"100 Chinese Foods to Try Before You Die" Update: #40 Goji berries

Photo by Icarus Lai

As excited as I get over how cheap food is in HK, lunch is always better when it's free ;) Yesterday my dietitian took us to a long-term care centre about a block away from work where she manages the food service department—the centre is one of the many satellites of the NGO I was placed in—for a staff Christmas party. We arrived a little late, so by the time we got there some of the food was gone, but I still managed to grab bites of turkey, ham, chicken kebab, sushi, curried turnip, vegetables, and a *spectacular* mixed mushroom in white sauce dish and a small glass of a really nice 2007 Languedoc Merlot.

I did notice the remains of a jello mold, but didn't quite recognize the shapes inside it and thought "aspic?" before shuddering a little and letting it escape from my mind.

Because my dietitian is super-casual and we got there late anyway, we hung around long enough to see them bring out a *second* round of food for the cooks to have their own Christmas celebrations. That's when I learned that the "jello mold" was actually 桂花糕 (gwai fa go), Osmanthus cake. It looked somewhat like the photo above, except it was a full on jello mold (with the scalloped edges and everything) without the clump of bird's nest on top.

This Osmanthus cake was homemade and was FILLED with tiny osmanthus petals, pitted longan, and goji berries. It didn't remind me of hydration (don't ask) as much as the last jello mold I had, but I enjoyed the mild flavour and the texture of the longan in the "cake". I was a little disappointed to find that the goji berries didn't seem to add a lot in terms of flavour and texture, but perhaps once I have an Osmanthus cake without it I'll notice the difference.

Seriously, osmanthus cake was such a revelation for me and I can't wait to taste another one! Screw Goji berries, THIS was what should've been on the list!

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Last day to bid on Menu for Hope V prizes!

I just put in my bid for a few Menu for Hope prizes that have caught my eye, and am pleased to find that my prize has garnered a few bids as well. It's not the twenty that Pim likes us bloggers to target for, but not bad for a first-timer "competing" against two other distance nutrition consultation packages!

Here's what I bid on: (NOT AN INVITATION TO BID ON THE SAME THINGS AND LOWER MY CHANCES ;) )

Our lovely hostess Pim offered a prize I couldn't take my eyes off of this year—an honourary membership in the Gourmet book club for a year, meaning that they'll send you a new cookbook every month! Not only that, you get to follow along in the discussion forums, watch videos of the book's author, etc. etc. Another prize from Pim is the Bo Ssäm dinner package for eight at the Momofuku Ssäm Bar in New York. As you may or may not know, my boyfriend and I might be moving to New York next year (if he gets into grad school there), and even if we don't, we've been meaning to make a trip down there anyway. Can I grab eight friends in such short notice? I hope so!

Another NYC prize I bid on is dinner for two at Jack, an "occasional restaurant" in Brooklyn. By occasional they mean that they only exist once a month or so for one seating at Brooklyn Lyceum, an art space in Park Slope. Sounds exciting :)

Finally I bid on signed copies of Clotilde (of Chocolate and Zucchini)'s two books, Chocolate and Zucchini and Clotilde's Edible Adventures in Paris. I once got the former for a friend as a birthday present and was a little sad to let the book go, but now I have the chance to get a signed copy! And I've always admired how young Clotilde is (still in her 20s) to have published two books and have such a successful food blog!

Other great prizes that I couldn't get my hands on due to shipping restrictions include Lara of Cook & Eat's popcorn package (if you haven't read her blog before, go do it because the visuals are simply STUNNING) and a gorgeous "lemongrass" Le Creuset dutch oven.

Of course, "CA01" is a great prize too ;) — Go bid at Firstgiving before it's too late!

Happy Holidays!

