Mushrooms and wine

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The Compatriot is back in town for a few days on his way back to Rosbif Land, and since I missed catching up with him in Taiwan, I was determined to see as much of my friend as possible during his short stay. I was also determined to take him to places for cuisine he'd have difficulty accessing in Rosbif Land, and this meant mostly going to Chinese or Japanese restaurants. Tonight we would start with a visit to Man Ho (萬豪金殿), as I pinged chef Jayson Tang to set us up with a menu.

I had, unfortunately, missed out on a mushroom-themed dinner here a few weeks ago, so I was pretty happy that Jayson arranged some of the same dishes for us. I also looked forward to see what other interesting creations Jayson had in store for us.

Marinated cuttlefish with preserved vegetables (鹵水釀墨魚) - the cuttlefish was tea-smoked and stuffed with pickled vegetables. Served on top of a pile of shredded celtuce marinated with sesame oil.

Fresh and crunchy

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I haven't seen the Landlord in over a year, although we have been keeping in touch and know roughly what's going on in each other's lives. She decided to take me out to lunch so we could catch up over some work issues, and I could get an update on her family. She has apparently grown fond of Yong Fu (甬府), a place I used to love but have stopped patronizing. Since she's picking up the tab, I figured I would go along.

I was happy to do a simple meal with some dumplings and stuff, but my friend had other ideas...

As usual we had some snacks on the table for us to nibble on, including preserved radish (蘿蔔乾).

Drunken mantis prawns (冰鎮溏心蝦姑) - as I don't eat raw crab, I ended up enjoying these drunken mantis prawns which were sweet and flavorful. Always nice to start with these.

Closing time

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DaRC pinged me this afternoon. Would I be interested in joining him for dinner at The Chairman (大班樓) tonight? In a scenario we have grown familiar with these days, someone he was meant to dine with tested positive for Covid-19 and they now had a seat to fill. Although I had just dined at the restaurant a few weeks ago, I figured I could spend more time catching up with him, so I accepted his kind invitation.

What I did not know was that it would be the penultimate dinner service at the current location. The restaurant is closing and moving to a new location nearby, and resuming service at the start of next month. Unfortunately for fans of the restaurant, reservations for the rest of the year were completely taken up less than 3 minutes after the booking system opened on August 22nd...

The menu tonight did not include any dishes that are new to me, but I am always happy to have some of these over and over...

Razor clam steamed with aged lemon and garlic (廿年鹹檸檬金銀蒜蒸蟶子) - this is always delicious, although nowadays we just get a smidgen of the aged lemon, which still lends its lovely fragrance.

A quick bowl of noodles

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I needed a simple lunch today on my way to the office, and decided to stop in Ho Hung Kee (何洪記) for some noodles.

Noodles in soup with shrimp dumpling (鳳城鮮蝦水餃麵) - served the traditional way with the egg noodles placed on top of the dumplings, so the noodles don't get soggy too quickly. The dumplings today were really packed with tons of flavor, which made me wonder if the kitchen was a little liberal with MSG today...

Rice noodle rolls filled with twisted cruller (香脆油條腸粉) - disappointing. The crullers in the middle were no longer crunchy, so these weren't freshly fried.

Catching up over dim sum

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Many of us have been traveling this year for the first time since the pandemic started, and that means we haven't seen each other for a few months. I was happy to see Mrs White T-shirt after quite a while, and finally had a chance to catch up with the RCs after their 5-month globe-trotting adventures. Dim sum at Seventh Son (家全七福) is something that all of us have been missing for a while.

Pan-fried radish cake with cured meat (香煎蘿蔔糕) - these were pretty moist, and perhaps a little too wet?