Superstar Seafood

One of the things we have really missed being in the UK was yum cha. In Sydney, it was a very regular Sunday brunch or lunch destination. In London, they serve dim sum at dinner, and you don't even get the trolleys trundling past - you order from a menu.

So we were very keen to have some good dim sum in Hong Kong. We ended up back in Times Square (10th floor this time) at Superstar Seafood, a pretty well-known dim sum restaurant chain. Isn't the decor amazing? It looks like someone decorated the Fortress of Solitude for a hooker's hen night.

Disappointingly, while there were a couple of waitresses carrying trays and pushing trolleys, most of the ordering was done off a menu.

The har gau were pretty good, the char siu bao fluffy and well-filled, the "golden crispy platter" of tofu, pork and some other stuff was golden and crispy and not at all greasy. The spring onion pancakes were excellent, but I didn't like the curry sauce that came with them. For me, the pick of the dishes was the green beans in spicy pork sauce. We've had something similar at our local Chinese place but never done as well.

On balance, I would have to say that I prefer both the food and the atmosphere at Marigold in Sydney! But maybe we were just there a little late in the day (about 2pm).

The Water Margin

Our first night in Hong Kong, the concierge suggests that we go to the 12th floor of Times Square. He says we'll find good food up there. He'd previously told us that we had to be put in a different room because we were too big for the original room, so I figured he understood the importance of food in our lives. And I also suspected that he would fear me crushing him like a bug if he steered me wrong.

I confess that my barometer was set to sceptical when we found the 12th floor of Times Square (which isn't that straightforward, despite the signs and a carefully drawn map) and the first thing we saw was Tony Roma's Chicago-style Ribs. The second thing we saw was a pizza & pasta place. I can't swear to it but I think there were red-checked tablecloths.

Fortunately, before we gave up in disgust and despair, we saw Water Margin, promising food from the provinces of Northern China. The board-covered menu at the door was promising: there was nothing on it that sounded familiar. The wooden rafters, paper lanterns and fabric drapings were attractive. There was a nice woman at the entrance who smiled at us. After many hours on a plane with flight attendants who ranged from the dismissive to the surly, it was nice to be smiled at.

They were pretty busy, so we sat at the front to wait for a table. I had a lemongrass and ginger mojito. As I had started a sore throat on the flight, the strong ginger kick was very soothing.

By the time we were shown to our table, we'd made some decisions. We were definitely going to eat pigeon, for example. The waiter was very careful to point out that our appetisers were cold, but we figured what the heck.

First thing out was a dish of smoked pigs cheeks. Which frankly looked like more like dried apples than charcuterie. Had a similar texture to dried apples too, and a strongly smoky, subtly porky flavour. Can't say I would rush to have that one again, but it was interesting.

Next up was pigeon bathed in a Chinese moutai wine (distilled from sorghum). This was delicious - tender cold meat, succulent and delicately flavoured. A bit of a fiddle to eat around the bones, but well worth it.

The first main course we ordered was a dish of steamed pumpkin in crab roe and salted egg sauce. Now, I know this looks disgusting. It gives a clear impression of regurgitation. But the flavour was just amazing. Delicate, perfectly tender, sweet slices of pumpkin were covered in a thick, creamy, slightly gelatinous, faintly fishy, salty sauce. If my life depended on it I wouldn't have been able to identify crab roe or egg, but the overall impression was just delectable.

The last dish we ordered was crispy beef brisket in a sea of szechwan peppers. What arrived was nothing like I imagined (I was thinking sort of crispy shreds of meat in a szechwan pepper crust or something) but so superior!
I think the brisket must have been cooked slowly, then tossed in cornflour and deepfried until crisp and then strewn through a deep dish of chillies (the superfinefeline got a much better picture of the chillies when she blogged about Water Margin in 07). We had to dig through the chillies to get to the pieces of meat. We wondered how many times each dish of chillies gets reused - they surely couldn't throw them out after one appearance on a plate?

