The Golden Noodle Awards 2011-12

Eat Noodles Love Noodles is three today, and there's no better way to celebrate than with The Golden Noodle Awards. The awards are a bit slimmed down this year, but to keep things interesting I've introduced a couple of new awards.

The Golden Noodle
Winner: Phở sốt vang by Phở Thinh, Hanoi
In common with last year's contenders, all of my favourite noodle dishes over the past year are from overseas, specifically China and Vietnam. And it's from the latter that the winner hails. Quite simply, the phở sốt vang from Phở Thinh in Hanoi is one of the best bowls of noodles I've ever eaten. The combination of anise-scented broth, slippery smooth broad rice noodles and stewed beef in wine with a side of fried dough sticks was simply amazing.

phở sốt vang @ Phở Thinh

But as much as I enjoyed the noodles in Vietnam, the silver and bronze medals go to Chinese dishes I sampled in Beijing. Din Tai Fung, better known for their xiao long bao, takes the silver for a rather special steamed chicken noodle soup. While taking bronze is a massive dish of belt noodles in spicy garlic sauce (originating from Shaanxi province) from Qin Tang Fu.

The Golden Dim Sum
Winner: Wasabi prawn dumplings by Phoenix Palace
This Golden Dim Sum is awarded to my favourite dim sum dish in London. There are many contenders for this accolade, but the award goes to an old favourite with a twist: wasabi prawn dumplings. These slightly plumper har gau (prawn dumplings) with a nasal passage-clearing wasabi hit are a must-order at Phoenix Palace. They're so good that I don't mind the £4.20 price-tag that their presence on the specials menu demands.

Wasabi prawn dumplings @ Phoenix Palace

Coming in a close second is Princess Garden's golden cuttlefish cheung fun. This triple textural delight consisting of springy cuttlefish paste, crispy tofu skin, and slippery smooth rice noodle is the best cheung fun dish in London. In bronze medal position is the capital's finest sweet dim sum dish: chrysanthemum custard buns by Pearl Liang – remember to order these deep-fried, not steamed.

The London Gold Award
Winner: Eat St
This award celebrates what I love best about London's food scene. However, it isn't the number of Michelin stars that I want to shout out about, it's the grassroots as represented by Eat St. To the uninitiated, this collective of street food traders most famous for its stalls on King's Boulevard (round the back of King's Cross station). My favourite vendors include The Rib Man, Banhmi11 and Eat My Pies. I visit Eat St most lunchtimes and it has improved my quality of life no end, which is why they win the inaugural London Gold award.

Rib Man @ Eat St

I'd also like to give a quick mention (and joint-silver medals) to Maltby St Market and Brixton Market/Village where the likes of Bea's Diner, Kaosarn and Mama Lan ply their trade. Sadly, there are some contrary voices deeming the various stalls and traders to be too hipster/middle class/gentrified. While we're all entitled to our opinions, I find much of the criticism to be lazy, shrill and self-loathing, and I think all of these places are a welcome addition to the capital's food scene.

Anyway, that's all folks! It's time for my blog to take its summer break - see you all in September!

Lies, Damn Lies and Fish Sauce

Although I was born in the northwest of England, my culinary upbringing was strictly Chinese. I didn't really have much choice. In common with many immigrants, my folks fought off homesickness through rustling up the dishes they grew up with. The food they cooked was typical of their hometown of Canton (now known as Guangzhou) as well as Hong Kong, where they lived before coming to the UK.

In particular, Sunday lunch was always a very special meal. My mum would get up at an ungodly hour to put a slow-cooked soup, made with pork bones and mysterious dried herbs, on the boil. My dad was in charge of the roast. Not beef or lamb, but a slab of pork belly or maybe a whole duck roasted in the traditional Cantonese way. Sometimes, there would be a steamed fish, other times, some stir-fried seafood. And then there were vegetables, which my mum would ALWAYS make me eat. I didn't properly appreciate it when I was younger, but I am forever grateful to my parents for instilling in me a deep love of my native cuisine.

So you can imagine my shock and horror when I discovered my folks have never ever used fish sauce when cooking. This revelation got me thinking what other liberties they were taking in the kitchen? After all, according to no less an authority than Gok Wan, fish sauce is a Chinese store cupboard staple. And it must be true because this rather special TV chef would liberally slap shedloads of crappy Squid Brand fish sauce into most of the dishes he rustled up on his comedy cookery show, Gok Cooks Chinese.

