Chinese New Year!

As I get older I really worry about losing my Chinese-ness. I grew up both as Chinese and Canadian here in Vancouver, BC... my parents were also born here, as were 3/4 of my grandparents... but as the older generations get older and the newer generations get more lofan, I sometimes wonder if my own grandchildren will be at all Chinesey whatsoever. I need to hang on to the bit of culture that I still retain... and one of the ways I can do that is through the food and memories...

Lee Kum Kee oyster sauce, the only and the best.

Gin duey split two ways (ha)

Doing Chinesey stuff was always just a part of who I was when I was a kid. Red envelopes stamped with gold symbols with a crisp, flat folded bill tucked inside. Back in the 1980s, we would have to hold up our laycee to a light. One dollar? Two dollars? FIVE dollars? Ooooh our grandparents always spoiled us with fives, and then a little later those purple tinted ten dollar bills... what a thrill for a little kid. "Opening it is bad luck" we were told. We didn't know why... so we stashed them away and opened them later when no one was looking. Spent the money on Archie comics and sour coke bottle candies.

A little boy with his lucky money and monkey tee!

egg foo young, with bits of shredded charsiu pork, dripping in salty buttery-flavoured gravy

paddlin' away to thick brown molasses-y oyster flavoured sauce heaven

duck salad from Foo's Ho Ho, lovingly rearranged from takeout container to plate by ME!

For the Lunar New Year, we always ate wedges of Chinese grapefruit, and only my Gonge gonge could peel them properly. It was sort of his job, to cut into the pocked pomello and extract the thin-skin covered boats of not-quite-orange, not-quite grapefruit flavoured fruit. Flat large seeds were picked out and the grapefruit eaten, along with gin duey, a.k.a. greaseballs (sesame sweet rice flour balls with a dark red bean filling) and shrimp chips, crisp and thinly sliced and styrofoam-like in texture, "shrimp fishy" in flavour and pale coloured: light green, pink and white. My Poh poh would drop the shrinkie-dink like shriveled and dried shrimp chips in to hot oil and they would sizzle, puff up and expand, floating, scooped up and laid onto a paper towel to drain. The same delightful chips would be served with a platter of crispy skin chicken at a restaurant, tucked in around different pieces of chicken.

massive amounts of vegetarian chow mein for my tall white lo-fan husband!

8 treasures buddha's feast, made by my Auntie Lorraine. Fungi galore!

Dumplings and duck salad

Sang choy bao (lettuce wrap filling made by my mom)

A mini dumpling and my dad, Go-go (short for Gonge-gonge, grandfather on mother's side)

-----------------------------------------------------------------

CNY at my mom's this year was a hybrid of homemade dishes made by my mom and auntie, mixed with old favourites from spots around town: Foo's Ho Ho (duck salad), Kent's Kitchen (veggie chow mein), Newtown Bakery (gin duey a.k.a. sesame balls a.k.a. greaseballs). My mom made lettuce wrap (sang choy bao), her filling smokey from the oysters and crunchy from water chestnut. Spoon this mixture into a crisp piece of iceberg lettuce, blob a good dollop of dark sweet hoisin sauce on there and roll up your Chinese burrito!

I always wondered if the duck salad was a Chinese Canadian hybrid dish. You don't see it on any super Chinesey menus, but places where there's sweet and sour pork and lemon chicken (such as Foo's) tends to have it.


CNY ended this year with my mom's "almond float": pale green, sweet almond flavoured gelatin squares bobbing around with canned lychee and canned peach slices in a generations-old serving bowl, and a mountain of gin duey and fresh New Town apple tarts with its layered pastry, waxy-on-the-tongue finish and not-too-sweet apple filling.

Sweet Chinese New Year dreams...

Welcome To The Saanich Fair!

Rich admiring a very decadent pair of fur pants

Pickle on a stick!

I ate this. Guilty. Bratwurst.

Me and Candyland!

Did you know soft serve ice cream is like my most favourite thing??

Saanich Fair Kid's Cake Decorating Competition!

Saanich is in Victoria BC, which is on Vancouver Island. There are lots of farms in Saanich-- corn, tomatoes, blueberries, pumpkins... last weekend, with my in-laws, we hit up the old Saanich Fair, in its 142nd year of country fair party-times. A really amazing fair with lots of community groups running fundraising foodbooths, live animals of every kind (good GOD turkeys are unbelievable looking!! All that hanging sagging brightly colored bumpy skin and Elizabethan collar-ish rounds and rounds of stark feathers!) My favourite part was the children's barn, where everything was made by kids! So wholesome, so cute! So amazing. Sewing, crafts, cake baking, pie baking, cake decorating, art... children should absolutely be immersed in learning things other than sitting in front of a computer or video game console! Get them to bake a pie! These kids did it with no fear!!

