What the duck?! Or, Eggs-otic Gastronomy

The Hanoi Metropole Hotel is a gorgeous French colonial style hotel run by the Sofitel chain.  Painted all in creamy whites, it exudes old-world glamour and modern luxury so you can imagine my pleasure when we pulled up to it a few hours after departing the somewhat lacking Ha Long Bay Novotel and told, this was where we were having lunch.

The evocatively named, if slightly grammatically challenged, Spices Garden offers a beautiful lunch buffet of appetizingly presented regional delicacies.  I was especially taken with the green mango salad and the tiny bowls of personally prepared beef pho.  The young woman, Qiu Xiang (also evocatively named, as her name means Autumn Fragrance) who had been capably accompanying us and making up for the hapless Dong’s gaffes, joined us for lunch and had been seated next to me.  I imagine that it’s a real treat for a local young woman on an office girl salary to eat at the Metropole, and she was happily making her way through plate after plate of food with a great deal of gusto.  She was just starting to dig into a small bowl of something, upon which she had heaped various sprigs of fresh herbs and she noticed me watching her.  She looked at me and asked, “Have you tried this before?”

“What is it?”

Obligingly, she pushed aside the greenery in her bowl to expose what looked like a miniature brain.  “It’s a boiled duck egg, with an embryo.  Very nutritous.”

Hoping I wasn’t blanching visibly, I watched her mash it up and dig in.  Too late, I realized, I should have taken a photo, and I said as much.  Qiu Xiang offered to make up another bowl for me to photograph.  I was hesitant, as I didn’t want it to go to waste, and she even offered to eat it for me after I’d taken the picture.  Happily, I acquiesced.

Looking harmless as a boiled egg.

See what I mean about a resemblance to a boiled brain?

How it's meant to be eaten. A.k.a. all the gory bits, covered.

The condiments that are meant to go with 'Half Hatched Duck Egg'.

Getting a little hairy. I mean, feathery.

Close-up. Here, you can see the beak of the embryo.

I am certain that some of you are gagging.  Those of you who know me are probably reading with a horrified fascination and thinking, ‘No, she didn’t…!”

I will admit, I have known about people eating balut, or fertilized duck eggs for quite some time now, and I have always found the thought of it repulsive.  I mean, my reaction has always been “EWWW, NO WAY!”

According to Wikipedia, balut is eaten as street food in the Philippines and is also very common in Southeast Asian nations like Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and Vietnam.  It is thought to have been introduced to these areas by Chinese traders and migrants.  Different regions prefer different condiments, but the entire contents of the egg are normally eaten, and in the Philippines, balut have recently entered into haute cuisine, even being baked into pastries.  In China, they are known as mao dan, or literally, ‘feathered egg’.

My mom’s friends, including my godmother had been watching the photography process with some interest, and had whipped out their own cameras.  My godmother mentioned that she was definitely going to show the photos of the duck egg to my godbrothers.  “Daniel is going to say, ‘Disgusting!‘”, she predicted happily.

“No kidding!” I thought to myself.

Somehow, though, the thought of my brawny, macho godbrothers being too chicken to try it, egged me on.  (No puns intended.  Yeah, right!)  Years of good-natured, competitive teasing  between us made having something to hold over them, and the thought of being able to freak them out, too tempting to pass up.

And thus, as Pavlov’s bell to a dog, as dumb as any canine, (but definitely not salivating)  in response to my godmother’s words, I found myself, much to my own chagrin, saying, “Why not?  I’m going to try it.”

A ripple of approval went through our table.  No backing down now.

I don’t like Thai basil and ginger and mint on my food and so I picked it all off, leaving me with woefully nothing to mask the taste of what was, admittedly, a disgusting looking sight. What was I thinking?

On the sidelines, Qiu Xiang continued to provide commentary about the dish.  “Some people like the yolk,and others like the egg white.  Try them with a little pepper salt.”

I took a deep breath.  Egg yolk, egg white.  I know what those are, I can do this.  Using chopsticks, I picked up the yolk and took a tiny bite.  And then, I took a bite of white.  A little stringier than normal, but okay.

Why I should never play poker.

Got my game face on.

In the end, it really wasn’t that bad.  I didn’t take more than two or three small bites, but I can say that I tried it.  And honestly, it wasn’t awful.  It looks far worse than it tastes.  In fact, it tastes like egg that has been steeped in the flavor of duck meat.  This is, of course, completely logical, and I don’t know why I was surprised at that.