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Fibre in the typical HK Chinese diet: An unscientific discussion

Fibre's always been a pet issue for me because it's one of those rare nutrition things that you can see the effects of almost right away. To oversimplify things a little, if you're getting enough fibre (and drinking enough fluids), then you'll be regular, and if you're not, then you won't. The "adequate intake" value in the DRIs for fibre are 25 g for women between the ages of 19-50, and 38 g for men of the same age.

Aside from keeping you regular, fibre does a lot of other great things; soluble fibre helps reduce your blood cholesterol by binding to bile in the digestive tract, making it unavailable for reabsorption, forcing your body to use the cholesterol in your body to make more bile. In addition, foods that are high in soluble fibre, such as oatmeal, have a low glycemic index, meaning they give a slow, steady release of energy (especially important if you're into endurance training) instead of giving you a sugar high and then leaving you to crash and burn. Scientists are also beginning to link fibre intake with risk reduction in a variety of diseases, such as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension.

So why am I making a big deal about the issue of getting enough fibre in Hong Kong when really, it's an issue anywhere else? Because the recommendations made for getting fibre are different.

Think about it: if I asked you to name a source of fibre, you would probably say whole grains. Based on what I've unscientifically observed, I would venture that a significant proportion of people in Hong Kong only eat refined grains. White rice is obviously a staple in the diet, but even other high-carbohydrate foods, such as noodles, dumplings (i.e. the wrapper), congee, and buns of various fillings are all made of refined grains.

When it comes to bread, if you think Wonder Bread is the symbol of empty calories, then you would be horrified at the bread sold here. The crusts are removed, the heels are thrown away—it literally looks like you're buying a white sponge.

Why is this so appealing here? I think it stems from the fact that the Chinese didn't have ovens, and traditional Chinese breads were steamed, giving it a soft texture. Even in "western-style" breads, companies add "flour improver" to make it softer. Many of my friends who have visited Hong Kong or China always comment on how the bread is so soft.

My own experience in finding a nice, high-fibre (i.e. at least 3 g of fibre per slice) was an adventure on its own. My first attempt resulted in a bread that contained SHORTENING (read: trans-fat)

I've found a place close to my work that sells an "original wholemeal" bread that doesn't have all that silly flour improver and added fat, has a crust and heels, and is ironically made by the same company that makes that crustless sandwich bread. The supermarket close to my house (which is under the same company of the place close to my work) technically stocks it (there's a price tag), but I've never seen it there, and of course, the bread costs a LOT more than the crustless sandwich type.

So if people aren't getting their fibre from whole grains, then what do we tell them? Fruits and vegetables.

As much negativity there is surrounding the "new" Canada's Food Guide, one thing I do like is the shift from having grains to vegetables & fruit as the "largest" food group.

This is reflected in the "plate rule" that we've been taught to teach our clients.

In Hong Kong, the food pyramid looks very much like the old US Food Pyramid, and their "3, 2, 1 plate rule" is a little different from what we're teaching...

So basically, although they're telling people to eat more fruits and vegetables to meet their fibre needs, they're still telling people to eat more grains, and for the most part, most of those grains will be refined. So how easy is it to get fibre from fruits and vegetables as opposed to grains?

