It's a Small Small World - 2010 San Francisco & Napa Trip Day 2 Part II

Continued from...

I Am The King Of Thai - 2010 San Francisco & Napa Trip Day 1

A Fortunate Pilgrimage - 2010 San Francisco & Napa Trip Day 2 Part I

(Quickly's in San Francisco)

After the morning's pilgrimage to Golden Gate Fortune Cookies, we headed over to the other side of town to Swan Oyster Depot. It was a long hike, combined with the hills of San Francisco, my friend was having a little trouble pushing through. There were small restaurants everywhere and I wanted to walk into every one of them just to give it a try. But I stayed my course, pushing pass even familiar joints like Quickly's and their seductive boba milk tea, and finally made it to Swan Oyster Depot.

(Swan Oyster Depot in San Francisco)

(Swan Oyster Depot - Seafood Window)

(Swan Oyster Depot Counter Seating Only)

My original intention was to get one bowl of clam chowder and then head off to Tu Lan. But there was a line in front of Swan Oyster. It wasn't a long line; there were only around ten people ahead of me. But the joint was literally a hole in the wall. There were only counter seating and the whole place accommodated around twenty seated customers at a time. Needless to say a short line of around ten people turned into nearly a forty minutes wait. My friend whose allergy was acting up decided she wasn't going to eat any seafood. Since the line was so long, she went off on her own to find something else to eat.

(Swan Oyster Depot - Bumping Into Friends)

It turned out to be a very small world. For forty minutes, I was standing behind a couple one of whom turned out to be an old college friend of mine: Mieko. It turned out that she was in town visiting relatives and this was their must-do restaurant. Upon their recommendation, I decided to order more than just the clam chowder and give the other seafood a try. Also this happened to be the only photo I took of myself during this whole trip.

(Swan Oyster Depot - Clam Chowder)

I am a big, no, colossal fan of clam chowder. I have had my fair share of clam chowder from all sorts of places I have traveled to. During my past visits to San Francisco, I had been suckered to the tourist traps of Fisherman warf. This time I was expecting something amazing. My reaction to Swan Oyster Depot's clam chowder was mixed. I was slightly prepared for this since I read a few reviews warning about the thickness of the chowder. It really isn't a chowder per se; it is far too liquidy to be be called such. It was more like a clam soup with similar ingredients as a clam chowder without the thickness. In fact it is closer to a Manhattan clam chowder in texture than a New England clam chowder. I personally prefer New England clam chowder, but to each his own. Let's just say this would never work inside a bread bowl.

The thickness aside, the soup was definitely not your cut-of-the-line clam chowder. Progresso's and Campbells' got nothing on this soup. The freshness of the clams came through the soup at an instant. Unlike most clam chowder where I would have to look for the clam and to very carefully find the clam flavor in the chowder, this one hits me in the face full force. There was no guessing that this was made with real clams. The rest of the ingredients almost became insignificant as they simply were there to fill up the texture of the rest of the soup.

(Swan Oyster Depot - Seafood Cocktail)

Every waiter at Swan Oyster were also food preps; they personally plated all the foods in full view of the customers. My friend and her husband ordered their usual, the seafood salad. The portions were definitely generous and it looked very fresh. But I wanted the dish that would allow me to try as many different things in the restaurant as possible, and not end up with a giant hole in my wallet. The combination cocktail did the job. It had a raw oyster, crab meat, a large shrimp and small shrimps inside the cocktail glass and cost just shy of ten dollars. This was the perfect way to sample a chunk of what Swan Oyster Depot had to offer.

I had very high standard for raw oysters, extremely high, despite only having ate my first one on a half shell one year ago; that was at Galveston in Texas. I didn't count having raw oyster shots since the alcohol drowns out a lot of the normal issues associated with raw oysters. I had been plagued all my life with stories from my parents about how awful raw oysters are, and how they had to spit it out when they were treated to free oyster at a rich friend's banquet many years ago. But when I ate the raw oysters at Galveston, it was absolutely divine. It was as if I ate a bubble of fresh water that bursted with flavors inside my mouth. Ever since, no other oyster had even come close. Swan Oyster Depot was as close as I had gotten since then. It had a burst of freshness upon entering my mouth, but there was still a hint of the nasty aftertaste that most raw oysters had when it's not at its freshest. I think the oysters at Swan Oyster Depot, or at least the one I had, was just past its freshness by perhaps a day or so. Sadly to say I would most likely never order that from Swan Oyster Depot again; let's just say my stomach cast the decisive vote later that afternoon.

