Paris - Dan Dan Noodles Parisien Style

We satisfied our hunger pangs here with dan dan noodles

When we were in Paris we mostly at Asian food, like ramen, soup noodles and dumplings, because those eateries were either still open after the lunch rush, or they happened to be located near where we were, or were good value.

If the place offered Chinese food, they usually had a storefront window where people could see the various dishes laid out like a mini Panda Express to be scooped into takeaway boxes, which was how many non-Chinese ate the food. 

The funky mural drew us into the eatery

Many were owned by mainland Chinese who have lived in Paris for many years. 

After our walking tour around the Latin Quarter, we came upon a Chinese restaurant that had a funky interior inside. Called Tran Tran Zai, one of the walls had a mural with mahjong tiles, bowls of noodles, chili peppers and dumplings, while the ceiling had paper umbrellas hanging upside down.

The small eatery was packed with people, mostly students as it was located near some universities.

We ordered some pork dumplings that were quite large, arranged in a circle with coriander leaves in the middle and sprinkled with sesame seeds. It was definitely hearty and the wrappers were surprisingly thin.

Pork dumplings enveloped in thin wrappers

The bowls of noodles seemed to have the common denominator of having a dan dan peanut spicy sauce in different variations. We had the dan dan noodles with a handful of minced pork on top, then one vegetarian, same flavoured soup base, with cabbage and carrots; tofu would have been nice!

We were also surprised to discover our food was prepared by African immigrants! They seemed very experienced, while the boss was a Chinese guy, and the waitress seemed to be working on her first day in kitten heels navigating her way around the dining space.

Later on I discovered there isn't just one Tran Tran Zai, but five spread around the French capital. The food is pretty good, fills you up and definitely a step up from those takeaway shops.

Dan dan noodles with mild spice level

Tran Tran Zai Pantheon

3 Rue de l'Ecole Polytechnique

75005 Paris

Portugal - Mercado do Bolhao

The ground floor of Mercado do Bolhao in Porto

If something is too good to be true, it probably is. 

Even when you're on holiday.

On the suggestion of a waiter working at the restaurant we ate at last night, we checked out Mercado do Bolhao, about a 15-minute walk from where we are staying.

The "lobster tail" before we tried it

It's a food market place that has a covered courtyard filled with stalls selling fruits, vegetables, meats and seafood, as well as conservas, or tinned seafood, pastries, coffee, sandwiches and chocolate.

At one seafood stall we saw big, red plump lobster tails, which is how it was labelled. They were 5 euros each. 

Really?! Lobster tails for 5 euros only?

My aunt was so excited she wanted to buy one to try.

But when we got our small wooden prongs to poke it, we could see right away it wasn't the juicy meat of the crustacean, but instead some kind of fish cake made to look like lobster tail.

Scam of the day -- at 9.30am.

Lots of colourful fruits for sale

But we didn't let that bother us, and we bought some other food to try, like thinly sliced Iberico pork, small meat pies including wild boar and beef stew, mushrooms on toast, melted cheese, and grilled halloumi, eaten with a loaf of bread and some coffee (to combat jetlag).

We enjoyed ourselves so much, that the couple next to us were jealous the six of us could sample so many things!

The market has washrooms, though there aren't many, and there's even a piano on the third floor inviting visitors to tinkle the ivories.

Mercado do Bolhao was established in 1838, and the current building was built in 1917. What's interesting is that the market has three floors, each floor has a street entrance, as it's located on a hill. The bottom floor is the actual market, second floor has a few open stalls selling handmade jewellery, clothing, bags and ceramics, while the third floor houses three restaurants.

Some of what we ate for brunch

We were so full afterwards we weren't even hungry until around 5pm despite walking so much around Porto!

Montreal's Atwater Market

Atwater Market was built in 1930s Art Deco style

Chef Andersen Lee took us to his favourite public market in Montreal called Atwater Market near Lachine Canal. It's not touristy, more locals who come here to buy perennials and wines, as well as meats, vegetables and cheeses.

Thick-cut slices of smoked meat at Alywin's

The market is named after Edwin Atwater, a 19th century businessman and city councillor, and the Art Deco building opened in 1933 during the Great Depression in a bid to stimulate the economy. 

