chinese – Page 8 – Elsie Hui

January 31, 2012March 22, 2012

Homemade Hong Kong Style Nai Cha – 港式奶茶

Hong Kong Style Milk Tea Recipe

I recently been craving a lot of childhood goodies, and one of the things I really like is Nai Cha which literally translates to “milk tea“. It’s also known as “Pantyhose Milk Tea – 絲襪奶茶” as historically, they used pantyhose as a filter to make this tea smooth. I really enjoy the Hong Kong style Nai Cha which is quite dark and strong, so I’ve been playing around with ways to make my own version at home.

Ingredients:
4 cups of boiling water
6 Black Tea Bags
2-3 Tablespoons of Condensed Milk

First, in a pot, I add about 4 cups of water and bring it to a boil with the tea bags (with the bags in the water and the string sitting on the handle). I like to use Lipton Yellow Label Tea, but you can use whatever black tea you like.

Once the water boils with the tea bags, the water starts getting quite dark, and since I really like my Nai Cha strong, I reduce the heat a leave it at a simmer for awhile. I’ve been boiling it slowly for an hour.

Then, I let it cool a bit, put some condensed milk in the bottom of my cup and pour the tea on top.

Once I do that, the best part is next – stir and enjoy! These drinks are normally served with light meals or breakfast! But, I like this Nai Cha wherever and whenever!

Another alternative to this is the more traditional cafe style where you can replace the Condensed Milk with Evaporated Milk and sugar. Be sure to add the sugar before the evaporated milk if you choose to go that route! Both milks are wonderful in milk tea! If you’re craving iced milk tea, make the nai cha with either sugar and evaporated milk or condensed milk and allow it to cool for a bit. Then, in a tall glass, fill it with ice and pour the nai cha over the ice – stir and enjoy!

January 17, 2012March 24, 2019

Asian BBQ & Noodles in Spring Valley Las Vegas

So, the last time I went to Vegas, we had a combination of food from tourist locations and local. We went for some Chinese cuisine in areas where locals are more likely to go. We went to Asian BBQ & Noodles located in a strip plaza, which really wasn’t too far off the strip, but definitely easiest with a rental car. This stop was more like a second lunch, or a snack so the 3 of us only ordered a few things to share.

We enjoyed a plate of Yang Chow Fried Rice, and in fact it was a fairly large plate, especially for it’s price. I don’t currently remember any of the prices, but I know they are very reasonable with large delicious portions. It definitely was enough to share everything! The fried rice had lots of ingredients in it, and seasoned perfectly! it’s so easy to eat the entire plate by myself because it was so good!

A bowl of Wonton Noodle Soup was something that really hit the spot! There’s nothing as calming for me than a bowl of noodle soup – especially when the soup is “clear” versus soup with lots of things in the soup or very flavourful (spicy, coconut milk, etc). The wontons here were enormous!

And has some Gai Lan with Oyster Sauce, as we needed some vegetables. Sure, the gai lan looks a little big, but they cooked it just long enough where it’s still crisp, but tender! Good job for them with the boiling of it! 🙂 It was just the perfect plate of veggies for this snack!

Overall, I do enjoy this location! It was actually busy – even at these odd times of day where it wasn’t lunch or dinner. People were coming in and ordering from the hot buffet section and their phones was ringing off the hook for take-out! It’s nice to see such success for little restaurants like this!

Everything tasted really good and the prices were extremely well priced! This is definitely a place to try if you’re craving a little local Chinese food that is worth your pocket change!

Asian BBQ & Noodles

3400 S. Jones Blvd, #5C
Las Vegas, NV
(702) 202-3636

January 13, 2012March 22, 2012

Homemade Lo Bak Go – 蘿蔔糕

Turnip Cake Recipe – Luo Bo Gao

Just in time for Chinese New Years, I’ve taken what I know of how to make a Lo Bak Go and tried it! Please note, I like my lo bak go with lots more filling than “go”, so feel free to reduce the amounts of any particular ingredient.

