Let's start off with some foods that we love to eat. One of my most favourite Chinese dishes is the rice noodles with pork and vegetables - with extra sauce (since there's never enough). I've always been a noodles kind of person, and the combination of a smokey sauce with soft rice noodles, meat, and vegetables always hits the spot. You just can't go wrong here. So in this picture, I have some Cantonese style sweet and sour pork with my noodles on my improvised plate (the top of the styrofoam take-out box). This picture is at the food court of the Markham Place in Toronto. It's not that photogenic. I'll make sure I post a better looking one in the future.
Not sure what to eat for lunch? We wouldn't hesitate to enjoy are the delectable things you get when you go out for some dim sum. Whether it be pork siu mai or shrimp har gow, you can always find it on my table. You just can't resist the steamed dumplings. It's something that I've been eating as I've been growing up, and will continue to devour. The missing one, in the picture above, was in my stomach. What? I couldn't help it.
If you don't like dumplings, try some rice noodle rolls. You can get them stuffed with a variety of things such as: beef (which is my favourite), chinese donuts (youtiao), shrimp, and other things depending on where you go for dim sum. The thing about these is that some places will add minced water chestnuts to them, which I my opinion, ruins the soft and delicate dish. Of course, I like mine with extra sauce because I find that they don't put enough of it. It helps you eat it when you get some that are understuffed, which is quite sad.
Now when I think of Lucy's favourite food, I think of my grandma's banana leaf wrapped sticky rice stuffed with meat and mung beans. This is one of the things that we also grew up on - its just one of those comfort foods. Now you can eat it right after its steam cooked or pan fry them. By pan frying them, you get some caramelization of the rice and meat. This adds another mouth-watering dimension. On the left side, you can see the treasu
res wrapped up in tin foil with a tea pot and some Vietnamese glutenous snack. On the right side, you can see them being pan fried in a wok. You don't need a lot of oil to do this. Actually, I'm pretty sure we didn't add any. This is one whole banana leaf wrapped rice rolls stuffed with meat and mung beans. They're best eatten as soon as they come off the wok, so try not to make a lot at once. They only take around 5 mins on each side to look this good.
Another favourite is char siu with stir fried chow mien. But this isn't any ordinary stir fried chow mien. Here, we have napa cabbage, carrots, that adds a slight crunch, and a secret mixture of a sauce that adds sweetness to the dish. We usually add bean sprouts to the chow mien but I don't like them at all, so none was added. After a long day, this will satisfy you and brighten your mood. It probably takes about 10-30 mins to whip up, but its so worth it. Yeah I know after a long day you want something nice and quick, but believe me that its worth it. Maybe if you don't like char siu, you wouldn't like this as much as I do. But we love well marinated char siu because then we don't have to fight over the flavour-packed end pieces. If you can, try an end piece!
