Dumpling Bowl

Not long after the Bubblicity reopened as the Dumpling Bowl, Richard went with some friends and said that the place was great. "They make their dumplings in house," he added. Sounds good.

When MO and I met up for a snack, we weaved through groups of high schoolers and sat by the entrance. I liked that their menu selection is so small. In my mind, the smaller the menu is, the more likely there's better quality control. Check out their full food menu here.

Lunching at Hung Sum

Andrew and I went to Hung Sum for a quick bite. We both went there with some dishes on our minds. Andrew was thinking steamed tripe and stir-fried rice noodles with beef. I was itching to order steamed beef balls and cheung fun with youtiao aka zhaliang. Once we arrived, we sat down to a free table by the window.

Can't Get Enough Dumplings

I just can't stay away from this beautiful restaurant. Just look at it. We've written about this at least five times dating back to 2009 (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th). I try my best to visit the Northern Dumpling Kitchen when I'm visiting Toronto and the Greater Area of Toronto (GTA). I used to try to visit House of Gourmet for my noodles but I haven't been there in over two years (!). During this trip back in May, I wanted to bring VN and have her try soup dumplings for the first time.

Lunch at Cafe Orient

On Tuesday, I had to go have an ultrasound done in the morning that required me to fast. After the ultrasound, I decided to go to Chinatown for some food.



That morning, the windchill made it feel like -38 degrees Celcius (-36.4F). To thaw myself out, I needed the help of a strong cup of HK milk tea.


For my lunch, I had the beef brisket, shrimp wonton rice noodle soup and a side of deep fried shrimp balls. The soup itself was quite bland. I wish they had added much more of the braising liquid into the soup. I'm glad I went with the rice noodles instead of the regular thin egg noodles.


The beef brisket pieces were super tender. Some of the strands did get in stuck in my teeth - I hate that!


These shrimp balls were a little different. Instead of having a coating of some cornstarch or whatever, these were battered and then fried. They did have green onions mixed in and were very juicy. I think the sweet sauce that accompanied the shrimp balls had some five spice powder. It added a nice depth.

For a post-fasting-ultrasound meal, I say this hit the spot.

~

Dim Sum Feast on Boxes

Andrew and I picked up dim sum from Chu Shing. We had just missed the bus when we left the restaurant, so we just walked over to Lucy and Jimmy's apartment near Elgin. The sunny and cool breeze made the walk very enjoyable.

Lucy put together some boxes for a makeshift table, since they didn't have a coffee or dining table at the time. It didn't really matter to us. We unpacked the containers like it was Christmas.





Deep-fried shrimp balls with a sweet and sour sauce. There was also baked BBQ pork buns, steamed shrimp siu mai, beef tendon, lo mai gai, and ginger tripe.

Everything was still hot when we began to eat. The shrimp balls were bouncy and juicy. I really like how Chu Shing mixes in green onions. The beef tendon was very tender and full of flavour.





We had rice noodles with beef and, for dessert, two egg tarts.

Lunch was heartburning-ly delicious!

~*~

Lunch at T&T

Yesterday's grocery run plan:

• Head to Costco to buy a bunch of snacks that are on sale
• Grab stuff for hot pot at T&T
• Eat lunch at T&T
• Get home in under an hour and a half

What really happened:

• Spent not even 10 minutes in Costco; snacks were sold out
• Spent over 2 hours in T&T; lots of pointless waiting

Instead of shopping in T&T first, we were going to eat but when we went to order some dim sum, we were told that the shrimp siu mai would be ready in 20 minutes. And so we went back to our original plan: shop first; eat later.

When we were walking around, I saw a kid snacking on a hot dog on a stick. But it was topped with green onions. How intriguing!

I wandered over to the former bubble tea stall. It has since been converted into a snack stand selling drinks, ice cream, Taiwanese-style sausages, and even jianbing. Jianbing is a breakfast crepe that's eaten on the streets in China.

They were selling a variety of snacks like this Taiwan-style sausage. For only $3, you could get it dressed with a variety of things. Since we had time to kill, I bought one so that we could snack on it while we waited to eat lunch.

