The best biryani I've ever had

Pin It

It has been 6 years since Fishball passed, and for the last 5 years we have been visiting Amber and taken their vegetarian menu. While we have been amazed by Chef Richard Ekkebus’ creations, we had also heard about our friend Chef Suveg Kavatkar’s special vegetarian menu served by special order at my beloeved Caprice. So we asked him to do this for us tonight.

Except, of course, that it’s Monday and Caprice is closed. When his lovely wife The Bombay East Indian Girl heard about this, she very kindly offered to cook a vegetarian feast for us at home. I was, of course, incredibly moved by her offer… and accepted the invitation with gratitude.

Khakra, apple chundo – as the person who originally introduced khakra (ખાખરા) to us, of course she had these ready for us to snack on. She made sure to substitute apple for mango in the chundo (छुन्दो) given Foursheet’s allergy.

Dry aged in Taipei

Pin It

It's Christmas day and once again, the Parental Units are at my place for dinner. While we pandered to mom's tastes last night, tonight we are firming aiming to make dad happy. And that is easily achieved with a piece of good steak. On the advice of Big Mac, we went to Taylor Butchery (泰勒肉鋪) and picked up a nice, big piece of dry-aged côte de bœuf. And Foursheets built a nice dinner around this hunk of meat.

A 4kg Christmas

Pin It

It's been four years since I last spent Christmas with the Parental Units, and this time we decided to cook dinner for them. More specifically, Foursheets will be doing the cooking so that mom doesn't have to. We decided early on that the main theme for Christmas Eve would be an Alaskan king crab, and we spent some time doing our homework in terms of sourcing our crustacean. In the end, we ended up picking up a live one from Addiction Aquatic Development (上引水產).

The crab I chose weighed in at over 4kg, and while it had been out of the water for 9 hours by the time Foursheets stabbed its heart with a knife, it was still alive enough to wiggle its legs while we posed for pictures with it.

Mom's HK Michelin tour day 2: hairy dinner

Pin It

It's the second full day for the Parental Units' medical surveillance period, and the day when they needed to do their second PCR test. I had pre-booked time slots for all three of their tests at our neighborhood community testing center, so that was our activity this morning just before lunch.

We also managed to walk through the traditional wet market around North Point, where we picked up a bunch of veggies and fruits that aren't common in Taiwan these days. Some of the veg would be cooked up immediately as part of our lunch.

Four Sheets cooked up another meal, this time claypot rice with preserved meats (臘味煲仔飯). We had just gotten in a new shipment of Cantonese preserved sausages from Fan Cook Productions (明廚), so she put in the traditional pork sausage, duck liver sausage, and goose liver sausage. She was able to get a very good amount of crust at the bottom, which yielded tons of rice crispies (飯焦).

Dad also managed to finish the leftover garoupa head from last night. Let's just say he was a pretty happy camper.

Mom's HK Michelin tour day 1: a very fishy dinner

Pin It

After a night's sleep, we awoke to the sound of CC's barking as she protested the Parental Units' presence in our home. After feeding CC her brekkie, it was our turn. While the parental units stick to their habit of eating a ton of fruits for breakfast, I had something else in mind.

Months ago mom had mentioned her interest in trying out my collection of canned sardines. Now that she's actually here, it was the perfect opportunity to open up a tin or two for her. I took out a tin of sardines from Porthos' Vintage Collection and served in on some Melba toast. I've been aging a bunch of tins in the cupboard, and this was probably at least 3 years' old...

For lunch, Four Sheets went over to Hung Master Goose Special Shop (熊師傅滷水鵝專門店) to buy some takeout. This is one of our favorite neighborhood shops, and specializes in Chiuchow-style marinated goose and other goodies marinated in master stock (滷水). We got ourselves a hind quarter (下庄), some pig trotters, stuffed pig intestines, and cuttlefish.

Mom's HK Michelin tour day 0: roast meats and fish

Pin It

Thanks in large part to the pandemic, it has been 4 years since the Parental Units came to Hong Kong to visit. I had been trying to convince them to come sooner rather than later, and white truffle season was the perfect bait. We planned an eating itinerary around Hong Kong to get them things that would be hard to come by in Taiwan.

I picked them up at the airport today - something I haven't done in years - and brought them to our place. It was already past 2pm when we arrived, and dad was certainly hungry. Fortunately Four Sheets had picked up some roast meats from Sun Kwai Heung BBQ Food (新桂香燒臘), so we had some charred fatty char siu (肥燶叉) and roast pork belly (燒肉) along with some veggies.

