My un-posted favorites. Mostly Manila but also Shanghai.

YUM and YAY! Here you go!

Oyster omelette (so many "combinations" in such a simple dish!): Ordered this probably 4-5 times in the same restaurant during my trip to Shanghai because my aunt goes to that restaurant a lot. It's a Southeast Asian restaurant, where they have Malaysian-Chinese, Malaysian and Singaporean food (although I've been told by my aunt's Malaysian friends that there is no such thing as Singaporean food really). Anyways, this falls under the Malaysian-Chinese category, and since there a lot of people from the Fujian province (in China) who immigrated to Malaysia, like in the Philippines, this dish was exactly how I remembered eating it in the Philippines. It's pretty simple conceptually--it's an omelette with oysters, salt, soy sauce, Chinese wine and pepper, but the addition of tapioca starch gives a chewy texture to the oyster omelette that goes nicely with the fresh cilantro that they sprinkle on top (crunchy-chewy combination). Eat with ketchup or sweet-chili sauce for the sweet-salty combination.

Nasi Lemak with Chicken Rendang: According to my aunt's Malaysian friends, this is served on the streets of Malaysia as breakfast food wrapped in a banana leaf, where you can pick what viand you want with your rice. But let me break down the components of the dish...

rice=pandan rice (which is why it is green), fried egg, fried small fish (called dilis in Tagalog and ikam bilis in Malaysian) with peanuts, raw cucumbers, sambal sauce (spicy chili pepper based sauce) and the chicken rendang--which is chicken boiled for a while in coconut milk and spices until its sauce is reduced and very flavorful. Overall, this dish was pretty spicy (from the sambal and chicken rendang) but not overtly so--the complexity of flavor from the spices+coconut milk was still there.

Mochi...is one of my favorite dessert-type snacks because it is chewy and not too sweet (AND they're colorful). When I saw these little stalls called Mochi Sweets around Shanghai (and apparently other Asian countries as well), I was pretty happy and knew that I just HAD to go and get a mochi (or two), even if they were a bit overpriced for mochi (around 6 RMB for one mochi--close to US$1). They had a LOT of flavors--many of them non-traditional (traditionally it's sweet red beans) flavors, like dark chocolate, chestnut, taro, sakura, and etc.

What made this mochi different from other mochi was that it is a cross between normal mochi (that does not need to be refrigerated) and mochi ice cream (which obviously needs to be frozen). The mochi from this store was frozen, but had some type of custardish/cream thing along with the respective filling; this custard cream thing made the mochi filling a lot...smoother than normal--both texturally and taste-wise.

Also, I liked it so much that I made it "kind of birthday cake," since I didn't really have one on my actual birthday (although I did "wish" on an egg tart). But yes, I wished on the mochi as well.

Buko juice: I really love drinking fresh coconut juice; it brings back memories of hot summer days in Manila when I would open my fridge and see pitchers of fresh coconut juice with chunks of coconut meat which was cold, refreshing and sweet. It's harder than you think to get a good coconut--if it's too old, the meat cannot be scraped off from the shell, and if it's too young, the meat is clear and jelly-like, without much flavor to it. Mmmm. I had this 3 times when I was in Manila and once in Shanghai. The nice thing with coconut juice is that it has no recipe--it always tastes exactly like you remembered it.

Taho: I would say that it's quite difficult to describe this dessert/snack in an appetizing way to a non-Asian person, because it's basically hot soft tofu with brown sugar syrup and tapioca balls--yet very delicious. Taho was my after-school treat during elementary and middle school, where a taho vendor would be outside the school gates, and my mom would buy a cups of hot and fresh taho for about 20 pesos (probably US$0.50). I used to not really like eating taho at times, especially since it was hot and the weather was already hot and humid, but I was craving this a lot when I was in Shanghai and Manila. It's hard to find this in the US, so I was happy. :)

Filipino Taho...with brown sugar and tapioca balls

Chinese Tou Hua (literally "bean flower")...normally served with white sugar+ginger syrup and does not necessarily have tapioca balls

Kare-Kare (picture from internet): Yayy. One of my favorite Filipino foods that I had the last day I was in Manila. It's basically a peanut stew with tripe or ox tail with string beans, Chinese cabbage, eggplant and banana heart served with fermented shrimp paste (bagoong) on the side. Like all Filipino food, this dish is subject to interpretation, so the vegetables vary at times, and other people use goat meat instead of tripe or ox tail. On the Wikipedia page, it says that the name probably came from the Japanese word "kare" (curry) from pre-colonial times, but I've also read things saying that this dish may have its roots in Africa. In any case, it's been around for a while, and is one of the non-Spanish-inspired Filipino foods.