	Food Guide Serving	Fibre (g)
All-Bran cereal	30 g (~½ cup/125 mL)	10.1
Whole wheat bread	1 slice (35 g)	2 - 3
Oatmeal (quick cooking)	¾ cup (175 mL)	2.8
Oatmeal (instant)	¾ cup (175 mL)	2.4
Whole wheat spaghetti	½ cup (125 mL)	2.4
Brown rice	½ cup (125 mL)	1.5
Enriched (regular) spaghetti	½ cup (125 mL)	1.3
Corn Flakes	30 g (~1 cup/250 mL)	0.8
White rice	½ cup (125 mL)	0.4
Sweet potato (蕃薯/faan shue)	1 medium	3.8
Spinach (菠菜/bŏ choi)	½ cup (125 mL)	2.3
Carrot (紅蘿蔔/hoong lŏ baak)	½ cup (125 mL), sliced	2.2
Potato (薯仔/shue jai)	1 medium	2.1
Lotus root (蓮藕/leen ngau)	½ cup (125 mL)	2.0
Broccoli (西蘭花/sai laan fa)	½ cup (125 mL), chopped	2.0
Cauliflower (椰菜花/yeh choi fa)	½ cup (125 mL) pieces	1.8
Shiitake mushrooms (冬菇/doong goo)	½ cup (125 mL)	1.6
Chinese broccoli (芥蘭/gai lan)	½ cup (125 mL)	1.2
Bok choy (白菜)	½ cup (125 mL), shredded	0.9
Lettuce (生菜/saang choi)	1 cup, shredded	0.8
Bean sprouts (芽菜/nga choi)	½ cup (125 mL)	0.5
Apple, with skin	1 medium	2.6
Orange	1 medium	2.3
Kiwi	1 medium	2.3
Banana	1 medium	2.1
Mango	½ fruit	1.9
Apple, without skin	1 medium	1.7
Lychee (荔枝)	½ cup	1.3
Grapes	½ cup	1.0

Source: Canadian Nutrient File All vegetables are assumed to be boiled and drained. The sweet potato and potato are skinless.

So going back to those recommendations, and assuming that a quarter of a plate is ½ cup, then we can estimate how much fibre you can get in a typical meal if you follow the recommendations (who does, really?)

All right, so let's assume that our Chinese person fills half their plate (what kind of Chinese person eats from a plate?) with white rice, or 1 cup. That's 0.8 g of fibre. Even if the Western person fills a quarter of their plate (½ cup) with spaghetti, they're already getting 1.3 g of fibre. Change that to whole wheat, and we're up to 2.4 g.

Our Chinese person continues to follow the recommendations and fills ⅓ of their plate (⅔ cup) with vegetables. If this person was like me, they'd choose my favourite veg, Chinese broccoli. That would give about 1.7 g of fibre, for a total of 2.6 g. The Western person goes for salad, with most of their half-plate (1 cup) allotment going to lettuce, giving maybe 1 g of fibre, for a total of 2.3 g if they chose regular spaghetti, and 3.4 g if they chose whole wheat.

(In case you didn't know, there's no fibre in meat.)

So it's really just a matter of playing your cards right. At the end of the day, it's probably still harder for the Chinese person to get the same amount of fibre as a Western person just because they're limited by the low fibre content of white rice, but if lettuce is the Western person's vegetable of choice, then they'll be limited by that in the same way.

Either way, if we're only averaging about 2 or 3 g of fibre per meal, then it's probably *really* hard to get the recommended 25-38 g of fibre per day. That's why choosing good snacks, like fruit with whole wheat crackers, or yogurt with granola (or All-Bran buds) and dried fruit, are also important.

Still a little worried? Then go for the "magical" fruit. That's right, beans. Adzuki beans, better known as red beans (紅豆/hoong dau) in Hong Kong, are found in everything from the traditional red bean dessert soup to red bean ice cream and popsicles (though the actual bean content is a little sketchy). In a ¾ cup (175 mL) food guide serving, it packs in 12.4 g of fibre! ½ cup of edamame will give you 4 g of fibre, but a cup of soy milk only gives you about 1 g of fibre, and tofu barely gives you any fibre at all.

If you really feel like you need a *lot* of fibre in one go, then Metamucil and Benefibre are good choices. I like the latter because I can just throw some in my water and not have to worry about it changing taste or texture or anything. And having it in water means I keep drinking too. A word of warning - start slow, especially if you don't have high fibre intake to begin with, or else you'll feel major discomfort and will be turned off fibre forever. And we don't want that, right?

