Roe-Topped Dumplings

Roe-Topped dumplings. Good stuff. I had a hankering for something siu-mai-like, but on the whole I'm not a big fan of siu mai (texturally, they're just a bit too smooth for me), so I trotted out my basic dumpling recipe and tossed in a can of crab meat and some roe for good measure.

These were super easy to make. No need to seal them!

And just because seafood is involved doesn't make this an expensive dish. I made several trays of dumplings out of the recipe below (and it's hardly a recipe, really... so flexible) and used a cheapo can of crab meat that was probably more like canned crab floss than actual meat. And the capelin roe is a steal at $9.99 for a 1 lb container of it at the Asian Food Market. Now there's something to jazz up sushi night.

I like how pretty the roe looks when the dumplings are raw. I didn't think it would cook up to a neon orange/yellow! (BTW, that roe lasts a long time and is great to top rice with to add some flair to your meals. I'm not a rice fan, but it's adding a little bit more flavor and color to make me want to eat it more frequently)

Porky & vaguely seafood-y dumplings. These make for some easy "I'm hungry and want something substantial but don't know what to make" dinners. Wish I'd made them for the food swap - they are very impressive looking, too.

Roe-Topped Dumpling Recipe

1.5 lb ground pork (more or less is fine)

1 can crab meat

1/2 head napa cabbage, shredded, salted, and drained

1" peeled ginger, grated/minced

Soy sauce, sesame oil, sweet vermouth, white pepper to taste

Capelin Roe to top

dumpling/wonton skins

Pop 'em in to dumpling wrappers and steam for 10-15 minutes or freeze for later.

Hot Pot @ Shining Rainbow

Shining Rainbow. Hot Pot. Celina Bean. Daniel B.. AYCE. Awww yeah. Celina loves the hot pot at Shining Rainbow. At $20 for all you can eat per person (plust $10 for the pot of broth), it's a pretty fun dinner. I think it would be a little on the expensive side for two people, but for a group it's a really fun way to dine.

I was most excited, because aside from my ghetto hot pot night, I haven't had hot pot at the grown ups' table. When I was a kid, it was an adults-only event. Kids got pizza while the adults sat around a table filled with raw goodies, wire skimmers, and a big ass and dangerous bubbling pot of liquid. I would occasionally mooch off an adult and beg for shrimp.

Hot pot heater (it's an induction burner, so the unit itself doesn't get hot when you touch it, just when other metal touches it). Then you circle what you want from the hot pot menu. I really think we could have just said "everything and keep it coming" with our group, but. Yeah. We circled just about everything. Mushrooms, whole shrimp on skewers, eggs, veggies, Fish balls, fish balls stuffed with pork (Fuzhou balls. You want them. YOU WANT THEM), oysters, squid... OH THE SQUID (don't forget those, either), soy bean sprouts, slices of lamb... so much to choose from.

We split our broth between ma la and the herbal broth. Ma la broth had a good bit of kick to it, but I could handle it. It was nice to have two options, though. The ma la broth at the end was awesome. I mean, so was the chicken, but this... good stuff. I initially slurped a little too forcefully and took a shot to the back of the throat that left me coughing and gasping for air. Holy chili oil, batman!

They'd occasionally come over and refresh the broth with some more hot water when it started to get low. God, it really was like the never ending hot pot.

Celina and her oysters. She loves the oysters at Shining Rainbow. I am equally in love with the squid. A few seconds in the broth until it's all squiggled up and pretty... yum. Tender and delicious. I seriously could have eaten an entire bowlful of these and then some.

At the end, you choose some noodles. I flip my shit over the yam ones (so chewy and goooood), but the udon ones were pretty decent too. Wasn't crazy about the shrimp wontons - tasted more like shrimp balls wrapped in wonton skins to me.

Oh, oh! There's also a box with three sauces in it. One brown, one peanutty, and one chili. Mix them up for a dipping sauce for the cooked food from the hot pot.

Celina's tip is not to be shy about asking for more food. I get a little weird about it, but hot pot's one of those things that logistically can't be a buffet. Service was a little on the slow side, but very friendly and accomodating. The owner came by and we all ended up talking to the next table about a limited edition reprint of a famous Chinese piece of art he'd recently bought. Cool things happen when you hang out with Celina.