Texturally, it's a pretty thick stew which goes perfectly with a big mound of white rice. The meat is generally gelatinous (especially if you're using ox tail) or a bit chewy (if you're using tripe). As for the sauce, it has a mild peanutty flavor--think of peanut butter where the strong peanut flavor is mellowed out with soup stock, garlic and onions. The bagoong served on the side with this dish (which you mix into your own portion of kare-kare and rice) adds the saltiness to the mild sauce, with the strong, slightly pungent flavor of dried, fermented shrimps.

Turon: This was a snack that they often served in the cafeteria of my elementary, middle and high school for recess or after school. The basic turon concept is simple--turon is basically bananas (and sometimes jackfruit) wrapped in an egg roll wrapper and fried until the turon is a crispy golden-brown. Some variations include: putting brown sugar syrup on it before frying it (resulting in a caramelized flavor), eating it with ice cream (turon a la mode), or eating it with a pureed mango syrup--which we are shown with below. Freshly-made, hot turon is delicious--Philippine bananas are a lot sweeter (and less starchy than American bananas) too.
Filipino/Spanish Hot chocolate: Thick and slightly bitter, and served in a demitasse cup. Even by itself it is delicious. :)

The Last of Shanghai

Back in Seattleland from Shanghai and Manila and realized how extremely un-updated I am (partly because Manila was a whirlwind of dinners/lunches/meriendas with friends, family and family friends) on this blog! So, here you go--this is my post about my last day in Shanghai.

For about a month, I was interning in a hotel in Shanghai as part of the HR department, where I hung out with front desk trainees, listened to orientations, made tests, and helped them practice their English...among other things. Normally, my day started at around 6:50 where I woke up, left at 7:40 to take the subway, started work at 9, and finished at around 5:30 (getting back home at 7). This schedule wasn't too bad, but left me little time for foodventuring. On my last day of work however, I got out at exactly 12 noon and went on a little adventure--the last of Shanghai and walked/took the subway for around 5 hours. Exploring--it is fun. :)

East to West Nanjing Road: convenient and right at a subway stop! Walked around at the hottest part of the day for a while, and ate some food (plum juice, and something that I THINK was takoyaki but with no octopus or something--still not sure) off the side streets that were on the periphery of the main streets. This road has a lot of shops, malls, food stalls, and best of all--no cars on the main part of it, because it was a walking street.

There were a LOT of food stores like this on the road, where there would be random stalls inside that sold specialty food and snacks--dried meat, candy, dried fish, duck tongue, Japanese snacks, gelatin...etc. It was fun to go into the stores with the crowds of people and look at what the rest of China was eating.

Yu Yuan: Imperial garden in the past that has been made nicer (and turned into a tourist attraction) by the Chinese government. It's pretty though, and there are a lot of small shops (selling things like paper cuttings, shoes, belts, cellphone charms, caricatures, etc.) around, which I'm guessing were old residences or something like that. It's a very touristy area, with A LOT of tourists (evidenced by the Starbucks and McDonalds that was in there), but it was still worth going to I thought.

THE BEST (original) XIAOLONGBAO: Perfect ending to my Shanghai trip--xiaolongbao, as Shanghai is known for this delicious and delectable delicacy. Yu Yuan is also known for this xiaolongbao place, located somewhere along its winding alleyways. This place, which is called Nanxiang (I think...) was awarded many awards for traditionalism and being a cultural landmark, or something like that. Well yes, Din Tai Fung is good. But that is Taiwanese--this place that I went to (as did Bourdain on his show according to my mom) is probably truer to the Chinese xiaolongbao experience.

Here is the front of the store--they have a restaurant upstairs, but I waited in line with the rest of the Chinese people (another piece of evidence that proves its authenticity)! By the way--they only sell one kind of xiaolongbao in the line.

Front of the line: note the baskets upon baskets of freshly steamed xialongbao (although I'm sure some are empty). Look at the full basket beside the lady--THEY GIVE YOU THE WHOLE THING (all dumplings in basket).

The line and my reward: My 20RMB (about $3) serving of 16 delicious xiaolongbao, as a reward for around 20 minutes in line. SO WORTH IT. Dumplings had pretty thick skin, but the meat on the inside was so extremely juicy and delicious. It's very different from Din Tai Fung, where you had very thin skin, soup on the inside and relatively dry meat, because these xiaolongbao had no juice on the inside at all--in retrospect, the "soup" was not needed anymore, because the meat part was just sooo hot and juicy when you bit into it. With just a bit of black vinegar on top, YUM.