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Menu for Hope V

Every holiday season, Pim's ever-successful Menu for Hope always catches me off guard. Don't know what it is? It's an annual fundraising event held by Pim of Chez Pim; all proceeds go to the UN World Food Programme's school lunch program in Lesotho. Last year, by just paying $10 per raffle ticket, food bloggers and food blog readers from across the globe united to donate $91,188.00 (US!) to the fund. This year, despite the economic crisis, we all hope to cross that $100K barrier.

Aside from the great cause itself, I love Menu for Hope for two additional reasons:

1) The chance to drool over and bid on awesome foodie prizes from the world over, and
2) The chance to discover beautiful, well-written food blogs, like this year's Canadian host, Meena's Hooked on Heat.

Go on, take a look at the Canadian prizes. The first one's from Ceci n'est pas un food... oh, that's me! I'm very pleased to announce that I will be offering prize CA01 this year, which is...

CA01: A Six-Week Nutrition Makeover from an (almost!) Registered Dietitian

Inspired by Kathryn of Limes & Lycopene's Menu for Hope prize last year (and this year), I would like to offer up my own nutrition consultation services as a prize. As some of you may already know, I am graduating with a BSc in Nutritional Sciences from McGill in days, where I completed the integrated internship program. I will become an RD after I complete the Canadian Dietetic Registration Exam in the spring. Through my internship and through working at a gym this past summer, I've had plenty of experience working with clients with a variety of health needs. Losing weight and getting healthy are probably the most popular New Years resolutions. So why not start 2009 with a little bit of professional help? The six-week nutrition makeover will include a nutrition assessment, a nutrition plan that's suited to your lifestyle, and the benefit of working with a qualified professional. Consultations will be done via email, so anyone around the world can take a shot at this prize!

I would also like to stress that although losing weight is probably the most popular nutrition issue, anyone can benefit from a little nutrition counselling. Training for a marathon? Getting ready to welcome a new baby? Just diagnosed with celiac's disease? This prize can be right for you too!

So how do you get in on all the prizes (and giving to such a wonderful program)? Here are the donation instructions:

Donation Instructions:
1. Choose a prize or prizes of your choice from our Menu for Hope at Chez Pim
2. Go to the donation site at Firstgiving and make a donation.
3. Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. Please specify which prize you'd like in the 'Personal Message' section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code.
For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02. Please write 2xEU01, 3xEU02
4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.
5. Please allow us to see your email address so that we could contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

Good luck and happy holidays! :)

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Beverage Ordering in HK 102 - Drinks that haven't made it big anywhere else

Most of the drinks I introduced in the last entry can be found in HK-style cafés around the world, whether it's right here in HK, other Asian cities, or anywhere where people from HK have settled. But since I've come here (and glanced at a few drink menus), I've noticed a few drinks that haven't made it big outside of HK yet.

Ribena with Lemon (凍檸賓 "doong ling bun")

Ribena is supposedly beginning to make inroads into the States through the "Ribena, I know what you're drinking" line in Estelle and Kanye West's American Boy. (I say "supposedly" because for the longest time I didn't know that was what was being said until I read it in a blog.) Of course the British way of drinking it involves adding booze, while people in HK have—you guessed it—added lemon.

I was actually introduced to Ribena with Lemon via a commercial that I found kind of cute:



At first I was afraid it would just taste like fruit punch, but I love how the lemon gives it a bit of a tang and although the Ribena tastes sweet at first, it finishes off with a deeper blackcurrant flavour. Since then I haven't ordered the drink; it's one of those that costs extra with a meal (even the hot version) and it tastes a little too much like summer for December!

Watercressade with Honey (凍菜蜜 "doong choi mut")

When I first heard one of my co-workers order a "菜蜜", my first thought was "What? Vegetable juice with honey?" It was after peeking at a menu that I realized the vegetable in question was watercress (西洋菜). And no, this isn't watercress juice, it's the liquid that remains after you boil a huge pile of watercress. If you add slices of pork, salt, and other things to it, it becomes watercress soup, something you can occasionally find on my dinner table when I'm having supper with family. So I was a little skeptical that adding honey would get rid of that vegetable-y taste and make it yummy.