As I chewed, I bit down on something that resisted my teeth and I reached in and pulled it out.  It was a tiny little bone, about the size of a fake eyelash.  Carefully, I discarded it on my plate, looked at Qiu Xiang, who was watching me intently, and gave her a big smile.

Macaroni soup

Food post!

We had one of our very favorite lunches today, at home.  I had to share, even though George said, “You can’t blog about that!  It won’t work.  The photographs won’t show how tasty it is.”

Well, duh.  That’s why there’s writing.

This is a very simple meal, introduced to us by our Filipina helper.  I think she loves to make it because it’s so easy and requires minimal effort on her part.  But, it’s universally loved in the Koo household for its wholesome yumminess and down-home comfort, utterly satisfying and happy-making.  You can’t eat this meal and be morose at the same time.  It’s like a gigantic bear hug from your favorite uncle, who’s also just happened to bring you a box of your favorite chocolates, that you don’t have to share.

And it really is as simple as its name — macaroni soup.  It’s basically macaroni or some other pasta (the kids love alphabetti) in a soup, topped with stuff.  But, what a soup.  Like Vietnamese beef pho, the broth rules.

The soup is basically chicken soup — which if well done, is in itself, golden and flavorful and delicious, but the chicken soup for this is elevated to something really special by the simple addition of evaporated milk.  This makes the broth not creamy, but softly milky — there’s no heaviness to the texture of the soup to compete against the richness of the flavor —  and  the evaporated milk also contributes a subtle cream sweetness that sings like a top note contrasting the deep, full-bodied  savoriness of a homemade chicken broth.

There is something sublime about this soup.  Like if angels showed up at your bedside to distract you from a case of the sniffles with a catchy a cappella performance of “I’m Walking on Sunshine”.  Comforting and glorious, cheering and fun, all at the same time.

This glorious soup is made into a meal with the addition of macaroni, that’s topped with blanched chunks of tender, still-crisp cabbage, shredded chicken from the soup-making, and lightly cooked julienned carrots.  Piled into your bowl in the proportions of your preference.

I always pile on the cabbage — I think the crunchy, tender, sweet greenness of the cabbage is a perfect foil for the savory richness of the broth.  I don’t even need the pasta.  And, while I’ve never been a fan of cooked carrots, I always add a few slivers for the color contrast.

It may not look like much, but often, simple is best.

This is great, not just for lunch, but for a simple Sunday dinner or after-school snack.  And it’s a fabulous breakfast, on a cold winter’s day.  It’s a wonderful thing to sit down to on a chilly morning — bracing and cheering.  It feels like love.

My bowl, my way.

A perfect day for barbeque — but then again, is there ever a bad time?

The food was so good, probably no one noticed the flowers. They were pretty, though.

Okay, so maybe it might have been a little more perfect a day for barbecue if I hadn’t had to shimmy into a slinky dress approximately 4 hours later, but who’s complaining?  I would have worn my mom’s sofa slipcover if it’d meant a couple more bites.

As it was, my dress merely had to have its laces loosened — a convenient (though I believe the original intent was more sexiness than user friendliness) dressmaking detail that made me feel like the anti-Scarlett O’Hara.  I felt Mammy turning in her grave.

My eyes were definitely bigger than my stomach -- but I made a valiant effort. You'd have been proud.

But, boy, was it worth it.  A whole barbequed pig which had been slow-cooked and smoked over a smoldering fire in a grill approximately the size of a Smartcar for over 20 hours with a bourbon and sorghum BBQ sauce (among others), 4 kinds of fried chicken (regular, buttermilk and cornmeal crust, battered and spiced, and somethin’ else — I’m gettin’ a drawl just thinkin’ about it), cheddar biscuits which were moist and light and fluffy and possibly more cheese than biscuit, the most amazing pot of baked beans — rich and hearty, flavorful and sweetened with sorghum, (whatever that is — no matter, it’s delicious), and a gorgeous golden and red beet and strawberry salad, as well as roasted asparagus, which was studded all over with nubbins of thick-cut, smoky bacon, bits of boiled egg and drizzled generously with a creamy lemon vinaigrette.

The meat slipped from the bones as easily as a dressing gown from Blanche DuBois' back. But way tastier, and sexier to boot.

Buttermilk and cornmeal crusted drumsticks

The beet and strawberry salad -- isn't it beautiful?

Cheddar biscuits. Amazing -- I'll be dreaming about these.