...Honestly I wish I had someone come with me to help me eat and take pictures, because I could not finish these delicious dumplings. After eating 10 xiaolongbao, I felt really full (and slightly guilty) and ended up just eating all the meat parts. Still, so good though. If you go to Shanghai please come here, and skip all the small vendors with the giant xiaolongbao where you slurp up the soup from a straw (my mom tried and said it was not worth it--I trust her judgment).

I am so easily entertained: food-related videos!

So it all started out when my friend sent me the peanut butter jelly time video. That was about 20 (or more) minutes ago. Since then I've been Youtube-hopping and looking at food-related videos, just for fun and entertainment. Some of them are old favorites to some degree, and a LOT of them are really random, but here you go (also Egg Song on Youtube does not allow embedding but look it up--it's very catchy.)

My 20th!

Oh my. Finally in my second decade of existence. It's a bit weird thinking about it to be honest, especially since 20 feels a bit old compared to 19 (to add, I'm not a teenager anymore). We were supposed to go to the expo, but given that it was one of the hottest days of the year, we decided to postpone our plans for another day sometime this week. In any case, I still felt like I had a good birthday, (also in part to the emails and facebook messages from friends from at least 3 different places and multiple time zones which made me happy and extended my birthday into a 3-day long affair...thanks everybody!!!). Good food too, of course.

Noodles for breakfast.
Thanks to my mom who woke me up by calling at 6:50 am, i was up pretty early. In any case, at around 9 am my aunt and i went to this small noodle place near her house that her friend recommended for a big bowl of birthday noodles. Although it turned out that we went to the wrong place in the end, I thought this place was pretty good (and cheap).

Beautiful interiors, don't you think?

Also, the soup was boiling away outside.

My 15RMB (less than USD$3) bowl of noodles was nicely curryish and meaty in flavor--you could tell that the beef had been boiling in the soup stock for a while. The add-on stuff (fried egg, sliced beef and hong shao beef which was sweet-salty with star anise+cloves) went well with the soup stock and the hand-pulled noodles that one guy was doing at the front of the shop. I thought these noodles to be reminiscent of sate (different from malaysian satay) noodles in Manila which has a similar flavor profile--curryish and subtly smoky in flavor. I was satisfied to be sure, even after I found out that this was not the shop that my aunt's friend recommended. Comment though was that there was just a lot of msg in the soup (drank around 2 liters of water at home), but this is china after all.

Mussels and Muscles...and beer at Charmant.
Skipped lunch because was not hungry after all that water, and went to dinner with my aunt and her food-loving Malaysian friends at this Belgian restaurant. Honestly, the entrees left a lot to be desired, but the mussels, fries and fruit lambic (beer) was quite good, especially after a 40-minute treadmill session that afternoon.

Mussels.
According to my aunt's friend, Belgium is known for their mussels that are fresh, cheap, and abundant, which are steamed very simply with some kind of sauce/broth. The menu of the restaurant we went to had 7 kinds of mussel variations, and we ordered the white wine, beer and basil ones (honestly, not a lot of difference among the two alcoholic ones). Not much to say honestly--mussels were nicely prepared and quite simple, and their natural flavors went nicely with the sauces/broths they were cooked in. My aunt's friends were saying though (and I agree) that the mussels needed a little hint of citrus flavor from some lemon, just to reduce the seafoodish taste from the mussels. Broth was good with bread though. Mmm.

Belgian fries.
So first of all, I'm not a fry person. Generally I'll eat them but will not eat much because I would worry about my skin. I thought these fries were excellent though, and a LOT better than the large fry in Mr. and Mrs. Bund (see previous post). What made these fries special was that you could tell they were freshly made, and had a nice crunchy outside crust that you don't normally get in regular fries. Whenever i bit into each fry, the combination of crunchy outer layer+hot inside=yum (they were not greasy too). In addition, they were sprinkled with some seasoning that made any kind of extra condiment unnecessary, although I did try them with mayonnaise and they were still pretty good, even if I dislike mayonnaise.

Lambic beer.
Belgium is known for it's beer apparently, especially their fruit lambic (spontaneous fermentation, unlike regular beer). I had both the peach and raspberry flavors and thought them to be really refreshing in taste. Normally I dislike beer, but these lambics did not taste like beer at all--they were light and fruity in flavor; not the artificial flavor either, they tasted of fresh fruits that it was easy to forget they had any alcohol content whatsoever. Don't worry, I didn't get tipsy/drunk on my birthday (this is me with the raspberry beer). :)

Cha's Restaurant: caffeine and a sleepless night.
After that dinner, we decided to go for drinks at a very HK-style cafeteria. If I think about it, places like these are probably the closest equivalent to American diners and the like--even though we got there at around 9:30 and stayed to around 11:45, there were still a lot of people having actual meals.

