An Evening after the Wet Market

To those who have already read this post previously, I have updated this post wih a video footage that I found on my SD card as I was clearing it.. I think this video really helps bring to you the sense of actually being in a wet market; I hope you feel the same! 🙂

The best part about being in Hong Kong is the food. The best part about the food here is that you can always get it really fresh.  I mean, live-and-still-jumpy fresh. I love seafood, and Hong Kong, having a history of being a fisherman village, to this day still have access to fresh seafood everyday at outdoor “wet” markets.

Along with butchers and vegetables/ fruit stalls, it is a place where seafood from the day’s catch lay fresh on ice, or whole live fish swimming in tanks. Shrimps, lobsters, crabs, all kinds of shellfish – mostly live are available for purchase. I personally think it’s the seafoodie’s heaven. Depending on the season, different seafood will best to eat. I have never tasted clams so sweet and 鮮 (see meaning on my other post). I totally just swooned.

Anyway, whenever my mom goes to the wet market by nightfall, she buys a lot of goods deals for the night’s ‘seafood meal’. You get a lot of good deals by dusk/ evening because that’s when the day ends and everything fresh, must go. My last seafood dinner at home over break, consisted of lobster, clams, snails, and my favorite veggie – 菜心 (choi sum, literally meaning the vegetable heart).

Australian Lobster, raw. Seasoned with chopped garlic and salt.

Cooked by steaming

White wine clams

I just have to say, white wine clams are my absolute favorite. Plus, my mom’s cooking with the incredibly fresh catch, it’s heaven on Earth. The juices that come out of it is soooo yummy (I don’t even have words to describe it!) It would make a great sauce base for anything.
[My mom cooks with only garlic and white wine, without any salt at all, and it comes out quite salty actually.]

Choi sum, blanched with oil. Served with sesame oil and soy sauce.

These were in season during December. They were so crunchy, sweet and .. just delectable. You will have to try it yourself to even come close to understand my love for these.

Snails, blanched

These snails are my dad’s absolute favorite. The consistency is kind of like octopus, but has a completely different flavor. We usually dip it in chilli-ed soy sauce. Yum.

Unfortunately, nothing in America will come close to a meal like this one cook by my mom. Heck, you can’t even buy fresh clams, let alone clams this good. For the love of food, I may just have to move back home after my studies here in the US…

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It’s Bagel Day!

Every Sunday, my school does a bagel bar with bagels and cream cheese from by far the BEST bread/ sandwich place I’ve ever eaten (for it’s price), Panera Bread. I am a huge fan of their Asiago Bagel and Everything Bagel, and their Hazelnut and Honey Walnut cream cheese.

Because of the calorie content of the bagel and cream cheese, and the fact that I want EVERYTHING, I do a half-and-half of salty and sweet with my one bagel. The salty half that I always get (pictured) is the Asiago bagel, goat cheese, smoked salmon with lemon juice, tomatoes, red onions, and chives. Oh right, and they toast the bagel first so the asiago cheese bit of the bagel gets reaaal crunchy.

YUM.

I think this will be the one food that I will miss when I leave this country for good.

A Bowl of Simple Locality

Everywhere on the streets of Hong Kong, you will find the Cantonese staple: noodle soup. These noodles are usually served with rice noodles, with toppings of meat balls, fish balls or fish cake, vegetables, served with fish broth base. Rice noodles can come in various forms (thin, flat, wide etc.), and vegetables can vary among local leafy greens and/ or seaweed.

At home, my mom made a variation of this local staple with the following ingredients:

• Udon (oooh-don) noodles – Japanese noodles made of wheat-flour
• baby Bak-Choi (白菜) – literally means ‘white veggie’
• fish cake (魚片) – basically like meatloaf, but with fish
• fish broth – homemade –> from stewing fresh fish from the market!

Usually, they do not serve these noodles at the restaurant with so much vegetables on the side (but my mom knows it’s my favorite!) Also, restaurants also do not use real or highly concentrated fish stew for the soup base. Therefore, I believe my mom truly makes the best bowl of noodle soup in town!

 

A Vibrant Refreshment

Copyright 2012

Peppermint & tonic, served in a blue Moser glass (Czech company)

Copyright 2012

Lita obsession

The Jeffrey Campbell Lita bootie has been one of the most coveted fashion item this past year. I have been IN LOVE with it ever since I’ve seen it on blogs online. It is so versatile – wear it in the winter with jeans or summer with shorts; wear it dressed up or down…

Anddd it is so unbelievably comfortable for being 5″ tall (2″ platform). Add some glam/ edge instantly depending on what you wear it with!!!

Let me know if I’ve done the bootie some justice with the following two looks!

Indie glam

Chill/ glam

The Best Sushi is Not Far Away

…that is, when you live where I live 😉

I bought this at the local Japanese supermarket right in my neighborhood. The sushi in focus is tuna chunks topped with salmon roe. The one to the right of it is a crab meat salad (crab shredded and mixed with Japanese mayo), topped with crab roe. Crab roe is my favorite because it has a taste that is very distinct: sweet and 鮮 – in Chinese, a word to describe seafood that taste fresh.

The other sushi in the picture include (from front left) shrimp, tuna, salmon, yellow-tail, scallop, and ark shell.

It is quite amazing to think that for about US$12, you can get a 16-piece set of sushi that is fresh from Japan that day. That, my friend, cannot be found anywhere near where I go to school in Orlando!

Hello world!

My name is Jacqueline (Jackie) Chan, and am from Hong Kong. My aim for this blog is to make it personal: all (or at least most) images and content will be written by me, as apposed to being re-blogged or quoted. I have another blog dedicated to content that are not original, content that I re-post to share. You can check that out at http://jackieechan.tumblr.com/.