hot pot!

for Valentine's Day / Chinese New Year, J & i went with HKSA to Chinatown to eat some hotpot (shabu shabu) and ring in the (second) new year! it was a long trip that spanned from 5 pm til 11:30 pm, but it was completely worth it!

the concept of hotpot is simple: dump food into a boiling pot of seasoned broth for minutes at a time, and then fish it out when it's ready to eat. dip it in as many sauces as you want to (generally you stick with satay sauce, garlic sauce, and other Asian creations) and shove it into your mouth. repeat until you are stuffed!

for $25 per person (plus tax and tip), all 11 of us ate the all-you-can-eat hotpot buffet at Lao Sze Chuan, a restaurant in Chicago's Chinatown that has grown rather famous for its dishes. i've blogged about it previously in my old food blog twice - the first time was amazing and the second was crap. i was hesitant to go there because i wasn't sure if i wanted to pay for a bleagh meal again, but i was happily rewarded with good food and good service this time!

homemade Asian food

i haven't been too good with keeping up this blog, have i? :( sorry!

school and work have definitely been keeping me busy, and i've barely had time to EAT in between all my meetings, let alone cook. that's why this entry is going to focus on something i cooked a while ago..

i bought some frozen squid at H-Mart and decided to make my own version of Kung Pow Squid. you know, it actually turned out quite nice!

i added an insane amount of serrano peppers as well as some Siracha garlic pepper sauce. yum!

i paired this with some stir-fried bean sprouts and, of course, my mixed wild rice.

i think there's about 7 or 8 types of rice in the mix that i bought from Whole Foods, and i really love it! it makes you feel super healthy when you're eating it, and the overall texture is very chewy and nice.

a nice big plate of food makes me very happy (:

dimsum in Londontown

generally, dimsum in LA is served between 9 am and 3 pm, and you go with a bunch of friends and order lots of goodies to share. consider it Chinese tapas, if you will. however, it's quite different in London's Chinatown; food is available from noon until 5 pm, so i guess it's eaten more as a lunch / afternoon snack. the prices are obviously a bit on the steeper side, so that left me with no choice but to order less dishes than i normally would.

E and i had dimsum twice while i was in London, and the pictures below are from my second (and final) experience. we went to a little restaurant in Chinatown called Harbour City, and it looked quite nice inside. even though it was 4 pm, they were still serving all the delicious dishes! yay for long hours of dimsum..

bao - the bun

the word "bao" refers to a bun, or a big dumpling, in chinese. there are numerous different types of baos, with the most popular ones being char siu bao (bbq pork bun), lian rong bao (lotus paste bun), bo luo bao (pineapple bun), xiao long bao (steamed buns)...the list goes on and on.

i actually went to eat dimsum with my friend E and conquered 2 types of bao; on the way back from Chinatown, i picked up 2 frozen types, and at the bakery i bought 2 more. you gotta love being Asian sometimes haha.

10 minute dinners

when you're cooking for yourself all the time, it's pretty easy to get into the habit of eating stuff that isn't that great for you, especially when you don't have time. i try to avoid eating ramen as much as i can, but there are days when i really, really crave it!

my parents sent me a pack of 5 Hwa Ramyun, which is my all-time favorite packaged noodles. it's spicy, and the noodles are nice and thick. mmm! i try to add a bit more stuff in it aside from the packaged spices and flavouring, such as 2 poached eggs, some bean sprouts, and sometimes other leafy veggies if i have some. and it's even more delicious when you eat it right out of the pot! :D

looks yummy, no? (:

if you cook it for exactly the right amount of time (a bit more than 4 minutes - the timing of putting the egg into the pot is the most important thing!), the noodles come out al dente and really good. you wouldn't even think that it was instant noodles.

another easy fix for dinner is to cook frozen foods; i had bought frozen dumplings from a store in Chinatown a few weeks back, and decided to give it a go. make sure you boil the water before dropping these in, and then have 2 small cups of cold water on hand. each time the water comes to a boil after you've put in the dumplings, add a cup of water and stir. when the dumpling skins have turned somewhat translucent, you know they're ready!

these were lamb & chive dumplings, and they were tiny!! but not too shabby..you can still see the steam coming off of them in this picture.

it reminded me more of wontons than anything else since they were so small. the filling was really really salty, which was kind of upsetting because they could've tasted really good.

some of the dumplings would puncture when you cook them, turning the water into more of a brothy soup. 2 in 1 for your money! haha (: