Let's talk about food today

It's friday, let's talk about food today, after disappeared for few weeks :p

2 meals I'd taken:

Dinner at a small local shop, it can fit only 6 table, and each table can serve 4 people only. We were lucky to arrive earlier, after 5 min we placed the order, there were people queuing for seats.



1) Top left: Beef Gui Lin Vermicelli牛腩 桂林米粉。
2） Bottom left: Fish ball Vermicelli 鱼丸桂林米粉.
The soup base are the same for both vermicelli, just different ingredient. I like the vermicelli, it's smooth, soft but chewy.
Look at the right column, the first two are 2 different type of chili sauce. The first one looks similar to chicken rice chili sauce, the second one looks like sambal. Surprisingly, those are very very hot and spicy. (I know it is not correct to use 'very' twice in a row, but sometimes Malaysia chinese use this, yes the malaysian style broken english :p ) Just dip very little with the chopstick and you can feel the spicyness. Well, add a little to the soup and stir it, the soup base taste even better :D

The last pic is herbal gel 龟苓膏. Disappointedly the 'fruit' on top is from can, can fruit mix with fruit jam...

On the other day, the lunch we took at 出云:




Northeast quadrant: Sashimi bento set
Northwest quadrant: Clam in sake soup, we can merely tasted the sake.
Southwest quadrant: Beef bento set. The beef are grilled with one type of sour sauce. I am female and I also felt it is quite sour, guy might not like this so much. The beef is tender though :D
Southeast quarant: Roasted beef with vegetable hot pot bento, sukiyaki soup base.

Feel hungry? ;p

Food is not all

Time flies. It has been a month staying here in Beijing.

Let's talk no food today, but culture. One said it may take very short time to develop China because China is rich, but it will take at least double the time to develop the culture. I truly agree with that after 'localized' for a month here.

The resident here still spitting. I agree it might be less compared to few years ago, but the phlegm is still easily noticeable at pedestrian walkway very frequently.

The resident still talk so loud. If two are chatting at one corner of the restaurant, the rest of the customers can hear their conversation clearly (provided if the rest of the customers do not talk loudly). In office, I can hear someone's phone conversation clearly even though he is at least 5 or 6 cubicles apart.

People here smokes everywhere, regardless if there is obvious signboard of No Smoking. Probably in high class restaurant/hotel then they will follow.

If someone is taking photo in front, you would probably take another route or wait till he finish, so that you will not appear as a background item in their picture :p But 99% of people here will just ignore you. And sometimes even stand in front of your camera, I do not know if they did it on purpose or not, but sigh... Another obvious sign is after you are done taking picture at an interesting spot, one will usually leave asap to let other people take the chance. But here, they will just continue to stand there, talk to their friend loudly but not related to the photo, or just do nothing... while ignoring other photographers in the queue.

From this trip, I learn that aggressive drivers are everywhere :D If the company get me a rented car, I would rather walk or take other transportation. There were few incidence that we almost got into accident. To the driver, maybe it is normal, so they can react very quickly and save us from the accident. Drivers here like to horn, flash light, scold other driver/pedestrian loudly. One said, looking at a person driving attitude we can know his character, e.g. patient, polite, give way and etc. So I guess I learn a bit of the grass root character from the taxi drivers :) Of course, there are some good drivers too :) Another thumb up is most of the driver here follow the traffic light very strictly. Whenever they see a yellow light, they prepared to stop, unlike Penang where some drivers were actually pressing the oil pedal :p

Of course there are some good culture. They enjoy life, go to park and do exercise, dislike some of the malaysian rather stay at home and watch TV (if you are Malaysian and always do that, please go for more exercise :p )

That's all for now ;) What I'd just mentioned could be inaccurate, no offense. I am just sharing my thoughts :)

2009-06-04 Headache...

Felt a bit headache today, suspecting could be too much MSG from outside food for 3 weeks. As sometimes after meal felt very thirsty. Just have to drink more water, and detox after return to Penang.

Walked to nearby restaurant Matsuko Japanese restaurant 松子 for dinner, as not feeling to travel far because of the headache. But surprisingly the food is nice. Although it is Japanese food. I was really surprised there were so many Japanese restaurant here. Korean BBQ restaurant seems to be common too, at least more common than Singapore/Malaysia/Indonesia restaurant :)



Let's start from the handroll, clockwise:
1) Soft shell crab handroll - Nice and with lot's of roe, my favorites. The seaweed is surprisingly very crunchy ;)
2) Tempura - Normal, flour is too thick.
3) California roll - Nice. The crabstick is just nice, like those I have had in Genji Sushi of Hong Kong. The taste is fresh with cucumber and avocado. Although it is wrapped by roe, but when we eat, the rice and roe stick really well. Thumb up for the sushi si fu :D
4) Tropical sushi fruit sushi - Guess what is inside. It is banana, mango, kiwi and cheery :) Special taste.
5) Free ice cream - Soft and not too creamy.
6) Beef and mushroom roll - Good taste.