I am, of course, taking the piss. Don't get me wrong, I like fish sauce. Without it, Thai and Vietnamese food wouldn't be the same. However, when it comes to Chinese food, fish sauce isn't really that common. In fact, it is traditionally only used and manufactured in a small corner of southeast China by the local Chiu Chow (Teochew) and Hokkien communities. Even then I'm not so sure how common it is as a Chinese condiment, as the shelves of the shops I visited in London's Chinatown were full of fish sauce from Thailand or Vietnam with nary a bottle of Chinese-branded fish sauce to be seen.

So why is Gok Wan perpetuating the lie that fish sauce is essential for Chinese cooking? My theory is that fish sauce is being used as a shortcut to gain that elusive xian (鮮) or umami taste. The alternatives would be either to do it the old fashioned way, or to use the much-maligned MSG. (I don't really want to go into the MSG debate right now, but scientific evidence debunks the mass of hypocritical borderline-racist bullshit written about this subject.)

Just to be clear, I'm not saying fish sauce shouldn't be used in Chinese food outside of those traditional Chiu Chow/Hokkien dishes in which it already features. What I resent is that, along with a load of other misconceptions, fish sauce is portrayed as a traditional Chinese staple on Gok Cooks Chinese. It would have been more honest if Gok said that he was using fish sauce to give the recipe a twist, or as a bit of cheat. But no, he gave birth to a lie. It's one I want to stamp out.

THAT Black Truffle Xiao Long Bao @ Din Tai Fung

Come on now, you didn't think I'd go all the way to a city with a branch of Din Tai Fung 鼎泰豐 and not pay a visit? And so it was I ended up in one of the four Beijing outlets of this superior dumpling chain. Dining solo, I went for a small steamer of pork & crab xiao long bao 蟹粉小笼包 (5 pcs) and I tried pork & black truffle xiao long bao 黑松露小笼包 (5 pcs) for the first time.

To be honest, my first reaction was that the soup-filled dumplings had shrunk compared to previous visits to Din Tai Fung. That said, I might have been conditioned by having spent a week in Beijing where the portions are far from delicate.

Naturally, the dumplings were of the highest quality. In particular, the black truffle ones were in a league of their own, as the steaming process seemed to accentuate the flavour of the truffle. Simply, if you ever get the chance to try the pork & black truffle xiao long bao then you must take it with both hands.

But it's not just the dumplings that mark out Din Tai Fung. Rather like the annoying classmate at school who was academically smart and excelled at sport and anything else that took his or her fancy, Din Tai Fung has many strings to its bow. Take for example, its steamed chicken noodle soup (元盅鸡面), which ranks up there as one of the finest noodle dishes I've ever tasted – a perfect marriage of superior chicken soup to springy noodles.

To round off my meal, I went for some steamed sesame buns (芝麻大包), and these were also bloody excellent. Fluffy white buns with a melting black sesame filling; this was the perfect end to another exceptional meal at Din Tai Fung.

In addition to the excellent food, I would like to single out the service at this restaurant, as it ranks up there as some of the best I've ever experienced in China or for that matter anywhere. By that I mean the servers had a preternatural sense as to when I needed assistance as opposed to the phoney, pre-programmed 'is everything alright, sir?' school of service. Looking back, if anything, the service was too good, as it stretched me to my limits in Mandarin!

The only slight downside was the location. I'm not really a fan of the Asian practice of locating restaurants in shopping malls, but if you are sat looking in, not out, then you can just about imagine you're not eating in the basement of a department store. Having said that, there are worse examples of shopping mall restaurants than this particular one.

And as is customary on my blog, this is the point in my review of Din Tai Fung to implore you to sign the petition to bring this superior chain to London. Do it, now!

Din Tai Fung 鼎泰豐 @ Grand Pacific Mall 君太百货
Address 地址: 北京 西单北大街133号1楼/B1(君太百货)
Tel 电话:+86-10-6615-9028

I'd also like to give a quick mention to another xiao long bao specialist by the name of 一品小籠 (there's no English name but its name in pinyin is Yi Pin Xiao Long). The vibe at this eatery is more casual than Din Tai Fung, and while the dumplings aren't quite as good, they're a lot cheaper.

As well as xiao long bao, the menu consists of dim sum-sized dishes such as steamed egg. There are branches of 一品小籠 across Beijing, and they are ideal for a quick pit stop although I should warn you that the menu order sheet is written solely in Chinese.

My Fantasy Tuscan Meal

I wasn't going to write about the food I ate in Tuscany way back in April and May this year. I was on holiday and not really on full blog mode. But it's hard to totally switch off, so in this post I'm going to imagine my fantasy Tuscan meal. This is much more fun than me prattling on about the restaurants I went to. And besides, it's far easier, too (I did tell you I wasn't on full blog mode).