1 large dried scallop (or 2 little ones)
1/2 cup dried shiitake mushrooms
1/4 cup chopped dried shrimp
2 Chinese Sausages (lap cheong)
1 cup of Rice Flour
1 cup of water
1 cup grated lo bak (daikon)

Seasoning (adjust to what you think tastes good)
salt, white pepper, soy sauce

First things first, you have to rehydrate all the dehydrate ingredients, and I like to do soak my shiitake mushrooms, dried shrimp and dried scallop the evening before hand in a bowl with some water.

When I’m ready to start making my lo bak go, I start by grating the lo bak and I place it into a pot of boiling water with some sugar and salt for a few minutes until tender.

While the lo bak is bubbling away, I start by chopping up the Chinese sausage, Shiitake mushrooms and shrimp into little pieces, and shredding the scallop. I heat up a wok and put all the ingredients together to stir fry them until cooked. I also do the seasoning with some white pepper, soy sauce and salt until it’s more flavourful than usual – since the rice flour mixture would add no flavour, it works best this way.

When everything is good and ready, I prepare the rice flour mixture by first starting with 1 cup of water and 1 cup of rice flour. I mix it until it’s dissolved and pour it into the combination of lo bak and all other goodies. I mix thoroughly and judge by the texture how I would like it. If you like your lo bak go firmer, put more rice flour in so that it’s more paste like consistency. The more you mix, the tougher it gets as well. I like my lo bak go soft, so I do minimal mixing. When you figured out how you like it, pour it into a pie pan or something like it and prepare it for steaming.

I steamed my lo bak go for about 45 minutes and I put a toothpick in to check that nothing was sticking to the toothpick. When it was ready, I turned off the heat and put some green onions (scallions) on top for decoration and put the lid on it for about 5 minutes before I took it out and let it cook on a cooling rack. Be careful, the pan and the lo bak go is extremely hot at this point.

Now that it’s cooled down a bit and had some time to set, cut it up and enjoy! I always like to sprinkle extra white pepper, or sweet soy sauce, or even some hot sauce on top of my slices of lo bak go. Sometimes, I do all 3! Now, pick up your chopsticks and enjoy!

January 2, 2012January 4, 2012

Great Taste Chinese Restaurant

It was New Years Eve, and we wanted to grab a bite to eat to kill some time – and we found ourselves walking by what use to be one of our favourite Chinese places to eat… and noticed the place had changed names. So, out of curiosity, we went into what is now called Great Taste Chinese Restaurant

Since this wasn’t a meal, and we were looking for snack, we ordered really random snacks – which we really LOVED! Something I’ve always ate if I found, it would be Shanghai Style Sticky Rice (Savoury). These sticky rice are only availability on weekends only – so I was really happy it was a weekend when we popped in! We can pick from sweet or salty sticky rice, but I do prefer the salty ones.

Dumplings will also always be a great snack for me! It’s never too early or too late to eat dumplings, and here, they have Pan Fried Shanghai Style Pork Dumplings which we always remembered them as being like wor-tip (potstickers) pan fried to a nice crisp. I believe they make these dumplings themselves as it doesn’t look uniform – so I like to think it’s made of good quality pork dumpling filling. This filling is very flavourful and is perfect alone or with the vinegar dip they provide you with.

The last snack we had to order is Deep Fried Sweet Buns which is an Asian style bun made with either Hong Kong or Korean rice flour as it adds much more “bounce” in the dough. This bun is made with “threads” of the dough and then steamed. In this case, it is deep fried to a wonderful golden brown such that you get a crispy shell with a soft bun inside that shreds into strands/threads. This wonderful bun is then dipped to one of my all time favourite condiments – condensed milk. It’s a great vehicle to move condensed milk to my mouth – and when paired, it’s a great combination! The hot crisp of the exterior of the bun, the soft gooey strand inside of the bun with the sweet condensed milk sure make it a treat!

I’ve been trying to not use too many pictures in my blogs lately, but i have to post a picture of the “silver thread buns” interior as well! Even though this bun is cut into 3 pieces, it’s a great bun and I think the picture kind of shows it!

This was such a great place for simple Shanghai style snacks that I’m sure I’ll be back to eat here! I loved it before the new owners and I’m still loving it! I assume the owners changed, as the concept of the restaurant has changed – but the food is still really good.