I LOVED these beans -- went back for a huge serving of seconds. I have these to thank for my dress staying up later that evening.

The bar was serving lemonade and sweet iced tea, as well as mint juleps, all in Ball’s canning jars.  Talk about southern charm.  The bourbon probably helped, too.

Ball's canning jars, mint juleps and hay bales -- southern hospitality. Although, not sure what the hay bales are for.

Dessert was dense, chewy, moist chocolate chip cookies as well as banana cupcakes topped with, get this, fluffy clouds of marshmallow frosting.  Like a mouthful of heaven if heaven could be caramelized.

These were pretty deadly. I actually ate one without realizing how it happened. One second it was there, on my plate, and then, it wasn't. I'm hoping a horse came along and nipped it off my plate when I wasn't looking.

Marshmallow frosting. That's just poetry.

Some more shots of a perfect day.

It was a gorgeous day.

Look at the friends with their arms around each other to the left -- so nice!

It looks idyllic from a distance, but secretly, all these people are wondering how they're going to fit into their gowns and tuxes.

World’s best fishball

Okay, so this post is about more than fishballs, in case you’re worried.  But, if fishballs are not your thing, I promise, I am going to convert you.

At least, I’m going to make you curious.

Family fave.

Wu Cao Shou is a Szechuanese restaurant that my mom’s family has been eating at since my grandfather’s heyday.  It’s pretty cool to walk into a restaurant whose proprietor was on a first-name basis with your grandfather before you were born.

(Shout out to my newest reader, Steve — Steve, have you been here?  If not, you MUST try it the next time you visit your dad — they can hold the chili if you can’t take the heat.  And bring the family.  )

The amazing thing though about this is that after all these years, the food is still really, really tasty.  And, they’re not resting on their laurels — we’re still discovering new things on their menu that are fresh, delicious and instant must-haves.

Of course, it’s the classics that we keep going back for — and from the way my kids exclaim in recognition as we pull up to the store front and dig in when the food hits the lazy susan, it’s already a fourth generation favorite.

Anticipating a great meal.

The fun starts as you sit down and the server brings you a tray of different appetizers that you can choose from.   I always love the crunchy cucumbers in a light chili marinade — they’re only slightly spicy, and I think there’s some sesame oil and other yummy things in the sauce which make them really tasty, and the crispness and sweetness of the cucumbers makes them really refreshing.  I could eat plates and plates of this, all on my own, no sharing.  Unfortunately, Sam loves these too, so I find my chopsticks often wrestling with hers for the last bite.

There’s also the salad of — actually, I don’t really know how to describe it — it’s made of a firm form of tofu, that looks like spaghetti.  Great, firm bite, and tossed with slivers of carrot and slender Chinese celery in a light, but delicious dressing of I-have-no-idea-what.  This is a lot tastier than it sounds, I promise you — with the added benefit of being really healthy.  This is what it looks like:

This is really yummy, believe it or not.

Joannie’s favorite is these rolls of lightly blanched bean sprouts, encased in a thin, fried tofu skin that’s then smothered in a sweetly piquant sauce — there’s soy and sesame mixed in there, as well as some Szechuan spices, but it’s not hot, just really flavorful.  Satisfying and refreshing all at the same time, and once you start eating them, it’s tough to stop.  They disappear like hotcakes — we always have to order 3 or 4 plates of it at a time — and only when the food you’ve ordered starts hitting the table do you find yourself distracted from reaching for yet another piece.

Probably two of the most famous Szechuanese dishes that you’d want to eat are the zha jang noodles (having grown up with the Wade Giles phoneticization program and the Taiwanese bo po mo fo system, and now forced into Pinyin, I am schizophrenically inept in my phoneticization of Chinese pronunciation — sorry!) which is basically a Chinese version of spaghetti bolognaise, and the Szechuan dumplings in chili oil, of which there are two kinds, the thick-skinned ones and the thin-skinned ones.  Both are delicious, although there seems to be a family preference for the thick-skinned dumplings, whose wrappings have a wonderful, chewy bite to them.  The sauce is spicy, bright and lively, with a bit of sweetness to temper the bite of the chili oil.

Both the noodles and the dumplings are Chinese comfort food — homey, satisfying and cheerful, the gastronomic equivalent of fuzzy slippers and the company of a big, goofy Labrador during a couch-potato home screening of ‘Stand By Me’.

Chinese spaghetti bolognaise. Buon appetito.

Thick-skinned dumplings in chili oil -- hung you cao shou

The sensitive version of the dumplings...