Inside there are two floors housing butchers, cheesemongers, a shop selling coffee beans, a boulangerie and patisserie. We went into Aylwin Deli to try their smoked meat sandwich (C$16) on rye and pumpernickel bread, but the thickly sliced meat tasted flat, with no peppery taste.

Nevertheless, we marvelled at the stalls selling an abundance of asparagus, not only green but purple and white as well, fresh bulbs of garlic, giant stalks of rhubarb, and fresh herbs.

Large selection of vegetables and fruits for sale

We also tried some pastries -- a coffee-flavoured eclair, and one with chocolate ganache inside, and a small lemon tart with lime zest. They were all delicious, washed down with a refreshing raspberry lemonade.

There were lots of baskets of colourful perennials to hang or place in small balcony boxes at home, while oenophiles enjoyed wandering the aisles of a giant wine shop selling a wide variety of bottles.

Lee likes to come here, pick out a bottle, buy some cheeses, cold cuts and a baguette and have a picnic.

It's such a French way of organising a casual bite that also tastes amazing -- with a glass of wine. 

If you don't drive, it's also relatively easy to get to Atwater Market by metro too.

Colourful perennials ready to be taken home

Atwater Market

155 Green Avenue

Montreal

Review: Vegan Omakase at Cofu Chinatown

Chef Akiko (left) getting ready to serve omakase at Cofu

Earlier this week I was invited to experience vegan omakase at Cofu Chinatown, opened by chef Akiko Gulkison in Vancouver. 

It's unlike Shoku Vegan Sushi in Kerrisdale, where food is made to look and somewhat taste like fish and meat.

Silky chawanmushi without eggs

Instead Cofu reimagines an omakase meal using mostly vegetables and some fruits. It takes a lot of skill and knowledge to know how to create flavourful vegan and vegetarian food. 

For the most part chef Akiko does a great job. In an 18-course dinner she showcased the sweetness of carrot, how chawanmushi can be just as silky smooth without using eggs, and miso-marinated eggplant paired with snow fungus on rice wrapped in nori can make a delicious pairing.

There are some interesting items like a skewer of zucchini covered in tofu that is marinated and then grilled, or a nigiri with potato mixed with various vegetables, and combining sake-steamed shiitake with zuke peach.

I wasn't quite sure about the radicchio wrapped in kombu and then made into nigiri -- the seaweed was unable to tame the leafy chicory's infamous bitterness. 

Miso-marinated eggplant with snow fungus

Meanwhile chef Akiko's version of ochazuke, where a tea broth is poured over rice was quite bland. The same could be said of the shojin dashi, which was made with vegetable trimmings, but perhaps not simmered long enough to extract more flavour.

Nevertheless, the meal ends with a dessert of matcha  sponge cake and red bean paste, followed by a lovely palate cleanser of a scoop of beet sorbet. The dinner could have ended there, but we are served ceremonial-grade matcha tea with homemade sweets.

Cofu is a warm and inviting space, and a rarity to see two female Japanese chefs serving eight people at the bar. 

On the weekends, the restaurant is a coffee joint, and will soon serve breakfast paninis using vegan cheese...

Refreshing beet sorbet for dessert

Cofu Chinatown, 488 Gore Avenue, Vancouver, BC. Tel: 604 336 1166

Japan's National Dish

Japanese curry but make it vegetarian

I made some Japanese curry tonight using the packaged roux.

However, unlike the usual combination of beef, potatoes and carrots, I made mine vegetarian, chopping up potatoes, eggplant and kabocha.

First heat up oil in a big pot and saute the onions, stirring occasionally to get them caramelised a bit. Then add garlic, and in my case the vegetables. 

Let that cook for a minute or two before adding water that almost covers the ingredients and let it simmer for about 15 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked through.

Now it's time to add the roux. Turn off the heat and a new tip I learned on YouTube was to melt each roux cube in a ladle to ensure the flavour permeated the sauce.

Then turn on the heat again and let it simmer for about five more minutes. When it's done, serve it with some white rice.

The end result was a comforting dish that will get better with time.

Interesting to note Japanese curry is practically a national dish, with its origins from Indian cuisine introduced by the British during the Meiji era (1868-1912).

In 1945, a powdered instant curry roux was developed, making it easier for households to make this popular dish. 