As I was waiting in line, I noticed that the gentleman and the older lady were training a younger lady.

When it was my turn, I asked for a spicy sausage with black pepper paste, garlic, and green onions. The lady cut down the center of the sausage to fill it with stuff. It tasted really good. It tasted sweet at first, then the heat from the black pepper paste washed over the palate, then the garlic, then more sweetness from the sausage, and then finally the cayenne pepper kicked in. The sausages reminds me of the sweet Vietnamese version of Chinese sausages that we eat with congee. Andrew and I were very impressed with how good and addictive it was.

We shopped some more, taking our sweet time snaking down the aisles. Mom checked in on the dim sum and they said it still wasn't ready yet. At this point, Andrew and I were getting impatient. We knew the shrimp siu mai wouldn't be worth the wait. I went back to the snack stand to get some milk tea (without tapioca pearls) to enjoy with our lunch.

The. Service. Was. So. Slow.

The gentleman and younger lady were making the drinks people ordered, while the older lady was making the jianbing. I turned my attention to the older lady making the crepes before I began to lose it.

She was much more efficient with her actions, whereas the trainee looked unsure of every move she made while making the drinks. It didn't look like that was any urgency from the trainee.

Once both milk teas were handed to me, I rushed back to meet Mom and Andrew. They had just started to eat. I just wanted to eat, pay for our groceries, and go home.

Discounted noodles and vegetarian spring rolls.

There were also two orders of shrimp siu mai. This is half an order. 

We've tried their dim sum items before and it was quite lacking. We were eating there for the convenience. You can tell from the photo how processed the siu mai was. It was definitely not worth the wait. The filling definitely had a lot of cornstarch or something.

The milk teas were on the weak side. I think the only place that makes a great version in Ottawa is at My Sweet Tea.

After lunch, we grabbed a few more things and then checked out.

Oh yeah, I got two boxes of Melona bars! Mom was pretty sure they were cheaper at the Superstore, but I bought them anyway because we weren't going there. Turns out the savings would've been about a dollar at the Superstore. Dammit! I could've used that dollar to buy an iced coffee or extra large fountain drink at McD's. I'm just not at that level of being "smart with my money," as Mom likes to say.

~ ~ ~

Side story:
After having brunch at Stoneface Dolly's today (more on that later), VN and I went to buy some Melona bars at the Westboro Superstore. They were all sold out -- of course. I asked for a raincheck but the lady at the customer service desk said that she won't give us one because it wasn't in their flyer. "It is in the Superstore flyer at home! It's on a 'World Flavours' page." I told VN. "I swear, I'm not going crazy." I'm not sure why I was so determined to get the raincheck.

I got on my phone and tried to check the online flyers.

Nothing. There wasn't any "world flavours" section in either the in-store flyer or online flyers. I even checked the regular Loblaws' flyers. Again, nothing -- and yes, I did search the Ottawa flyers. I was so frustrated. "I'll send you a photo of it when I get home," I vowed.

Boom. How is it that the "World Flavours" section is totally missing from the in-store flyer and online flyer? Brutal.

I guess the lesson is to bring the flyers you have with you.

Toronto Weekend July 2013: Part 1

We did a road trip to Toronto for our cousin's wedding last weekend. I'll break it up into two parts. Here's 1 of 2.

I tend to get car sick on road trips because three main reasons: empty stomach, being too warm, riding with a heavy-footed driver. Sometimes it's a combination of the three. The latter didn't apply during the trip. To prevent the first two, I made sure to have a snack before we hit the road and have a bottle of water to keep me cool during the trip.

Hot Pot Dinner

After a trip to an asian grocery store, we made hot pot to help clear out our fridge and freezer. We took out some napa cabbage, frozen homemade dumplings and fish cakes, which we had already.


These assorted South Korean fish balls were bought weeks ago when they were on sale.

Enoki mushrooms, napa cabbage, basa fish, cilantro, dumplings, fish balls, and tofu. There were also tofu puffs.

I didn't know tofu could look so good.

