u m a m i

Eating well in Deauville Part 1

We had a marvelous time at Deauville. The timing couldn't have been better, it was unexpectedly sunny the three days we went, the sky totally clear and cloudless. Hot under the sun and a bit nippy under the shades. We didn't do much except go to the beach and loll about under parasols and read gossip magazines.

We chose our restaurants from the Michelin guide (book and iPhone version which I liked for the online reviews), aiming not for stars but more for value-for-money and individuality. The former we got a lot of at the first restaurant we lunched at: Chez le Bougnat in Dives-sur-Mer, one of the endless string of tiny little villagey towns along the Normandy coast.

The place is spacious and decorated with too much bric-a-brac at first I thought we had arrived at a flea market. The welcome was very friendly and relaxed, well, actually we were early and it was the chef who greeted us. By 1 p.m. the place was filled up with merry happy families eating and smiling in the golden sunshine. 

The food is classic bistro, based on good quality ingredients and cooked with practiced ease. They have three-course menus for 26 and 29 euros which represent a fair bargain compared to Paris. The fancy menu included items like oven-baked brioche has an egg on top and a good-sized gobbet of creamy foie gras inside. From the 26 euro menu I ordered beignets of boudin noir which were delicious too. Main courses of meats were huge and presented without fuss over creamy potato purée. My lamb was delicious but overwhelming after halftime but husband's dish of 72-hours slow-cooked beef stole the show, it came as a Flintstone-style hunk of meat looking very dry and black and charred at the edges, but the meat was juicy, very beefy. Its charred edges with its stippled layers of crisped skin, fats and meat were the best, outrageously sweet, meaty and rich; I actually closed my eyes in total pleasure.  

Children menus run at 10 euros for two courses. V had ham and chips and I was happy to see that it was ham-on-the-bone and not processed ham. Dessert was either ice cream or chocolate mousse.

The chocolate mousse came in a huge glass. My baba au rhum was just as bountiful, with whipped cream and rum ice cream and a full glass of rum to pour over; the baba was unfortunately overbaked but it was not important by that stage because we were really full. 

Update 1 June 2009: I forgot to mention that both menus comprised cheese course. They bring a platter and you help yourself to Pont d'Eveque, Camembert and Morbier.

Reservations are a must, we saw people being turned away. Come here for a great start to your Normandy holiday.

Chez le Bougnat

27 r G Manneville

14160 Dives-sur-Mer

T: 02 31 91 06 13

 

 

 

Really Old-School Char Beehoon

Here we have a plate of Char Beehoon (Chow Mai Fun in Cantonese, Cao Mi Fen in Mandarin). It is one of my favourite dishes, this, together with fried rice, was the dish I requested without fail every time I came home for term breaks and holidays. Yet I hardly ever make it myself because I always make a mess of it, ending up with a sorry pile of broken rice noodles each time. 

Knowing how much I like this dish, Chan-Che - who is now cooking for our family again- made it for me a few days before I left KL. Watching her cook was as ever, a pleasure and a learning experience at the same time. She does things the old fashioned way, methodically, patiently taking the time to do each step properly.

When I entered the kitchen, she was already frying up lard in some cooking oil. The lard renders more fat into the oil and turns into little nuggets of crispy porky bits.

Meanwhile, on the chopping board, she got ready to slice carrots and mince some garlic. There were also some shallots nearby, to be peeled and sliced in 2-3 mm semi-circles. I looked around and noticed the other ingredients.

Chinese cabbage, rinsed and sliced.

A stack of of omelettes cooked earlier. It would be sliced into thin strips.

A colander of beehoon, soaked in hot water and then rinsed and drained, ready for cooking.

The crispy lard pieces are set aside.

She stir-fried the shallots first, qickly cooking them until they lose their bite and yet were still sweet and crispy.

The shallots set aside, the wok was readied for sauteing some minced garlic. Garlic sticks easily, it's important to have a low fire and enough oil in the wok.

When the garlic released its aroma and turns to a shade of pale gold, the carrots were stirred in and tossed.

Followed by the cabbage. 

 

The cabbage and carrot are cooked till soft but not mushy.

In the now-empty wok, she heated some oil to saute some more garlic.

From the refridgerator, she took out a bowl of sliced pork which she had marinated with some soy sauce and pepper and cooked that with the garlic.

Water was added to deglaze the wok and make a simple meat gravy that will give tonnes of flavour to the noodles.

The noodles went in. This is a crucial step. She handled the noodles real gently, hardly stirring them, instead, she  used a pair of chopsticks to loosen the strands so they can absorb the gravy

More chopstick action when the cooked cabbage and carrots were returned to the wok.

Shallots went in right at the end.