Also delicious are the dry-fried bamboo shoots, and the tender little fried cubes of tofu in a salted duck egg sauce.  Those of you who’ve had that sauce with fried prawns or crab, know how gorgeous that is.  Those of you who haven’t will just have to ignore how the description sounds and take my word for it.  And that word is: scrumptious.  It’s rich and savory and just a little bit velvety and unctuous — which sets off the thinnest bit of crispiness of the surface of the tofu and the silken, melting insides.

fried tofu with salted duck egg -- heavenly.

By now, you’ve all totally forgotten about the fishballs, I bet.  And now that I’ve brought them back up, you’re probably wondering, how on earth did we make space for them?

Let me tell you, the Tsiens and Koos have an extra stomach, sort of like cows.

Except, rather than grass, we reserve our extra stomach for things like really excellent fishballs.

These fishballs are apparently  homemade, by the restaurant, on the premises, fresh every day.

They are fabulous.  They are not like the fishballs that we get in Hong Kong — big, round, with a chewy texture not unlike a Superball.  Those are tasty, but they cannot hold a candle to these.

These are really magnificent.

I was full already, I mean, stuffed already, when the soup came to our table, steam rising, in a hotpot.  Creamy looking, with generous bits of translucent cabbage and chewy tofu skins, and the fishballs, bobbing about.  I actually had no desire for soup, and was about to pass, except Gayle said, “This is one of my favorite soups.”

Hunh.

I helped everyone ladle out a bowl, and took a little for myself as well.  Gayle noted that I hadn’t put a fishball in my bowl.

“The fishballs here are famous, Joy.  They make them fresh, and they’re amazing.”

Right.  It’s a fishball!  How is it not overkill to apply the word ‘amazing’ to the concept of ‘fishball’?

However, to make Gayle happy, I scooped one into my bowl.

I would live to eat my thought-bubble.

The soup was hot, intensely flavorful and satisfying, and I was happy that Gayle had forced me to try it, even though I was feeling full enough to start leaking soup from my pores.   But the fishball — biting into my first fishball was rapturous.  If I hadn’t tried one myself, I would never have believed that eating a fishball could actually be an emotionally transporting experience.

Wu Cao Shou’s fish balls are succulent.  They are tender and juicy,  not at all fishy-tasting, but with a full-bodied, golden, eggy flavor.    The texture is elastic and relenting, sort of like wheat gluten, if you’ve ever had that.  There’s a resistance to the bite, with a simultaneous tenderness.  They are unexpected, and gratifying.

I stand by my claim — Wu Cao Shou has the world’s best fishball.

Magnificent.

So unassuming and modest in appearance, but with superstar flavor and mouthfeel. Inner beauty, epitomized.

Costco: A tower of excellence from a land of excess

Yesterday, Joannie and I ran to Costco to pick up a few things.

Look what I found!

Yet another reason to love Costco.

As we came into the food section, before we ran into the party platters of buffalo wings and elephant steaks, there they were, an entire display, stacked up five or six deep, a lofty edifice to insulin resistance.

I couldn’t stop myself.  I had to have one.

I don’t know about you, but I LOVE cream cheese frosting.  There’s something about the tang and creaminess of cream cheese that elevates frosting to an orgasmic experience.  In fact, it’s my belief that that famous scene in ‘When Harry Met Sally” was induced by putting a piece of carrot cake (thickly slathered with cream cheese frosting, duh) — or maybe just a giant tub of cream cheese frosting — in front of Meg Ryan.

Method acting.

Cream cheese frosting would make cardboard ambrosial.

Of course, there’s one major problem with cream cheese frosting.

There never seems to be enough of it.

Costco clearly shares my sentiment, because it appears they apply the frosting to the buns with a trowel.  In fact, it’s not evident to me that there’s any cinnamon bun beneath the frosting at all.

Here’s a shot of the box with the saran wrap removed, the better to trigger your diabetic fit.

Would you like some cinnamon bun with that frosting?

That box, which is the approximate size of a sheet cake and weighs close to one of my Thanksgiving turkeys, is divided into 6 swirled buns, each one about the size of a bread plate.

We ended up having to divide one bun up amongst about 6 of us.  With leftovers.

Even apportioned that way, my kids, after having a bite, each grabbed a skateboard or scooter, ample supplies of which my mom keeps conveniently stored next to the dining room for just this very purpose (I kid you not), and started their own version of the Indy 500 around the dining table.

