Thursday, April 30, 2009

Friendship Award

I'd like to take a short break from my food posting to acknowledge with deep appreciation this Friendship Award given to me by VG of "My Household Capers".
Thank you, VG, for your kind award and it's been great to know you and grow a friendship over the Net and through blogging!
Since I started blogging, it's great to get to know many fellow bloggers through this bond of virtual friendship in blogosphere :-))

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Shanghai - Day 3

As my friend CH had to go to work on our 3rd day in Shanghai, we decided to explore the area near her neighbourhood. We took the free shuttle service available from her condominium - there're regular vans going to several key areas in the city.

As we got onto the van, there were a couple signages inside which got me kinda perplexed.

I'm sure the signs make perfect sense if you read the Chinese words... but the English translation was a bit confusing, don't you think?
Anyway, since it was my birthday, I got to choose what to eat for breakfast. CH had mentioned that there's a very nice Cantonese restaurant in the Super Brands Mall nearby... so that was where we headed...to Tang Palace Restaurant!

The place looked pretty posh - chandeliers, rich wood panelling, lush blinds and dim lightings... (and because of the dim lights, please excuse the rather blur photos)...

I was told this is an extremely popular place and there are always long queues. As we reached there before 11.00am and it being a weekday, we got a table without problem... but as you can see, the place was already pretty packed!

This is the Tea Station... where cheongsam-clad waitresses brewed special teas upon order...
As there were only two of us, we couldn't really try that many items. First to arrive was the Pork & Century Eggs Porridge. Their food portions are extremely generous, much much bigger portions than our dim sum here, I tell you! The smooth porridge was excellent, more than enough for 2 persons and the robust tastes of their salted pork, century eggs and flakes of fried sole were so yummy!

These triangular pieces of Fried Pumpkin & Yam cakes were unique - shredded pumpkin & yam mixed with some flour and fried - the texture was crunchy, light and quite oil-less!
The Shrimp Chee Cheong Fun was not so good... the rice rolls, while smooth in texture, were too thick and totally overwhelmed the shrimps. We ate more flour than shrimps!
The test of a good dim sum restaurant lies in their Cha Siew Pau and the ones we had did not disappoint. The pau dough was light and fluffy and did not stick to our teeth and the cha siew filling was tasty without being overly sweet or fatty.
We made a good choice in their Braised Chicken Feet. It was another huge portion and the chicken feet were huge and spongily fluffed up. The addition of peanuts certainly gave an added zest and bite to the dish.
Similarly, the plate of Steamed Pork Ribs was huge - almost like a lunch dish! We could taste the yummy rice wine in the marinade which went perfectly well with the black beans and chopped garlic.
Ahh...what is dim sum without the obligatory Siew Mai, right? 4 big siewmais were sitting prettily in the basket and they were juicy and succulent - somehow, the pork there has a very different texture, as compared to here.

We were so full by the time these Portuguese Egg Tarts appeared on our table. We almost had to tapau them but then the thought of lugging a box of tarts around for the whole day made us quickly eat these up. ... and no regrets actually because the tarts were fresh from the oven - the pastry practically crumbled and melted in our mouths!The price for our breakfast above came to about RMB120, about RM60+ ... quite reasonable, I would say.

After breakfast and a stroll through the mall, we decided to visit the Oriental Pearl Tower across the street. The Oriental Pearl Tower is a tv tower located at the tip of Lujiazui, in Pudong, beside the Huangpu River and opposite The Bund in Shanghai.

It's the 3rd tallest tower in the world, after the CN Tower in Toronto and the Ostankino Tower in Moscow. It was also the tallest structure in China from 1994-2007 until it was surpassed by the Shanghai World Financial Centre.
We paid RMB150 each to take the ride to the highest Observatory Level called the Space Module at 350m high. Unfortunately it was a very hazy day and this was the blurry view from the top...

That's the Shanghai World Financial Centre - the unique building with the "handle" at the top! The shape & design of this building look very different when viewed from different angles!

You can see that there's a lot of construction work going on in Shanghai right now - they're building and beautifying the city as Shanghai will be hosting the World Expo next year. If you visit Shanghai next year, I'm sure the city will be very pretty and spruced up!

