How to Make My Mother's Awesome Pork Sauce Noodles

My new year's resolution is to learn how to cook better Chinese food, especially the dishes that I remember fondly as a child. My recent visit to Baozi Inn in London inspired my first lesson: Zha Jiang Mian, or fried pork sauce noodles. These noodles are a staple of Northern Chinese cuisine which is more noodle focused than the South. If my memory serves me, I had these almost everyday as my first snack at home after a long day at school. My grandmother use to tell me Marco Polo brought this dish back to Italy and it became the inspiration for spaghett bolognese. Here's my mother's creation and her recipe below.

Chinese style dried noodles (thin spaghetti type)
Minced garlic
Minced scallions
Ground pork
Tian Mian Jiang (sweet bean sauce)
Dou Ban Jiang (soya bean sauce)

Cucumbers, bean sprouts, carrots or other crunchy vegetables as garnish

Stir fry the ground pork in vegetable oil (medium heat) until just browned. Empty into a bowl and put aside. Stir fry the minced garlic and scallions together in more vegetable oil, until cooked and soft. Then add the ground pork with the garlic and scallions and mix well, ensuring everything is cooked together. Lower the heat and stir in the sweet bean sauce (2 parts) + soya bean sauce (1 part), adding just enough sauce to coat the whole pan of pork. The consistency should be like spaghetti bolognese so add water if too thick. Add salt to taste. Separately, boil the dry noodles per instructions on the package. Usually it's a quick boil, again similar to spaghetti. Combine sauce and noodles. Devour.

You can serve this with raw cucumbers or carrots julienned or bean sprouts flash boiled. The crunchiness of the vegetables will give the dish a nice texture and a balance with the rich sauce. Some people also like to put some raw minced garlic and scallions on top too and I used to have some chopped up scrambled eggs mixed in. Try anything, to your own liking!

Chinese Street Food in London: Baozi Inn

Chinese food in Chinatowns around the world can be hit or miss. More often than not, especially in large cities, the restaurants in Chinatowns cater more to tourists and Western palates. But there are some gems in the sea of General Tso's Chicken and Sweet and Sour Pork and I found one at Baozi Inn in London.

Tucked on a side street that is literally a hop, skip and a jump away from the famous grand entrance gate that marks London's Chinatown, Baozi Inn is famous for its reasonably priced Northern Chinese street food. Baozi is the chinese word for pork bun and the menu is filled with an assortment of dumplings and buns, steamed and fried. There are also the noodle and rice dishes and small plates like poached peanuts and pickled vegetables...all familiar dishes from my childhood. The decor is faux plebeian Maoist China...old black and white photographs on the walls, wooden stools and tables. Reminds me of a modernized version of a Chinese inn set in an old Jackie Chan movie, only no one's there to start a kung fu fight.

Even though we wanted to try everything on the menu, we really only had the stomach for two dishes. The first was a lunch special of spicy tofu with ground pork over rice (below). I can tell this one was fiery right when they dropped the plate off in front of us and indeed it was. Delicate tofu lit on fire with chili oil and paste. We were sweating profusely (in a good way) with every bite but couldn't put our spoons down.

The second dish was what I was really looking forward to: Zha Jiang Mian which was noodles with a stir friend ground pork sauce on top. This is one of my mother's signature dishes so I had to see whose was better. The Baozi Inn version (below) had a slightly sweeter sauce than I prefer but the raw garlic on top was a genius move. Overall, a very very good execution of a dish that I grew up eating almost everyday.

Chinatowns in the US up until now, are made up mostly of restaurants serving cuisine from Southern China since that's where the early immigrants came from. Nowadays there is definitely more and more variety of Chinese regional cuisine in New York and hopefully London is also seeing this trend. In 2010, I'm gonna try to learn more about the different regional flavors of China through eating and cooking. If you live in London, check out Baozi Inn and then start with my mother's recipe for Zha Jiang Mian. And decide for yourself which is better!

Modern Italian in London: L'Anima

When I travel, I usually like to focus just on the cuisine of the country I visit. On this recent trip to London, I decided to forgo the myriad of gastropubs and Indian restaurants and try something different. Afterall, London is a mega metropolis like New York City, filled with top notch cuisine from all corners of the world. This something different was L'Anima, a much reviewed, highly buzzed about Italian restaurant on a quiet side street in Central London.

