purply mush

no lunch yesterday. went to xintiandi - a nice little french restaurant - aptly called NICE.
but today i'm back.

sigh. it just doesn't get any better than this. ayi works so hard on plate presentation - even wipes the bottom of my water glass w/ one of my happy bunny miffy tissues. why does everything need to look so dang cutesy here? even tissues!

but then, it all basically comes down to this, don't it?
first time today - i got shelled soy beans - da dou - which i loooove. but i had to pick thru the slimy purpley/brownish chinese eggplant and zhu rou so finally chopped i couldn't eat around it. throw a few whole cloves of garlic in there and you've got lunch. oh yah. don't forget about the brown sauce. basically made from dark brown mushroom sauce, sugar, and a little chicken flavored msg.

i ate the soybeans today. i think there were about 20 of them. it is a challenge w/ the chopsticks - so i got a bit of a workout

noodly sea kelp

mmmm mmmm good.

i hate lunches like this. same brown moh gu. ayi calls the brown ones something different. and i always forget unless its vegetable market morning. maybe something close to sho gu - i dunno. but when its mixed with soy sauced scrambled egg? i don't care. yech.

and the noodly sea kelp. slight fishy taste - but quite rubbery. and served cold. i think she throws my alleppo pepper on it to give it a little zing. soooooo wrong. cold smoked peppery fishy rubber.

i think its the color that i can't stomach. more than the taste. although i'm really not that fond of the taste, either.

i DOOO love the spice...

ayi does have her favorite plates. and favorite water glass (cold, not hot, like i'm SUPPOSED to drink it in winter). and favorite mifan bowl. creature of habit, is she...

ok, i DO place the chopsticks in the 7o'clock position, but she KINDA sorta already does this - just not so fancy... we must be outta napkins, cuz they ain't arriving upstairs w/ my meal. sad, eh? to have ayi trip up 3 flights of stairs while i pound away at the keyboard doing gawd knows what (ok, maybe surfing salon if its a MWF). but it's the first chance i get ALL DAY to get on the computer!! and i didn't ASK her to trip-trip-trap up three flights of stairs...

and, just so's you get a close up of whatever it is i ate today, all you REALLY need to see is the choice of seasoning.

sure, the zhu rou's in there. of COURSE, the chicken flavored msg is in there. yep, even the mushroom flavored soy sauce. IN THERE. not much of it, compared to the OTHER, more PROMINENT seasoning (can you spot it???)

ayi's take on sweet&sour zhu rou

apparently, we had a full house today for lunch - and no plan. i pulled out some zhu rou from the freezer (the "safer" kind from the cold meat market) and ayi pointed to the rice maker. sure. why not. (mifan - rice) then she pulls out the dark mushroom soyish sauce. and i sighed. thought i'd try a different tactic today. so i pulled out sesame oil, black vinegar (see? i do have a well stocked pantry), ginger, garlic and other veggies from the fridge. tried to explain what to cook. "ahaaaa!" i thought. THIS will solve our bland soy sauce and black pepper funk.

not so much.

she found a bottle of heinz (izzit still 57??). ouch. varkenkidlets had a hard time swallowing this one. and ayi came out into dining room clicking her head - ta bu xihuan? um, yep. she/he no like. quite hard to stomach after watching the glisteny parts separate and pool up before your eyes...

and then found the iceberg lettuce i bought (JUST FOR TACO NIGHT). there was still half a head left. she cooked it. with garlic. and chicken flavored msg.

and this? well it was dark green before it was cooked - looked almost like leafy kale with big stalks. THIS looks more like cooked cucumber. and it very well could have been cooked cucumber (had a couple in crisper). maybe she switched it out on me. either way. methinks it was cooked just with sugar and chicken flavored msg.

after a week of restaurants, it's home sweet home...

so, here it is folks. the NEW camera photos. i gots my brandspankin' new CANON EOS 400D yestehday. woooohoooo. and what better way to show off it's capabilities but by capturing the glisteningly glistenous of today's lunch.

chinese cabbage. in all its glistenous glory. mushrooms. garlic. and the only spice ayi knows? chinese mccormick black pepper.

mmmmm, mmmmm good.

ooooh, but this one is even better. can you guess what it is?

sorry, my friend, if you guessed it was a precurser to the zhu rou, you would be wrong. pigs don't lay eggs. these are very special PROSPECT HEALTH eggs. sometimes i go a little nuts and buy the CLEVER eggs, but with all the polution here, i think i need to think more of my health.

and yah, it's deep fried. how healthy is THAT?

vegetable wednesday

plate presentation doesn't really change much, does it? pile o' veggies on the lower right. pile of veggies w/ zhu rou on the lower left. water glass ON the plate (usually with a portioned piece of paper napkin under it). rice bowl on upper left quarter.

feng shui??

i really should check out which direction my lunch is being served.

carrots (hong luo bo). chinese local celery (qin cai - it's skinnier than the stuff we're used to). oil. pre-ground black pepper. that's it. AYI thinks, because i like things spicy, one must sprinkle on pre-ground powdered black pepper. it doesn't generally make it more flavorful. just tastes more like bland preground powdered black pepper.

glistening garlic greens (i'm going to call them da suan cai - garlic vegetable - cuz i can't figure out what they really are). i think ayi may have added a little soy sauce (as well as the powdered chicken flavored msg). and last, but not least - there's my zhu rou!! surely you are able to spot it by now! wonder if we're going to be served an abundance of mice in the coming new year...

my rice bowl shrinks every day. or, perhaps more clearly, my bowl stays the same, and the AMOUNT is reduced to what i've left in the bowl from the previous meals

noodly noodles

well, after a two week break of having truly local delicious food made by kitchens other than mine (and made by cooks other than ayi) we are back to the same ol' same ol'...

today? noodly noodles. in all their glisteningly glistenous glory.

i absolutely have to find some other kind of brown fungus to eat, cuz these mo gu are simply horrendous. i think perhaps ayi washes the 'shrooms till they are completely water logged and then soaks them in peanut oil before turning on the heat.

flavors are the same though. chicken flavored msg, zhu rou (pork - c'mon i know it's been two whole weeks...) can you spot it? they're always there. bai cai (green cabbagy schtuffy schtuff). and some fermented black beans. i'll have to look up the chinese name for that, though. only a few though.

ya know, come to think of it, this looks supiciously like something she served last month. page down a bit and see if'n you can spot it. same ikea children's lunch tray. obligitory glass of water. my ONE pair of lunch chopsticks (of course we OWN dozens - we're living in china, dontcha know)....