Chinese New Year Cultural Appropriation

Don't decorate a CNY dish with funeral paper

Late last night, a former colleague now based in London had a freak out on Twitter when she saw the UK newspaper The Guardian post recipes for the upcoming Lunar New Year, but the accompanying pictures demonstrated no Chinese person was consulted to see if the decorations were culturally appropriate.

One picture shows a plate of pork and crab potstickers -- they should really be boiled dumplings -- on a piece of batik fabric -- not really Chinese -- but worst of all decorated with joss paper that are usually burned to pay respects to ancestors when grave sweeping.

Funeral envelopes mixed with lai see packets...

In addition, the chopsticks look like joss sticks, another not really good thing to do, and what's with the ancient Chinese coins?

Meanwhile BBC Food also posted recipes by School of Wok founder Jeremy Pang. One of them is lo mein with scallops and tenderstem broccoli. While it's fine to have the lai see envelope as a decoration, next to it is another envelope -- given out by the grieving family to funeral attendees, which usually includes a coin, tissue and a piece of candy.

May we also point out the turquoise chopsticks are really ugly?

These ignorant gaffes sparked or rather led to an explosion of complaints from Chinese people about how everyone else is so ignorant of Chinese culture, sometimes even stabbing a dish of noodles with chopsticks that again look like joss sticks.

One person remarked: "I'm absolutely horrified by this. This is like putting up a Christmas tree at a funeral."

Stabbing dish like joss sticks

Others also remarked how whenever Thai or Filipino food is styled, chopsticks are always placed next to the dish, when they typically eat with a fork and spoon.

For me at least, this incident just shows how there is a lack of diversity in these two news organisations, and no one bothered to check to see if these pictures were culturally correct.

The people who created the recipes were Taiwanese and a second-generation British-Chinese. Or if they weren't available, how about some professors in Chinese sociology or culture?

The Guardian has since apologised for the mistake, and BBC Food is looking into its gaffe.

Wonder how the Year of the Tiger will turn out for them...

Winter Solstice Wontons

Wontons wrapped "envelope" style that are ready to be boiled...

The shortest day of the year has come and gone with winter solstice.

It's also a day for families to gather for dinner.

I was inspired by a friend who posted pictures of wontons he had made a few weeks ago and I decided to do the same.

The end result is delicious wontons!

He used minced pork with watercress and mushrooms, but suggested I could make whatever filling I wanted.

Tonight I made one by combining minced pork, finely chopped cabbage, chives, mushrooms and shrimp. They were mixed with some salt, soy sauce, sesame oil and Shaoxing wine.

I didn't really know how to wrap wontons and did it the "envelope" style... but taste-wise they were delicious, the crunchiness of the cabbage and chives and the shrimp added more texture. They were light and not hard to eat a lot of them!

I've just Googled other ways to wrap the wontons and can't wait to try to wrap them again...

Northern Dishes in Macau

Guests can watch their food being prepared in Beijing Kitchen

Beijing Kitchen in the Grand Hyatt Macau is a consistent restaurant in terms of food quality, pity about the service being sporadic. Nevertheless we had a good lunch here sampling several dishes before I went back to Hong Kong.

Green bean noodle with shredded chicken and sesame sauce

Some highlights: The jellyfish with sliced cucumber, grated garlic and aged malt vinegar was crunchy and refreshing, and we quite liked the green bean noodle with shredded chicken, chilli and sesame sauce, or at least I liked it and finished the leftovers.

The main event, the Peking Duck was presented table side and the chef immediately launched into carving it. He first gave us a small plate of just the skin that you dip into sugar and boy does that melt in the mouth! Quite amazing to try, but one piece is enough.

Then came the duck slices, some with a bit of the skin with visible fat underneath, some just meat. The steamed pancakes were thin, but stuck together and required some dexterity with the chopsticks to be able to daintily extract them from the bamboo steamer without ripping them.

Deep-fried chicken with chillis and peanuts

Condiments included pureed garlic, thinly sliced scallions and cucumbers with the sweet plum sauce. But overall the verdict was the duck was "too ducky", a bit too gamey for some people's tastes. I felt it didn't have much taste and needed the condiments to perk it up.

