the shanghai conspiracy

there's a massive conspiracy in shanghai: the city wants you to be obese.

that's right: fat, lardy, paunchy, pudgy, rotund, decorated with flesh rolls (like frawley).

otherwise, they wouldn't taunt you with soup bowls of fresh hand-pulled noodles for 6 rmb (1 rmb extra for the egg)...


[fresh pulled noodle soup late night in some random part of town]

or racks of xiao long bao fit for a queen for under $3 cad each?

[the quintessential shanghai xiao long bao. i can eat a dozen right now.]


[oh look! my xiao long bao is swimming in the vinegar and ginger without its water wings!]


[crabmeat xiao long bao (ver. 2.0) from the most famous xiao long bao shop in shanghai, jia jia tang. they ran out of version 1.0 (pork buns).]


[hi, teenage dumpling makers!]

or piping hot, delectably delicious po-tat and cheese tarts for an hour's worth of parking in vieux montreal?

[portuguese egg tarts and cheese egg tarts (it sounds weird, but tastes almost like cheesecake) from a lillian cake shop.]

or greasy hangover-soothing nighttime street food so cheap and inviting, even if you weren't drunk, you'd want to be:

[night owl gao-tze for 5 RMB!]


[one of the many street food carts]

or even regular daytime street food for 11 rmb!


[shanghai noodles and fried rice]

or giant servings of deliciously fatty catfish swimming in fragrant chili oil for $5 cad?

[spicy joint's giant bowls of catfish in chili oil and broth]


[more spicy joint: shrimp in chili oil]


[spicy joint's pork belly with green chilis]

(btw, spicy joint wasn't that spicy.)

or these steamingly fresh big buns for a pittance:

[shanghai big chicken buns]

the city wants you fattened up. that's the conspiracy.

why? for the annual chinese new year sacrifice (already done and gone at this point). what do you think they make the red envelopes out of? might not be not paper after all...

恭喜發財!! happy year of the rabbit! 

q-tastier noodle!

...cause sometimes you'll buy a package of noodles* that will also double as an ironically funny asian version of a bazooka joe comic (cause the original bazooka joes were, by no means, funny).
[click to enlarge]

[know to cooking a q-tasty noodles!]

these noodle soup is delicious, polystyrene packaging and sometimes is good...like it, it still!

*(how the farts do they know how to use photoshop and not know how to use a dictionary?**)

**(taiwan's estimated population is at about 23 million, and china's is at over 1.3 billion. i find it hard-pressed to believe that there is not one person at the noodle factory who does not know that "Q-tastier" is not a real word.)

sawadee-ka! i am pad woon-sen

fun-see (粉絲) (literally "noodle thread" or "powder thread") are those teeny bundles of noodles you find in asian markets that are thin and white, and rolled up in mesh bags like small bricks of santa claus beard clippings... see for yourself!


cellophane noodles (aka glass noodles or bean vermicelli) in cantonese cuisine are often used in stewed or braised or soup dishes (like winter melon with cellophane noodles and winter mushrooms, or even chinese hotpot (NOT THE CRAP FROM THE CANS)). either way, they're a great option to wheat- or rice-based noodles, though a bit more delicate.

that said, i don't have a chinese dish explained here, but i do have a thai stir-fry dish with cellophane noodles called pad woon-sen. it's pad-woon-derful! 


pork and shrimp pad woon sen¹
serves about 4 medium-sized eaters, 2 large eaters, or 1 very hungry man-eating plant.

note: the key to proper stir-frying is having all your ingredients ready to go, and also a hot, hot wok. heed my words. 

150g cellophane noodles (aka bean vermicelli, glass noodles, etc).
50g raw shrimp (deveined and shelled)²
50g pork loin or pork chops, sliced thin perpendicular to the grain (against the grain)
4 Tbps (75 ml) vegetable oil
4 cloves garlic, sliced thinly or coarsely chopped
2-3 eggs, beaten
3 Tbps (15 ml) +/- fish sauce (nam pla)
1 tsp (5 ml) sugar
1 red bell pepper, sliced into strips.
3 stalks of green onions, sliced into 1-inch (2.5cm) pieces. 
fresh coriander leaves for garnish (optional but highly recommended)
fresh basil leaves for garnish (optional but preferable thai)
fresh bean sprouts for garnish (optional)
crushed peanuts for garnish (optinal)

1. prepare the noodles by soaking them in water until they soften, and then drain them.
2. season the shrimp with a bit of salt and pepper. season the pork with salt and pepper.
3. in a hot wok or frying pan, briefly heat the oil, add the garlic and quickly . quickly add the pork and stir fry. when the pork is nearly done, add shrimp and cook until the shrimp is no longer gross-grey colour, but not longer. DO NOT OVERCOOK THEM. remove the pork and shrimp together from the wok and set aside.
4. if there is none or very little, oil left in the wok, add a bit more and heat it. stir in the eggs and cook them until they are almost fully set. add the noodles to the eggs and stir fry until they are translucent.
5. return the cooked pork and shrimp to the noodles. add the peppers and green onions. stir fry with all your might until everything is hot.
6. mix sugar into fish sauce and then stir mixture into noodles are coated.garnish with the coriander, et al, and serve with dignity.

