I'm not over stating by saying that Choi Kee is the best Bi Feng Tang (Typhoon Shelter style seafood) ie. chili garlic seafood spot in HK. Wonderfully understated with a staff that has cooked here for 35+ years....they beat the crabs out of Under The Bridge and Hee Kee.

The staff treat you like family.

5 forks by the #Filanderingforker

Here is a Squid in Chili Garlic (Bi Feng Tang) executed perfectly. 

Duck Hotel Pot - Shui Wei, Shenzhen

There is Dirty Duck (Bebik Bengil) in Bali, we have Duck Hot Pot in Shui Wei Shenzhen. A bubbling pot of a silky broth with the most tender duck rendered (config style) in its own fat.
Best served with a hatch chili relish that complements the duck meat perfectly.

Then there are the other hot pot usual that can be stirred into the pot

#duck #duckhotpot #hotpot #Chinesecuisine #China #filanderingforker

Pizza time with the girls....

Will send recipe on request: 

Warm water, honey, olive oil, sea salt and yeast. Let it sit for 10 minutes to activate the yeast. Meanwhile sift the flour and then made a well for the yeast soup

The yeast should be active by now, as you can tell from the bubbles on the surface.

Pour the yeast soup into teh well and slowly pull in bits of flour to bring it all together. The kids love this part, be careful not to break the dam. 

Best to let all your kids have a go, or they will sulk

After mixing and kneading the dough, let it rest in a oiled and flour dusted bowl, covered with a damp cloth for a few hours in the kitchen. 

Once the dough has at least doubled in size, knock it back by kneading it for a few minutes, after that either portion it into 9 smaller balls for further proofing in the fridge, or into bigger portions for ease of space. After 6-8 hours in the fridge your dough is ready, but you can proof it longer. After the proofing, you are ready to cook or keep them in the freezer for pizza on demand.

Once ready to cook, rest your dough for 30 minutes outside the fridge, then roll into a ball, flatten with rolling pin and had toss (if you can ) to the desired thickness. we prefer ours Neapolitan (thin crust)

The kids love to get their hands dirty....

Best to make your sauce at home, use top quality canned Italian tomatoes. They come peeled. I prefer Annalisa or Roma for pizza sauce. 

Ready and Rolled

Smoked Sausage, Chorizo & olives for the kids, they picked the ingredients themselves. As you can tell from the pipped chorizo, they are the real deal in animal skins, not the artificial variety. 

For mommy, Pickled Artichoke, Olives, Capers and home grown fresh Genovese Basil, topped with a cold press olive oil.

Smoked Sausage, Chorizo,, pickled Jalapeno topped half way through the cooking with an egg. The yolk is a luxurious runny consistency by the time the pizza is done cooking.  

Quick dinner at Muine Vietnamese in Shenzhen: Pictures

Did not know this place existed, apparently it won, Thats PRD's award for best South East Asian 2014, which doesn't mean shit in teh real world. Thats PRD has turned into a crappy rag that simply does not know how to do food reviews or write, or do anything they are supposed to do. The awards are a joke, because they consistently give awards to places that have either shut down or pay the add revenues. This is China after all. More in this subject another time.

Strolling about COCO park, we stumbled upon this well decorated, crowded place, that smelled quite inviting, so we gave it a go. This is not a review so I am not getting into the finer details.
The food was decent, the service was good, the price was mid range...all in, a successful dine and dash. Not sure if this is the best Vietnamese in the city, but it sures ranks up there.

Once again these are just phone pics, no DSLR at hand. 

Fried Mandarin Fish, served with a tangy chili garlic sauce

Steamed Squid in a spicy lime sauce served with steamed okras. 

Sole fish and mango summer roll

Lemongrass Beef Skewers served with lettuce leaves, cucumbers and basil/mint to wrap them in. 

Honey Lemongrass roasted Chicken

Spring rolls also wrapped in lettuce and basil/mint. 

Seafood Streetfood, Shenzhen

Shenzhen China has some superb Street seafood, cheap, fast and spicy. taken down with the help of some cold TsingTao beer. We, as in the family, end up at the Shui Wei village street food street at least once a week. This post is just from one road side stall selling fiery shellfish tossed in some super spicy broth, hand eaten right there. 

The quality of the photographs is a bit wanting, but this is the best I could do wih my phone in bad light conditions. I will take our DSLR out there soon. 

Clams, Prawns, Crabs, Snails and more (the names escape me right now) 

I ordered a mixed bowl of crawfish tails and shrimp tossed in a spicy garlicky dip. 

These clams are particularly good this time of the year, here in a spicy broth. 

An upscale bbq, rooftop at the The Butcher Club, Hong Kong.

Good weather, good friends, good food and fun for the kids, a perfect Sunday bbq Hong Kong style. You say the words dry aged beef and I am already running out of the door. That is prett much all I focused in on, when I got the email invite to join my close friends, Billy & Nadira to celebrate their birthday on a roof top terrace in Aberdeen, Hong Kong. The Butcher Club at Editus, hosts a fantastic rooftop BBQ party with the Southside magazine about once a month, serving top notch food and drink. This is definitely more upscale than the usual BBQ you get elsewhere, but it's well worth that extra coin.

On the 16th & 17th floor 18 Wong Hang road, Aberdeen, The Butcher Club shares a space with fashion retailers Editus. Serving a smaller menu compared to their flagship store in central, the Deli has a superb terrace to throw these afternoon shindigs. Entrance fee of 500 (80USD) HKD per head for all you can eat and drink with a few cash only booths selling boutique wines and such.

