Mozzarella Carrozza with Bacon & Tomato

A foggy winter Saturday morning calls for heart warming comfort food. Recently I lost control over the desire of cheese purchase creating a reservoir of cheese in the fridge. What's better than to put the two together to create a heart warming cheesy easy lunch? Hence the mozzarella carrozza with bacon and tomato.

Ingredients:-
4 slices white bread
4 slices of pre-cut mozzarella cheese or fist-sized ball mozzarella, cut into approximately ¼-inch (0.6cm) slices, then strips (season with a pinch of salt & pepper)
4 strips of bacon slices
1 medium tomato120ml (½ cup) milk
2 heaping tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 egg
salt and freshly ground black pepper
oil for frying (I used what's been 'released' from the bacon)


1. Pan fried bacon until golden brown and crispy. Retain oil for later use. 
2. Cut tomato into thin slices, set aside.
3. Make sandwiches out of the bread and mozzarella, I layered it by 'bread-mozzarella-tomato-bacon-mozzarella-bread' sequence.
4. Leave a little margin around the edges unfilled with cheese, and press the edges together with fingers to help seal.
5. Pour the milk into a shallow plate, the flour into another, and beat the egg with salt and pepper in another.
6. Warm the bacon fat in the frying pan over medium heat. Dunk the sandwiches briefly, 1 by 1, in the milk, then dredge in the flour, then dip in the beaten egg. 
7. Fry in hot oil on each side until crisp and golden and remove to serving plate. Cut in half and serve.

Macau

While in Hong Kong, why not take the liberty to cross the sea to the nearby Macau, a city that's so close to Hong Kong yet so different from the British colonial city and its mother land - China. A side note if you shall decide to do that: entry form to Hong Kong needs to be returned at the harbour upon departing to Macau, and a new form needs to be signed to enter Hong Kong again. For an hour boat trip, estimate about 30minutes of queueing time if you're unlucky.

As an ex-Portuguese colonial, Macau's street names retained its Portuguese names and manage to keep the charm of Portuguese influenced in some buildings; culture and food are heavily Portuguese influenced, which in a more subtle way,  contrast its metropolitan cousin - Hong Kong. Contrasting to Hong Kong's octopus like metro line, Macau is a small city that relies entirely on buses as public transport, but no metro.

Lisbao and some other 'historical' buildings in Macau

Moon boots in Macau, is it really necessary?

A man on a bench in a wonderfully tiled small park

A walk down Largo de Senada, it's not hard to find that even Macau has changed its paced towards a commercialized city, chain shops everywhere. We dined at a noodle shop that is originated from Mace (which then turned famous in Hong Kong as well) but you can get the same quality even in HK airport, thanks to globalization. Not that it's not good, but nothing is so uniquely Macau any more.

I had most fun walking in a maze like small streets behind the main high street (wanted to avoid the many souvenir shops that are selling pork jerky or Portuguese tart or the many other cookies / souvenirs). A few turns and often an area of tranquillity with buildings of different architecture is found. For example, the late Lou Lim Ioc, a prominent rich merchant in Macau's residence. Beautifully carved wood panels of the house with 2 different carving patterns on both sides shows the highly skilled wood craft in the older days and of course, a way to declare the rich and powerful's status.

If there's one thing that cannot be missed in Macau, it must be it's iconic Sao Paulo ruin (Ruins of St. Paul's). Facing flocks of tourists wanting a portrait with this magnificent façade as back drop, I resort to the side which actually offers a nice view :). Musuem of Macau is right next to the ruin, on top of a hill though, together with Fort de Monte. If you don't have good legs, there's elevator service (typically for older people and disabled) :p

Wanted to flee away from the heat (even in end November, it is still very hot in Macau) and the noisy tourists (I'm also a tourist, but less noisy than a flock :p), we then marched on to Lou Lim Ioc Garden. On our way, I stopped for a very refreshing drink - jasmine tea with apple infused flavour, still miss it; and also provided direction to another tourist. I wonder why he needs direction because there's practically a city map at every junction of the city, not that I'm not glad to help though :)