Oh, and if you know someone who speaks Chinese, it wouldn't hurt to bring them. They can totally get by on English, but it's not their strong suit (sometimes there can be a lot of back and forth confirming and reconfirming). Albany John's Chinese got us some raw eggs and water a few times. Hell, I don't speak Chinese, so you're welcome to borrow Albany John if you want.

Now I've tried hot pot as an adult. It was fun, and a whole lot less work than doing it at home. And now I wanna go back for dim sum because it's been way too long since I've had Shining Rainbow's dim sum.

Oh, and btw, their tea is the real deal. I drank way too much tea last night and was up until about 2 am or so. haha. But as a bonus I got at least a little headway on a project, so that was cool.

Gourmella's

I guess Cusato's new name is Gourmella's (224 Quail St, Albany, NY). Something about someone who worked there buying it from the owners... I don't know. All I know is that once I got this awesome cheese sandwich there.

This time I got an Italian Mix. This was a small. It was, like $5.25 or something like that. This sucker was freaking MASSIVE. And I was hungry. A large is only, like, $1-1.50 more. I'm afraid of a large. Italian mixes are like my sandwich love of Albany. Never had I had an Italian Mix before, and never is one so delicious as when consumed in the ALB.

And dear god, if you're craving some meaty, irony goodness, Italian Mixes will fix that craving for ya. Fresh roll, meats & cheese sliced to order. Good stuff.

Albany John got a cheese slice. I thought it looked like a gut-buster. TWO plates! And the dough looked a little gummy. But that's where assumptions'll get you. No where. I took a bite, and it's more than the sum of its parts. Decently fatty cheese, a puffy but not-dense under crust. The outer crust was even pretty good. Albany John's a crust-hater, and even he liked it.

Gourmella's is more like a convenience store and deli. There's no seating, but they don't care if you hang around eating your food and watch some of their TV. It's more of a place to stay out of the cold if you're not picking something up to bring home, which I'm guessing most people do since Gourmella's is in the student ghetto, and people can just pop in and out.
The only thing I didn't like was that they started cleaning something when we were there and I had to keep smelling bleach while I was eating. Not the flavor you want to have in your mouth while you're eating a sandwich.

Razor Clams

LAZER CRAMS!!! Pew PEW! Oops, I mean, Razor Clams.

This one time I was watching a Martin Yan travel show (the Yan Can Cook dude) and I swear to you, he kept saying "Lazer Crams" over and over again. And now every time I see "razor clam" I keep thinking "lazer cram" and I imagine this tough little mollusk shooting lazers out of its body. Pew pew! Lazer cram! Pew pew!

Any way, I saw something on Serious Eats about them, and figured I'd try cooking them. I mean, if they're clams they have to be delicious, right? They're $4.99/lb at the Asian Food Market on Colvin about now. I got a large bundle for just under $7. It's pretty cool to see their squiggly white bodies retract back in their shells when they get touched, too.

On the whole... eh. I'll stick with regular clams, thanks. These were kind of a bitch to deal with. First I par cooked them to open their shells up. Then I had to get them out of the shells and de-poop them. These clams had a major poo sack on them! Gross. And suction-mouths at one end. For what they were, it was kind of a lot of work.

I tossed 'em with some pasta. It was fine - mild, clam-like flavor. But I think I prefer the normal clams in the area - quahogs and the like. Razor clams, eh, not so much.

I even left some clams uneaten. Me. Leftover Seafood. Seafood not completely decimated. What. The Heck.

Chinese Poke?

Okay, so poke (poh-keh) is the Hawaiian marinated food. But I had, like, none of the traditional poke seasonings, so I did my own thing, and it turned out pretty well.

I bought some frozen sushi grade tuna from the Asian Food Market on Colvin Ave. Eh. It was okay, but it didn't taste amazingly fresh, so I thought some kind of cooking or curing was necessary.

