seems like most of the ice creams are smooth. I like a few chunks here and there.
Filed under: dessert and united states Comments: 3 Comments |
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Posted on 05.19.05 by Meagan
Somewhere along the line, I have developed a love of tofu in all forms: hard or soft, raw or cooked, fried or baked. I am not sure when I started to like tofu so much, since NO ONE in my family likes it, I am sure. (Actually I shouldn’t say that…I have never heard anyone speak about tofu one way or the other.) When I was little I even had bad tofu experiences. In first grade, my mom’s fiance Kevin was in medical school, and so I guess he thought he should impart his health wisdom into our everyday lives. I remember sitting at the dinner table, eating what I thought was a plate of chicken and rice. Little did I know that some of the cubes of chicken were actually pieces of tofu cleverly disguised and camouflaged to blend in with the chicken. I distinctly remember biting into a cube of tofu that I thought was chicken…it was an experience very similar to when you bite into a skittle that you think is an m&m, or into a raisin cookie that you think is chocolate chip. I was stunned and then horrified by the gushy texture of the tofu! I was in first grade and had never even heard of tofu. I remember being really mad that I had been duped, and also wondering why in God’s name someone would play a mean trick like that. Despite that bad first experience with tofu, I now love it! It may have something to do with my vegetarian friend Sarah. Sarah turned me on to delicious Morningstar vegetarian breakfast links, and all the good ways to eat tofu. I had never heard of "stinky tofu" (chou dofu) until I moved to Hong Kong. I wanted to try it the moment I heard about it, because I couldn’t imagine tofu could smell very bad. Most tofu I have had is very mild and I like the odor. I was very intrigued by the stinkiness! I hadn’t run across stinky tofu until Matt and I were in Zhaoqing. Even then, I didn’t realize that it was stinky tofu, or that it even stunk at all…I was just intriqued by the little black squares that looked like coal but were apparently edible. Matt told me after we had eaten it that it was stinky tofu, I had no idea! He couldn’t believe that I didn’t notice the smell, but I guess I just thought it was the smell of the busy street. We were in an alley after all, and it was China, and smells have been known to occur…I didn’t really connect the smell to the food. Matt has a very keen sense of smell, so he is sensitive to foods that are very ripe smelling. So what were my impressions? Well, it was deep fried and so it was very, very oily. (Like most food in China, it seems.) But, I did like the crisp outer part and how it contrasted with the soft, custard-like texture of the inner tofu. Most of all I liked the topping the hawker lady put on it: a garlic mixture and some hot sauce. Delicious! In the end, I probably wouldn’t buy the stinky tofu again…it was like eating an oil sponge. But on the other hand, if someone served it to me, I wouldn’t turn it away. My reaction isn’t as stong as this guy’s….I guess I will have to try it again sometime. Filed under: munchies and china Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 05.17.05 by Meagan
When I was in Guilin, I saw these delicious looking treats being sold by street vendors. I was very curious about what they were and how they tasted, but I never bought one. They were going to charge me 1 yuan per piece, which seemed outrageous to me! (One yuan is like 13 US cents or something….) You can see how you get into a certain mindset when travelling…or at least I do! It seemed like a lot when you consider that I bought a whole tray of steamed pork dumplings for one yuan. When I went to Zhaoqing with Matt, I was so happy to see that they were for sale there to, and the lady was going to charge me 1.5 yuan per piece…having come back to my senses since I having been in Guilin, I went ahead and bought 2. They were delicious! The white powder on the outside is a very fine, delicate powdered sugar. The dried fruit is not like the kind that you get in the US…this was so soft and gooey that it felt decadent to eat it, even though it is just a piece of fruit! The powdered sugar combined with the soft texture was a glorious combination…I loved it! When I went to Singapore with my Grandma last weekend, they were selling these fruits at a hawker stall. I was so excited about it that I bought one for her and made her try it. I tried it and it wasn’t as good as the ones I had gotten in China. The texture was wrong, it felt sort of mealy in your mouth, and the sugar seemed sweeter in comparison to the fruit. The hawker in Singapore told me that these were dried persimmons, but when I tried them in China I was sure they were apricots…so in the end I am not sure what they are! I just know that if I see them again, I will definitely buy more! Filed under: munchies and china and fruit Comments: 4 Comments |
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Posted on 05.04.05 by Meagan