I suggested we order the panfried pork dumplings with yellow chives and they arrived in a delicate formation, bottom up with a web-like connection holding them all together. The dumplings themselves were crispy on the outside, and very juicy inside. So good.

Pretty presentation of panfried dumplings with yellow chives

For a spicy kick, the deep-fried chicken with chilli and peanut hit the spot. This is not gong bao ji ding, but small pieces of chicken that are deep-fried and then stir-fried again with dried chillis and Sichuan peppercorns for that numbing feeling.

Another impressive-looking dish is the crispy mandarin fish in sweet and sour sauce. It was covered in small mango cubes that were a nice complement to the thick sauce. The fish was very meaty, but didn't have much flavour, hence the sweet and slightly tart sauce. We really did finish every part of the fish in the end.

The last time I ate here was a year ago for a quick lunch just before the announcement of who got stars in the Michelin Guide Hong Kong and Macau. I just might do the same thing again in a few weeks' time. And having just eaten here, I already have in mind what I'd like to eat next time.

Peking duck, anyone?

Beijing Kitchen
1/F, Grand Hyatt Macau
City of Dreams
Estrada do Istmo, Cotai
Macau
(853) 8868 1930

Old School Chiu Chow Cuisine

The decor in Lok Hau Fook hasn't changed in over six decades!

This evening my relatives and I headed to Kowloon City to eat at one of their favourite haunts, Lok Hau Fook, a Chiu Chow restaurant that dates back 65 years. The decor inside has hardly changed, one of the walls features a giant dragon and phoenix, with a double happiness sign in between them for weddings, though probably no one celebrates their nuptials here anymore.

I heard some Hong Kong films have used this restaurant as a setting for scenes involving triads -- who knew they liked to hang out in old school Chiu Chow restaurants?

In front deep-fried crab mousse and shrimp balls in rear

On a Friday night, the restaurant is almost full and we take our seat -- we get cold very fast from the air conditioning and the fans blowing the cold air.

There's a lot of dishes to choose from, and my uncle already has in mind what he'd like to eat. He hasn't been here for many years and reels off some of his favourites to the waiter.

Pretty soon the lo sui duck arrives with some vinegar and it looks overcooked by it's not -- very tender and juicy, and flavourful from the master sauce. Underneath the thin slices of marinated duck are pieces of tofu that are equally delicious.

We also order some seasonal vegetables and choose chun choi, a Chiu Chow vegetable that is a skinny version of choi sum that was cooked in a broth together with chunks of radish and pork rib bits and ginger for flavour.

Super plump baby oysters in a rice soup with pork

Then came some deep-fried items -- a ball that was a combination of shrimp mousse mixed with finely diced water chestnut, and the a rectangular package of crab meat mousse. Both were so lightly deep-fried that their texture was very soft inside, the hot oil obviously fresh.

Probably one of my favourites is the baby oyster congee. The plump oysters are practically poached in the rice soup along with chunks of minced pork, Chinese ham and mushroom. We each had seconds of this giant tureen.

Another interesting Chiu Chow specialty are dumplings where the wrapper is actually made of a very thin fried egg white, and inside the filling is diced chicken, mushrooms, and bamboo shoots, and tied  together by a thin piece of chive topped with shrimp roe. This is such an interesting dish especially in terms of execution; interestingly it tastes of butter, and the bamboo shoots inside are a nice textural highlight.

Dumpling wrappers made of fried egg white are impressive

We were almost full -- but not before we tried some desserts. First up was wok-fried taro covered in sugar -- this is very difficult to execute, as the taro needs to be constantly moving in the hot wok otherwise the sugar on top will burn. Here the slices of taro were practically white with some scallion bits.

Another was a soup of green beans with some translucent jelly cubes. Not a favourite, but a fantastic finish was a taro pudding, again constantly stirred in the wok which is challenging because the grounded taro is so sticky. The end result is a very smooth and sweet hot pudding that's practically screaming to be called comfort food. The small bowl looks deceiving, but really one or two spoonfuls are all you need to satisfy your sweet tooth.

In the end our bill came to just under HK$1,000 for four. We will surely be back again as my uncle already began thinking about what to order next time...