By 1968 the pouches of curry roux came out, much like the ones we have today.

Itadakimasu!

Shenzhen: Hanging Out in the Mall

MixC is a massive retail development in Shenzhen Bay

During our stay in Hong Kong, we also did a day trip to Shenzhen. We had heard a lot about how the city had changed in the last few years, how people and families go there on the weekends to shop, eat, and have massages with really good ambience and service at a fraction of the cost in Hong Kong.

And it's easy to see why seniors love going across the border, because with a JoyYou card, they can travel to the border for just HK$2. That's even cheaper than regular fare going one stop on the MTR line.

The mall looks sleek, but hardly any shoppers

We took the longer route of taking the MTR from Admiralty to LoWu, and the border control on the Hong Kong side hasn't changed much.

Then we crossed the bridge to the Chinese side where at first foreign passport holders were expected to fill out an arrival card online. There were technical difficulties and the officers gave up and handed out paper forms instead.

I downloaded the app Didi ahead of time and ordered a car -- but as we didn't know the Shenzhen train station well we got lost trying to find the meeting spot! The driver called us and we saw the Shangri-La Shenzhen ahead of us and rushed over there to meet him. Thankfully he was very patient despite only making 36 kuai from us!

He drove us about 30 minutes to a new shopping mall that friends had recommended we check out. It's called MixC and it's been around since 2017, but we went to a new location near Shenzhen Bay, which opened in October, which might explain why it was pretty empty? Or is it a sign of China's slow economy? 

Vietnamese lunch of vermicelli with pork

The mall is sleek and modern-looking, filled with luxury brands from Louis Vuitton to Christian Dior, Gucci Kids (I couldn't even afford a child's handbag), an upscale supermarket called Ole, and a movie theatre.

In the supermarket one could buy a giant king crab, or palm-sized hairy crab, blueberries the size of 5-cent coins, and even Nicholas Tse "low-temperature processed black pork luncheon meat".

For lunch we ate at a Vietnamese restaurant in a kind of food court in the basement, which was busy. We ate pho with beef and sausage, and warm vermicelli with spring roll and pork slices, and a plate of young water spinach that was delicious. We went to another kiosk for gelato that other people were lining up for.

We walked off the calories by wandering the mall. Seeing there was a roof garden, we checked it out and were impressed by the design of the space -- global firm CallisonRTKL, which my architect cousin says is only interested in massive projects like these, with lots of space to design.

The mall is spread over several city blocks

The concept is "city crossing", where we would wander through one part of the mall, emerge outside and see a bridge to the other side, cross it, and enter another part of the mall, and it would continue like this for several city blocks. 

The stores were pretty much empty except for the staff inside them, and the restaurant calibre looked impressive. There was DaDong Roast Duck from Beijing, a Shanghainese restaurant that had a nice decor and menus that were large books filled with big pictures. 

MixC is next to a bullet-shaped tower that had no obvious signage, but it is a China Resources building, as the entire development is owned by the state-owned enterprise. And next to this futuristic building is a nice open space, with water features, and a Monet-like sculpture with figures dancing in a circle.

We ended up having dinner in a vegetarian chain restaurant called Qing Chun Perma, which gives of a zen-like vibe with its minimalist decor. Diners walk into the open kitchen, seeing staff preparing dumplings, stir-frying or making desserts wearing white chef jackets and gray fedora hats.

Mushroom xiaolongbao at Qing Chun Perma

Each table is set in a booth-like atmosphere and shielded with bamboo screens so that you can't see the people sitting at the next table, but you can hear them.

The menu has a mix of Chinese and Western dishes: The mushroom xiaolongbao were big, generous dumplings with thin wrappers, and lots of flavour in the fillings. We also had an asparagus and morel mushroom warm salad, a pumpkin soup with coconut milk, braised tofu with morels, and stir-fried pea shoots.

For dessert, a bowl of glutinous rice dumplings in sweet rice wine, and mango sago cream with pomelo.

At times it was hard to flag down the servers -- all women -- but they were friendly and helpful. When we finally got a hold of someone asking for the bill, she told us to scan the QR code at our table and pay that way. No need to tip. Just pay electronically and then you can leave.

