The Presidential Bun Cha

The staff at Bun Cha Huong Lien seems to be a little puzzled when I attempted to order from their a la carte menu as if no tourist has ever done that these days, but after 5 seconds of attempting to pronounce Nem Cua Be (fried crab roll), I gave up and said the magic words – “Combo Obama, please”. Yup, that’s the place in Hanoi made famous by the former US President’s visit with his foodie friend AB a few years ago.

Pho Expedition

“Customer for Pho? Please come in”

I didn’t discover this "secret" pho place by accident – though I wish I did or at least could get away by saying that (that would have been more dramatic, isn't it?) – but rather, an article at Saveur pointed me to this pho stall at an upstairs apartment inside a run-down building in Hanoi’s Old Quarter. I was able to find the place easily, thanks to the article with detailed directions and pictures of the street signs, and arrived at the right time too, between 3-7:30pm as that’s the only time the place was open for business.

Mohinga and Noodles

Ask any local what’s the must-try dish in Myanmar and you would probably hear Mohinga mentioned more than once. Many considered this the national dish of the country and the breakfast of choice for most people. First time I tried Mohinga was at a restaurant called Feel near the embassy row where I went for breakfast on the second day. I made a leisurely scroll over after my morning visit of Shwedagon Pagoda on my way back to the hotel, and it’s almost impossible to miss the place once you reach the block where the restaurant was located. By 8am the place was packed with people with an interesting mix of locals and expats, some presumably working in the embassies next door on the same street.

Slurp-Worthy: Kagoshima Edition

To any ramen lovers, Kyushu is heaven for the region was known to be the birthplace of the Japanese noodle bowl and there’s no lack of shops – big or small – offering the bowl of hearty, comforting, high-quality noodles in soup served in a variety of condiments and styles. While the Hakata-style ramen, one rooted from Fukuoka in the north, was the more prevalent styles, partly thanks to a few popular chains opening up branches across Japan and overseas, there were others offering something different, like those in Kagoshima, the prefecture in south of Kyushu.

Slurp-Worthy: Fukuoka Edition

Of course whilst in Kyushu one has to stick in a ramen meal or two, as that is the very dish the region is perhaps most famous for. At home we are lucky to have a few famous Kyushu-based ramen shops setting up branches overseas over the last few years, but still, one never beat the bowls served in Kyushu, particularly Fukuoka which was considered to be the epicenter of ramen cuisine. And I was glad to have a couple that has not yet made their way to Hong Kong.

The Ever Elusive Khao Soi

The Khao Soi has always been the elusive item at Samsen, even for many who came to this popular Thai noodles joint at Stone Nullah Lane in Wanchai regularly. This northern Thai-style chicken noodles never appeared on its menu and only showed up occasionally and unannounced as an off-menu special whanever Chef Adam felt like and they were in limited supply on first come first served basis. But a few friends who tried that before swore by this is the best bowl of Thai noodles in all of Hong Kong.

New Ramen Joint with a Queue

It's not uncommon to see long waiting lines outside the newest and hottest restaurant in town, at least until the next newest and hottest one came around - thanks for the patience and persistence shown by many food lovers in Hong Kong who always want to be the first to try just about anything. Lately we have witnessed another such new entry to our local dining scene in Tsuta, the ramen joint in the unofficial ramen street in Causeway Bay recently making Hong Kong their third overseas home after Singapore and Taipei.

Tokyo in 40: Ramen Breakfast

Last year I spent a quick weekend in Tokyo with approximately only 50 hours on the ground - turned out the weekend was filled with happenings but didn't feel the rush. So this time I am doing it again with an even shorter stay (10 hours less, to be exact), made possible by the favorable flight schedule by the local low-cost carrier HK Express with red-eye flights both way.

Extended Breakfast

In between patches of rain, we managed to conduct a Sunday morning food crawl in old town Macau as our extended breakfast on our last day of vacation. When I look beyond the dazzling casinos and shopping malls that came as a dime a dozen in the newer part of town, I actually found the old town more charming, with traditional shops inside relatively well-maintained building in mixed Chinese and European style - thanks to the Portuguese colonial influence.

One Star Wonton

It's been a long long while since I last visited Ho Hung Kee, definitely not after they moved out from their old shop on the street level into a large shopping mall a couple blocks away.