We were really surprised that the Japanese food here in Beijing is quite good, much better than that in Penang. Their menu has lot more choices, different kind of sushi filling :) Don't laugh at me of praising Japanese food at China but you will know after you try :)

2006-06-03

Weather is getting hotter. From news, there is a dessert heat wave, we can feel it on a day where the air is so hot, even though we stand at the building lobby under the roof. This will be the hottest summer since 2005. Besides that, China gov blocked hotmail, flickr, and few more server besides youtube and blogspot.

I need to go to the online study and online free book reading soon, here is the dinner at Dong Po Restaurant 东坡酒家 :)

From left to right, top to bottom:

1) Fried potato and pork rib - special quite nice
2) Spinach with prawn salad - Chinese style salad, it's a kind of cold dish, with a little of wasabi :D yes wasabi, so it taste a bit different :D
3) Steam pork rib with yam - A bit different from the one we have in Malaysia, they use pork rib, and no 5 spice powder taste, but salty, taste still acceptable.



1) Brown sugar jelly 红糖冰粉 - Si Chuan special dessert, very nice :)
2) Gui lin gao 龟苓膏 - Home made, a bit bitter, taste good.
3) Home made rice wine with tang yuan and egg米酒汤丸及鸡蛋 - Beijing style dessert.
4) White mushroom soup - Not too sweet.
5) Pork bun 叉烧包 - I still prefer Malaysia bun better :D
6) Yam roll 香芋粉卷 - Quite nice, but will not taste so good if it is not warm.

Another thing is every table is equipped with device below, uses radio frequency:


When we pressed the button, a receiver with a very obvious antenna near cashier will get the radio signal (I forgot to take picture of that receiver) and display the table number, with three ding-dong door bell sound :) SH saw this in San Francisco Steak House of KL. Since we know so many RF engineer around, probably we can invent one too? :p

2009-06-02 How heavy is a laptop?

Look at my T-shirt picture below, there is an area where obviously the T-shirt fabric is very thin, and guess what caused it.



One, two, three, here is the answer: It's my current HP Compaq 8510p laptop!

I need to walk a lot with laptop on my back since I reached Beijing. I brought very few shirts and I wear this shirt probably 2 times a week. After 3 weeks, the area with laptop strap become so thin! If I continue to wear it as it used to be, probably it will become a unique spaghetti shirt with sleeve is still on and hole is at the back :D

If you ever hear me complaining that my shoulder is very tired sometimes, now you understand why :)

SN, if you are reading this and if you can recognize it, this is the Banana Republic T-shirt that you gave me from your US trip about 2.5 years ago! I like it but I can't help it turned into this spaghetti-like shirt today *sob sob*

2009-05-31 My favorites

Today is Sunday and yet a working day. This is because Thu was Dumpling festival and the company I worked for declared holiday from Thu - Sat, thus have to change Friday working day to Sunday.

Due to some reason, after dinner, we went to Wang Fu Jing for dinner. I won't missed this opportunity to visit WangFuJing bookstore. I'd been to this bookstore during my last trip and I like it. It can be reach by public transport easily, huge and with lots of books. I can spend my day here :D

For the 40 min I have, I manage to locate few of the books that I am looking for, and bought 3 books below:



The books are in Oxford dictionary size and the thickness. 3 of them weight 3.8kg in total :) (I really need to plan well so my luggage will not be overweight :) ) and RMB 132.60 in total.

Here are the collections of the book:
The Bronte Sisters
- Jane Eyre
- Wuthering Heights
- Agnes Grey

Charles Dickens
- Oliver Twist
- Hard Times
- A Tale of Two Cities
- Great Expectations

Jane Austen:
- Pride and Prejudice
- Sense and sensibility
- Emma
- Mansfield Park
- Northanger Abbey
- Persuasion

Before I forgot, here is the dinner at Yu Xiang 渝香

From top right, counter clockwise:
1) Stir fried long bean - As that in Malaysia.
2) Steam pork with pumpkin - Similar to 扣肉 style.
3) Tofu in salted egg sauce
4) Pumpkin dessert