Hong Kong Sichuan -- Even More Heavenly Dishes

Before I continue my tour of the menu at Hong Kong Sichuan Food, a note about the Lazi Chicken that we haven't tried yet. Fuschia Dunlop mentions this dish in her blog. I definitely want to try this soon.

Aside from the wontons I mentioned last time, you might start your meal with a noodle salad.

Z01Sichuan Noodle Salad
Spicy, tasty. The sharp and earthy flavors of many Sichuan dishes, red and black pepper, toasted garlic. The Spicy Chicken Salad (Z04) has similar flavors as the Sichuan Noodle salad, but with sliced chicken and more green onions.

Z07 Shredded Vegetables Salad
Tofu and veggies with cellophane noodles in a salty tangy sauce. I think overall I like this one a little better, but it depends on what else I'm ordering. If I plan on ordering a lot of spicy dishses, I go for this one. If I am ordering less spicy entrees, the Sichuan or Spicy Chicken is a good starter.

M26 Ziran Lamb (Muslim Lamb with Cumin)
There is a lot of middle-eastern influence in Muslim areas of China - kabobs, flat breads, lamb dishes. Sichuan does not have a large Muslim population, but neighboring Hunan does at least a little, and this is a common dish. It's lamb, stirfried with green peppers and onions and seasoned with a lot of cumin. Cumin is the spice that gives chili powder and taco seasoning that unique flavor. It's common in the middle east and India, and is quite strong in this dish.

M37 Crispy Eggplant with Hot and Sweet Sauce
This one is addictive. Thin sticks of eggplant are battered in a thick but fluffy batter and deep fried, then served with the "hot and sweet sauce". The batter is not at all dense, and this dish is just plain luxurious.

The "hot and sweet sauce" isn't actually hot at all. It's got garlic and maybe ginger in it. It's similar to another famous Sichuan sauce that you may already be familiar with under the name "garlic sauce." Odds are, if you order a broccholi in garlic sauce, the sauce will be yuxiang or "fish fragrant" sauce. (Which means it goes good with fish, the way steak sauce goes good with steak. It is not made of fish, nor does it have the fragrance of fish.) It's aromatic and a little sweet and sour, and very friendly to western tastes. The other eggplant dish comes with this sauce too, and there is a Yuxaing pork on the menu.

M04 Double-cooked Side Pork
If you've ever had Double-cooked Pork before, it probably was quite different than this. This is the authentic way to make the dish, and it is very very rich, and many Americans will find it too fatty.

It's made with side pork -- one of the cuts of pork from which you make bacon. This rich, melt-in-your-mouth cut is usually simmered to render out some of the fat, and then sliced and stir-fried. Hence the name "double-cooked".

M06 Steamed Side Pork in Soy Sauce (Button Pork)
This dish is also made with side pork, and it's a nice showy kind of dish you can nibble from. The Chinese characters for this dish are "button pork" and that probably refers to the way it is presented. A bowl is lined with slices of side pork, and then filled with salty preserved Sichuan vegetables. It's seasoned with soy sauce at some point, and then steamed. The bowl is then inverted and the dish is served like a "button" on a plate.

Button Pork a little salty and fatty for western tastes, especially as a main dish, but it's a great side dish, and surprisingly good for leftovers. It's so flavorful, you can just chop a little bit up and put it over rice to make a very tasty lunch.

I have not tried the Korean Noodle Soup, nor the main dish version of the Hot and Sour Soup -- but friends have and both are highly recommended. Both are spicy. The Korean soup is a seafood soup and friend noted that the squid was so perfectly cooked, it wasn't rubbery. That's noteworthy.

Hong Kong Sichuan Restaurant, 315 S. Homer St. (south of Frandor, near Kalamazoo St -- behind Bake n Cakes), Lansing Mi. (517) 332-5333.

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Read previous reviews of heavenly dishes at Hong Kong Sichuan:

Heavenly Sichuan Food
Hong Kong Sichuan, More Heavenly Dishes

Hong Kong Sichuan -- More Heavenly Dishes

We've been eating at Hong Kong Sichuan Restaurant regularly since they reopened as an authentic Sichuan place in November. At first they had their real food on separate menus from their Americanized dishes. At one point they even had three menus, one entirely in Chinese. I went to the trouble of translating the whole darn thing, and found that Calvin Trillin's assumption is correct: the best dishes were on the Chinese menu.

But the owners noticed that non-Chinese people were interested in the good food, so they now have a unified menu in English and Chinese. (They didn't translate a few dishes that westerners are highly unlikely to like, like certain dishes with blood cubes and tripe.) They also have a lunch buffet again, but I don't know if it's the same dishes they had before or not. I expect it is probably their more westernized dishes, but their buffet was always good before and I have no reason to think they aren't now.

I already told you about the MaPo Tofu and Green Bean with Pork.