We went back to the condo to meet up with CH before heading out for dinner. She has made reservations at The Zen Restaurant in Xin Tian Di - a fashionable pedestrian street famous for its night life. It's unique as it retains the antique walls and exterior of Shikumen housing of old Shanghai and married with the totally modern international cafes, galleries, bars, boutiques and themed restaurants which made this a thriving "in" place for visitors as well as locals. Many of the top-notch restaurants and cafes there are owned by celebrities and famous stars.
In fact, The Zen - where we had my birthday dinner, is owned by some HK celebrity (I can't remember who!). I love this rather ethereal pic with the "moving" lights...
Our table was decorated with this mass of peach-colored roses in the centre...
CH ordered the cold dishes... the first to arrive was this Cold Brinjals drenched in some kinda brown yummy sauce! Please excuse the rather unpalatable look of the photo (lack of lighting!) but believe me - this dish was far from unpalatable.
The exuberant captain recommended their signature salad - Pomelo Salad. I didn't find it very unique - it was just fresh lettuce leaves and pomeloes drizzled with some sweet-sour dressing, but it was refreshing though.
Their Spiced Fried Tofu was nice - smooth creamy tofu with a saltish spicy outer skin and topped with some fried dried shrimps - nice appetizer!
We had a whole Peking Duck to ourselves - just look at the shiny crispy melt-in-your-mouth duck skins! (Oh by the way, those crackers were there to absorb the oil from the duck skins; they are not meant to be eaten... even though they looked quite yummy...LOL!) All nicely cut for us to wrap...
... with these strips of cucumber & spring onions...
These were the flour pancakes to wrap the duck skins - quite different from those served here. Their dough is much thicker and had a more chewy texture.
We also each had a Baked Crab...
and this Vegetarian Dish - Braised Tofu & Gluten Puffs...
The meat of the Peking Duck was diced and fried... served in a "wrap-it-yourself" style, complete with lettuce leaves and sweet plum sauce...
We were too full to have any dessert - so no cake, no tong-sui or anything like that! In fact, we had to tapau the diced duck and vegetarian dish back!

After dinner, we took a walk through the French quarters of the city before catching a cab back home.
And that, was how I spent my birthday, hehe! Very very different from previous years, I must say!

Doing your own repairs

Are you one of those clever nifty people who can just do any repairs around the house with no problem at all? I am hopeless in such things. Any DIY task in the house will be made worse if I even just attempt it!

Recently, the sink in my bathroom was not draining water as it should. Most of you would probably know how to suck or dislodge whatever that’s blocking the water pipe. But me - I had to call in a plumber! The same thing happened when there was some leaking under the kitchen sink. That was even more terrifying, I tell you!

I had to call in a second plumber to properly diagnose the problem because the 1st stupid plumber told me that it’s probably due to a leaking pipe embedded in the kitchen wall and that they’d have to hack the wall, mend/replace the pipe and then re-plaster & paint the wall!!! Now, isn’t that just terrifying?? Thankfully the 2nd opinion was correct - it was just one of the water filters under the sink which was causing the leak. Just changed that and my water woes were gone.

Now, don’t you think that it would really save a LOT of time, money and headaches if we can just be a bit more home-and-kitchen-savvy and learn to do simple home repairs by ourselves? There are lots of useful information and tips around that can help us make simple repairs to our kitchens and household appliances. Try clicking here and here for some great tips on how to start.

For a start, we should keep the manual of every appliance that we buy as that will be most useful to trouble-shoot and isolate the problem. Once that is done, it's so easy to order the necessary parts you require from EasyApplianceParts.com

This very useful site has one million appliance parts in stock and all you have to do is just search your requirement by part or model number! There are also great repair tips given for your dishwasher, refrigerator, oven, stove etc! At EasyApplianceParts, you can be assured of great customer service, secure shopping and also no-hassle returns.

So now salvation is within my grasp... as far as doing home and appliances repairs are concerned. I just need to look up all the tips, information and advice resources from the Net and before you know it, I may be able to change that mouldy kitchen cabinet or repair my next leaking sink!

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Shanghai - Day 2

Day 2 - a Monday - that's the day we went to Hangzhou. It is the capital of Zhejiang province and located 180km southwest of Shanghai - 2 hours' drive away.

Before we started the journey, we went looking for some local breakfast. Yon Ho was our choice as it's one of the largest chains of chinese fast food in Shanghai. Yon Ho is also the brandname of a popular soyamilk drink there.