This is, seriously, actually encouraged in my mom’s household.  Coolest grandmother in the world — hell on parental discipline.

George remarked that it was like having breakfast on a merry-go-round.

We were, of course, in our own diabetic trances.  Those things should come with a recommendation to assign a designated dialer — you need one person to abstain from eating, so there’s someone to call 911 when everyone goes into instantaneous cardiac arrest.

I cannot believe that Costco tries to lead people to believe that an individual serving is one entire bun.

There’s enough sugar and fat in one of those to short-circuit every neural passageway in the human body, and turn your blood into toxic sludge.

There’s good news and bad news in this:  both of which are, I don’t think I’m going  to need to eat cream cheese frosting again until Y3K.

Open wide!

Rolling through Taipei, Part I

Warning:  This is the first of several posts about food.  Lots of food.  If you’re hungry, you better go grab a snack first.  I, on the other hand, need to figure out how to wire my jaws shut,  or I will be forsaking my elegant black silk column of an evening gown for my mom’s sofa slipcover  when we leave next week to the States for her godson’s wedding…

Anyway.  On to food.

After Joey arrived back in HK late Thursday night, from a week of volunteering for Habitat for Humanity in Korat Thailand, exhausted after a week of mixing cement and committing hijinks and shenanigans with his buds, we turned him around in a matter of hours and had everyone up at 5 am Friday morning, preparing to board an 8 am flight to Taipei to visit the family.

Despite a slight hiccup at the HK airport, where we were alerted to the fact that George’s Taipei visa was expired, we arrived safe and sound by 10 am, raring to go.  And, let’s just say, we wasted no time getting down to business.

We did make the time for some sibling rivalry, though, after a week’s blessed hiatus, with Joey away.  Joey had arrived home after Andrew had gone to sleep, and everyone had been asleep during both the car ride to the airport and on the flight, so we’d been spared en route, but it was barely seconds from when we had pulled the luggage off the belt that we were having conversations that consisted of:

Andrew:  “Joey, you’re dead to me.  DEAD to me.”

Joey:  “Mom?  Did you hear anything?  What’s that annoying buzzing sound?  Do you hear it?”

Andrew:  “DEAD TO ME, DO YOU HEAR?”

Waiting for Dad to show up with his visa: you'd never tell by looking, but one of them is dead to the other.

We came out of the airport terminal with our luggage by 10 am or so; by 11 am, we were hogging the big window table on the second floor of Ding Tai Fung, Taipei’s foremost purveyor of xiao long bao (steamed pork dumplings), my favorite vegetable buns (the secret is LARD), the most unbelievably flavorful chicken soup with noodles, and something not available anywhere else in the world, red bean dessert dumplings with the most impossibly delicate, paper-thin skins.

Waiting for the food to come

Still waiting...

Gorgeous little parcels of porky juiciness. They're world famous for a reason.

Jewish moms have nothing on Ding Tai Fung.

Okay, this soup may look like ordinary chicken soup, but it is the closest thing you can get to a religious experience by committing the simple act of boiling chicken with water.  It is totally clear — all the fat has been skimmed away, and what’s left is an intense essential chicken flavor.  It’s the kind of chicken soup that becomes gelatinous when refrigerated; sticky if you get some on your fingers, even though it looks so light and plain — reduced to the point that all the delicious flavor molecules are snugged up next to each other with no room left over for anything else to come between.

New to the DTF menu is a dumpling dish, consisting of vegetable dumplings in a spicy chili sauce.  Scrumptious.  Highly recommended.

Spicy, piquant, vivacious flavor -- with a vegetable filling to make you feel virtuous.

One of my most favorite things, though, on Ding Tai Fung’s menu is the red bean dumplings.  Frankly, I’m not a huge fan of Chinese desserts.  I mean, red bean paste going head to head with molten chocolate anything?  No contest.  Seriously, I’d trample over armies of Imperial Chinese chefs to get on that first sampan to the west, with its meringues and lemon squares, brownies and custard-filled, chocolate enrobed eclairs.  Not to mention, apple pie.

Red bean?  Get real.

Red bean paste is a popular Chinese dessert filling, and you can get it stuffed into lots of different types of casings — steamed bun dough, glutinous rice mochis, crepes, cake,  pretty much anything you can imagine.  And, there are other restaurants that can fill a steamed dumpling with red bean paste.