N01 Pork Wonton with Spicy Sauce
These luscious wontons in a spicy Sichuan flavored soup is my favoriate takeout dish. These are, ironically, not as hot as "sichuan wontons" are in other restaurants around town. However, other places seem to just drown them in hot oil and maybe a little garlic. Here they are in a soup of many nice seasonings, like the Mapo Tofu I mentioned in the previous review. (It's about as hot as an average hot and sour soup in town, not the hottest.)


M09 Dry Stir-fried Beef
Spicy, salty with toasted garlic. The chunks of celery really go well with the flavors here.


M18 Jumbo Shrimp wth Sichuan Sauce (aka Tasty Shrimp, or "Strange Flavor" Shrimp)
"Sichuan Sauce" here is a very special sauce that translates something like "strange flavor", but what it means is more like "intriguing flavor". The point of this sauce is to balance all flavors lightly and perfectly -- sweet, sour, salt, hot and rich aroma.

IMPORTANT NOTE: authentically prepared shrimp dishes include shells and heads... and all the flavor in a dish like this tends to be on the shell. Therefore, if you don't want to eat the shell, ask that it be prepared without shells. This is true of the other jumbo shrimp dishes on the Authentic Chinese Dishes menu.

M20 Gongbo Chicken with Peanuts
I don't have a picture of this, which is too bad. This is the classic Sichuan Dish on which Kung Pow Chicken is based. Diced chicken and celery, with aromatic seasonings, stirfried with chunks of dried hot peppers and peanuts. Like other dishes here, this is more subtle and aromatic than the Kung Pow you'll find in your average midwestern Chinese restaurant. Since the spice resides mostly in the hunks of red pepper, you can modify the heat or not by eating them or leaving them. (And they add a great flavor.)

(On another note: another famous Sichuan dish is Lazi Chicken -- or spicy little chicken. Chunks of chicken, with bones in, seasoned and deep-fried and served with piles of dried peppers on top. The peppers are there for aroma and add some spicy oils to the chicken, but again, you don't have to eat them. We have NOT tried this dish here. The only caution for westerners, aside from the potential heat, is the tiny bits of bone in each piece. You probably can't get this dish without bones, but you could always ask.)

More dishes next week....

Hong Kong Sichuan Restaurant, 315 S. Homer St. (south of Frandor, near Kalamazoo St -- behind Bake n Cakes), Lansing Mi. (517) 332-5333.

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Read more about those heavenly dishes at Hong Kong Sichuan at:

Heavenly Sichuan Food (previous post)
Hong Kong Sichuan, Even More Heavenly Dishes (next post)

Drive-bys, December 5, 2008

• Peking Express is under new management, but their food is still good and authentic. We recently had a duck feast there, and the only difference I observed was that the mandarin pancakes are no longer the kind made with boiling water dough -- but they are still thin, lovely and steamed, and about the best in town. They have added some Korean dishes to the menu.
• Tres Amigos is no longer a "Tacqueria" but merely an "Express". They have simplified their menu to more ordinary dishes. Fans of their main restaurants will probably like it, but those of us who miss the variety of authentic flavors will have to go to the taco stand at Francis and Michigan Ave - El Oasis.
• Spartan Gyro is not only gone, but the restaurant that took its place is gone. Sigh. East Lansing is a tough place for great little restaurants.
• Watch for upcoming reviews of Ai-Fusion, a sushi place which satisfies our itch for the kind of flavorful rolls that Midori used to make, and Fiesta Charra, which has great fajitas and will satisfy those who like Aldacos. (Also more about the Sichuan food at the former Hong Kong.)

Heavenly Sichuan Food

I had to come out of hibernation to tell you about something really magnificent that may be only temporary. The restaurant on Homer that used to be known as Hong Kong is yet again under new management. They're running the place for a little while as a "trial" to see whether there is an audience in Lansing for very authentic Szechuan food.

How authentic? Well, the first indication is that they don't have any signs in English. The sign outside is in Chinese, and translates basically as: "Sichuan Food." (The three red peppers are actually in the shape of the character for Sichuan, which is "three rivers".)If you don't look Chinese, they'll give you a menu of typical Americanized dishes. If you want the good stuff, you'll have to ask for the Sichuan food menu. Those are mostly in Chinese, but they have at least one copy of that menu with English too. The problem is that the English isn't very descriptive. ("Boiled Pork." Hmmm.) The waiter was eager to help us find what we would like, but it took a little persuading for us to get him to tell us what HE would like. He recommended the Ma Po Tofu.

Oh my god. It was the best Ma Po Tofu I've ever had in my life.

No really, this was so good...well, one of the reasons I haven't been posting here is because I have been under extreme stress at the day job. One bite of this and all my troubles went away. This Ma Po Tofu was Xanax-good. It was "listening to Orson Welles speak" good.

The tofu was silky soft, stewed with chopped pork seasoned with toasted garlic, ginger and at least three different peppers. (Dried red pepper, pepper oil and Sichuan peppercorns, which are related to black pepper, but tastier.) Yes, it was hot, but no hotter than most hot and sour soups in town. (Less numbing than some, actually.)

