Showing posts with label Chinese New Year. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chinese New Year. Show all posts

Friday, February 22, 2008

Chap Goh Meh: Dinner at HainanTown#2

I think the fish is a bit pissed off. Rightly so, I guess. The glare is justified. I just want you to know, for all the misfortune you suffered, and it might be little comfort to you fair enough, you were hot property that night. Some of us got nervous we weren't going to get none of you. We got competitive, fish, it wasn't right, but you looked too good to miss out on. Some of us got territorial, some of us scrambled for slithers, and now I see you were glaring at our shamelessness, our betrayals, selfishness over some delicious fish. What are we to do with ourselves without judgemental animals?
A better choice might have been the poorly-focused joo hoo char wrapped in a lettuce leaf, with a small heap of sambal.
Ma, Pa & Taka
We demolished the meal - which included the not-pictured curry kapitan and vegetables in less than 30 minutes. If you felt that the photos for this particular outing were quite awful, this was not coincidental, rather consequential - actually that doesn't make sense. But the rapid speed at which we ate, which Ma attributed to the fact that Papa & Min were both starving because of minimal vegetarian lunches, hence intensified the urgency with which the food had to be eaten - this, in turn, made us all needlessly competitive, which, in turn, meant very little time for photographs. Min and I later revealed to each other that we were fearful we were not going to get any fish which was a good arms' length away from us most of the meal, Mama was similarly disadvantaged with the joo hoo char placed at the other end of the table (I saw her eye this anxiously from time to time). Of course, we could have easily avoided all of this if we had sat at a round table with a Lazy Susan - without equal access, communal eating=competitive eating. We suffer, the food suffers, the documentation suffers. And the fish hates us.
Hainan Town is located next to that other hotspot, La Jette. For Aucklanders who've been to Sri Pinang, K'Road, the encased model of a ferry by the window/near the cashier is based on this. Tres nostalgic -this is how we used to travel to Penang age 0 - 7 when we lived across the shore in Chai Leng Park.

Chap Goh Meh: Dinner at HainanTown

Ma famille. So we didn't keep up the vegetarian thing the whole day but I can make up for a lot of that in NZ. Note the semi-ridiculous Christmas decoration on the right I obviously did not manage to keep out of the shot.
Deep-fried poh piah. Generous size, chock-a-block filling, good crunch.
Fried Chicken under a Giant Prawn Cracker. I was left rather indifferent to this, I know that it was fried well but in the context of all these other flavour-intense dishes, it felt a bit muted.
Assam Prawns: Full points for presentation, beautiful colours and a beautiful dish. Gigantor Prawns.

Chap Goh Meh: Lunch at Chang Yen

Chap Goh Meh is the last day of the Lunar New Year, the 15th of the month which is, like the 1st a vegetarian day. So we went for the economy rice selections at Chang Yen, Burmah Road.
My lunch of excess included from the top: eggplant with sambal, fried bits? with lime leaves, vegetable curry, dark green veg, and chai boey.
Mama Chow's comparatively more controlled selection included eggplant w sambal, stirfried greens, chai boey and gluten & potato curry.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Dinner at Home: 7th Night of the Lunar New Year

The 7th day of the New Year is everyone's Birthday! Which means the opportunity to delight in a crunchy salad or lo yee sang - to mix up a raw fish salad.
More cruncheroos.
All of us Altogether mixing. Min was kidnapped by wicked witch-boss.

Dinner at Home: 7th Night of the Lunar New Year

Stir-fried lotus root and broccoli.
Roast chicken from Cold Storage. Did not sample. Am afraid of Supermarket Roasts.
Mama Chow Specialty makes a second appearance with addition of yet another forbidden post-labour food: the egg. Baby any moment now.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Chinese New Year at Amah's

Star Wars in the lounge with Seiku, Sa Ku and Jonathan.
Go Ku on Amah's bed.
Mama Chow & tree. Tree says, Hello Conor.
Traffic back to Penang. Tres Boring. Two hours at bottleneck speed, heat, bad radio. Applaud Mama Chow for not losing her mind behind the wheel.