The interior was bright and cheerful with some chinese writings on a mirrored wall...
My friend CH made the orders at the counter, while I busied myself arranging the cutlery...
First item to arrive was Fried Meehoon. Plainly and simply done, with strips of carrots, taugeh and dried shrimps, it was a delicious start to our breakfast. It would have been a bit better if they had chilli padi too...
Ahh... this is their famous soyamilk... served in humongous bowls... it was hot off the pan, mildly sweet and full of soya goodness!
Of course the most perfect accompaniment to soyamilk (according to the chinese) is their Yu Tiao - or "yau cha kui" - fried dough fritters. The Yu Tiao over there is about at least a foot long... and here they served them to us cut up in half...

... but this guy here had the full-sized yu tiao in all its long glory!

Glutinuous rice is very popular and it's served in all shapes and sizes with all kinds of ingredients. First, we had a sausage-shaped glutinuous rice item... with some beans & dried shrimps inside...
Then we had another one, with a spicy dried shrimp filling...
We also tried their Fried Dumplings... a bit oily, but really delicious! Fillings of minced pork & shredded turnips were wrapped in thin pieces of dough and then pan-fried...

Onion Pancakes - a kind of flat biscuit-like pastry, sprinkled with chopped spring onions and pan-fried. Very fragrant and tasty!

With a full stomach after all the above items for breakfast, we then happily rode in the van heading to Hangzhou. On the way to Hangzhou, I must say the countryside was very pretty - quaint farmhouses dotted the scene, most of them nestling in fields of yellow flowers. Too bad the van couldn't stop for me to snap pics.

Hangzhou is a pretty huge city - bustling and very busy! Lots of highrise buildings in this city. Not surprising as the entire Hangzhou region houses close to 7 million people! Hangzhou is famous for its beautiful natural scenery, the most famous of which is of course their West Lake.

By the time we reached Hangzhou, it was already noon. We were advised by the van driver to have our lunch first before "touring" the West Lake - the lake covers an area of 6 sq km! We thought that was an excellent idea - walk the lake with a full stomach!

We chose one of the restaurants located just inside the West Lake - sorry I can't remember the name and neither did I take a photo of it!

The 1st dish that we had was Chicken in Lotus Leaves. This turned out to be the most disappointing dish we had during our Shanghai trip! It was dry and quite tasteless and lacked the necessary herbal flavours that such a dish demands.

I loved the cold dishes... this was the Jellyfish - it was just simply tossed in some soya sauce, vinegar, sugar and sesame oil but it was so tasty! The texture of the jellyfish was a bit harder to what we are accustomed to but it was something deliciously different! There was added crunch and ooomph to the chewing!
Cold fungus - again another simple dish - it was just soaked/tossed in some kinda sweet sourish sauce. I really admire how they can use simple ingredients and simple methods, yet the dishes taste really delightful & appetizing!
Fried Tofu Skin - how much simpler can you get? Just rolls of beancurd skins fried to a crisp and they literally disintegrated in your mouth the moment you pop these crunchy morsels inside!
Ahhh... this was one of the delicacies which my friend CH said we had to try - guess what this is?
Maybe this angle will give you a better view?? Hehe... yes! It's Duck Tongues! They have been braised in some soya sauce and spices... the texture is smooth and chewy... quite delicious, I must say... when you try not to think that you're doing tongue-to-tongue with these!
We had a hot soup... this was Fish Soup, with slivers of mushroom, fungus, bamboo shoots. The fish strips were done really fine & thin... at first they were quite undiscernible until I took a closer look. There were even some small fine bones in the fish strips!
This is another famous Hangzhou dish - Longjing Shrimps. It's just shelled shrimps saute'ed lightly and topped with their famous Lonjing tea leaves. (Longjing is the famous green tea in Hangzhou). Actually, this dish was nothing to shout about - the shrimps were quite bland and I certainly didn't taste any Longjing flavour in them!
I had to have my vegetables and asked CH to order their local veg. What came to our table was this plate of delightful green veg lightly fried with taufu strips. I have no idea what the name of the veg is - it's like a cross between "thoong-hoe" and kangkong, with a wonderful fragrance - I like!!
Ahaa... here comes the star of the meal - Hangzhou's famous West Lake Sour Fish! The fish was extremely fresh, very smooth & tender and topped with the signature sour sauce and a sprinkling of fried garlic - absolutely yummy!! Everyone who visits Hangzhou must try this dish, I tell ya!
After the immensely satisfying lunch, it was time to exercise our legs - a walk round the pretty West Lake! It's indeed a very scenic lake, with lush willow trees and beautiful greens growing abundantly in the area...
I really love that beautiful red tree - so prettily unique amongst the greenery...
and this chinese boat resting on the banks... almost postcard-like, eh!
These corn cobs looked very nice - so many different colors! The dark-brown ones are what they called "glutinuous corn" and the lighter brown ones are those crossed with the yellow corn. We tried the lighter brown one and found it to be completely tasteless - it was good for exercising our jaws only!
More pretty scenes of West Lake...
We went on a cruise round the lake in one of these quaint chinese boats...
It rained when we disembarked from the boat and we had to buy umbrellas from the many enterprising vendors there - they were like shoving "yue san" (umbrellas) into our face at RMB10 each!

