糭子 for Dragon Boat Festival

端午節 Dragon Boat Festival is on 28 May 2009 this year. Auntie and Sa Sa asked us to go and make the rice dumpling (zong) together on Sunday 03 May.

I was very looking forward to it. I had never make zong before and always wanted to know how it is made. It was a early start. We arrived at the Auntie's kitchen at 07:15. Chef Jimmy had already started wrapping. The savory zongs were made first. All the ingredients laid out on the workstation. They were:

• Glutinous rice (soaked and seasoned)
• Skinless mung beans (soaked)
• Pork belly pieces (seasoned and cooked)
• Chinese sausage (cut in chunky pieces)
• Chinese mushrooms (cut in pieces, seasoned and cooked)
• Salted duck eggs yolks (cut in pieces)
• Chestnuts (peeled and soaked)
• Dried Shrimp (seasoned and cooked)
• Dried small scallops
• Bamboo leaves (soaked and cleaned)

Jimmy showed me how the savory zong was made with two bamboo leaves. It was fun and not very difficult. However, it takes practice to be able to make the zong to form the perfect shape. I have to say the ones I made were not in perfect shapes at all. My aim was to make sure everything stayed inside and leaves.

Zongs wrapped with two leaves

Sa Sa used a different wrapping method as she used four bamboo leaves to wrap. This is the method her mum shown her. This method makes bigger zong.

I wrapped two zongs with Sa Sa's method. They are on the right of the photo shown below. You can see they look so different from the others that Sa Sa made.

Zongs wrapped with four leaves

Next we made the sweet zongs, Jianshui zong (碱水粽) "alkaline water zong". The ingrendients were:

• Glutinous rice (soaked and seasoned) mixed with lye water
• Red bean paste
• Bamboo leaves

Here is a video to show how it is made.


Chef Jimmy was showing us how to wrap Jianshui zong (碱水粽) "alkaline water zong".

I was making the 碱水粽

The way to cook the zongs are boiling them in water. The two leaves zongs took two hours. The four leaves zongs took three hours. The one leaf zongs took a hour.

Cooked zongs

Yummy!!!


Click here for more photos.


To find out more about Dragon Boat Festival (Mandarin: Duanwu Jie 端午节; Cantonese: Tuen Ng Jit 端午節). Click here.

To find out more about rice dumplings (Zongzi 粽子 / 糭子 or Zong 粽 / 糭). Click here.


Links to our other postings:
Floating Islands - Ile Flottante - French Dessert
BHF London to Brighton Bike Ride 2007
Salty Duck Eggs 鹹蛋

Rhodes W1 Brasserie Bar - Gary Rhodes

Today we went to Rhodes W1 Brasserie Bar for lunch. This brasserie is part of the The Cumberland Hotel which is very close to the Marble Arch underground station. The interior is very contemporary and spacious.

Rhodes W1 Brasserie Bar

We had the lunch menu but have to say that when first looked at it, we thought it was a bit boring and were a bit disappointed. However it was good value for money considering it is a celebrity chef brasserie restaurant. It was £24.95 for two courses and £29.95 for three courses including one drink.

The food was presented well and taste very good, what we would expected from Gary Rhodes. The waiting staff on the other hand was not as high standard as other celebrity chef restaurants we've been to. Our reservation was at noon and the brasserie was empty. During our dining, only one other lady was having lunch there.

Grilled mackerel with orange and fennel salad

Fresh figs, Parma ham, Gorgonzola and basil butter

Medallions of beef rump with braised red cabbage and horseradish cream

Roasted chicken breast on butter spinach with tomato and thyme fondue, melting Swiss cheese, and shallot white wine and cream sauce

The Rhodes W1 Restaurant is in the same premises but they have their own entrance at the corner. It is under refurbishment at the moment. I am sure we will give it a try.

16/08/2008 Saturday

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Links to our other postings:
The World Best Restaurants 2008
Le Manoir aux Quat - Raymond Blanc - Two-Michelin-Starred Restaurant - UK
Craig

Restaurant Gordon Ramsay (Royal hospital Road) - Gordon Ramsay - Three-Michelin-Starred Restaurant - UK

We have been looking forward to today and were so excited.

Peter, Fat Bear and I went to Restaurant Gordon Ramsay. We have been talking about eating there for ages but never managed to book a table.