However the rest of the cocktail was good. The crab meat and shrimps were all fresh. The cocktail sauce didn't completely over power the seafood, allowing the original flavors of the meat to still come through. This was definitely a higher grade than some of the trash served on the streets of Fisherman warf. But it also wasn't the best seafood I ever had. I doubt I would want to wait for forty-five minutes to have Swan Oyster again, but it may be something to grab to-go if I happened to be in the area and wanted a nice quick bite of some fresh seafood; all except for the oysters.

(Ike's at Lime - Menage A Trois)

I was prepped for Ike's after Swan Oyster Depot. I kept myself in check most of the day and made certain I didn't over eat. I managed to hike with my friend from our hotel all the way down market street to Ike's in the Castro district; it took a toll on my friend. I was ready to chomp down on a sandwich at Ike's. But little did I know there's an insanely long wait for it. Upon arrival, I approached the cashier by the door to place an order. Apparently I couldn't actually order until I first placed my name inside Lime Lounge on the "list." I got my name placed and it was over twenty minutes before I was able to place my actual order.

I asked the cashier what was the one sandwich I must have at Ike's since this is most likely the only time I would ever get to eat here. I had a feeling it was either going to be the Menage A Trois as so many have suggested on yelp or the Superman as my friend suggested. The cashier did recommend the Menage A Trois and that is exactly what I ordered. I asked him approximately how long it would take for my order to be ready. He told me it would be around forty-five minutes before I would be able to get it. I was free to roam about and return later. Apparently experienced customers knew that they could place an order on the phone bypassing the twenty minutes wait to place an order and then simply arrive to pick up their orders later. I found this extremely annoying for someone like me who had to wait nearly half an hour to place my order because I was dumb enough to actually stop by. This made absolutely no sense to me and basically turned me off from ever wanting to step foot back into Ike's.

Nevertheless knowing I had forty-five minutes to kill, and my friend was exhausted from the walk, I walked back to the hotel alone to pick up the car and return to Ike's to pick up the sandwich so that I could take it with me to Napa. It took slightly over half an hour for me to get back to my hotel and another fifteen minutes to get my car out and back over to Ike's. To my surprise my sandwich was still not ready. It took another five minutes or so for my order to finally come out of the back kitchen. I had never waited an hour and fifteen minutes for one single sandwich in my life. This better be the best sandwich I had ever tasted.

The Menage A Trios was good, but absolutely not worth the hour and fifteen minutes wait. I had a small portion of my sandwich as soon as I got it in my hands to make sure I got to try it at its freshest. I knew it was a sweet sandwich as many yelpers have reviewed it to be. It wasn't the sweetness that actually bothered me though, it was the fact that it tasted more like an orgy rather than a menage a trois. All the flavors were in a big giant jumble with one another and nothing was distinct from one another. Sure it was bursting like an orgy of flavors, but it was a mess. The sandwich was a mess. The honey, honey mustard and the BBQ sauce all fused into one sweet sauce that buried the fused flavors of the pepper jack, swiss and smoked gouda cheese as well as the chicken. Though it was good, it certain wasn't the best sandwich I ever had. In fact the Wisconsin Sourdough burger I got at Gott's Roadside the next day in St. Helena was far superior to Ike's messy orgy of a sandwich. I'll be talking about that one soon.

So the question is would I order the menage a trois again? The short answer is no. It was a good sandwich and if it didn't have a one hour and fifteen minute wait and preferential treatment for phone orders to deal with, I wouldn't mind having it ever now and then. I think if I ever returned to San Francisco and whomever I'm with absolutely wanted to try this place, I would still be willing to place a phone order and pick it up when it's ready. But since I'm so turned off by their unfair policy towards newcomers, I am not inclined to revisit this place by myself. It wasn't that good.

(Painted Ladies in San Francisco)

Ike's at Lime was my final stop in San Francisco and for the night. We were now ready to head off to Gaia Hotel and Spa Resort in Napa via the Golden Gate route. It was a beautiful day and I had a fantastic adventure in San Francisco. I was now ready for a change of scenery, a relaxed pace, and of course, some amazing wine.

Continue reading at...

Burger To Die For - 2010 San Francisco & Napa Trip Day 3 - The Food
Riesling, riesling, where for art thou my riesling? - 2010 San Francisco & Napa Trip Day 3 - The Wine

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Christmas Day Dinner Extravaganza: Vietnamese Style

Wow, where do I begin?

