Weekean, reading your old posting about food it reminded me- since our last dinner in Sabah I wanted to share my feelings about local food and YamCha
AFter being here for so many years, from hating local food till loving it. I guess we just need to adjust ourself and adapt to life as adapting to present situation is always a lesson of life too. :blahblah
I remember I hated very much for those no-taste local style of rice-dumplings (zhong-zi) as compare those my mom makes which always taste much more better Becos my mother usually fries the rice with Five-Paste-powder and 8-kok aroma paste. But what my MIL does is only the normal preparation of rice and very strangely she adds in greenbeans(no taste) with boiled fatty pork(no taste) and some beans(no taste). From this description above i believe u could imagine how tasteless a zhong-zi could be?
But she makes it twice a year (CNY & May) and delivery at least big 4 pcs (about 10*10cm pyramid shape/tall) to each of her children's family as gift and blessing from the parents. Thats not all, she also makes steam carrot cake(which taste excellent) and some toher steam chiense cakes as a gesture of welcome food for all visitors during CNY.
I remembered I hated i
t and worried how am i going to finish those big 4 since it cant be kept for more than a week and Ed only came home for dinner after work so i was the only person who was suppose to finish them and i had no one to deliever them to. But Im alwyas a guai-guai DIL so i had never thrown them into dusbin but fnished them with lots n lots of chilly paste - the best i oculd do with them
And i usually ended up with gestric or if im lucky i only get too full and no room for other food since i usually takeone for as one day's meal.
HOWEVER things change!! Maybe after pregnancy
for the change of taste or just becos i get to used living here after learning to be a mother. I started to tolerate and like to tolerate whatever comes to me.
And I start to like her cooking and the rice dumplings too.
I found the rice dumplings are actually come with kind of special arome from the leaves and thats why she has to keep the food in 'no taste' - maybe.
I then overheard that every year before the festival she usually have someone from hometown to bring her big bunch of arome rice dumplings leaves. I shall be more thankful for all things others have done for us
I guess it also means that everythign has got two sides and depends on how are we see it. I believe she is much more experienced than my mom in making of rice dumplings or any other traditional chinese food. And I have to live on with whether i want to love my malaysian-chinese food or a local style of Chinese food.
Under such a circumstances, in the next time when u go try local food such as yamcha, the typical hongkong living life style, you may want to try to leave the chillis and try how the food is actually tasted. I sure understand how hard it is - but i havent been on chillis for years now when i go yamcha.
As for yamcha or any hongkong style of meals - i think the Maxim group has been doing excellent. We choose nothing but only Maxim when we have to take our guests for dinner to tell them what is hongkong food about. Anything from the days' choice sets should be fine which are usually included some must try and as a chinese style of starter before meals - roasted goose together with siew-mei (the mixed plate with cha siew, roasted pork-siew york, some jellyfish,etc.)
That's why I am down with cold since Friday!!!!! Kepala sakit!