Stir-fried slices of taro covered in sugar is difficult to make

Lok Hau Fook
1-3 Hau Wong Road
Kowloon City
2382 7408

Obsessed with "Xiangchun Freedom"

If you can afford to eat this vegetable, it's as expensive as a lobster

What can you eat to show your peers you've made it financially?

In China it was cherries, but now it's a vegetable called xiangchun 香椿, the young red leaves of the Chinese mahogany tree that are the in thing to munch on. The basil-tasting leaves have become so prized that in places like Beijing it costs 80 yuan to 100 yuan (US$12 to US$30) for a catty or 500 grams.

People have taken to social media to complain about the price of the vegetable that could cost as much as a lobster, 10 abalone or 39 crayfish.

Xiangchun leaves are from the Chinese mahogany tree

"You can buy this [vegetable] to show off your wealth," one person on Weibo commented.

Another said: "There's plenty of xiangchun trees at my grandmother's house. I feel like I've just found the path to riches."

The first spring leaves of the tree are traditionally used in Chinese cooking, especially in the north, where it is stirfried with eggs or tofu, or used as filling for dumplings.

Xiangchun per catty costs more than pork in Beijing, where it is priced at 8 yuan to 10 yuan. In places like Qingdao in Shandong province, Xiaogan in Hubei province and Xian in Shaanxi province, the vegetable costs 40 yuan per 500 grams.

However, if you can afford to buy and eat xiangchun, then you are considered to have "xiangchun freedom", similar to people who can afford to buy imported cherries to give as gifts. Before the Spring Festival this year, imported cherries were selling for 60 yuan per catty in Beijing.

Economist Yao Zhiyong is with the School of Management at Fudan University and says the wide use of the terms "xiangchun freedom" and "cherry freedom" showed a decline in real spending power.

Xiangchun are stirfried with egg or tofu, or in dumplings

"Many items have become more expensive, but people's salaries haven't gone up accordingly," Yao says. "In the meantime there are other expenses -- education, housing, healthcare -- that can't be ignored. That's why people are bemoaning their lack of 'cherry freedom' or 'xiangchun freedom'."

The Chinese have this cruel obsession of constantly comparing themselves to other people, either to psychologically feel like they have a leg up on their peers or to bemoan the reality that they are never going to win the rat race.

It's as if this competition is the only way they know how to relate to others which is unhealthy and scary. But the ironic thing is that people are willing to pay top dollar for a seasonal vegetable, and I'm all for a greener lifestyle!

Picture of the Day: Festive Mix-Up

A pretty lantern in Kennedy Town, but the caption doesn't match the occasion

This weekend I've been busy getting ready for the Year of the Pig -- I cleaned out my flat -- even cleaning lamp shades that were very dusty! Washed windows and mopped the floor. I bought a small bouquet of flowers and even made lots of dumplings!

I even brought back the wrappers from Vancouver, which are very thin. However I did not estimate how much filling I would need and had to go out two more times to buy more minced pork and make the recipe again...

The wet market was doing a roaring trade -- well at least the food vendors were, and meanwhile recycling bins and garbage bins were overflowing... many doing a Marie Kondo of their homes. For me it's a continual exercise...

After dinner I went to the Kennedy Town pool for my usual Sunday swim and passed by Belcher Bay Park. They had a nice light display on and I decided to take some pictures on the way back. I admired the lantern and then looked down at the description.

It said the lantern display was for the Mid-Autumn Festival! Then I remembered that the Leisure and Cultural Services Department likes to rotate its displays around the 19 districts, so this was their way of recycling.

I'm glad they are re-using decorations, but why not at least update the description to say the lanterns are for Chinese New Year celebrations instead?

Xi Has the Common Touch

Xi Jinping made an unannounced visit to a Beijing restaurant yesterday

Millions of Chinese are already making their way home for Spring Festival that starts on February 5. Many major cities are emptying out and people are heading on trains, buses and planes for the next week or so.

Yesterday Chinese President Xi Jinping surprised diners by dropping into a small restaurant in Beijing. On state television Xi was seen asking how much a bowl of rice noodles was and how long the owners had been in the city.

He praised deliverymen for being like diligent bees

As diners stood up to take pictures, he told them not to stop eating on his account. "I'm just passing through," he said.

The last time Xi unexpectedly interacted with the public was in 2014 when he visited courtyard homes and chatted with passers-by on one particularly smoggy day.

