u m a m i

Red Star Restaurant- a delectable glimpse into history

When I first read Gastronaut's account of his fabulous dinner at Red Star, I was filled with fascination, and curiosity to try the dishes he enjoyed. My friend Andrew must have felt the same, because he met up with the restaurant owner and their master chef to arrange a similar dinner which will turn out to be the best meal of this year. Granted, we are only in our first month, but I doubt that anything else will top this experience. My only regret was that I forgot to bring a camera, so all I have to share are the images from my mobile phone. I posted the pictures on Instagram as I took them, and the "likes" came in fast and furious. Enjoy!

The restaurant is huge, and the decor largely unchanged since it was opened decades ago. No black plastic chandeliers or artfully lit mirrors, but lots of carved murals, rosewood fixtures and, for our dinner, they brought out their special gold serving ware that are embellished with carved dragons and phoenixes. Sharks fin made a nomimal appearance as Osmanthus Fin, I remember eating this when I was very little. You take a bit of the scrambled egg mixture topped with fin and wrap it in a crunchy cos lettuce leaf. Fun and delicious.

I loved these. Crab meat, liver and pork. It's like a super-deluxe scotch egg, minus the egg white. We had some magnificient wines to go along with our food, and this was just perfect to accompany them.

A river carp, complete with dorsal fin and whiskers (one missing because I clumsily swept it aside). So artfully composed we didn't want to eat it, and when we did, we realised that there was no fish inside., instead there were strips of ham, slices of roast ducks, chunks of chickens and slivers of mushroom.

This was the most stunning dish of the evening. A whole chicken, deboned, gutted, and stuffed with bird's nest, then double boiled. A dish to excite the most jaded palate.

Served in two parts. The first bowl with quail egg to bind the bird's nest.I had two because husband doesn't like bird's nest. In a way, I am glad I have the Instagram filter, it really shows the mood and opulence. 

Another double helping of bird's nest. The broth was light and clean, pairing elegantly with the tender bird's nest. Truly luxurious, and probably much nicer than having a shot of Botox.

Most of us only know bird's nest cooked into a sweet soup, but someone at our table reminisced that when she was a little girl, this dish would be served at very special occasions, like her grandfather's birthday banquet.

 

Suckling pig. The skin was beautifully thin and crackly-crisp. The meat underneath was perfectly cooked too.

Another favourite at the table. A whole duck deboned and stuffed with glutinous rice and then deep-fried. The rice was meltingly rich with hints of dried shrimps and a beguiling, mellow sweetness from the duck juices.

There was also a 2kg soon hock fish, and this- braised, stuffed sea cucumbers. Husband loves sea cucumbers, so I gave him my portion. He said it was very delicious. The final course of fish- braised beehoon was very good too.

So I didn't think I could manage desserts, but this was what was rolled out on a trolley. Water chestnut ingots and a kueh straight from my home economics textbook- ondeh ondeh.

I loved the ondeh-ondeh so much I ate two pieces. The kueh had more sweet potato than flour, unlike so many commercial versions which inverses the ratio so much it has conditioned consumers to think that that is the norm. One bite and the warm gula melaka syrup oozes out for a satisfying sweet treat. 

Most of the recipes are multi-stepped and labour intensive, not really feasible in today's restaurants' high wage/labour crunch environment. Only a few people know how to cook these, or are willing to.  . Much as I am wary of romanticzising the past, regretfully, we will not have much chance to repeat the experience. Today most Chinese restaurants seem to think it's okay to fob off customers with  (mostly synthetic) truffle oil and foie gras of dubious provenance and call them luxury dishes. A bit sad really. What we had was more heartfelt, a glimpse of the delicious past and a rare treat. I will remember it always.

Two Jolly Good Reads

Both are by the same author. Instead of reading the mathematics modelling guide I bought at the same bookstore (Popular), I tore through these two mystery novels overnight. 

(Image from goodreads site)

I started with The Devotion of Suspect X, because this was the book that made him famous as a thriller/suspense/whodunnit writer. The crime happens early in the book, and we get to know who is the culprit, but it's what follows that grips the reader. Don't start, you won't be able to stop.

(Image from Janet Reid website)

Like the first book, this story is set in Tokyo. There is also a murder, and we kind of know who is the murderer, so we just have to figure it out. The bookstores try to sell  him as a Japanese Stieg Larsson which it isn't really, not even 10% of, he's more like Agatha Christie actually; nevertheless just enjoy it as a quick and satisfying read.

