Cantonese Seafood in Quincy

Happy Thanksgiving, foodies! A special Thanksgiving edition: if you are seafood lover, maybe you often enjoy lobsters, but have you tried the lobsters cooked in the Cantonese way?

Here is the Steamed Twin Lobsters we ordered at East Chinatown Restaurant, located at 415 Hancock, Quincy, MA 02171. Fresh lobsters are steamed perfectly with minced garlic and scallion on top, and silk noodle under. I specially love the silk noodle, which is smooth and juicy because it absorbs the essence from the lobsters. Yum!

Steamed Twin Lobsters

Another seafood dish we tried was Sautéed Sliced Sea Whelks with Chinese chives. The sea whelks are sliced to the right thickness, not too thin and not too thick.  The sliced sea whelks tasted fresh and crunchy. Love it!

Sautéed Sliced Sea Whelks with Chinese chives

Homemade Cantonese Soup—American Ginseng Chicken Soup

Recently, I’ve been addicted to making all kinds of Cantonese soup in the same way my mom cooks for the whole family, and it makes me feel home :)

Today, let’s make anther traditional Cantonese soup—American Ginseng Chicken Soup.

Ingredients: chicken (around two pound, you could either buy a whole chicken or just chicken drumsticks), one bag of American Ginseng mixed Chinese herbs (which you can find at any Chinese supermarket, please see the picture below), salt

American Ginseng mixed Chinese herbs, from left: wolfberries, dried polygonatum, dioscorea opposita & Amercia ginseng

Packet of American Ginseng mixed Chinese herbs

Cooker: a pot that can hold at least one gallon of water (around 8-10 bowls of water)

Step 1: cut chicken into chunks (if you use only chicken drumsticks, you don’t have to cut them, which is easier)

Step 2: boil one gallon of water in the pot

Step 3: put the cut chicken into the boiling water for 5 mins

Step 4: take chicken out of boiling water, get rid of chicken skin, and wash them with cold water (it makes sure that the meat is as less fat as possible, so the broth is clear and non-oily)

cut and washed chicken

Step 5: wash the American Ginseng mixed Chinese herbs

Step 6: boil another gallon of water in the pot

Step 7: put the washed herbs and chicken into boiling water

Step 8: turn down the cooking heat to slow till the water is boiling again

Step 9: slow cook the soup for an hour and a half

Step 10: add salt according your personal preference, and then the soup is ready to serve!

American Ginseng Chicken Soup served in a bowl

Enjoy your homemade delicious and healthy American Ginseng Chicken Soup :)

Homemade Cantonese Soup—Ching Po Leung

Cantonese cuisine is famous for its slow-cooked soup (called lo foh tong in Cantonese dialect). The Cantonese soup is a clear, non-oily and non-greasy broth, simmering with Chinese herbs and meat. It is a must-have dish at a traditional Cantonese family dinner, because people in Canton believe that the slow-cooked soup is good for their health.

I haven’t found any real authentic Cantonese soup at any restaurant in Boston so far, so let’s homemade one of the most famous traditional slow-cooked soups--Ching Po Leung, with only 10 simple and easy steps!

Ching Po Leung (a mix of Chinese herbs)

Ingredients: two pound of pork chop, one bag of Ching Po Leung (which is a mix of Chinese herbs that you can find at any Chinese supermarket), salt

Cooker: a pot that can hold at least half a gallon water (around 8-10 bowls of water)

Step 1: cut pork chop into chunks

Step 2: boil one gallon of water in the pot

Step 3: put the cut pork into the boiling water for 5 mins

Step 4: take pork chop out of boiling water, and wash them with cold water (it helps to wash off the fat of pork chop, so the broth is clear and non-oily)

cut, boiled, washed pork chop chunks

Step 5: wash the Ching Po Leung with cold water.

7 kinds of Chinese herbs in Ching Po Leung: on the left, from top--Jade Bamboo, Dried Foa Nuts, Lily Pulp & Barley
on the right, from top--Lotus Seed, Longan Meat & Chinese Yam

Step 6: put the washed Ching Po Leung and pork chop and half a gallon water into the pot

washed Ching Po Leung in the pot

washed pork chop and Ching Po Leung in the pot

Step 7: boil the water, and then turn down the cooking heat to slow till the water is boiling

Step 8: slow cook the soup for an hour and a half

this is how it looks after an hour and a half!

Step 9: add salt according your personal preference, and then the soup is ready to serve!

yummy soup served in a bowl

Enjoy your homemade delicious and healthy Ching Po Leung soup :)

Best Chicken in Boston

BEST chicken I’ve tasted in Boston ever!

This post is gonna be about my favorite chicken dish—Empress Salted Chicken! Even the name of the dish sounds so awesome: the chicken delicately prepared only for the powerful empress in ancient China, the mysterious land in the Far East. We can now all taste this dish at Ho Yeun Ting in Chinatown, located at 13 Hudson St., Boston, MA 02111.

Empress Salted Chicken

The restaurant is really not that flashy nor spacious, but the chicken is so good that I don’t really care about the simple decoration and limited capacity at all! The chicken is so perfectly cooked and salted that it is tender and juicy from outside to inside, and even you can taste its special salty flavor from the bones. So Yum! Also, they do take out, and you can either order half or the whole Empress Salted Chicken! I just looove saying the name :)

Cantonese Noodle in Newton

Today, my badminton teammies and I really craved for Cantonese noodles, and really wanted to explore one new restaurant that we have never been to, so we decided to try this noodle house—No.1 Noodle House, located at 51 Langley Road, Newton Center, MA 02459.