I have a lot of uncles and aunts around the world. My parents' siblings and their descendants span across four different continents. My Dad's parents actually live right here in Los Angeles. On occasions some of his siblings would come in town and visit. One aunt of mine from Canada visit quite frequently since she's rather close. I always look forward to her visits because I know I would get some really good homemade Vietnamese foods. The irony is that I generally do not crave Vietnamese foods, though lately I ate a lot of Vietnamese foods because I dated a Vietnamese-Chinese guy for a short while. This year since my aunt is in town for Christmas, we decided to do a half Vietnamese and half Chinese meal for our big family Christmas day dinner.

(Shrimp and Vietnamese Cold Cuts Spring Rolls)

(Shrimp and Vietnamese Cold Cuts Spring Rolls with Fish Sauce and Vinegar Dipping Sauce)

One of my absolute favorite Vietnamese dish is the Spring Rolls. I am a big fan of rice products, especially thin rice noodles. Rice paper is used as the skin to the wrap. The content varies from person to person making it. My aunt uses rice vermicelli mixed with a little oil and chive to keep the strands from clumping, shredded lettuce, shrimp and Vietnamese cold cuts as the main ingredients. Half of the batch had an assortment of mint inside while the other half had a long strand of green onions. My Dad made the dipping sauce with fish sauce, vinegar, garlic, chilly pepper and a little bit of sugar. This is by far one of the best appetizers on the planet. It's light and I can eat this all day long. I stuffed down at least six of them since 4pm in the afternoon.

(Taro and Pork Eggrolls with Cloud Fugus)

To compliment the spring rolls, my aunt made egg rolls. I found out the secret to a good and non-oily egg roll is in the skin. My aunt bought some amazing egg roll skin and it was the least oily egg roll I have ever had in my life. There was no need to use a paper towel to soak up excess oil. It was perfectly crunchy without oil dripping everywhere.

The egg rolls were stuffed with taro and pork as the main ingredients with shredded carrots and black fungus, cloud ears in Chinese. It's always fascinating how weird foods in Chinese always have pretty names. I wouldn't order black fungus off a menu, but I would consider a cloud ears. I actually love black fungus. It's a jellylike substance that is similar to a jellyfish, only much flatter. Most of the stuffings are normal egg roll ingredients with the exception of the taro. The taro made the egg rolls just a bit lighter than a all pork egg roll, while still retaining a similar texture to an all pork egg roll. An tasty egg roll with fiber inside is definitely not something you can easily find in stores or restaurants.

(Crabmeat and Fish Stomach Soup)

Of course no Chinese or part Chinese meal would be complete without a soup. My family absolutely adores a good crabmeat and fish stomach soup. I have had this so many times in restaurants but this one was fresh and light. The crabmeat were hand shredded from live crabs. The fish stomach was very high quality presoaked and cooked before cutting it up to put into the soup. Fish stomach is also a jellylike substance but with a much less crunch than a jellyfish. Add to the soup a bit of vinegar and it's perfect. However my parents bought the light vinegar which wasn't strong enough to really bring out that vinegar sting. Still the soup was just fantastic and we have plenty of that leftover.

(Pork, Beef and Shrimp Bun)

Bun is another one of my preferred Vietnamese dishes. I generally prefer bun than I do Pho. It's actually pretty simple to make. We used the same rice noodles with oil and chive and shredded lettuce as the spring rolls. We actually had some shrimp and cold cuts left from the wraps so we tossed those in. Then we just add sprouts, pan stirred beef and onions and pan fried bar-b-que pork. Toss a sprinkle of grounded pan fried peanuts and the same fish sauce and vinegar sauce and it's a nice dish. I would say though this wasn't one of the best buns I've had in my life. But it really was almost made as an afterthought while the spring rolls were the main event. The appetizer and the entree really were flipped backwards in terms of emphasis. The whole family ate more soup and appetizers the whole night than the bun and the vermicelli noodles.

(Pan Fried Beef Vermicelli Noodles)

This was our other entree that really wasn't eaten the whole night. Partly it's because we eat this dish way too often as a family than we do the spring rolls and egg rolls. A good beef vermicelli noodle is hard to make at home because it really requires a stove that has a really big flame. We sometimes actually use a special stovetop that can be hooked to a small tank of natural gas to cook this dish. But we didn't do that tonight. I totally understood since the rest of the meal was so much work, it was just way too much trouble to break out that stove to make this dish. The dish basically is composed of vermicelli noodles, beef and spouts. It was good, but the other dishes totally out shined it.

