2012 December | Sybaritica

Well, this dish is a bit of ‘thrown-together-at-the-last-minute’ kind of affair that was inspired by a need to use a piece of pork tenderloin I had leftover after using the rest in another meal. The result, clearly Chinese in spirit, was very tasty and took less time to cook than it did for the shrimp to thaw… Read more

Date of Visit: December 8, 2012

Cora’s, I only just discovered, is a chain of restaurants (currently celebrating 25 years in operation) that has 147 restaurants across Canada. Thus far, however, I have never been in one and the only one I have really noticed was the one on Rideau St. in downtown Ottawa which was visible from my hotel room during this last visit to the capital. One morning, during my stay, I decided to give it a try for brunch… Read more

For anybody who has ever wanted to try making Asian dumplings at home but has been daunted by the various wrapper folding techniques, these little treats might be just the ticket to get you started. I have done a number of posts featuring Shumai and Jaozi style dumplings in the past, both of which require a little bit of practice to produce successfully, but these are really simple to make and the perfect place  for the novice to take the plunge… Read more

If you have never yet used dried shrimp then you really think about adding this very versatile foodstuff to your pantry. Like mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, or raisins, the drying process concentrates the flavors of the original product and shrimp, in particular, pack an umami-punch that makes the dried variety very useful indeed… Read more

I have always been rather curious about this dish as I have read about it many times. It is not a dish one comes across very often in the west, even in Chinese restaurants that serve properly traditional Chinese dishes and is probably not one that will immediately appeal to a lot of people.

When I was perusing the menu for the Harmony Restaurant in Ottawa, I saw an appetizer listed as ‘Couple’s Beef in Hot Oil’. I suspected that this may be the dish I had read about before and the Chinese characters, 夫妻肺片, included alongside the English name, do indeed translate to ‘husband wife lung slices’ (fūqī fèipiàn, in Mandarin).

Wikipedia claims that the third character (fèi) translates as ‘offal’ but the dictionaries I use most frequently both clearly state that it means ‘lung’ and make no mention of anything else. The story behind the dish is that a husband and wife team in Chengdu became famous for this specialty at their restaurant and most sources go onto tell you that, although lung was originally used, it is now typically replaced with other offal, most usually tripe, often brisket, and sometimes beef tendons. For this reason, when I finally went to try this dish at Harmony, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to get… Read more

Date of Visit: December 5, 2012 

The Heart and Crown is one of a group of twelve associated pubs, one of which is the Auld Dubliner Pub, reviewed by myself earlier this year. I seem to recall stopping by the place with my wife some years ago for a drink, but this is the first time I have ever visited for a bite to eat. The menu is typical pub fare, including burgers and a shepherd’s pie, but they also feature a Guinness beef stew and a ‘Chicken Curry with Chips’, which, interestingly, they describe as an ‘Irish Standard’. I rather wish, after sampling their steak, that I had chosen the curry instead… Read more

I love Kung Pao dishes. Chicken is the most common variety, and the most traditional, but Kung Pao Shrimp is also very popular restaurant fare. Generally, I tend to cook Kung Pao dishes the traditional Chinese way with scorched dried chilies and Sichuan Pepper but, today, I am going to do more of a westernized, restaurant style of preparation. I am going to use chopped fresh chili with a bit of plain chili paste, substitute cashews for peanuts, and use a little more sugar than you will generally find in traditional Chinese renderings. My only departure from the typical restaurant version will be that I am not going to bulk out the main ingredients with a lot of vegetables… Read more

Today, we get to feature the curious specimen I recently found hanging at the Kowloon Market in Ottawa, a picture of which I included in the post announcing my safe arrival home. One of my readers made a tentative guess at what it might be (correctly, as it happens) but only baconbiscuit21 confidently identified it as a cuttlefish…

The sign hanging beside it in the store described it using the four Chinese characters in the title of today’s post. The last two of these identify the animal and are literally translated as ‘ink fish (pronounced ‘mòyú ‘ in Mandarin), while the first two characters, pronounced ‘lǔshuǐ’, refer to the very interesting Chinese cookery technique employed to cook the creature… Read more

Date of Visit: December 4, 2012

I had planned to visit Ken’s on a previous trip to Ottawa but events conspired against that happening and it was not until this most recent excursion that I was able to finally make it. My visit was was, as I had anticipated after viewing their website and reading a few reviews, not terribly special but still a fairly enjoyable experience nonetheless… Read more

Not long ago, I did a ‘Foodstuffs’ post featuring Chinese Black Fungus, and, while I subsequently posted a recipe from my own kitchen entitled Pork with Black Fungus and Cucumber, I also mentioned that this interesting ingredient is often used in cold preparations as well. I haven’t got around to doing one myself as yet but, recently, I had an opportunity to experience an excellent example of such a dish at Harmony Restaurant in Ottawa that I thought worth sharing with you…

The restaurant menu referred the dish you see above as  ‘Black Mushroom and Peanut in Vinegar’ but the accompanying Chinese text, reading老醋木耳花生 (lǎocù mù’ěr huāshēng), was a bit more explanatory. It specifies that ‘wood ear’, one of the two main varieties of black fungus, is used (as opposed to shiitake mushrooms, as is usually meant by the term ‘black mushroom’), while the vinegar was more particularly identified as ‘old vinegar’, which usually means one of the mild black Chinese vinegars that are not easily substituted with western varieties.

It was rather unfortunate, but the waitress who brought me the dish, apologetically informed me that the restaurant was out of peanuts currently and, accordingly these were absent in the dish I received.  What she did bring me, however, was a very generous helping of rehydrated wood-ears along with chunks of raw white onion and a good amount of coarsely chopped garlic in a sauce that was chiefly black vinegar, but also contained sesame oil and was sweetened with a little sugar. I am not sure if the onion chunks were a regular feature, or if they were added on this occasion as a replacement for the peanuts, but they worked really well and the result over all was delicious, with the unique texture of the wood ears making the dish something both interesting and special.

I want to reproduce this dish at home sometime soon, but until I can obtain the proper Chinese black vinegar, I may have to content myself with a dilute balsamic in its stead. I will however, definitely add peanuts when I do get around to making it, and I will certainly share the results here on Sybaritica…

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