Hong Kong Food Street in Houston

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I've complained repeatedly to friends about the lack of good Chinese food in Austin relative to cities with a large Asian population.  Check out Hong Kong Food Street in Houston, which I tried earlier this summer that specializes in Cantonese food.  It has a huge menu with dishes I haven't even heard of!  They offer dishes that range from simple but addictive street snacks to banquet-style cuisine.

Remember the steamed crab over glutinous rice that I raved about in New York?  Well, HK Food Street has a lobster version over seasoned rice.  It's really decadent and oh so good!

Steamed Lobster with an Egg Sauce over Seasoned Rice

I'm addicted to stir-fried green beans (they're like green french fries but not starchy!), so of course I had to have a plate at the table if it's on the menu!  I don't think I've had a bad version at any Chinese restaurant.

Stir-fried Green Beans with Ground Pork

My parents craved clams so we ordered a hot pot of clams doused in rice wine.  This was ok.  I think I prefer sauteed clams in spicy black bean sauce except in the case of Japanese sake clams.

Clam Hot Pot

The best dish of the day was the fried tofu covered with dried scallop gravy.  The fried tofu soaked up the sauce like a sponge so that each bite was an explosion of scallop juice, but the outside retained the dry texture of fried foods.  YUM!

Fried Tofu with Scallop Gravy

Cantonese Food in Beijing

I came back from conducting field research in China earlier this month.  Because of the sub-zero temperatures and being sick with respiratory infection, I spent my leisure time eating instead of sightseeing.  My wonderful hostess in Beijing is originally from Guangzhou.  She often reminisces about the amazing Cantonese food in her hometown, and the recent Cantonese food craze in Beijing has made it convenient for her to get a taste of home.  But frankly, Cantonese restaurants (First Chinese BBQ) in Austin serves dishes that are made with higher quality ingredients and with less grease and heavy-handed seasoning!  You can really taste the difference in the BBQ dishes like cha siu, roasted pork belly, and soy chicken. 

Cha Siu, Roasted Pork Belly, and Soy Chicken with mustard, sweet & sour sauce, and minced garlic and green onion in oil

Check out the grease in the stir-fried beef and flat broad noodles (which aren't wide enough) and the corn starch in the stir-fried asparagus!

Stir-fried Beef with Flat Broad Noodles

Stir-fried Asparagus

However, there are some positives about Cantonese restaurants in Beijing.  You can order dishes with ingredients, such as bamboo fungus, that are hard to come by at Cantonese restaurants in the U.S.

Spinach with garlic, Goji berries, and bamboo fungus

I was very happy to have tried this preparation of si gua (luffa).  This was so addictive and seems easy enough to make at home.

Steamed Si Gua with minced garlic and dried shrimp

We also tried out a dim sum restaurant in a residential neighborhood one lazy weekend, which turned out pretty good.  The turnip cakes were particularly exceptional because they used more daikon than rice powder, making the cakes more translucent than the ones in the U.S.  I was super happy to see that they also served a spicy XO sauce version!

Turnip Cakes

Spicy XO Sauce Turnip Cakes

Beef Chang Fen

Custard Tarts

Coconut Buns with a custardy coconut milk filling

Unfortunately, this restaurant managed to screw up 3 dim sum standards: shu mai, steamed pork ribs with black beans, and har gau.  You really shouldn't open a dim sum restaurant if your chefs can't make decent versions of these standards.  C'mon Beijing!

Blech! Sickly-looking Shu Mai

Instead of Pork Ribs, we got chunks of pale fat

Unimpressive Har Gau

New York City Day 1

I recently went to New York to attend a good friend's wedding.  I was super excited because it was the first wedding ceremony I've ever attended!  Of course I was even more excited for my friend, who married the sweetest man I've ever had the pleasure of meeting.  I'm completely jealous.  Congratulations JR & JG!

The wedding was also a great excuse for me to explore the NY food scene, Chinese food in particular...

The first thing I did after checking into the Warwick, was head out to Flushing, Queens.  Chinese restaurants that haven't succumbed to the pressures of serving Americanized-Chinese food are in the single digits here in Austin (my top three picks: First Chinese BBQ, Asia Cafe, and Din Ho).  I was thus eager to reacquaint myself with venues that don't give a damn about Western tastes.  Unfortunately, they also have a habit of flunking health inspections.  Before my trip, I researched places I wanted to try.  It turned out a bunch of the restaurants and Flushing Mall food stalls on my list were shut down this year by the health department.  Quite a few were highly recommended by critics, foodies, and yelpers.  :-(

Flushing, Queens

Walking around Main Street and Roosevelt was exciting and frustrating, like the rest of NYC except for the constant chatters in Cantonese and Mandarin along the bustling sidewalks.  Goods and produce overflow grocery stores and medicinal shops and onto the sidewalks.  Fruit and roasted/marinated meats vendors hollered out their goods at passersby.  Food lovers unabashedly show their enthusiasm for what Flushing has to offer by expertly picking out fruits and veggies, slurping handmade noodles in basement stalls, sipping boba teas while searching for the next snack.  It was so tempting to get picked up by this swell of felicitous food loving and eat everything in sight.  However, I had to save room in my tummy that evening for what I knew was going to be the highlight dish of my NYC trip.