(Pork Ribs, Sea Cucumbers and Portobello Mushrooms)

The pork ribs, sea cucumbers and portobello mushrooms was the final of the three main course of the night. It also had dried scallops inside to add to the flavor. I generally love this dish when my Dad makes it and would eat a ton of it. But the truth is it really didn't fit with the rest of the meal. This dish really required rice for me to eat it. but I had a bit and it was very tasty as usual. Sea cucumbers are best made this way for me. It totally absorbs the juices from the pork and the mushrooms and is just dynamically flavorful. It did take an extremely long time to soak and cook so that the sea cucumber turns into a really soft jelly. I know, the entire night was full of jellylike foods. We love jellylike foods. That and also my grandmother is only willing to eat soft foods. She doesn't like to chew on food because of her teeth. She did eat a few of the sea cucumbers tonight.

(Deep Fried Shrimp Crackers)

Since we were frying egg rolls, my dad decided to fry some shrimp crackers. I really try to avoid this dish because it's super oily. The crackers really do absorb a lot of the oil. I ended up actually not eating any of it at all. 

(Oyster Pancakes)

The oyster pancakes is one of my Dad's best secret little recipe. It's actually hard to find good tiny oysters. This is a very popular Taiwanese dish that can be found at a lot of night markets. But most places smothers it with a ton of sauce and the flavor of the oyster and everything else gets lost. My dad makes it without any sauce and it's just divine. When made right, the edges of the pancake is a little crunchy while the center and the oysters are still gooey. The blend of his secret recipe just makes it a perfect little finale to a great meal.

(Lemonade with Brown Sugar)

Of course no dinner at my house is completely without our homemade lemonade with brown sugar. By using brown sugar, which is slightly healthier than refined sugar, the color of the lemonade almost looks like tea. We generally blend the sliced lemon with the sugar first by crushing the sugar with the lemon before we pour in the hot water to melt the sugar. Then we add cold water and ice to it to make our light and easy to make instant drink. The lemons are also from our backyard.

We also had a bottle of my favorite bottle of Chateau Ste Michelle Riesling that I mentioned in another post a week ago. Riesling and I suppose various white wines do go well with lighter types of Asian cuisines. A lot of Rieslings are pretty sweet but this bottle was dry enough so that it didn't intrude in the flavor of the foods. It really worked very well with especially the wraps and the other lighter items. Of course it didn't work as well with the pork ribs and the beef, but then most of us who drank the wine actually didn't eat much of any of that. So we really did enjoy the bottle very well.

(Pumpkin and Taro Sweet Soup)

This was actually the first time I had my aunt's pumpkin and taro sweet soup. There were also a little bit of small tapioca balls inside to give it a little thickening. The soup was lightly sweetened served warm. It was definitely a very delicious way to follow a generally light meal.

(Frozen Chocolate Dipped Bananas and Apples)

(Frozen Chocolate Dipped Bananas)

To finish the entire dinner, I decided to make a little frozen treat for everyone. I actually first did this two days ago. One of my best friend Tim was telling me about how another friend of his made him a batch of chocolate dipped spicy dried mangos. Immediately after that I made a batch of that myself and it turned out interestingly good. I'll actually blog about that experience and the making of this treat in a separate post soon. While I was making the batch of chocolate dipped mangos, I had a lot of chocolate left. I saw some bananas on the table and decided to throw it in and see what happens. I didn't freeze that batch, but it was still pretty good and enjoyable.

I then remember seeing all those frozen chocolate dipped banana stands all my life and never actually buying one. So when I made them earlier today, I decided to freeze them and hope for the best. It actually turned out very well and my family did enjoy them tremendously. I discovered that frozen bananas aren't rock solid It was semi-flaky. Well I only froze it for about four hours. Next time I'll experiment with how the duration will affect the banana. I am also going to add some nuts and even white chocolate swirls to future batches.

All in all the dinner was a great success. Everyone was happy. We had a lot of great food and had a fantastic time. The best part was that this meal actually was light enough that I didn't feel completely bloated. Either that or I just didn't eat enough. Still with so much food intake lately, now it's time to start my New Years resolution early and get all that fatty stuff off my tummy before it latches onto me permanently.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

===UPDATE===

I was asked here in the comment about what the brand of the egg rolls skin were. Here's the picture. It's called Spring Home.

