Oishii at Chestnut Hill

Oishii at Chestnut Hill is probably the most authentic and best sushi bar in Boston area. There is only 1 L-shape sushi bar and a small round table. It was a Thursday night and three sushi chefs and 3 waitresses served about 15 people at a time.

The sushi was very good, but it was the toro tatar and the grilled yellowtail that were most impressive. I have never had grilled fish with skin so crispy and flavored and meat so soft and juicy.

March 5, 2009. Oishii sushi bar at Chestnut Hill
Taken by Rolleiflex 3.5 M-X (1951) and Agfa APX400. Developed using Arista D-76, 15 min at 20degC.

Tai Pei

I use to keep a few frozen meals at work for dinner when I need to stay late. I got a couple of these frozen food from Market Basket with 2 for $4. Fried rice with chicken for one and shrimp for the other. I had the chicken tonight, and it turns out surprisingly good for frozen food. And it is authentic Chinese.

Local food in HK - 2

Noodles, Causeway Bay

Little Fat Lamb Hotpot, Mongkok

A stall for preserved fruits, Shatin

Stuffed fishie pancakes, Causeway Bay

Local food in HK - 1

Foreground: spare ribs; Background: frogs and mushroom. Four Season Hotpot Rice. Arthur St., Yau Ma Tei

Fried oysters with duck eggs, Four Season Hotpot Rice

Chicken Hotpot, Taiwai

Coffee and toast, Mei Do Cafe, Temple St.

蔡瀾知己會

Just read in a magazine about this 蔡瀾知己會 (www.bobofanclub.com). It is all about 蔡瀾 and his recommended restaurants in Hong Kong. It also has some of his articles.

The Tourism Association of Hong Kong had put up a star rating system for restaurants a few years back, but it never takes off. No one knows the criteria of the rating, and I don't even know whether it is a 3-star or 5-star system. With the long track record of food commentator, everyone know 蔡瀾's criteria of recommendation: authentic and made with heart. No much, no less. And those are the only ingredients of making a good food. Most of the recommended restaurants are just small family businesses: husband and wife, brothers and sisters operating small noodle shops.

Most importantly, everyone can access the list online. It is going to be a new benchmark for quality restaurants in Hong Kong.

Wild Mushrooms

I strolled around outside our work place this morning while my experiment was running. I saw a guy picking wild mushrooms on the pitch outside the greenhouse. It was only a small pitch with 5 big tall trees. He told me that there were plenty of edible mushrooms, along with a few poisonous. He showed me around and told me which were which. I had a bite of his picks, and then he picked a few more for me. I asked him how to cook them, and he said just sliced them and cooked them with butter and garlic. So tonight I bought some steaks and had wild mushrooms as sides. Sophie was not so confident with the mushrooms, but she ate as much as I did.
This is where we picked mushrooms. The thing in the middle of the pitch is a big steel bird, one of the newest addition to our collection of artworks. The car next to the pitch is my GTI.

Seafood at home

We picked up some seafood from a seafood wholesaler at Gloucester this morning. It was damn cheap there. Oysters, not big, were $0.75 each, scallops for $1.2 each, all sashimi grade. There were a few kinds of scallops and the guy showed me the one tasted best when eaten raw. They really did. They were also so big that I could cook the gonads and the ligaments separately in sake for appetizers. They tasted terrific.

We've got a couple dozen of cherrystones. I originally planned to open them and serve them with half-shells, but turned out a pain in the ass to open. I gave up opening the rest on the 7th one boiled the rest, then cooked them over butter and sake. But they tasted better when raw.

We also had haddock and lobsters cooked, and some veggie and mushrooms and bread. Sophie opened a nice Sauvignon Blanc her mom bought her from France. And Jenna loved to sit on my laps when she was tired.

It was Priscilla's idea to have seafood for today. I did all the opening and cooking, but it was good to have a bunch of friends coming around. Everything was good.

I bought a dozen of oysters. Because it was a shame not to eat them as fresh as possible, I ate one when I was opening them. I did the same for the scallops, of course.

AmeriCone Dream

This AmeriCone Dream from Ben & Jerry's is so far the best ice-cream I have tried. Vanilla ice-cream with chocolate fudges and waffle cone pieces and caramel swirls. The waffle pieces are surprisingly better than cookies with ice-cream! And it is named after the political comedian Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report, Comedy Central's highest-rated show.

I am not so fond of The Colbert Report myself, as it is a too right-winged to me. But as I read the wikipedia entry of Stephen Colbert, he is actually playing a fictional persona in the show. Colbert describes himself a democrat, and he has "no problem with the Republicans, just the Republican policies."

Maybe the right-wingedness of his show-persona wins him the honored of being invited as the entertainer at the White House Correspondent Dinner on April 29, 2006. In front of an audience from the Associated Press and only a few feet from George W. Bush, he said,

"I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound—with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world."

Wow. That's why his speech got little media coverage but the video of his performance became an internet and media sensation, and ratings for The Colbert Report rose 37% in the week following the speech.

Politics aside, Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream is delicious.

Ben &Jerry’s describes AmeriCone Dream as “a decadent melting pot of vanilla ice cream with fudge-covered waffle cone pieces and a caramel swirl. It’s the sweet taste of liberty in your mouth.”

