Jordan Fun

Deep down inside, I will always be a tourist in Hong Kong. I love corny, cheesy, touristy places, such as Jordan district in Kowloon Peninsula, the home of Temple Street Night Market.

What I love from Temple Street Night Market:
- the cheap "antique" finds (they might be just as antique as my week old shoes)
- the long row of fortune teller stalls with long queue of people (although I never get my fortune/misfortune told-I can't stand bad news as it is, not to mention hearing about it in advance- but I just love seeing they exist as a part of HK's culture)
- the Nepali ethnic clothing and accessories stalls
- the HK souvenir shops
- and just about anything else from vibrators and kinky underthings to children's toys
- the rip off open-air seafood/coffee shop restaurants

After my doctor's visit, I visited HK's famous coffee shop, Tsui Wah

The curry beef brisket was delicious, the meat tender & juicy, the potatoes melted in my mouth, the sauce was just super rich, perfect with steamed rice or buns.

The grilled chicken in Swiss sauce, served with fried eggs on dry instant noodles. Chicken skin was crispy, sauce was smokey yet subtle, noodles still spring, fried eggs were perfect! It was totally worth the whopping HK$40 price tag

and....it took A LOT of picturing the image of my warping, collapsing, exploding, seriously overloaded wardrobe to stop myself from buying all these babies. Super cute tees, just HK$35 each!!!! Oooohhhhhh mann! I gotta buy myself another wardrobe!

Dinner at a Temple Street seafood stall (I promise I will get the resto name, there are just so many of them, it could be pretty hard to find and you might end up with the ones that suckkk big time)

Cholesterol alert!

My favorite street seafood snack dish: Oyster Omelette! Unhealthy but simply deeeelishhhh!

The crispy Bombay Pomfrets, the bones were so fine, it was like munching tasty sticks of fresh, succulent fish meat.

I can eat whatever I want now yay! Check out what I've bought in my other blog Living La Vida Rita soon :)

Mess & Match: Stir Fried Black Pepper Beef Farfalle

I felt like messin' & matchin'. Hong Kong/Indonesian style black pepper beef stir fry with pasta. I remember I had a really good Asian infused black pepper beef pasta dish (which was much less of a mess) in Jakarta's Spaghetti House. Too bad I couldn't find the same in Hong Kong, so I've decided to mess it up myself. Living up to my notorious laziness, I threw my vegetables into the pasta stir fry altogether :)

Ingredients
(serves 4)
- approximately 1 pound of beef for stir frying
- 1 red bell pepper, core and seeds removed, thinly sliced
- 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 6 cloves of shallot, thinly sliced
- 1 large zucchini, halved and sliced into 5mm thick pieces
- 4 chicken sausage franks, slice into 3-4mm thick pieces (optional, I just have some leftover in my fridge hehe)
- half a packet of farfalle
- water for boiling
- olive oil, sesame oil (optional), butter
- salt, sugar, black pepper, soy sauce, fish sauce, kecap manis, oyster sauce, go the extra mile by adding sambal abc (if available)
- corn starch

Marinate beef pieces in black pepper, sesame oil, soy sauce, fish sauce, kecap manis, oyster sauce, sambal abc, 1 tbsp corn starch. In 1 tbsp olive oil, brown the chicken franks pieces, then add zucchini until almost cooked, sprinkle a bit of salt and sugar, set aside.

Don't wash the wok. Add two tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp butter, saute garlic, shallot, red bell pepper until fragrant, add beef pieces, stir fry until 3/4 cooked, add zucchini and chicken frank pieces, adjust taste by playing with sauces, add black pepper generously.

At the same time, cook pasta in another pot, follow the instructions in the packet, drain (keep the pasta water), pour pasta into the stir fried beef, mess 'em about, add pasta water to thicken, adjust taste if necessary, serve.

One heck of a mess, but still a perfect match.

Check out more delicious pasta recipes at Presto Pasta Nights

Indonesian Grilled Chicken (Ayam Bakar)

Whenever I am in Indonesia, I always ask my sis to bring me to Ayam Bakar Ganthari in Blok M, Jakarta. We'd indulge in a few pieces (!) of chicken each (I was embarrassed enough listening to the service team's whispering and giggling not to order more. Don't get it wrong, they are all lovely people, super friendly and all smiles, but our way of ordering as if we were just back from a place where chickens do not exist inevitably calls for some whispers hehe), lots of side dishes: chicken liver, chicken gizzard, tofu, tempe aka soy bean cake, all grilled to perfection, with chilli sauce and lots of kecap manis. It's not a surprise that we weren't crazy about the salad hehe (it's not the salad, it's us)

Ayam Bakar Ganthari is the second best ayam bakar I've tried so far. The best one, ironically, is ayam bakar from Ayam Goreng 99, Kingsford, Sydney. They are similar in taste, but the chickens in Sydney are bigger HAHA. Size does matter for me.