I like this pic below which showed the stark tree branches framed against the grey sky - kinda artsy nostalgia in the air, hoh?!
From the West Lake, we took a drive further in... into the Longjing tea plantations. Most of these tea businesses are family owned and home-based... these baskets of Longjing tea were just freshly picked that very day...
From the tea plantations, we headed to the Pedestrian Mall near the West Lake - here, shops selling all sorts of chinese crafts, souvenirs, food and everything else line both sides of the street...
This bronze statue of the Laughing Buddha marked the entrance to the Pedestrian Mall...

We went looking for snacks... McD was certainly not on our list...(although they do serve yummy pork burgers there!)
Ahh... finally, we entered the Food Street and were greeted by these... humongous piles of glutinuous rice heaped onto pineapple-halves...
Braised Pig Tails...piping hot in the pot...
Chinese satay - we tried a few sticks of their Lamb satay - very good!
These were steamed egg custards...
and huge Mantis Shrimps...
Pig trotters anyone??
Hmmm... guess what this huge pot of stuff is??

Duck Blood Soup! CH told us we must really try this and she promptly bought a bowl of it...I'm not a fan of blood products, hehe... but I did try a piece of it. It tasted like pig's blood (an acquired taste) and the soup had pieces of tofu, fungus and some pickled veg in it...

Duck was everywhere! And all parts of the duck, too! Braised Duck Wings is a national snack there, I think - it's sold all over the place, from restaurants to roadside stalls to supermarts!

...and Duck Heads too! I totally have no idea on how to eat a complete duck head like this - but I did try the Duck Jaw later on in a restaurant (will post about that later)...
I couldn't resist trying their Fish Balls... but they turned out to be nothing special. It was quite tasty but I think we have better fish balls here, hehe!

These were Pumpkin Fritters which CH bought... pumpkins, onions mixed in flour and fried... quite oily and tasted like our local cucuk udang...
The journey back from Hangzhou to Shanghai took slightly longer than 2 hours due to the evening traffic jams. By the time we reached Shanghai, it was way past dinner time - almost 9pm. CH called ahead to book a table at a Hotpot (Steamboat) restaurant and I was told the restaurant closes at 4am - still plenty of time to eat! Wow... it seems Shanghainese go for hotpot till 4am!

First item we ordered for the Hotpot were these almost-paper-thin slices of Lamb...
...and of course I must have my greens...
...and Balls - fish, shrimp, meat... all came on a bed of more greens!
We had these Fish Slices too - they don't look like fish, right?? Thick juicy slices of marbled-flesh fish - dunno what fish, but they were delicious after being lightly cooked in the hot soup!
A platter of various mushrooms added flavour to the soups...
Oh... they have a wide array of dipping sauces available - it's MIY - "mix it yourself"! We had a fun time mixing all the different types of sauces...

And a wide selection of soups available (unlike here you mostly get clear soup or tomyum)... to be safe on our tummies, we chose the Fresh Tomatoes Soup and Chicken+Mushroom Soup (sorry for the blur pic - the steam was getting in the way, haha!)

The Hotpot dinner was great in warming us up in the chilly night... we were practically burping our way home after that! Happily went to bed with warm tummies, haha!

Watch out for my next post on what I had on my birthday the following day... *wink wink*!