Rice Noodles Insight (Free entry)

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A brief history

Rice noodles are soft, transparent, and often retaining a scent of paddy field. In ancient Southern China, where rice enjoyed two to three harvest seasons in a year, many people lived on rice as their main food; meanwhile it was dreary for those people to eat steamed rice (commonplace till now) all the time. Thus, Rice noodles were born to set off the pain of eating drab food.

Some also believe that the noodles made of rice were fruit of Chinese soldiers’ nostalgia. More than 2000 years ago, soldiers of northern China were sent to build canals in the south where land produced no wheat for them to make noodles which were popular back in their northern hometowns. Rice, in a result, became an alternative for wheat in making noodles. And, surprisingly, it was an even better choice.

Now, Rice noodles are people’s main food, not only in Southern China, but also in many other places in South East Asia, such as Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. In different places, Rice noodles are cooked in different manners with different ingredients. Here is my collection of Rice noodles.

Rice noodles with beef

In Changsha, the capital city of Hunan, China, rice noodles are very spicy. Sometimes, there are two to three kinds of red peppers on the table of restaurants. It usually costs around $2 each.

In the west of Hunan province, where social developments are much backward than its capital, rice noodles are extremely cheap, only half a dollar each. Toppings include sliced beef, sliced chicken and minced duck rice-cakes. Around half a dollar each.

Rice noodles with beef is also a commonplace for breakfast in Cambodia. Meanwhile, different with Chinese rice noodles, rice noodles with beef in Phnom Penh are seasoned with lemon, and much less spicy. $1.5 each.

In Vietnam, rice noodles are so popular that there are several chain-restaurants specialized for rice noodles, like Pho 24 and Pho 2000. Different from China, Cambodia, and Laos, noodles made of wheat are hardly found in Vietnam. Also, the Vietnam rice noodles are cooked more delicately than Cambodia-styled; apart from lemon, lemongrasses, basil leaves and bean sprouts are all dressed in the noodles. Around $1 to $2 each.

Rice noodles with minced duck rice-cakes

It is a local special of Fenghuang town (Town of Phoenix), a famous travel city in northwest Hunan province. The price of rice noodles almost doubles, compared with other places in these region. $2 each.

Rice noodles with pot-stewed vegetables and meat

It is a Local special for Guilin, Guangxi province. After boiled, the noodles are often stirred with pot-stewed vegetables and meat instead of soaked in soups. Around half a dollar each.

Hot and sour rice noodles

Hot and sour rice noodles of Sichuan often come along with the brisk baked cakes. The same kind of rice noodles when served out of Sichuan province loses the company of baked cakes and was less spicy. Around $1.

Rice noodles with chicken

It is popular throughout Laos. And in southern Laos, sometimes it is fried like Pad Thai, topped with minced peanut. $1.5-$2.

Hong Kong in figures: All about food

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1. As the Culinary Capital of Asia, Hong Kong hit a record high of over 370,000 visitors to its 2010 five-day Food Expo featuring more than 740 exhibitors from 22 countries and regions.
2. With one for every 600 people, Hong Kong boasts more than 11,000 restaurants and one of the highest per capita concentrations of cafés and restaurants in the world.
3. Till the end of 2009, the Hong Kong Government operated a total of 79 public markets and 25 free standing cooked food markets, with around 14 800 food stalls.
4. Each of the city’s seven million inhabitants consumes a yearly average of nearly 1.4 kilos of tea – almost triple the world average and more than any other Asian city.
5. Hong Kong has quickly become Asian’s wine capital since the scrapping of duties in 2008. In 2009, Hong Kong surpassed London to become the second largest wine auction center in the world after New York, with total auction sales of US $64 million.

References:

http://www.discoverhongkong.com/eng/dining/restaurant-guide.html

http://www.brandhk.gov.hk/en/#/en/myHK/funfacts.html

http://www.discoverhongkong.com/eng/events/consumer-fairs-food-expo.html

http://www.gov.hk/en/about/abouthk/factsheets/

Snack “cures”

Having quit from a textile mill in her hometown, Guangdong, where she spent more than 20 years as a line-manager, Zhu Aihua, at her

Icecreams are sold in the snack store

49, changed into a shop assistant in a snack shop in Hong Kong to reunite with her family.

“I’d prefer the muffins packed in dozen. It offers a fair price and my son is so fund of it !” Zhu pointed at the fancy boxes piling up in front of the counter and introduced me warmly in standard mandarin. While leaning on the counter, she wore a sunny smile and looked into my eyes in a way that finally made me take it.

Six days in a week, at 3 pm, Zhu walks from her home two blocks away to the snack shop to relieve the shop owner for the next seven hours. The daily routine: mopping the floor, arranging the shelves and also acting as a cashier, for Zhu, earns her a much easier life than her first year in Hong Kong working as a waitress in a tea dining room, which allowed no time for her to take care of her ill mother-in-law.

“Though it all settled now, it was a huge shift for me in the beginning,” Zhu grinned with a sign, “I did plan for moving to Hong Kong for quite a long time, but with my Popo’s (mother-in-law in Chinese) sudden illness, it still turned out to be a bump.”

Working in the center of “snack mountain”, Zhu gradually picked up herself from the culture shock. Even if she doesn’t taste many of the snacks, she enjoys memorizing most of their names, sometimes making recommendations for customers and sometimes buying her son his favorite. As Zhu said, the job gave her not allowance, rather the happiness to be with her family.

“Curry City”: short cut from Hong Kong to Thailand

“Curry City”: short cut from Hong Kong to Thailand

Just in the center of Hong Kong, Kowloon City, where the old taste of Chinese culture lingers, the Thai curry with its spicy ingredient wins over the food agenda of the Chinese. For spicy food lovers, whenever you decide to regain the pleasure of eating heartily in Hong Kong and taste the authentic Thai curry, Kowloon City is the right place to go.

Standing in Kowloon city, in between Nam Kok Road and Nga Tsin Long road, the smell of Thai curry will greet you from every corner. And the types of curry range from Bangkok style green curry to Chiang Mai northern style red curry with plenty of lemongrass and roselle leaves. The curry in Kowloon, could satisfy the appetites of both the Thai food novice, who has never dived into the curry world or Thai food addict who boasting of being in Thai cooking school for numerous times.

The Thai restaurants, though centered all in Kowloon City and mostly enjoy a high food authentic, differ largely from one another in the overall dining environment. You could expect some restaurants offer you silver bows and cups washed as clean as at home, while others only treat you with the china cookery seemingly older than the cook. However, it could be an adventure for you to pick out your own choice since most of them sharing similar names, such as best selection of Thai food or the Best of Northern Thai food.  It is a tough job to tell the differences among the names with an empty eager stomach.

Apart from the curries, the restaurants there also provide other popular Thai food such as Tom Yom soup and Pad Thai, which could also serve as good alternatives for trying Thai food, while most of them could just arouse you of the sweetness of Thai food as well.  Once, you got tired of eating Siu Mei every day, why not just give yourself a break in the Kowloon City, enjoying the curry.