The theme for this year's fair, BTW, was "How The West Was Fun". Welcome to Canada everybody.

I bet even a KID made this sign!! Go kid!

The cake decorating competition!! By KIDS!

10 to 12 year olds. You can picture these young gals being so stoked...

Second place in the cookie contest!! It doesn't make dimensional sense but who cares!! It's a watermelon slice sugar cookie, made by a KID!

Mexican cowboy? Third place ribbon!! Those fingers got a bit toasty but it's tough to evenly bake when you have tiny parts such as those cowboy fingers. Black licorice rope!! By a KID!!

Turd pile cake! With straw, dirt and plastic flies!! This won first place blue ribbon!!

This is darn cute. By a KID!

This is cool too. How the west was fun!! Get it?? Reese's Pieces accoutrements!

This one was feeling the literal and figurative burn of the hot lights and the being-out-all-day situation. Little Miss Lady riding a cake buggy! Great work, KID!

Shoestring potato chips as hay, Sesame Snaps as snacks... Dyed coconut flakes as grass... KID!!

So, so awesome!!!! I just want to high five them all!

Crazy About Japanese Food

Me, me, MEEE! I am crazy about Japanese food. Also, Chinese food too, seeing that I am Chinese. Also, many many many other types of foods. But this post is dedicated to the delighfully delicious treats I had at this year's Powell Street Festival here in Vancouver, BC!

I also performed with my conceptual synthpop art group GUIMAUVES at this event, dressed as blobs from space, with our set geared towards the kiddies!!

me, my cutie nephew Brody in his crab yukata, and my sis Leanne!

I am on the right hand side. My good pal Raf is on the left. Three megafans up front.

Delicious potato croquettes!

Delightfully fresh tako yaki-- fried octopus fritter balls!!

my fave, kaki gori-- shave ice with sweet red bean, mochi, green tea syrup and condensed milk...

fried tofu with miso sauce!

okonomiyaki with chicken yakitori skewer! Party pancake with beef and delightful toppings, including bonito flakes, mayo, Bulldog sauce and shredded ginger.

Imagawayaki-- pancakes filled with sweet red bean... love love love these... Check out this cuteness and coolness, wish I could order these!

Fried noodle with a side of croquette!

This is a guide with photos on how to make your own OKONOMIYAKI! Enjoy!

Until next year, Powell Street Festival... Sigh...

Flamingo

Imagine a fuschia pink feathered bird in a tropical setting, with long legs and a funny beak. Now imagine that same bird hanging around at a Chinese restaurant having Dim Sum.

Flamingo on Cambie Street in Vancouver... a sparkly sign; tanks of live fish, elastic banded brown lobsters and spidery, spindly King Crab; pink tablecloths, hot steamed har-gow and pink-outfitted waitresses.

The last time I took my Poh poh to Flamingo, there was a quiet table in the corner: an older, heavy-set, awkward looking Caucasian man and a young, thin, heavily made up Asian girl in short skirt, high boots and skanky-ish shirt. Sweet and sour pork sat between them, and no conversation or even remote interest in each other took place. I wondered if "throw in a Chinese dinner" was part of the deal they made??

At another table a little fat kid squirmed around on a burgundy velveteen chair, squirmed all the way out of his tshirt and fell on his butt on the floor with no shirt on.

WILDCARDS at Flamingo!!!

Pictured here: dim sum with my Poh poh, mom and dad on a weekday afternoon.

Doesn't that crab at the bottom just look like he's saying "hellloooo" to the camera??

They Ain't Foolin' : Foo's Ho Ho

For trillions of years and a few generations at least, my family has been going to Foo's Ho Ho in Chinatown, Vancouver. My parents still go there before B.C. Lions football games with a bunch of friends (yes, my parents have Lions season tickets!!) Foo's Ho Ho is the type of spot that sells your classic "Chinese-Canadian" style dishes-- sweet and sour pork, lemon chicken, all deep fried with a slop of thick, brightly colored sauces, but you can also get some crazier dishes, and more strictly Chinesey dishes. Or special dishes, such as the pre-order only mayonaise-drenched Peking duck salad with lychee and maraschino cherries.

The atmosphere screams painfully for a restaurant makeover-- dismally painted walls, fluorescent lighting, plastic water jugs, glasses for your hot tea, rickety old tables and seats-peeling chairs. But they keep on truckin' the way they are, they ain't gonna change, and why bother? Restaurants like this need to exist, trapped in time and still servin'. Pass me the Li Mon Gai please!!

Go Ho Ho go!