This time the Chinese President also chatted with deliverymen who spend all day delivering packages around Beijing.

"You are the most diligent, like diligent bees, traveling here and there and being exposed to the sun and rain. It's not easy," Xi told them.

He asked if they would be going home for Spring Festival, and one replied in the affirmative. The rest were probably thinking, "I need to feed my family", or "The boss made me work".

Xi even wrapped dumplings, but how did they look?

Xi also visited policemen and even made dumplings with residents in a courtyard building in Qianmen.

We have the photographic, but how did his dumplings look?

Decadent Dim Sum

Lung King Heen's famous baked barbecue pork buns

Last Saturday three friends and I went to Lung King Heen, the three-starred Michelin Chinese restaurant in the Four Seasons Hong Kong for dim sum. I had booked the table back in late November to ensure we got a table.

It's pretty impressive how this place continues to keep its consistency particularly in dim sum, as I have now eaten it here three times, and for dinner only once many years ago.

Steamed rice rolls with lobster and water chestnut

There were a few new dishes on the dim sum menu and we decided to try some of them as well as order our favourites.

A new one was steamed rice rolls with lobster and water chestnut in fermented bean sauce (HK$230). This was definitely indulgent, but have you had steamed rice rolls with lobster before? This was fantastic -- very meaty but also included chopped vegetables and crunchy water chestnuts too.

Another was steamed lobster dumplings with egg white and sweet corn (HK$120). These dumplings were so large that they were served in pairs per bamboo steamer. Take a bite and inside it was choc full of lobster along with sweet corn. It sounds strange with corn kernels, but works well, again for texture and added sweetness.

Perfectly executed steamed shrimp dumplings

The baked goose puffs with chestnut in XO chilli sauce (HK$99) were topped with bonito flakes, perhaps an ode to the goose's nest? The pastry shell was very flaky and buttery, while the goose was also quite rich too and perhaps needed some acidity to cut the richness, as bonito flakes wasn't going to do that.

As for staples, the steamed shrimp dumplings with bamboo shoots (HK$99) was a star winner, so delicate, the skin translucent and the shrimp meat inside so delicious and filling.

We also thoroughly enjoyed the baked whole abalone puff with diced chicken (HK$84 per piece). The abalone is sliced up so that you aren't obligated to shove the whole thing into your mouth and enjoy it in at least two bites. The pastry here was also top notch.

Pan-fried rice rolls in XO chilli sauce (HK$200) is a small portion for what you get; it is spicy, though that day I was battling a cold and couldn't eat as much as I would have liked. It was a dish that was a struggle to finish.

Baked abalone puffs with diced chicken a winner

The same could be said for the plate of char siu (HK$350). By the time it arrived I was pretty full and could barely finish two slices. 

However, the signature baked barbecue pork buns with pine nuts (HK$99) continue to be one of the best items on this menu. The filling features diced char siu mixed with pine nuts and enveloped in a bun that holds it together topped with a pineapple but dome for a touch of crispiness.

A friend new to Lung King Heen was about to rip the bun in half but we stopped her in time to advise her to eat it in bites instead. She was glad we gave her that tip and savoured each bite.

For dessert we had complimentary bowls of mango pudding topped with pomelo sago pudding! What a combo. It was only when we dug our spoons in did we realize there was mango pudding underneath.

Osmanthus jellies and puff rice cakes for dessert

We also had some petit fours of steamed osmanthus jelly, and puff rice cakes.

I was so full afterwards, but in particular sated by the food and really enjoyed the company too.

Lung King Heen
4/F, Four Seasons Hong Kong
8 Finance Street, Central
3196 8880 

Peppa the Pig Politically Rehabilitated

Peppa the Pig and her family celebrate Chinese New Year

The Chinese Communist Party has from time to time, banned certain things or people and later on decided they are kosher again and rehabilitated them politically.

Such is the case for a cartoon pig -- Peppa the Pig.

Earlier this year in the spring, the Chinese government banned Peppa the Pig, from tens of thousands of cartoon clips, to even the hashtag #PeppaPig, claiming the porcine character was associated with 社会人 or "society people", a slang term for lowlifes and gangsters.