Then we made our way back to Hong Kong, getting a car to drive us back to LoWu, and then after going through Chinese immigration, we took the train back, very tired!

Hong Kong Braces for Super Typhoon Ragasa

Masking tape and vegetables at the wet market

Super Typhoon Ragasa is approaching Hong Kong, and the Observatory has just raised the No. 8 storm signal almost 30 minutes ago.

Ragasa, a Filipino word that means "rapid" or "fast motion" already crossed the Luzon Strait 

with winds clocking at 230km/h, making it the most powerful storm in the world so far this year.

Two shopping carts filled with instant noodles

People in Hong Kong are now rushing home, and bringing back whatever supplies they can find to survive at least two days.

Supermarkets and wet markets were swarmed by customers, with fresh vegetables and fruit to quickly disappear, along with eggs, meat and bread.

On social media there's a video of a man who filled two supermarket trolleys with around 70 instant noodle cups and several bags of frozen dim sum. Was he planning to eat that all himself?

One shopper described the mad rush as busy as before Lunar New Year. The 67-year-old woman bought more than 1kg of vegetables, including two cabbages, five dragon fruit and four oranges, that she believed would last till the weekend.

However, one couple that wasn't as quick to buy essential food items could only find snacks, though they did still have some food at home. 

Some people prioritised buying up toilet paper to ride out the storm...

Slim pickings for those not organised

And yet there were those who believe in using masking tape to tape up their windows. Lo Kok-keung, a former Hong Kong Polytechnic University engineer, says there are three major causes of window breakage during typhoons: strong winds that generate vibrations that cause cracks, high wind speeds that blow up debris that breaks glass, and strong winds that deform glass.

In a bid to minimise the risk of glass shattering, Lo suggests taping the Chinese character for rice (米) on windows, which he says provides more support points and reduces the likelihood of glass fragments shattering.

Shops were selling masking tape like hot cakes, with one renovation store in Hoi Wan selling 200 rolls in the past few days. 

"People have heard that this coming typhoon is bigger than usual, so they're stocking up just in case," the manager said, adding that most customers were buying more than two rolls and many were new faces.

"Some were buying as many as 10 at a time, especially those who live in places with many windows or are purchasing for high-rise offices."

Stir-fried Chayotes for Dinner

Stir-fried chayotes with red peppers for dinner

We were recently gifted some chayotes from a doctor whose patient had grown them. These palm-shaped vegetables were dark green and had lots of prickles on the outside; usually the outer skin is a bit tough and has to be peeled, but not with prickles that could be painful to handle!

Chayotes originated from South America, between southern Mexico and Honduras. This vegetable belongs to the gourd family, which includes cucumbers and squash.

Ours were dark green like these ones and prickly

A chef from Venezuela who has a Michelin-starred restaurant in Hong Kong serving South American cuisine was thrilled to find chayotes in the wet markets, as home-cooked soups and stews typically include this green gourd.

It can also be chopped thinly and eaten raw in salads, and stir-fried or steamed too. I have pickled them before, adapting a recipe for smashed cucumbers.

In Cantonese cooking it's usually added to soups or stir-fried, and I had a left over red pepper so I decided to cook them together for a vegetable dish for dinner.

To prepare these prickly chayotes, I donned a pair of dishwashing gloves and used a cloth to pick them up and peel them with a peeler which wasn't too difficult to do. Any areas I could not reach I used a knife to carve out the tough skin.

Then I sliced the chayotes in half and then quarters before chopping them into diagonal slices, including the seed in the middle which is edible.

Chayotes can be eaten in many ways

Once the oil in the wok was hot, I added shallots, garlic and ginger, then the sliced chayote and red pepper. After a quick stir, I added a bit of water and some chicken stock I had in the fridge before turning down the heat and put the lid on the wok so that the vegetables could steam and cook.

After around 10 minutes when the chayote was tender, I added a bit of salt to taste and then the vegetables were done.

The chayotes hold their shape and taste sweet, the red pepper even sweeter! They also made for a colourful dish too.

A Hearty Vegetarian Soup

A hearty bowl of cannellini and kale soup for lunch 

Earlier this week I made a simple soup for lunch, using a bunch of kale and an onion I received from Harvest Community Foods.

