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I always think that the famous phrase "Life's short, eat dessert first" is irrelevant to me. I love stuffing myself with savoury goodnesses first, only adding a touch of sinful sweetness in the end, as a perfect ending to a wonderful journey (oh, please! what's with the language?!!)
However, I had to make an exception.
Last weekend, we arrived in Macau extremely hungry, and ready to attack all the cliched and predictable treats, starting with some crab congee plus delicious frills. Sadly, we arrived a touch too early...the place we were supposed to visit hasn't even opened yet!
When SC pointed at Gelatina Mok Yi Kei, at its "quiet-before-the-post-lunch-madness-queue-started" moment, I hesitated. Sweets? Before lunch....hmmm....
But when I saw that beautiful array of colors...puddings in various flavors...and I heard my stomach rumbled and lil' sc was kicking hard...I gave in.
OK, dessert first.
SC had their famous milk pudding (木糠布丁) topped with cookie...dust? powder?
Smooth, creamy pudding with tasty cookie topping...yum...but surely not as yummy as mine...
DURIAN ice cream. Ice cream was the perfect choice for the scorching hot weather. It's not too sweet, it doesn't give me insatiable thirst, and it has super intense durian flavor. If you're not a fan of durian, don't even think about it. I was still burping durian wayyyy after my lunch was over :D
Right after we're done with our pudding and ice cream, more and more people (mostly from Hong Kong) started to gather at the shop...I guess we were all waiting for the same crab congee shop ^_* and had to have dessert first. Not that I'm complaining. It was delicious.
PS. If you are into cute props (who isn't?), you may wanna see what I've bought in Macau ^_^
Gelatina Mok Yi Kei
Rua da Cunha (Souvenir Street)
Taipa
Macau
澳門氹仔官也街
I grew up eating all kinds of offals, which some people might consider awful.
I ate hearts, gizzards, livers, intestines, and even (gasp!) brain...normally either deep fried (and consumed with spicy chilli paste) or stewed in delicious Indonesian spices. One of my favorite is...tongue (pig or ox, fine by me), cooked until tender, sliced super thick.
Most Hong Kongers love innards too! However, sc hates tongue. He hates seeing the rough texture of the tongue's outer "skin", which reminds him too much of a...tongue (duh!). He probably feels like he's french kissing a pig or a cow every time he eats a tongue dish.
Naturally, he goes "yuck" every time I tried to buy myself a tongue to cook for dinner.
This time though, since I've promised (cross my heart and hope to die kinda promise) to clean the tongue really really thoroughly and remove most of the outer skin of the tongue...he let me buy and cook one.
I love tongue grilled or stewed, for as long as it is cut real thick. I love it tender and juicy, not thin and crunchy. This time, I need bold, strong flavors, to make sc forget all about the tongue and only think delicious. Thus, I chose satay sauce stew.
Recipe
- one pig's tongue (or ox tongue)
- 5 cm ginger, peeled, crushed, divided
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 3 cloves of shallot, cut into chunks
- 2 red chilli
- 3 medium sized ripe tomatoes, cut into 8 sections each
- 2 potatoes, cut into chunks
- Chinese satay sauce (I used the one from Lee Kum Kee)
- Freshly chopped corriander (optional, for garnish)
- hot water, olive oil
- a touch of salt, pepper and sugar (if needed)
Scrub the tongue clean (and I removed most of the outer skin since sc doesn't wanna see it), cut tongue into 1 cm thick chunks, blanch in hot water with half of the ginger and rinse in tap water. In a pressure cooker (or stew pot), saute a garlic, shallot and ginger in a bit of olive oil, add tongue chunks, add tomatoes and potatoes, add a couple spoonful of the satay sauce, add hot water until everything's just covered, bring water to boil, pressure cook for 25 minutes (or stew on low heat for a minimum of one hour or until the tongue chunks are melt-in-you-mouth tender). Once done, adjust seasonings if necessary, garnish with freshly chopped corriander and serve with steamed rice.
Tender and juicy chunks of tongue, soft potatoes, spicy satay sauce with quite a punch of acidity from the tomatoes. This dish is great when the weather's cooler, but I'm always up for a good stew any time ^_^
This time, having forgotten that he was enjoying some tongue action from a pig...sc enjoyed the dish very much :D
When SC is busy doing some tech support for his brother...the only right thing to do for me is...not to disturb him :D
So I went for some major retail therapy, followed by a high tea with a blogger gal pal I knew from Twitter, the doufu mafia. She blogs about vegetarian food all around Hong Kong and beyond. Check out her blog for some delicious vegetarian treats ^_^
Now, the high tea...I never knew that Crabtree and Evelyn has a tearoom and serves food and drinks...
But it apparently does, the location is tucked away in an office building in Wanchai. It isn't marketed much, maybe that's why I haven't heard about it before.
The place has super limited seating, so if you wanna go, it's better to make a booking. When the weather is cool enough, you can go for the cute gazebo outside ^_^
We went for the classic high tea set for two...
