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A classic Cantonese BBQ platter is one of my favorite comfort foods. At a BBQ shop or Cantonese restaurant, it usually comes with a choice of soy sauce chicken or white-cut chicken, paired with one or two BBQ meats such as char siu, BBQ ribs, BBQ wings, or crispy roasted pork. Over the years, I’ve […]
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Judges’ Ranking My Personal Ranking Others finalists: Octavia, Le Marais, Bonjour Bakehouse, East Bay Bakery 1. Compagnon Bakery TL;DR: I think this is the rising star of the Bay Area croissant scene (menu and story here). Their Croissant au Beurre had everything I look for: fragrant butter, crispy exterior, airy lamination, and a light, flaky […]
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Yong tau foo is one of the most representative Hakka dishes. My parents never made it at home, so I only got to enjoy it when we visited their Hakka friends for dinner or ordered it at a restaurant.
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Other than steam rice rolls with beef and egg, Ham Chim Peng is the one thing I must eat every time I go back home. From what I’ve seen, <5 Cantonese restaurants in San Francisco sell it. It’s less common than the “beef tongue” fried pastry (which, by the way, contains no beef tongue, just named after its shape). But Ham Chim Peng is my true favorite, because I am completely obsessed with the subtle but distinct aroma of fermented red bean curd.
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Other than Cantonese radish cake, I’ve always deeply missed taro cake. To be honest, I prefer radish cake slightly more. Restaurant taro cake can sometimes lack the taro taste, after all, it’s a very mild flavor, and a bit firmer, even slightly drier compared to the soft, savory radish cakes. So I want to see if I could make a taro cake that tastes better than the ones from the restaurants.
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Walk into almost any Asian bakery and you never fail to find milk bread lined up next to its siblings: milk bread with raisin, taro, red bean, matcha, and so many more. But the OG plain milk bread is always the most versatile.
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Claypot fuzzy melon with vermicelli was once a classic in traditional Cantonese restaurants back home, yet it’s a dish I rarely see on Bay Area Cantonese menus. At first, I assumed this was because ingredients like fuzzy melon or red fermented bean curd were hard to find. But over time, I noticed that this dish has also been quietly disappearing from restaurant menus back home, so that theory didn’t quite hold up.
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When I was growing up in Guangzhou, every now and then my mom and grandma would bring home Teochew (4hr drive from GZ) meat loaf from the market. These cylinder-shaped loaves would be sliced thin and pan-fried, or cut into strips and stir-fried with noodles or vermicelli. Simple, comforting, and very much a taste of home. The recipe turned out to be much easier than I expected and now I can recreate a beloved childhood delicacy anytime and share it with friends.
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It genuinely hurts me when my partner orders a $20.99 salt-and-pepper pork rib dish at a restaurant and the plate arrives with… eight tiny pieces of ribs. Eight. Altogether barely the size of two palms. That disappointment, combined with my love for anything fried, salty, and peppery (pork ribs, chicken wings, you name it), pushed me to recreate this classic Cantonese dish at home.
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In the cold winter months, I always find myself craving bossam at Korean restaurants. But in the Bay Area, this dish often starts at $40 or more, which usually nudges me toward ordering something more affordable instead. Turns out, bossam is much more straightforward to make at home than I expected.