I chopped up the onion and stir-fried it before adding rinsed cannellini beans and chicken stock, let that simmer for a bit before adding the chopped kale.

For some umami flavour I put in parmesan rinds and that helped thicken the soup a bit too. You can also mash some of the beans, but after about 20 minutes the soup was thicker, as some of the beans had disintegrated. Took out the parmesan rinds, added some salt and pepper, and the soup was done.

It would have been good with some warm sourdough bread, but it was still delicious, and vegetarian!

Fresh Vegetables Inspire Good Eating

Fresh mixed greens with cucumber slices and cherry tomatoes

Yesterday I went to Harvest Community Foods on Union Street, at the edge of Vancouver's Chinatown. It's an inviting small grocery store that has fresh vegetables and fruits. At the entrance there were large yellow-orangey globes of peaches, verdant green English cucumbers, giant russet-coloured tomatoes, pears that had yet to ripen, and bright red cherry tomatoes.

The shop sells CSA produce, or Community Supported Agriculture, where they connect with local farmers, get their produce, and Harvest bundles them up in paper shopping bags to sell. It's a farmer's market mixed bag of veggies that changes weekly depending on what's harvested.

French fingerling potatoes from an organic farm

The owners, chef Andrea Carlson and Gabrielle Meyer, had just signed a lease on a space a few doors down just weeks before the Covid-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020. They had just started doing the CSA bags with about 40 subscribers. When everything shut down and people were worried about going to supermarkets, they began inquiring about Harvest's CSA bags and instead of 40 subscribers, they got 400.

While it was a lot of hard work for Harvest's team in sorting out the vegetables evenly into bags, it was a lifeline for local farmers who didn't know how else to get their produce to customers.

I was given a bag of CSA produce to take home too and today I started eating some of it.

For lunch I made a spring salad and cut up some of the English cucumber and the ripe cherry tomatoes. The tomatoes were so good, almost as juicy sweet as the ones in Tuscany! 

The roasted potato slices with salt and pepper

Then for dinner I took the French fingerling potatoes, sliced them, marinated them in oil, salt and pepper and then roasted them for 20 minutes. They tasted so fresh, and complemented roasted chicken drumsticks.

I also took the bunch of spinach and stir-fried them Chinese-style with shallots, garlic and ginger. The spinach was delicious mixed with leftover shrimp and tofu with vermicelli.

There's still a bunch of kale, the exotic-sounding Dragon Tongue beans, a red pepper, onion and corn left!

Delicious Mini Squash for Dinner

Pattypan and striped acorn squash, cucumber

Today I walked past a neighbour who gave away free vegetables in a cardboard box, and saw there were two mini squash in there and picked them up to take home.

One is saucer-shaped called pattypan squash or scallop squash because of its frilly edge. The other is a mini striped acorn squash. I picked up another cucumber that was relatively small. 

Stir-fried squashes with Shanghai choy

Usually the pattypan squash is roasted, but I sliced the top and bottom and then cut it in half down the middle and cut relatively thin slices. With the striped acorn squash I just cut coin discs.

They weren't quite enough for three of us for dinner, so I added Shanghai choy.

I first stir fried shallots, garlic and ginger in cooking oil, and then added the two squash, and some water, and let them steam for a bit.

Then I added the Shanghai choy, some salt, and after a few minutes the vegetables were done.

The end result was a bright, colourful plate, and the squash tasted sweet, contrasting with the slight bitterness of the Shanghai choy.

Picture of the Day: Feeding the Neighbourhood

Cucumber and zucchini from a neighbour

The other day I finished walking around Pacific Spirit Park and was on my way home on a street I don't usually walk on, and one of the homes has a vegetable patch in the front yard.

By the steps to the house is a cardboard box with a sign saying "Free veggies". Inside were four zucchinis!

Apparently with the warm weather we're having, many people with vegetable patches are harvesting their zucchinis.

I took the smallest one, which was already quite large and brought it home.

The next day I went back to the same street and inside were cucumbers! I took the smallest one when I got home I peeled the bumpy skin and sliced it up. It was so crisp and fresh!

Tonight I stir-fried the zucchinis with shallots, garlic, ginger and dried conpoy, and it was delicious!

I shall check for more veggies later!