We chose, as a less spicy balancing dish, the Pork With Green Beans. This was marked as spicy, but the waiter says it wasn't, and he was right. There was a sprinkling of toasted dry pepper along with the toasted garlic. The beans were fresh and perfectly done. Once again, the chopped pork acted as a seasoning, rather than a main ingredient. The salting, the seasoning, everything was just exactly right so you could taste and smell each element.

The waiter also pointed out a platter of deep-fried chicken pieces, sprinkled with peppers. We'll undoubtedly try that on another visit. I can't wait to try the Twice-Cooked Pork, which is a favorite of mine. There are also less familiar dishes that we'd like to try. The Fish With Preserved Vegetables soup is a famous Sichuan dish, which he also recommended. Preserved veggies usually give a slight sour taste to the broth, milder than hot and sour soup. There were also cellophane noodles in the bowl, it looked like.

If you are eager to try it, but aren't sure you know enough about Sichuan food to order properly, you might look up a book by Fuchsia Dunlop called "Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking", which is much more than a cook book. More of culinary cultural history with recipes and stories and techniques.

There is a Chinese saying: "China is the place for food, but Sichuan is the place for flavor." True words of wisdom, if this place is any indication.

Hong Kong Sichuan Food is at 315 S Homer St, Lansing. (South of Michigan and north of Kalamazoo, near Frandor, behind Oadies and Bake 'n Cakes.)
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Read more reviews of Hong Kong Sichuan Food at:

Hong Kong Sichuan, More Heavenly Dishes
Hong Kong Sichuan, Even More Heavenly Dishes

Weekend Dim Sum

Go out and get some Dim Sum this weekend.

Although I still lean more toward Little Panda as my favorite dim sum place, Golden Wok has many bragging points... not the least of which is that on the weekend, when they have the carts, they can go wild with new varieties.

A couple of things we had recently:


Water Chestnut Cake looks kinda odd and foreign to Western eyes, but it's not really that exotic. I suspect most would like it. It's a very thick gelatin, lightly sweet and faintly vanilla, with crunchy chestnuts inside. It's also been pan fried, which might seem odd, but it's GOOD that way. The cart lady said it was very refreshing for summer, and she was right. (Those cart ladies usually are.)


Custard Filled Fried Dumplings. These lovely delights are a lot like our favorite sesame balls. The wrapper is made of sweet sticky rice flour -- so it's very chewy, crisp on the outside from being deepfried. Inside it has a nice light custard, not too rich or too sweet. It's thick so that it doesn't all goosh out when you bite into the chewy wrapper. I don't know if the black sesame seeds on top are always a sign of a custard filling, but you can always ask.


Barbeque Pork Pastry. These are just a different shape than the ones I mentioned in the Dim Sum Primer. (They often play with different shapes at Golden Wok.) I like this shape best, because the ratio of meat to pastry is good in every bite.

Mango Chicken. Sorry no picture -- I didn't have my camera with me the day they had these. They brought it out JUST as we were completely stuffed and getting ready to leave, but they looked too good to pass up. It was made of strips of chicken and mango, wrapped and breaded in coconut, then deep fried. They were creamy, and rich, but not too sweet. I want to try them again when I'm not too stuffed.

Here is Maude Cat doing an impression of what we looked like after coming home from Dim Sum that day:



The down side of eating dim sum from the traditional "roving cart" method, is that it encourages a Competitive Eating mentality. You don't want to miss anything, and it all looks so good.... you end up buying and eating more than you intended. This can be okay if you are going straight home afterward with leftovers, but if you are, say, going to a movie, you must exercise a lot of self-discipline. That or leave time to run home and put the leftovers in the fridge before curtain time.

(BTW: Sesame balls or the custard-filled dumplings mentioned above are primo snacks to smuggle into a movie. Just remember that they are deep fried so they'll get some grease on your fingers -- though no more than popcorn will -- and they're a little sticky. My recommendation is to bring a ziploc bag for the smuggling part, and make sure you have a napkin. Oh and, uh... Mango Chicken ISN'T a good snack to sneak into a theater.)

Golden Wok is in East Lansing, at 2755 E Grand River Ave. (517) 333-8322. (At the corner of Northwind Drive, across from Oriental Mart, and near the E.L. Food co-op.)

(Little Panda is on the west side of Lansing, at 5439 W Saginaw Hwy, across from Lansing Mall in the Target shopping area. (517) 323-2450.)

RECIPE: Chinese BBQ Pork

Barbecue pork (or Cha Siu -- which means "fork roast") is a basic ingredient for a lot of Chinese cooking. In a big city, you would be able to buy this lovely red-roasted pork, already cooked, by the pound. You know that taste in fried rice and lo mein and soups, and so many other dishes that you can't quite accomplish at home? It's probably from char siu.

This weekend I finally got the taste right on homemade roast pork. And now I have a freezer full for making char sui bao, or fried rice or soups or twice cooked pork....