It is not easy to book a table at this particular Gordon Ramsay restaurant. It has to be exactly 2 months prior the day you plan to dine there. We were planning to do dinner on a Friday. So Fat Bear called them on 16/05 to try to book a table for 18/07. He was told that it was a wrong day to call and was asked to call back the following Monday on 19/05. Fat Bear was on a business trip that day so he asked me to following it up on Monday. He told me to make sure I make the call at 9am which is when the reservation office start the day. So I called at 9am and the phone line was not yet open. I kept redialing until there was a ringing tone. It was picked up by an answering machine. I waited and waited, 40 minutes later I managed to speak to a person. I asked her the available time for dinner booking for 18/07. She said 10pm is the earliest available time. I nearly screamed!!! and was thinking to myself... ... 10 o'clock for dinner and that's the earliest available time!!! And I was almost the first person to call on that day!!! So I asked her the availabilities for lunch for that Friday. She said 12:00 or 12:30. I said "Great! Let's do 12:30."

We took a day off and dressed ourselves smartly, as the dress code is smart and no jeans, T-shirt and sportswear.

There were three types of menu. The Set Lunch 3-course menu was £45 with with 3 choices of each course. The A La Carte 3-course menu was £90 with 8 choices of each course. The Menu Prestige was £120 for a 7-course tasting menu.

Everything on the menu looked so appetising and yummy. We decided to go for the A La Carte menu. It was hard to pick just one item for each course because we just wanted to try everything. Luckily there were three of us and could just pick different items to share.

We were not disappointed. The food was outstandingly delicious. The presentation of each dishes were so pretty. We really could feel, see and taste the chefs enthusiasm for food. The waiting staff and sommelier were also very professional and have good knowledge about all the items on the menu and the wine list.

Before starters, a small bowl of cold clear tomato soup with asparagus slices and tomato dices. It was very tasty and refreshing. Pre-dessert, a glass of pineapple and coconut thick drink was served.

For dessert, we highly recommend the Assiette de I'Aubergine. It is a selection of desserts for two people or more. After lots of desserts, some strawberry ice-cream balls coasted with white chocolate and some chocolate truffles was served.

For tea and coffee, Peter and Fat Bear had Espresso and I had a cup of fresh lemon verbena leaves tea. It was so fragrant and refreshing. I wanted more.

Sauteed foie gras with roasted veal sweetbreads, Cabernet Sauvignon vinegar and almond veloute

Salad of Scottish lobster tail with charlotte potatoes, caviar, creme fraiche and watercress vichyssoise

Slow braised pied de cochon pressed then pan fried with ham knuckle, poached quail's egg and hollandaise sauce

Limited production French wine

Pan fried fillets of John Dory with Cromer crab, caviar, crushed new potatoes and a basil vinaigrette

Oven roasted pigeon from Bresse with grilled polenta, crispy lardons, braised shallots, baby golden beetroot and date sauce

Pot roasted Northumberland beef fillet with meat and potato pie, baby turnips, red wine sauce

Hazelnut souffle with milk ice-cream

Part of Assiette de I'Aubergine
(Granny Smith parfait with honeycomb, bitter chocolate and Champagne foam)

Part of Assiette de I'Aubergine
(Marinated pineapple raviloli with mango and raspberries)

Part of Assiette de I'Aubergine
(Left: Caramelised tarte Tatin of apples
Centre: Bitter chocolate cylinder with coffee granite and ginger mousse)

Strawberry Ice-cream balls coated with white chocolate,
Chocolate truffles

We had a fantastic time in the Restaurant Gordon Ramsay. Everything was so delicious. We sure will eat there again. Now we understand why their reservation system has to be that strict because there are only about 10-12 tables in the restaurant. The head waiter told us that they received around 300 calls daily for bookings. After all, we think it was worth the wait.

18/07/2008 Friday

Click here for more photos.

Links to our other postings:
The Fat Duck - Heston Blumenthal - Three-Michelin-Starred Restaurant
Something We Felt in Love at First Sight!
Brighton in Snow

Brighton in Snow

Sunday 06 April 2008

When I woke up this morning, it was all white outside. I got very excited.

The photos below are taken by my colleague, Mat, in Brighton city centre. They are beautiful pictures.

The Brighton Dome

The Brighton Pavilion

The Brighton Pier

Click here for more photos.

Links to our other postings:
The New 7 Wonders of the World 世界新七大奇蹟
Our Veggies!!
Fashion Show on Great Wall of China

Le Manoir aux Quat - Raymond Blanc - Two-Michelin-Starred Restaurant - UK

Raymond Blanc, who hosts the BBC programme, The Restaurant. He is a very successful French chef in the UK.