Review: Zachary's Pizza

Stuffed spinach and mushroom pizza with sausage

Five years ago we tried Zachary's Chicago Pizza for the first time and were overwhelmed by this deep-dish concept, where it's more like a pie than a pizza.

But we liked it so much we requested to try it again and went to the north Berkeley location for lunch.

More like a pie than typical pizza

We liked the decorations on the wall -- amateur paintings that plug Zachary's, from Garfield dreaming about it, to a riff on the Johannes Vermeer painting, Girl with the Pearl Earring, and having her biting into a slice of deep-dish pizza.

We ordered a stuffed pizza with spinach and mushroom that has three cheeses in it and added sausage, which took about 30 minutes to make; so we had a side of garden salad to munch on before the pizza arrived.

The fresh vegetable produce in California is delicious -- the lettuce is crisp and tastes sweeter, in particular the tomatoes, which are incredible. In Vancouver we are stuck with ones that were picked when they were green and have hardly any flavour. 

When the pizza arrived, it was more like a pie and our server helped us dish out the pizza. It was definitely gooey from the generous amounts of melted cheese, but the richness was balanced by the sweet acidity of the delicious fresh tomato sauce!

Not only was the filling good, but also the crust! It was thick but not rock hard; it held the pizza together, but crunchy enough for texture.

Funny pizza-themed artwork on the wall

In the end I managed to eat one and a half slices; a medium-sized pizza for four of us resulted in two slices left which we brought with us.

Good thing I did a bit of walking afterwards to digest that filling pizza!

Zachary's Chicago Pizza

1853 Solano Avenue, Berkeley, CA

(510) 525 5950

Eating Local at Farmer's Market

Blueberries, raspberries and blackberries on sale today

This afternoon I checked out the farmer's market at Riley Park, next to Nat Bailey Stadium where the Vancouver Canadians play baseball. I hadn't been to this farmer's market for decades and was keen to see what the different stalls had.

I managed to get a parking spot in the community centre connected to Hillcrest Park, where there is a library, swimming pool, ice rink and playground.

My lunch of two samosas with chickpea sauce

A short walk away I could see small tents and many of them were selling berries -- strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and even boysenberries. Others sold vegetables like corn, kale, zucchini, English peas, beets, and potatoes. 

Others sold breads, donuts, and cookies, or perogies, meat pies, frozen salmon fillets, and fresh pasta. One had a slow day selling mushrooms -- the guy wore a T-shirt with a large mushroom on it and it said "funguy". He was offering lion mane mushrooms, oyster and shiitake, and even sea asparagus or salicornia, a crunchy but salty vegetable that looks like a mini asparagus.

There were also exotic foods like Balinese sauces, Cambodian seasonings, Indian chilli sauces. 

I ordered lunch from an Indian food truck: a dish called samosa chaat, featuring two samosas with a chickpea sauce drizzled on top with a bit of tamarind chilli sauce. It was delicious with a bit of pickled cabbage.

Vegan chocolate ice cream bar!

And hankering for an ice cream I had a vegan cookies and cream ice cream bar. It was covered in white chocolate shell and underneath was a black ice cream bar, as if you had crushed the black cookies of an Oreo and froze them with a bit of plant-based milk. 

I enjoyed the food while listening to a group of singers performing songs a cappella.

While the prices are a bit more expensive than supermarkets, many people come here for organic produce or want to support local farmers. There's a warm community atmosphere here!

Army of Cooks Feeding Cruise Ship Passengers

Showing off some cool knife skills

We ate all our meals on the Ruby Princess this past week and I can attest as a cruiser that the novelty fades quickly; the breakfast buffet looks pretty much the same everyday, and in the fine dining restaurant, ingredients are used in different ways. It's best to eat something fresh on the menu -- and asking your waiter for tips on what's good that day.

Nevertheless we have to say running the food outlets on a cruise ship is no easy task. Executive chef Russell Clarke explained that half the staff are related to food and beverage, either cooks or waiters from some 50 different countries.

Pastry chefs busy making cakes for the day

During a culinary presentation in the theatre, Clarke quipped that he spoke Australian, not English, while all the other cooks and waiters spoke at least two or three different languages.

On stage, Clarke quickly made three dishes for the audience of passengers: shrimp cocktail with mango salsa, lamb chops, and pavlova with berries and coulis.