The key here is the cut of pork. It can't be a lean cut. I used a Boston Butt Roast, cut into strips. "Country Style" spare ribs, or pork shoulder steaks are also good. The country style ribs are about the right shape and size to get the best surface area to meatiness ratio. (This is also important.)

The second key is the preparation method. You need to marinate the pork in the sauce for a couple hours. (I did about two.) Then when you roast it, you have to be sure that as much surface of the pork is exposed to the hot air as possible. I can tell you from experience that if the meat sits in its accumulated juices, it just isn't the same. In China, they hang the meat in the oven on hooks. Many cookbooks recommend putting them in a pan that has a roasting rack.

I didn't have a roasting rack, or hooks, but I had a pork roast and I wanted Char Sui! So I used a little tender loving care. I separated the pieces of meat so that they were not touching. (In this case, I put them in three small pyrex dishes -- but they probably could have been put in one really big on.)

Since the marinade has sugar and soy in it, the pan drippings are likely to burn. If you have a roasting rack this is easy to deal wiht by simply filling the pan below with water or broth. I simply made sure I watched the oven -- which was at a hot 425 degrees -- and every time I could smell that "pre-burning" smell, I poured in a very small amount of sherry into the pan -- about 1/8 of an inch. I started basting it with a souped up version of the marinade after the first fifteen minutes, and after another five or ten, I flipped the meat over, so the bottom side could get some love.

It probably took 45-60 minutes of roasting, and I turned the oven down later in the process. You could stretch the second half out a long time in a slow oven.

The Marinade (enough for approximately two pounds of meat):

• 1/4 c sherry (broth or water will do)
• 1/4 c. soy sauce
• 1 1/2 tbl. honey (or brown sugar)
• 2 tbl. hoisin sauce
• 1 tbl oyster sauce

Put the meat in a ziploc bag or a container where it fits closely, and pour over it about half the marinade. Reserve the rest of the marinade for the basting sauce. (Do NOT use the marinade that has touched the meat! Throw it away! It is full of bacteria and such, and the basting sauce will not be thoroughly cooked enough to be safe.)

Basting sauce:

• The remaining marinade
• 1 tbl oyster sauce
• 2-3 tbl brown sugar
• garlic, ginger or whatever other spices sound good to you.

The sugar and garlic are prone to burn, so you don't want so much of it in the marinade, but it is fine for basting later on in the process.

This marinade, btw, would also be good for chicken thighs and wings. You need something with enough fat if you are going to cook it as dry as the instructions here. But a lean meat would be okay if you cook it slower, and with more basting (and maybe more crowded in the pan to keep the moisture in).

RECIPE: Celery Peanut Salad

Some Chinese places will give you a little bowl of some kind of salad as an appetizer, if they think you will appreciate it. Usually something like the Korean side dishes -- sometimes sweet or sour or spicey, or all three.

This summer I made a whirlwind strategic-strike eating tour out in LA, and one great place we went was Luscious Dumpling in San Gabriel, California. This was a very specialized little noodle and dumpling house. Just a tiny place filled with old Chinese guys eating big bowls of noodles and plates of, well, luscious dumplings. They are famous for their Xiao Long Bao, which means "little dragon dumplings", known popularly as "Soup Dumplings." This is a dumpling filled with hot soup, which will squirt out when you bite into it.


When you sit down at Luscious Dumpling, they give you tea and a little bowl of Celery Peanut and Pressed Tofu pickle (pictured at top). The great sweet, sour and nutty taste reminded me that I used to make a celery and dried shrimp salad like it. Dried shrimps are fine, but ever since our visit to LA, I've been making this peanut version, and it has beena major hit.

And very simple to make. It's basically sesame oil, sugar and vinegar. I like to use a combo of distilled vinegar and sherry, but you can replace both of them with another vinegar. (Rice wine vinegar is traditional. I think apple cider vinegar would probably make a nifty experiment.)

• 1 tbl sugar
• 1 tbl distilled white vinegar
• 1 tsp rice wine or sherry
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 cup sliced celery
• 1 handful of roasted cocktail peanuts

You can add garlic, ginger and or hot pepper slivers or flakes. The flavor of the garlic is really strongly enhanced in this dish, so while raw garlic is great (and traditional) you can use garlic powder or no seasoning at all if you sensitive to the taste. (Just don't use garlic salt, as the peanuts already add salt to the dish.)

You can eat it right away, but it is best to let it marinate at least a half hour. It will be great all day, but not as good the next day, so I tend to whip this up as I need it.

Dim Sum Primer, Pt 4

Okay, I'm finally finishing up the Dim Sum Primer, with the larger plated items and desserts. You can skip back to the beginning of this series by checking out the Where to find Dim Sum in Lansing post.


