As soon as I made it through immigration, I headed straight to Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao for some xiao long bao. I hadn’t had pork in ages since I’d just been in Malaysia, and I had it on good authority that the Crystal Jade xiao long bao in Hong Kong was better than the ones in Singapore. I was not disappointed.

Second stop was Greenland Taiwanese Cuisine in Wan Chai. Hearty and filling Taiwanese food for very reasonable prices. Set meal for two included seaweed soup, mixed rice, choice of drinks (we chose lychee and bubble tea), and several delicious entrees.

At the last minute, I accepted an invitation for an alumni dinner at Yixin Restaurant, which has been around for quite some time in Hong Kong, its survival no doubt due to its consistently delicious Cantonese fare.

On my last day, I went for xiao long bao one more time, at Wu Kong Shanghai Restaurant. We also had some popular Shanghai-region dishes, such as Shanghai fried rice cake and yu xiang qie zi (eggplant with minced pork). The xiao long bao here were the best I’ve had outside of China.

Although the trip was short and sweet, I know I’ll be returning to Hong Kong for more. 香港真是一个美食宝地！

Lunch at a Chinese restaurant near work.

I didn’t get pictures of our first dinner, which was at Jumbo Seafood Restaurant and included such memorable dishes as the jumbo chili crab, deep-fried beancurd, steamed fish, liang ban jellyfish, prawns with cabbage, and seafood fried rice.

Dinner at Otto, an upscale Italian restaurant, the next night.

Dinner at an Italian pizza joint.

Dinner at Stella, a fine-dining establishment on the 62 floor of a building downtown. One floor up is the world’s highest al-fresco bar, with stunning views of downtown Singapore.

I’ve never enjoyed foie gras, but these were quite good, and the pastry was unbelievably light.

These were the best maki rolls I have ever had. The combination of flavours and textures was almost overwhelming.

The scallops unfortunately tasted a bit funny to me, probably because they’re not fresh enough. The prawns in the risotto was overcooked, while the risotto itself (the rice grains) were undercooked. The cream base was quite good though.

The desserts were to die for. The creme brulee was just perfect, with bits of macadamia on top. My favourite was the hazelnut mousse, although the toffee cake and pistachio tart were both surprisingly good – both were a little bit different than the norm. I was impressed by the creative use of ingredients.

Lunch at a tiny but busy Japanese joint near Causeway Bay MTR. They are known for their fatty tuna sashimi.

Lunch at an apartment-turned-restaurant near Sham Shui Po, Western-style cuisine, prix-fixe menu that included appetizer and entree. The dessert (every single dessert on their menu) was compliments of the owner, who seemed to know my friend’s aunt.

Brunch at 霞飛點心拉麵 (Xia Fei Shanghainese Restaurant). Each dim sum item was better than the last!

Brunch at a traditional Cantonese dim sum place, 蓮香樓, Lin Heung Tea House. This was actually the most disappointing meal, I don’t know why this place has such great reviews (is considered the best Guangdong dim sum place in Hong Kong). It was extremely chaotic and dirty, the food was also terrible.

Dinner at a cafe/diner in Lan Kwai Fong. The food was average.

Breakfast at The Brunch Club.

1. Curry fish balls, lobster meatballs, sausages, roasted octupus, and deep-fried calamari. With a side of Hong Kong milk tea.
2. Deep-fried seafood platter, soooo good. Pumpkin risotto was also delicious.
3. I got two pictures from it, but the rest of the meal went unrecorded. I can’t remember what else we ordered, other than xiao long bao and shrimp dumplings, but I know there was an order we added at the end that was delicious.

Let’s walk through a typical day of eating for me in Nanjing.

Breakfast starts at 5am² and is usually at a xiao chi dian which is kind of like a dim sum stand with road-side aluminum furniture. Sketchy? Yes, a little. Delicious? Definitely. Luckily, I’m not someone with a sensitive stomach and I have never gotten sick from eating in China.

In the last four days, I’ve had quite a variety of breakfast items: plain steamed buns (man tou), veggie or pork-filling steamed buns (bao zi), glutinous rice buns (shao mai), fried dough sticks (you tiao), soy milk or tofu soup (dou jiang, dou nao), congee (xi fan).