Back in May Peppa the Pig was banned from China

According to state media outlet Global Times, people who upload videos of Peppa Pig tattoos and merchandise, and make Peppa-related jokes "run counter to the mainstream value and are usually poorly educated with no stable job. They are unruly slackers roaming around and the antithesis of the young generation the [Communist] party tries to cultivate."

So that was the end of Peppa... until now.

With Chinese New Year around the corner -- guess what? It's the Year of the Pig!

And just in time for the Lunar New Year holiday, one movie that will be released is called Peppa Pig celebrates Chinese New Year.

She was a symbol for slackers that the government didn't like

The film will feature traditional Chinese customs during the festival, including a dragon parade and fireworks.

Interestingly the film, co-developed by Alibaba Pictures and a Canadian media company called Entertainment One, will feature the entire Peppa Pig cast and two new characters called Dumpling and Glutinous Rice Ball...

Wonder what happens to these two characters in the end...

A Case of Mistaken Identity

Ma Jian, the former spymaster was jailed for life today for corruption

Chinese President Xi Jinping's crackdown on corruption continues with a vengeance. Today a former top spy chief was sentenced to life in prison after he was convicted of accepting 109 million yuan (US$15.8 million) in bribes, and crimes related to insider trading and forced share transfers.

Ma Jian was appointed deputy head of China's Ministry of State Security in 2006, in charge of counter-espionage operations. However, the crimes he was convicted of spanned a 15-year period, between 1999 and 2004.

Ma accepted bribes from Guo Wengui

After four years of detention was tried at Dalian Intermediate Court in northeast China, where he was also fined 50.5 million yuan.
The court ordered all of Ma's personal property confiscated and demanded the return of his ill-gotten gains.

During the trial, Ma confessed to the charges and said he would not appeal.

He received bribes totaling 109 million yuan to benefit several associates, including the brash tycoon Miles Guo Wengui, who is in self-imposed exile in New York City.

Ma is the highest ranking security official to be jailed since Zhou Yongkang, a former Politburo member who once oversaw the government's security operations but was jailed for life in 2015.

The ex-spy has the same name as novelist, Ma Jian (above)

One would think this story is straight forward, except that some media outlets have used the wrong picture of Ma and used the one of novelist Ma Jian -- who had trouble presenting his novel China Dream in Hong Kong in early November.

Both the former spy chief and the novelist have the same Chinese characters in their names (马建) which makes it all the more amusing and the latter has joked about it on Twitter:

"My children are puzzled to learn that I am not the author of China Dream, who has just made them seaweed dumplings for supper, but am instead a former spymaster who has just been jailed for life for accepting 'extremely large bribes'," he wrote.

Ma tweeted his amusement at being "jailed for life"

"This is a strange China Dream. Am I a banned novelist dreaming that I'm a corrupt spy chief, or am I a corrupt spy chief dreaming that I'm a banned novelist?"

Perhaps this is potential fodder for Ma -- the novelist's -- next story.

A Delicious Alternative to Pork

Does this look like Cantonese steamed minced pork? It's made from plants!

First off -- did anyone in Hong Kong feel the tremors from the 6.1 magnitude earthquake in Penghu county in Taiwan just before 8am this morning?

I was sitting at the table eating breakfast when I felt my building swaying a bit, much like when it did when Super Typhoon Mangkhut came through Hong Kong.

At the time I thought it was strange and a little later when I checked the Hong Kong Observatory for the weather, it had a note that some residents had called in about feeling a tremor.

So it wasn't just me!

The Omnipork right after it is steamed for five minutes

Secondly, this afternoon, I tried some Omnipork, a plant-based meat that is supposed to mimic pork, but is made of shiitake mushrooms, peas, non GMO soy beans and rice. Today is the first day Omnipork is available for retail, priced at HK$43 for a pack that weighs 230grams.

The first demonstration was steamed minced pork, a typical family-style Cantonese dish. The portion looks good for two or three people. When scooped out of the plastic packaging, Omnipork looks like, well ground pork, pink in colour and mushy in texture.

The instructor added some finely julienne ginger and ginger juice, and pre-cooked diced mushrooms. He said the mushrooms had to be cooked beforehand as the Omnipork would be cooked in five minutes through steaming. He also added a bit of soy sauce that wasn't too salty.