¹you can use whatever protein you like best, even a can of silkworm larva!
²why removing a vein is called "deveining" (not "veining") and removing the shell is called "shelling", and not "de-shelling" is beyond me. shrimps don't even have real veins! the negative prefix is deceptive!

yi-mein or die

so my arm was twisted by some uninspired glutton who insisted that there should be an example.of what to do with e-fu noodles...

well guess what, pkeller (if that is your REAL name): this is my blogospheric space. and i will do what i want with it. and because i'm such an awesome nice person, i'll share this quick and somewhat easy way of enjoying the delight that is yi-mein with chinese black mushrooms (more often called shiitake because people don't know any better).

after you've boiled your noodles to soften them and left them to drain (they need to be dry), sauteed some garlic and sliced up mushrooms (here are some fa-gou, a type of chinese black mushroom) in some vegetable oil until fragrant.remove them from the heat and set them aside. don't eat them all or you'll have some sorry-looking noodles.

back in the large frying pan/wok/contraption, heat up some oil at medium heat and then return the noodles to the pan to heat it up by turning it gently (use chopsticks if you can).

mix up some basic sauce^a using about 1 Tbsp (15 ml) of quality oyster sauce with about 1/3 cup (~80 ml) of water. add a little bit of the sauce at a time to the noodles while they heat up; ensure the sauce is either soaked up or evaporated before adding more. this will keep the noodles dry, so they don't get mushy like the last time you watched bambi. continue until there's no sauce left and noodles are heated through and dry-ish. add the mushroom mix back to your noodles to heat them up and then finish it off with some sesame oil to taste. garnish with green onions and then eat it like there was no tomorrow.


[this one has some fake crab meat. win!!11one]

^ait's not really a sauce, but let's pretend it is.

try this! e-fu noodles

if (and when) you find yourself in an asian grocery store, step up to the noodle aisle and take a cake or two of these e-fu mein (pronounced like "mean", meaning "noodles" for the non-slanty-eyed).

also called "yi-mein" (because chinese people pronounce approximant consonants like they were on fire), they run between $1 and $2 a cake (much cheaper than a brick of illicit narcotics, and much tastier). they come in big cakes because they are fried after being made, and then dried in giant puck form for easy transport.

these lightly chewy, egg-based wheat noodles need to be boiled first to soften them up, and then rinsed (they're kind of oily). you can then fry them up with mushrooms, chives, garlic, adding your own sauce; or you can use them broth soups with asian vegetables and meat.

sesame oil and seafood goes well with yi-mein, cold or hot. in some chinese restaurants, you can get yi-mein with seafood and some bizarre fluorescent orangey-yellow cheese sauce (it's not like an alfredo, trust me) (and if i could find a photo, i would post it here¹).

¹i'm not *all* up against these east asian cheese concoctions because there are some tasty-looking creations... sadly, just none in my experience.

so long 2009... hello 2010!

as the days of 2009 finally disappear, i look back at the past year with cheerful reflection and a rotund belly... props go out to the wonderful things i've eaten this year (to name a few):

- apples from quebec.
- the best egg tarts/po-tats ever (from royal garden*).

- hot pot with lamb intestines.

- mango butter from the bohol bee farm.
- fresh oysters on the half shell from the union oyster house.

- fresh chocolate banana doughnuts from the sparrow.

- dandan noodles from wing lai yuen (詠藜園).
- the best porkchops in the world (tonkatsu from tonkichi).

- soup dumplings with amazing beijing chili oil (北京水餃店 beijing shui gau shop).

and to everyone who has given their time of day to this blog, have a happy and healthy 2010!

*note to royal garden management: continue to make these things and your patrons will die in bliss of heavy coronary blockage. be forwarned.

dan dan mein (also known as dan dan noodles)

slippery little wheat noodles, steaming hot and spicy broth with a peanutty/sesame-y flavour, topped with ground pork and oftentimes green onions, and cheap, to boot.. what more could i say?



(the best one of the bunch)


try it! eat more! get fat! you deserve a bowl of heaven!

noodles noodles noodles

one of the best foods ever popularized (and likely invented) by the chinese is noodles (from which stems italian pasta, german spätzle, japanese noodles, et cetera). when i say ever, i mean, ever.

[i really don't remember eating this but i believe it is some sort of chow mei-fun (stir-fried rice noodles) in butchered chinese transliteration. i can imagine that it was good and pretend that i remember eating it just to make this posting sound more legit.]


[linguine con vongole -- wasn't very good but it looked ok].

the first purportedly written record of noodles (miàn or mein 麵 in mandarin/cantonese) was before 300 C.E. during the east han dynasty. likely these noodles were likely made of types of millet, unlike today's noodles which are mostly made of wheat or rice.
.
[some tong mein (soup noodles) that i had and devoured].

today, it is estimated that at least 30% of all wheat production in the world is consumed in the form of noodles (though i would like to find out where that number comes from). in chinese culture, noodles represent longevity (likely the longer you live, the more noodles one can eat). in chinese receptions, noodles are one of the 8 to 11 dishes that are served, each dish representing something i can't remember (something to do with babies, money and/or finding a wife who's not fideous).

anyways, all i wanted to say this post was that lai-mein (pulled noodles) is so farking awesome.

[the best lai-mein i've had in the last 4 months at d & j shanghai restaurant. frawley ate most of it though.]

lai-mein is something else, especially if you can watch it being made... will post more on that in the near future.

[i might have forgotten to mention that i don't actually live in hong kong but if i did, i would be one fatass.]