Here's a pot of pork soup that we used for the hot pot. It was made of pork neck bones, onions, carrots, and dried scallops. We debated whether we wanted to add the spicy hot pot mix but decided against it.


We all made our own dipping sauces. Mine consisted of Pearl River Bridge's soy sauce, salmon XO sauce from Australia, and hoisin sauce.


A bit of everything was tossed in.


Majority of the hot pot contents were white. I didn't realize it until after I started eating. And I had a glass of sweetened soy milk too. My favourite part of the hot pot was eating the South Korean fish cakes. Our family has grown sick of the floury fish cakes from T&T. These actually tasted good! We didn't have any noodles or rice with dinner -- which was fine.

Dinner was simple but filling.

Dinner at Hung Sum

Mom, Andrew, and I were shopping around yesterday and then headed downtown with the intention of grabbing some goods from the ribfest on Sparks Street. We were driving through Chinatown and then a waft of something delicious came through the windows. We all took a deep breath and exhaled in satisfaction.

"Do you want to eat fried rice noodles instead of ribs?" Mom asked as soon as she caught her breath.

"Doesn't matter to me. Andrew?" I threw it to Andrew. Seriously, I didn't care. It was a win-win situation.

"I don't know. What's the plan? Are we going to have ribs?" Andrew asked. What he said was essentially, "the ball's in your court."

"Well if you want to have ribs now, we can still go. If not, we can always grab some ribs tomorrow for lunch." I countered. He's not winning that easily.

Andrew was silent for a minute. "Okay. Then if that's the case, let's stay here (in Chinatown) for dinner."


We parked on Rochester Street and walked down to Hung Sum. I had only been there a handful of times for lunch and was curious about their dinner service. There were two other tables being occupied; one middle-aged couple from Hong Kong, and a group of three older caucasians. It looked like they had just placed their order.

The menu was simple. One one side, there were the dim sum choices and a list of the chef's specials. The other side listed the all the larger dishes. There wasn't anything too special. I checked off what we wanted and gave the menu to the lady.

As we waited for the food to arrive, we watched the table of caucasians receive two steamers of BBQ pork buns (two in each steamer), a steamer of sticky rice (aka lo mai gai), and a plate of cheung fan. Mom scoffed, "they'll get full so fast! At least their bill will be cheap."

Andrew and I killed time by checking out their soy sauce and hot sauce. It used to be my habit to always try a Chinese restaurant's soy sauce. Their hot sauce was the same stuff as most of the other Chinese restaurants use, but Hung Sum's seemed spicier. We both really liked it.


The steamer of tripe and coriander shrimp dumplings arrived. As soon as I saw the shrimp dumplings, I knew that I had ordered the wrong thing again. I wanted to order the dumplings that I had during my first trip. Ah well, they still tasted good - especially with the hot sauce.

[Updated on Sept. 18th, 2013]
The reason why I ordered the wrong thing was because I had mistakenly written the wrong dish. The dumplings I wanted to order are the steamed green onion ginger beef dumplings.

As we devoured the two dishes, we continue to people watch. The table of caucasians got an order of deep-fried squid tentacles, siu mai, and beef balls. "Not bad, they're still hungry."


Our plate of wu gok (aka taro dumplings, taro puffs) arrived. "These are good. This takes too much effort to make. When it's hot like this, it's really good." Mom commented while nodding her head. My jaws dropped. Did she just admit that something wasn't work the effort to make from scratch?


Shortly afterwards, the steamer of shrimp siu mai (not pictured) and plate of rice noodles with beef arrived. Although there were char marks on the noodles, the noodles actually didn't taste smoky at all. How does that happen? It was a bit disappointing. Andrew and Mom enjoyed their house-made noodles.

The caucasians got a plate of eggplants stuffed with shrimp and a plate of youtiao afterwards. "Wow, they're still going. Not bad." I thought to myself.  Mom gave them credit, "they know how to eat." It was quite impressive, considering they started off with the two heavier dim sum dishes.

The amount of food that we ordered was perfect. We were all full and satisfied after the five dishes. The bill was just over $25. I'll definitely be returning to Hung Sum. Mom said she wouldn't mind returning either -- crazy, I know!

