siu mai / bamboo steamer

seafood combo

still feeling a little sick from scuba diving at breakwater, monterey the past weekend. but the fresh seafood at ranch 99 cured me.



豉 椒 炒 蜆 Clams with black bean sauce; a bit salty - too much black bean.




Fried Calamari




Egg plant with "deveil sauce". i added bacon too.

the real walnut shrimp

i went to Old Drunken tonight for ricky's farewell take 2 (i will see him again in the bay area in 2 weeks' time for farewell take 3). their walnut shrimps are different from mine in the following 4 aspects:

1. full-size walnuts coated w. sesame seeds
2. shrimps smaller; both tails and shells removed
3. more batter -- almost 5mm thick
4. more mayo, less lemon in the sauce, thus the sweeter taste

ricky's farewell

we started off w. a pol roger, and i'm sure ricky made a dent on our ceiling by letting the cork shoot vertically up at >= 30mph. need to thank andre for pointing out the pol to me in front of the fridge at the wine cask. it went well w. the food, and we all loved it.











"picasso" style appertizer. al's mom taught me this dish (originally from shan dong), but the style is invented by ricky et al. different ingredients (silken tofu/cucumber/bamboo shoots/preserved egg/black fungus/dong choi) are supposed to be lined up artistically. thought i'd be nice to let ricky do the last touch of laying down the shaved pork, and you can see (or not see) the beauty of the dish..


before this appertizer, there's supposed to be another one -- spinach w ginger sauce. i guess jacky and tin chung were too hungry - they finished 90% of it before i was done w cooking.













a recipe i learnt from watching rachel ray on food network on jetblue on my way to CA.
didnt realize the bacon, when baked, can do such a miracle. it adds crisp to the bite, which somehow makes the clam tissues seem silkier.












steaming siu mai in the wok. will have to get the bamboo steamer -- it makes a huge difference in taste. somehow super 88 is out of it; no wonder it's 11 points less than ranch 99.












walnut shrimp; you can't see the walnuts here b/c ricky crashed them into pieces too small to be seen -- i can't stop myself wondering the value of a phd (and md) if you can't even open walnuts shells right ..
tastes a little different from the one in Old Drunken; for one the sauce was too thick. gotta go back to OD and check out the real walnut shrimp. talking about shrimps; i really miss the "coral shrimps" that i can only find in CA supermkts. perhaps they hv some here that i;m not aware of.












i like the cut, which is perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the ribs. it makes eating much easier for the lazy bones. unfortunately i made this too many times by now and i'm getting bored w it (for those who dunno me i get bored v easily). i promise you won't see this for a while if you are one of my regular guests.

and of course we finished w. a dessert ("foo joke tong shui"). too bad i forgot to take a photo. the "foo jokes" are the best quality ones imported all the way from HK.