Crsytal Jade Shanghai

Can't really have a blog without a dim sum entry. Crystal Jade in Shanghai serves Cantonese food whereas the one in Hong Kong does Shanghaiese stuff. It's all about doing something different eh. I don't know why but all the Crystal jade I've been to are all very popular and often with long queues.

The dim sum menu is not very big but it covers most of all the usual stuff. There are also a few northern dumpling dishes like xiao long bao and other buns but we usually stick with the southern favourites.

Here's our all-time favourite: deep fried dough sticks wrapped in rice pastry, with dipping sauce on the side. The dough sticks were fresh and crispy. The pastry could have been thinner though.

More dough sticks for us to have with the congee. These ones were even more crispy. Perfect!
Har Gau - steamed shrimp dumplings. Didn't have the mythical 13 pleads like I saw on the Discovery Chanel, but there were at least 8 or 10 pleads on the pastry. The shrimps were big and fresh. Siu Mai - steamed pork and shrimp dumplings. The pork was not too fatty at all, and there was a big piece of mushroom on one of them. Nice. We decided to try the beef in chili oil again since it was on the 'chef's special'. This version sucked compared to the one in Xin Ji Shi. First off where was the oil? It was more like a spicy broth. Second the spiciness was not right. There was a kick but it didn't come from Suchuan peppercorns and therefore that special numbing sensation was missing. Disappointing. The Shanghaiese pork fillets with noodles was good though. The fillets were seasoned and fried to perfection. The batter was so thin I wondered if there was a batter after all? The cut of the meat was lean and chunky -like 200g of meat - there's no messing around! (Oh no my husband said the pork looks like turds on the pic! My bad!) The noodles were hand-made on the spot. There were a bunch of guys behind the half-open kitchen making them on the spot. They were as good as it gets!
The bill came to RMB190. MSG was thrown in for free. So f*#king thirsty all afternoon!

Crystal Jade Restaurant

2/F, No.6-7 South Block XinTianDi, Lane 123 Xing Ye Road, Shanghai. Tel: 6385-8752

Bake off!

"Just add water" scones mix vs. Delia Smith's recipe.

They didn't look bad at all! They were a little too thin I think - I wonder whether it was the rolling? Or the fact that they didn't raise enough? They didn't taste dense but they were pretty crumbly though.

Hmmm..............we brought the clotted cream all the way from Hong Kong.

These were made with Delia's recipe.

Verdict: surprise surprise - the home made ones won. They were noticeably fluffier!

A debate: Cream on top of jam? Or jam on top of cream? Feel free to leave your comments.

RIP Chalky

Sad news. :-(

http://www.rickstein.com/news_ripchalky.htm

RIP Chalky!

Laris

People like Laris because it's hip and the food is reasonably nice. The view is stunning. There is the oyster and caviar bar, and the chocolate factory. The Vault Bar with the white marble walls and floor looks unique and trendy, although it's not really my cup of tea. I always feel like I'm in a morgue or something. Anyways. We go to Laris because it's the place where you can have seafood in Shanghai. I don't know why we don't get more fish in the city? Consider all the hotels are serving oysters (and I assume they are being flown in) so why not some barramundi or trout?

Our early Valentine's meal started with the complimentary appetizer - prawn tartare on the left and potato mousse on the right. Both tasted interesting and delicate enough. My husband pointed out the red flake on the potato mousse was parma ham. Très très fancy!

My husband had the king prawn wrapped in pancetta on a bed of cucumber. He said there were Thai spices on the prawns and they were nice and fresh.

I had the skate wing grilled with paprika. The fish was very meaty but the paprika was way too over-powering. My husband said it tasted a little like armpit. (!)

He then had the wild turbot fillet with some green sauce but he had no idea what it was. I think he liked it as he wolfed it down pretty quickly.

Here's the reason why we came to this place: the dungeness crab, broiled and served with 3 dipping sauces. It was my first ever dungeness crab and I thought it would be a little bigger. It's always sold out during our previous visits and this time I was smart enough to reserve one when I booked the table. It didn't disappoint. The meat was sweet and fresh. A very time-consuming dish though and I felt sorry for my poor husband who had to wait for me.

For dessert I picked the chocolate cake with chocolate chip ice cream. Both were not too sweet and the cake had a warm and soft centre. Yum. I had fun scraping the chocolate off my plate also.

My husband had the cheese cake creme brulee - he ate the whole thing before I had a chance to take a photo. D'oh!

The service was OK and efficient in general - nothing special. The bill came to RMB1200 excluding the wine.

Laris

6/F, 3 on the Bund, 3 Zhong Shan Road, Shanghai. Tel : 6321-9922

P.S. I have to say I prefer the brown crab I had at The Seafood Restaurant by Rick Stein more. Just look at it. hmmmmmmmm..

