Anyway, after spending the morning and early afternoon on Sunday with my family (my mum arrived back to Perth the night before from her trip to Malaysia), we did some winter clothes shopping in preparation for Japan's cold cold winter. You would probably never ever hear/read this from a (norm) female again, but I HATE SHOPPING!! I seriously honestly do. I just don't have the patience for shopping and arsing around with taking off my clothes to try on clothes that either don't fit or look nice, then having to put my clothes back on to look for ones that look like they might fit and then going back to the changeroom to do the iterative process again. It can be so frustrating, and I hate the fashion style out now at the moment in Perth (for the past year or so). So unflattering and unwearable. And so expensive for a little piece of cloth. I do, however, like winter clothes. I find that winter fashion tend to be a bit more wearable.
I digress. Later that day, we went out for dinner with my friends to Hong Kong BBQ Restaurant. You would think that the word 'BBQ' in the name of the restaurant implies that the food is cooked at the table, like at Korean BBQ restaurants, but that is not the case. The name just indicate that this restaurant specialises in dishes like roast duck, bbq pork (char-siew) and the like. Quite nice - I have previously bought a whole roast duck ($21) for my parents and it was pretty good. My group of friends have been to this restaurant before, and they really liked it, and hence the reason why this place was chosen again. It is a very popular restaurant, usually full of Chinese diners (book early). This is an authentic Chinese restaurant, with pretty simple decor and crowded floor as is typical of these type of restaurants. Service was quite helpful and friendly enough although it would help a lot if the lady serving us wouldn't spontaneously chat to us in Cantonese (she assumed the Asians in the group were all Chinese and knew the Cantonese dialect).
Although there were ten of us, we didn't take very long to decide on the dishes - the others pretty well left it to us four girls to choose the dishes. The prices of the dishes ranged from around $10 for the simple vegetable dishes to $20 for the seafood dishes like prawns (and market prices for the crabs, whole fish, scallops etc).
Sizzling Egg Tofu: This was soooo yummy! I love Japanese egg tofu, and the eggs served in this dish complemented the tofu very well. I couldn't tell whether the meat in the dish was diced chicken or fish.
Combination BBQ Platter: With this one, we could choose three or four 'BBQ' meats - I think we went with Charsiew, roast pork and roast duck. Quite yummy, although probably not very healthy..
Combination Tofu Claypot: I'm pretty sure I mentioned previously that when trying out new Chinese restaurants, I have to try the claypot dishes. It's like the benchmark dish to decide if the place is good or not. Anyway, this was pretty good - it had prawns, squids, tofu, chicken, pork, veges etc. Pretty tasty (except for the coriander).
Szechuan Prawns: This was quite nice - big fresh prawns with a nice sauce, although I didn't think the sauce was very spicy as is typical of the Szechuan style dishes. Oh well.. This was a popular dish and I believe a few of us at the table missed out on trying this one.
Lemon Chicken: Haha, I knew someone would order one of these 'typical' dishes. It was okay, but honestly, quite ordinary. I generally don't like food that has been battered, deep fried and drenched in sauce. It seems rather 'food-court' like (I worked in a food court place for a year).
Peking Spareribs: Another 'benchmark' dish when trying out new restaurants. This was done okay - we have had nicer ones.
Red Bean Pancake: For desserts, we went for these sweet pancakes (admittedly, there wasn't much to choose from. I think there was a choice between fried ice cream, standard lychee and longan stuff, and these pancakes). It was so greasy, with not much red bean filling at all. I can't say I liked these very much which is a pity because something like this has good potential to be yummy.
We had a great time. I think Rob and myself have established ourselves as freaks amongst this group, with Rob's ability to raise both his brows individually and do weird facial stuff, and my ability to wiggle my ears. We always have a good laugh with this group (yes Tung, we still remember you dancing in that kimono at Thad's).
The meat with the tofu and egg dish was definitely chicken. Tasted sooo good :D
ReplyDeleteHeheh I find it amusing how you say "I generally don't like food that has been battered, deep fried and drenched in sauce" and immediately follow it by saying Peking Spare ribs is one of your "benchmarks" ;)
The spare ribs were nice but had that spongey texture due to being cooked at too low a heat. Not as bad as ambassador but still not as good as other places.
That BBQ platter was great too :)
Haha, yeah I realise the contradiction. But the Peking Spare-rib is one of our family's benchmark dishes (although if it were left up to me I'd happily skip on that one...)
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