So. If you are in Hong Kong and sick of the Western interpretations of Cantonese food, do see if you can find the 12th floor of Times Square. It really is worth trying something new sometimes!

I'm Back!

Happy New Year all!

Now, before we get into the serious business of holiday snaps (and let me tell you - a lot of good food was eaten!), here is a quick post to reassure you that I have not forgotten about my poor little blog.

After a couple of weeks of eating lovely food in restaurants and other people's homes, it was as nice to get back to my own kitchen as it was to my own bed. I wanted to cook, but I knew that I was in no fit state to do anything difficult.

Fortunately on the plane on Monday night, the way was made clear. I saw an episode of Nigella Express which convinced me that coq au riesling was the only fit dish with which to get my groove back.

And what a delicious and simple dish it is! I used orzo for my "buttered noodles" and tossed through some dried dill instead of fresh (I love fresh dill but I am always bored with it before the bunch is finished).

Stay tuned for some of the good stuff from my travels...

Emptying the fridge

Well, in 2 hours we'll be off to the airport, so I am not sure where my next post will be coming from... Will it be yum cha in Hong Kong? Will it be fish & chips on the beach in Sydney? Will it be mangoes in Brisbane? Will it be noodles in Singapore? Only time and wifi access will tell...

So breakfast this morning was clearing the fridge. The last of the milk in our coffee, leftover garlic bashed neeps & sauteed leeks pressed into fritters with the last of the eggs to bind, 2 slightly fatigued tomatoes and the last of the homecured bacon.

All I have to do now is turn the last couple of lemons into juice, freeze them in an icecube tray and wash up.

Merry Christmas all, and I will see you in the New Year.

School Holiday Treat - Corrigan's Mayfair

It has become something of a tradition for Jude and I to have an end of term treat. The end of term has sort of snuck up on me this year, so we realised it would have to be a Monday lunch. We were going to go back to 32 Great Queen St, until we discovered that they aren't open for lunch on a Monday.
There was nothing for it. We had to try something new. And the new kid on the block at the moment is Corrigan's Mayfair.

Richard Corrigan has been busily churning out amazing food at Lindsay House, while some of his peers have been churning out ghost-written cookbooks and teflon-coated frying pans. One of my foodyest friends has eaten several times and Lindsay House and has commented that, as well as the food being wonderful, you more often than not see Corrigan in the restaurant. So my expectations were pretty high.

Jude had already been there for a while by the time I arrived, and apparently she'd been served with a little nibble of olives stuffed with goat's cheese while she sat at the bar. She said it was delicious, and given that she is one of those non-goat's cheese eaters I would have liked to see that. I missed it and we were shown to the table.

The bread that arrived was delicious. Slices of a deeply malty soda bread, and warm white rolls, with a generous dish of lightly salted butter made me feel pretty comfortable that my expectations were going to be met.

I ordered a bottle of rioja - one that I have had before and liked - because I didn't want to get into conversation with the sommelier. That was a conversation that would probably have gone expensively for me.

The menu is pretty long and extremely tempting. I was already sold on the crubeens, because my Lindsay House-fan friend has raved, but if I hadn't been so determined it would have taken me ages just to choose the starter.

The crubeens weren't as scary as "crumbed pigs trotter" may lead you to believe. I think they had been slowly cooked, then boned, pressed into disc shapes, crumbed and fried so that the outside was crisp and the inside was meltingly porky. These discs were served on a bed of leaves with some proscuitto-ish ham, some cured beetroot and dabs of a delicious horseradish dressing.