But nowhere does it better than Ding Tai Fung.  The red bean paste is fairly light, not too larded and not too dry — and not too sweet either, but sweet enough to feel like an indulgence.  But the most special aspect, the piece de resistance is the skin — made by hand and rolled to a physics-defying thinness.  Heart-breakingly thin.  Supple and elastic, barely a membrane, but with a satisfying chewiness.  When you bite down, the dumpling first gives and indents, resisting your teeth — and finally, when your teeth triumph, there’s all that deep, dark, somehow smoky filling awaiting your tongue. And all in a delicate, truffle-sized bite.   God, they’re good.

Really special. (Photo courtesy of Andrew Koo)

Laboring away for your gustatory pleasure.

Everything is made by hand, by armies of well-trained cooks, who work seemingly round-the-clock to keep up with our greedy appetites.

Artisanal stuff.

208 Duecento Otto

Last night, we went out to celebrate Betty’s birthday.

The evening started off a little wobbly when we all showed up within a few minutes of each other, to find out  our reservation for ten was nowhere in sight, despite their elaborate touch screen computer system and the iPad that one of the maitre d’s seemed to have clutched to her chest everywhere she went.

However, we had enough details of the phone conversation during which our purported reservation had been made, that we left little doubt in the manager’s mind that the problem was from their end, and we weren’t a bunch of schmucks trying to crash an oversold restaurant on a Saturday night.

He muttered something under his breath about a receptionist they’d just fired.

Anyway, they manned up and despite being fully booked, managed to clear a bar table for us downstairs, which, as it turned out, suited us perfectly.  Brighter, quieter, more intimate, it was a lovely setting for the evening.

The food at Duecento Otto is, as you might presume,  Tex Mex.

No, of course it’s not.  It’s Italian, and very tasty Italian at that.

We had earthy thin crust pizzas with all manner of goodies, including one of my all-time favorites, arugula and prosciutto, and one with gorgonzola and radicchio, each with a lovely, chewy substantial edge and served on rustic wooden trenchers.

Life doesnt get much better than prosciutto and arugula on one pizza.

We had one really long, coiled octopus, uhh, tentacle, I’m guessing — it  was delicious, very chewy, but in a way that I liked, with a subtly sweet salinity that contrasted with an assertive char.  It tasted of fire and water, all at once.

We also enjoyed  a manly charred ribeye alla Fiorentina, paired with comfortingly domestic white beans with bitter greens — I know that the beef was supposed to take center stage and it was delicious drizzled with a balsamic syrup, but the beans held their own — they were firm, with bite and well-seasoned, while still warm and cozy — in the manner of a good wife.

Salty, meaty, tangy, sweet and tender -- all delivered with the requisite machismo. Sexy stuff.

Homey and delicious.

I’m afraid that I drove my friends crazy with the photo-snapping.  Which resulted in photos like this:

STOP!

But I also managed to get some great shots.

Gorgeous friends. See? good things happen when they actually let me take their picture.

one of the hubbies -- who were having their own, entirely separate dinner party at the other end of the table.

First, there were four...

Angela arrives -- i know this isnt focused, but i still love the shot.

Birthday girl

Alan

More husbands.

The birthday girl with the husbands. Just to prove we were at the same dinner.

The birthday girl with HER husband.

Group photo after Angela arrived.

Grace arrives!

Birthday bombolonis -- or donuts. But bombolini -- sounds MUCH better.

We were lucky that Angela was able to fly in and make the dinner.  It was wonderful to see her and good to be reminded that physical distance doesn’t matter.

Here’s the thing — every year, we celebrate our birthdays together — and every year, with every birthday, I am reminded of how lucky we are to have each other and mark our milestones together.  And, with each passing year, with all the laughs and love, it all just gets richer and richer.

I know it was Betty’s birthday (happy birthday Betty!) — but I’m the one who feels unbelievably lucky.

I just hope they keep putting up with the obsessive photography.

I just like this photo -- the inside of the bar.

Saying good bye.

Time to go home.

Flamin’ Hot Cheetos

Since the last time I featured spicy Jalapeno Cheddar Cheetos on my blog, I managed to provoke a stampede to stores Hong Kong-wide in search of them (a whole two readers were compelled to make purchases to satisfy the onset of cravings — such is the marketing power of my blog — advertisers, take note) when I saw these at the Jason’s in Repulse Bay, I felt compelled to purchase, taste-test and post — so strongly do I feel my responsibility to my readers.

Okay, fine.  So I made the cardinal mistake of grocery shopping while hungry.  You should have seen what was in my cart.  Still, a product review is a nice bonus.