Unlike other gardens in Macau, Lou Lim Ioc Garden features pavilions, terraces, lakes, zig zag bridges, rocks and cascades, reminiscent of the classic ShuZhou garden. I saw the garden first time in one of the Amazing Race episode and remembered it since :) All elements in this garden are skilfully arranged and it is perfect for a relax or tranquillity retreat. However, this government owned garden seems a bit under maintained, nevertheless, it's a pleasant afternoon walk for sure. 

Casino business is the core of economy in Macau. Lisbao being the first and longest established casino plus all the other smaller casinos was supporting the gambling life of hundreds of thousands of gambler annually; recently the big boys from Vegas join in the fun and build the world's largest casino - The Venetian in Macau; sorry cowboys :p

I'm absolutely amazed that they manage to mock up scenes from Venice and built 3 canals on the second floor of the building. If the old town city centre of Macau boasts culture, this very huge establishment screams luxury. Venetian Macau also contains some of the jaw dropping luxury shops-- Frank Muller watch, anyone? only around the range of Millions :)

Most of the gambling tools are computerized now. I was dying to try my hands on the slot machine but it's so sophisticated that a hardware engineer plus a software engineer couldn't figure out. Nevertheless, it doesn't stop me from winning 60HKD (oh...Macau Pataca is not accepted in casinos in Macau, ironically), don't ask me how, I just press some buttons.

If you didn't manage to find Margaret's Portuguese tart near Largo de Senada, her ex-husband's establishment opens up a branch in the Venetian as well. Not as good as a pipping hot tart from the oven but still much better than those on the streets leading to St. Pauls ruins :)

Well, that concludes my one day Macau trip. To be honest, if I were to go to HK again, I won't take the trouble to go through custom just to get to Macau, there's too much excitement in HK!!

HK Special - Private Kitchen 'Da Ping Huo'

Private kitchen dining is one of Hong Kong's best kept secret for years until the rave review and excessive promotion from movies and bloggers unconcealed the covert dining secret. Private kitchens that were only known among old customers are now being published as a list on websites and I chose the fiery Szechuan private dining which is also on Michelin Bob Gourmet list  - Da Ping Huo (大平伙), which literally means everyone, regardless status, sit and dine together. 

Owner Wang Hai (an artist / painter) and wife Wong Siu King (chef / Chinese opera singer) moved to Hong Kong in 1980s and every Saturday night, they invited friends over for traditional Szechuan home cooking. Eventually more & more guests were coming that they simply have to add tables and extend the 'serving hours'. Now, a spacious basement for approximately 30 people is open for dinner, two sessions each night (6.30pm & 9pm), fixed 12 course menu and only accept cash payment (actually payment has to be made up front but they made exception for tourists like me), drinks at extra costs.

Even though I know exactly which street to go to, it still took some minutes to find the 'hole in a wall' entrance. The door was not open 10minutes before the serving time (of course, they need time to clean off the previous session) which makes it a bit difficult to spot the house number ;)

While we still have some minutes before the dinner is ready, the kind waiter took a couple of pictures of the two far travelling hungry tourists. Our 9pm session was out-ratio by foreigners (Expats in Hong Kong), 6 locals and 15 foreigners (me included, of course). We were sharing table with an expat and his visiting girlfriend from US, lovely couple. Oh, and we were definitely the most 'under-dress' people in the whole restaurant :p

Before serving, Mr.Wang explained to us that the dishes will be served with spicy & non-spicy Szechuan food alternately to revive the taste bud if the spiciness is a bit over the top. And if the fiery hot dishes are not spicy enough for our taste, they can always 'level up' the spiciness :) Soon we were serve with 2 appetizers:- chilled julienne pickled cucumber 糖醋香瓜 and spicy Szechuan salad 凉拌三丝.