Jude also went in a salady direction, with a warm salad of game birds with romesco sauce. I couldn't really spot the romesco in the taste I had, but the bits of bird were tender, juicy and delicious.
As a main course I was edging towards partridge with bread sauce, cabbage and bacon, but I decided that I was feeling far too lazy to deal with a bird on the bone. So I had the roe venison in pastry. 3 different cuts of venison were served: a perfectly rested fillet; a slowly cooked sticky bit and a broader fillet wrapped in duxelles and pastry. I think the duxelles that we use for our beef wellingtons actually has a better flavour because of the dried mushrooms we add but that is a very minor quibble! The pastry was thin and light and the red cabbage an excellent accompaniment. There was also the tiniest slick of creamy puree on the plate - it may have been celeriac or it may have been Jerusalem artichoke, my palate was too overwhelmed by flavours to tell.

Jude settled on the game suet pudding, which was exactly what it said - light, fluffy suet pastry encasing a rich game mixture with wonderfully savoury gravy. It came with a side dish of mashed carrot and swede, but the promise of goosefat chips was too good to resist, so we shared some of them as well.

As well as excellent food, there was some fascinating eavesdropping to be done. The table of well-upholstered clergymen behind us debated the ordination of women (too late to close that stable door in the Church of England, I would have said) and what music to have at the Christmas Mass. The gentleman who said they were having Schubert was informed that it was boudoir music. There was disappointment that in the selection of cognacs, armagnacs and digestifs there wasn't a poire eau de vie. I am never putting another penny in a collection plate.

Fortunately we were relieved of the pressure to have dessert by the sight of the petits fours being taken to other tables. So we ordered coffee. And were presented with an adorable little silver dish of treats. There were cubes of quince jelly - fresh, light and quivering, somehow golden yellow not cooked to the usual amber. Tiny slivers of brulee-topped lemon tart, in the most delicate pastry. Fairly dull but workmanlike dark chocolate truffles. Perfect coffee macaroons.

I would probably have had a glass of dessert wine (maybe even a mirabelle, since they didn't have poire eau de vie) but it wasn't offered. I suspect if the clergymen are your typical digestif drinkers then the sommelier wouldn't have thought two unchaperoned ladies would be likely to order them. Still - the offer would have been nice. However, for a restaurant that has only been open a month, they are kicking goals. I look forward to seeing what they can do when they really get their feet under the table!

Pigeon breasts with bacon

We're doing some pre-holiday "eat what's in the freezer" cooking. And for a mid-week supper what was in the freezer was a pack of woodpigeon breasts, a pack of bacon and a bag of brussels sprouts with chestnuts.

Started to brown the bacon (cut into pieces), then added the pigeon breasts (I had to pick out a few pieces of shot) and browned them really well. Dumped some balsamic on to reduce to a glaze & served some buttered wholemeal spirali and the brussels sprouts & chestnuts. Very autumnal, very delicious! And since pigeon is very lean, reasonably healthy too. Dinner on the table in under half an hour (and most of that was boiling the pasta water) is a Good Thing.

Quince Linzertorte

I have attained the age where almost my entire peergroup is having babies. No one is getting engaged anymore, it is all about the Christening parties. So it wasn't completely out of the norm last weekend for us to pack up a little something wrapped with a pink ribbon and some baked goods and head off to pay tribute to a newborn. A bit like the nativity but with less myrrh and the infinitely practical satnav instead of a guiding star.

I'd had it in mind for a while to bake a linzertorte and this seemed like a good excuse. It is very transportable, delicious, and would use some of my quince marmalade (my only gripe with a traditional linzertorte is that the raspberry jam tends to be too sweet to provide a contrast with the sweet, nutty crust).

I followed this recipe. Hardly any variations at all! As my nifty new hand blender set isn't quite big enough to make a whole quantity of pastry, I just blended the nuts, sugar and butter together and then added it to the flour and spices. And the nuts were still hot from the oven so the butter melted. And I used wholemeal flour instead of white. And of course, I used a lavish amount of quince marmalade instead of the raspberry.

Worked like a charm! The pastry was divinely sweet and spicy and nutty, the quince jam a tart and juicy foil to it. We enjoyed several cups of tea and admired beautiful baby Clarissa. I think cake is much more practical than frankincense.