Hong Kong Style BBQ in Chinatown

In Hong Kong, BBQ meat is one of the very important dishes at family dinner, as well as in big holiday feast. Vihn-Sum BBQ restaurant, located at 58 Beach Street, Boston, MA 02228, has some of the best Hong Kong style BBQ meat in Chinatown.

The restaurant doesn’t have much decoration, but it is very clean and spacious, with two floors.

We ordered a BBQ combo including everything—roast duck, roast pork (char siu), roast pork chop, and roast pig (siu yuk). All of the BBQ meat were authentically and traditionally grilled, very juicy and tender! Yum yum!

Hong Kong Style BBQ (from top: roast pork chop, roast pork, roast duck & roast pig)

They also have a take-out BBQ booth, where the skillful butchers cut the BBQ meat quickly and precisely according to your order!

Another dish we ordered was Shredded Chicken. It was a cold dish that came with a lot of vege like carrots, tomatoes, green pepper and red pepper, and white sesame on top. Not really Hong Kong/Cantonese style shredded chicken, so I don’t recommend it…

Shredded Chicken

Vihn-Sun also has a broad Hong Kong style menu, from sandwich, congee to milk tea. I’ll follow up with another review about it soon!!

Taiwanese food in Allston

One really good Taiwanese restaurant in Allston is Jo Jo Taipei (I had a post about its lunch special earlier). Today, let's explore some of its best authentic Taiwanese dishes. Hope you are excited like me!! :)

“Three Cups” Chicken is a very popular dish in Taiwan, and the name “Three Cups” is originally from the three cups of required sauce for this dish, including soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil. It comes in small portion, but still a small pot of delicious chicken. Recommend it!

“Three Cups” Chicken

Pork Chops with Sweet and Sour Sauce is a typical dish from Southern China, tender pork chops perfectly seasoned with homemade sweet and sour sauce, yum!

Pork Chops with Sweet and Sour Sauce

Sauteed Pig’s Kidney with Chili Sauce: I know I know, it is pig’s kidney, but if you wanna try something new and authentic like several of my friends, I think there is a good chance that you’d love the perfectly cooked dish with onion, green and red pepper. It is mild spicy though.

Sauteed Pig’s Kidney with Chili Sauce

Salted Fried Jumbo Crab: the flavor and the seasoning were great, but the crab was not that jumbo… The crab was so skinny, and honestly I could get much meat from the crab… It should be a perfect dish during the crab season though!

Salted Fried Jumbo Crab

Bow Bin: snowy-like crushed ice with fresh, homemade, sweet toppings (including red bean, jelly, etc.), and dressed with corn syrup and condensed milk. It is just a perfect refreshing dessert to finish off a big and satisfying meal!

Bow Bin

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

Sichuan Food in Cambridge

After the Sichuan intro in last post, now let's taste some real authentic Sichuan cuisine!!

Thailand Café, located at 302 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, is actually a Sichuan cuisine restaurant, despite its name—I am still confused why it is called that way. It is not a spacious and fancy decorated restaurant, but it is close to Harvard and MIT, and it has some good dishes (not every dish is great though). Here are the dishes we ordered:

Roast beef, tongue & tripe with chili-peanut vinaigrette: it is a hot appetizer. It is one of the best house special dishes. Tender beef with flavorful chili-peanut vinaigrette. Yummy! Strongly recommend it if you are into spicy food.

Roast beef, tongue & tripe with chili-peanut vinaigrette

Poached chicken with chili sauce: it is a hot appetizer. Tender chicken with authentic Sichuan chili sauce, and a mixed flavor if you eat it with the peanut on the top. Another dish I'd recommend :)

Poached chicken with chili sauce

Double cooked Chinese style bacon: it is not a spicy dish, so you might want to try it if you are not a big fan of spicy food. But I’ve had better in other restaurants which I’ll write about later.

Double cooked Chinese style bacon

Chong Tsing dry hot chicken: not recommend—it is supposed to be a hot dish, but to me, it is neither dry nor hot enough.

Chong Tsing dry hot chicken

Braised whole fish with Sichuan chili sauce: not recommend—it is supposed to be a spicy dish, but still, it is not spicy enough, and it even tasted a little bit sweet…

Braised whole fish with Sichuan chili sauce

Szechuan Beef

Sichuan Food Intro

Sichuan (also known as Szechuan in the states) food is an important regional cuisine in China, one of the four major Chinese cuisines as well as Canton food, Shanghai food and Shandong food. It is originally from the region of Sichuan, a province in southwestern China.

Video about Sichuan, which is also the hometown of the lovely Pandas :)

Sichuan food is famous for its hot and spicy dishes, but not all Szechuan cuisine is spicy. Some dishes even have five taste flavors (sweet, sour, spicy, salty and bitter).

Common ingredients include chili peppers, peppercorns, Sichuan peppers (also known as flower pepper), sugar, vinegar, dried orange peel, garlic, ginger, etc. Common cooking methods are smoking and simmering, which allow all the ingredients enough time to infuse food with rich tastes and flavors.

You can find Sichuan dishes in almost every Chinese restaurant, and you can ask them to alter the spicy flavor according to your own taste.

Sichuan Brunch in Belmont

HI foodies, how do you like the previous post on Shanghai brunch? I hope you love brunch as I do, because... we are gonna do Sichuan (which is spelt as Szechuan in many Chinese restaurants) brunch today!!

Shangri-La, located at 149 Belmont Street, Belmont, MA, 02478, is the place my friends and I would go to when we crave for a traditional Sichuan brunch. Be aware that they are usually super busy on weekends. Here are the dishes we ordered:

Roast beef in soy sauce (cold dish): perfectly cooked beef, chewy but not too chewy, not like the well-done steak nor the soft stewed beef.

Roast Beef in Soy Sauce

Beef noodle soup: tender beef and soft and thick noodles with flavorful soup.

Beef Noodle Soup

Five flavor beef with pancake: I don’t know for sure if it has exact five flavor, but definitely tasty beef and crispy pancake.

Five Flavor Beef with Pancake

Steamed pork chop with rice flour: a traditional Sichuan dish that not every Chinese restaurant has to offer. A mixed flavor with soft pork chop and sticky rice—strongly recommend it if you have never tried.

Steamed Pork Chop with Rice Flour

Shanghai Brunch in Allston

In Shanghai, people there have their own brunch style, just like Cantonese have dim sum for brunch.

Shanghai Gate, located at 204 Harvard Ave, Allston, MA 02134, is the place that I’d go to when I crave for a Shanghai style brunch, not only because of its authentic Shanghai food, but also its decoration and setting that remind me of the old Shanghai.

Graphic on their wall, sooo Shanghainese!

For brunch at Shanghai Gate. I always order Dou Jiang (soymilk, and you can choose sweet or non-sweet) with You Tiao (Deep-fried dough sticks), which is perfect combo -- please see the reason as you scroll down :)

Dou Jiang (soymilk)

You Tiao (Deep-fried dough sticks)

The reason why they are perfect with each other is that traditionally, Chinese put the You Tiao into Dou Jiang, wait till You Tiao is soaked a little bit, and then eat Yao Tiao and drink Dou Jiang.

Xiao Long Bao (steamed pork bun/Shanghai soup dumplings) is something that you cannot miss. There is a special way to eat steamed pork buns:

Step 1: have a tiny bite of the bun peel

Step 2: drink all the soup inside the bun (be careful, the soup is HOT!)

Step 3: put some vinegar into the bun through the tiny bite

Step 4: enjoy your steamed pork bun!

Xiao Long Bao (steamed pork bun/Shanghai soup dumplings)