Soy sauce + vermouth + sesame oil. It's like my Chinese trinity of marination. I like sweet vermouth for the sweetness, 'cause somebody (Albany John) doesn't like it when I add extra regular sugar to food. Whatever.

I had bite-sized slivers of tuna mixed in with a ton of onion slices sit in the mixture for about 15-20 minutes.
Make some sticky rice, toast up a few sheets of nori and slice up an avocado, and you're ready to eat your knock-off poke.

Food Swap!

The lovely Renée hosted a Food Swap this weekend! Like a Soup Swap, except with food. There were about 11 of us, and everyone had made 12 pints of food to swap. Some of us did half vegetarian dishes, and half meat dishes, and some did 12 pints of the same thing.

Yum! Look at all of that food! There was so much, and they all sounded so good. Lots of hearty comfort foods. I invited a new friend, and she brought Mac & Cheese. It was one of the un-frozen foods, and didn't last more than a few minutes until I got home. Freaking good.

And so was the baked ziti, which had the best amount of cheese in it (gobs). There were also burritos, beans, and... oh so much!

Sandor showed up with 12 pints of KIM CHEE!!!! We did our swappage, and mysteriously there was one kim chee left.

Which meant some kim chee for everyone to try! Hoorah! It was fucking delicious.

I made vegetarian Japanese Curry. The hot kind. Easy enough to make, easy to reheat. I made more than 6 pints, so the Mister and I have been eating it as well on our busier nights before the food swap.

I also made 6 "pints" of pork dumplings. Nothing crazy, just coarse-ground pork, shredded napa cabbage, and some chopped up Chinese chives (I keep wanting to call them leeks for some reason). But man, I love some boiled or steamed dumplings on the quick. I measured a pint bowl so it was a little overfilled, which was about 13 dumplings. Then I added in some more dumplings to each bag, because it didn't look like enough. I had a few left over of those, too. Simple, but good stuff.

And now I'm psyched because there's a whole variety of food sittin' in my fridge!

Casola Dining Room - Irish Menu

I got to meet one of the area's coolest dudes last year, Chef Christopher Tanner. He and his wife are an awesomely energetic couple who I met at a few different food events. He also happens to be a chef teacher at SCCC's Casola Dining Room, and we talked about having the mister and me trying to swing by for dinner on one of the nights he teaches. Round the corner for tastiness.

We went on Irish week. How often do we think of Irish food as corned beef and cabbage, and some boiled potatoes? (Well, that's the extent of the meals I've had with the anglo side of my family) Boring. I was excited eat during Irish week after seeing the items listed on the menu for the week.

Albany John and I got to sit with the lovely Mrs. Tanner and her parents. SOCIALIZING! YAY! We've been horribly boring/busy lately, and we've hardly had much time to, you know, talk with people other than each other, so we were really looking forward to meeting new people.

Bread course - some of the best Irish soda bread I've ever had. Seriously. My mom used to buy Irish soda bread every week near St Patrick's day. Once she even went to the Rockland Bakery and was convinced it was the best stuff ever. To me it tasted just like every other kind of Irish soda bread I've ever had, which was dry, dense, and rather unpleasant.

Hot damn, I want this recipe. It was moist, crumbly and a little toasty around the edges, and slathering a slice of this with butter was freaking decadent.

Salaaaaad! Albany John got a salad for his appetizer course - it had beets, greens, and fried nuggets of brie.

I got the smoked cod appetizer. SMOKED COD CAKE!! On a bed of lightly cooked spinach! I think it was spinach. Greens. At first I ate the greens and was like "Eh, it's okay, but it could use a little salt." And then I had the cod, and OMG it was a match made in heaven. Salty cod. Unsalty greens. AWESOMENESS.

I followed seafood with more seafood - wild caught salmon with... deliciousness. I think it was colcannon, or something like it. Mashed potatoes with some greens. And tart red cabbage.

Oh dear lord, I wish I could get salmon like this in a restaurant. The top was licked with salt, butter, and deliciousness. It was cooked juuuust right. Meaning, not well-done all the way through. The center of the cut had lovely bits of medium-done meat. So good. Brings tears to my eyes and a smile to my mouth. SCCC students, whatever you do when you leave school, PLEASE KEEP COOKING SALMON LIKE THIS.