Then he placed the plate with the mixture in a steamer and within five minutes we had "pork" that looked darker in colour and had the texture of meat. Because he added mushrooms to it, the taste was more mushroom in flavour.

Omnipork made into dumplings with a splash of sesame oil

Next up was dumplings and the Omnipork was combined with finely minced cauliflower and some of the left over diced mushrooms, seasoned and then portioned in round wrappers. They were then boiled and within minutes we were able to try these dumplings that had a splash of sesame oil and were very delicious.

The versatility of this plant-based meat is pretty amazing -- more so than Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat because there isn't much more you can do to those "meats" except to fry them as burger patties.

But with Omnipork it can be used in a variety of ways, making it easy for home cooks to use it.

It'll be interesting to see if Omnipork catches on especially for the retail market. It could possibly disrupt the pork industry, particularly now with the serious outbreak of African swine fever that is widespread in China!

Last Call for Bamboo Noodles

Shrimp dumpling noodles in soup were delicious at Wing Wah Noodle

Yesterday I passed by Wing Wah Noodle in Wan Chai on the bus and noticed the sign was not covered with white paper saying it was closing so I wondered if it was bought out.

I was right. Today I found out -- a month late -- that Wing Wah Noodle was indeed bought out by a restaurant group called LHGroup, though the shop will be closing in its current location tomorrow.

If you like spicy, the chilli pork noodle is your favourite

LHGroup is run by Simon Wong Kit-lung, whose father started the company 40 years ago with various restaurants including Lucky House seafood restaurant, and other ones whose names I don't recognize.

Nevertheless, while it's nice to know the name Wing Wah Noodle with 68 years of history will live on, will its noodles kneaded with a bamboo pole taste the same? Wong cannot promise the old school way of doing things will continue, only saying the operations will be "modernized"; and some of the menu items will be kept, but not all.

So I figured I should go back one last time. I made my way over there around 8.45pm tonight and walked straight in. It wasn't too busy, but maybe the staff was tired as the food came out slowly.

I tried a bowl of the chilli pork noodle (HK$48) that was quite spicy! The bits of pork were on the tough side, but when mix up with the sauce and the noodles it was quite good.

Walnut soup with glutinous rice balls filled with black sesame

Next I ordered the dumplings (sui gao) with soup noodles (HK$46) and it took a while for them to arrive. By this point there was no more pork knuckle and char siu, so many people resorted to eating wonton noodles. I like their noodles, but not the wontons -- Mak's Noodle's wontons are far superior.

Here the sui gao were fantastic -- most of the dumplings were filled with whole shrimp, wood ear fungus and a bit of minced pork to hold it together in a thin wrapper. There were three precious dumplings in one serving.

Finally I ordered the walnut soup with glutinous rice balls with black sesame filling (HK$56). I had seen a middle-aged woman sitting across from me having a bowl -- she knew the owner -- and I asked her how good it was. She reported it wasn't runny like other ones, not mixed with other things in it, so I decided to give it a go.

It took a very long time to arrive, but when it did, the bowl was piping hot. The walnut soup wasn't freshly ground, but as the woman said, it wasn't runny either, a decent consistency that was a bit more sweet than nutty-flavoured.

The glutinous rice balls filled with black sesame paste were delicious and together with the walnut soup made a nice hearty combination, a comforting dessert.

When regular customers were leaving the restaurant, many told the staff they would come back tomorrow, the last day. The owner, Cheung Tse-sau looks happy to finally pass on the shop to someone else for a pretty penny. Does she care what happens to the name from now on?

She claimed the new owner Wong was "young and sincere"... we'll have to see what he does with Wing Wah Noodle. People will very easily vote with their feet...

Back at Lung King Heen for Dim Sum

Taking a picture of our dim sum dishes before digging in!

Over a year ago YTSL and I made a trip to Lung King Heen and we were in heaven biting into the barbecue pork buns with char siu and pine nuts.

Still dreaming about them, we came back again with another friend to give us the excuse to order more food!

The excellent rice rolls with char siu and preserved vegetable

We were given a late reservation of time of 2.15pm and we were worried there wouldn't be much food left, but in fact a few other diners trickled in after us. Even Chinese executive chef Chan Yan-tak made an appearance in the dining room.

