Sunday Brunch off Bourbon Street

The French quarter is a strange dichotomy. You have Bourbon Street, famous for racy strip clubs and gutters full of alcohol. But it also hosts some fantastic restaurants. On a quiet, rainy Sunday morning, we made our way from St. Luis Cathedral to Bourbon Street and Arnaud’s Dining Room for a four-course brunch.

Mimosa from fresh-squeezed orange juice

Arnaud’s exemplifies how I’ve come to see the city of New Orleans, a rich, patina of glory in decay. While clean and tidy, the restaurant is really showing its age. Wood paneling is fading, as decades of beeswax polish is undone by chemical cleaners. The beautifully patterned hexagonal floor tiles have lost their shine, and the waitstaff seem grizzled and tired in their worn tuxedos. The glory this place clearly once held is slowly diminishing, much like an ancient plantation manor being overrun by kudzu.

The food was certainly better than the decor. For the first course, I began with a cream cheese Evangeline. Fresh grapes, honeydew, cantaloupe, and strawberries were at perfect ripeness. Covering them was a wonderfully light sauce made by whisking together cream cheese and fruit juices, a refreshing way to start the meal.

Following this was a small salad, butter leaf lettuce, watercress, and Arnaud’s unique house dressing garnished with juiliened celery root and thinly shaved beets. The celery root was a surprise, but like the rest of the salads I’ve had here, the ingredients were at the decidedly warm room temperature, and not chilled as I had hoped.

For the main course, I went for a simple omelet, three cheeses, pancetta, and tomato. Exquisitely prepared, the eggs were very light and fluffy. The tartness of the tomato perfectly offset the saltiness brought by the pancetta. The mozzarella, parmesian-reggiano, and chévre nicely blended together in a perfect mix of sharp, creamy, and gooey. With a side of the thinnest fries I have ever seen, this was easily one of the best omelets I have ever had. I had to stop myself to leave room for desert.

And what a desert it was. A phenomenal bread pudding in a brandy sauce. Using their house bread, a French white with a unique top crust, the pudding is baked into a rich custard for that perfect balance between dry and gooey.

Add this to your New Orleans itinerary. The decor is nice, and the food more than makes up for the aging atmosphere.

Late Night dining in the Big Easy

After a very filling brunch, the little missus and I spent the afternoon wandering the French Quarter and the waterfront, eventually making our way to the Southern Food and Drink Museum. Afterwards it was nigh on suppertime, so we made our way back to the French Quarter with the intention of enjoying K Paul’s. Unfortunately they were closed on Sundays (as is most of this city), so we headed back to the hotel to cool off and wait for our appetites to return. After a few hours, we prepared to venture out to Camelia Grill, but a quick web search showed us they too were closed. At this point we were reaching closing time and decided to search for 24/7 dining options. Just down St. Charles Avenue from our hotel is The Avenue Pub.

We strolled the 4 short blocks and found a dingy gastropub with 47 different beers on tap, all of them smaller craft brews. The wife chose the Fox Barrel Pear Cider, and I went for the Steiner Weiss while we waited for our orders. The weiss had an incredible head that took the bar tender 5 minutes to pour and another 5 to fully settle. It was wheaty, as expected from that kind of beer, and a bit on the thick side. It stayed nice and cloudy throughout my entire meal and left no sediment.

Shortly our food arrived, a burger for the wife, and the grilled cheese club for me. Having seen mixed reviews, I was happy with the results, and the prices were quite reasonable. The grilled cheese had goat cheese, cheddar, and a heavy dose of a soft feta all melted into gooey yumminess. Along with bacon, tomato, and a fresh pesto, the whole thing was served on some nice thick slices of artisinal sourdough and grilled on a pannini press. The burger was good as well, tasty beef and cooked perfectly with all the juices intact, but otherwise nothing too special. Disappointingly, the burger was supposed to come with pecan crusted onion rings we wanted to try, but these were replaced with good, but generic cross-cut fries.

For late night dining, it was surprisingly good, and I would go back to sample more of the beer list, that being apparently scarce in the Big Easy where rum drinks abound.