Raymond's two-Michelin-starred restaurant Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons is located in Great Milton, eight miles south-east of Oxford. Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons is not just a restaurant, it is a hotel, cookery school with a big beautiful garden and vegetable garden.

The vegetable garden supplements herbs and vegetables for the restaurant during the late spring, summer and autumn months. The soil managed organically and achieved full organic status from the Soil Association in August 2000.

Our table was booked for 12:30. We met up Peter at the car park and walked via the garden entrance towards the main building. As soon as we open the wood door, we were greeted by a the hostress. She took our coats and shown us to the lounge area for a drink and some olives while we can have a look at the menu. There are to set menus, the Notre Menu Decouverte £116 and the Classiques Du Manoir Aux Quat' Saisons £95, and the a la carte menu.

The menu we chose was the Notre Menu Decouverte. We were shown to the main dining area at around 13:00. The restaurant itself was bigger then we thought. Our table was in the conservatory area. Not long after we sat down and pick our bread from the bread basket, the first course was served.

The dishes I really enjoyed were the soup, scallop, cepes, brill, duck and the exotic fruit raviole. I couldn't choose which dish I liked the most actually. They were all very high standard and tasted wonderful. After all nine courses, we had some coffee and green tea and petits fours. We finished our meal at 16:30, then we wondered around the gardens specially the vegetable garden which I really loved.

The Main House

The organic vegetable garden

Notre Menu Decouverte
Roast pumpkin soup, toasted cobb nuts
Confit of foie gras, diced quince, aged balsamic vinegar jelly, toasted sour dough bread
Plancha seared scallop, cauliflower puree, curry oil

Pan-scared cepes, smoked sweetcorn, crispy bacon
Poached fillet of Cornish brill, Cancale "Tsarskaya" oyster, wasabi and cucumber
Roasted Gressingham duck breast, braised chicory, jasmine tea and raisin sauce

Chestnut streuzel surprise, Araguani chocolate ganache
Exotic fruit "raviole" with "kaffir" lime leaf and coconut
Coffee "Panna Cotta", crunchy hazelnut praline, anis "creme glacee"

Cafe "Pur Arabica", petits fours et chocolat du Manoir

£116 per person

Roast pumpkin soup, toasted cobb nuts

Confit of foie gras, diced quince, aged balsamic vinegar jelly, toasted sour dough bread

Plancha seared scallop, cauliflower puree, curry oil

Pan-scared cepes, smoked sweetcorn, crispy bacon

Roasted Gressingham duck breast, braised chicory, jasmine tea and raisin sauce

Exotic fruit "raviole" with "kaffir" lime leaf and coconut

Coffee "Panna Cotta", crunchy hazelnut praline, anis "creme glacee"

Cafe "Pur Arabica", pettits fours et chocolat du Manoir

Belgo

Fish and his friends came to UK for holiday. We shown them around London yesterday. We went to Belgo for lunch.

Of course it was fingers licking good.

Green Thai Curry Moules

Moules Classiques

Steak and Fries

Blackberries! Yummy!

I am talking about the real thing, the healthy, full of vitamin C blackberries. Not the mobile phone Blackberry.

We live near the South Downs. If the weather is nice on Sunday, we love to go for a walk. In the past 2-3 months, we noticed lots of wild blackberry trees with lots of berries on them. We have been picking blackberries to eat and make jam. They are very yummy and some of them are very sweet.

Who would refuse free organic blackberries. If you buy blackberry (non-organic) from supermarket, they cost around £2 - £3 for 250g.

Welcome Dau Dau (Beanie)

Dau Dau (豆豆) is my new car. She is a new Mini Cooper in red with white roof. Dau means 'Bean' in Cantonese, because she looks like a red bean so I give her this name.

This morning, We picked her up from the Mini dealer. She was in the show room and looked very stunning. I could not believed she was my baby until I saw the number plate.

Dau Dau is my first brand new car and was custom made for me. I am so excited and can not wait to drive her around. She is bigger than Ah Mui so I have to pay extra attention when I drive. In fact, any car would be bigger than Ah Mui, right?

Welcome Dau Dau.


Links to our other postings:
A Big Hole in My Pocket !?!?
Bye Bye Ah Mui
Old Harry Rocks, Dorset