One of our favourite dim sum this time was the steamed rice rolls with char siu and preserved vegetables (HK$100). That's not a combination you find in other dim sum places and now I'm wondering why not!

The preserved vegetables have a savoury taste and also help balance out the sweetness of the char siu. The crunchiness of the vegetables also adds a nice texture. The rice rolls were so thin and yet they didn't break when we picked them up. Amazing.

While I love har gao or steamed shrimp dumplings (HK$99) with bamboo shoots, I have to say these ones weren't particularly outstanding, boring in fact. Maybe it's because no MSG was added.

Baked whole abalone puff with diced chicken

I ordered steamed assorted mushroom dumplings with celery (HK$99) and this too was almost refreshing in a way, along with a bit of a crunch that was very delicate. The same could be said with the steamed scallop dumplings with vegetables and wild mushrooms (HK$99).

The baked whole abalone puffs with diced chicken (HK$82 each) were YTSL's highlight. She liked the east-west taste as the pastry is very buttery, the abalone cooked perfectly. We also liked the baked beef puffs with mushrooms and preserved vegetables (HK$99).

We eagerly anticipated having the baked barbecue pork buns with pine nuts (HK$99) and upon picking them up I was amazed at how thin the pastry was in holding the hot, sweet, gooey filling inside. When I bit into it, the familiar sweetness of the char siu was there, the fat taken out so it was all lean, but wait -- where were the pine nuts?

Barbecue pork buns with pine nuts

Mid-way through eating the bun I finally tasted them, but I remembered last time there were many more pine nuts in the filling. Was it cutting costs? Pine nuts aren't cheap either. Nevertheless the pine nut taste lingered in my mouth.

In the end with a mango sago cream dessert (HK$90) the bill came to HK$1,370 for three including service charge. It's not cheap but it's not Tim Ho Wan either! Saving up for the next trip to Lung King Heen...

Lung King Heen

4/F, Four Seasons Hong Kong

8 Finance Street

Central
3196 8888

Picture of the Day: Handmade Dumplings

Twenty dumplings filled with minced pork, chives, mushrooms and ginger

I made more dumplings again yesterday and resolved to use some good quality ingredients. I headed to City Super, a high-end supermarket that specializes mostly in Japanese ingredients.

Originally I was only going to get the wrappers because they are refrigerated -- the other supermarkets I have visited put the wrappers in the freezer for some reason. Once they defrost, they are surely soggy? And I've tried the wrappers in the wet market, but they are on the thick side.

I saw that minced pork was 20 percent off and bought half a kilogram that had gone through a very fine grinder. Because it was all one solid pink colour, I couldn't tell if there was any fat in it. So I went to Wellcome to buy more pork with a bit more fat in it as dumplings need that for flavour. It was also half the price...

At the wet market I bought chives, mushrooms and ginger.

It turns out over 750 grams of pork, mixed with chives and finely chopped mushrooms and grated garlic are enough to make 60 dumplings. I followed my mother's instructions and after making four of them I boiled two to check the taste. The pork was on the very lean side (ie not much taste), and unfortunately I ran out of sesame oil so I added more olive oil and Shaoxing wine for flavour.

This time I endeavored to try another method of wrapping them and watched a few YouTube videos to get the gist of how to wrap them in different ways. In the end I settled on making pleats on one side much like gyoza. The wrappers I bought were quite thin so my wrapping wasn't very even, but improved as I went along.

I can't wait to make another batch of dumplings again -- this time with a bit more fattier pork -- because I still have another 60 wrappers in the refrigerator!

Picture of the Day: Homemade Dumplings

Our homemade dumplings are ready to be boiled and eaten!

Every year when I come back for the holidays, I make a batch of dumplings. Last year we used leftover turkey as well as ground pork with excellent results and even had my cousins visiting from Australia helping me wrap them.

This year we bought some ground pork and used leftover cabbage and mushrooms in the mix. There was already enough pork that we didn't include turkey this time, but forgot to add shrimp we had in the fridge.

We ate most of these dumplings tonight

My brother is amazed that I don't really follow a recipe -- I just kind of eyeball it in terms of portions, and try to make sure there's a good amount of vegetables in them.

As with every year, my mom insisted on doing a test run of the dumplings and we boiled two to see how they tasted -- I usually just go for it and wrap them all and see how they turn out later!