White on white on white

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Located on the 12th floor above Macy’s in downtown Minneapolis, the Skyroom is a lunch cafeteria that Richard Myer would be proud of. Curving white walls, white furniture, and even a white piano surround a soup and salad bar, and stations for pasta, burgers, Mexican food, and American deli sandwiches. Of course, being from LA, I passed on the Mexican station and made my way to the deli counter. Top of the list: a smoked turkey with applewood smoked bacon sandwich on cinnamon-raisin bread with cranberry aoli. The bread, pullaway style, cut thick and toasted, was sweet and packed with cinnamon. Unlike many delis, both the bacon and the turkey were rich with smokey flavor. The turkey portion size was a little small, but the ample amount of bacon made up for it. Coupled with a peppery coleslaw and your typical pickle wedge, this made for great way to spend a warm lunch watching the cold snow fall.

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Day 3: Bun, bun-bun, bun… bunnnnn!

On day 3 of our trip to Hong Kong, we started off with a very common Hong Kong dish, the butter cream bun. Found in every train station and marketplace, are shops selling filled buns. They’re even more common than the ubiquitous doughnut shop in the U.S., and fill a similar niche. Think of them as the Hong Kong equivalent to the Parisian crepe.

Unlike what you’d expect from Asian pastries, these are almost exclusively wheat-flour buns, and are baked instead of steamed or fried. For the most part, they have the consistency of Hawaiian bread, and are available with both sweet and savory fillings.

butter cream bun
butter cream bun

First off, my favorite of the bunch, butter cream bun. This was a sweet bun, almost exactly the same as Hawaiian bread, both in flavor and texture. It was stuffed-full with a soft, creamy, butter filling. Thankfully, not margarine, and also not heavy or oily as butter can sometimes be. Dusted over the top with shaved coconut, this was a perfect way to start the day!

butter cream bun
butter cream bun

We snuck in that first one as we were waiting for the train. We headed to the outskirts of the New Territories to visit my wife’s grandmother at her nursing home. We arrived just as she was finishing lunch, but she quickly joined us in the courtyard to gorge ourselves on these wonderful buns.

Grandma Au taking a call
Grandma Au enjoying a call from her granddaughter in NYC
Beef Bun
Beef Bun

As I mentioned, many of the buns have savory fillings. This one had a nice stewed beef, and made for a perfect balance between a light snack and something more substantial.

Following the beef bun, were two filled with a tuna-salad mixture. These both were topped with chives, and had a hint of onion in the pastry itself.

tuna-filled bun
tuna-filled bun
tuna-filled bun
tuna-filled bun

This next one was a little different. Instead of being a bun, the “curry beef triangle” was baked in the style of a French pastry, with all the flaky crispy layers you could imagine. As you would expect from the name, the filling was a green beef curry. Slightly spicy, the contrast of texture and flavor between the pastry and the filling makes for a wonderful combination.

curry beef triangle
curry beef triangle
curry beef triangle filling
curry beef triangle filling

One last bun, appears to have been made using whole-wheat flower. Covered with sesame seeds, I can only guess at what the filling was. I apparently neglected to take a photo of the inside.

mystery bun
mystery bun

Now that I know about these buns, I can’t wait for a return trip. Apparently, there are peanut-butter filled buns, as well as sausage ones reminiscent of a bagel-dog!

Day 2, the second banquet

So I promised the details on this fantastic banquet we had on our second day. One of the most famous restaurants in Hong Kong is Yung Kee in Central. Renowned for its roast goose recipe, the restaurant now owns the entire 14 floor building that it is located in. It’s even been awarded a star from the Michelin Guide. We had a private room on the more luxurious 4th floor to celebrate the 75th birthday of my wife’s uncle.

Thousand Year Egg
Thousand Year Egg

Starting off the dinner was the infamous dish, 1000 year egg. Some consider it a delicacy, but apparently it’s a fairly common dish and is frequently used in congee. It had a jelly-like consistency, tasted somewhat like a pickle, and had the most amazing colors to it. My photo doesn’t do the iridescence justice. Apparently it’s made by wrapping a duck egg in clay, soaked with various salts and acids for up to several months. The longer, the better.

Following the egg was a treo of appetizers representing Health, Wealth, and Happiness. First, “money purses”, small pouches of minced pork, wrapped up in a layer of rice dough and boiled. The end result looks surprisingly like a tiny purse or bag that people used to wear on their belts.

Pork Money Bags
Pork Money Bags
Closeup of Pork Money Bags
Closeup of Pork Money Bags

The second of the treo was fried sea cucumber stomachs. I had never had sea cucumber before, and was quite surprised. The dish was light and crispy, with a slight ocean taste, but mostly it was like eating french fries.