Sticky Rice Wrapped in Lotus Leaves. You could call these Chinese Tamales. Dried lotus leaves wrapped around a bundle of filling and sticky rice, and steamed. The rice is sweet and sticky, and the leaves have a faint tea aroma. The fillings vary. Most of the time, they have some meat -- maybe the drumstick part of a chicken wing and some chinese sausage, maybe some mushroom. Those are usually cone shaped and about the size of a baseball or bigger. The ones you see pictured are a dessert version -- filled with red beans and red banana. You can get the meat version at either Little Panda or Golden Wok. The dessert version is available most days at Oriental Mart -- the Asian grocery on Grand River across from Golden Wok. (They have a lot of dim sum items in the case and freshly made -- including some amazing, and yet greasy springrolls.)

NOTE: The sticky rice in lotus leaves is sometimes called "Sweet Rice with Chicken and Pork" or something like that. It makes it easy to mix up with the "Sweet Rice Dumpling" whch is fried. If you are unclear what you are ordering, ask how it's cooked -- is it deep-fried or wrapped in a lotus leaf?


Greens and oyster sauce. These are a great accompaniment to dim sum, especially if you want to up your vegetable matter. I don't think they have it at Little Panda (though I have never asked), but Golden Wok has it on request (and sometimes on the cart). The greens, which may be a broccholi raab rather than the little bok chois pictured here, come with a little dipping bowl of salty oyster sauce. I've never seen either place in town offer similar platters of meats, but most larger dim sum houses will also have platters of sliced bbq pork or duck as well.


Silver Noodles. There are several kinds of platters of noodles available for dim sum. These silver noodles are hand rolled, fresh rice noodles. They have a nice chewy texture like other rice noodles, but unfortunately look a little like worms. However they taste really good. At Little Panda they serve these stir-fried with some vegetables. Another favorite noodle dish which is available both at dim sum and on the regular menu is Singapore Noodles (or "Fried Vermicelli Singapore Style"). This is a stirfried thin rice noodle, seasoned with curry and served with shrimp and chinese sausage and peapods and other veggies.


Congee, Juk or Joke. Congee is a dim sum tradition -- a brunch food. It's a thick rice soup or gruel, made with chicken broth and often served with a "cruller", or a stick of fried bread to dip in it. It may be plain or with various meats, seafoods, or even a thousand year old egg. The picture here is of my own homemade congee -- which I make with whole grain rice, and corn and greens. What you get in a restaurant will be whiter and creamier. You can get this at Peking Express and other more authentic type Chinese restaurants too. Lamai often serves it with a little toasted garlic, grated ginger and cilantro sprinkled on top.

Sesame Balls. (I don't have a picture of these, but I'll add one when I get one.) These are our favorite dessert at Dim Sum. They are a ball of sticky rice flour dough, filled with either sweet red bean paste or sweet yellow lotus bean paste, coated in sesame seeds and deep fried. (You can often get these at Oriental Mart as well.) We call them Chinese Jelly Donuts. The wrapper is chewy and sticky, and the filling only lightly sweetened.


Mango Pudding. It's not really pudding. It's jello, made with a little milk. Not as sweet as American jello, and pretty refreshing, though we usually skip it because there are other things to fill up on. It comes in a bowl with a maraschino cherry on top. You often have a choice of Almond pudding as well. Sometimes they call this tofu or bean curd rather than pudding -- but that's because jello resembles bean curd to many Asians. (You can buy packs of this at Oriental Mart labelled "Do Fu Delight.")


And then there's Red Bean Pudding, which is also milk jello. At Golden Wok, you get this in big squares. Again, not as sweet, and the red beans add a grittiness to it.


Red Bean Pastry. This is a cool show peice that you don't see often, but may be able to ask for. It's flakey pastry dough, spread with sweet red bean paste, and rolled up, slashed, and baked. Really pretty, and I think it's one of the best ways to eat red bean paste. This you only get at Golden Wok (and that is true of all dishes which require pastry). They also have the little custard tarts -- which are exactly what they look like.

There are many other dishes you may come across. A lot of other dumplings that are similar to those I've already described. I haven't taken pictures of the chicken feet, or the tripe. If you want them, they are available at all dim sum houses. Chicken feet are gelatinous and many people like to suck on the bones. The tripe sometimes comes "red-cooked" or simmered in sweetened soy sauce and spices, and I just might try that sometime.

(NOTE: if you are a more sophisticated dim sum eater, you might notice that there are some dumplings listed on the Golden Wok menu called "Pork Dumplings". The Chinese characters for these list them as xiao long bao -- "little dragon buns" otherwise known as "soup dumplings." They are NOT xiao long bao. They are just pork dumplings. They're good, but they don't spit hot soup at you when you bite into them.)

Happy eating!

Where to find Dim Sum in Lansing
Dim Sum Primer, Part 1
Dim Sum Primer, Part 2
Dim Sum Primer, Part 3
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Recommended Reading from Amazon.com:

The best book on dim sum, imho is Dim Sum: The Art of Chinese Tea Lunch. The recipes are good and they also demystify just what a lot of those dishes ARE for those who just want to eat. (This one is also available at the East Lansing Library, but it's pretty popular and often checked out.