As a bonus, Stephen Colbert is donating his proceeds from the sale of AmeriCone Dream to charity through The Stephen Colbert AmeriCone Dream Fund. It is only $3.69 a pint from Market Basket after all.

Ben & Jerry's factory is only about 4 hours' drive from me, and they have regular factory tours. I should go with some good company in the fall when the foliage is at its height.

Beer and more

Certain kinds of wine match with a specific kind of food, so does beer. Here's to Beer is an American website throwing out all the facts about beer, from brewing to different kinds of beer and the food they match.

My favorite Hefeweizen goes best with pungent and intense aromatics such as mastard flavors, pickles, horseradish and cured meat. It is classically paired with weisswurt (white sausage), another favorite of mine.

Leftovers

Last night I made fried rice out of the leftover turkey for the house. I cut the turkey breast into small pieces, marinated them with soy sauce, little bit of the turkey broth Yvette made from the bones and fleshes, and some tandoori masala I bought a few years back. Then I warmed the meat up over medium heat and diced some long beans and fried them with eggs. After the rice is done, I mixed the rice with a few spoonful of turkey broth over medium heat. The rice turned out fantastic, and the meat was very tasty. Yvette and Sophie said the same.

Tonight I came home and found that Yvette had filtered the broth and put it inside the fridge. It looked like a bowl of chicken oil. I was planning to make some noodles, and so I decided to make myself a turkey broth noodle. I boiled some water and added a small spoonful of the chilled turkey broth. I tasted it and added more and some salt. When the noodle is done, I just drained the water and added the broth. Bravo.

The best part of the turkey dinner turned out to be the meat left from the broth. Man.. they are so tasty. Yvette added carrot and celery and onion to make the broth. I simply heat the meat and vegetable up in the microwave. The carrot and celery had absorbed the juice and the meat had been practically marinated in its own juice for over a day and then simmered for another day. They tasted darn good.

A traditional family meal is not only about what dishes to make and how they are made, it is also about how you turn the leftovers into more enjoyable meals.

Tofukey

Tofukey is the funniest thing I heard today. It is probably the BEST thing vegetarians can get to not feel being left out of the crowd. The legend says it is a turkey carved out of a piece of tofu. I don't know how big that piece of tofu can be, nor it is really carved out of a piece of tofu, but these American vegetarians are closing to give in to the lust of meat. The good news is, we Hong Kong people have for ages fake roast duck, fake pork, fake beef and even fake abalone all made with soy beans and flavorings (artificial, of course). You only need to import them and have fun.


p.s. I tried to just get a glimpse of this elusive tofukey in google but in vain. It seems to be manufacturers out there making them, but they provide no picture of any.

Da Bino + Golden Hall

We had our farewell dinner for me and Don tonight. It had been planned for a coupled of weeks and we had it in Da Bino (大邊爐) in Kowloon City for hotpot. Their beef were really good. Thick enough to be juicy but tender. The famous fried bean curd skin was good, but not as good as people described. I was only getting sleepy toward the end of the meal.

We had desert in Golden Hall Desert (金滿堂) across the street after the meal. I had been there once a couple of months ago. Two steps into the store you would smell the durans. Man... their duran pancakes were awesome, a lot better than the famous Honeymoon Desert (滿記甜品). Their fruit juice + Yakult drinks were terrific too. I had Kiwi Yakult drink last time, and I tried blueberry Yakult tonight. It was good.

薑汁撞奶

多年前睇過一段麥嘜漫畫：

薑汁問鮮奶：
為什麼你要撞我，以後都分唔開了。

鮮奶說：
那天我撞了你，便分不開了。

我有一對朋友，男的是美國人，女的是法國人。他們都很年輕，只有24、25歲。他們在美國認識，男的跟女的回到法國，一年後結婚。之後兩人一齊返美國。女的在一家公司找到一份穩定的工作，男的工作卻不太穩定。

不久之後，男的發現有了腎病，原因是自身免疫力失衡，不斷殺死自己的腎臟細胞。他不可以再工作，只可以待在家中，每隔幾日還要太太送他到醫院洗腎。因為洗腎令身體很疲倦，而且日日留在家中很悶，所以男的心情經常都很差。

幸好太太對他不離不棄。每天中午都回家陪他吃飯，下班馬上回家照顧他。晚上和朋友的聚會，只要他身體應付很來，即使只是停留半小時，她都會帶他出來見見朋友和走動一下。

現在他轉用了一種洗腎機，可以在晚上睡覺時接上，機器便會在他睡著的時候幫他洗腎，日間便可以做些較輕鬆的工作。因為他的患的是一種自身免疫力疾病，所以他要長期服用免疫力抑制藥。但這些藥同時會令他很容易受感染，和令他吃不下食物。現在他每日只可以吃小量蔬菜和水果。

每次見到他們兩人我都感到很溫暖。我相信他們倆人相處可能有很多困難，特別是要照顧一個腎病病人，和處理他的情緒問題。但從他們望著對方的眼神和說話的表情，你可以看見他們還是很快樂的。

所以我相信，只要兩人相愛和走在一起，不放棄對方，世上沒有事情可以傷害到他們。

薑汁撞奶
做法