Last weekend, Matt and I took a trip to Zhaoqing in China. We had lots of fun eating, but we also had a lot of food "misses", aka new foods that we tried but did not like. One of the most prominent food "misses" was this pyramid rice thing. I noticed them right away when we go to Zhaoqing, because it seems like there were piles of them in every shop and every street stall in town. They were dry, or in steamers, or in shrink wrap for long term storage. They look similar to the Nasi Lemak that we had tried in Kuala Lumpur. I love Nasi Lemak! It is basically rice, hot sauce, cried crisp shrimp, hard boiled egg and cucumber sices wrapped in a leaf. It was delicious! Because of this love of Nasi Lemak, I was very eager to try these new leaf wrapped mysteries that I was seeing throughout Zhaoqing. I bought one at lunch time at the temple on Dinghu Shan for 5 yuan. I was starving and very eager to eat…unfortunately I was in for a rude awakening! When I opened the leaf, the first think I noticed was a thick, gooey coating on the leaf and the outside of the rice. Gross! This was not a good sign. I tried some and it tasted okay. I dug a little deaper and there was a weird sort of paste inside the rice…as far as I could tell it may have had ground up corn meal and beans or something? I could not tell what it was…it was sort of thick and dry. This tasted sort of bland but pretty good. Then….I got to my first white, wriggling, slimy, GIANT piece of fat. I mean, it was a straight chunk of fat. Yuck. I can’t stand the texture of straight fat, and here was a huge glob of it. I carefully laid it to the side of my meal/experiment. I had hopes that maybe there was just one piece of fat in the rice mixture to add flavor. I pulled out more and more globs of fat…it was not good! Keep in mind, the weather was outrageously humid and we had just hiked up a mountain with hordes of Chinese tour groups. I was not in the mood to eat fat globs! So, I ditched the pyramid thing and got myself some fat in a more refined form: an ice cream cone! On the trail, I saw people eating the rice and fat straight, the whole thing! Eeeww! When we got back to town I kept seeing the pyramids for sale…I think there are different varieties, but I can’t read Chinese so I don’t know for sure. One poster showed the rice thing cut in half and served with tea. It looked like it had red bean paste inside, so maybe there are some sweet types? That could be good…I will have to try it again some day and see if I get a different kind!
Hmm…you can tell by my expression I am not loving the pyramid rice thing!
"Hey Matt, want to try some fat?" Filed under: lunch and china Comments: 4 Comments |
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Posted on 04.28.05 by Meagan
Okay, you can tell who is anxiously awaiting the cake! How embarrassing…it’s me! For Matt’s birthday cake, I wanted to do something out of the ordinary. Usually I make him a cake, but since we have a "Chinese kitchen", aka "no oven", that would be a bit more difficult here. Cakes for sale at most bakeries in Hong Kong are beautifully decorated. When I first moved here, they would taunt me from behind the display cases…now they have no power over me cause I know what they taste like. Don’t get me wrong, they are good, but not as good as they look. That is a major let down! You can’t get my expectations up and then not deliver the goods! Usually, the cakes are very mild tasting and not sweet or rich enough. Sometimes the layers of sponge cake don’t even reach the edge of where the frosting is! It is not a very "outragously delicious yet very, very naughty" experience that dessert should be. Luckily, the owner of the Stoep Restaurant (where we had Matt’s birthday dinner), suggested a Tipsy Tart. I am not sure if that is a South African dessert, or her own special creation, but I decided to trust her baking since her food is so good. It was delicious and definitely not your usual Hong Kong cake! The cake portion was a very dense and rich but not too sweet cake with nuts and brandy in it. It was delicious! The frosting was a light cream type of frosting that was not too sweet either. It needed to be mild because the cake had such a powerful, rich flavor. The frosting and cake complemented each other perfectly, but I only wish that there was more fruit layered on top. Then it would have been perfect. Also, our cake had one side that was significantly more brandy flavored than the other side. This was not satisfactory. However, overall, it was a great end to a great meal! It was a more adult type of cake, fitting for the birthday of someone who is getting dangerously close to 30. Filed under: dessert and hong kong Comments: 4 Comments |
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Posted on 04.26.05 by Meagan
