Finding Alternative Solutions

Slim pickings for meat after abattoirs test positive for Covid

After a Covid-19 outbreak at Hong Kong's two abattoirs, the supply of fresh meat has plummeted, affecting supply, and now the government is considering allowing mainland butchers to come in to help out.

The city's largest operator Sheung Shui Slaughterhouse, and its smaller rival in Tsuen Wan would shut down temporarily on Saturday until further notice for disinfection after 183 of 866 samples from the Sheung Shui abattoir tested positive.

Supplies of pork and beef are disrupted

This has resulted in a knock-on effect with retail shops selling beef and pork having to shut temporarily as well due to having no more meat to sell.

Why do we have to bring in mainland butchers? Why not use this opportunity to push people to eat a more vegetarian diet?

Isn't this what people had to do during war time? If you want to eat meat, then you have to pay more for it.

While we are not at war, we are in a pandemic situation where food supplies are not consistent, so we should learn to make do with what we have and eat other protein-rich foods like tofu and legumes. 

Why not eat more tofu products to get protein?

Novel idea?

Meanwhile it has been reported by the Wall Street Journal that Chinese President Xi Jinping summoned Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor to Shenzhen to receive a direct order via Vice Premier Han Zheng that she has to get the fifth wave under control before Xi arrives for the 25th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong to China on July 1.

Some China watchers are expecting the city to implement even harsher lockdowns... but how is that even logistically possible? Today Hong Kong reported 22,000 positive cases (a mixture of preliminary positive and rapid antigen tests).

By the way now in Hong Kong rapid antigen tests count as a positive test.

How is Lam going to tackle this, when the number of cases are rising exponentially? The current idea of universal testing starting next month is ridiculous and half-baked. Meanwhile we are are trying to prevent ourselves from getting infected so we don't test positive and get hauled into quarantine.

Han warning Lam to get Covid-19 under control

Meanwhile Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Siu-chee told Bloomberg today that the government had Covid-19 "under control"...

She's saying this while the numbers of cases are rising exponentially everyday.

The deadline is looming, Carrie. How will you emerge victorious in stamping out the virus? 

More importantly -- did she wear a mask during the meeting?

Authentic Northern Vietnamese Dishes

Pho bo, featuring diced raw beef, meatballs and rice noodles

 

Today my colleague who is Vietnamese-Australian, took me to a small shop in Yau Ma Tei that serves northern Vietnamese food.

While he was not born in Vietnam, he has traveled there a few times. Here he is tired of the many Vietnamese restaurants that are more Hong Kong-style Vietnamese, and his girlfriend managed to find this place and he was pleasantly surprised. It is run by Vietnamese people.

Deep-fried spring rolls that are wrapped in lettuce

The place, called Pho Viet Authentic Hanoi Cuisine has many devotees, and my colleague warned we had to get there early to get in line as the shop is quite small. If you don't get seated in the first round, it will be a while to wait for a table.

So we got there just before noon and were the first ones to line up -- a few minutes later there were a some people behind us. 

The woman behind us said she liked eating the broken rice dish, featuring pork with a slice of omelette and rice that are mixed together. It was her second time there.

On Google it says the shop opens at 12.30, but the sign on the door says 12pm to 3.30pm. Luckily we got there early and within a few minutes the server lifted the metal roll top gate and let us in, but not before giving us hand sanitizer and taking our temperatures. He also insisted we keep our masks on until our food arrived. Very strict, but understandable.

The menu is very short for lunch, 19 items. We ordered three items, and I had a passion fruit soda, and my colleague an iced Vietnamese coffee.

bun cha Hanoi, a sour soup with grilled pork

The deep-fried spring rolls (HK$65) arrived first, three of the rolls accompanied with strips of Romaine lettuce, basil and mint, and fish sauce. The spring rolls were piping hot and a delicious start, filled with pork, carrot and vermicelli. 

Next came bun cha Hanoi (HK$76), where there was a soup bowl with what looked like a soup, with strips of grilled pork, and thinly sliced carrot and turnip in a broth that was sour and savoury. Also with the dish was a bamboo basket of balls of rice vermicelli and herbs.

My colleague instructed me to put a ball of the cold vermicelli in my bowl and then spoon some of the broth along with some pork on top of it. This was delicious and meaty. I liked the sour taste and interesting together with the thin slices of grilled pork. I had never eaten anything like this before.

Finally our bowl of pho bo (HK$79) came, and it's a large bowl! In it is the wide rice noodles, along with beef meatballs that were halved, and bits of raw beef. We mixed the beef into the steaming hot broth that had lots of scallions and herbs in it. A side dish had a wedge of lime and fresh chillis.

The bun cha has cold rice vermicelli in bunches

A guest next to us had ordered the same thing and asked the waiter why there were no beansprouts. He explained this was northern Vietnamese style. There were no slices of onions either.

The bits of beef were very tender, not chewy or sinewy. Amazing. It was definitely a comforting bowl of noodles, but I don't think I could have eaten it all on my own!