Not just Hot -- FLAMIN HOT!

Before we get any further, let me address something on the front of the bag, the prominently displayed ‘KING size’ label in the thrill-inducing jaggedy oval in the upper left corner.

This bag is only King-sized, if your monarch is the sovereign of the Leprechauns.  If you are used to spending your free time hunting and gathering in the wilds of Costco, this bag is barely individual pixie-sized.

However, seeing as how we’re in Hong Kong, (marketing slogan — “Everything’s Smaller in Hong Kong, Including Food.  And People.”), I’ll let it slide.

When I opened the bag and peered in, the Cheetos looked markedly different from regular Cheetos, or even, the Jalapeno ones, both of which feature the trademark Cheeto bright synthetic orange appearance.

The ‘Flamin’ Hot Cheetos’ are NOT orange.  They are almost a maroon red, which makes them look frighteningly, intimidatingly spicy.    The color is a direct, nose-thumbing, ‘nanny-nanny-boo-boo, you can’t eat me‘ provocation.

Red hot.

Samantha, curious, peered into the bag.  She ran for a bottle of water and meticulously uncapped it, before cautiously reaching into the bag to draw out a singular flamin’ hot Cheeto.

Okay, they’re fairly spicy.  Everything is relative, so if you’re a native Hong Kong foodie, used to noshing on Indian vindaloos, fresh Thai chilis and Szechuanese dishes, these will be spicy enough to satisfy a craving for something hot, without being really a challenge.   I don’t think they’re as spicy as their color would imply, but they’re tasty.  Tasty in the way you’d expect spicy Cheetos to be.  They’re different from the Jalapeno Cheetos, in that they lack the sour Jalapeno-ey tang.

Finally, there’s this to consider:

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SERIOUSLY!???

Pho

While Samantha hied herself off to a playdate for most of the day, we got busy with the boys.  We had a plan.  A plan that would combine delicious food with actual productivity on a public holiday.

Piling into the car at 11:30, we were in good jockeying position at Nha Trang, our favorite purveyor of Vietnamese beef pho smack on the dot at noon.  Even on a holiday, there was a line of people  snaking in front of the door all hoping to slurp a scrumptious bowl of toothsome rice noodles in a steaming bowl of richly piquant beef broth.

This is the stuff dreams are made of.  When I don’t have ready access to Nha Trang, I actually go into withdrawal.  I will obsess.  I’ll have hallucinations and taste the broth in my sleep.  Flying back from the US after a month away,  Nha Trang will be one of my first stops after dropping off our baggage.

You think I’m kidding.

Soul satisfying

But this is more my bowl -- I don't like the cilantro and onions

Importantly, it wouldn’t be the same without two wedges worth of lime and some fresh chili peppers.   The tartness of the lime juice and the heat from the chilies  give an extra boost of energy and punch to the savouriness of the broth to elevate the whole experience to something akin to glory.

An integral part of the experience. Omission is not an option.

Today, when I squeezed the lime, I must have squeezed extra hard, because through the entire bowl, I would occasionally get a waft of the fragrant oils from the zest.  It was a little extra bonus of pleasure.

All this from a simple bowl of noodles.  Life doesn’t have to be fancy, to be grand.

(Oh, and the productive part?  We got haircuts!)

Crabby — It’s a Good Thing

Yummm

Yesterday, when George hobbled back home from basketball, the limp courtesy of a charlie horse from being way too old to be slamming into your friends at 7 am, he told me, “Norm said Greg is going to be in town tonight.”

I waited for clarification.  I had no idea who Greg was.

“They’re getting together for dinner tonight, along with Ed and Bridget.  They’re going to have crab at that new restaurant from Singapore, ‘No Signboard Seafood’.  We’ve been invited to join them.

Crab?  Ohh, Greg!!!  Why didn’t you say so?   I love Greg!

Yeah, okay, still no idea who Greg was.

To be fair, I’d never met Greg in the old days back when they all hung out together in New York — for whatever reason, our paths had never crossed.  But he knew my sister Gayle, and I think everyone just sort of assumed we’d met.

No matter.  The important thing was, he was coming to town, the result of which was, crab.

In my many criss-crossings of Causeway Bay to pick up and drop off the kids from school, I’d seen the ‘No Signboard’ sign go up and heard it was a famous crab restaurant from Singapore that was coming to Hong Kong.  Luckily for us, it had opened up in the past week and Norm had managed to snag a table that evening.