(Spring Home Egg Roll Skin - Small)

(Spring Home Egg Roll Skin - Large)

Egg rolls often are very oily. I was told that the key towards having non-oily skin is in both having a good skin to begin with as well as to deep fry them in fresh vegetable oil; do not reuse old oil. After removing the egg rolls from the oil, lay them over a sheet of paper towel to absorb some of the excess oil before serving. There will always be some oil whenever something is deep fried, but this combination will help keep that to a minimal and keep them from being oily.

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Geoduck Saved My Christmas Dinner

My parents dragged me out to dinner tonight with some friends. To be honest, I wasn't in the best of mood today because of some personal things. It wasn't a big deal, just was a bummer. But I decided to go just to get out of the house and have a good dinner. Fortunately the friends had a kid who is possibly the happiest and most talkative kid I have ever met who managed to make me laugh and cheered me up. The kid was non-stop laughter. Laughter is truly contagious.

(East Gourmet Seafood Restaurant)

The restaurant was pretty busy on this Christmas Eve night. I suppose a lot of families like to do Christmas Eve dinner at home, but we ended up doing it at at East Gourmet Seafood Restaurant in Rosemead. My family's doing our big family dinner tomorrow night at home with everyone. I'm definitely going to blog about that one. We came here because we had Dim Sum here yesterday and got a coupon for a free lobster.

(Ginger and Chive Lobster)

The lobster was small given the fact that it was free. But it was still fresh and the meat came right off the shell. You can tell if a lobster is fresh when they are cooked in this style by their meat coming right off the shell. It wasn't a spectacular dish, but I can't complain since it's free. The quality is pretty much what you would expect your cut-of-the-mill seafood restaurant. Good but not memorable.

Lobster was one of the deals they had tonight. They also had a special for geoduck for $4.99 a pound. Geoducks are clams with a giant trunk that looks like the trunk of an elephant. They are the largest burrowing clams in the world. Naturally the shell was weighted as a part of it so we had to order about 5 pounds worth to be enough. But geoduck is usually over $10 per pound so this is definitely a deal not to be passed. There are a couple ways geoducks are usually served: stir fried, boiled or sashimi. I recommend either the boiled option or the sashimi option to retain its original flavor. We ordered the boiled version since my father doesn't eat sashimi. Actually my mother doesn't like geoduck served as sashimi despite the fact that she likes a lot of other kinds of sashimi. I always worry about eating sashimi in second rated restaurants because of freshness anyways. The head of the geoduck is typically served deep fried, otherwise it would be much more difficult to chew.

The geoduck that was served was actually pretty sweet and had a good crunch to it. It was topped with a little bit of chilly pepper, parsley, green onions, all of which is placed over a plate of sprouts. The sprouts complemented the rest of the dish since it's served sort of like a cold appetizer even though it was just freshly cooked. Even though I had better quality geoduck before, this was still well worth the money, especially since we get two plates for one item.

(Boiled Geoduck)

The meal actually started off with a soup like most Chinese meals. We ordered the corn and egg flower soup. It's a thick starchy soup. The flavor was decent and edible. I'm not a big fan of corn based soup. I suppose a lot of it has to do with the fact that nearly half of the things we eat have some sort of corn in them. I will eat corn, I just don't find them all that interesting. But my mother ordered it so I wasn't going to object.

(Corn and Egg Flower Soup)

We did order one of my favorite dishes at a Chinese Seafood Restaurant: walnut shrimp. This is also one of those items that is almost a guarantee at most Chinese wedding banquets. I don't think I've ever had a plate of bad walnut shrimp, but it's hard to make them amazing. This wasn't amazing. This was your average walnut shrimp. I think the temperature was just not hot enough for it to be amazing. For me, the shrimp needs to be much hotter so that the dressing feels like it's melting when you eat it. When the dressing just taste like paste, it's just that. It's not bad as it is, but it isn't a version that I would say I have to come back to this restaurant to have. I can't recall where I had a really good version of walnut shrimp. I'm just hoping one day I'll stumble across an amazing version again.