Great Taste Chinese Restaurant

123 2nd Avenue SE
Calgary, AB T2G 0B2
403-265-9880

December 8, 2011December 8, 2011

U & Me Restaurant – Dim Sum

I’ve been meaning to try U & Me for dim sum for a long time, and we just haven’t gotten to it as it was always “out of the way”. Chinatown parking isn’t the easiest or the cheapest, so we like to go on Sundays… but, parking then is difficult as there’s Chinese school and other activities that go on. But, U & Me does have a few parking spots that they dedicate to their customers – which is great, but when we got there, it was full on this Saturday morning.

We just paid the parking in a paid lot as we didn’t want to waste our time and energy finding a spot. We made it to U & Me and what appeared to be a back door. It was interesting, but we got seated quite quickly and into a back room. The place was already starting to get packed!

We were seated by the window which was quite nice. Our tea, and slips to mark off which dim sum we wanted came instantaneously! So, we just marked a few items, and waited. The wait time wasn’t bad at all, and the food was really good!

We ordered the Shrimp & Scallop Tart since it was something we’ve never heard of or tried, and it came out in a bamboo basket but the dumpling of shrimp sat inside of a tart made of the Chinese white buns! It was really unique and it looked great too! A fairly large piece of scallop sat on top of the tart and it was very exquisite!

From there, we tried another dish we’ve never tried before, and it’s the Pan Friend Country Fish Cake which was actually deep fried in my opinion – and not pan fried! It was fried to perfection as the colouring was perfect, the crunch was intense and the food inside the dumpling wasn’t over or under cooked! Inside the deep fried wonton wrap was fish paste and it was seasoned wonderfully and it tasted great! This was a hit dish for me! I really enjoyed it!

From there, we went to things we like that is more typical. Of course, I ordered my favourite Steamed Beef Tripe with Ginger & Onion as I do at any dim sum place I go to (unless it wasn’t good one too many times). They made this decent, but it wasn’t my favourite. The flavours seemed to be a little watered down and it just didn’t feel like it was freshly steamed. I am afraid to say it, but I think it was a left over from the day before and they just steamed it back up! The texture of the tripe was tender, but it was dry and hard along the edges – which steaming food doesn’t normally do that!

U & Me - Steamed Beef Tripe with Ginger & Onion

As another common item – the popular and famous Steamed Shrimp Dumplings which everyone who goes to dim sum knows how to order “Ha-Gow”! So, we ordered it as well, as many people say they’re delicious here! Guess what? They were delicious! Inside the steam basket was 4 large shrimp dumplings and 1 smaller one in the center – probably for visual interest, and it was spectacular! The shrimp was sweet, and it wasn’t mushy at all! It was very succulent, and the skin was quite thin! I wouldn’t go as far as calling it the thinnest or anything, but compared to many places, it was quite translucent! So, well done on the shrimp dumplings!

The last savoury dish we enjoyed was something I loved as a child and rarely see it done the same way anymore. The dish I’m talking about is Steamed Cuttlefish in Curry Sauce. I know, gross you may think – but don’t mock anything till you try it. Most of the things I like does have either an acquired taste or texture, and I think that’s why I like it! It’s not the same as everything else! But, these cuttlefishes was large enough where there’s lots of texture to it. It was soft and tender and the curry sauce was perfect. The consistency of the sauce coats the cuttlefish perfectly – and this was one of my favourite dishes of the visit!

U & Me - Steamed Cuttlefish in Curry Sauce

Then, we end with a sweet dish for dessert, the Steamed Cream Custard Cake which is something I order often. It’s an eggy dish as some would say, but it’s basically a steamed sponge cake made into layers and held together with cream custard. It’s really good and they’re never overly sweet. The cake is filling but it’s really light.

U & Me offers a huge selection of dim sum throughout the day which is unique on it’s own. The dim sum and sweets are excellent, in fact it is one of the best dim sum in the city! This is a location I will definitely consider going back to as the selection, taste, and price was all exceptional!

The dessert after hours (around 8pm to 10pm) and food is wonderful too! Be sure to try out late night snacks at U & Me!

U & Me Restaurant

223 Centre St S
Calgary, AB T2G
(403) 264-5988