Albany John got the pork belly. Pork belly! I'm so glad he got it, because this was the other dish I wanted a bite of. There was also lamb shepherd's pie that sounded awesome, but no one at our table ordered it.

Chef Tanner, I WANT THIS RECIPE. This was soooo freaking good. And believe it or not, not too fatty. Yeah, there are layers of fat, but this dish wasn't greasy. I could have easily housed a few plates of this.

Yeah, yeah, potato patties and carrots were there too, but the belly was the star. I've gotta figure out how to make this. Man, I'm still swooning.

DESSERT! I got the strawberry sponge cake trifle thing (sorry, my memory is terrible about the name). It was good, but there was some sharp liquor or liqueur at the bottom of that dish.

Albany John got the steamed pudding? Crap... I can't remember what it was called. Sorry. But it was awesome. Like a very soft cake with toffee. And the ice cream was beer flavored. No, seriously, it really tasted like beer + ice cream. Not sugary sweet, but rather a nice foil to the sticky-sweet cake. Albany John wants beer ice cream now.

Dinner was such a blast! Thanks for having us, guys!

Pizza DaVinci

Guess what pizza place is open at 9 am on a Sunday morning? Pizza DaVinci in Troy, NY!

Albany John woke up with the pizza hungers this weekend, and had me Googling to see what was open at the wee hours of Before 10:30 AM on a Sunday. Wee. Morning. Hours.

Figured we'd give them a shot since Troy is solid pizza territory. They have a special for pick-up orders. $7.99 for a large pie. Woah - those are college-days prices!

Not too bad for an $8 pie. Plenty of sweet and salty cheese with some browning going on, and a lot of fresh basil flavor in the sauce. The crust was the only thing I wasn't all that into on this pie - puffy and not crisp, soft all over. The end crust pieces were definitely pizza bones. But overall, solid flavors with the cheese and sauce. They beat I Love's whole pie hands down, at least in my book. I'd get it again.

Best of all, it was fresh pizza on a Sunday morning.

Artisan Bread in 5 a Day as Loaf Bread

Ever wondered if the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day recipe could be used in a loaf pan? I did. And it does. Work in a loaf pan, that is.

I used the basic boule recipe. But check their website. If you use King Arthur Flour (or another kind of high protein flour) like I do, you need to add a little bit more water to the recipe.

I found that measuring the flour by weight was easiest for me - 2 # flour, 3.3-3.5 C H20, 1.5 T salt, and 1.5 T yeast. Easy peasy. Wait about 2 hours and you can save it in the fridge/freezer, or pop that bad boy in a loaf pan and into the oven.

I tossed some ice cubes in, and it gave the crust a nice chew.


It makes some kick-ass sandwich bread, too. Yum city. A good crust, and soft but chewy bread innards. Super squishy and hard to deteriorate. Lasts several days, too. All of that water in there really stays, and it doesn't got super stale and dry after a day.

My loaf pan is smaller, so I made mini turkey-ham & provalone double decker sandwiches. I'm already on my second loaf. And I tried playing around with whole wheat flour.

Guess what? If you use, like... 1/3 of the flour as whole wheat and the rest as KAF Bread flour you get super chewy and soft bread or rolls! But I had to add about 1/2 cup more water because of the whole wheat flour. Right now that batch of dough is sitting in my fridge aging and getting its sour on.

Awesome Brownies, Now With Carob

Awesome Brownies, now with carob! What's with the crickets? Does anyone else like carob? Awesome carob powder brownies?

Hellooooo?

So Albany John let me know I might be a freak of nature because I freaking love me some carob. Yeah, yeah - we all watched Clarissa Explains It All, and we know her mom taught us that carob is the health-freak version of chocolate. But damnit, I like it. I picked up some carob powder from the co-op and thought I'd give carob brownies a go.

Changes:
I used about 1 - 1/3 C of powdered carob in place of chocolate chips/baking cocoa. And a few extra tablespoons of coconut butter/oil my sister made for me for Christmas (since chips have some fat in them and powder has, like, none). But that was about it.