Btw, what do you think of this template? I changed it so that the photos we upload stand out.

~*~

Address:

Hung Sum
870 Somerset St W
Ottawa, ON
613-238-8828

Spicy Hot Pot: Perfect for Cold Winters

It's been getting cold in Ottawa. In this brisk weather (it'll be -28 Degrees, or -18 Fahrenheit for our American friends, tonight), you need to come home to something that will warm you up. And what better way to do that than with spicy hot pot?



We had the following dinner on Boxing Day. While people hit the malls and websites, we went grocery shopping for dinner. The photo, above, was taken after the second significant snowfall in Ottawa (Dec. 27th, 2012).

Chicken Cilantro Dumplings, Chicken Noodle Soup, Mangoes with Yogurt and Granola

For our last dinner party before VN and KN went on vacation, we decided to make some chicken dumplings and chicken noodle soup from scratch. For dessert, we'd keep it simple and have mango yogurt parfaits.

Since perfecting the dumpling skins and the fry-steam-fry method of making pot stickers, I wanted to change things up and play around with the filling. Actually, since perfecting the dumplings skins, I never made them for VN to try. This was my opportunity.

On Friay night, VN made a pot of chicken soup by simmering chicken legs, onions, celery, carrots, peppercorns, and salt. She had the soup on a gentle simmer almost all day Saturday, too!


I planned to make pot stickers from scratch and turn half of the dumpling skin dough into homemade noodles. All-purpose flour, sugar, and hot water was mixed and kneaded together until the dough was slightly tacky to the touch. I'm not sure what the exact ratio of flour to water was. I just added the water by feel. The slightly tacky dough didn't need any flour when we rolled them out onto the table. The dough was set aside and I focused my attention to the filling.


The dumpling filling consisted of cilantro, ginger, medium tofu, and ground chicken. It was seasoned with oyster sauce, sugar, and cornstarch. I dropped a spoonful of the filling into the simmering soup and then gave it a taste. I adjusted the seasoning and then, when I was happy with the taste, we began to roll out the dumpling skins.


Flattened gnocchi anyone?




The dumpling skin was split in half. Half of it was rolled out and meticulously cut by VN to make the noodles.


The other half was turned into dumplings. KN didn't do too well at wrapping the dumplings at first, but she got the hang of it after a few. No problem, the dumplings were still edible.


I cooked the first batch of dumplings, as we continued to make more dumplings. After I removed the lid off the pan, I relied on my ears to know when the dumplings were ready to be removed from the pan. I waited until I heard crisp sizzles. That told me that the wasn't a lot of water content on the bottoms of the dumplings, hence, crisp bottoms.



Tada! I was quite proud of these when I flipped them out onto the plate. Another success in the books.

The filling was a play on some cilantro beef dumplings I had in Montreal. I was amazed at how addictive the cilantro made the dumplings. I mean, the cilantro, chicken, ginger, and oyster sauce was well balanced. After a few bites, the ginger was broken up by the fresh cilantro. When the dumplings were a bit salty from over dipping into the red vinegar-soy sauce mix, the cilantro saved the day. I'll definitely use cilantro in dumpling fillings in the future.


Macro shot fail.


As we snacked on the hot dumplings, we began cooking the noodles in salted boiling water. The noodles turned out perfectly, in my opinion. They were slightly chewy (QQ, as the Taiwanese describe) and had just enough bite. VN and KN rinsed the noodles in cold water while they cooked the rest of the noodles in batches. I cooked another batch of dumplings while they finished cooking the noodles.




The chicken, which VN shredded from the chicken soup on Friday night, was taken out of the fridge and reheated in the soup. The soup was brought to a simmer. The noodles were divided among three mugs. We had enough noodles leftovers for two more servings. The shredded chicken and dark super concentrated chicken soup were ladled into the mugs of noodles. Each of the mugs of homemade chicken noodle soup was topped with cilantro. KN added a dollop of Sriracha hot sauce.


For dessert, we kept it simple with having yogurt, honey, granola, and freshly diced mangoes. It was a healthy dessert that finished off the night wonderfully.