I was a little surprised to find that it didn't have a trace of the distinctive soup taste. In fact, it reminded me a little bit of those Vita Chrysanthemum Tea juice boxes I had all throughout elementary school. Perhaps because of the amount of honey? Since then I usually ask for a less sweet ("少甜" siu teem) version, but still none of that green-y taste, which is great. I've since added the hot version to the "rotation" of drinks I order now with lunch (hot lemon with honey, hot lemon tea) just because for the past while I've been a little overzealous in poking my lemons and making my drinks a little too tart. According to Wikipedia (in Chinese), this stuff is now sold as a condensed "squash" like Ribena. In fact, to cut down on costs, some HK-style café owners will use this instead of honey in their lemon with honey drinks! (Those bastards!) Which allows other owners to advertise that their stuff uses real honey and charge you extra.

Coffee with Lemon (熱檸啡 "yeet ling feh")

When I first saw this on a menu, I imagined myself telling my boyfriend (who helped me acquire a taste for coffee by taking me out for brunch all of the time, really) and listening to him make that sound that he makes when I talk about things that he finds disgusting, like Brussels sprouts. (I've since learned that it is spelled "Ach", as I witnessed on Skype when telling him about an expensive "Biblical Hebrew for Beginners" book I saw at the bookstore.) I forced myself to order it because I knew I was planning this entry and even in my head I thought I was going to reject it. I mean, don't people usually associate sour coffee with coffee of poor quality and/or has been sitting out for a while?

OK, so if you get it out of your head that coffee's supposed to be a creamy, dairy sort of beverage, then remember to add a pack of sugar, coffee with lemon is not that bad. It's like tea with lemon, but with a richer, more bitter aftertaste. I don't think I'd order it again, but I did manage to finish the one that I ordered.

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Beverage Ordering in HK 101

Photo by 天曉得。

When in a Hong Kong-style café (茶餐廳) or any other non-fancy restaurant in HK, for that matter, most people don't need to look at the drink menu before deciding what to order. I guess you can argue that it's the same in the West, where the choices are usually pop, tea, coffee, and water. Sure they have those here too (including fruity pops like Fanta), but there are a LOT more choices like milk tea, milk tea with coffee, lemonade, etc. etc. and all restaurants offer ALL of them. So how do you go about ordering something a little more interesting than a Coke?

The first thing you should know is that EVERYTHING (from coffee to lemon in Coke) comes in hot (熱 "yeet") and cold/iced (凍 "doong") versions, so any drink order would usually precede with one of those two words. Remember that if you're ordering a drink with a meal though, usually the cold version will cost you a few extra dollars. HK　people are also all about the efficiency, so names are usually shortened to three words. For example, lemon tea is 檸檬茶 ("ling moong cha") but is shortened to 熱檸茶 and 凍檸茶, respectively.

Tea and coffee
As you probably gathered from above, tea in Cantonese is 茶 ("cha"). If you want just plain tea, you don't have to order it; waiters will set some down when you're seated at the restaurant. But what if you want something fancier? We've already talked about adding lemon to tea, but the most popular drink in HK-style cafés is milk tea (奶茶 "nai cha"). Don't confuse this with tea with cream and sugar though, here they add a substantial amount of evaporated milk. Sugar is added at the table; if you're used to artificial sweeteners you will need to carry around your own.

Coffee in Cantonese is 咖啡 ("ga feh") and will usually come with milk or cream already added (unlike the west, they don't have creamers/milkers at the table). If you want black coffee (that you can add sugar to after), you can say 齋啡 ("zai feh"/plain coffee) or if you're feeling a little advanced, you can say 飛砂走奶 ("fei sa jau nai"), which means no sugar or milk.