And then I threw in some chocolate covered toffee bits, because, hello, toffee. Chocolate bits are minor.

Albany John kept screwing his face up whenever he had some. It's a good thing I didn't make 'em on Valentine's day, 'cause he kept denying my adorable, wifely face smooches just because I tasted like carob. I'll say this, though. I wasn't as big of a fan of the carob powder from the co-op for carob flavor. There was a lingering raisin-y cloying sweetness in the flavor. Kind of distracting. Kind of not my thing.

And yet, I soldiered on. DROWN A DELICIOUS DEATH IN MILK, OH AWESOME CAROB BROWNIES!

Y'know, it's funny that these brownies came out almost black. So dark. The powder was a light brown. But once liquid was added it darkened very quickly.

Jade Asian Restaurant for CNY 2011

I'm a firm believer that all whirlwind trips need a jolt of caffeine. When you score free bus tickets on MegaBus with their WIN200K seats code for a 2:30 departure in Albany and a 7 am departure in NYC the next day, yeah. I think caffeine just about does it.

We stopped off at a McDonald's just past Woodbury Commons and I picked up some coffee. Say what you want about the golden arches, but when your only other option is Lavazza, Mickey D's is top shelf by comparison.

Our bus driver was a hilarious Ralph-alike from the Honeymooners. It made for an enjoyable trip.

We made it over the river and through the woods to Flushing. Otherwise known as uptown on the 1, and all the way to the end on the 7 line on the subway.

We made it to Jade Asian Restaurant by about 7 pm. Not too shabby for a weekend. We had reservations for 7:30 and they seated us no problem. It got fairly full. Not 100% full, but almost. Jade Asian Restaurant is located just around the corner from the subway stop at 13628 39th Ave, Flushing, NY 11354.

I think Yeh-Yeh wanted to go back to his spot (Mellie's), but my dad wanted to try some place new. I'm glad he did, because I did too. The inside of Jade Asian Restaurant was really nice - definitely a banquet hall. And we weren't sat next to the bathrooms in a corner like we were at Mellie's last year.

Red tablecloths, and cute chop sticks!

They had a limited menu they strongly recommended ordering off of. Which I thought was kind of different for a Chinese restaurant (because you can just be like "Okay, make me XYZ this style" and they will even if it's not on the menu), and evidently so did the rest of my family because I think we just ordered a few dishes that weren't on the limited set menus. I'm still a loser who can't read or understand any Chinese, so I have no idea if we got some dishes from the set menu, or if we just ordered stuff that wasn't at all on the menus.

My sister is back on the raw food diet again, and had like, 2-3 of these fruit plates. Believe it or not, being on a raw fruit/veggie diet is not very easy to accomodate at a Chinese restaurant. I know, you're shocked, right?
My dad asked a bunch of times for a fruit platter, but they were really busy and kept saying they wouldn't be able to do it, but then would manage to bring an occasional plate out. Weird, because we were willing to pay for a large fruit platter so my sister could eat with us. It was like when your Mom is like "No, you can't go to camp. We don't have enough money.", and then wakes you up two weeks later going "Get up, you have to leave for camp. Now.". Definitely pleasant surprises.

They ended up not charging us for any of the fruit plates, so that was really nice of 'em. It was just an interesting experience.

Appetizers! Cold jellyfish and Chinese ham. I usually don't fall in love Chinese ham because it tastes like gelatinized rubber, but this was fucking awesome. Super hammy and smoky. Not fatty or gel-y. We ordered a 2nd one of these. That good.

The jelly fish was also good, but the ham was the star here.

WHOLE CRISPY FLOUNDER BEING BONED OMG, YEEESSSS!!!

This is not a dish for dieters, but one just about all of us at the table loved. Yeh-Yeh grabbed the head and relished it. All of those crunchy bone bits. My Dad's awesome lady also enjoyed the heck out of it. So fishy. So fried. So crunchy. So gooood! How could I not like a dish that is a)FRIED, b)Seafood, and c)fried so that you can eat more parts of the seafood than if it were cooked any other way?
Seriously, the only part you can't eat is the spine. The bones on top are like crunchy fish chip rinds.