Front counter area--also my aunt and her friends were saying that the servers in this place were very authentically Cantonese like in HK (part of their training maybe?). Haha. Will let you extrapolate what that actually means.

Milk tea.
Was really good--smooth and without the bitter aftertaste you sometimes get in milk tea (like in xin wang, whose tea was tannic in flavor). It was done very traditionally (boiled tea+evaporated milk+condensed milk) and was a little strong, thus contributing to my 4-hour night sleep that night. Compared to my aunt's tea however, this was really mild--while mine was slightly diluted because of the ice, her "ice" was in fact iced milk tea (she had 2 glasses of this, and did not sleep at all that night).

Horlicks (yayyyy!!!!).
Lots of people think I'm weird when I say how much I love Horlicks, a malty drink that tastes like the inside of a Malteasers candy ball thing. I suppose it's partly the good food memories that I attach to it (free with breakfast in HK when we ate at Cafe de Coral which was close to our hotel). It's also a comforting drink to be honest, one that makes me feel like everything is okay. Anyways, it was nice to have Horlicks on my birthday. :)

Sleepless night.
Talked to people, watched Top Chef and had the general experience of tossing and turning in bed. Slept at 3 am, woke up at around 7ish, but was awake and unable to sleep for part of it. Ah well. At least I maximized my birthday for the most part (and the milk tea+Horlicks was more worth losing sleep over than a lot of other things...).

Was a complete zombie for most of the next day, where we ate at the correct noodle place--see my adventure above--which was not dingy/sketchy looking, air-conditioned and also good. No pictures of that though.

Mr. and Mrs. Bund--playful, somewhat deconstructionist food.

Went here last Saturday with my aunt for dinner after eating that monstrosity of a bo lo bao (see below) and thought the food to be quite impressive overall. Paul Pairet, the French chef who opened this restaurant used to work for Jade 36, where according to my aunt, he had dishes that were on the molecular gastronomy-side of cooking. I suppose you could say that Mr. and Mrs. Bund is somewhat similar in that sense, but I didn't think it was so much molecular gastronomy rather than some playful deconstruction of classic French dishes.

Interior was interesting so I took a lot of pictures--reminded me a lot of an upscale Alice in Wonderland (thematically speaking), but that might not be too obvious from the pictures sadly (these chair were really tall btw--and that's not just because I am not tall).

House appetizers: Smoked salmon/tuna with crostini and bread basket.
Nice. Spread was light, mousse-like in density and had a smoky flavor overall. Went very well with the thinly cut crostini which was flavored with some sea salt (and I think pepper as well), which brought out the flavor of the spread. Both breads were quite good (you've got to give it to the French--they know their bread), but I must say that I liked the bread at Jean-Georges better for it's blistery crust over warm bread (getting nostalgic thinking about it).

Arugula truffle salad with Parmesan.

One of my aunt's favorite dishes at this restaurant especially since she just LOVES arugula. I found it too salty though--too much Parmesan. Also, the dressing was truffle-y and not really acidic so nothing really "broke" the flavor too much (don't know if this is the correct term to use).

Corn soup with vanilla and corn flakes.

I <3 corn flakes. Ask my college friends about how I eat them for dessert after almost every meal in the dining hall (with banana slices, peanut butter and Oreo pieces depending on my mood and their availability). But anyways--I thought this was a nice soup, which balanced out the slight sweetness of the corn with a subtle acidity (from sour cream probably). The corn flakes made the enjoyment of the soup much more interesting, through its addition of both crunch and corn flavor.

Foie gras mousse with aspic, toasted almonds and dried apricots (served with bread).

I really liked this interpretation of foie gras, and thought it enlightening to compare this with Jean-Georges' two foie gras dishes. Unlike the other two, this foie gras was light, as the addition of aspic and dried apricots cut the flavor prettily so you still got the foie gras flavor without its density (it's preparation as a blended, mousse-like spread helped a lot with this), and the almonds rounded up the nutty flavors and added some texture.

Extra large fry with mustard ice cream on the side.