First impressions when I entered the place: there's a lot of glass in here. L'Anima's large modern space was split into two sections: a spacious bar area near the entrance and the main dining room to the left separated by a thin glass wall. We were seated at a table in front of the floor to ceiling windows that had an unobstructed view onto the streets of The City, all the while facing a kitchen that was semi open with porthole like windows peering into the chaos within. I felt like both a voyeur and a voyee.

The menu: organized, long and educational. It contained definitions of Italian phrases that those of us who are linguistically challenged were very thankful for. Great selections of cold and warm starters, pastas and risottos, entrees and grilled proteins, sides and salads. This is not a good place for someone who can be paralyzed by an abundance of options.

We decided to start with 2 appies: crab, avocado and Sardinian flatbread (pictured above) and wood roasted aubergine with burrata (below). Both dishes were very straighforward and clean, probably made with no more than 5 ingredients. While the crab and avocado was a good dish, it wasn't that inspired and I've had better avocado at hole in the wall Mexican joints in CA and NYC. The aubergine and burrata on the other hand: magnifico. The burrata, creamy. The aubergine, softly roasted to perfection. Mix them together and we were devouring the dish by the spoonful. A great start.

First entree was a well executed veal fillet in sage and butter sauce with pancetta and pumpkin. A bit salty for my taste but the meat was done perfectly.

What we were really looking forward to were the pastas. All the pastas were homemade of course and our first choice was the tonnarelli with crab (yes, more crab), chili and garlic. Fresh and just the right amount of spicy.

Second choice was mushroom fettucine with black truffle. The truffle was disappointingly tasteless, perhaps the reason we got so much of it. But the mushroom sauce and handmade fettucine were to die for. Brought me back to Tuscany for just a nano second, though in Tuscany the truffle was unparalleled.

Maybe I am too jaded from my eating adventures around the world or maybe there are just too many good Italian restaurants in NYC but I do think L'Anima is a bit over-hyped. The number of glowing posts about this place was overwhelming. Can any restaurant live up to buzz like that? Still, L'Anima is a solid restaurant that I very much enjoyed as my farewell meal and would return to for some cocktails at the bar or more of that aubergine and burrata. Maybe next time the truffle will taste like truffles should.

Upscale Indian in London: Veeraswamy

One of the things I'm always told I must do when in London is eat some top notch South Asian food. The last time I was there, I did the tourist stroll on Brick Lane and had some good but not great North Indian food at Preem. This time, I wanted to try something a bit more upscale and stumbled upon Veeraswamy, supposedly one of the oldest Indian restaurants in London. Located right off Regent Street near the hustle and bustle of Picadilly, Veeraswamy is part of the Masala World group, an Indian restaurant conglomerate that includes a chain called Masala Zone as well as Chutney Mary and Amaya in Chelsea, the latter frequently reviewed as one of the best high end Indian restaurants in London.

The association with this well regarded group and some decent buzz on food blogs set my somewhat high expectations for this place and my first impression of Veeraswamy was very positive. Friendly staff, a gorgeous dining room (highlight was the row of colorful turbans on the wall) and a very convenient location with a nice view of Regent Street. The prices were high but we were able to take advantage of the 2-course lunch prix fixe for less than £15.

For starters we tried a Raj Kapori which is large crispy puri (like an Indian taco shell) filled with lentils, tamarind chutney and yogurt sauce. I didn't expect it to be a cold dish but the flavors were great. This was my favorite dish of the whole meal, and beautifully presented as you can see below.

The second starter was a potato pancake of sorts topped with the same sauces and flavors as the raj kapori. Again, tasty, but we should have ordered something else that wasn't as similar as our first dish. And there were too much pomengranate for me.

For our main courses, I had a craving for curry so we ordered a Chicken Makhani which is essentially chicken tikka in a tomato-based type curry sauce. Very salty but hit the spot for me, especially when eaten with the excellent nan. The other dish was a vegetable based curry which was under seasoned and very spicy and had a special type of eggplant that was bitter. It was not our favorite but somehow we still managed to devour it.

All in all, we left satisfied. The service was really excellent. Our waitress was friendly and knowledgeable, and most importantly let an annoying American tourist snap photos throughout the meal (some places hate us bloggers taking photos, rightfully so I would say). I liked the colorful and rich decor, made the place feel refined and upscale (good for romantic special occasions). And the food was solid, though I think it would have been better if we had better ideas of what to order. Still, I think some of the best Indian/South Asian food can be had in holes in the wall dives in East London and that's what I will be seeking out next time I am in town. Tayyabs anyone?