Guangzhou

It's been hard work trying to finish off a couple of posts I've got on the go (OK - I ended up watching both Everton v Liverpool and Arsenal v Chelsea yesterday). Hopefully the blog-block is temporary and I'll get my mojo back soon. In the meantime here's one I made earlier - I've always wanted to use that line!.

My standby post takes me back to a trip to Guangzhou earlier this year. This dirty old town - better known as Canton - is home to one of the great cuisines of the world. Treats like dim sum and bbq roast meats are rightly famous but Cantonese cuisine comes into its own with its way with seafood. The Cantonese love their seafood fresh and it doesn't get fresher than the fish market.

These photos remind me of one of the best meals I've had this year as next to the market is the Jingang Haixin Jiujia which means 'Golden Harbour Seafood Restaurant' in English. It's a BYO restaurant but you're expected to bring the catch of the day rather than Chardonnay!

I wasn't blogging then and for some reason I was more interested in taking photos of the market rather than the fish. But I do remember the Golden Harbour converting our carrier bags of live seafood into a veritable feast of steamed crabs, chilli salt prawns, eel hotpot, steamed fish and braised crocodile amongst other delights.

Guangzhou is a great foodie city but not even its proudest citizens would big it up as a tourist destination. You also really need to be able to read Chinese as there are few bilingual menus here (I was in the capable hands of relatives). But if you're holidaying in Hong Kong, it's worth popping over to Guangzhou for a day or two – there are direct train services that take less than 2 hours.

The food is arguably better than Hong Kong (and cheaper) and once there, you could do worse than kick off with a dim sum brunch at the Garden Hotel; snack on wonton noodles whilst walking through the old city streets before rounding off the day with a seafood banquet.

Fuzhou Fishball Soup @ Fuzhou Restaurant (Chinese), London

I love fishballs but unfortunately most of the ones you get in Blighty aren't that good. Perhaps I'm spoiled as I grew up on home-made fishballs that my mum and dad made from scratch - miles better than the bought-in manufactured efforts most Chinese eateries use.

Other than my parents' efforts, some of the best fishballs I've ever sampled were Fuzhou fishballs (Fuzhou yuwan). Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian province in Southeast China and their fishballs are rather special – bigger than normal with a juicy ground pork filling.

I've never been to Fujian but Fuzhou fishballs are widely available in parts of the world where the Fujianese settled. I first tried them in Singapore - look for the stall in the Maxwell Rd Food Centre - and I've also eaten them in Taipei.

In the West, they're quite common in New York where there is a 'Little Fuzhou' within Manhattan's Chinatown. However, I've never thought to order them in London until when I walked past the Fuzhou Restaurant on Lisle St the other day.

Now I must have walked past this place countless times but never thought to check it out. Truth be told, it doesn't look too alluring from the outside and its English language menu of anglicised Chinese dishes doesn't really appeal.

They have a Chinese language menu listing Fuzhou specialties but we all know the trouble I have with these. Fortunately I know the characters for fishball soup and yay it was on the menu. In my ropey Mandarin, I checked with the waiter whether these were the Fuzhou variant and double-yay they were.

The portion was generous with seven large fishballs in a clear broth for a mere £5 and they were definitely own-made but there was something not quite right about this dish. The pounded fish wasn't as springy as I'd like and the ground pork filling could have been a bit juicier.

I also didn't like the broth. I'm not sure what it should really taste like but I found the weird vinegary flavour too overpowering. Overall, the fishballs were OK but like many a dish you try on your travels, it never tastes quite the same at home.

Verdict: I feel crap at having a bit of a pop at Fuzhou Restaurant - the fishballs might not entirely be to my taste but this is a place that serves up giant portions of a regional delicacy not widely available in London for a fiver.

Other Stuff: Despite the number of Fujianese that toil away in Chinese kitchens across Britain, there are few places where you can sample their native cuisine. The only other place I've spotted is New Fuzhou on Gerrard St but alas they also hide their specials on the Chinese menu.

Chinese Menus

The photo above is of the 'Chinese menu' sitting proudly outside new Chinatown opening, Wanchai Corner. I can tell you it serves 'Hong Kong specialities' and amongst the delights on the menu are stir-fried pak choi and XO mixed seafood.

That's about all I can tell you as I can't read Chinese properly. I can spot a few characters but to all intents and purpose, I am illiterate. This doesn't stop waiters handing me the 'Chinese menu' as I look like I should be able to read Chinese and when I speak Cantonese, I sound like I ought to.

Truth be told, I used to be embarrassed when I was handed the 'Chinese menu' and would attempt to bluff my way out of it by ordering dishes from memory or asking the waiters for advice in a nervous way that betrayed my illiteracy. Nowadays I don't really care, I realise that there are many people in my position and if anything it's the restaurant with the problem not me.

One of my earlier posts was an attack on professional food critics for showing a lack of understanding of Chinese food. Thinking more about this, Chinese restaurateurs are also responsible for this state of affairs. Even the most authentic of eateries often steer their western punters to formulaic set menus with the intention of turning their tables around as quickly as possible.