Some xiao chi items can be repeated for lunch, such as steamed buns. Nanjing has the best xiao long bao in the country, many would argue.

Another Nanjing delicacy is yian shui ya (salted duck). Salted duck in Canada cannot compare, mostly because the duck used in Canada is factory-farmed, whereas the duck here are raised naturally, and therefore contains hardly any fat at all.

Although not a Nanjing specialty, I also got to try pumpkin congee, which tasted truly delicious and is certainly something that could be made in Canada, what with our abundance of pumpkin.

Dinner can range from anything, as far as entrees go. I’ve had clay-roasted free-range³ chicken, sweet and sour fish, five mushroom soup, wintermelon and egg stir-fry, five spices beef, spicy freshwater lobster, and so on. Last night, however, I had hot pot. Hot pot in 37-degree weather? I thought it was a joke, but apparently not.

I was taken to the best lamb hot pot in Nanjing. Lamb hot pot is not a Nanjing specialty, so this was as good as you were going to get in this city. I don’t like lamb and I’m not preferential to hotpot either, but last night’s dinner was damn good. Usually, I refuse to touch lamb unless it’s completely covered in spices, to eat lamb that’s only been boiled in water is unthinkable. But last night’s lamb did not have a gamey smell/taste, and tasted great with some spicy oil and sesame paste.

I am trying a lot of new foods that I used to refuse to eat as a child. Even my uncle commented how I was much better about eating new things; until now, I’ve been rather infamous in my family for my picky eating habits.
Perhaps it’s because our palate changes as we grow. But mostly, I think it’s a psychological change. Whereas I used to feel that I was not missing anything by refusing to eat certain foods, I now feel the exact opposite. It seems such a waste to go to a city and not try the local cuisine. Some things take a little getting used to, but in the end, I believe cultural adaptation is definitely worthwhile!

1. When I say ‘everything’, I’m mostly referring to all Chinese food.
2. Everyone gets up really early here because mid-day and early afternoon is too hot to function, so that’s usually nap-time.
3. Although what poultry isn’t free-range here?

We sat down at one of the many cafes with street-side patios for a late lunch.

The chicken was very tender and satisfying. Oddly, everything here comes with fries.

We also stopped at several crepe shops for some coffee (espresso) and crepe.

Crispy fried noodles with pork, mushrooms, and vegetables. I love the fact that these noodles are not the thin egg noodles that most “crispy fried noodles” in Cantonese restaurant refers to. These were far more aromatic, my mouth is watering just thinking about them. The pork and vegetables (mostly celery strips) were very xian (savoury) but not salty. That is true for most of their dishes, they’re not as salty as the ones you’d find in many Chinese restaurants in North America, true to the Shanghai style.

Beef tenderloin with scallions. The beef was very tender, in an excellent sauce.

Small version of Shanghai Special Hot Pot. Just as good as the big version, except the Lion’s Head meatballs are sometimes over-cooked. The vermicelli tends to be easier to eat in the small version, since the heat is on the big hot pot the whole time that by the time you get to the bottom where the vermicelli are, most of it’s too breakable to scoop up.

These two are from the dim sum menu. On the left is a special kind of guo tie, it’s basically fried rice¹ except it’s fried until it’s crunchy. On the right is a sesame covered pastry ball with a savoury meat filling inside. It is absolutely delicious.

There was also an appetizer, called Shan Xi liang fen, which was a very good cold dish with huge portions (considering it was on the dim sum menu for under $5).

The following is what not to order:

Fried dough with shredded pork filling. On the menu, it just says “pork filling” so we didn’t realize it was going to be shredded cooked pork. This wasn’t very good, the dough could have been sweeter and lighter, the filling just tasted strange.

Xiao long bao. Their xiao long bao filling reminds me of wonton filling, which is just wrong. All wrong. In fact, many of their dim sum items are questionable. I would not order any of the cold dishes from the dim sum menu as those are sitting out buffet-style by the kitchen until they’re consumed, and they don’t look appetizing at all.