In the foreground is gingery beef with Chinese broccoli. Lots of gingery flavor - really bright and light flavors going on.

In the background is a dish I need to figure out how to make at home - dried scallop covered snow pea tips. Dried scallops cooked until they're mush with some other saucy kind of liquids. Plopped on top of lightly cooked pea tips. Yummy.

And in the foreground is crispy chicken. Very moist. Nice and crispy. Yeh-Yeh giggled and told Albany John and me "Mmmm. So good. So many chicken getting killed today. For New Year. Heeeh heeh heeh. Don't tell your sister. Heeeh heeh heeh."

And of course my sister looked over and was like "What?" and we were all "Oh, nothing. Yeh-Yeh really likes dinner." And Yeh-Yeh was all smiley and "Yeeaaahhh. Really good. Heeh heeh heeh." And then I think he told her about all the chickens getting freshly killed for CNY.

DUDE! I've never had this. It was veal short ribs. Like galbi short ribs, but made with VEAL. And cooked medium rare to medium.

SO FREAKING GOOD AND TENDER. They were lightly seasoned, but it wasn't a soy-fest. They really let the tender flavor of the veal shine through. CVS and Maka were able to join us, and Maka loves a good serving of veal.

Pork chops. The fried and saucy kind. Kind of like what we had at Ala Shanghai for Chinese New Year dinner with the Upstate crew, but... not as good. The meat was a little chewy for the large pieces, and the batter quickly became soggy underneath the sauce. Didn't stay crisp like Ala's.

In a way, though, this dish made me happy. Albany John and I looked at each other while eating it, and I was like "It's good... but it's not like Ala Shanghai's pork chops." and Albany John agreed. I was happy because it means that Albany's Chinese food scene is not only getting diverse, but isn't playing second fiddle to NYC Chinese cuisine. Not every dish at every restaurant in NYC or Albany is going to be perfect, but it seems like the rates of dish success are on par.

Resto-made noodles and fried rice. The noodles were good to accompany other dishes and absorb their flavors/sauces. The noodles were nice and tender, and there were plenty of them. At first I thought they were kind of bland, but they were really good eaten with other foods.

I thought the fried rice was okay. A little dry for me, and there were cranberries in it. Plus some shrimp and scallop bits. It was okay, but I'm not a big fan of rice any way, so it kind of takes a lot to make me flip over rice dishes.

Then it was time for dessert! Red bean tapioca dessert with a mochi dumpling.

Dinner was about $200 for 8 people. My cousin was also supposed to come, but sadly she wasn't feeling well and couldn't make it. Next year! haha

Yeh-Yeh and my Dad were nice enough to give Albany John and me some laisee (lucky money envelopes). Technically we aren't supposed to get it because we're married. But we're still younger, so I guess that's why. I didn't run in to any other little kids, so I just gave my sister one of mine.

We ended up spending the night at my Yeh-Yeh's place. My dad brought an air mattress that he let the Mr and me use, my sister slept on a fold-out couch, and my dad took a little mattress. We were all having a sleep over in the living room. It was fun. We used Albany John's iThing to skype with my bro. Yeh-Yeh loves seeing his great grandson.

The next morning we woke up early to leave from Flushing to the lower west side of Manhattan. I am normally a neurotic planner, but I let my sister do a little bit of the time management and... well... I might still be a little neurotic about planning. We left later than I wanted to and took the 6 am train out of Flushing. If you know the city, you know that there is no way to make it to the lower west side from Flushing on a Sunday schedule in 45 minutes. So we used my trick from the last time I almost missed a bus back to Albany - get out somewhere in Manhattan and beg taxis to take you a short distance because you need to be somewhere NOW. Definitely works. But there aren't that many taxis on the road at 6:30 AM, and everyone that drives one wants to take someone to the airport, not 12 blocks south west. I managed to pull puppy dog eyes and begging hands on an off duty cabbie who was nice enough to give us a ride.

We made it back to Albany safe and sound, and many an espresso was had once I got in the house. Gung hey fat choy!

Red Pack Tomatoes Review & Giveaway!