The ice pops for the big kids were seriously boozy (Caipirinha and Mojito, among others) while the kid friendly versions included a nice watermelon with balsamic and mint option.

The happy helpful crew, not something you always see in Hong Kong. Here serving a Sangria blanco, that could have used a little less of whatever was so sweet. 

Peroni, from the Lombardi region of Italy, on draft, the slight bitterness is perfect to compliment and cut through the meaty full flavoured sausages being served.

Moist and creamy, the carrot cake was perhaps the best dessert offered. The brownies however were too dense and felt like the packaged variety a clear miss. Cookies were decent and chewy as I like them. 

Super Porkilicious, this blessed creature was well looked in its after life, as he probably was during. Perfectly crispy skin throughout, succulent, well rested, masterfully cooked. What a treat this was. 

The master caretakers of this finely roasted pig. 

There was quite the crowd waiting for these lads to break down the roasted pig and boy did they do a good job. Breaking down a fine animal like this is as important as cooking it perfectly.

Two men and a pig....

The Butcher Shop Hong Kong, does some of the best Dry Aged Beef in the city, it's what they are known for and it is well deserved. If you’re a meat eater, there are few meals as phenomenal as well-raised, well-marbled steak. That is, until you’ve had well-raised, well-marbled, dry-aged steak.

“Why age a piece of beef, period?” 

Pat LaFrieda (legendary NYC meat purveyor) : “In controlling the decomposition of the meat, you’re breaking down the collagen, which is what holds the muscle fibers together. Collagen is what can make a steak tough. After the dry-aging process the collagen is broken down and all you have is that protein sitting there and it’s very tender. So you have a tender steak and it has that dry aged flavor.” 

“So for people who’ve never tried a dry-aged steak before, how does it differ in taste from a steak that has not been dry-aged? 

PL: “I can’t say gamey, because that always means something negative. And I hate to use the word “beefy”—but it is a more intense beef flavor. You put the two side-by-side and you can immediately tell what’s dry-aged and what isn’t. Dry aged beef smells like buttered popcorn and tastes like very rare roast beef—that’s the best way I can describe it. You just have to try it to know what I’m talking about.”

Some of these have been aging since December 2014 as the label states. developing those complex flavours. The room smelled a salivating combination of meaty, cheesy, beefy, intensity........there is no other way to explain the aromas swirling around my head. 

These thinly sliced (for sandwiches) dry aged steaks had a meaty, cheesy intensity and tenderness that only comes from the collagen breaking down and the flavours intensifying over time weeks of aging. 

 

Sliced dry aged beef stakes, pork and sage sausages with some excellent accoutrements: onion confit and a blue cheese dip served with buns.   

One of the best sirloin tip pies I had ever had served here with minty mushy peas. The meat perfectly cooked and spiced, in the most buttery, flaky pastry dough. The addition of mint in the mushy pies made it just right to cut through the richness of the pie.

Dim Sum at Central Walk, Shenzhen

Shrimp Dumpling, Ha gow or Xiā jiǎo . hese shrimp dumplings are transparent and smooth. The prawn dumplings first appeared in Guangzhou outskirts near the creek bazaar Deli. This dish is said to be the one that the skill of a dim sum chef is judged on. Traditionally, ha gow should have at least seven and preferably ten or more pleats imprinted on its wrapper. The skin must be thin and translucent, yet be sturdy enough not to break when picked up with chopsticks. It must not stick to the paper, container or the other ha gow in the basket. The shrimp must be cooked well, but not overcooked. The amount of meat should be generous, yet not so much that it cannot be eaten in one bite.

Xiaolongbao is a type of steamed bun (baozi) from the Jiangnan region of China, especially associated with Shanghai and Wuxi. It is traditionally prepared in xiaolong, small bamboo steaming baskets, which give them their name. The number of folds of this delicate wrapper are a testament to the skill of the kitchen, Equally important is the delicate umame soup bomb inside that needs to be gently sucked out before eating the entire thing. 

Tofu Skin Roll or Fupi Gyun (fried version) for the vegetarians is filled with mushrooms

Scallion Pancake cōngyóubǐng, is a Chinese savory, unleavened flatbread folded with oil and minced scallions (green onions). There is a story in China that pizza is an evolution of the scallion pancake, brought back to Italy by Marco Polo. A humorous newspaper article, that also includes Marco Polo inventing cheese fondue when he is lost in the Alps and wants to eat Chinese hotpot

Turnip cake or Lo Baak Gou is dim sum dish made of shredded radish (typically Chinese radish or daikon) and plain rice flour. The less commonly used daikon cake is a more accurate name, in that Western-style turnips are not used in the dish; It is usually cut into square-shaped slices and sometimes pan-fried before serving.

humai or siu mai or shaomai, also called pork dumplings (although this one is Pork and Shrimp), a dimsum staple. 

An unusual form of rice noodle roll (also translated as steamed rice roll) is a Cantonese dish from southern China including Hong Kong, commonly served either as dim sum. It is a thin roll made from a wide strip of shahe fen (rice noodles), filled with shrimp, pork, beef, vegetables, or other ingredients. Seasoned soy sauce -- sometimes with siu mei drippings -- is poured over the dish upon serving. 

Steamed pork ribs are made by steaming pork rib tips with whole black beans and oil .

XO chili sauce with dried shrimp and scallops and obviously plenty of chili