I was also really looking forward to spending time with Ed and Bridget and Norman and Noriko — it had been way too long since we’d seen them.

This is pathetic, especially in the case of Ed and Bridget, because if you don’t know, they live right above us.

I don’t just mean in the same building — I mean, our ceiling is their floor.

But, digressing here.

We disembarked the car in Causeway Bay around the block from the restaurant and, as a sort of pre-dinner visual assault/aperitif, were accosted by a store window display of, quite possibly, the ugliest clothes in all of Hong Kong, which, if you know Hong Kong at all, is an achievement of the highest magnitude.

Blindingly tasteless in a way that could put clowns out of business.

It wasn’t even that the clothes themselves were mind-bogglingly objectionable — the shop, named ‘Merci Beaucoup’ (thanks very much for making me want to stick a hot poker in my eye?) managed to increase the level of ugliness exponentially by cleverly combining the clothes in such a way as to achieve a soaring geometric progression of unsightliness.

This was proudly and prominently displayed  in their front window:

Sexy.

The unloveliness of these outfits reverberated with such jarring and discomfiting resonance with Bridget and me that I actually left the restaurant after we’d been seated, in order to take these photos.  They are so remarkable in their awfulness, that I just had to share.

I’m hoping that the purveyors of these clothes are being ironic and somehow, we’d missed it.

Now that I’ve accosted your sensibilities, let me make it up to you.

On to dinner.

Taken from the street as I walked back from my foray into fashion photography. Think they were debating the merits of white pepper vs chili crab.

No Signboard Seafood is on Paterson St., with the entrance on Fashion Walk Alley, which, if you haven’t been, is a pleasant little enclave of al fresco restaurants along a walkway, smack dab in the middle of busy, bustling, honking, traffic-dodging Causeway Bay.

The restaurant itself is clean and crisp and new, with a bright, modern feel.  And, when I say ‘bright’, I mean that if you’re over 40, there will be no doubt left in anyone’s mind as to your age.  On the bright side (no pun intended), if you forget your reading glasses, you’ll still easily be able to order off the menu.

There’s a holding tank as you walk through, where you can view candidates for your plate.

That's not one giant mutant snow crab -- that's a boy crab and a girl crab, on a date. Hubba hubba.

I didn't really need to post this photo, but the colors were just too gorgeous to resist.

The menu looked great, with various Singaporean-style offerings, but we came to eat crab, and far be it for us to lose focus.

With the exception of some deliciously spicy Chinese water spinach, competently executed sweet and sour pork (to remind us of our American-born Chinese roots) and some fabulous little ‘Ant Octopi’ (better than it sounds, more on that later) we ATE CRAB.

One of my favorite kinds of vegetables, and these were delicious.

No Signboard Seafood is famous for it’s White Pepper Crab, which was terrific — the crab was huge and meaty, and tender and sweet, with the subtle flavors of the crab overlaid with the stimulating zestiness of white pepper and the freshness of scallion.

White pepper crab.

My favorite though had to be the traditional Singaporean chili crab.  We were served a humongous beast of a crustacean — but its brawny, armored and frankly, spicy exterior hid a sweet and generous cache of tender meat.  And the sauce — generous amounts of piquant chili smothering the crab and pooling in the serving plate — it’s eyes-rolled-into-the-back-of-the-head, brain-short-circuitingly good on white rice, or sopped up with the fried or steamed man tou (Chinese-style plain buns) you order for just that purpose.

Chili crab - the stuff of dreams.

The crab was so good we ordered two.  Of each.

Here, it’s not just not bad manners to lick your fingers — it’s de rigueur to do so.  And a crime not to.  Wasting a drop of that sauce would be nothing short of criminal.

We also ordered a dish of fried baby ‘ant’ octopi — I’d never had them before, and they were toothsome and delicious.  Crispy, giving way to a bit of chewiness, spicy and sweet, if you don’t watch yourself, you’ll keep popping them in your mouth until the whole plate disappears.  You won’t even realize how it happened.

Bet you can't eat just one.

The spice in the food was underscored by the spicy stories that Ed dug out of George’s ancient history, about a certain, aggressive young co-ed of our mutual acquaintance — because a little mortification is good for one’s soul.    And gut-busting laughter is good for everyone else.

We had a great time last night — the food was fabulous, and the company equally, if not more so.

George, Ed, Norm and hey, it's Greg!

Our host for the evening -- thanks Norm and Noriko!