The Tong's Chinese New Year Feast!

新年快樂

Happy New Year!!

年夜飯 Chinese New Year Eve Dinner:
Chinese New Year Dinner

Healthy tips for buying and preparing food for Chinese New Year

Gong Xi Fa Cai! It's time to ring in another Chinese New Year! Now that 2009 has passed, it is time to look towards the future to find good fortune that will awaits us in 2010, the year of the Tiger. A new year also encourages us to reflect on the past and to set goals for the future such as eating healthy as well as exercise to maintain a healthy life style.

An important part of the Chinese New Year is spending time with the family, visiting relatives and friends. During this time, we like to entertain friends and family by throwing parties and making festive foods. These festive foods can be high in sugar, salt or fat but low in nutrition values. To jumpstart a healthy lifestyle for the new year, here are some healthy tips for purchasing and preparing food for your Chinese New Year celebration:
· Avoid buying processed and preserved foods instead use fresh and wholesome ingredients.

· When buying pre-packaged food, check for expiration dates and make sure the package are intact. If the product is non-packaged and sold by the pound, pay attention to the hygiene of the store, if the containers are covered and whether the staff use clean utensils to handle foods. If you have doubts about the source of the product, do not buy them.

· Avoid buying traditional snacks that is sugary or fried. Try healthier alternatives snacks such as dried fruits, bake goods, and unsalted nuts.

· Use healthier cooking methods like steaming, grilling and baking. If you must fry, use healthier oils like canola and corn oil.

· Prepare food using less sugar, salt and sauces. Flavor your dish with garlic, onion, shallots and ginger. Add the sauce on the side so you can have control over how much or little you want on your dish.

Summer Cocktail Party for Brother's Big 4-0

My wonderful sister in-law planned a lay back summer cocktail party for my brother's 40th birthday in their back yard. It wasn't anything big, just a simple gathering with close friends and relatives. The food and drinks were so good! And I was impressed by the little details and thought she put into the decorations and making this such a wonderful party!

Table of yummi finger foods (egg rolls, crab cakes, piggy in the blanket)and their sauces.
Other food they had but I didn't take pictures of: chicken skewers, korean style beef, korean fish cakes and some other stuff I forgot...)

delicious home made curry fish balls...
Name tags for all the food and sauces along with cute turtle chopstick holders

pretty flowers everywhere...

POG: juice with passion fruit, orange juice and guava
It was very refreshing and perfect for a summer time drink.
White sangriamore drinks...Beautiful bowl of fruit salad..

The guest "supply" table: fun activities for the kids, suntan lotion, bug spray/candle, and hydrocortisone.

mini tables and chairs set up in their yard

I got introduced to Martha's Country Bakery, OMG they make AWESOME cakes! I'm kinda glad they are so far away from me because I would seriously go there all the time, then I would gain like 100000 lbs! We had napoleon and tiramisu cake.

Happy Birthday Broo!!

Thank you, Rachael (ah so) for planning this wonderful summer cocktail party!
I love you guys!!!

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Bro's Home...

Martha's Country Bakery

41-06 Bell Ave

Bayside, NY

718-225-5200

Food Spy for Metro Asian Food Magazine

I had the opportunity to be a food critic for a Asian food magazine called Metro Asian Food. It was such a fun and amazing experience I wish I could do this for a living!

Every issue they have a section where readers participate in "food missions"and a few are selected to be food spies aka food critics. It's a very simple process, you sign up online to be a member then they will send an email to everyone announcing the date, time and cruise. On a first come first basis if you are one of the few who reply the fastest then you will be chosen. I've been trying for a few months and I guess I got lucky! I got so lucky I got Andy to come with me too!! Our mission, Shanghai food!!!

Our special spy pins:

The first stop we went to was Shanghai Cafe.
We were excited!!!

Our other spy members, Vivian and Ling

We got interviewed by the writer after each bite of the food. The photographer was snapping pictures left and right and telling us to pose.

Our food writer Jeny

Here are some of my favorites from each of the restaurants. You can see the rest of the dishes in the article.
The must haves at a Shanghai restaurant, soup dumplings.

this has some sort of veggies and pork

Over all I thought Shanghai Cafe was so so....I've been here many times so I guess I was sick of the food. And the dish they gave us wasn't anything special.

Next stop:

interesting decoration with a mini looking bridge...

the buns were small but the skin was thinner which I like...

This restaurant went all out and served us their expensive dishes which was mostly seafood. I love seafood!!

crabs with salty eggs, one of my favorite of the day...

crispy shrimp with tea leafs, another favorite of the day...the shrimp was so crispy you can eat the whole thing like a chip...

thumbs up to the chef!!

Mission accomplished!!!

our photographer

Perks being a food spy: I got a souvenir bag filled with goodies, a pin, awesome free meal and being in a very popular food magazine!! yay!!
See article here...

