Thursday, January 24, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Get A Weighing Machine, AA!
Dear Tony,
Hi again. Thank you for that sweet reply noting my displeasure with your onflight meals. I really admire your attention to each customer's complaint.
On Tuesday, Tony, I sent Lily (a student from China) back on an AA flight to Shenzhen. You know your baggage limit of 15 kg really sucks, esp. for students returning home for good. When I begged your counter staff for an extra 1.6 kg, she gave me a Garfield glance and said "Cannot! My boss is watching!" Gosh, what is happening in this country. You have CCTVs watching your staff like BN has video recorders in hotel rooms? Anyway, Lily went off to unload some of her books, put the bag through the scanner again and weighed in at 13.8 kg. Back to uploading, then scanning, then checking at the counter again. I told Garfield to tell you to put a weighing machine near the scanner for the convenience of your customers. She looked at me like Najib looking at everyone, you know, that head-to-one-side, eyes-half-closed look. What she needs is 5 minutes on the treadmill so I'm proposing that you put in a weighing machine for passengers and an exercise machine for your staff. Win win. Only you/AA will loose some on the penalty charges for excess baggage but that's okay, you have to be nice sometimes.
Have a good day.
Regards
Terri
Hi again. Thank you for that sweet reply noting my displeasure with your onflight meals. I really admire your attention to each customer's complaint.
On Tuesday, Tony, I sent Lily (a student from China) back on an AA flight to Shenzhen. You know your baggage limit of 15 kg really sucks, esp. for students returning home for good. When I begged your counter staff for an extra 1.6 kg, she gave me a Garfield glance and said "Cannot! My boss is watching!" Gosh, what is happening in this country. You have CCTVs watching your staff like BN has video recorders in hotel rooms? Anyway, Lily went off to unload some of her books, put the bag through the scanner again and weighed in at 13.8 kg. Back to uploading, then scanning, then checking at the counter again. I told Garfield to tell you to put a weighing machine near the scanner for the convenience of your customers. She looked at me like Najib looking at everyone, you know, that head-to-one-side, eyes-half-closed look. What she needs is 5 minutes on the treadmill so I'm proposing that you put in a weighing machine for passengers and an exercise machine for your staff. Win win. Only you/AA will loose some on the penalty charges for excess baggage but that's okay, you have to be nice sometimes.
Have a good day.
Regards
Terri
Sichuan Twice-cooked Pork
(Especially For Denise)
Leila has finished her degree here and gone back to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan. Before she left, Wey requested that she cook her huiguo rou and suanmi baice rou (garlic sliced pork) one last time.
Huiguo rou means 'meat returned to the wok' but you'll find most English translations referring to it as 'twice-cooked pork'. Whoever translated it first wasn't very accurate. Whatever you call it, it points to the fact that the pork is first boiled, then sliced and fried with that irreplaceable Sichuan hot broad bean paste, and veggies like peppers, cabbage (I didn't have any so we made do with more peppers) and leeks or spring onions. The resulting dish is very fragrant and perfect with plain rice washed down with beer, but remember, it is a Sichuan dish and can be a little too oily for the uninitiated.
1/2 kg belly pork, skin on
1/2 red/yellow & 1/2 green bell pepper, in small pieces
1 handful cabbage, in bite-pieces
1/2 brown onion, in small pieces
1 garlic leek or spring onion, in diagonal small pieces
2 T garlic, minced
2 T ginger, minced
2 T doeban jiang (Sichuan hot broad bean paste)*
1 T sweet bean paste**
1 T chili oil
1 t Sichuan peppercorns
1 T light soy sauce
1/2 T sugar, msg to taste
1. Put belly pork into a pot of boiling water that's enough to cover the pork. Boil the belly pork for 30 minutes until it is not too soft or hard. Remove and cool completely. Cut into very thin slices across the grain, with skin intact.
2. Heat up a wok, add 2 T oil and fry the peppers, cabbage, onions and leek with a pinch of salt until they are cooked. Remove to a plate.
3. Heat up 3 T oil till very hot and fry the Sichuan peppercorns for a few seconds, add the garlic and ginger and fry (reduce heat to medium) another minute until fragrant but not browned.
4. Add the sliced pork and bean pastes and fry over medium heat. Keep on frying until the oil comes out and the meat slices are shiny. Now add the fried veg, the light soy sauce, 1 T chili oil, sugar and msg, and continue to fry for a couple more minutes for the flavors to develop and blend together. This will take a couple of minutes but is an important step so don't rush it. Adjust the taste with more bean sauces, soy sauce or sugar.
* I get mine from Sichuan.
**Only if unavailable, substitute with the black Korean sweet bean paste.
Leila has finished her degree here and gone back to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan. Before she left, Wey requested that she cook her huiguo rou and suanmi baice rou (garlic sliced pork) one last time.