chilled julienne pickled cucumber 糖醋香瓜

 spicy Szechuan salad 凉拌三丝

Just when we thought we can well handle the spiciness, came spicy bean sheets with soy nuts and spring onion 酸辣粉皮. The translucent bean sheet (sort of glass noodle texture, more chewy) is slightly chilled, soaked up the delicious sauce, very spicy but the cold noodle brings out the contrast of the spiciness topped with the crunchiness of the nuts and a bit of the 'stinginess' of spring onion, definitely one of my favourite dish.

spicy bean sheets with soy nuts and spring onion 酸辣粉皮

After washing the spicy/non-spicy starters down with some sweet sugar cane juice, up next is the famous 'Mouth Watering Chicken 口水雞' - braised chicken in Szechuan spices and chilli oil topped with sesame seed and peanut. The chicken is served traditionally cold with skin on and bone in. Texture of the chicken is really smooth and the sauce is wonderfully seasoned, well balanced spiced and really mouth-watering :) Mr.T's 'chopstick' skill that night is not perfect when he dropped a chicken piece and splashed my t-shirt with chilli sauces!!!

braised chicken in Szechuan spices and chilli oil 口水鸡

To sooth our gradually numbing tongue, we were then served with a non-spicy mushroom white cabbage and minced chicken soup 雞豆花. I find the taste a bit too subtle compare to the strong spicy dishes we had before, which is intentional but not one of my favourite.

mushroom white cabbage and minced chicken soup 雞豆花

Keeping up with the alternating balance in dishes, stewed beef brisket in spicy gravy 水煮牛肉 was served. We were warned by the owner that this dish is super spicy and that he has extra rice and water standby for top-up if we find the dish too spicy. I actually think the bean sheet & the smooth chicken were much spicier than this in a different way (unless one bites into one of those chilli pepper in the beef dish, then it's a different story :p). The beef is braised to perfect tenderness and the gravy was irresistibly delicious than I was drinking it straight from the bowl. The owner was really impressed with the spiciness tolerance, but hey, I'm a Malaysian, we can eat spicy food :D

stewed beef brisket in spicy gravy 水煮牛肉

While I'm busy enjoying the beef, Mr.Wang served us the Szechuan spices marinated prawn 川味泡椒蝦. I don't find it memorably in any way especially when served together with the beef brisket. And the prawn shells are tricky when we're only given chopstick. I can't even be sure if it's supposed to be spicy or not, too bad.

 Szechuan spices marinated prawn 川味泡椒蝦

Steam sticky rice with pork rib and pumpkin 粉蒸南瓜排骨 is up next, giving us some rest from the spicy dishes. The pumpkin was a really nice touch but I found some small bone pieces in the sticky rice, not a very pleasant experience when it nearly broke my tooth and the taste was just so-so.

After a sort break for the tongue, classic Szechuan dish, tofu in spicy chilli sauce - Mapo tofu 麻婆豆腐 was served. At this point, I change my comment about the bean sheet or chicken being the spiciest because the tofu just blow my tongue away. It is so out of the world spicy and when you thought your tongue is too numbed to taste anything, the wonderful flavours of the sauce well soaked into tofu creeps back to your mouth. Eating this dish is like taking drug. Suicidally spicy and yet I can't stop eating it. The minute I put down my chopstick, my mind is savouring the taste, commanding my hand to pick up the next tofu again...

