serene’s posterous

We had a really tasty glass of coconut milkshake today, sweetened with
gula melaka. It is reminiscent of chendol without the green wormy starch
noodles. It was pricey but oh so satisfying.

We had barbecued seafood for dinner tonight, including excellent
sambal stingray and sambal sotong (squid). For vegetables, we got
sambal kangkong (water convolvulus) and stir fried tau gey (bean
sprouts). And for dessert, we had fruit juices. I had soursop.

This link has some photos of the food we had:
http://sparklette.net/archives/rong-guang-bbq-seafood/

My parents and I shared a big dinner tonight. We had:

a) Orh luah (oyster omelette);
b) Popiah;
c) Clear soup with sliced fish (with a bit of rice); and
d) Jiu her eng chye (Cuttle fish with water convolvulus).

I completed the meal with a hot cup of tea with evaporated milk and no sugar.

It is really hard to anglicize the dialect names of these food items. But that's
how I think about these dishes, it just doesn't seem the same if I call them by
their proper English names. I don't even know how to translate some of these.

Had really good tau huay (豆花, tofu pudding) mixed with tau huay
chui (soy bean milk) for dessert after our early lunch today. The tau
huay was perfectly smooth, and with the tau huay chui instead of
the sugar syrup, it wasn't cloyingly sweet.

Lunch with teochew mueh again, with braised tofu, pork meatball,
stewed cabbage, stir fried Chinese spinach, and steamed whole fish.
It only cost my parents and I less than $8 in total. Although the
dishes were a little too salty, and the fish less fresh than
yesterday's lunch, it was a really good deal for all that food.

Some of the fruits I have eaten this week include:

a) Durians;
b) Starfruits;
c) Dragon fruits (both red and white flesh varieties); and
d) Longans.

Still looking for mangosteens. Sadly, I think it is too late in the season to
get my hands on mangosteens. I haven't seen any in the supermarket or
the fruit shops.

For dinner tonight, my mom made some really tasty traditional Chinese
soup using black chicken (otherwise known as Silkie) and some Chinese
herbs (I only recognize the wolfberries).

It seems that black chicken tastes sweeter than regular chicken, even
though it is significantly less meaty.

We had teochew mueh (潮洲粥, teochew rice porridge) for lunch today.
Teochew mueh is different than the Cantonese congee (jook), because
the rice grains in mueh aren't broken up.  I grew up eating this stuff.

We had steamed fish, stewed cabbage, tau pok and fish cake with piping
hot bowls of watery mueh.  Ah...comfort food.

The closest equivalent I have eaten in the US is at the Porridge Place in
Cupertino.  The Porridge Place serves its porridge with yams, which
makes the porridge a little sweeter.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/porridge-place-cupertino

I had a good meal at Din Tai Fung today. Ate the justifiably famous
Xiao long bao (小笼包, also known as soup dumplings). Eat them quickly
when they are first served, before they cool down. Here's a guide to
how to eat them:

http://www.rasamalaysia.com/2008/06/eating-xiao-long-bao-shanghai-soup.html

Yesterday, I had:

a) Vegetarian Bee Hoon (rice vermicelli with vegetables, fried tofu
and pickled green chili) for breakfast
b) Popiah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popiah) for lunch
c) Thunder Tea Rice (Lui Char Fan
http://thebakerwhocooks.blogspot.com/2006/11/thunder-tea-rice.html)
for dinner
d) Kueh Pie Ti (http://www.geocities.com/blue_bluey/kueh_pie_ti.htm) for supper
e) Durian (the bitter Malaysian variety!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian) as a snack

Today for breakfast I had:

a) Roti Prata (with egg and onions) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roti_prata
b) Mee Siam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mee_siam
c) Chai tao kway (both black and white versions)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chai_tow_kway
d) Chee cheong fun (with shrimp)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_noodle_roll
e) A cup of Teh-C-kosong (tea with evaporated milk and no sugar), and
another of Teh-O-kosong (plain tea without milk or sugar)

Food coma...