(Walnut Shrimp)

We also had the Egg Plant with Cod Clay Pot and the Filet Mignon French Style. I'm not a big fan of eggplant so I actually managed to forget to even taste it tonight. Some food critique I am. Actually by the time I got to it, the kid ate all the egg plants. Kudos to him for eating his veggies, but then of all things he ate eggplant. We did also have an order of sprout leaf too on the table which was devoured pretty quickly. The cod that I did manage to get a bite of was descent. The Filet Mignon was mediocre at best and simply forgettable. It's not even worth my time blogging about it.

(Eggplant with Cod Clay Pot)

(Filet Mignon French Style)

Dinner ended with a complimentary Red Bean Sweet Soup. This one was more gooey whereas I prefer mine to be more grainy. That's just a matter of preference. However it was on the sweet side so my diabetic mother had to pass and I only ate half a bowl.

(Red Bean Sweet Soup)

Honestly the dinner food here was just average. I was hoping for more on Christmas Eve but I didn't pick the restaurant. We came because of the free lobster and that some of the items at Dim Sum were pretty good. Dinner however wasn't spectacular enough to warrant me to come back except for the price point of the geoduck. The competition is tough for these Chinese Seafood Restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley. There are quite a few of them and they are all very good; some better then others.

So if you are looking just to get the geoduck while the special is still going, I say go, go now. Having had that geoduck did brighten what would otherwise be a bummer of a day. But if you are looking for a really good Chinese meal, I would say pass this one up and try Newport Tan Cang Seafood Restaurant in San Gabriel instead. I had an amazing but more expensive meal there in October of this year.

Well Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you are all having an amazing time with amazing foods.

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Cold House; Hot Pot - Easy Meal For A Lazy Day

It's cold outside and it's cold inside. It's just plain cold right now. When it's cold, it's time to bring out the hot pot, also known at a lot of places as Shabu Shabu. Not only is it a convenient way to cook with very little prep time, it also serves as a heater for my chilly dinning room.

It's very simple to prepare. We have a half and half pot. A lot of people do a spicy and a non-spicy soup. We instead did a tomato and non-tomato soup instead. Unlike a lot of fancy restaurants, we don't do anything fancy to the soup base, just water and salt. On one side we threw in a bunch of tomatoes right away so they would be boiled to smithereens to flavor the soup. The other side we just left it natural and let the food we add eventually flavor the soup. We just prefer it this way. By the end of the meal the soup would be way pretty rich with just a plain water base so it's not absolutely necessary to make the soup so fancy to begin with. It could add to the taste if you prefer a specific flavoring.

(Half and Half Hot Pot)

With hot pot, we can add all the things we want or just a very few items. It's almost like a left over casserole except with using a bunch of random raw meats and veggies. It's pretty inexpensive and makes the dinning experience just a bit more fun. It also forces you to actually sit at the table a little longer and get some conversations going since you have to be there to cook your own foods.

(Raw Beef and Chicken)

We always have a plate of raw beef to add to the soup. Beef cooks extremely fast and is just perfect with hot pot. Chicken is good too, but it's much harder to control in the cooking cause it can get overcooked rather easily. We don't get the expensive Shabu Shabu meat that's thinly cut by machines. Yeah those do cook easier but they do also cost a lot more. Instead we thinly cut the beef by hand, marinate it with some soy sauce and some cornstarch. The chicken was also thinly sliced by hand and marinated with salt and a tad bit of cornstarch.

(Seafood and Tofu)

We also got some other items to add to the pot. We got shrimp, one of my family's favorite, squids, sea cucumbers, fried tofu and normal tofu plus a few different veggies. Shrimp is a common thing to add to a hot pot, but I'm just not a fan of boiled shrimp. It just doesn't do it for me. Yes, it taste still pretty good when you dip them in a chilly peppered soy sauce, but I'm just not a fan. This is totally a personal preference though. Squids are good for hot pots, the small ones at least. They were very fresh and had a crunch in them. Dip them in a bit of satay sauce with soy sauce and it's just perfect.

With the sea cucumber, we had a bunch of them soaked in water to get them soft before actually putting them in the hot pot. It takes a long time to prep sea cucumbers and this was actually our first time giving this a try. It really shouldn't be used in a hot pot. Sea cucumbers really have no taste of their own, just a jelly texture. It absorbs the flavors of whatever else it's cooked in. Because of this, especially towards the beginning of the hot pot meal when the soup is still very light in taste, the sea cucumber pretty much had no taste to them. Even in the end, the soup is just not thick enough as a way to add real flavor to the sea cucumbers.