You can mix milk tea and coffee together to make 鴛鴦 ("yuen yeung") for a real caffeine boost. If you don't like evaporated milk, you can order 茶走 ("cha jau") or 啡走 ("feh jau") for tea and coffee with condensed milk added, respectively. (The latter is awesome, btw, one of my former roommates, who is not Chinese but Jewish-Russian, used to make it.)

Adding lemon to everything
For some reason, people in HK like adding lemon to everything. This could be normal, like adding lemon to tea or to water to make lemonade (檸檬水, or 檸水 "ling sui" for short). My personal favourite is hot "lemonade" with honey (熱檸蜜 "yeet ling mut"), which I sometimes make for myself with a little ginger when I'm feeling under the weather.

A trusted HK cold remedy, on the other hand, is hot Coke with lemon (熱檸樂 "yeet ling lok", the 樂 comes from Coke's full name, 可口可樂), which I tried once when I was younger and didn't really care for. For an extra oomph, you can add ginger to that too, but I'm not 100% on whether we're in common beverage territory anymore.

Other common lemon-y drinks that I'll cover in my next entry, "Drinks that haven't quite made it out of Hong Kong", include Ribena with lemon (檸檬利賓納, or 檸賓 "ling bun" for short) and lemon coffee (檸啡 "ling feh").

British influence
As a former British colony, some British drink mixes have made it big in Hong Kong as well. Ribena can be considered one (it's sold as a syrup to be diluted into a drink), but the ones I'm thinking of are Horlicks (好立克 "ho laap haak", but people usually just call it "Horlick" in a Chinese accent to meet the two-of-three syllables requirement), a malted milk drink that's supposed to be served hot (though you can find it iced too) and Ovaltine (阿華田 "aw wah teen"), a malted chocolate drink. While it's usually not found in restaurants, I must admit I was more of a fan of Milo (美祿 "mei look")—essentially an Australian Ovaltine—myself.

If you don't like barley malt in your hot chocolate, you can order a 熱朱古力 ("yeet jue goo lick"). Like the West, "cold chocolate" is chocolate milk, which is 朱古力奶 ("jue goo lick nai"), but who orders milk at a restaurant?

I think this covers most of the drinks you can get at a typical HK-style café. Is there anything else you want to learn how to order?

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What's been cookin'

How did it become December already? It certainly doesn't feel like December here in Hong Kong, and I definitely don't feel like I'm just over a week away from finishing my internship. And why should I? I'm all the way across the globe from school and I will continue volunteering at my placement until I leave Hong Kong at the end of January. So there will be no fanfare, no celebration, probably just a "wtf?" Once it clicks that I'm actually one step closer to becoming an RD.

As negative as *that* just sounded, I'm actually having a pretty awesome time here in Hong Kong. Just on the food front, I've been lucky enough to have co-workers who will take me to different places for lunch, though I haven't been able to take pictures because the places are so crowded, and of course it would be a little awkward when you're eating lunch with 3-5 people who don't know you own a food blog.

On the nutrition front, although I haven't had the chance to do a lot of "hands-on" nutrition work this rotation, I'm still learning a lot about eating habits and how nutrition education is approached here. It's made me realize that when I'm in a multicultural society like Canada, just knowing names of token foods is not enough. Although there will obviously be some acculturation, you really need to experience it before you can understand how a culture eats and approaches food.

I guess I could say, "I've been too busy to blog," but I don't feel that it's the case. I don't feel swamped with work or anything (really rocking the work-to-marks ratio on this pass-fail semester here), it's just that aside from being on a pretty tight schedule (which I've described before), I just don't feel like I have material for a good food blog post. I mean, who wants to hear what I ate for lunch? Where can I tell you about the neat things that I've seen?

But I do think I can cobble together some of my experiences so far...