1. Think the bottom of a sushi pizza.

They boast the best burgers in town but at $12 a burger, they’d better be good. We settled on chicken fingers, poutine, salad, and a cod sandwich.

The chicken fingers were made from fresh chicken breast, and were tossed in a thin breaded coat with light seasoning. They were piping hot and absolutely delicious. Not oily or soggy in the least.
The poutine was made with what seemed to be beef gravy, on a bed of thick-cut fries. The fries were delicious, but the dish would have been even better if they hadn’t used cheddar cheese strands.

The side salad was your average garden salad, but the homemade sauce, in my case honey dill, was surprisingly good. The Guinness-battered cod was tender but bland, although the tartar sauce was one of the best I’ve had. The burger/sandwich was too large to eat together, so I had to eat each half separately.

For dessert, apple crisp was the featured special. The apple was heavily doused in syrup and cinnamon, with a generous serving of vanilla ice cream on top. Presentation was a bit shabby, but the taste made up for it.

Rocky road mud pie was nothing more than chocolate ice cream cake, with loads of almonds and a very yummy chocolate crust¹.

Service was attentive, and the food arrived quickly, although that may have been because the place was practically empty at noon.

Rating:

1. The crust tasted like an Oreo crust even though the menu said “wafer crust”.

“The skylights really let the light in,” I comment to my friend as we are seated. The linens are neatly folded in front of us and feel thick to the touch. The tables are set far apart for privacy and easy navigation. So far so good.

A greasy-haired waiter shows up at our table promptly inquiring after our drink choices. We hadn’t had a chance to look at the menu yet, so he leaves and returns with water. When he returns a second time, we still weren’t ready, and he seemed to have decided we were never going to order. It takes much longer for him to return a third time.

My friend and I both made selections from the Summerlicious menu, and I added a pot of tea to my order, surprised that they had a tea menu at all¹.
The food came reasonably quickly.

We both had the charcuterie to start.

The salamis were forgettable, and the cured vegetables were far too sour. The pork rilettes on toasted ficelle turned out to be something like a meat pâté on a slice of demi-baguette bread. The pork rilettes were good, but considering it was the only eatable item on the plate, that wasn’t saying much.

My entree was the Lake Trout, while my friend opted for the mushroom risotto.

The Lake Trout was a horrendous disappointment. The skin was nice and crisp, but the trout itself was completely lacking in flavour. The green beans and potatoes were boring, the kind you might find at a large banquete dinner. The roasted almonds and shallots were an interesting mix, although far too buttery, which made the aromatic almond and lemon noisette less noticeable.

The mushroom risotto fared better with my friend’s palate, although tomato in risotto was a questionable choice. The risotto was creamy, but far too salty.

For dessert, we both chose the Niagara Angel Food Shortcake. We were hopeful that dessert would satisfy our taste buds – after all, dessert was virtually always agreeable to us.

The apricots in crème Anglaise were quite nice, but the angel food shortcake part was peculiarly foam-like – you can tell from the picture how spongey it was. It was also tough to break apart, I had to use a spoon and a fork together to pull the cake into smaller pieces.

The waiter came back only once to check on us during the meal, and another time, looked over while I had an empty plate in front of me but did not come to clear it.

“So… why did you insist we come to Pangaea?” My friend asked out of curiosity, assuming I had read a rave review somewhere. I admitted I had not, but had made my decision largely because the chef had followed me on Twitter. She rolled her eyes. I deserved it.

I felt a little guilty about making her accompany me to this disappointing experience when I went to the washroom and – to my horror – found myself in a tacky tiled bathroom that looked like it had been built 20 years before the rest of the restaurant. The metal stall doors were rusting, the tiles on the floor were uneven and dirty, and there was barely any water pressure coming from the cold water tap. Classy.

Not only was the service inconsistent, the food disappointing and overpriced (I would never, ever, ever come back for a regular-priced meal), but the washroom was dirty! There was toilet paper on the floor and pee on the seats. For goodness sakes, Moxie’s has nicer washrooms, and there are drunk people there on a weekly basis!

The washroom was the last straw. My friend and I grabbed our purses and vowed, with good reason, never to return.