Christmas tree

What can you do with your two-bit plastic tree until the next Christmas?

A little advertising?

Des Lys Bistro

A small joint not too far from where we live, it is extremely popular during the week at lunch for its RMB48 lunch set, which gives you a main course and 1 drink (wine or soft drinks). We decided to check it out on Saturday - at 2pm the place was half full. Not bad I guess. The weekday set lunches were not available but there were still the daily specials (around 10 of them ranging from grilled sole to tenderloin all around RMB90), and then there was the bunch set.

The bunch set (RMB98) had the following items:
-a coffee (regular or espresso - can't swap it for tea though)
-a freshly squeezed orange juice
-a croissant
-a choice between scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, or the Provencal beef balls
-a choice between brownie or cheese cake

Our waitress nicely asked whether we wanted our coffee first, but she forgot to serve the milk. While we waited for our mains some bread came...although not piping hot it looked fresh enough. After about 20 mins (why the long wait? It wasn't busy certainly) the food came. The scrambled eggs looked a little over-cooked. My husband's verdict: eggs were a little dry (more like stir-fried then scrambled) but the salmon was nice and it was tasty overall.

Here is my Provencal beef balls. While they were not as nice as my legendary meat balls (haha) I totally enjoyed them. The sauce was really tasty and tangy and was perfect with the bread. I had a bite of the salad - not very inspiring.
We asked for salt and pepper and were given the server's pepper mill. A little awkward when we were sitting down. Note the orange juice: so 70s looking with the paper brolly - loved it. I wonder why they put ice in the fresh juice? It watered down the juice before I had a chance to finish it.

The croissants came some time during our mains. They were nice and hot and sinfully tasty with that full butter taste. Hmmm.....

The desserts came very quickly and our hearts sank. They looked pretty pathetic don't you think? I am not fussy with garnishing etc but surely they could make the dessert look a little more attractive. We dug in nevertheless and surprise! They totally tasted a lot better then they looked. The brownie was warm and moist and had the right sweetness. The brown patch was actually melted chocolate and it was yummy too.

My cheese cake was not bad neither. Rich and creamy. The blueberry syrup was blah though, it simply lacked taste.

Overall we were not unhappy with the meal. Service was efficient. It was stress free and laid back too, unlike some of the busy places in town where big families visit. I feel like you get much better value for its weekday lunch sets though. For example the beef balls is always on the weekday lunch menu for RMB48.

Des Lys Bistro

178 Xin Le Road, Shanghai. Tel: 5404-5077

Mesa Manifesto

Friday afternoon. After the chaos at the fabric market, my friend U and I decided to go somewhere civilised for lunch and Mesa Manifesto came to mind. MM serves "Australian cuisine" and I have to be honest I still have no clue what exactly Australian cuisine is. There seems to be the two extreme - the good old barbecue with meat meat and more meat, then there's is the fancy nouvelle food served in little piles. Totally schizophrenic!

The menu looked very impressive I have to say. The pricing is done in 2, 3 and 4-course basis. Funny we checked out the dessert right away, then worked our way backwards. :-) We decided that we were going to go for the 3-course option - what the heck.

A piping hot and soft baguette arrived before the food - + 100 points for the nice bread!

We both picked the beef carpaccio with potato and cheese fondue, watercress and grilled focaccia to start. I was curious to see what the potato and cheese fondue would be like, but it was really like a creamy potato salad. It was nice with the beef, which was paper-thin yet juicy. The most surprising thing was the grilled focaccia. It seemed so simple but i bet it's super tricky to have it done to such perfection. It was crispy yet soft and moist at the same time. I was able to cut it with my knife and fork and it didn't crumble into the little pieces like I though it would. A good thing to have on the side. Yum!

U ordered the chargrilled tenderloin of beef, steak fried,bacon wrapped onion and bearnaise sauce. Judging by the speed she finished her meal it must have been really good! We were especially impressed with the bacon wrapped onion - we thought we could steal the idea and try it at home. I ordered the braised lamb shank with soft polenta, root vegetables and gremolata. I assumed gremolata is the chopped parsley + garlic pile on the lamb? It didn't really add too much taste to the lamb but it didn't have to. The lamb was rich in taste as it was and the meat was so tender it fell off the bone easily. The sauce/reduction looked suspiciously the same as the one on the beef dish: - 50 points. :-) The vegetable "balls" were zucchini, carrot and squash, they were crisp hence difficult to pick up. Oh well who needs vegetables anyway?

Dessert time: flourless valrhona chocolate cake with butterscotch cream and mixed berry compote. One word: impecable. The cake was moist and light, and...flourless! Egg white perhaps? It was very chocolaty and not at all stocky. Perfect for the 3rd course.