Peking Duck Feast at Peking Express

Peking Duck was originally just a little treat at an Imperial feast, a lovely little burrito of duck, hoisin sauce and spring onion. This little treat took days to prepare.

Three days before the banquet, the duck would be quickly blanched in boiling honey water, then set to dry, then blanched again, and set to dry again. And again. This would go on for days until the skin was tight with honey, and had rendered out much of the fat. Then the duck would be roasted. The point of all this was to get the perfect crispy skin. The skin is the only part of the duck that is actually supposed to be used in Peking Duck. The rest of the duck should be prepared in another dish.

Peking Express knows how to serve the duck right -- as two dishes. But back to the duck....


So the luscious, crispy caramelized skin would then be cut up and served with a steamer full of lovely Mandarin Pancakes (aka Lotus Pancakes or Peking Doilies). These are very thin but tender and glutinous flat breads -- thinner than a tortilla, and when done right, more moist and tender. They should be made with boiling water dough (similar to pot sticker dough) and when made by hand, you put some sesame oil between two layers so you can roll them out extremely thin, two at a time.

You also get a bowl of hoisin sauce -- a salty sweet sauce with a number of spices it in -- and a pile of scallion brushes. Use the scallion (or green onion) to brush some hoisin on the pancake, throw in the onion and the skin, and wrap it up. Delectable!


Peking Express doesn't do the extra thin pancakes, but unlike any other place in town, they do use the right kind of dough. (Other places basically use a very very thin tortilla.) And they give you the actual scallion brushes, when most places give you just a few slivers of green onion and a pile of shredded cucumber.

It's a great dish for a celebration or banquet. We had such a banquet this weekend. The duck and doilies came first, as they should be. They're a great appetizer, but if you have less than four people, you could very well fill up on just this. (Heck, once the duck is gone, it's tempting to ask for more pancakes and just keep gobbling them with the sauce and onions.)

As for the rest of the banquet, the duck is enough to feed two or three people, so be careful how much more your order. Peking Express in particular tends to give you a lot of food for each dish, and we ended up ordering too much. (If you're sharing dishes, as you should at a Chinese banquet, figure the duck to be three dishes, unless you have some really hearty eaters, or you want leftovers.)


After the skin, came the rest of the duck, prepared in a stir-fry with slivers of vegetables and a bright flavor of five spice. (Five spice tends to be a mixture of anise, cinnamon, licorice, hot pepper, and any of a number of other spices -- fennel, cloves, ginger. There may well be more than five spices in there. It's just that five is a lucky number, so that's what it's called.)


The dish the owners always recommend for a banquet at Peking Express is the Giant Oyster Mushroom with Assorted Seafood. Oyster Mushrooms are a nice mild, chewy shroom, and the sauce is a mild garlic gravy. The seafood is shrimp, scallops, and yes...squid. The thing about squid is, if you cook it more than a minute, or less than an hour, it's tough. It doesn't taste bad, but it can be like chewing rubber bands. I'm happy to say that last night, the squid was NOT overcooked. It was a little chewier than the mushroom, but not bad.


The delight of the night was the Eggplant in Hot Pot. This is a gorgeous dish: purple eggplants and colorful sweet peppers baked in a hot clay pot in a sweet soy and wine sauce. I'm really beginning to get over my dislike of eggplant. There are just too many places in town that make good stuff out of it. The liquid in the hot pot keeps its temperature up, so be sure you don't burn yourself on this one.


Lastly we had a dish we've gotten before and we always forget it's not what we expect. Turbot Fish with Baby Bok Choi in Black Bean Sauce has dried salted turbot in it -- the fish is more of a seasoning than a major ingredient. It's tasty, but it's salty. If you want just some nice green veggies with the other dishes, you might try their Pea Greens in Minced Garlic Sauce. Those are really tasty in a light gravy. Chinese Mushrooms with Chinese Green is also a good vegetable dish, but heavy on the Mushrooms (nice plump whole black mushrooms.)

I love Peking Express. (They're one of the few places in town to serve good tea, which is ironic, because dim sum houses are supposed to be about good tea, but alas, ours just don't get it.) It is by far the best place to get Peking Duck. However, in fairness, I should say that Chinese Gourmet Village in Hannah Plaza puts on a nice feast too. I don't have a review for them yet, but here's a link to their site and menu.

All of the dishes mentioned above, by the way, came from the chef's special menu, which is an insert in the regular menu. If your insert gets left out, don't settle for the General Tsao's Chicken and Beef Chow Mein. Get the good stuff.

Peking Express, 611 East Grand River Ave, East Lansing. 351-0533.

***
Recommended Reading:

I have a really good book on Peking Style cooking from Wei Chuan cooking school. Chinese Cuisine: Beijing Style The only problem is that Amazon lists this book as being in Chinese. Most Wei Chuan books are in both Chinese and English, and I have a copy of this that has everything in both languages, so this is probably in both, but be prepared if you order it.

On the other hand Chinese Cuisine: Shanghai Styles is another great Wei Chuan book with similar flavors and styles, and Amazon even says it's in English.