I did not hope that I could duplicate how they do the chicken, as I don't even have a charcoal grill for a start ^_^ So, finally I did my own version of ayam bakar...it's not ganthari, but...it did a good job relieving me from my serious ayam bakar craving. (In case you were wondering, sadly, I found NO Indonesian restaurant in Hong Kong that serves decent ayam bakar)

Ingredients
(serves 2)
- 4 boneless chicken thigh fillet, leave skin on, trim excess fat off (you can also get whole chicken legs - upper & lower thigh)
- 200 ml coconut milk
- garlic, shallot, ginger, palm sugar, corriander seeds, salt, red chilli, pepper, lime juice, olive oil, ground to form a paste

Rub chicken pieces with the paste, don't forget to rub some between chicken meat and skin, let it rest in the fridge for minimum 1 hr, or overnight for better result. Pre-heat oven to 200 C, boil the marinated chicken pieces in coconut milk until the meat is cooked through, keep the coconut milk. Grill chicken pieces until the skin turned brown, pour some coconut milk sauce from time to time to prevent them from drying out. Pour some of the sauce when serving. This is perfect with steamed rice. Get your hands dirty, don't use utensils ;)

PS. Sous chef loves this flavorful chicken dish :)

**Power Porridge

Reading my blog posts, these are the things about me you might've learnt so far:
- One heck of an unhealthy food fanatic
- Suffering from severe baking disabilities
- A short cut addict, an acutely lazy bum

Hmm, all of the above are correct. But remembering those hospital days:

(yep, that's me on hospital bed, and that's Andrew Zimmern on the celeb gossip magazine I was reading hehe)

....now I wanna be a good girl for a change (if only you got a dollar for every time I wrote this sentence on my blogpost...)

This power porridge is just so bursting out with good things, maybe it can cancel out all of the bad things I had hehe? (to myself: dream on, you fool!)

The recipe is from our executive consulting chef, which we've tweaked by adding tofu and black beans. Deliciousness & health guaranteed, failure is own's (my) stupidity hehe.

Ingredients
(serves four)
- half cup of rice
- rice to water ratio = 1 to 5 (or you can use chicken stock)
- 1 pc tofu, slice into big chunks
- 1 teaspoon of fermented black beans
- HK$10 minced pork (it means just a little, you can add more if you wish), marinate with a bit of soy sauce and sugar
- 1 egg
- spring onion, chopped
- salt, pepper, sugar

Boil rice with water/chicken stock until reduced to thin congee, add minced pork, tofu, fermented black beans, spring onion, salt, pepper, sugar, cook until you get the desired thickness, crack eggs into it, mix well. Serve with Chinese fried donut sticks aka yau jar gwai (you can omit this, or just go easy on it ^_^)

Crunchy Fish & Creamy Spinach

I've playing Popeye lately, eating loads of spinach. This time I want 'em with crunchy fish and creamy sauce for contrast. ^_* Oh, I conveniently forgot that I am not supposed to eat anything crunchy yet...but what the heck, just another secret to keep from my doc.

I bet people keep naughty secrets from their docs all the time:
- I exercise daily (Doc: your heart rate doesn't say so)
- I only eat healthy stuff, lots of greens, no cheeseburgers, no fish and chips (Doc: your blood pressure surely disagreed with you)
- I haven't been near any spicy food for weeks now (Doc: I bet that's why your sore throat never got better)
Latest one I heard from my friend:
- I didn't eat anything wrong (her Chinese doctor: whatever you've eaten or done, YOU, yourself know best *or something to this effect* with very VERY skeptic tone)
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So, on my recent visit to the doc:

Doc: So, what have you been eating after the surgery?
Me: *pretended I didn't hear anything*...
Doc: So, what have you been eating after the surgery?
Me: *mumbled something incomprehensible* mmmfffghhhrrggh...mmm?
Doc: So, what have you been eating after the surgery?
Me: errr...stuff?
Doc: what stuff?
Me: hmm meat...rice...veggie...
Doc: Good, keep it soft, ok?
Me: *staring at my toes*
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Ingredients
- Boneless fish fillets
- Juice of 1 lime
- bread crumbs, salt, pepper, sugar
- finely chopped garlic
- spinach
- cream
- olive oil

Marinate fish fillets with lime juice. Mix bread crumbs with some salt, pepper, sugar. Dip fish fillets into bread crumbs mix, brown it on hot pan with a bit of olive oil, set aside on paper towel. Saute garlic, add spinach, add salt, pepper sugar, add cream. Serve together.

*Boys and girls, please do not try this at home* (the keeping secrets from the doc ^_^ the fish and spinach combo is ok)