It is petite noodle house, nothing fancy about it. Like in a fast-food place, we ordered our noodles at the counter, and grabbed chopsticks and napkins by ourselves, but the only difference was that our waitress brought the dishes to our table. The owner and most of the staff are friendly Cantonese people.

I really recommend their Laksa, which is coconut milk and curry noodle soup. We ordered two Laksa—Seafood Laksa and B.B.Q. Pork Laksa. The noodle soup is a perfect combination of slightly sweet coconut milk and mild spicy curry. Yummy!

Seafood Laksa

B.B.Q. Pork Laksa

I don’t recommend any of their Stir Fried Noodles. We order two of them—Beef Stir Fried Noodle and Seafood Stir Fried Noodle, both of which were dry and had plain flavors…

Beef Stir Fried Noodle

Seafood Stir Fried Noodle

Cantonese Food in Brighton

Let’s have some deeelicious Cantonese food! Joyful Garden, located at 1234 Soldiers Field Road, Brighton, MA 02135, is one of my favorite Cantonese/Hong Kong restaurants. Not only its food, but also its setting is very Cantonese. And I have to say that it is more spacious and cleaner than the restaurants in Chinatown.

We had jellyfish salad for appetizer. It is a refreshing cold dish with jellyfish, carrot and radish.

Jellyfish Salad

One of their Chef’s specialties is Hainan Chicken, which is a local specialty from the island of Hainan in China. Hainan was part of Canton before it became a province itself, so Hainan Chicken is still largely considered as a Cantonese cuisine. I looove the poached chicken served with fresh ginger and green onion sauce!

Hainan Chicken

We also had fried silvery fish with spliced salt and pepper. It is crispy and fried to perfection. Definitely recommend it if you are a fan of fried dish!

Fried Silvery Fish with Spliced Salt and Pepper

Any traditional Cantonese meal at least has one vegetable dish. We had sautéed bean seedlings with garlic. As I mentioned in the last blog post, we Cantonese like vegetables to be cooked as fast as possible, because in this way we could have better natural nutrition and flavor from the dish.

Sautéed Bean Seedlings with Garlic

As for fried-rice-lover, I strongly recommend their salted fish with chicken fried rice, which is a popular fried rice back in Canton and Hong Kong. Savory salted fish + tender chicken + fragrant jasmine rice = addictive yummy!

Salted Fish with Chicken Fried Rice

Cantonese Food Intro

Cantonese food is one of the most popular Chinese cuisine styles outside China. It is originally from the region of Canton (which is in Chinese Cantonese, and is called Guangdong in Chinese mandarin), a province in southern China.

Short Video About Deeelicious Cantonese Food!!

Canton (Guangdong) is at the lower right corner of the map, near Hong Kong :)

We can enjoy a huge variety of Cantonese dish besides dim sum. Cantonese food is typically and traditionally steamed, boiled or stir-fried. It is healthier because it uses less oil than other cuisines. The Cantonese believe that the less time vegetables are cooked, the better natural nutrition and flavor they can retain from the dish. Also, soup (which is usually a clear broth cooked with meat and other ingredients on mild fire for hours) is served before a meal, and white rice is usually accompanied with meals.

I will introduce some good Cantonese restaurants around Boston, as well as some of my favorite dishes in the next post. Please stay tuned!

Dim Sum in Chinatown

Hei La Moon, located at 88 Beach Street, Boston, MA 02111, is one of my favorite dim sum places in Boston. It has huge space with big tables, sometimes filled with people chatting loud, all of which remind me of home. For our family, we get together once or twice a week, share stories and often laugh out loud at dim sum tables.

Here are some of my favorite dim sum.

Shrimp Hargow: it is large and the shrimp and vegetable in it are quite flesh, a must-order dim sum :)

Shrimp Hargow

Pork Shiu Mai: it has tender pork and moist shrimp, packed with flavor and tightly wrapped.

Pork Shiu Mai

Steam Chicken Feet: steamed marinated chicken feet with black bean sauce, personal favorite! Strongly recommend it if you haven’t tried chicken feet and are adventurous like many of my American friends :)

Steam Chicken Feet

Sweet Egg Cake: soft and lightly sweet, and it will melt immediately when you take a bite, giving you a luxurious taste of egg cake

Sweet Egg Cake

Dim Sum First!

I think before introducing all the different kinds of Chinese cuisines beyond dim sum, I should probably talk about dim sum first—one of the most popular Cantonese food.

In my lovely hometown Toishan, a small city of Canton in southeast China, the lifestyle is kinda laid back. On weekends, I’d wake up at around 11 a.m. and then go with my family to enjoy dim sum for brunch till 2p.m., which starts one relaxing day.

Here are two simple tips when you go to a Chinese restaurant for dim sum. One is that dim sum is traditionally served with tea. So please try not order iced water unless you really need it. The other is that the whole theme of dim sum is steamed food. So you could stick to the carts and don’t order fried rice if you really want to try some authentic dim sum.

I will introduce some good dim sum places in Boston, as well as some of my favorite dim sum in the next post. Please stay tuned!