However, we weren't invited to try the dishes -- the pavlova looked rock hard and dense -- but to go to the galley kitchens to take a look. Apparently this is a popular tour and some people raced to the kitchens! In the end there wasn't much to see, except lots of empty work spaces, stainless steel everywhere and only a handful of chefs working at 11am.

Perhaps the cooks were shy, or Clarke wanted the area cleared out, we could only look at a distance though some areas were decorated with creative carvings of vegetables and fruits. Some were constructed to look like mice and birds, but the flowers carved out of the side of a watermelon were most impressive.

A hearty slice of prime rib with potato, beans

We were given a fact sheet on how much food is produced on the ship, and it involves ordering 110-115 tons of food delivered on a single cruise.

Three butchers clean and cut 1,700 fish into portions daily, while five butchers, three assistants and helpers prepare beef and poultry. On a cruise, 1,400lbs of poultry, 1,700lbs of beef, 1,400lbs of pork and pork products (like sausages); 300lbs of veal, and 200lbs of lamb are cooked daily.

While I had a large slice of prime rib that was pretty good on the last night, the lamb rack I had was overcooked. Interestingly the cream of whatever vegetable soup like cauliflower, or lentil, and the Alaska seafood soup were really good. These are made by 13 staff, preparing 550 gallons per day.

Some 1,600lbs of salad are served daily along with 400lbs of shrimp, 13 gallons of mayonnaise, and 1,500 sandwiches. The Caesar salad was consistently good and what I ate the most.

The bread served on board is made fresh daily by 10 bakers, including the bread rolls we ate everyday that had a light crunchy exterior and fluffy interior along with whipped butter. I did not try the pizza nor the croissants. The bakers use some 1,500lbs of flour daily! I saw some dough being proofed when we went through the kitchens.

Breads are made daily on the ship

And there are 13 people working in pastry making desserts, ice creams, cakes and pies. Around 6,000 pieces of pastries are made everyday, along with 100 gallons of ice cream, and 300 cakes and pies. The blueberry crumble with vanilla ice cream was a favourite at our table. The souffle on the first day was more like a steamed cake, but there was baked Alaska (a giant one sliced up, to individual ones that were sloppy). The safest bet was peach melba or ice cream with fresh fruit sauce like pineapple or strawberry.

Every morning I ate fruits -- honeydew, cantaloupe, watermelon and pineapple. Sometimes there was papaya. Towards the end of the trip there was more canned fruit like apricot, peach and pineapple. I ate those anyway, and once had canned figs. Around 6,000lbs of fresh fruit is served daily, while 400lbs of butter are used everyday!

For those who drink coffee, 470 gallons are consumed, 62 gallons of coffee cream, and 400lbs of sugar for the coffee.

After consuming all that food, someone has to clean the dishes. Fifty-seven people wash china, glasses, silver, and pots and pans. Everyday 70,000 dishes are washed, while 21,500 glasses are washed. 

And that's just the passengers. There are also 1,1000 crew who need to eat too!

Dine Out Vancouver Roundup

Hearty braised lamb shank at Shaughnessy Restaurant 

Tomorrow is the last day of Dine Out Vancouver. This year some 300 restaurants participated, as it helps drum up business after Christmas, when people are less inclined to go out. It didn't help that the first two days were challenged by the massive snowstorm...

I tried four restaurants this year, and overall the quality was pretty good, very good value, but it was sad to see some had hardly any diners when we went, while others were bustling.

Shaughnessy Restaurant at VanDusen was very quiet. When we arrived, the waiter knew right away about our reservation as they only had a handful of diners. This is disappointing, as it makes the atmosphere dull, and the food and service can only do so much.

Value for money cioppino at Seasons in the Park

For my main I had a generous portion of a Moroccan-inspired braised lamb shank with baked chickpeas. The meat fell off the bone and had a good amount of vegetables too. 

Thankfully I had a light dessert of strawberry sorbet, but it was more of a strawberry ice than sorbet. Perhaps it was because there were so few diners it was in the deep freezer.

In a complete contrast, Seasons in the Park was packed to the gills on a Sunday night. We had a 5.45pm reservation and when we sat down, a table next to us was being served dessert. This restaurant is very consistent and efficient, thanks to the vegetable sides being exactly the same on every item in the menu.