Amah's Neighbour





Lunch spread at Amah's

The spread with Min, Pei Chuen, Papa Chow digging in.
Clockwise from top: Curry Chicken courtesy of Seiku, Braised? Soya Sauce Chicken courtesy of Mama Chow, Coleslaw courtesy of my aunt and deep-fried homemade dumplings courtesy of Mama Chow.
Assorted veges and deep-fried black pepper shark courtesy of my aunt. Serious. I didn't go there.
Braised Pork/Paikuat with chinese herbs, roots courtesy of my aunt. The photograph doesn't do it much justice, it came pretty close to perfection.

Chinese New Year at Amah's


Lunch at Amah's in Tambun: Amah & Mama in kitchen
Mama Chow deep-frying homemade dumplings. Note the plastic rice bag taped to the tiles above the stove. It's a splatter guard. It guards the tiles.
Mama Chow preparing the chicken dish the night before - star anise, garlic, soya sauce, wine.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

CNY Lunch

Right before Mag got falsely busted for running a red light in Pulau Tikus.
Mama Chow frying up curry paste for vegetable curry.
Lunch-table: Vegetable curry flanked by cap chai, ladyfingers, random beans, etc + soya sauce.
Papa Chow and headless shot of Mama Chow.
Vegetable curry with cabbage, green beans, carrots, eggplant, garnished with crushed cashews. An excellent vegetarian refresher after the meaty indulgences of the past few days.

CNY Reunion Dinner at Nyonya Cafe, New World Park

Left to right: Papa Chow, Taka, Mag & Mama Chow. This is us trying to kill time while waiting for dinner to be served. It was an extremely busy night at the restaurant, others were also forgoing the traditional feast at-home for a fuss-free meal out. The downside was waiting. A long time. Sipping on Nutmeg Juice and overpriced (supposed) 20-year-old tea.
The upside: Nyonya yumminess. The six of us polished this off within 10 minutes. Min timed us, we were starving by the time the food arrived. Clockwise from front left: Poh Piah, Loh Han Chai, Prawns, Curry Kapitan (Chicken), Kangkung Belacan, Otak-otak and Ikan Gulai Tumis.
Closeup of Ikan Gulai Tumis: Killer gravy - lemongrass, tomatoes, mint leaves, all kinds of goodness, worth the wait...
Deep-fried poh piah with worchestershire sauce. In spite of it being a crazy night for the restaurant, every dish delivered, and then some (apart from the Loh Han Chai).

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Pre-CNY

Breakfast: Mag bought me some Curry Noodles from the Pulau Tikus morning wet market. Yum.
Mama Chow prepares a special lunch at home: Hakka dish 'Suan Pan Zi' which means abacus. It's meant to symbolize incalculable, infinite, endless wealth. Mama & Papa Chow had spent the previous evening crafting little tong-yuen-sized yam balls for this dish from yam & flour + some ruthless pounding, shaping and boiling. Some ingredients pictured here - sliced shitakers, coriander, minced pork, prawns, teelseed oil, white pepper.
The fry-up begins, garlic & thin cuttlefish strips.
Doughy yam balls pictured above. Excellent texture, delish! Well done, Papa & Mama Chow!

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

El Gran Carne!! Meaty Adventures In Malaysia











Breakfast:not a very meaty start, we begin with two sliced guavas with sour plum powder as accompaniment. Taka, my newly-arrived brother-in-law opted for french loaf buttered on the top side with scrambled eggs.


Lunch: MaaRoy Thai at Lorong Abu Siti. Much meatier but not very good pictures. The Star Dish/pick was Steamed Siakap with Lemon - subtle yet flavourful which is unfortunately not captured via photography. Dishes clockwise from front left are: Stir-fried veges, Pork in Brown Gravy, Stir-fried Brocolli w Prawns, Dry Chicken Curry, Som Tum with one Prawn Cake left in the middle. Two ladies in green are mum & min.







Dinner: After an abandoned excursion to seafood-fest in Teluk Bahang because of pre-CNY traffic madness, we decided to stay home & play scrabble & polish off the two bottles of wine I brought home. Our game was not exactly on but we snacked crazy on murukkus, pringles, nuts (a lot of nuts consumed), chips. Then mummy came home from shopping with daddy and proceeded to deep-fry us chicken nuggets and wedges - this would've been exclusively party-food pedigree when we were kids. Now, intoxicated in adulthood, mum voluntarily indulges us with fried foods. It sure is nice to be spoilt. Picture features Excited Min with said Scrabble game w fried goodies & Roast chicken which still felt too icky fo me to touch.