Grilled Skewered Meats and Seafood

A Busy Prepared Foods Stall in a Hole in the Wall

"New Chinatown" Market

My friend in New York, a former Austinite, warned me about the sweltering summer heat, and she was absolutely right.  That's why I made sure to add Ice Fire Land for Taiwanese shaved ice to my itinerary.  Ice Fire Land is a Taiwanese hot pot restaurant with a boba tea and shaved ice bar at the front. 

Ice Fire Land

I ordered a bowl of shaved ice with taro, stewed peanuts, pineapple chunks, and condensed milk.  Although not spectacular, it was still tasting and sufficiently cooled me off.

Shaved Ice with Peanuts, Taro, Pineapple, and Condensed Milk

After more food scouting, I headed to 東湖 New Imperial Palace Seafood Restaurant for their famous glutinous rice steamed with dungeness crab.  Apparently, every table ordered one or two steamers of this dish!  It's not overhyped.  It's as good as sticky rice gets.

New Imperial Palace Seafood Restaurant

I was afraid that the dungeness crab would not be as fresh as a strictly dungeness crab dish, but the crab was meaty and delicious by itself!  The rice, although simple, was perfectly cooked (not too soft and sticky and not hard and stale), soaked up all the crabs' natural flavors, and went from delicious to drool-inducing with the aid of fried shallots and fresh scallions. 

Glutinous Rice Steamed with Dungeness Crab

This should be on everyone's NYC food list

We only ordered this one dish as we didn't have a fridge and didn't have anything with which to reheat leftovers at the hotel...until I figured out that I had to request room service for a coffeemaker.  You can make so much more than coffee with a coffeemaker and air vents can sometimes double as a fridge!  More on that in later posts...

All meals end with a free bowl of sweet red bean soup and a small plate of canned fruits.  The fruit is lame, but it's free and the red bean soup is good.  I prefer this to the disgustingly teensy weensy dessert "course" at Momofuku's newest restaurant, Má Pêche .  More on that later...

Hot Sweet Red Bean Soup and Canned Pineapple and Lychee

Not satisfied with the canned fruit for dessert, we lugged a small yellow-flesh watermelon back to the hotel.  I was hoping to find Taiwanese guavas and mountain apples in the Flushing markets, but I had no such luck.  I still believe that the only state that carries a reliable supply of Taiwanese fruits is California.

Yellow Flesh Watermelon

Din Ho BBQ vs. First Chinese BBQ

So earlier in my blog, I revealed how we barely like any Chinese restaurants in the U.S. due to the overuse of corn starch, sweet and sour goo, and MSG at most establishments.

In Austin, the only 2 Chinese restaurants that we allow ourselves to visit when we're not in the mood to cook or when we want Chinese BBQ to-go are Din Ho Chinese BBQ and First Chinese BBQ. Before the Chinatown center opened on N. Lamar, we only ate at Din Ho (means "the best" or "the creme de la creme"). This place was the best in Austin until First Chinese BBQ came in to steal its crown.

Ok. First the BBQ. The cha shao is a Cantonese BBQ staple. There wouldn't be Chinese BBQ without this honey-glazed roast pork. This piggy is so versatile, it can be eaten as is, diced and fried with eggs and rice, chopped and stuffed in steamed or baked honey glazed buns, or sliced and put on top of noodle soups or egg noodles. The leaner the pork the better. I hate eating around fat. Both restaurants make pretty good cha shao, so it's hard to compare the two based on that alone. The next BBQ item is the shao ya (roasted duck). The meat has to be moist but the skin has to be mahogany colored and toasty. This comes with the amazing duck marinade. Again, both roast pretty good ducks. The biggest difference for me is that I find First Chinese BBQ less greasy. I know, I know. Some people think it's not good unless it's greasy, but I find that an excuse for the restaurant to sell you less expensive fatty meat.

Din Ho BBQ vs. First Chinese BBQ

The grease factor works its way through the other dishes I've had at both restaurants. Din Ho tends to coat its meat, veggies, and noodle dishes with a shiny veneer of cooking oil more so than First Chinese. The only dish I would pick Din Ho over First is the Flat Beef Noodles. Yes, it's still coated with grease, but when I put a mixture of the noodles, beef, green onions, and bean sprouts in my mouth, it has a complete taste. My taste buds all nod in agreement. The one at First Chinese lacks one thing...a spice I suspect...dunno what it is.

So unless I want stir fried flat beef noodles, I will continue to visit First Chinese as my designated Chinese restaurant in Austin.

The following two photos are from Din Ho:

Beef and Mushrooms Clay Pot and Eggplant Clay Pot

The following are photos from First Chinese:

Hot and Sour Soup

Black Bean Shrimp and Seafood Pot


Black Bean Clams and Kung Pao Squid


Yummy Feast