As we ate, some tables turned twice. Another guest next to us ordered takeaway. The server asked why so many, and she sheepishly said it was for her children. "Oh are they still asleep?" he asked. She was surprised he was so smart. "They are all night owls," she said. Luckily to have a mom bring delicious food for them.

When we left the bill came to HK$302 and well sated. 

Hope to visit again, maybe for dinner? But good to know this legit place exists if I get there early enough...

Pho Viet Authentic Hanoi Cuisine

G/F, 99 Portland Street, Mongkok (Yau Ma Tei MTR Exit A1)

6884 8898

A Pho to Remember?

Dinner last night -- rare beef pho at Chua Lam's Pho in Central

Yesterday my colleague and I finished an assignment in Central just before 6pm and she was wondering where to get a cheap bite to eat.

I suggested Tsui Wah, the cha chaan teng chain, but she said "no" right away. Then I remembered the famous food writer Chua Lam had opened a pho shop nearby and suggested we check it out.

Food critic and restaurateur Chua Lam at his restaurant

Called Chua Lam's Pho, with the tagline "A bowl of pho to remember", is on Wellington Street in a two-storey building with minimalist decor, complemented with beer bottles cut to have plants in them. There's a variety of seating and even more upstairs so we went up to get a table near the corner. The menu is pretty straight forward.

If you want to splurge, there's the "special beef pho" for HK$128, apparently with wagyu beef, but we stuck to the "rare beef pho" for HK$88.

Or you can have a basic beef pho for HK$68 and add toppings like raw beef, beef shank, brisket, tendon, beef ball, and tripe.

There are also other dishes like fried spring rolls, or rice paper salad rolls with fish and mango, or Thai pomelo salad -- what is that doing there! We ordered a dish of stir fried morning glory.

While we were waiting for our food to arrive, we sipped on the complimentary glasses of water and quickly realized they had a sweet peanut flavour! It's obviously a ploy to get customers to order drinks as well, which is what we did -- a young coconut for my colleague, a preserved plum and lime soda for me.

The ground floor interior of the shop

The food arrived quickly and in large bowls, and come with small cups filled with basil leaves, bean sprouts, lime wedge and fresh chillis. When the place first opened, everyone was raving about the soup base, and I have to say it has a round, flavourful beef taste, and wasn't oily.

Meanwhile the portion of morning glory was much larger than we expected and a bit on the spicy side, but still delicious.

My drink had a fake green syrup in it, probably a lime syrup which was completely redundant, while my colleague enjoyed her drink and the thick coconut meat inside.

In the end our bill came to HK$360 for two, a cheap and cheerful dinner.

Chua Lam's Pho
UG/F, 15-25 Wellington Street
Central
2325 9117

Hotpot Controversy

Chua Lam has said hotpot has no culinary significance in Chinese culture

Chua Lam (pronounced choi lam) was a film producer for Shaw Brothers Studio turned food critic turned restaurateur who has gotten into some hot water recently.

A highly respected food columnist, he has written a lot about food, and even taken his fans on foodie tours around Asia. He even wrote in his column that to ensure his groups had the best food, he would taste test several restaurants per day.

Chua opened a Vietnamese pho eatery last year

Last year he put his money where his mouth is and opened a Vietnamese noodle shop called Chua Lam's Pho on Wellington Street in Hong Kong's Central district. I have yet to go but hear the soup base is excellent. No doubt there are lines out the door.

However, the other day he was interviewed on a mainland Chinese talk show called Day Day Up.

The host asked him if there was any Chinese dish Chua would want to get rid of, and he replied hotpot.

"Because hotpot is a cooking method totally lacking in cultural significance. You just throw some ingredients into a pot. I don't get what's so delicious about it," he said. "If hotpot fandom continues to grow, you'll see fewer and fewer chefs in the years to come."

His comments immediately ignited indignation online, with many professing their love of hotpot and questioning why it should be removed.

While hotpot is a popular way for friends to get together over a meal and talk why they cook their food, from a culinary standpoint, there is no skill involved, nor is it about having the best ingredients as they will all be cooked in the same pot and can easily be overcooked if you're not watching.

There's a variety of ingredients to cook in the hotpot

What Chua says is true, that if there are more hotpot restaurants, that eliminates the need of hiring chefs and so culinary standards drop.

I enjoy the odd hotpot, but not very often. I like the socializing aspect of it and it makes a meal more drawn out than if you ordered dishes in another restaurant. However it is your cooking skills that are put to the test, especially when poaching shrimp and fish for example, as well as cuts of beef and lamb.

Other ingredients like mushrooms, tofu and corn can be left simmering for a long time.

In the end there's a lot of scum at the top of the "broth", and it can be very oily from the meats cooking in there. My other concern about eating hotpot is that you can easily order too much food and feel compelled to finish it all, and have to waddle home afterwards, feeling very uncomfortable trying to digest all that food.