Huiguo rou means 'meat returned to the wok' but you'll find most English translations referring to it as 'twice-cooked pork'. Whoever translated it first wasn't very accurate. Whatever you call it, it points to the fact that the pork is first boiled, then sliced and fried with that irreplaceable Sichuan hot broad bean paste, and veggies like peppers, cabbage (I didn't have any so we made do with more peppers) and leeks or spring onions. The resulting dish is very fragrant and perfect with plain rice washed down with beer, but remember, it is a Sichuan dish and can be a little too oily for the uninitiated.
1/2 kg belly pork, skin on
1/2 red/yellow & 1/2 green bell pepper, in small pieces
1 handful cabbage, in bite-pieces
1/2 brown onion, in small pieces
1 garlic leek or spring onion, in diagonal small pieces
2 T garlic, minced
2 T ginger, minced
2 T doeban jiang (Sichuan hot broad bean paste)*
1 T sweet bean paste**
1 T chili oil
1 t Sichuan peppercorns
1 T light soy sauce
1/2 T sugar, msg to taste
1. Put belly pork into a pot of boiling water that's enough to cover the pork. Boil the belly pork for 30 minutes until it is not too soft or hard. Remove and cool completely. Cut into very thin slices across the grain, with skin intact.
2. Heat up a wok, add 2 T oil and fry the peppers, cabbage, onions and leek with a pinch of salt until they are cooked. Remove to a plate.
3. Heat up 3 T oil till very hot and fry the Sichuan peppercorns for a few seconds, add the garlic and ginger and fry (reduce heat to medium) another minute until fragrant but not browned.
4. Add the sliced pork and bean pastes and fry over medium heat. Keep on frying until the oil comes out and the meat slices are shiny. Now add the fried veg, the light soy sauce, 1 T chili oil, sugar and msg, and continue to fry for a couple more minutes for the flavors to develop and blend together. This will take a couple of minutes but is an important step so don't rush it. Adjust the taste with more bean sauces, soy sauce or sugar.
* I get mine from Sichuan.
**Only if unavailable, substitute with the black Korean sweet bean paste.
Worst Thing We Ate
On the way home from school yesterday, Wey asked me what the worst thing was that I ate in Oz. I asked him his worst thing but he wanted me to go first so I said "Let's say it together so we won't cheat!"
We both shouted "Dim sims!" We also agreed that we could eat the fried dim sim if we were starving, but not the steamed one. If you serve this in China or Hong Kong as Chinese food, they'd stone you with it. And they should. It truly was gross: egg-sized thick-skinned lump of wheat flour and water pastry with grounded stinky pork inside, all scrunched up messily. We ate dim sims at that fish and chippery shop in the Mornington Peninsula but I was so disgusted I forgot to take a picture. Here's a pic from Google Images. The Ozzies seem to love it. This big guy walked in, bought four to go, shook some soy sauce all over them and walked out with a smile. That's when I was reminded of the saying: meat to some, poison to others.
I just found out from Wikipedia that dim sims were first made by this Chinese guy in Melbourne. Must've failed as a cook in his native China. For non-Chinese readers, I'm going to let you in on a secret expression that is used among Chinese cooks: "Pen guilao" or "Deceive the whiteman/westerners." Some pen guilao dishes are probably your favourites: chop suey, sub-gum noodles, most versions of sweet n sour and dim sims. I bet dim sims are the Ozzie version of sau mai/siew mai, those little delicious steamed wonton-wrapped morsels of grounded pork and prawns that you must eat at yumchas or when you 'eat dimsum'.
We both shouted "Dim sims!" We also agreed that we could eat the fried dim sim if we were starving, but not the steamed one. If you serve this in China or Hong Kong as Chinese food, they'd stone you with it. And they should. It truly was gross: egg-sized thick-skinned lump of wheat flour and water pastry with grounded stinky pork inside, all scrunched up messily. We ate dim sims at that fish and chippery shop in the Mornington Peninsula but I was so disgusted I forgot to take a picture. Here's a pic from Google Images. The Ozzies seem to love it. This big guy walked in, bought four to go, shook some soy sauce all over them and walked out with a smile. That's when I was reminded of the saying: meat to some, poison to others.I just found out from Wikipedia that dim sims were first made by this Chinese guy in Melbourne. Must've failed as a cook in his native China. For non-Chinese readers, I'm going to let you in on a secret expression that is used among Chinese cooks: "Pen guilao" or "Deceive the whiteman/westerners." Some pen guilao dishes are probably your favourites: chop suey, sub-gum noodles, most versions of sweet n sour and dim sims. I bet dim sims are the Ozzie version of sau mai/siew mai, those little delicious steamed wonton-wrapped morsels of grounded pork and prawns that you must eat at yumchas or when you 'eat dimsum'.
To me, the king of dimsum (meaning 'to point at the heart) is the sau mai (pork and prawns mince wrapped in thin wonton wrappers made of egg and flour ) while the queen is ha gow (prawns mince in translucent gluten wheat starch wrapper).
On my previous trip to Melbourne, which has the second largest Greek population outside of Greece, I tasted dolmas (grape leaves stuffed with rice, olives, olive oil, pine nuts etc) for the first time. I bit into one and spat it out, something I rarely do. Tell me what your worst holiday food discovery was!
