chinese casual entrées 少菜

In Chines cuisine the verity of dishes that good eateries serve typically are called 少菜, translates as small dish. A more accurate translation would be casual entrées. They are meant to be good and affordable. These are what you would order when you go out to a restaurant with your friends or family. You would order many dishes of 少菜 and shares with your company - often eaten with a bowl of "steamed" rice and drinks.

Most good restaurants would have their list of signature 少菜 dishes they do well. The regular customers know which are. Also the dishes rotates with the season and the availability of the ingredients. Very often there are hand written signs on the walls listing the current in-season dishes.

seasonal dish of  少菜 posted on the wall - this is a very fancy one; most would not have a picture frame

 a couple of dishes of 少菜

singerpore fried rice noodles 星州炒米

Here is more dish from old photos. Singerpore fried rice noodles 星州炒米 is a popular one dish meal among the foodies during lunch in a Cantonese restaurant. It is one of few Cantonese dishes that use hot curry powder which imparts the yellowish color to the dish.

While it is a relatively easy dish to make, my experience of it in most North American restaurant had always been subpar. Most would short change you on the ingredients and you ended up with a greasy dish with very little meat to show for.

braised ham hock

I have been going through some of my older photographs and found dishes that I have not made for a long time. This including many I only made once.
a couple pieces of raw ham hock - years ago one cannot find raw ham hock even in asian stores here

so much singing

I forgot where I read about an United States past president was treated to a Wagner's opera. While he enjoyed the overtures he had a hard time putting up with most of the opera which involves a lot of singing. His remarked something to this effect - the music was great, only if there isn't so much singing.

photo diary - hong kong 香港 2008, part 2

This is the continuation of the photo diary of my trip to Hong Kong in early winter of 2008. There are so many photos I want to post and I have to make hard choices. Many evoke my nostalgia of my growing up there.

I board a bus as soon as I got off the airplane. I chose the bus instead of the much faster subway train because I could not wait to see the city en route to my cheap hotel in Mong Kok in the Kowloon peninsula.

as in my youth i went straight to the front seats in the upper deck of a double-decker bus

home made dimsum 點心

Very few would want to make dimsum at home. Traditionally dimsum are small dishes of food one eats at a Chinese restaurant in the morning along with copious amount of tea. This morning meal is called 飲茶 (pronounced as yum cha), which translates as drinking tea. Dimsum comes from 2 Chinese words dim 點 and  sum 心, meaning touches one's heart. While individually most dimsum dishes are not too hard to make, making a verity for a morning tea is too much trouble an undertaking unless you have a very big family.

sewer gas odor - trouble shooting, part 2

In my continued quest to find the source of the elusive sewer gas odor in Tatyana I finally have time to conduct a more thorough investigation. One thing I had wanted to do is to check he integrity of the vent connections of the two waste water storage tanks. Unfortunately due to the very compact packaging of the Westfalia design most of the connections can not readily be inspected visually. One prime suspect of the odor the vent tube plumbing system from the two waste water storage tanks on their way to the roof top vent port en route behind the plywood cabinetry. Most of these space are not visible without employing an inspection camera designed to see tight spaces.