Scratching that chicken Manchurian itch

Pin It

A few weeks ago I happened to catch a show on cable TV called Slumfood Millionaire, and this particular episode focused on the Dharavi area of Mumbai. As I watched cooks preparing Indian Chinese dishes - including ones featuring the famous Manchurian and Schezwan sauces - I couldn't help but salivate. Having had a first taste of "Chindian" dishes thanks to her, I immediately messaged The Bombay East Indian Girl to tell her. She very kindly let me know that she would be happy to prepare something for me, as long as I didn't mind trekking over to her place.

Well... she is talking to someone who have planned many, many trips that revolved around restaurant meals - sometimes flying halfway around the world for a single reservation. So traveling for an hour on the train is nothing. I hesitated to impose on her, but eventually my curiosity got the best of me... and I invited myself over for lunch today.

I had ask our hostess for some Indo-Chinese food but did not specify anything in particular. She knows that, like her husband, I'm limited in my ability to handle the heat. So she dialed it down for me today. Meanwhile, Hairy Legs found out about my visit and managed to convince our hostess to serve up his favorite dish for us...

Masala dosa - I wasn't expecting to start with this, but of course I was only too happy to have dosa. The Schezwan chutney in the middle turned out OK for me, which meant it didn't have the kick that Sankala would have enjoyed.

Lunar New Year puddings: 2022

Pin It

Another year of not going home to Taipei for lunar new year means I didn't spend too much effort in buying seasonal puddings for mom.  Sankala had requested that we get a couple of savory puddings from a restaurant with 3 Michelin stars, while we contemplated getting our usual favorite sweet ones from a neighborhood shop.  What ended up happening was that we were given quite a few of them from friends and hotel/restaurant PRs...

Let's start with the savory ones:

Turnip pudding with ibérico ham and preserved meat (西班牙火腿蘿蔔糕), from Forum Restaurant (富臨飯店) - this was purchased on January 21st, with a "best before" date of February 3rd. Well, it had spoiled by the time we removed it from the fridge and opened the vacuum seal on February 1st, the first day of the lunar new year.

Taro pudding with preserved meat (臘味芋頭糕), from Forum Restaurant (富臨飯店) - same thing as the turnip pudding. Both of these had spoiled. I suppose the silver lining is that they didn't use preservatives, but seriously... these didn't even last until the new year! I want my money back...

Another Christmas Eve at home

Pin It

Per our tradition, we chose to spend a quiet Christmas Eve at home with family and friends.  This year we got My Favorite Cousin as well as the Compatriot to come over, so no one would need to have a lonely Christmas.  Like last year, we had a combination of simple dishes cooked at home as well as takeout items.

We started with some caviar from Nomad, which was served with some sour cream on blinis. We also got some unsalted potato chips because Sankala seemed to prefer them to blinis. Unfortunately, one of our tins of caviar had gone off and smelled like stinky feet, so we had to make do with just one tin of 100g...

The ultimate home banquet

Pin It

At a dinner a few weeks ago, I received a coveted invitation to join Dashijie (大師姐) at one of her home banquets.  A few years ago I had to reluctantly turn down my first invitation, as Sankala had gotten us extremely good tickets to see John Legend play in Hong Kong.  I was, frankly, surprised and flattered to receive the invitation a second time.

The home banquet was held in conjunction with Ruyi Gastronomy, which was showcasing the new Home Banquet Collection (家宴逸品). The collection of porcelain was, in fact, initially designed at the request of Dashijie - as she wanted a custom set which would work specifically for her dishes. Desmond was on hand as co-host of the evening to give us some details about these beautiful pieces.

To match the beautiful china, our hostess also laid out her collection of vintage Baccarat crystal glassware, along with an elegantly designed menu. The Chinese names of the dishes were then poetically reimagined in English by our hostess' daughter.

We were, of course, all invited to watch as our host and hostess prepared the dishes along with their little kitchen elves, but I figured I'd give the others the opportunity to go in and do their filming.

I actually spent part of the time popping open a few bottles. DaRC, Desmond, and I were trying to figure out which wines to pair with each of tonight's dishes, and I was curious to see how they would work out.

One last (last) star

Pin It

It's New Year's Eve, and none of us can dine out after 6 p.m.  So the same crew from Christmas Eve, when we also were barred from dining out, re-assembled for another quite evening at home.