Manor Seafood Restaurant, Hong Kong

Happy 2013 to all my readers. I wish that you will fulfil all your dreams and aspirations, as well as enjoy lots of wonderful meals with your loved ones.

December 2012 whizzed by, didn't it? School was out, and during my time that meant that my parents could ship me off to my grandparents' house in Salak South New Village.

New Villages are unique to Malaysia. Banish any thoughts of idyllic Downton Abbey setting, and cast your mind back to somewhat turbulent times in the post-war period in Malaysia. Communism was the ideological enemy, and the British colonial government declared a period of Emergency to fight the threat. Many Chinese were forcibly moved from rural villages into New Village settlements located near or along roadsites so as to isolate them from Communist influences.

My father, a young man then, as soon as he was able to save enough money, found some builders to make a simple single-storey house in one of these settlements on the fringe of the capital. There dwelled my father's family for years and years, until the grandchildren are grown and moved out with their own families. The house was basic, with plumbing and electricity, but my aunt used chopped wood for her cooking. Chickens and the occasional ducks or geese ran about the compound which was dotted with trees like the jackfruit which gave big but not particularly fragrant or sweet fruits from time to time; other neighbours had bigger orchards with rambutans (rife with giant black ants and ferocious red species), mangoes or even better, durians. Every school holidays, we would stay about a month at this house. We spent a lot of time outdoors with our cousins, making sand sculptures, torturing those ants, fighting, making up stories, and looking forward to the ice cream seller coming by on his bicycle. The cartoons came on the telly at about 5 pm, that's when we returned to the house. If it rained, we read, I went through my father's and aunts' books, there were not many, but the collection was quite ecletic, and there was also a huge collection of black and white photographs to pore over. We didn't have many toys, in fact, hardly any, nor any computers, mobile phones or iPads. Just whatever amusement we could rustle up ourselves, like dressing up or play-acting. No adult supervision, everyone was busy doing something, as long as we didn't get hurt or start a fire, nobody minded what we were up to.

In contrast, my daughter's holiday was turbo-charged. She had to go back to school for ballet practice twice a week, on other days she had tuition and art or piano lessons. We went prawning, rock-climbing, shopping, play-dating, and baked a lot. Sometimes, I let her zombie-fy herself with cartoons, but on the whole, her holiday was nowhere as carefree as mine was. It's the same story with my nieces and nephews. So much so that we all wanted to take a break from our holidays. We, as in my brother and us, decided to go for a short trip to Hong Kong. 4 children under the age of 10, and 7 adults including my parents. I felt like a tour operator, escorting our motley bunch to various destinations. We had a great time, but it was also a bit tiring.

One of the most memorable meals we enjoyed was dinner at the Manor Seafood Restaurant at 440 Jaffe Road, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong (+852 2836 9999). I had emailed my friend,  Susan Jung for advice on where to eat, and she also helped us make reservations and pre-ordered some dishes. She has a new cookbook out too, go buy it quickly.

The restaurant looks like it has been there forever. The manager, Wendy, was very helpful and friendly. Our first pre-order came. Suckling pig. My father remarked that it looked rather big for a piglet, and before I had time to think about it, the kids had helped to hoover up all that lovely skin/crackling. Accompanied with discs of pliable wheat pancakes and hoisin sauce, it made a deliciously crispy and savoury start to our meal. The carcass was chopped up and yielded a lot of meat to make a separate dish.

This dish was an instant hit, so good we promptly ordered another portion. Oysters cooked in a claypot with ginger and spring onions. The oysters were plump and juicy and very sweet inside, but their skin had a gorgeous aroma from some wok-searing that intensified all the flavours further. It's such a simple and classic dish, but done very well.

We had more food. Vegetables and noodles, but not too much, because we were saving room in our stomachs for these gems. Golden Coin Chicken or Gum Cheen Gai. In between the pancake discs, the chef layers charsiu, roasted pork fat (yes, pure fat), chicken liver and taro. It was almost like a mille-feuille because there seemed to be two layers of taro, or maybe two layers of fat, they both looked very similar when we dissected the confection, but I didn't examine too closely. Very rich, very intense, and so good you will think about it for days and days after. The liver was done just right, not under nor overcooked, its flavours coming to the forefront despite the formidable tastes of the pork fat and charsiu, with the taro somehow bridging all the flavours and textures together. It was a very satisfying meal, the restaurant offered complimentary desserts but we didn't feel the need for even that.

I love restaurants like this. Old school, but in a class of its own. Thanks Susan! It's a great recommendation.