I love tofu. I love the deep fried tofu and the normal tofu. No hot pot would be complete without it. I normally prefer having both the fried tofu as well as silky tofu. With the fried tofu, the soup is absorbed into the tofu because it's pretty hollow on the inside. So you'd have to be very careful when eating them as to void burning your tongue. I prefer the really silky tofu for the texture. I like it sliding like silk in my mouth. But that also can lead to burning of your throat if you're not careful. Some people like firmer tofu.  We had both tonight. Firm tofu is nice when it's cooked long enough to really absorb the flavor of the soup. We ended up with some cheap tofu so it wasn't as silky as it could be. But it was still good.

We had a bit of veggies on the side and udon for carbs. We switch it up between udon, rice noodles and various cuts of vermicelli noodles at hot pot. As with veggies, just grab your favorite kinds of veggies from the market and cook them. You really can't go too wrong with most vegetables. The only thing to consider is if you get veggies that are more fragrant than others that some of your diners may not like. I say eat what you like and avoid what you don't. For the most part it really doesn't matter.

No hot pot would be complete without seasoning. The easiest to make at home would be adding soy sauce to Chinese barbecue sauce, which is also known as satay sauce. But there's a lot of other variations that is commonly done. You can add sesame sauce, sesame oil, peanut butter sauce, peanut butter oil, vinegar, fish sauce, hoisin sauce and pretty much any other sauce you can find in the Chinese market. you could theoretically use anything if you like the taste. One thing that used to be done a lot is to mix all this sauce with a raw egg. Then you would dip your cooked meat and veggies into the egg sauce, pull it out and then eat it. It cools down the meat and keeps your mouth from being burnt. This actually taste very good, but a lot of people stopped doing this because of salmonella scare.

For me, hot pot can be as lavish as you want or as simple and easy as you like. I've had hot pot with crab, live shrimp still jumping around, peeing shrimp, all sorts of different kinds of fish, an assortments of fish and meat balls, a huge range of vegetables and mushrooms, goose intestines, tons of different cuts of meats, Japanese fishcake and pretty much anything you can find in a Chinese supermarket. I've enjoyed it with upwards of thirty or so people at a church function and as few as three people at home many times in the past. It's one of those meals that can't really go wrong no matter what you do. It's just putting the food in the boiling water; take them out when they look cooked; eat. If you're afraid of germs, you can use separate chopsticks to cook with and to eat with. Oh yeah, you do need to learn to use chopsticks if you want to be effective with a hot pot meal. Forks just isn't going to cut it.

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The Textures of Dim Sum

Can you hear the sleigh bells ring? All I can hear are the dishes clanging at Dim Sum.

It's December and the holiday spirit fills the air. Here at Dim Sum on a Wednesday afternoon, a huge crowd swarms the place making us forget that we are still in a recession. With a crowd this excited, you would almost think they are giving the food away. At $2.09 a plate, it may as well be.

(Steamed Pork Ribs in Black Bean Sauce)

Top Island Seafood Restaurant serves most of the traditionally popular Dim Sum items. Truth be told, this is not my favorite Dim Sum restaurant. A lot of it really has to do with one dish, the vermicelli shrimp wraps. Vermicelli wraps are very difficult to get right. Ideally the texture should be smooth and silky. It should go down nice and smooth almost like vodka. But I can see how some people, as a friend I have once brought to Dim Sum, would think this texture disgusting. In some ways it may even feel like eating a slurp of slimy gunk. This reminds me of the episode of Futurama when Fry couldn't stop drinking Slurm, even though he found out it came out of the back end of a giant queen slug. Alright, I'm not doing my vermicelli wraps justice, but I do love this dish; just not at Top Island. New Capital Seafood Restaurant does it much better a few blocks away.

(Vermicelli Shrimp Wraps)

Dim Sum is full of textures, and another one that a lot of even my Chinese friends can't handle is the infamous Phoenix Claws, which is just a fancy name for chicken feet. It's all in the branding right? Give it a nice name and you may actually give it a try. Top Island serves Phoenix Claws three different ways. There's the steamed version that's marinated in a black bean sauce. This is the softest version of Phoenix Claws where the skin and cartilage comes right off the bones. Then there's the White Cloud version dipped in a vinegar sauce. This is the chewiest version and there's no way around not feeling like you are chewing on claws. If you've ever chewed on your own fingers out of nervousness, it taste even more rubbery than that. Then there's a version where it's served in a soup. It's in-between the two in terms of chewiness. The soup has a lot of condiments flavoring it. The chicken feet themselves really doesn't have a whole lot of flavor. It's just skin, cartilage and bones. So in the end, it's a matter of texture as you are just chewing on bones. It's definitely an acquired taste; well fine, an acquired texture. Scared? Chew at your own peril.