Dim Sum Primer, Pt 3

Continuing on with Part Three of the Dim Sum Primer. If you want to know where to get this stuff locally, check out the "Where to get Dim Sum in Lansing" post.


Fried Sweet Rice Dumpling. This thing has a lot of names, and the names often sound like other kinds of dumplings. At Little Panda, they're now calling it something like "Meat Filled Dumpling". But it's so much more: The wrapper is a thick, chewy sticky dough made of sweet rice (or sticky rice) flour -- which is used in a lot of desserts. However, in this dish, it's wrapped around some seasoned ground pork, and then deep-fried. I had a variation in L.A. filled with chicken and cilantro. In either case, something about the sweet and the crispy chewy fried crust makes the flavor of the meat inside POP. You really should have this with the hot sauce, though.


Hot Sauce. At Golden Wok, they put the sauce on the table when you arrive. At Little Panda, you have to ask for it. It's made up of chili flakes soaked in oil, and may be seasoned with ginger or garlic as well. The oil here is not as hot as the flakes, and it carries all the flavor, so if you don't want it too hot, you can just dab your dumplings in the oil, or you can drizzle it on the food.


TurnipCake. This is another item that goes well with the hot sauce. "Turnip" Cake is generally made with a large sweet Daikon radish, rather an an actual turnip. The batter is made with rice flour and water, mixed with various flavorful ingredients, usually including Chinese sausage, mushrooms and dried shrimp, along with the grated turnip. This is then steamed -- more like an English pudding than a cake -- and then sliced and fried. Little Panda tends to have more flavorful fillings. Golden Wok sometimes has a variant of this with a Taro Cake - which looks almost the same, but is slightly purple. Taro is sweeter and pastier.


Chive Dumpling. This translucent dumpling is shaped kind of like one of those round rubber coin purses that you squeeze to open up. (Flat, round, with a coiled top.) They are almost always filled with seafood and chives. At Golden Wok, they have shrimp. We've seen them with clams, and I've heard of them offered with greens or cilantro inside too. (Little Panda doesn't offer them.) The wrapper is a slightly tougher version of the clear Har Gow wrapper, and the dumpling is pan-fried after steaming.


Steamed Ribs. These are not BBQ ribs, but rather little chunks of bone, meat and gristle which have been steamed with garlic and black bean sauce. (Black beans are fermented, salted beans used as a seasoning -- and they are really great with pork or beef in particular.) The thing is, even though you have to suck the tiny bit of meat off small bones, these are really good, especially at Golden Wok.


BBQ Pork Pastry. These are almost too rich.... Okay, forget the "almost". They are too rich. Tender, flakey pastry wrapped around sweet hunks of Chinese BBQ pork. Melt in your mouth, heart-attack-on-a-plate. Yum. (Only available at Golden Wok.)

Shrimp Balls. Sorry I don't have a picture of these. They are basically just a meatball of pure shrimp, coated in crumbled rice noodles and deep fried. When I want shrimp, I prefer a little more texture and variety of flavor, so I don't often order these -- but they are great for somebody who just wants shrimp. Add a little sweet and sour sauce or hot sauce, and they are a treat.

Next time I'd like to get to some of plated dishes, congees and desserts. (I don't have as many pictures of those yet, though.) But before that, I have a few restaurant reviews to get to, and a Peking Duck banquet.

Where to find Dim Sum in Lansing
Dim Sum Primer, Part 1
Dim Sum Primer, Part 2
Dim Sum Primer, Part 3
Dim Sum Primer, Part 4

Dim Sum Primer, part 2

Here's a continuation of my guide to dim sum dishes. You can learn about where to get dim sum in Lansing here, and read the first part of the Primer here.


Spring Rolls. More delicate than eggrolls, these crunchy treats are meant to resemble gold bricks and bring you good fortune. Little Panda in particular has wonderful Spring Rolls on dim sum weekend. (I don't know if their weekday spring rolls are the same -- for some reason I don't think so.) Cabbage and a little chicken or pork, lightly seasoned with five spice that just opens the flavors wide.


RiceRoll. This is a tender, slippery rice flour sheet, steamed and wrapped around beef, shrimp, or sometimes bbq pork (only at Golden Wok in town). I like the beef best, at least at Little Panda, where it has been seasoned with a little tangerine peel. All variations have a sweet taste and a slippery texture. I advise sliding it onto your plate and cutting it up before attempting to use chopsticks on these.


Pork In Bean Roll. Bean Curd Skin may not sound that appetizing, but it's a wonderful chewy wrapper for a number of Chinese dishes, and often used to simulate chicken skin in Buddhist vegetarian dishes. It's wrapped around something, then fried, and then steamed in a luscious garlicky gravy. It is actually most wonderful when filled with vegetables, but you can't always get that. And I find that Golden Wok often forgets the steaming and the garlicky gravy for this dish -- especially when serving it off the menu. And it's really just not good when it's only been fried. (Although if you take it home and pour on a little chicken broth and garlic it's just fine -- so sometimes I'll get this as takeout.) Little Panda always gets it right, but they only serve the pork version. Which is fine with me. Pork is good.


