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.)

squirrel gardening

i'm hiring squirrels next growing season cause look what they grew in my garden this season!

peanuts!!

[peanuts! big and small!] 


[peanut plant!]

unfortunately the growing season isn't long enough in this region but thanks to my bushy-tailed rodent friends, i got about 6 peanuts off one plant i pulled out (there were a number of plants scattered throughout the garden).

(there must be a lot of squirrels in china -- it's the world's largest peanut producer, producing an estimated 14 million metric tonnes in 2008 of these fart-facilitating seeds, almost half of the world's supply. that's a heckuva lot of peanut sauce).

mr. ng's downhome chinese duck

verdun is, for chinese people, apparently fast becoming what parc-ex was for greeks in the 1970s. and it can't be a bad thing for this traditionally blue-collar-y hood. for one, it means close(r)-knit community. for two, it means good home-style food, as is the case for le lotus bleu.

i have a strong suspicion this is one of the only authentic central/northern chinese restaurants in montreal (and pretty tasty, to boot). in fact, it felt like being transported into a restaurant in china, complete with buzzy fluorescent lighting, self-serve water coolers and mismatched decor!*

our goal was to savour this fat noodle lamb soup, of which henk's brother had raved about:

[magic fat noodle lamb soup, the divineness of which we could only imagine until we tasted it!] 

henk and i arrived late and a little hungry, so he started digging into the condiments.

[yes, he did regret it the following day.]

mr. ng** (武先生), the proprietor and chef, however helped settle our hunger quickly with his fantastic boiled leek and pork dumplings to rival those from qing hua.


[leek and pork soup dumplings]


[special szechuan pepper marinated duck necks]

mr. ng beams from ear-to-ear when he tells us that his family's famous daoko chicken is a signature of henan cooking.

[daoko chicken wowko!]

we beam from ear-to-ear when we ate it!

the chicken is basted in honey water, deep fried, and then braised with magic spices and served at room temperature or cooler (something, i think, most westerners are not used to, like cantonese white cut chicken (白切雞)). most meat dishes from the henan region are served slightly chilled, including the fragrant duck necks that henk and i polish off (and which kind of freaked g. out cause she's scared of ducks, especially anatomized ones).

until next time, zài jiàn!

restaurant lotus bleu
4847 rue de verdun
(514)691-3519

*...among other restaurant staples in china which will not be mentioned here. you can message me if you want to know.

**wu in mandarin. so if you're a traitor, you would call him mr. wu.

fat auntie cooks up a storm!

this is fat auntie in her kitchen about to cook up a storm.


actually i think this is her yelling at me to stop taking pictures of her while she's cooking.

fat auntie grew up in the area outside of guangzhou, cn called pun-yue (番禺區) where apparently everyone knows how to concoct magnificent feasts for supper, of which fat auntie is perfect specimen (more on that later).

pun-yue's notable for delicious dishes like deep fried water buffalo milk (keung-tsup tsoong lai), stuffed and fried dace (tseen-yeung leung yu), and a bazillion great pork and seafood dishes.

(she's so short that she sometimes has to use a giant box of pocky as a booster seat).

(photo via flickr, volcanologist)

can't wait to see fat auntie again so she can cook me some tasty meals!  

(also, a note to the jerks giving me flack for "improper" romanization of cantonese words can suck my balzacs. i'm a writer and i know how to romanize better than outdated stuffy bureaucrats.)

try this: ox-tongue (minus the tongue)

sometimes i wonder whether or not it is out of sheer spite that the chinese create ridiculous and cryptic names for dishes and foods to turn them off from eating them.

one of my favourites in that category is the puffy, slightly chewy, slightly sweet and fun-to-eat ovular deep-fried treats called ox-tongue pastries, or 牛脷酥 (in cantonese, gnau-lei so).


[it's the one on the right! one in the back is a sesame ball and one in the foreground, i forget but it wasn't as tasty as the oxtongue.] 

there's no ox nor any ox-tongue in it, perfect for vegetarian/pretendatarian/omnivores alike! its namesake stems from its shape which resembles the tongues of our bovine friend (pretty ugly if you ask me).

often eaten to complement congee or with just fresh soy milk, these and other types of chinese pastries are often found in fast-foody type, street food carts, or dim sum houses (though finding them in the latter is kind of rare, at least in north america, but you might luck out).

i guarantee some smiles once you bite into one (hopefully not fake ones)!

salty cat bones

oh, on the marmite note again, they're so nuts in the uk about marmite, they dip cat bones in it, bag them, and sell them to un-witting consumers under the cutesy name of twiglets.


not sure salty cat bones would fly well here, judging by little jb's reaction.

mid-autumn yum yum: mooncakes

yesterday marked the day of mid-autumn festival, or jung chau-jit (中秋節) in cantonese.

this festival used to be akin to a teenage after-prom party for farmers — they would party like it's 1999 after working their buttocks off during the growing season and harvesting the last of your wares on the harvest moon.

now, it's about getting time off work and getting fat by eating mooncakes and pomelos.



pomelos don't have a particularly interesting flavour (read: borderline gross), but one should not pass up mooncake when they are in season. (tip: after the festival, they are discounted!)

so after my indian lunch, i went out bought a big one and a little one. then ate the little one like a chihuahua with a severe napoleon complex pounces on a ladybug. note that there's a huge difference between prepackaged ones (in the fancy tins and boxes) and ones made fresh at the bakery: price and flavour. forego the prepackaged ones when you can.

stuffed to the brim with lotus seed paste and often baked with whole salted duck egg yolks in the middle, mooncakes do not make good snacks:

• they are dense. 
• they are sweet. 
• they are meant for sharing and giving away.

(you have been warned).



[my lunch: top notch palak paneer, lamb curry, bhindi, and chicken mughlai from beau village]

p.s. if you haven't already, check out a food lover's journey instructions on making as many mooncakes as your gluttonous heart desires!