Rating:

1. A very decent selection, I might add.

Parking was hard to find in Times Square, since many Chinese like to go out to eat on the weekends. We arrived around 12:30 and only had to wait 10 minutes to be seated. The other patrons were all families who cared not for their appearances. The place was small and dingy, like the restaurants we used to frequent when the standard for cleanliness in Chinese restaurants was set lower. I was not impressed, but I knew that if the chef could pull off a really good steamed bun, I would be coming back. After all, who am I to judge the patrons and decor of a place that serves good, cheap food?

Service was fast and friendly. Unlike many dim sum locations where waitresses will ignore you for a good 20 minutes, this place was small and the servers kept an eye on everyone. The menu was long and varied, but we stuck to the dim sum selection. Prices were low, which was reasonable given the drab decor.

The first to arrive was a large bowl of fried tofu in fen si soup. The soup was filled with crisp and light fried tofu, clearly made in-house, but could have used more vermicelli.
Next came the tu dou si, potato strands in chili oil, which was lacking in salt and altogether undercooked (they felt wet somehow).

We ordered a rice cake stir-fry with xue cai², soybeans, and lean pork. Rice cakes can be stir-fried with many ingredients, but this is one of my favourite combinations. The rice cakes were surprisingly tender and well-formed, even they were probably made from frozen rice cakes. The pickled xue cai was clearly the store-bought canned kind, because they were far more salty than the rest of the ingredients.

Next to arrive were the steamed dumplings (jiao zi). The fillings were not very savoury and completely forgettable.

Similarly, the xiao long bao tasted like wontons instead of proper soup-filled dumplings. I think it was because the filling was made with too many scallions and even some sesame oil (completely inappropriate). Traditional xiao long bao have a savoury pork filling.

The only slightly redeeming dish was a plate of spring onion pancakes with sliced smoked pork and Hoi Sin sauce. The spring onion pancakes did not have enough green onions, although they were cooked to a perfect crisp. The sliced smoked pork was delightfully smokey and paired well with Hoi Sin sauce.

While Northern Dumpling Kitchen seems to have gotten the right idea with its no frills service and northern-style menu, the chefs need to stop cutting corners and put more effort into the dishes. Xiao long bao that comes out tasting like wontons, stir fried rice cake with store-bought canned xue cai, and undercooked tu dou si is simply not acceptable to serve to a Chinese clientele. Perhaps some customers can overlook the laziness of the chefs at these prices, but I would rather drive another 20 minutes and pay the extra $5 per person at Ding Tai Fung.

Rating:

1. Actually, the term “dim sum” is strictly Cantonese. Translated into Mandarin, dian xin means dessert, not light dishes. There is no tradition of yum cha, which is what traditionally dim sum accompanies. If you follow the Wikipedia link, most of the typical dim sum items listed there belong in Cantonese cuisine. Although technically “northern-style dim sum” is an oxymoron, it is now widely accepted that a menu of small, steamed dishes can be called dim sum.
2. Pickled potherb mustard, doesn’t sound appetizing, but it is quite common in Asian cuisine and tastes great.

My friend celebrated her birthday by giving us all an excuse to pig out on pub food and chocolate cake.

I love La Rocca cakes, and the Nut Buster is one of my favourites, but I also had a chance to try their Strawberry Shortcake, which was amazing and inspired me to make my own.

More birthday celebrations at The Old Spaghetti Factory, followed by a late night preview of Star Trek.

Another birthday celebration, this time at my favourite upscale restaurant in Yorkville: Sassafraz.

Lunch in Korea town (North York) at the much-loved Owl of Minerva, followed by bowling to work off all those delicious panchan and entrees.

Unfortunately, my camera ran out of batteries halfway through the month, so I have no pictures from:
Lettieri Espresso + Bar – their almond biscotti was good, but definitely not made in-house
Panorama Restaurant and Lounge – a disappointing coffee creme brulee
Northern Dumpling Kitchen – review coming soon
Mengrai Gourmet Thai – decent pad thai (not very flavourful, although heaped with toppings), excellent service, and a very interesting green tea creme brulee