(Steamed Phoenix Claws)

Before I completely scare you off from Dim Sum, most of the items that are pushed around by middle aged female servers in metal carts are pretty normal stuff. I'm not being sexist or being ageist here. I have never seen a young female cart pusher nor have I seen any male cart pusher at any Dim Sum restaurants I've ever been to around the world. Occasionally I see men walking around the room with dishes of food on a serving platter, just never behind a cart. I have no idea why this is so, but it just is and no one has ever complained: I'm not complaining.

Today we also had Lor Mai Gai - Lotus leaf wrapped sweet rice and chicken. The Chinese name has the word chicken in it, but it doesn't actually always have chicken inside. I suppose we are used to buying things that doesn't really have anything to do with its name. Blackberry doesn't actually have black berries inside: Apple computer has nothing to do with apples. Even an iPhone is hardly a phone, and I can't live without mine. Top Island's version doesn't have chicken, instead it has minced pork, mushroom and salted egg yolk inside. I prefer them without chicken anyways, they tend to be too dry. I think Top Island does a good job with this and I wouldn't mind having one occasionally. Just don't eat them everyday, they are extremely fattening and pretty bad for diabetics. I don't let my mother have any of the sweet rice.

(Lotus Leaf Wrapped Sweet Rice and Chicken)

Another favorite of mine at Dim Sum are the stuffed tofus. But as with all things Dim Sum, every restaurant does it differently. Top Island stuffs, well more like tops, their tofu with a giant fish ball. I almost rather eat just the tofu as the fish balls were just too big. Bigger may look better. It looks like we are getting a better deal cause we are getting more, but it's no longer stuffed tofu. I basically have to eat the tofu and the fish ball separately. So no, bigger isn't always better.

(Steamed Stuffed Tofu)

I don't eat a lot of fried foods, and I generally avoid donuts. I don't even remember the last time I actually went to a donut shop to buy a donut, though I had one a couple days ago because my parents visited a friend who worked at a donut shop. The irony is that my family co-owns a donut shop in Thailand. But I do like the Chinese salted donut, which are basically deep fried dough stuffed with pork. It's really hard to go wrong with this dish. You just can't go wrong with deep fried anything. The only real thing one can do wrong with this dish is either over stuff or under stuff them. Top Island is pretty consistent with a fair amount of tasty stuffing. The dough is also a very good consistency; a little crunchy on the outside and a little mushy on the inside.

(Salted Water Corner - a.k.a. Chinese Deep Fried Salty Donuts)

Generally speaking, I don't order anything off the menu at Dim Sum. But I went with my family today, and my mother couldn't pass up on their deal on squabs. The king squabs were $3.99 each and the smaller squabs were $6.99 each. If you go to the supermarket to buy the small squabs raw, they would cost $10 each. We have absolutely no idea how they can serve them at such a low price. It's so cheap it's almost scary. I mean are these squabs legit? Did they go out to some town square and took down a ton of pigeons and passed it off as squabs. Alright I'm letting my imagination run wild, but I do wonder.

Cheap as it may be, the quality of the squabs were actually good. the problem though was the marinate. It needed to be marinated longer. The flavor just never penetrated enough through the skin and into the meat, so the meat was a bit bland, though it was tender. I understand the fact that every other table in the restaurant is ordering squabs, so they simply don't have the luxury to marinate them for a prolonged period of time. It's the classic increase in demand yielding a decrease in quality. Well it does give my mother her squab fix, but as for me I much prefer my Dad's recipe. If only raw squabs cost less.

(Deep Fried Squabs)

Dim Sum is loud. The food is loud and the atmosphere is even louder. The best and most popular Dim Sum places is like a symphony of sounds and tastes with people crossing non-stop in front of your eyes. The dishes banging together as waiters clean the tables: the people talking over the noise in the room: the sound being trapped in a non-dampened room; the waiters and waitresses zig-zagging across the room unendingly to keep up with the demands of the customers. All these adds together to bring the whole place to life, which really is a great way to feel alive in a time when the rest of the world can seem like all gloom and doom.

So this holiday season instead of hearing sleigh bells, maybe it's time to hear some dishes clang.

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