Dim Sum and Hot Pot - December 28th, 2007

So here's a little reminder about what was going on back then.

My aunt from Hong Kong was still over, which meant that we'd go out whenever we didn't feel like cooking - we, as in the large extended family. I didn't mind at all, because we usually don't go out as a family often. That wasn't the case as of late, because of our family visiting from out of the country (my great aunt from Paris, France, visited for the month of October).

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We went to have dim sum at Chu Shing and it okay. Just an average dim sum outing. Actually, thinking back, it was a bit better than average because we sat a couple of tables away from the doors to the kitchen. That meant that we'd pretty much get the first picks. I love when that happens. Erm. Yup. We had two large tables, one with most of the adults, my grandparents, and the other table with the "kids", my uncle and my aunt (from China).

Before I show some pictures, I would like to mention that when we were pouring our first pot of tea, my uncle got a dead bug in his cup. It looks like a fly or something. (Crappy photo, I know). When we mentioned it to the staff, they just took his tea cup, dumped the crap, and gave my uncle a new tea cup. They didn't even change the tea pot, until we pointed it out. Like, come on, it doesn't take a genius to figure out where the bug came from. If there was a bug already in the tea cup, I'm sure the people setting the tables up would've noticed. Also, we would've noticed it when we first sat down and definitely wouldn't poor tea into the cup that had the dead bug. I wasn't impressed with that at all. What do you think?

Here's the turnip cake that tastes like congee (in my opinion). But you know what, it actually looks good pretty tasty in this photo.

Here are the balls of deep fried shrimp. We didn't need the sweet sauce.

I believe the dish in the front is stewed tendons? Behind that is the chicken feet. I can't make out the other two dishes behind the chicken feet.


Finally, here's the bug I was talking about. How appetizing...

We ate more things, but I just didn't take pictures of them.

(Edit: I just realised that I've already posted about this, lol. You can see what I wrote here. LOL I can't believe this was the time Lucy was violated by the chicken feet.)

That night, we had hot pot for dinner. We made a quick broth using Campbell's Chicken Broth, water, napa cabbage, dried scallops, chicken bones and some other things.

The fixings included tofu, beautifully marbled beef (cut into thin slices by my uncle), enoki mushrooms, squid, bok choy, beef balls, and the green stuff at the top (I believe they're called watercress). As a dipping sauce, we mixed satay sauce and hoisin sauce, with Sriracha sauce on the side. Some of my relatives like to use fish sauce mixed with Sriracha sauce as their dipping sauce. I think it's too salty.

We also had glass noodles as a choice. Erm, we had rice too.

The only thing I really remember of that night, was the beef. Because my uncle sliced them very thinly, it only took a second to cook them medium in the hot pot. The beef just melted in your mouth. It was so good that no one touched the frozen beef. Oh, I didn't mention that we also had that? Well, we did, because I remember that once the beautifully marbled beef was gobbled up by everyone, I tried a couple of the frozen stuff, and it was just not the same. Not at all. So I remembered two things from that night. Woops.

For dessert, we had a coconut cream pie. Not sure where it was purchased, but it was pretty yummy.

As we drove home, it started to snow. It was still snowing when we got home, so I snapped this pic.

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Chu Shing

691 Somerset Street West

Ottawa, Ontario

613-233-8818

Missing Entries

I've looked through some of my pictures - my digital pictures, and I realised that I haven't posted about a bunch of things. Here's a rough outline of the posts coming up: 

December 28th: Hot pot

January 3rd: Pho

Jan. 4th: Eating out

Jan. 8th: Dim sum

Jan. 9th: Costco

Jan. 12th: Another time we went out

Jan. 16th: Goi Cuon

Jan. 21st: Beavertails

Jan. 23rd: More dim sum

February 13th: Korean BBQ

Feb. 16th: Winterlude

I'm not sure if I'll be posting about ALL of these, but we'll see. 

Finally! Toronto Pho! - November 2nd

My friend and I went back to Chinatown to take pictures for some assignments and to.. uhh.. scout... yes.. scout... for our upcoming assignment in Digital Photography class. The assignment will be a documentary-styled shoot and yes. That's pretty much all we've been told about it. But yes. 

It was a particularly windy day when we went. Quite chilly, actually. That is why I decided to go and find a pho place. I remember seeing pho restaurants around chinatown, but couldn't recall where they were. And so we walked around and found the Pho 88. I'm sure a lot of people know where it is. It looks really nice. Too nice for a pho place, if you ask me. Honestly, all you need is good food and a decent interior. Meh. Points for trying to hard.. lol. When we walked in, most of the tables in the restaurant were being occupied. It's funny, because when I was explaining 'pho restaurants' to my friend, I mentioned that there's always people there eating. Always. And during lunch, people always go in and out. That's what I love about pho. it's so quick. Come in, sit, order, eat, pay the bill, and leave. Some people wolf down their bowls sooo quickly! It's nuts. Anyway, yes. The restaurant smelt good. It smelt like a typical pho restaurant. 

While Ben was trying to wrap his mind around all of the menu choices, I suggested that he get either a bowl of pho, like I was going to have, or the vermicelli salad with spring rolls and the BBQ pork. Attracted by the small picture of the vermicelli salad on the menu, Ben decided to order that. 

I was excited for pho. The last time I had it was back when I went to Ottawa over the Thanksgiving long weekend. Oh, and I've never had pho in Toronto. Wait, that's a lie. Never mind. This is the third time. It's pretty rare when I eat pho in Toronto. Crazy, eh? Well, I guess when you have the best noodles (my noodles) being made here in Toronto, there's no need for pho. Plus, you know what? Homemade pho is better. I'm sure it's healthier, too! Alrighty.. so back to our late lunch/early dinner...

We were both excited about what we ordered. Ben's dish came out first.

Now the picture doesn't really show it, but it was a huge spring roll. Man, looking at the picture now, it looks really REALLY good. Back then, I didn't think anything of it because only pho was in my mind.

My small bowl of pho came not long after Ben's dish came out. It's not a good picture of it, but whatever. It's a picture for you all to see - it's better than nothing!

So our early dinner came up under $20. It's expected. That's with Ben's strawberry and banana milkshake. lol

That is the first real food entry in a very long time. Since what... February? Yikes.

[Update: Wow. So much trouble uploading these damn pictures. Be happy that the pics are up... BE HAPPY!!]

[Update 2: I tried to upload the pictures again into a medium sized picture, just to see if it'll work.. AND IT DID!  I'm very happy.]

Mmm.. Almonds and Chocolate

We had an assignment earlier this month, in Commercial Lighting, to show texture. I chose to shoot almonds, chocolate chips, and chocolate almonds. See the theme? I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture, but I tried to shape them into a yin-yang. I spent almost 20 minutes trying to shape the whole project into a yin-yang, when I realised that I was a bit short on everything. Now I know not to snack on my assignment when I'm doing it. It also took me that long because the chocolate almonds kept rolling off. As you can see in the top left corner of the picture, I outlined the yin-yang with the chocolate chips. What do you guys think? 

Okay, I'm having issues with uploading my pictures onto the site. I can only upload my pictures as small ones, and not medium sized. It says that there's an internal error when I try uploading it a size larger.  =(