...which was served in extremely unbelievably pretty Crabtree & Evelyn tableware.
Pink for me...
...and green for doufu mafia ^_^
We ordered Rose tea and peppermint tea...
...which was lovely with a touch of flower honey.
When this tower arrived...
We did the right thing to do...
...which was to snap 10001 pictures of it ^_^
To me, what's on the tower was almost not important, I was too distracted by its prettiness :D
We had warm scones...served with clotted cream, strawberry and blueberry jam. I am not a big fan of scones and had it when it has turned cold, but doufu mafia told me that they were lovely when still warm.
The sweets...fruit and strawberry tarts and some chocolates. Fresh fruits on the tarts, but sadly, I could've bought better ones from elsewhere. The chocolates were good, but again, nothing that'd make me go crazy.
I lovee their savoury pastries. Maybe I am just a savoury girl. Flaky, buttery skin with savoury filling? Yum! The chicken and smoked salmon sandwiches? Nothing worth going back for.
We couldn't finish quite a lot of stuff and they packed everything into a pretty box. I also brought home the remaining jar of honey, and the set comes with a small tube of Crabtree & Evelyn handcream, packed in another pretty box.
It's not so much about the food or the tea, but the experience of having them out of pretty packaging. I'd totally go back to let more girlfriends gawk at the floral beauty ^_^
Crabtree & Evelyn The Tearoom
Shop 126, Sun Hung Kei Centre
30 Harbour Road, Wanchai
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2511 0868
Weekend calorie splurge. Not the burning kind, the intake kind ^_^'My huge kebab lunch before some serious retail therapy. I needed the energy, right?
Doner (lamb) and chicken kebab from Ebeneezer. Tasty meat, crunchy veggie, creamy and spicy sauce.
Burp~ and I was ready to shop 'til I drop.
Ebeneezer's Kebab
25 D'Aguilar Street, Lan Kwai Fong
中環蘭桂坊德己立街25號
Central, Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2114 0555
Still feeling a little silly from my not-too-successful attempts at Singapore Char Kway Teow and Dry Fishball Noodles, I saw something that made me feel even sillier...
There's actually a Singaporean Kitchen and Bar that serves exactly what I failed to recreate at home!
:S
Naturally, I booked a table ASAP to see if they can help me with my Singapore food cravings...
We had the Char Tow Kway (Fried Carrot Cake), the white version. I was really happy with this dish, it's very close to what I had in Singapore, tasty carrot cake chunks fried with eggs, and I especially enjoyed the delicious sambal (chilli paste) it was served with.
Their Bakuteh isn't the brown, Malaysian type I normally make at home (with ready-to-use instant spice pack, of course), it's the peppery clear broth version. The broth was not too bad, and I like the intestines, but the ribs were nowhere near tender enough. I won't order this again.
The Bak Chor Mee (Dry Fishball Noodle) I tried to make at home...after simply mixing the whole bowl, something still wasn't right...something's missing.
Yep! It's the thick black sauce with chilli they served on the side, after mixing everything, bingo! The flavors were exactly the ones I've been missing. In terms of flavor, I'd totally go back for this bowl of noodles, but the noodle itself lacks the chewy quality the Singapore version has. If I managed to find the correct vinegar for this dish, I'll try to recreate this again at home using fresh fettucini.
When I saw Singapore fried rice noodles with see ham (cockles) was the Tuesday Special, I ordered it immediately! When it was served, I had my doubts seeing how pale the color was compared to Singapore char kway teow. Seeing how it is served with sambal and half piece of lime, I was wondering if they made this the way they make mee goreng, instead of char kway teow? Mee goreng or char kway teow, it lacked flavors. I had to ask for another serving of sambal for more flavors, and it still ended up flavorless.
I gave up, but no way I'm gonna waste a good amount of noodles. I had most of the dish packed to be "tweaked" at home.
Since I still have some leftover rice...I turned the kway teow goreng/char kway teow leftover into a version of...
Nasi Goreng Campur Campur (Mixed Fried Rice)
I simply added 1 clove of minced garlic, sauteed in a bit of olive oil, added a bowl of leftover rice, a dash of fish sauce, light soy sauce and sweet soy sauce....and I could pack two servings of lunch.
^_^
Absolutely delicious, nothing's wasted.
The barley drink isn't sweet enough, maybe it's the healthier less-sugar Hong Kong version ^_^ but the kaya smoothie was a delight! The pandan is very fragrant, and it's mixed with sweet and rich coconut milk (it should probably be named pandan smoothie though?). Anyway, absolutely sinful and delicious!
PS. I was extremely disappointed when I was informed that they didn't have grilled stingray that day. Sad, sad, sad.
PS2. Have you ever doggie-bagged less-than-satisfying restaurant dish to tweak at home?
PS3. If you wanna try...
Shiok
G/F, 66 Peel Street, Central, Hong Kong
中環卑利街66號地下
Tel: +852 2899 2001
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