When the people at Red Pack Tomatoes contacted me and asked me if I would like to try a sample of their product, I was all on board. I like trying new things. So I was expecting a shipment in the mail. But I was not expecting this! It was a large tin filled with Red Pack shwag!

The container is so cute! I plan on using it as some kind of a decoration for my house. Maybe like a mini table or something. Too cute to get rid of.

I decided to try out their tomatoes in a sauce. I made tomato sauce with anchovies, fresh basil, and some milk (no cream). Their tomatoes are bright without being tart. I bought some other tomatoes recently that had the organic label slapped on them, but I much preferred my usual non-organic canned tomatoes. The organic ones were really tart and lemony - hard to mask and not very good for making tomato sauce (my favorite application of canned tomatoes).

But any way - these crushed Red Pack tomatoes were fine for sauce. Not crushed into oblivion - some chunks here and there. I've seen them for about $1.49 in stores locally for large cans (either 28 oz or 32 oz), so they aren't priced outrageously.

Here is what is in the can. A ton of red confetti and two cans of tomatoes - crushed and whole.

More shwag! A can opener I haven't been able to figure out how to use (but it looks really cool), a spatula, a pasta spoon, and some magnets. The pasta spoon is pretty ergonomic, too. It's got nubbins where you place your thumb on the handle.

So, do you live in the US and would you like to win a cute sampler tin of Red Pack tomatoes?

Of course you do!

Leave a comment! Maybe win!

(Please have an email either in your profile, or just popped in the comment so I can contact ya!)

CSN Stores Product Review

CSN stores may have TV stands for flat screens, but they've also got some spiffy pot racks, too. It shipped quickly, and I know it has been only about 2 or so weeks from my original teaser post, but in internet time, that's like forever.

But man, was it worth the wait! This is a Half Round Graphite Pot Rack. My landlord just put it up for me - my stud finder sucks and kept saying there was a vertical stud. My landlord's stud finder found bubkiss, so he put in a metal stud to put the screw in for the pot rack. There are three screws. One at the top, and two at the bottom.

In short - the pot rack is awesome. Look at all of those pots it fits! There were a bunch of hangy things to put pots on, too. And it supports quite a bit of weight. There is also a wire tray kind of thing to put other things on, like that grater and other pot covers. Defintely worth $50.

This is what my kitchen wall looked like before. So sad and lonely. Only one little decoration to one side, and a clumsy electrical cord on the other.

Actually, I cleaned the wall before even trying to put it up before, and HOLY MOLY. I did not know that walls could that that gross. But now it's all clean and spiffy, and we have much more storage space. It's easier for me, too. Because when I'm cooking and need a pan that's on the very bottom of all of the other pans, I don't need to lug them off of one another and lug them back into a pile. Now I just grab it off of the wall!

Chinese New Year 2011 at Ala Shanghai

Last night was Chinese New Year. And I ushered in the year of the Rabbit at Ala Shanghai with AoA Mary and her guy, Daniel B., CelinaBean, Sandor, a new friend, and Albany John.

We had reservations for 8 at 7:30, and by 8 pm, all of us were assembled. The parking lot was paaaaacked! It was a very popular place. Glad I made reservations in advance. Hey, you don't chance dinner on Chinese New Year.

They even busted out red tablecloths! I had the lucky problem of more people than the reservation wanting to come. I think 8 people was just the right number to come, though, space-wise. It was also an auspicious number, too. And thankfully the people who were unable to make it were also gracious and understanding,too. It's probably the first time in my life I've had more people want to come and I'm very happy for it - it's a good kind of dilemma to have.

We got the set menu for 8 and some pork xiao long bao for those who'd never tried it at the urging of Daniel B.

We had some pickled cabbage to nosh on while waiting for the rest of our group to show up (center), and then above are two of the four cold appetizers. In the front is a spicy dish with beef and peanuts. The back is aster salad - so yummy and textural. Pork Xiao Long Bao.

Pork Xiao Long Bao - two orders.

Dried beef and mock duck, the other two of the four cold appetizers. The dried beef was very tasty - it's a Chinese texture that I love - chewy in a tendon kind of way (but not tough), and beefily flavored.