Stuffed Eggplant. There are actually several items you can get prepared this way -- tofu, mushrooms and green peppers are all popular -- but a friend of mine turned me on to the eggplant, and even though I'm not normally an eggplant fan, this is too good to pass up. We always get it. Generally it's a little sandwich of eggplant, stuffed with shrimp and deep fried. Then, like the bean rolls, it is steamed with the garlic gravy. (Side note: this dish comes out of the kitchen sizzling HOT, so be careful or you may burn your mouth. Other side note: Lamai has taken to making this dish and sometimes has it on her Friday fish and shrimp buffet.)

Where to find Dim Sum in Lansing
Dim Sum Primer, part 1
Dim Sum Primer, Part 2
Dim Sum Primer, Part 3
Dim Sum Primer, Part 4

Dim Sum Primer, part 1

For the uninitiated, "Dim Sum" is a Chinese tradition for brunch -- tea and little plates of delectable and beautiful snacks. The words translate literally as "touch the heart." Or "touch of heart" depending on who you ask.

If you ask me, dim sum is a form of worship. It is as close as a food geek can get to God. (It's SO important, that I think I may start a separate blog just devoted to Dim Sum. But for now I will confine myself to a couple of postings about the wonderful practice of tea lunch.) There are two houses of worship...er, two places to get dim sum in town, as mentioned in my previous post.

A traditional dim sum house is usually a large banquet hall. You sit down, you get tea, and the host slaps down a blank bill on your table. Ladies with carts full of food rove around the room, and you point out what you want. They mark on the bill the number of dishes you take.

Of course, smaller places don't have room for the carts, nor the kind of kitchen that can produce hundreds of separate delicacies. So a lot of places have fallen back on a modified version of the bill that acts as a menu. (Kind of like what you see in a lot of sushi places these days.) You mark on the menu what you want, and then they bring you the food later.

In either case -- carts or menu -- it helps to know what you're ordering. Here are a few basic dumplings that are most popular. (I'll follow this up with a more expanded list of common dishes next week.)


Har Gow (Ha Kow, Shrimp Dumplings). These are delicate, tender, richly flavored dumplings that often symbolize dim sum. The translucent wrapper is made of wheat starch with a little tapioca starch to give it body. They are tender and sweet, with richness absorbed from the shrimp inside. Inside you might have pure shrimp, or you might have shrimp with shreds of bamboo shoot, to give it a little extra texture. Unless you hate shrimp, these are a must have.


Char Siu Bao (BBQ Pork Buns). Chinese barbequed pork, in a sweet rich sauce, inside a sweet white steamed bun. There are a lot of variations of Bao out there, but when you see these white, ruptured forms, you have that basic bun that pretty much everybody likes. There is also a baked version, which looks like the smooth, brown roll.


Green Onion Pancake. This is layered dough (usually the chewy boiling-water dough used for homemade potstickers and stretched noodles) rolled with green onions, then pan fried. A lot of places get this frozen, and fry it up in the restaurant. This usually results in an okay, thin crispy pancake. But Little Panda makes their own hearty dough, which makes for good thick crust of bread. This is really good for sopping up the sauces and juice on your plate.


Siu Mai (or Shao Mai) are an open topped dumpling with a meatball inside. They're meant to look like overflowing money bags. At a lot of Japanese and Korean places in town you will see an appetizer called Ebi Siu Mai - which is a shrimp version. The common Siu Mai is filled with pork, with a tiny shrimp on the top. At Golden Wok, the cart ladies push these hard on beginners, and with good reason. They are very tasty, and generally friendly to picky eaters. At Little Panda, you have a choice of two varieties, pork or beef. The beef version used to have a sweet orange peel tang. (There was a period when they got pretty plain, but I think they've returned to form. It's worth trying anyway.)


Pan-fried Dumpling, (Pot-sticker, or "Peking" dumpling, or Kuo Tieh). These are so popular they are usually on the regular menu. A steamed dumpling that has been panfried on the bottom. At Little Panda, they are huge, fat pork filled dumplings, and an order from the regular menu is a meal in itself. They also serve it with this wonderful sweet soy dipping sauce that is almost addictive. Golden Wok doesn't have a dipping sauce, but theirs is filled with a flavorful mixture of pork and shrimp and so just a little plain soy will do.
(NOTE: I didn't have a picture of any in-town pot-stickers right now. I took this picture at a wonderful place called Luscious Dumpling in Alhambra California.)

(I'm sorry this post took so long. I'm using Blogger's "easy" interface, which doesn't make it so easy to figure out how to put multiple pictures in a post.)

Next week, I'll get into the greater variety of dim sum.

Where to find Dim Sum in Lansing
Dim Sum Primer, Part 1
Dim Sum Primer, Part 2
Dim Sum Primer, Part 3
Dim Sum Primer, Part 4