Mapo tofu 麻婆豆腐

Mr.Wang then served us a soothing vegetable soup 蔬菜汤 (I stopped him from clearing the tofu away) and immediately after bringing my tongue back to life, I resume eating the remaining tofu even though my stomach is screaming to explode. The soup was yet another not so memorably taste ones but it comes at the right time to temper the palate :)

vegetable soup 蔬菜汤

Just when I thought we're going for dessert (I lost count of the dishes at some point), two home made dumpling in spicy sauce 成都水饺 was served in a small bowl. The dumplings had thicker skins than Shanghai's dumplings, hence preserving the subtle taste of seasoned minced pork inside while contrasting the spicy dressing outside. I never like thick skin dumpling, but I like this.

dumpling in spicy sauce 成都水饺

Dessert is a Da Ping Huo special - varied textures of sweetened beancurd with white fingus, atapchi (palm seed), water chestnut and Chinese pear 马蹄雪耳香梨豆花, slightly on the sweet side but oh so refreshing. It might not fit everyone's taste for its slightly slimy texture but I could easily eat a few more bowls if I'm not already too full to even breath. While working through the wonderful dessert, the couple (owner, of course) appears at the table and invites guests to stick around for one final hospitality.

Da Ping Huo special dessert

Being a former Chinese opera singer, our chef of the night presented us a high pitch Szechuan classical opera song. I was surprise to hear so much power and volume from a small size lady like our lady chef here, the voice echoes the basement for quite sometime. Not exactly my cup of tea but I highly appreciate the sincerity and effort.

Dining at a private kitchen is a highly recommended must try experience. Not knowing the menu up front might not pleased some with special dietary but definitely brings out the element of surprise and anticipation, and in some way, 'spiced-up' the dinner. The serving portion in Da Ping Huo is generous, so if you're going there, don't eat anything up to 4 hours before and enjoy ;)

Da Ping Huo (map)
L/G 49 Hollywood Rd.
Central, Hong Kong
+852 2559 1317

Hong Kong - 3

A trip to Hong Kong will not be complete without a dim sum treat. On the third day of this trip, we took the tram (I've developed a serious fond for the tram by now) from our hotel to Central again for a quest to search for the authentic dim sum restaurant - Luk Yu Restaurant.

Hong Kong dim sum place is known for its packed crowd and patrons needs to posses skill to spot potentially leaving customers to secure a seat and to put on the invisible wall to shield you & your company from the rest of the strangers who are sharing the same table while in the mean time trying your best grabbing skill to grab one or two of the freshly make dim sum from kitchen yourself.

I find the busy, loud and fast moving environment in Hong Kong a bit intimidating and are really not keen on having a pushy dim sum experience, hence chosen Luk Yu Tea House, known as one of the best tea house in Hong Kong. It's featured in quite a lot Hong Kong movies and a business man was shot to death at point-blank range in 2002 by a hired gunman while having breakfast in Luk Yu!!!

The dim sum comes at very slow pace, basically you have to stick your neck out to see one of the serving ladies with traditional tray walking down the stairs to check on what's freshly made from the kitchen. They'll usually yell out the dish name but if Cantonese is not your strong field, then place order with the waiter serving tea. He'll deliver your order to table when it's available.

We had 5 different dim sum: deep fried, braised, steam and the bun. I'm so disappointed to find such famed tea house to produce dim sum at a quality that's worse than a lot of Penang's local dim sum (or the ones in Copenhagen); and they cost at least 30% more expensive than the one-star Michelin dim sum restaurant - Tim Hou Wan. The restaurant environment is nice but I'd definitely advice against going there for a dim sum experience unless you're only interested in the architecture and willing settle the rest for it.

Finishing dim sum, we took a long ride to visit the Big Buddha on Lantau island. Super long ticket queue (we didn't make reservation up front, mistake, mistake) and a 25 minutes cable car ride brings us to the foot of the Buddha where an artificial Chinese village is built to cater for tourists' eating, drinking & shopping demand. 

Massive queue

Forget if you should look left or right? not a problem in HK.

The Buddha statue is magnificent but that's about it. Not that the tourist village is not nice, in fact, there're some personnels scattered around the village helping tourist with info or photo taking, which I find very nice. Nevertheless, I'd rather have the feeling of venturing into a world of tranquillity with a big Buddha and a quiet temple than walking into a hustle bustle tourist oriented souvenir town.