Mainland Chinese hotpot complete with hot charcoal

Thank goodness places like Haidilao offer half portions (and a noodle dance!), but that's not really the issue...

While people criticizing Chua claim there is cultural significance in hotpots, can someone explain?

Just seems like good business sense to just prepare ingredients and have customers cook their own food...

Chinese Food in Rome

Italian sea bass steamed Cantonese style in a Chinese restaurant in Rome!

Our hotel in Rome was located near the train station, and so there was a constant stream of travelers walking by our hotel, dragging their luggage to and from the station. To cater to their stomachs, there were various kinds of restaurants.

Many of them were Italian of course, serving pizzas and pastas, and Indian ones serving curries -- 3 euros for a bowl of rice!

Pretty decent potstickers called "ravioli"

But around the corner and down the street from our hotel was Huaweiju, Ristorante Cinese serving Chinese food. We were curious and wondered how good the food was and decided to give it a shot.

Most of the other Italian restaurants in the area seem small at first, but they actually have massive basements and can host large groups. However, Huaweiju was really tiny, so it was better to go earlier otherwise the wait would be long.

The owner of the restaurant had no shame in squeezing in one or two more customers around a tiny temporary table not even as big as a mahjong table if they didn't mind...

It's a bare restaurant, with not much decor except for a bar/service area that had rows of bottles behind, along with kitsch Chinese-style pictures, and a typical Chinese calendar.

However the menu is choc full of dishes, some slight variations on say stir-fried noodles and rice, but what draws a lot of people to this place are the prices. They are about half of what the nearby Italian restaurants charge, so for many, Huaweiju is a no brainer.

The restaurant owner is originally from Wenzhou

Oh and a bowl of rice costs 1 euro.

We tried several dishes on the menu and many of them were not bad, like #52 spaghetti di riso or stir-fried vermicelli, while #009 ravioli are pretty decent potstickers. We also had #40, fried rice called riso cantonese, and #114, a sizzling beef platter, with the name manzo all griglia.

The most impressive dish was #167 pesce, or steamed Italian sea bass. It was cooked just right, with spring onions, finely sliced carrots and light soy sauce. We cleaned up the bones very nicely.

The restaurant is run by a capable and unflappable Chinese woman. Although her service system was very disorganized, she didn't let customer demands bother her too much -- she knew her clientele were not regulars. So we had to wait for plates, chopsticks and tea. They came... eventually.

In the kitchen in the back is a Chinese chef, and some migrant workers. She spoke to the Chinese chef in Mandarin, the others easily in Italian and to customers a bit of English.

Very good stir-fried vermicelli though portions are small

Finally when were getting the bill I asked her where she was from. She said Wenzhou and I asked how long she had been here, and she replied 18 years.

Some of the customers are Chinese -- curious like us -- while the rest are visitors looking for an inexpensive meal. Oh and the restaurant even makes French fries -- 2.50 euros if you were wondering.

Huaweiju Ristorante Cinese
Viap Filippo Turati 9-11
Rome
(06) 8923 9537

Picture of the Day: Fresh Beef Hotpot

Cabbage, beef, potato, tendon and tripe ready to be put in the hotpot

A few days ago I was in Guangzhou for work and on our final day there, my colleague and I finished our work early and had lunch in a popular hot pot place called Shantou Bahelihaiji beef shop.

It apparently specializes in serving fresh beef from cows that have been culled only four hours earlier. I find that a bit hard to believe as it takes time for blood to be drained from the carcass, and how can fresh beef be distributed that quickly around to the various branches in Guangdong within that time frame?

Nevertheless we had to wait for about half an hour with a ticket in hand, so it must be pretty good. We were hungry watching diners walk in and getting their fill.

Our number was finally called and our table was on the second floor in a cramped space. But we were here! The menu is focused on all kinds of beef from various parts of the cow, to beef meatballs, tendon, tongue, brisket and so on.

To balance it out we also got some turnip, potato and cabbage. Strangely there was no tofu on the menu. A few steps away was a sauce station for diners to create their own sauce to dip the cooked food in. There was the usual array of fresh chilli peppers, minced garlic, coriander, spring onions, oil and soy sauce, but no sesame oil which seemed a bit strange.

The hotpot with clear broth was placed in an induction burner and it took a while to heat up, but finally when it was boiling we were in business. The beef balls were very bouncy -- unlike the frozen ones I've eaten so many times, making freshness the defining factor.

The menu also suggests how long each item should be cooked for, ranging from seconds to minutes. We followed the directions which made sure the meat was cooked just so, resulting in a very tender texture. My colleague was in meat heaven.

While the beef tendon looked shriveled up and dry, once they were cooked, they were fantastic, chewy and flavourful. Another was tripe that was cooked within 10 seconds and was very crunchy. What looked like an endless number of meat dishes, turned out to be just right, along with our vegetable dishes.

Did I mention my colleague mistakenly ordered a giant 1.5 litre bottle of juice, so I had to help him finish it -- well most of it. In the end the bill for our hotpot meal was 270 yuan for two!