Tonight, though, Hello Kitty decided that she wasn't going to cook.  Truth be told, she's cooked more in 2020 than the previous few years combined, so she certainly deserved a night off.  We chose to pick up different goodies from around town.

We started with these baked puff pastry with crab roe and cheese (蟹粉芝士燒餅) from China Tang (唐人館).  Kinda interesting, I guess.  Not a combination I would have imagined.

We also nibbled on some mortadella and prosciutto.

Bling-bling Sunday

Pin It

As this crappy year slowly comes to a close, we find ourselves once again gathering with friends at home due to the government's ban on dine-in service after 6 p.m.  Chef DaRC very kindly hosted us at home and whipped up a series of beautiful dishes.  

We started with some caviar, and thankfully it was a smaller can than the one DaRC brought a couple of months ago.

As it turned out, Goldfinger had very kindly given me a box of goodies a few days ago.  Among the various tasty treats was this pack of Japanese gold foil... which I have no real use for.  I did, for a moment, consider putting some on my face...

Corona Easter

Pin It

It's Easter Sunday, and we had planned to meet up with DaRC to support a local restaurant.  Unfortunately, a number of places we would like to patronize don't open for lunch, so Chef DaRC offered to host us at home.  With the current Covid-19 pandemic raging across the globe, everything seems different.

These langoustines were flown in from Iceland, and they were pretty gigantic!  Chef DaRC blanched them for a short period so that they turned out mi-cuit.  Very, very nice.

Earth Hour 2020: staying in

Pin It

I have been observing Earth Hour since 2009, and other than that first year when I was a guest at a friend's home for dinner, and turning out the lights in my apartment in New Taipei City in 2012, I've been outdoors during the remaining years - often watching the lights being turned off in Victoria Harbour.

Given the current Covid-19 pandemic and the need for social distancing, we decided to stay home this year.  We were, in fact, scheduled to be in Tokyo this weekend... but of course that went out the window weeks ago.  We haven't seen DaRC and Ro Ro for 2 weeks so we invited them over for a simple dinner - as long as they were willing to spend part of the evening in the dark.

Hello Kitty started us off with some steamed flower crabs from the wet market next door, as well as some whiskered velvet shrimps (赤米蝦) in a cocotte with some sake.  We also had some Brussels sprouts with shallots.

10 days in 3 cities day 9: home cooked curries

Pin It

Of all the meals that I've planned on this last leg of our food tour, surely this had to be the one I looked forward to the most.  Hours after enjoying dinner at his eponymous restaurant, my friends and I regrouped for lunch at Gaggan Anand's home.

Gaggan wasn't at his restaurant last night when we dined there.  He was on his way back from Europe, and landed early this morning.  Apparently he dropped his bags off at home and went right back out to the market to shop for lunch, and apologized for not having a lot of ingredients in his home kitchen.  On the other hand, I felt terrible for intruding on his family time on a Sunday.

At least I didn't come empty-handed.  Knowing that he wouldn't take payment from me for last night's dinner, I brought along a very special and exclusive bottle of sake I brought back from Japan.  My new local restaurateur friend immediately recognized it - even the vintage that wasn't labelled anywhere.  But what my host cared more about were the cans of soda I carried from Hong Kong... this was a childhood memory, and probably brought him more happiness than any sake or wine I could give him.

Poor Vladi had to play sommelier on his day off, and poured us a round of Champagne to quench our thirst.

Olivier Horiot Cuvée Métisse, dégorgée le 18 Octobre 2017 - mmmm definitely dominated by pinot noir.

My friend started cooking two versions of the same meat dish with curry leaves, star anise, and black pepper. The difference was in the level of heat. Of course, Hello Kitty thought neither version was actually spicy...

Mom's festive dishes

Pin It

Being back home over lunar new year means I get to enjoy mom's dishes for the festive season.  This year it's just the three of us, so mom took it easy and didn't make a ton of dishes.  But there are always a couple that she will work on, regardless of the amount of effort required.