The mock duck was dried tofu sheets filled with vegetarian stuffing. Does it taste like duck? No, but I guess it kind of looks like duck slices. Tasty either way you eat it.

Dinner was at a leisurely pace, which was nice because we all hadn't seen each other in a while. We closed the place down!

Here is the seafood soup - the squid (or cuttlefish) bits were SO tiny and delightfully chewy! Plus there was tofu, shrimp, scallops, and some egg. Really tasty soup. Light but hearty at the same time. I had three bowls. THAT good.

Here is the shrimp dish, seafood soup, and flounder fillets with seaweed.

The flounder and seaweed was AMAZING! Perfectly crunchy nuggets had me wishing for a pile twice as big just to eat for myself. Lanny Lau, the manager/owner, came over to explain that the seaweed was toasted and ground up and mixed with the flour for a batter to fry the fish in. It was a great savory-vegetal flavor, and the fish itself was moist and tender. It's something I'd like to try making at home, but I don't think I'd execute nearly as well. These stayed crisp for the entire duration on the plate (which wasn't all that long, hee hee) and also had a salt to dip them in. You know the salt I'm talking about - Cantonese restaurants usually serve it with crispy chicken.


The shrimp popped in my mouth. So sweet. Lightly cooked to let their shrimpy glory shine. They were smaller guys, but very tender.

Sea Cucumber! I was excited to try this dish - I'd never had sea cucumber before. It was good. Really good. It came with some shiitake mushrooms and very thin slivers of chicken. Great combo, and had a nice smoky flavor overall.

Sea cucumber was kind like frogs legs, super soft beef tendon, and fish. Really interesting. I liked it. It was very smooth, but not like jelly. Very lightly flavored - delicate, even. I'd say you should try this if you haven't. It's not that "weird" of a dish in terms of flavor or texture.

SHANGHAIESE PORK CHOPS! It was deep fried and covered in a sticky-sweet sauce. Like if salt and pepper pork chops had a little extra coating on them. This was quite nomtacular as well. If there's one thing I love more than pork, it's pork that's been fried.

Look at that - it's like saying "I am a sexily delicious piece of pork."

The CelinaBean dish! Bok choy and shiitake mushrooms. Perfectly cooked bok choy quarters, and some delightfully steamed shiitakes. It's dishes like this that make me lurve shiitake mushrooms. It was a good "breather" course...

Before the duck came. One whole crispy duck. So good. And plenty for 8. Sandor was a card and was like "Oh, please, nobody take all of the dark meat... oh wait, it's duck. It's ALL dark meat. Bwahaha!"

LOOK AT THAT SKIN!!! Perfectly moist meat, crispy duck skin. What more could I ask for? Delicious.

Fried rice. I'm not normally a rice fan, but this had hints of smoke, and the veggies were nice and firm - really lightly cooked. Some ham and shrimp in there, too. Good stuff.

Dessert time! Steamed red bean buns. I was impressed with how tender the baos were. The dough was very soft and tender. I know they were just steamed, but I'm not sure if I've ever had buns this soft before.

Dessert soup! It was a rice ball kind of soup - small mochi balls floating in a sweet egg soup. Albany John was expecting something like red bean soup like we get for dessert in NYC with my family. But that's a Cantonese thing - this was totally not at all like red bean and tapioca dessert soup. Great way to end the meal. Filling, but like the seafood soup - light yet hearty.

The rice balls were light and chewy - a great texture. And the soup itself was lightly sweet, but you're not going to get a sugar coma from it. I would have had seconds, but I was so full from dinner, I could only finish my bowl.

Dinner was a little over $20 per person with the XLB added in for tax and tip included. Not shabby at all for all of that food!

Ala Shanghai is running the Chinese New Year special into mid-February, so you could pop over for a group early Valentine's day dinner and really impress your date. Just sayin'.

My Chinese New Year festivities have only started. I still need to see my little sister to give her laisee, and then we're going down to Flushing to celebrate Chinese New Year with my Yeh-Yeh tomorrow. Might even see one of my cousins I haven't seen since I was a little girl! Gung Hey Fat Choy! What are your CNY plans?