The cioppino was very good value for a set meal, the tomato-based broth was very flavourful with sweetness from the seafood including mussels, shrimp and fish. The duck confit was hearty and thankfully not dried out. However, the chocolate brownie dessert was too dense and rich -- even my sweet-tooth dad couldn't finish it!

A restaurant we hadn't tried before is Fable Diner on East Broadway and Main Street. It's a hipster diner where they play an 80s soundtrack that I enjoyed bopping to, though it was a bit quiet. Nevertheless, the creamy tomato soup didn't have cream, which made it even more delicious, while the salmon was slightly overcooked, but a nice portion that was just right. 

Memorable three-berry sorbet at Fable Diner

Here the three-berry sorbet was amazing -- shades of pink, soft and a taste of summer. The Oreo Mason jar cheesecake was deceivingly light and not too sweet either. 

Finally Dockside Restaurant in the Granville Island Hotel wasn't as busy as we thought, probably overlooked, but it's easily accessible and parking is not hard to find after 6pm. As I had a big lunch earlier in the day, I opted for a vegetarian main of grilled maitake mushrooms with kabocha squash puree and asparagus.

I also had the crab and fish cake as a starter that was sizeable. For dessert, the key lime cheesecake sounded fun, though when it arrived it has a layer of neon green that almost glowed in the dark. Nevertheless the cheesecake had a hint of lime and not heavy at all.

Dockside's Grilled maitake mushrooms

So there's my roundup for the year and glad to have participated. Dine Out Vancouver is a great initiative that encourages people to support restaurants, and at the same time gives these establishments an opportunity to have customers who haven't tried them before, and challenges chefs to think of new economical dishes that are also delicious.

Palm Springs: A Morning at the Fair in the Desert

Metal art like these sculptures were for sale at the market

Every weekend from October to May is the Street and Art Fair at College of the Desert. It's an actual college and the parking lot is turned into a temporary open market where locals and visitors can buy all kinds of things from fruits to jewellery, clothing and even shoe horns.

We drove there around 11am and it's a good set up. Across from where the temporary fair is the parking lot for cars and even better is mini transportation in the form of golf carts to ferry people to the open-air market and back. If you have too many things to carry, or your legs are tired, it's the best.

Wine glasses for diehard golfers...

Even better is the happy-go-lucky driver we had both ways, who was greeting many people by name and waving to those he didn't know. He was very happy to be driving the cart and chatting with people. Maybe it's also because he gets tips in a plastic cup taped to the cart.

Nevertheless, we were dropped off at the middle of the market where a guy dressed as Santa Claus was selling Kris Kringle coffee in paper bags. I didn't see him make a sale but he waved to people and said, "Ho ho ho!"

Feel sorry he had to stand around in 21 degree heat... he couldn't even get an umbrella sorted to give him some shade...

In any event people can buy all kinds of items at this market. The first one we saw sold all kinds of things one would find in a dollar store, like shammies, kitchen gadgets like graters, and foldable laundry baskets.

Heck you could even buy a car if you wanted -- they claimed they ship everywhere!

Colourful folk art pieces to decorates homes

There were also steering wheel covers for sale, reading glasses, watches, jewellery, hats, and a purse organiser (a pouch with many compartments in it to put in your purse).

For those who love a good salesman pitch could watch a guy talk nonstop as he demonstrated how to use a ginger grater, and there was a small group of people watching intently. He was even throwing in a recipe book if you bought a grater...

One stall sold women's golf wear which was quite popular -- with changing rooms too, while another sold golf clubs, US$20 for a sand wedge! Serious golfers were amused.

A food section where there were picnic tables had stalls selling coffee, popcorn, hotdogs, and iced drinks. There were also fruits for sale, like strawberries, papayas, pomegrantes and apples, as well as vegetables and dried dates that were stuffed with walnuts, coconuts, or plain. 

The market seemed like the community centre where people hung out on the weekends to say hi or something to do with friends. We didn't buy anything, but was fun to look!

Giant pomegranates up for grabs

Street & Art Fair at College of the Desert

October to May, 8am-2pm

Corner of Monterey Avenue and Magnesia Falls, Palm Desert