For Matt’s birthday, we had a big dinner at The Stoep Restaurant on Lower Cheung Sha Beach on Lantau Island. Lower Cheung Sha Beach is one of the nicest beaches in Hong Kong, with a long stretch of clean white sand, and it is usually much less crowded than other beaches. My friend Mel took me to the Stoep for lunch one day and I was smitten…the owner is South African and the food served is "South African and Meditteranean Cuisine". It was delicious, especially the mixed grilled meat platter. Another high light was the homemade bread that they serve with a selection of dips. It was so yummy! I talked to the owner and she said it would be no problem to have a large party at the restaurant. To start the meal off, we had sangria on the beach. It was good but not the best in Hong Kong. The best is at the Black Sheep Restaurant in Shek O. We had big platters of home made bread with several dips: hummus, pesto, olive tapenade, a spicy bell pepper dip and tsatsiki sauce. Then we had huge Greak salads (my favorite!) with loads of feta cheese, tomatoes and olives. As a surprise for Matt, I decided to have a whole lamb on rotisserie as the highlight of the meal. He loves lamb, I think because of all of his years doing 4-H! Lamb is sort of rare in Hong Kong so I thought it would be a nice birthday treat. You can see from the picture abouve that the lamb was huge! We had 23 people eating with us though and we made quick work of it! The meat was very tender and succulent. Perfect, even for me and I am not the hugest fan of lamb. The waitress packed up the leftover lamb for me, but when I got home and unwrapped it, there was nothing but bones and weird, knobby joint pieces! I was so proud of myself though, cause I used the bones to make a lamb soup with eggplant and green beans and tomatoes. I served it with couscous and thick-crusted bread rolls and it was pretty good, if I do say so myself! Aside from the lamb, there were piles of barbecued chicken and some grilled vegetables. Another interesting dish was a rice pilaf-type thing with rice, eggplant and tomato. It was spiced with nutmeg and was very interesting and yummy. I would like to learn to make that at home because it seemed simple yet exciting. I think Matt’s birthday dinner was a success…everyne seemed to have a good time. The food was good, but I have to say that the food I ate for lunch there was better…is it because when you feed large groups of people the food quality goes down because certain things are made ahead of time? I am not sure. Or maybe because I ordered certain things I like at lunch, like clams and linguisa and sausage, that don’t usually appeal to large groups so were left off the dinner menu? Maybe. The setting was amazing though, over looking the beach, and the atmosphere was very "un-Hong Kong" so I will definitely go back again. It is a short journey to get there from Hong Kong but it feels like you are in a vacation destination. Filed under: dinner and hong kong Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 04.15.05 by Meagan
While we were in Malaysia, Matt and I went to the Batu Caves, which houses a Hindu temple. The caves are a sacred location for Indians and many make pilgrimages to the caves. At the base of the entrance to the caves there is a market with Indian food, clothes and restaurants to service the many visitors that come through. We stopped at one Indian place for lunch and I ordered the "Veggie Meal". I had no idea what it would consist of but I figured nothing could go too wrong if it had no meat! I was delighted when they came to my table and rolled out a giant banana leaf! (Or is that a palm frond…I am not sure.) How festive it was! Then a man came by with a large bucket full of rice and he put a scoop of it on my leaf "placemat". Then other men came around to give me scoops from their buckets, and gradually a full meal was in front of me. I loved it because it was perfectly portioned for one person…a little bit of each item so that you could have several different curries, veggies, and bread. I was also served a bowl of yellow dahl and some little bowls of various sauces. I loved it! I love any meal that lets me try a little bit of a whole bunch of different things. Filed under: lunch and malaysia Comments: 3 Comments |
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Posted on 04.14.05 by Meagan
For whatever reason, when Matt told me that there was a Beard Papa store in the Mong Kok MTR station, I had to try their cream puffs! I had heard from several sources that I would love them because the cream filling is more like pudding and less like cream, and that the outer "puff" portion was more crispy than a traditional cream puff. So, I made the trek to Mong Kok to give it a try…and I wasn’t all that jazzed about them. Don’t get me wrong, it was good…but maybe cream puffs just aren’t my thing. Sort of like how I hate cheesecake. It’s the texture. I just can’t do it. The cream portion of the Beard Papa was better than other cream puffs I had tried but the "puff" portion was not crispy enough for my liking. However, in the name of research, I vow to sample one of the Beard Papa "Cream Horns", which allegedly have a different textured "puff" portion. Oh, and another thing about the cream horns…they may not be very appetizing for those whoe have seen the movie "Van Wilder." Filed under: munchies and dessert and hong kong Comments: 6 Comments |
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