My plate of noodles, topped with omelet strips and crispy lard bits, with some fresh cut chillies on the side. Bliss.

She sometimes add dark soy sauce which would turn the noodles a beautiful brown colour and add a tinge of caramel saltiness to the dish, but not that day because my nephew was on a restricted diet. My mother favours a more adult version which I love too, where the noodles are cooked till very dry, almost the texture of the original uncooked state. I like very much also the street version, usually nothing more than noodles, dark soy sauce, MSG and beansprouts. I like my Char Beehoon with fried shallots toppings, or with a fiery sambal belacan accompaniment. I like them fried with sardines, with tinned pork trotters, with seafood, with pickled vegetables, heck I've never not like any that came my way.

This version though, is the one I come back to often. It's homely and familiar, and delicious too. 

Pilates congee

I don't know what people think about when they're doing their  Pilates. My thoughts are always on food, specifically, lunch; as my classes end at 11 am this leaves about 1 hour to shop for something, return to the apartment to finish housework left over from the morning rush, and serve my tired and very hungry body some food as soon as possible.

It was during one of those sessions that I built up this recipe in my head. Hot watery congee, just the thing to go with fu-yu, the fermented bean curd's assertive umami flavours mellowed by the warmth and velvety texture of the porridge. Eggs and frozen vegetables for added nutrition. On the way home I stopped by the supermarket for milk and juice and somehow a bag of Knacki hotdogs found its way into the shopping basket. 

It was quick to put together with minimal prep work, and the result was very tasty yet  a a little trashy on account of the hot dog. Fresh meat would balance the dish, but that would not be in the same spirit. I used organic eggs and peas because the flavours are better,  but that belief may be psychological.

Serves one.

1/4-1/2 cup rice depending on how thick you like your congee

1/4 cup frozen vegetables e.g. corn and peas 

1 egg

1- 1.5 cube fu-yu (normal or chilli version)

2 hotdogs

1. Put washed rice and about 2 bowls of water - use the bowl you're going to serve the congee in- to boil. A few drops of vegetable oil in the congee will give the congee a smooth finish. Let it bubble and simmer at medium heat.

2. Dump frozen vegetables in when rice grains swell up. In the meantime, slice hotdogs, I used scissors which means you don't need to take out the chopping board.

3. When rice is soft and disintegrated and the liquid has reduced in half, the congee is 95% done. Crack an egg into a bowl and slowly drizzle it into the pot so the egg cooks in ribbon-like strands. Stir in the hotdog and fu-yu, turn off the heat and voila, lunch is ready. 

Chikoja Lamen

We go to rue Sainte Anne almost every week, to buy onigiri from Juji-Ya, stock up on Japanese and Korean groceries at ACE Mart, Kioko and Workshop Issé, and of course, eat at the various eateries lining this street and its surroundings. Our favourite places to eat are Aki for okonomiyaki, and Kunitoraya for almost everything on their menu especially their chicken rice.

Last Saturday I noticed a new kid on the block and decided to try it out since the queue at Kunitoraya was too long.  Chikoja is so new their menu is not even finalised but it would feature typical Taiwanese dishes with a sprinkling of Korean and Japanese items. How interesting, I haven't come across any Taiwanese eateries in Paris before.

The Korean-Chinese owners plan to have a proper opening on  Friday 8th May. When we visited, the staff were just getting a feel of the place. A limited menu of 3 noodle-and-dumpling set meals (10 euros) was on offer- Taiwanese beef noodle, Chinese zhajiang mian and Japanese ramen.

I ate the zhajiang mian- it was delicious. The salty-smoky black bean sauce was well-balanced with lots of sweet onions and a fair scattering of pork nuggets to make a lovely sauce. The noodles were good, with a distinctive toothsome bite that is more akin to Beijing la-mian than their Japanese cousins.

Husband's bowl of Taiwanese beef noodle was even better. The beef pieces were generous, and cooked till very tender and their cartilage reached melting point. The soup was really good, a lovely beefy broth sweetened with carrots and enlivened with warm spices of star anise, cloves and cinammon. There is a faint kick of chilli in the background, but not enough to overpower the soup base.

Dumplings - shen jian bao and xiao long baos- were not that great suffering from the former being overcooked and the latter needing to wear thinner skins, but their filling of minced pork was appropriately seasoned and juicy.

The meals were filling and satisfying, and they should be able to differentiate themselves from their competitors on this crowded street. It may not be fair to write about a place that's so new, but I am excited enough about their noodles to give them an early shout-out, and would definitely go back to try their Taiwanese dishes. Lu-rou-fan, here I come!

Chikoja Lamen
14, rue Sainte Anne
T: 01 42 60 58 88
M: Pyramides