Italian menus are very tempting with their selection of antipasti, zuppe, primi, secondi, contorni and dolce. However, I reined in my natural tendencies to have it all, and just plumped for two courses (most of the time). But for my fantasy meal, I'm going for a full four-course affair washed down with a few glasses of Brunello di Montalcino.

The easiest choice out of my four courses is the antipasti in the form of finocchiona, salami made with fennel seeds. Fennel is used a lot in Tuscan cuisine, and I love the aniseedy zip it lends to the sausage.

Onto the next course, and it's a choice of soup, risotto or pasta for primi. This is a no-brainer. After all, I am Mr Noodles, so it has to be pasta (in the form of noodles, mind, not shapes). Besides, I've never really liked risotto that much, and nor did I really take to bread-thickened local soups such as ribollita and papa de pomodoro during my stay in Tuscany.

But choosing a pasta course is hard work, as there are loads of great options. After much deliberation, I'm going for tagliolini al tartufo. There are better pasta dishes out there, but I think this dish of tagliolini in a rich buttery sauce topped with truffle shavings works best with the rest of my meal.

The thing is dishes like papardelle al cinghale, a Tuscan classic made with wild boar sauce, is a bit much in the context of a four-course meal. I also thought long and hard about going for tagliolini al sugo d'anatra e finocchieto selvetico, a dish that bizarrely had an almost Chinese flavour with its combination of eggy noodles in a boozy duck and wild fennel sauce. This was probably my favourite pasta dish from my trip, but I don't want to double-up on fennel, having started with the finocchiona.

Onto the secondi, and there's only really one way to go: bistecca alla Fiorentina. What's not to love about a T-bone steak, usually upwards of 1kg in weight, cooked rare? The only other contender was also from the grill: lombatina di vitella alla griglia. However, when it comes to meat top trumps, T-bone steak beats veal chop.

To accompany my steak, I'm going for a side of roasted tomatoes with basil (remember five-a-day!). I've also got my eye on some roast potatoes with rosemary but I have to say no to leave room for dolci.

At this point in my imaginary meal, I've ordered an espresso and asked for the bill. I know you're thinking I've wussed out of dessert, but I haven't. I just need some air and a little walk before pitching up at a gelateria, where I order a scoop of pistachio ice cream and a scoop of something that's been recommended. Oh yes, this is the life; this is what the Italians call la dolce vita. It's just a shame that it seems such a long time ago!

The Joy of Instagram

I love Instagram, the photo-sharing app with the quirky filters, and I'd even go so far to say that it's my favourite social media. That's because it's the most fun and, in general, it's a better place to play than, say, twitter. I use it mainly to share photos of food, and it's where I increasingly chat to others about what and where I'm eating. For those of you not yet on Instagram, here's a taste of what you've been missing.

Exmouth Market - one of my favourite streets in London, where the joys of pecan pie at Medcalf and duck egg with morcilla at Caravan can be found.

Japanese yakitori - two places where I enjoy eating it are Soho's Bincho, which serves a good value set lunch, and Sticks 'N' Sushi in Wimbledon, where they also knock out a great seaweed salad.

Chinese patisserie - these exquisite pumpkin pies and walnut buns (named for their appearance) were the most memorable dishes from a meal at South Beauty, a Sichuan restaurant in Beijing.

Eggs - an oozy Scotch egg and the eggy heart of a Gala pie from Egg Boss and Eat My Pies respectively. Incidentally, these guys are two of my favourite street food vendors.

Northern Chinese food - I adore the multi-coloured buns from Datanghong in Beijing, but northern Chinese food, like the dumplings by Mama Lan in Brixton, can also be found closer to home.

Street food - I love snacks from all over the world, and I'm lucky to live in London where I can sample Indian pani puri (from Horn OK Please at Eat St) as well as Spanish tortilla (from Jose at Maltby St Market).

Fried dough sticks - known as you jaa gwei 油炸鬼 in Cantonese, or you tiao 油条 in Mandarin, these treats are eaten for breakfast, usually as an accompaniment with juk (congee), and increasingly so with noodles.

Vietnamese treats - I love stuff like green bean cakes or a take-away bowl of pho. But you don't have to travel all the way to Vietnam to get this stuff – the pho is from Banhmi11 (various London stalls)

If you would like to see more photos like these then please check out my Instagram feed on your iPhone or Android smartphone. My Instagram handle is @eatlovenoodles