On our way down from the hill top, we were seated in a cable car with 4 other Hong Kong women who were talking about their travelling trips to various places in China. 25minutes is a long time and we soon become interesting subject when they ran out of topic...I ended up engaging in a conversation with them, nice aunties, just a bit too chatty. We almost ran off the cable car when it finally reach the terminal :s

Noticed a lot of shoppers in Hong Kong who are spending big money are from mainland China. Expensive watch, designer cloths, famous brands / outlets, where do all the money come from? ;) Bought some shirts, went back to hotel for a rest and awaits the night where we will experience for the first time, Hong Kong's unique private kitchen dining. Next blog!

Yung Kee Restaurant 香港鏞記酒家

Months before I started my Hong Kong trip, I've been browsing Open Rice for restaurant reviews and checking out the Hong Kong Michelin guide. A restaurant stood out amongst others for its consistency in high quality roast goose and also bears a Michelin star - Yung Kee Restaurant 香港镛记酒家.

Yung Kee restaurant

Yung Kee's roast / braised poultry on display shelf

This 4-storey restaurant which is located in the busy central area, even on weekday, can only cater for the two of us after 9pm for dinner. We were directed to the third floor. According to the local reviews, the higher the floor, the better the service, not sure how true that is. The golden shimmering decorations are not really my cup of tea but that's not why I'm in Yung Kee :)

Tea for two at HKD22 per person, a bit pricy for Hong Kong, but then again, for a Michelin, that's probably about right. It certainly cost much more in Copenhagen than in YungKee, perhaps I should be thankful (or not) that Copenhagen's high living standard trains me to be numb with high price ;)

Everyone, I mean EVERYONE, who reviewed the restaurant recommended the runny yolk century egg 皮蛋酸姜, I just have to try it. A single portion is only half an egg, but cost HKD8.50. The egg is good but the real magic is the combination with the pickle ginger. Never thought a century egg can bring so much sensation to taste bud, definitely worth eating even if it's twice the price.

Filled restaurant at 9.30pm on a weekday

I slowly studied the menu (the waiter had to come back for the third time to get my order), picked the 3 most desired dish out of the hundreds that I'd like to try:- signature roast goose (regular portion) 金牌燒鵝 , pak choy with braised enoki mushroom & deep fried eel with brown sauce 燒汁爆鱔球.

Roast goose, HKD140 for normal portion

Roast goose from another angle

To be honest, I think 3 dishes is a bit too much for the two of us, but I just can't stop eating. The roast goose is extremely tender, juicy and so flavourful that one bite will trigger the desire for more. The goose is a bit on the fat side but that's what make it taste so good, imagine the goose roasting in its on fat, yumm...

Bak choy with braised enoki mushroom, HKD88

Deep fried eel with brown sauce, HKD128

The vegetable dish was served next; mild yet flavourful and compliments the roast goose very well. As we thought this Cantonese culinary experience can't go any further, an absolutely unforgettable deep fried eel with brown sauce was served. Eel is definitely fresh, even when deep fried, the rich creamy texture didn't degrade. Glazed with special brown sauce (definitely with some sugar in it), served on a bed of spring onion, onion and chilli shreds, I can eat this dish everyday!

The only downside with this restaurant is their air-conditioning; there's certainly no worry about getting too warm in there and it's so strong that food gets cold at a faster rate than usual. Lucky for them, the food taste good even when they're no longer warm. As we dig our heads through the wonderful dishes, we found gem under the roast goose - a bed of braised peanut and the juice that the peanuts soaked in made them taste so wonderful.

smug look of Mr.T

I missed my third chopstick pick of peanut. Mr.T laughed at me and demonstrated his chopstick talent in picking up the peanuts successfully five times consecutively. For the next few hours, he's been soaked in the happiness of beating me in chopstick skill and displaying this smug look :s