They might justify this practice by saying that the locals don't appreciate the finer arts of Chinese cuisine. This may have been the case sometime in the last century and whilst many Brits remain unadventurous, it frustrates me that this practice still continues.

So what to do if you want to be more adventurous ? It's not practical to ask for the entire Chinese menu to be translated but you could ask for a recommendation based on your likes and dislikes. A decent restaurant should oblige but if they don't, go somewhere else, they don't deserve your custom.

There is some good news as an increasing number of authentic Chinese restaurants offer all diners the same bilingual menu. These include my regular haunts of Chilli Cool, Phoenix Palace, and Hung's and whilst I can't guarantee that the food will be better, it's a good sign that they could be arsed to translate their specials and not patronise their non-Chinese reading clientele.

The last word though goes to someone who has forgotten more about Chinese food than I’ll ever know, my Dad. He seldom looks at the Chinese menu; instead he'll interrogate the staff about the freshness of their produce before reeling off a list of dishes with advice on how he wants it served. The best thing is that I’m pretty sure some of the dishes he requests aren't on the menu !

A Quick Bun

Here's a quick post on a great lunch deal. Mien Tay is a Vietnamese restaurant with two branches, the original in Shoreditch and a newly opened one in Battersea. Living south of the river, I went to the latter following positive reviews by other bloggers.

Their set lunch menu consists of a range of one-dish rice or noodle based meals. None cost more than £5 with free extras of prawn crackers, a bowl of egg & vegetable soup and half an orange. I went for the rice vermicelli with spring roll & chargrilled pork (bun cha gio & thit nuong).

This dish is very simple with bun or rice vermicelli served at room temperature topped with spring rolls, chargrilled pork, salad and herbs accompanied with nuoc cham - a sauce consisting mainly of fish sauce and lime juice. You simply add the sauce into the bun and stir.

Mien Tay's version was pretty spot on. The salad and herbs were fresh, the spring rolls weren't too oily and the pork was very flavoursome. It's not quite as good as Song Que's version as the pork isn't as juicy but I'm nitpicking.

The lunch deal is amazing value and I was surprised that there were only 3 people (including me) eating here on this particular Saturday lunchtime. I'll be sure to return to Mien Tay with friends for a proper meal in the near future. For more comprehensive reviews - click on the Urbanspoon link.

Chinese Bakery

I was first introduced to the delights of Chinese bakery sometime in the last century when my mum would occasionally buy treats from Ho's Bakery in Manchester. By Chinese bakery, I guess I mean the cakes, pastries and buns that were developed by the Cantonese through exposure to western influences in Hong Kong and Macau.

There are couple of places in Chinatown that I go to for Chinese bakery; the first is Wonderful Patisserie on Gerrard Street. The photo below shows a couple of my faves pineapple bun (bolo bao) on the left and baked bbq pork bun (cha siu chaan bao) on the right.

The pineapple bun contains no pineapple and is so called because it has a crispy almost biscuit-like topping that looks like a pineapple. The soft bread in both these buns have a slightly sweet taste which is very moreish.

The baked bbq pork bun should not be confused with the steamed cha siu bao that is served as dim sum although as you can see below the filling is very similar. I could have sworn there was more filling when I was little !

Other faves include banana cake (hong ziu gou) pictured left and wife's cake (lao pao beng) on the right. The banana cake is made of glutinous rice flour, banana and the red bit is red bean paste – it's very fragrant although it is an acquired taste.

The wife's cake is a flaky pastry traditionally with a winter melon and almond paste filling – sounds weird but I love it. There are some faddy versions with red bean paste or lotus seed paste but I'm firmly of the view that you shouldn't mess around with the original.

I sometimes visit the Golden Gate Cake Shop on Macclesfield Road (off Gerrard St) where I sampled their cocktail bun (gai mei bao) and coconut roll. Both consist of the slightly sweet tasting soft bread featured in the bbq pork bun and pineapple bun.

The coconut roll (pictured right) is a new one on me and had a shredded coconut whirl - I was largely indifferent to this roll. The gai mei bao (pictured left) is one of my all-time faves with its dense sweet coconutty filling – the 1st photo below is Golden Gate's version but I prefer Wonderful’s version in the photo below that.

On a recent visit to Wonderful, I sampled a couple of new pastries - sesame red paste pastry (left) and green tea pastry (right). I guess I'm a bit old school and can't say I'd buy either of these pastries again although the green tea pastry was OK.

Of the two places I prefer Wonderful Patisserie as the baking is of a higher quality and the staff are more helpful. Now when writing this post, I thought it was an original idea but I should've known better. After drafting this post, I see that Bellaphon (come back soon old boy!) had already written about Chinese bakery. You can check out his thoughts here - he went to different places and tried some different stuff.

Lastly, I'd love to hear from you about your favourite Chinese cakes, pastries or buns and any tips on where to buy them from. And yes I know I've omitted egg tarts (dan taat) - it's not that I don't like them but these are best served warm as dim sum.