Fried Sea Cucumber
Fried Sea Cucumber Stomachs

The third of the set was a traditional dish that apparently is very rare today. Stacked up like coins were pork-fat medallions, duck pate, and water chestnut, slathered in an egg-yolk sauce. It was incredibly delicious, even though I generally dislike patte.

Duck Patte, Pork-fat Medallions, and Water Chestnut
Duck Pate, Pork-fat Medallions, and Water Chestnut

The next dish of the meal is the one the restaurant is famous for. The Roast Goose was prepared in a similar style to Peking Duck. Yes, it was as delicious as it looks.

Roast Goose
The Famous Yung Kee Roast Goose

Following the roast goose was a common delicacy for Chinese banquets, shark fin soup. This was the second time I had shark-fin soup, but a very different preparation from anything I had expected. It came to the table a very vibrant orange, and had a creamy consistency, although I doubt any dairy products were used. Surprisingly, there was no fishy taste to it at all, in fact if I didn’t know better, I would have sworn it was a cheese soup.

Shark Fin Soup
Shark Fin Soup

The next dish was also seafood, so I wasn’t thrilled when it arrived. Individual stuffed crab claws were then breaded and fried, making for very attractive dishes. Perfect portion size, and the tip of the claw exposed, made these very appealing and memorable. I was pleasantly surprised with the flavor and enjoyed the light chili sauce garnishing each claw when served.

Stuffed Crab Claw
Stuffed Crab Claw

Following the crab claws was the most visually impressive dish of the evening. A huge platter came to the table, arranging several different varieties of eggplant in a light sauce.

Crab-Stuffed Eggplant
Crab-Stuffed Eggplant

The purple chinese eggplant arranged vertically was stuffed with crab meat, and on top was sea cucumber. The photos are deceptive, each of those vertical towers was at least 3 inches tall.

Crab-Stuffed Eggplant
Crab-Stuffed Eggplant

My wife was very jealous, as she’s allergic to eggplant.

Crab-Stuffed Eggplant
Crab-Stuffed Eggplant

Even when portioned out into individual servings, the dish was very beautiful. I have to commend the servers at their plating skills. The techniques over the course of the evening as they split up the large dishes were very antithetical to what I’ve come to expect from Chinese cuisine.

After the eggplant came one final seafood dish, lobster noodles. The noodles were cooked in a lobster broth and were clearly the focus of the dish, even though there was lobster piled on top. Again, the photos are deceptive, as the full dish brought to the table was easily 30 inches across, a veritable mountain of lobster.

Lobster Noodles
Lobster Noodles
Lobster Noodles
Lobster Noodles

Wrapping up the main dishes were a huge plate of noodles (clearly the inspiration for chow mein) and fried rice. These are typical ends to a chinese banquet, allowing people to fill up with the over abundance of food. Considering how stuffed we already were at this point, it was mostly gratuitous, but I tried some anyways. Naturally they were delicious.

Fried Rice
Fried Rice

Noodles
Noodles

That brings us to desert. Since it was a birthday, there was a cake covered in strawberries, and of course, since it was a chinese banquet, we also had the ubiquitous red bean soup and fresh fruit platter.

Birthday Cake with the Chinese Character for Longevity
Cake with the Chinese character for Longevity

Red Bean Soup
Red Bean Soup

Fresh Fruit Platter
Melons, Kiwi, and Mango

And finally, the icing on the cake, ( there were mini peaches in the cake decoration), we had Longevity Peaches. However, these aren’t actually fruit; they’re steamed rice buns with a lotus paste and duck egg center. Shaped and colored to resemble peaches, these are a traditional birthday dish. There is a Chinese legend about a monkey who travels to a far-off garden to eat peaches that grant eternal life. Because of this, the peach is a symbol of longevity in Chinese culture, and peaches made from gold are often gifted for long-lived anniversaries or birthdays.

a large mysterious steamer waiting to be opened
a large mysterious steamer waiting to be opened

Each of these “baby buts”, as my wife likes to call them, was about the size of my fist, and I have large fists.

Longevity Peaches
Longevity Peaches
Longevity Peaches
Longevity Peaches

That’s it for this banquet. Only the second day of our trip to Hong Kong, and already we’ve shot over 100 pictures just of food. Next time, some local snack and everyday dishes.