nanamoose

雲府的假西藏

DSC04844
Originally uploaded by nanamoose.

又是一家不准拍照自以為什麼新鮮蘿蔔皮的餐廳。

是否位於蘭桂芳的中國餐廳就難逃 "騙鬼老" 的宿命呢? 同樣是Aqua Group的梁山泊，水滸居和胡同都有一定的水準, 甚至它位於奧卑利街的泰菜館 O Sip Ha都相當不錯 (除了那不大陪襯的裝簧), 為什麼新開的雲府卻如此讓我失望呢?

我想這跟它門口那略像紅白藍膠帶的哈達（還是經幡呢？）跟菜單裏的藏肉，藏魚和一堆奇奇怪怪的菜名有關吧。跨入那扇掛滿假哈達的大門之後走下一道左右刻滿唐朝侍女的陰暗樓梯，樓梯的盡頭是一條紅通通的長廊，令人想起張藝謀的 "大紅燈籠高高掛"， 也令人想起倫敦的Hakkasan 餐廳– 同樣是陰暗的樓梯帶你進入藍得有點刺眼的接待處 – 長廊的盡頭是大廳，大廳的正中央是一尊佛像。 隨便翻開菜單，有烏魯木齊魯魯下（烤羊排），喇嘛餃 （素餃），玉龍雪山 （龍蝦）…不知怎的心中就湧起了一鼓厭惡的感覺。為什麼烏魯木齊會是一種藏肉呢？烏魯木齊可在新疆不在西藏啊！如此情況下菜好吃也就算了，可這裏的菜卻又偏鹹，水準也比不上Aqua Group的其他餐廳。

我想以後看到一家八成以上都是外國人的中餐廳還是最好走為上著吧！

雲府位於雲咸街43 – 55 號地庫

Beginner's Luck with Fish

Fish - before
Originally uploaded by nanamoose.

Is this a disturbing scene to you? Fish before and after it became a meal. And it died because some curious first time fisherman associated with the deer family decided to test out her fishing skills at San Pablo Reservoir just outside San Francisco.

Did not know that beginner’s luck was applicable to fishing as well, but I managed to catch three fish, the first catch (a small-ish fish), the biggest catch (which weighed six pounds and which got myself a spot on the wall of the biggest catches at San Pablo), and an even bigger fish which managed to get away. In the picture you see what happened to the six pound fish, sleeping on a bed of carrots, potatoes and onions with pieces of rosemary stuck vertically across its body. Oh dear, this sounds like sacrifice scenes from Apocalypto, but does it taste good! Especially when cooked in a bonfire in the freezing cold and sand blown all over your face on Ocean Beach.

Sometimes you just have to be a little bit brutal to enjoy the finer things in life.

Hunk found in Ferry Building Marketplace

Read from Chez Pim's somewhere that the markets in San Francisco boast an amazing number of hunks, or should I say, HOT, men. What does this have to do with food you might say?! Well, not much, but these creatures are found in the MARKETS after all, and they are supposedly all FARMERS! Here goes your connection.

I of course could not miss the opportunity to check the veracity of this piece of information and investigated the market stalls lined outside the Ferry Building in Embarcadero on a Saturday afternoon… and tada! Here we go, a hunk as we speak, selling… artichokes! Yuck, one of my worst feared foods, but who cares honestly when the person selling it is so much more attractive than the prickly flower-looking vegetable? Borough Road Market in London, though more interesting, obviously does not offer this kind of supplement to its fresh produce.

Turned out that the Ferry Building has got so much more to offer than just eye candies. There is the homely Boulette's Larder where you can watch cooking in action in its open kitchen, the smelly Cowgirl Creamery's Artisan Cheese Shop (I just love the idea of cheese shops despite the fact that I am not that big a cheese fan. Might have been a yak-milk-churner in my previous life perhaps?) and Miette , a dainty little pastry shop decked out in my favourite pink. Then you add the benefit of a good hotdog from the hotdog stall at the back of the Building. The Ferry Building is a feast for the eyes and the stomach!

Butchery on Display in San Francisco

A16's butchery in action
Originally uploaded by nanamoose.

It was rather disturbing watching brutal butchery scenes on display at the chef’s table of the much lauded A16 in the Marina area in downtown San Francisco, especially after having watched “Hannibal Rising” the night before.


I was in the middle of enjoying the softest meatball I had ever tasted, much like an Italian version of the Shanghainese Lion’s Head (獅子頭) and pizza generously sprinkled with much the same meat when the kitchen staff brought out a frozen whole body of some animal which for the longest time we thought looked very much like that of a greyhound (which turned out, phew, to be lamb), and started chopping it up into bits. First he emptied the fat in its stomach, chopped off the neck, then his knife went straight down through its genital area to cut the animal up in two halves, eventually leaving a long spine (which looked like a gigantic centipede) behind. Despite how brutal this whole episode may sound, the scene was actually bearable. It was the sound of flesh peeling that was most disturbing, and for some time we even worried that bits of fat might jump right into our precious meatballs.

This did not happen of course. The process was kept professionally clean, efficient, and, in fact, rather interesting despite my cringing face. I would love to come to A16 again, if not for the meatballs, then for the alluring smell of slow roasted ribs laid out before us, which unfortunately were confined only for looks and smell at the time as they were being prepared for dinner.

I wonder how the theatrical display of butchery might come down in a Chinese restaurant in Hong Kong?