First up is Perfect Ten (十全十美), which is a dish mom has been making since as far as I can remember back.  Mom only makes it once a year for lunar new year, and I've managed to get her to include it both times she's given cooking lessons to my friends - first in 2012 during a session which became Diary of a Blowing Boy, then during the summer of 2016 when mom only used 8 ingredients instead of 10.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Diary of a Growing Boy (@growing_boy) on Feb 5, 2019 at 10:30pm PST

It's a time-consuming process, as the 10 ingredients are cooked and seasoned separately (some with salt and others with soy sauce), one by one in a particular sequence.  The order is:

Champagne wishes and caviar dreams, expired edition 2

Pin It

Hello Kitty and I had the distinct pleasure of dining with Dada and The Man in White T-shirt at their home.  I was originally looking forward to dining out somewhere, since eating at home meant that The Man in White T-shirt would be busy cooking for us instead of enjoying himself.  But one does not object when an invitation like this comes along...

Besides, if we weren't dining at their home, how would Hello Kitty and I ever get to meet Bunch and Chewie?!  And of course, who were the first ones to greet me when the door opened?

While the French chef was busy in the kitchen cooking us Cantonese food, I laid out the goodies that I had brought along.  I hadn't planned on bringing anything other than wine, but since I found out yesterday that my aged/expired caviar needed to be consumed 3 months ago, I made a last-minute decision to bring along what was left of my stock... and hoped that my hosts didn't mind.

Russian golden oscietra, packed March 2017 - initially I was worried about the white stuff that was on top, stupidly thinking that perhaps it had gone moldy... But The Man in White T-shirt figured that it was just the congealed oil from long periods of refrigeration, so we went ahead and ate it anyway...

Champagne wishes and caviar dreams, beluga edition

Pin It

This was a night we've been waiting for since December, and I was glad that it finally happened tonight.  Ever since I first got my hands on some Russian beluga caviar late last year, a few of us have been discussing the possibility of doing a beluga tasting.  Our schedules went through a few changes, but we managed to clean out our stash tonight.

Rather than asking our favorite chef the Man in White T-Shirt for another favor like last time, our friend RC offered to host us for this gathering, and proceeded to cook up a storm.  We had only been able to drool over pictures of Chef RC's cuisine at Chez Ro Ro, and tonight we finally had the chance to have a taste.

First, a little Joselito Gran Reserva bellota, which has been aged for 48 months.  Very nutty, but also has a surprisingly sweet finish.

Cooking for mom

Pin It

I'm back home in Taipei for a short trip, spending time with the Parental Units and celebrating mom's birthday.  Normally I would just book a table at STAY, and having just had lunch with Chef Pierrick Maire in Bangkok last week, that would have been the easy solution.

But Hello Kitty suggested that we cook for mom instead, and deep down I knew that would make her much happier... and so we did.  Well, when I say "we", I meant Hello Kitty.  My culinary repertoire is pretty limited, but fortunately I brought along my pinch hitter...

After dropping off our luggage at my place, we made a mad dash for CitySuper so Hello Kitty could quickly take stock of the available ingredients and decide what she was gonna cook.  We didn't have a whole lot of time, and it's always tough to find the ingredients we want in Taipei, but oh well...

We saw a package of beef shank from Rangers Valley, and we were reminded of the Black Market beef we had earlier this year.  We figured that this would work well in a stew, and picked up some veggies and other ingredients to go along.

Hello Kitty wanted to pick up a bottle of supermarket wine to dump into the beef stew, but I had other ideas.  I have a few bottles of 1997 Beringer Merlot Private Reserve Howell Mountain lying around, and I didn't think it was going to get much better with age, so I popped open a bottle and asked Hello Kitty to use it for her beef.  She was pretty shocked at first, but as the beef was cooking she quickly realized that it does matter what wine you use - and she could smell it.  Hey, we're cooking for my mom, and nothing's too good when it comes to the Parental Units.

We started with a simple salad, which mom seemed to like a lot.

Lunar New Year puddings: 2017 selection

Pin It

I'm back home in Taipei for the Lunar New Year celebrations, and as usual I carried a few Cantonese puddings that are customary for the season.  After testing out several outlets for each of the last few years, this year I've decided to be lazy and just stick to the tried-and-true.  Basically, I just went back to Fook Lam Moon (福臨門).

As is traditional for us, we get to have these puddings for lunch on New Year's Day.  Mom patiently stands over the stove while she pan-fries slices over low heat, while dad and I just wait for the plates to be served...

Fan Cook x Tak Lung Restaurant radish pudding with dried scallops (飯局 x 得龍大飯店 瑤柱蘿蔔糕) - my friend KC very kindly gave this to me as a gift.  This was made by the famous Tak Lung Restaurant according to Fan Cook's recipe.