Month: January 2007

WOK HEI

Having grown up in Canada but having Chinese parents, I feel like I’ve received the best of both worlds in many respects. Cuisine is one of those things. I am just as comfortable enjoying a nicely prepared roast as I am eating chicken feet (and there are a lucky few who’ve seen me do both).

Living in Vancouver, many of “Western” friends have tried many Chinese dishes as well. I applaud them for their experimentation but there’s a lot more to Chinese cuisine than just egg rolls and sweet ‘n sour pork. Like many other ethnic cuisines, there are some fascinating peculiarities associated with Chinese food. I will describe one of them here in this post.

As a child, my mother explained to my sister and I the concept of wok hei. Roughly translated into English, it means the “breath/air of the wok”. Most of you have probably seen a wok before, it being the rounded cooking implement used for centuries in China. While not everything in Chinese cuisine is stir-fried in a wok, a significant portion of dishes are prepared in such a manner.

There is a considerable amount of skill in properly preparing food in a wok. First and foremost, is the ability to enfuse wok hei into any dish. What is it exactly? It’s a bit abstract, but the wikipedia article does a fairly good job of describing it. In short, it’s the ability of the cook or chef to sear and impart the flavours into the food using the wok at extremely high temperatures.

If you think this is some product of hokey mumbo jumbo, I can assure you wok hei does exist. You can taste the difference in dishes prepared by chefs of varying skills. You can take the exact same ingredients, put them in the exact same type of wok, and on the exact same burner. The only thing that differs is the ability of the chef. One might impart wok hei into the food while the other fails.

How does this manifest itself in taste? It’s really hard to describe in words. The best I can do is that there’s a certain zing or pop to the food. I don’t mean spicy or anything like that but the food is almost alive with flavour. It’s isn’t bland, the flavour jumps out at you.

I suggest you try it yourself. Chinese restaurants are known for their quality of food and if the word around town that the chef knows his wok hei, that could easily mean extra business. In my experience, the stir-fried noodle dishes are the easiest ways to discover if the chef has brought his or her “A” game. In particular, try the beef chow fun or the Shanghai thick noodle.

If you like to know more about the wok hei, I encourage you to read a book that especially been written on the subject.

GOAT CHEESE

This is the post where I’d love to tell you how exciting and refreshing my weekend was. I can’t do that however, since I worked both days of the weekend. The highlight of my weekend, sadly, had to do with food.

When I arrived at my new job at EAX/EA Vancouver/EA Blackbox, I asked around about the quality of OT meals. When someone told me, I realized things were a step up here compared to my old job. That’s not to disparage my old company, they did fine with food, and I even had an awesome steak one time for dinner. It’s just that EAX did things a bit different.

I got to work a bit late on Saturday but I went upstairs to see what lunch consisted of. It was a scrumptious feast that was a combination of lunch and brunch. There was sausages and bacon. Pastries and tarts. There was fruit on a silver platter and none of that cheap fruit. We’re talking pineapples, kiwi fruit, strawberries and kumquats. In one tray was an omlette chock full of meaty things.

I cursed myself for having lunch at home. I was there for dinner, so I got the full meal deal then. There was a dessert platter featuring tiny cakes and other little tarts. The fruit plate made a return with more exotic fruits. There was a delightful little salad. The main courses were some vegetarian dish and a tray full of roast chicken. I think they might have been game hens, not too sure.

Today, I arrived a little late for lunch, but I made sure I didn’t eat anything before leaving home. My strategy worked well. What greeted me in the lounge was another feast. First off was a terrific green bean salad with Alaskan king crab legs and prawns the size of small lobsters. Another plate had a selection of not one but two kinds of smoked salmon. In the warming trays were a kickass lasagna and a meatloaf that defied description. The fruit made it’s return as did the pastries, tarts, and little cakes.