I thought this to be a smart reinterpretation of European (i suppose French or Belgian) fries, which are normally served with some mustard/aioli on he side. Making the mustard into an ice cream was also a smart idea--it brought back memories of eating ice cream and French fries together. I just wish that the fry was not just one big one (and instead, many smaller and crispier ones, because the supersized version did not have much of the crispiness on the outside that I look for in my fries; to add, the inside was on the mushy side given that it was a large fry. Overall, smart but meh.

Potato gratin with Brie and prosciutto.

Dish was overall so-so but it sparked a long and enjoyable conversation that started with my question, "so, do you this qualifies as a deconstruction?" To answer the question... I would say that it was a reinterpretation instead of an actual deconstruction, because although it was a twist on potatoes gratin, it did not do what a good deconstruction is supposed to do--preserve the "soul" of the dish while modifying its methods of preparation. I felt this dish to be unremarkable, because although the potatoes were sliced so thinly and layered so well, it didn't matter too much, since they came together as one (I thought it was a waste of slicing). Also, there was little of the crispy textural element that I like in gratins, nor was there much creaminess or overall Brie and prosciutto flavor (since they were just on the top layer).

Duck confit stuffed with foie gras with mushrooms on the side.

SO EXTREMELY AMAZING. Yes I understand this is so bad for me (skin+foie gras combination), but it was just so goooood. Duck was juicy on the inside, crisp on the outside, with foie gras in between the skin and the meat--and when you put a piece in your mouth, the combination of foie gras that absolutely MELTS in your mouth with crisp skin...so delicious. Absolute perfection. I think I nearly teared up.

Long short ribs (beef) with mushrooms on the side.

Didn't like this dish too much and it was prepared wrong the first time it was sent to us (was well done, and correspondingly dry). Don't get me wrong--it was a good dish overall--the ribs were glazed with a wine reduction of some sort, and were tender the second time around. The beef marrow was served on the side drizzled with some truffle oil. What I disliked with this dish however was the marrow, which in some way ruined the dish for me, because it had a disgusting chemical, waxy taste--I'm pretty sure it wasn't the marrow itself, because it was served on the side with the mushrooms and some of the sauce and was delicious. But yes. I really don't know what was wrong with that marrow.

Tomato Consomme.

Free things are always nice right? Haha. Well this was free because our first ordered version of the long short ribs were too well done. I thought it was a nice, refreshing soup. It was a clear and cold soup that tasted exactly like tomato juice with some drops of oil that reminded me of the seeds on the inside of a tomato.

Strawberry Trifle.

Mmmm. Refreshing. My aunt ordered this for herself but I tried some of it. Nice twist on the traditional trifle which is normally a layered dessert of ladyfingers, cream and fruit. I liked how this dessert played around with different textural elements--there was cream and foam-cream (nice heavy-light contrast) the ladyfingers were replaced with crunchy, granola-like clusters, and the strawberries were slightly puréed and mixed in with some sugar.

Lemon Tart.

The true deconstruction of the night and extremely creative I thought. The skin of a lemon was candied and stuffed with some citrus fruit (passionfruit?) and rich lemony cream, and was served with a stick (the tart "crust") on the side. The cream was deliciously lemony in flavor, yet still rich, which complemented nicely with the sweet tartness of the lemon peel. Overall, it was conceptually intriguing dish that was executed so nicely and is probably my favorite dessert out of all of the ones I've eaten in Shanghai (and believe me, there were a lot).

...and: the view of the Bund (facing Pudong side) from the restaurant's balcony on the rooftop at night. So many people.

Bo Lo Baos--butter guilt (kind of).

Brought my cousin to the airport last Saturday and ate at a HK eatery called Xin Wang beforehand for brunch. I honestly love HK breakfasts, and have fond memories of my trips to HK where breakfasts consisted of dimsum or relatively cheap breakfast sets (with free drinks like milk tea, milk coffee, and my favorite--Horlicks). In any case--it was only here in Shanghai that my aunt introduced myself and my sister to an extremely good, yet extremely bad for you food--Bo lo baos, which literally mean "pineapple buns." The funny thing about these buns is that they have no pineapple in them at all--instead, they are called such because of the crisp custard topping that supposedly makes the buns look like pineapples.
Here's how you eat them: they are served to you fresh and hot, and you take a square of butter and put in in the middle of the bread and take a bite. Of course, since the bread is hot, the butter melts as you eat it. Each bite is the wonderfulness of butter personified--creamy, melting and slightly-salty butter that goes so nicely with the hot, soft bread and the crumbly-sweet custard topping. Mmmmm. Who cares about calories when you are eating these?

Was so sad that this place had no Horlicks though (that would've been perfection). :/