This is the chilled orange creme souffle pudding, cumquat marmalade, sesame biscotti, vanilla sauce and caramel fudge.The souffle had a very nice texture and taste - went very well with the vanilla sauce (the bits in the sauce were brown sugar). Liked the biscotti too. Didn't think much of the cumquat marmalade as it was plastic-ky, but then I never like marmalade to begin with. I hadn't realised it at the time but where was the caramel fudge??

The service was surprisingly good and we almost forgot we were in China. Mesa Manifesto will be seeing me again for sure. With our 2 glasses of wine the bill came to RMB450 and U insisted on buying - thank you so much once again!

Mesa Manifesto

748 Julu Road, Shanghai. Tel: 6289-9108

I've got the whole world in my hands

Baby green turtles, 3 days old, on Sipadan Island.

Sipadan, part 1

We have so far got 2 days of diving pictures sorted - more to come. Pictures were taken with the (my husband made me say it) magnificent Canon EOS 5D with Sea and Sea housing + 2 YS110 strobes.

Ghost pipefish
Big-eye barracuda

Freckled goatfish

Green turtle

Green turtle scratching

Barracuda

Blue spotted ray

Scorpionfish - see its chin!

Blue ribbon eel

Henry, lost in Beijing still...

I was sorting out some old photos on my other PC and found some old ones of Henry.

Here's Henry in 1999. We took a diaper from my god-daughter's stash when she was born.

Henry and Peter on my parent's couch.

Henry and Stanley.

Henry and Stanley during SARS.

Henry on route to Hua Hin.

Poor Henry. :-(

Xin Ji Shi 新吉士

I have to confess I really don't know a lot about Shanghaiese food. Hence I have no idea how authentic the food in Xin Ji Shi is, but everything always tastes pretty good to us. There is one exception though - "grandmother's pork", a stew and a real traditional dish like mom's meatloaf kind of way. It comes in a clay pot, which looks exotic enough, but there is just way too much fat in the meat. Anyway. Back to our meal yesterday.

As soon as I sat down I got served tea and two small cold dishes right away. One was clearly roast peanuts and the other, upon closer inspection, was tofu and shrimps swimming in some kind of broth. I tried the peanuts and they were smokey and not very crunchy. Maybe that's how they were supposed to be? I decided to be adventurous and gave the chicken in chili oil a try. It's a cold appetizer of Sichuan origin and I naively believed that the chicken would be boneless. I was wrong. The sauce was mainly chili oil and sesame oil. There was also a hint of a peanuty taste in there - just like the sauce in dan dan noodles, which I am not a big fan of. The skin and the bones came off relatively easily, but it was a bit of a drag. The chicken itself didn't have a lot of taste, and the sauce was not spicy (I assume it should be spicy?). By the way the Chinese name for this dish is Saliva Chicken - no idea. Don't think I'll be in a hurry to order it again, at least not until we are in a Sichuanese place. We had more success with the deep fried mandarin fish. I am not sure what mandarin fish is - it is for sure NOT the tropical variety you see in an aquarium. My guess is that it's a fresh water fish of whatever in season and fried in butter. Yum! It was crispy and piping hot. The sweet soya based sauce complemented the meat very well.

Next dish : stir-fried lily bulbs. We never knew lily bulbs were edible until we tried it here. Silly us. The dish was pretty plain but it was a good 'buffer dish' as our other selections were pretty strong tasting. The texture of the bulbs were interesting enough as they were starchy but semi-firm at the same time. A refreshing dish nonetheless.

Another popular Sichuan dish: beef in chili oil. I know...it's a disgrace to order Sichuan food in a Shanghaiese place...but hey it's so good we couldn't say no. :-) The beef was so tender and it practically gave us that melt-in-the-mouth feel. The sauce was numbingly spicy with Suchuan peppers. Smokey!

And finally a Shanghaiese special: pork ribs cooked in vinegar and brown sugar. The meat was lean and tender once again, and the sauce had the perfect tangy yet sweet blend. It was pretty thick and caramelised so we got the right amount of sauce on each bite. Totally the reason to come back to this place.

And last but not least the Shanghai fried noodles. Someone told me that the noodles should be thicker? But then this someone may be having the export version in Hong Kong. Will need to ask a real local. The noodles was nicely fried to perfection with veg and strips of pork, and not overly greasy. A good dish to help wash down all the meaty dishes we had.

The bill came to RMB390, I suspect you could have the same things at a local establishment for much less. Oh well. I guess you do pay for hygiene.

Shanghai Xin Ji Shi

Xin Tian Di branch. Tel: 6336-4746