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Singapore Snacks
Some of my Melbourne pics can't be read in the file and I am waiting for someone to send another copy to me. Meanwhile, let's see what we ate in Singapore.
I'm not particularly fond of Chinese cooling drinks (liang cha) and gwei ling gao (a kind of herbal jelly) is something I've avoided forever because I thought the gwei meant tortoise, and that the jelly is probably made from tortoise shell or something. So I was wrong, but I still fear that someday the truth will be revealed and it'll turn out to be tortoise shell after all. This was the 2nd time I've eaten gwei ling gao and I still didn't like it; it had a slight bitter aftertaste, even with all that honey.
Now Turkish sticky ice-cream I like, especially this one, pistachio flavor.
My bro Clive and wife Lena brought us to one of their favorite restaurants, a mom and pop hole-in-the-wall type that serves Beijing food. I was clicking away as the food arrived and this man came to me and asked, not very nicely, why I was taking pictures. I asked if pictures were forbidden, and he said no, but he didn't like the way I took pics of everything. Now this is only the second time I've encountered opposition to my taking of restaurant food pics. The first time was last year in Zhouhai,China and it was in a hotel and the lady was very polite. This dour-faced guy was not. When I told him I was going to feature his restaurant, he asked for my card (I don't carry any) and grumbled that I should've at least asked permission. That really spoilt my dinner. But I'd still rate it fairly. Let's see.
Their menu is basically everything in the picture, minus some if you are not lucky and they've run out. Prices are quite reasonable, from S$5 to S$9 per item.
Minced meat and veg pancake. This was extremely good. If I ever go back, this is what I want to eat.
Can you tell, this is guotie? Nah, I prefer it wrapped the traditional way. The shuijiao at the back was pretty good.
Xiao long bao, little steamed dumplings. Okay but not earth-moving...
Jajiang noodles. Not recommended. At all.
Bean sprouts with jajiang sauce. Okay, crisp and refreshing but the jajiang sauce was very mediocre.
I also tried the hot and sour soup and tang yuan. Another so-so. Qun Zhong Eating House is located at 21 Neil Rd, open everyday except Wednesdays, 11.30 am to 3 pm, 5:30 pm to 9:30 pm. Tel: 6221 3060.
I'm not particularly fond of Chinese cooling drinks (liang cha) and gwei ling gao (a kind of herbal jelly) is something I've avoided forever because I thought the gwei meant tortoise, and that the jelly is probably made from tortoise shell or something. So I was wrong, but I still fear that someday the truth will be revealed and it'll turn out to be tortoise shell after all. This was the 2nd time I've eaten gwei ling gao and I still didn't like it; it had a slight bitter aftertaste, even with all that honey.
Now Turkish sticky ice-cream I like, especially this one, pistachio flavor.
My bro Clive and wife Lena brought us to one of their favorite restaurants, a mom and pop hole-in-the-wall type that serves Beijing food. I was clicking away as the food arrived and this man came to me and asked, not very nicely, why I was taking pictures. I asked if pictures were forbidden, and he said no, but he didn't like the way I took pics of everything. Now this is only the second time I've encountered opposition to my taking of restaurant food pics. The first time was last year in Zhouhai,China and it was in a hotel and the lady was very polite. This dour-faced guy was not. When I told him I was going to feature his restaurant, he asked for my card (I don't carry any) and grumbled that I should've at least asked permission. That really spoilt my dinner. But I'd still rate it fairly. Let's see.
Their menu is basically everything in the picture, minus some if you are not lucky and they've run out. Prices are quite reasonable, from S$5 to S$9 per item.
Minced meat and veg pancake. This was extremely good. If I ever go back, this is what I want to eat.
Can you tell, this is guotie? Nah, I prefer it wrapped the traditional way. The shuijiao at the back was pretty good.
Xiao long bao, little steamed dumplings. Okay but not earth-moving...
Jajiang noodles. Not recommended. At all.
Bean sprouts with jajiang sauce. Okay, crisp and refreshing but the jajiang sauce was very mediocre.
I also tried the hot and sour soup and tang yuan. Another so-so. Qun Zhong Eating House is located at 21 Neil Rd, open everyday except Wednesdays, 11.30 am to 3 pm, 5:30 pm to 9:30 pm. Tel: 6221 3060.
For dessert, we went to this famous/infamous soy bean milk coffeeshop. You must've read about this establishment infamous for its family feud. Apparently their parents started the business, then the sons took over and fell out with each other due to rivalry so they parted ways but maintained a shop each side by side. After a while it was hard to continue doing business next to each other, so one son moved away (doing well too) and a daughter moved in next door. Lena actually prefers the daughter's shop but they were out of yutiao/Chinese crullers so we went to the more popular shop next door. I later read a travel magazine that also promoted the daughter's shop. Somebody should tell the lady to change her (red) signboard. She has the names of her three girls in a scrawl and its hard to figure out what or how to pronounce. My opinion? No big deal. The soy bean milk tastes like other soy bean milk (okay, soybean flavor was strong) and I think the family feud thing is all publicity. I bet they still sit down together for their CNY reunion dinner.
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