Snake Feast in the Cold

I certainly picked the best time for a traditional snake feast when I joined a group of foodies and wine connoisseurs to eat at a specialist restaurant in Kowloon in one of the coldest weeks in town on record.

I have had snake soup a few times already during the season but it didn't stop me from signing up for yet another snake feast when i saw the notice for the event from Slow Food Hong Kong - this time at the famous Shia Wong Hip Restaurant in Shum Shui Po. There were a handful of snake restaurants in the old district of Shum Shui Po in Kowloon, and Shia Wong Hip is the one I go quite regularly, for they are one of the few remaining licensed  establishments in town to sell live snakes, hence they keep a good supply of the freshest meat for their dishes.

Snake Soup at a Warm Winter Night

With temperature still hitting the high 20's during the day even as we approached late November, it certainly didn't feel like we were at the right season for the old-fashioned Cantonese snake soup, but that didn't stop our friend Growing Boy from rounding up a gang of friends for another night of snake soup dinner at our favorite private kitchen in town last week.

Japanese Hitou - the concept of secluded hot spring inns

As the shuttle van winding up the narrow road to Tsurunoyu (鶴の湯), where we would be staying on our second night in Nyuto Onsen-kyo in Akita Prefecture, we felt like riding on a gigantic bobsled. With us sitting uneasily at the back seats, the driver maneuvered the sudden twists and turns on an unpaved, unmarked walkway a few kilometers off the major thoroughfare and completely surrounded by snow as high as the van itself as the road was being plowed and snow piled to the side earlier in the morning. I wouldn't imagine a shuttle van driver would need such driving skills.

Snow and Hot Spring in Akita

Enjoy a relaxing outdoor hot spring bath/onsen whilst watching snow flurries slowly falling down has always been something we would love to do one day, but then that opportunity just came totally unexpected as we continued our journey through part of the Tohoku region of Japan.

Belated holiday recipe: Pecan Pie

With a Christmas Eve dinner to host at home and another party at a friend's place a few days later, I decided to bake a couple of pies for dessert, something I could prepare in advance. While many associated Christmas with panatone or stollen, it's more an American tradition (especially those from down south) to have pecan pie as part of the celebration meal (more so for Thanksgiving but also for Christmas too)

Cheap Comfort with a Simple Fish Chowder

I made a fish chowder as one of the meals during the forty dollars a day "challenge". It was the first cold(er) day of this winter and I felt like I wanted something warm and comforting. Plus making a stewed soup was one way to make a piece of cheap frozen fish fillet taste better than it normally does, and I could prepare ahead of time and just reheat later.

Tin Anniversary, or we call it an annual gourmet celebration

Just when I was plotting where we go to celebrate our wedding anniversary in early December, I remembered Chef Fabrice of Caprice mentioned the upcoming chef's table behind the kitchen when I visited the restaurant a few months ago.

Contribution to a Potluck Dinner

A good friend of ours invited us to their house for a potluck dinner recently, during which each family - there were 6 families of us - would contribute one dish and a matching wine each. I thought long and hard about what to make and decided on a small dish inspired by Japanese kaiseki cuisine. That was served as one of the three appetizer courses that evening.

Umami is known as one of the five basic taste elements and what I made was loaded with that savory, fresh sensations on the taste buds, by combining umami-rich ingredients such as crabs, shrimps, kelp, bonito flakes and miso. It's a shrimp dumpling in crab miso soup.