We weren't all that surprised when we arrived at the restaurant during lunch hour on Saturday we saw quite a crowd waiting outside for a table, with a majority being out-of-towners. In retrospect we should have come earlier or use the new system to let us pick up a ticket ahead of time through an iPhone app. Anyway, turned out it's only a quick 15, 20 minute wait before we were seated at one of the booths on the side of the restaurant. The interior and set up was a clear upgrade from their old shop, with more modern décor, more space, bigger capacity and more comfortable chairs with kitchen now hidden at the back instead of near to the shop-front, yet it's still on the casual side like a typical local chachaanteng.

Meet Samsen, Adam's New Noodle Place

We were at Chef Adam's last day at Chachawan late last year so I thought it's just appropriate (with a sense of completing a mission) that we came to his new place on their first day of their official opening, some 8 months later since he took off with new plans of flying solo with his own restaurant.

Cooking Experiment #2: Learn Pho from the Pro

A few months ago my chef friend Peter showed some of us at the kitchen of his (previous) restaurant the way to do a proper Vietnamese Pho Bo, using a modified recipe which is easier and more practical for home cooks. I have always wanted to try that at home, but never got a chance until this week when I had more time playing around in the kitchen.

Hiroshima's Okonomiyaki

I guess not having Okonomiyaki while travelling in Hiroshima would be like going to Philadelphia without trying Phillies Cheese Steak. As soon as we hopped back to Hiroshima from the nearby Miyajima Island and checked in to our hotel there, first thing we did was to look for a place to try this symbolic street food famous in this town.

The Ramen Story - Making it at home

I took on the experiment of making ramen from scratch at home not on a mission to create the perfect bowl but to try to see how difficult it was even to make a half-decent version.

I first got this idea when I picked up the book by Ivan Orkin, the chef behind the legendary Ivan Ramen (first in Tokyo, then New York City). In the past I always thought ramen is nothing more than a bowl of broth made with pork bones, slices of charsiu and noodles, but I was fascinated by the complexity of Chef Ivan's recipe of no less than a dozen different ingredients that went in, each requiring separate set of processes to prepare. This is why I decided to try on a simplified version as an one-off project in my own kitchen. I meant to start during the Chinese New Year break but at the end I didn't start until one week after.

Cunha Street Breakfasts

Before we parted way with our gracious host J, she left us a little map of more restaurant recommendations near Cunha Street not too far away from where we were staying for the night. And we decided to spend the Sunday morning to explore a couple of them on the list.

HCMC Foodie Trip - The One with The Lunch Lady

One of my favorite travel experiences in Ho Chi Minh City was to try the food prepared by Nguyen Thi Thanh - aka the Lunch Lady - at her stall at a residential neighborhood on the fringe of District 1, near to the Mekong River bank. She got her worldwide fame since Anthony Bourdain covered his visit in a TV show a few years back and couldn't sing enough praises of her, her food and the stall.

HCMC Foodie Trip: The One with Pho

I know I have come to the right town to visit when everywhere I walked by, I could see those little food stalls on the roadside serving all kinds of different food. Ho Chi Minh City is truly a foodie town, especially if you are into street food, and I was eager to explore more during my stay in this interesting city for all the wonderful food, particularly Pho, perhaps the most famous Vietnamese dishes of all.

Jajamen on a Snowy Day

Every guide book for Morioka will probably mention the so-called "Three Great Noodles" of this major city in Iwate Prefecture - namely the Wako Soba, Reimen and Jajamen. We set off as our mission to try out all three during our short stay in Morioka. Among the three, my personal favorite was Jajamen.

More Tokyo - Good ramen at Kudan Ikaruga

I managed to check out a few other new restaurants in my recent trip to Tokyo, and one of which is a ramen place called Kudan Ikaruga (九段斑鳩) in Kudanshita. To outsiders, the place may not be as famous as the likes of Ichiran, Ippudo or even Menya Musashi (all of which have opened shops in Hong Kong recently), but it's often mentioned by many ramen aficionados as one of the best kept secrets in town.

Cooking at home: 30-hour "Instant" Ramen

Like many Hong Kong families, I always keep a handful packets of instant ramen at home – whether that be for a quick fix for breakfast, lunch, dinner or midnight snack, or just about any time when I need some value-for-money calories. After all, it’s fast, it’s cheap, it’s easy and it actually tastes okay.

But what I am sharing today is quite different than what you have in mind when we talk about instant ramen. First, it’s not “instant” – it’s cooked for 30 hours; second it’s not cheap – it probably cost as much as you would in one of the many ramen shops in town, but it’s still relatively easy to make, and is definitely close to the quality of any version you can find anywhere sans Japan.