For dinner, the main courses were eggplant (yuck) and a tray full of tender roast beef with mushrooms. The roast beef might seem like the highlight but you’d be wrong. For me, it was the salad. Yes, you read that correctly. The salad wasn’t complicated, with simple greens but the addition of goat cheese and a world-class raspberry vinaigrette made it my favourite. The fruit and pastries also made a return… blah… blah…

I went back for the salad three times during the evening. The last time, I picked out the goat cheese balls from the salad and spread them on some french bread we had lying around. Man, thems is tasty!

I might work OT tomorrow and that’d be a shame but if I do, at least the food will be good.

QUESTION

I’m just wondering how many of you out there have a myspace page. The reason I ask is that I think myspace pages represent the worst in web design on the Internets. It boggles my mind how popular myspace is.

Have you seen a myspace page? First, it allows users to embed a song that plays automatically when someone visits their page. That’s just awful. And the backgrounds people choose for their pages make it impossible to read the text. The formatting in general makes it a usability nightmare. If Jakob Nielsen were dead (and he’s not), he’d be spinning in his grave right now.

So let’s see ’em. If you’re on myspace, let’s take a look. I’ll show you my myspace page if you reciprocate.

THE WEATHER

If you live in the Lower Mainland, you no doubt were aware that we got hit with another snowstorm last night. I, for one, cannot remember a time when Vancouver has had so much extreme weather. Between the rain, the gale-force winds, and the blankets of snow, this has been a pretty miserable winter.

I wouldn’t mind it all, except for the fact that the weather causes a lot of problems city-wide. When it gets windy, the power goes out. In the last three months, I think the power has gone out more times than in the last three years combined. The last incident happened last week, where the power was out in my area for twelve hours. There was no heat, no hot water, and no Xbox 360. The wind also caused trees and light poles to topple. On one very particular windy day, it took me two hours to get to work. Who ever heard of traffic delays due to wind? Also, when it gets windy, they tend to close down the Lions Gate bridge. That means all traffic goes to the Second Narrows, along Hastings Street, which is of course, the route my bus goes along. It all makes for a great commute home.

Back to the snow though. This morning, my bus never came, leaving me to stand at the bus stop for about half an hour. The only thing that made it half-bearable was that I shared the bus shelter with this very attractive young lady. I finally had to take the Skytrain instead, which was actually not crowded at all this morning. I only was late perhaps 25 minutes or so to my surprise. While the snow seems to have stopped this evening, temperatures are supposed to drop way below freezing level overnight. The resulting ice should make it awesome for commuting and walking tomorrow morning.

How much longer will this weather last?

WELL NOW WHAT

I was about half way through writing a post when I realized I might get someone in trouble. I was telling a story anonymously about a friend of mine. Then it dawned on me, that however small the chance, his girlfriend might be reading this. Actually, it’s a really small chance but I’ve learned over the years that it’s amazing who’s reading my blog.

I don’t want to get him into trouble. Is he breaking the law? No. Is he cheating on his girlfriend? Definitely not. Is he making me ask myself questions? I don’t think so.

So I got nothing else to write about. How about this weather eh? Wind storms suck. The Canucks are doing well lately, isn’t that interesting? How’s your mom doing? Good… good… I’m getting a haircut tomorrow. Right…

Ok, good night folks.

NO FATE BUT WHAT WE MAKE FOR OURSELVES

So I’m sitting at my desk this afternoon when I get an e-mail from one of the production coordinators on our team. She wants to know if anyone on our team wants new business cards and to fill in the form if we do.

I just stared at the e-mail for a bit. This is an opportunity to get business cards from EA. If you’ve been with us since the beginning, you know business cards have a certain influence on my life. I outlined it in an earlier post. Essentially, everytime I’ve received business cards, I’ve quit my job within 45 days of getting them.

Mind you, I’ve only got business cards twice in my life but I’m batting a thousand so far. So you can understand my conflict when I got the e-mail. On one hand, I don’t want to tempt fate because I really do like my job. On the other hand, EA business cards would be really nice.

I think this is an excellent chance for me to break this crazy cycle. While I certainly was entertaining thoughts of leaving those two previous jobs when I got the cards, I have no such thoughts this time around with EA. I believe I’m going to go for it!

I’ll check in with you about 45 days from when I get the cards.