But we were good to go with an extra sprinkling of salt and another dash of sesame oil.

We almost used up four packages of wrappers (which we'll use up tomorrow with turkey and shrimp!) and after we cooked the dumplings, they made for a delicious dinner.

The dumplings had a nice crunchy texture thanks to the cabbage, and there was a hint of ginger too.

We've got a tray of leftover dumplings that's in the freezer that'll be good for my parents to eat!

Silk Road: Keeping Tabs on Hospital Costs

A Uyghur sleeping on a cot in the stairwell in the hospital

From a patient's point of view, Xinjiang Kashgar First People's Hospital is very basic. You have to buy everything -- soap, paper towels, toilet paper, water, even soft pillows, tissues, anything you might need.

At first I was relieved that our shared toilet at least had soap -- but then a few days later our neighbour left and took their soap along with them! That's how we found out the hospital didn't even provide soap so that people would have clean hands to handle the patients...

A quaint-looking restaurant, but food wasn't agreeable...

My aunt told us that even when preparing for surgery, a barber came by and shaved my dad's head -- for 20 yuan (US$3). She saw the tour guide pay him, so she quickly gave money back to the tour guide.

We were also told to have someone look after my dad 24 hours a day in the hospital  -- which explained why people slept in cots like the one we were given our room, or people slept on layers of blankets on the floor anywhere. In the evenings the hospital looked like a refugee camp.

Our tour guide suggested hiring a young man to help look after my dad and it turned out he was very young -- a 17-year-old Uyghur, just graduated from high school. He was the younger brother of another tour guide and was keen to get into this line of work too.

Another relative sleeping by the elevators

In a way this was a good training ground for him, to be able to deal with a variety of situations, translating from Uyghur to English, and also knowing where to go in the hospital to get things, particularly CT scans and such.

This saved my mom and I the headache of having to run around the hospital trying to figure out where everything was, and focus on looking after my dad when we visited him.

There was also no hospital food available, nor a cafeteria. That meant having to buy food everyday. We tried a Chinese restaurant at the back of our hotel and it wasn't that hygienic.

The same could be said for the string of Uyghur restaurants in front of the hospital. My mom and I went to one of them for lunch and ordered a bowl of hand-pulled noodles with ratatouille and bits of lamb.

What arrived on our table were two bowls of lukewarm noodles. I started tucking in but then heard the sound of chopping behind me. It turns out there was a man using an axe to chop the raw meat of a carcass. My mom watched him and immediately lost her appetite and her stomach didn't feel well either.

She made the executive decision that we would only eat food from the hotel. That meant having to wait until noon for the Chinese restaurant to open for lunch to buy take out for my dad, and then going back again around 6pm for his dinner.

We saw meat chopped like this in a restaurant by the hospital

Most of the time we wouldn't eat dinner until 8pm or even 9pm. The Chinese restaurant barely had any business, or if it did, the function that evening was already over so we practically had the restaurant to ourselves.

While the tables looked nicely set from a distance, the tablecloths were never changed, and the same oil stains were there...

The menu was quite limited in terms of what we could easily transport to my dad, and not spicy either, which left the only choice of dumplings, which were made to order -- we could even see the thumb prints on them. But after a while you get tired of eating dumplings with chives and egg, or egg and cucumber.

My mom and I liked a tureen of thick sheets of noodles, practically like squares, with tomatoes and vegetables in a slightly sour broth. Another delicious dish was wai san or a white mountain root stir-fried with black-eared fungus, though a bit on the oily side.

Comforting tart noodle soup dish with tomato and vegetables

While food and transportation were cheap, we worried about the mounting hospital bills. Every day a strip of white recycled paper was our bill for the previous day and it listed various items and deducted from the original 10,000 yuan payment.

Some of the items listed were ridiculous, including Chinese medicine and that they moved my dad's body from side to side so that his back wouldn't get tired. We saw no evidence of that. So that was how the hospital would overcharge patients...

A few days into our extended stay in Kashgar we started worrying about having enough cash and I would periodically count the red 100 yuan bills to make sure we were covered. Being away from home and no friends or family to rely on, we had to estimate how much more money we needed. We had American cash, but the bills were considered too old to exchange. Even in Kashgar the banks are picky.