My cousin Ronnie got married the week after I got back. I was about to write a blog post about it; I have photos of almost all of the dishes, plus one of my cousin's cousins kindly uploaded a photo of the menu itself to help jog my memory. But when I got down to writing, I thought, I don't think I've seen any food bloggers blog about a wedding other than their own, or at the very least, one where they were involved with the food preparation. So all I can say is, the food was delicious (my dad commented how the food was better than during the tasting on the way home), and looking at the menu made me realize marrying my current boyfriend might be a little more difficult than I thought.

Lunch has become pretty routine as well; we usually frequent HK-style cafés and order different types of fried rice and fried noodles. When I'm left to my own devices now, I usually just go to a small shop just down the street that sells cheh jai mein (車仔麵) "cart noodles". While westerners have sandwich shops where they can choose their own toppings, here you choose the type of noodle you want, and the toppings. I usually load up on the vegetables and then add fish balls or something and it definitely beats Subway!

In terms of more "special" trips, we've gone to Chiu Yuen Chiu Chow Noodle (潮苑), where they specialize in handmade fish balls and "beef cakes", which I guess are a specialty in Chiu Chow. At first the beef cakes just reminded me of flattened beef balls, which is a little disappointing seeing as how they advertise that they beat the meat (shut up) with a metal rod for three hours. After a few more bites though, I noticed that the beef cakes tasted more like beef than beef balls do, and the fish balls had a great taste and texture too. It was also at Chiu Yuen where I actually read a beverage menu here for the first time... more on that in my next post.

Though lunch usually costs me around HKD$40 (~CAD$6-7), we've gone to more expensive places a couple of times. One of these was Crystal Jade (翡翠), a franchise that specializes in Shanghainese food. We ordered (among other things) "dan dan" noodles (擔擔麵), steamed pork buns/soup dumplings (小籠包), noodles with dumplings (水餃麵), and fried rice cakes (炒年糕). It's a little funny how we came about ordering the "dan dan" noodles, which are basically rice noodles served in a spicy, peanutty broth. Once when we were out for lunch I ordered Singapore fried noodles, just to switch things up, not realizing that nobody really likes spicy foods. So now people think I like spicy foods (which is a weird position for me, because that role in my family has always been played by my brother) and will always ask me if I want to try a spicy dish. The noodles were *so* good. The broth was thick and not too spicy, and I loved that little hint of peanut in the background. My brother hates Chinese food, but I think I can turn him on to them. I liked the steamed pork buns, of course, as they're my favourite type of dim sum, and I loved the chewy texture of the fried rice cakes, which are made with glutinous rice flour. All in all, it was a great meal, and I think I'm falling in love with Shanghainese food, even though my dad supposedly dislikes it.

Yesterday we went to try Queen's Palace (帝后殿), which serves up Beijing, Szechuan, and Shanghai cuisines. I know I've expressed dislike toward Asian mashup restaurants like those found in Montreal, but in this case, all of the cuisines are from northern China, so I think it's ok. We ordered a bunch of different dishes, such as stir-fried river shrimp (炒河蝦), roasted pork belly with honey sauce (蜜汁烤雙方), egg white "crab"　（賽螃蟹） (another of my faves), and Shanghai fried noodles (上海粗炒). We also ordered steamed pork buns, and got some free coconut pudding for dessert as my dietitian (preceptor) knows the head chef.

I thought the roasted pork belly was especially neat as it reminded me a little of Peking duck. You get small rectangular pieces of steamed bun, wherein you put in a slice of pork belly, fried tofu skin, and cucumber (optional). I liked the sweetness of the honey contrasting with the pork belly, the crunch of the tofu skin, and the refreshing cucumber which really gave it the "Peking duck" note. Although lunch was pretty steep (we each paid HKD$181, or ~CAD$30), I would definitely go back if that head chef was willing to strike us a better deal than just dessert!

And that leaves us at 1:17 AM. I'm sorry my thoughts are a little meandering right now, and it might take me a little while before I get back to the blog again, but I'm sure you will learn a few things from my next few entries.

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