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Shanghai Cafe
100 Mott Street
212-966-3988

New Yeah Shanghai Deluxe
65 Bayard Street
212-566-4884

Memorial Day Celebration-Cooper 35

I meet up with Maribeth aka my gf/bff for Memorial Day. I followed her to run an errand in the afternoon. After that we decided to find a place to pig out. I was craving some cupcakes so we decided to go to near Sugar Sweet Sunshine to find a place to have a drink, eat some snacks then have cupcakes for deserts. We went there but discovered that most places near Essex Street were closed including SSS! For some reason, we always have bad luck going to restaurants on days they are closed. We were disappointed...

We spent ~15 mins on the street brainstorming places where we want to go eat. We decided to go to near St. Marks for some drinks and snack. We ended up at Cooper 35, an Asian fusion restaurant/pub. It was such a great day so we decide to sit at the outdoor garden area. The place was nice and cozy!
Prices for mix drinks and shots are so cheap here! I would usually get these drinks at clubs for $12+ and here it's only $4!! The drinks taste good (I like my drinks fruity) and they aren't cheap on the alcohol either...

1st Round: I had the Bay Breeze and she had the lychee martini. For appetizers, we ordered the fried calamari and salsa&chips (complimentary). The calamari was really good! It was very crispy and the sauce was tangy with a kick of spicy flavor.

2nd Round: I had the Bay Breeze and she had the Sea Breeze. We're still working on our appetizers.....

After two drinks, it was time for some shots!

3rd Round: We ordered the Skittle Boom for both of us. And we also ordered more drinks, I ordered the WooWoo and she ordered the Tequila Sunrise drink. Man, they were really strong... We had to order more food to absorb the alcohol. We ordered a California rolls and a shrimp dish that came with rice. Both of these dish were so so... I don't think I would come here for a sit down dinner.

We hanged out at Cooper 35 for about 4-5 hours. The waiters and waitress didn't bother us at all for staying so long. They just left us alone and came when we needed them. Towards the end of the night the place started to get packed. The garden area was full and the inside area was already 1/2 packed. We couldn't drink anymore so we left and roamed around St. Marks where Maribeth ordered more food to take home. She ordered korean style chicken from BBQ Chicken, fries from Pomme Frits and sushi from somewhere. Yea, this girl can eat! All I ate was a corn dog from BBQ and it was a corn dog that's made from olive oil...

I had such a blast catching up with my gf. What a perfect way to spend a great afternoon with great company, good drinks and yummi snacks. But I gotta say those drink really kicked my ass... Happy Memorial Day!

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35 Cooper Sq
New York, NY 10079
(212) 375-919

Peking Duck House

Last month we celebrated my friend Khin's (aka one of my sexiest gf) birthday at Peking Duck House. She was in the mood for Peking duck so she asked me which restaurant I recommend for some good Peking duck. Honestly, I don't think I ever had good Peking duck in New York before because all of them (expensive or cheap) taste the same. It's either with the bun or the pancake (usually the expensive ones are w/ the pancake and cheaper one w/ the buns-I personally like the pancake). Most of the time we order Peking duck from the banquet style Chinese restaurant or at the Chinese buffet. They all taste like regular roasted duck with out the bones and with extra stuff. Once in a while, Andy and I would even have cheap peking duck ($15 for 1/2 duck) for lunch at Chinatown and it taste just like those. So when Khin ask me where to go, I asked her if she's willing to pay more or less for duck. She suggested Peking Duck House since it was suppose to be their "specialty" but I was skeptical about it but I said sure why not!

So what should REAL Peking duck be like? Well it should have thin, crispy skin, with authentic versions of the dish serving mostly the skin and little meat, sliced in front of the diners by the cook. I remember seeing an Iron Chef episode of battle duck, Ming Tsai (against Bobby Flay) prepared a Peking duck the traditional way by separating the skin from the fat by blowing air in the area between them and then baked it. He used a air compressor to do this, before electrical air compressors chefs use to use bicycle pumps and before that they used a wooden straw to blow air into the duck. It was so fascinating seeing him prepare this dish and the most impressive part was he made it within an hour. At the end, he won the iron chef for battle duck.

Okay let see what kind of Peking duck we got from Peking Duck House...

We ordered the banquet menu and added a duck so we had 3 ducks! The banquet menu for 10 people ($280.00) included:

Soup:Hot & Sour Soup
It was way tooo salty. It was the worst hot and sour soup I've ever tasted.
Appetizers:
Shrimp Ball, Spare Ribs with Honey
Nothing special with any of them, the ribs tasted really funky.

Entrees:
Peking Duck (2) + (1)
-crispy skin = yes
-serving mostly the skin and little meat = yes
-sliced in front of the diners by the cook = NO!
I think we totally got riped off of the whole Peking Duck experience because they were slicing it somewhere in the back corner. They ended up bring the tray of the individual wrapped up duck. All of us was expecting to see the cook slice the duck and prepare it in front of us but we were all disappointed. I guess they were so busy they didn't care for the presentation of preparing the dish for us and just wanted to serve it ASAP. Overall the duck tasted good, the skin was quite crispy and meat was juicy so I can't complain too much.

The sauce we used for the different dishes we had:
hosin sauce, duck sauce, muster, hot chilli sauce

Sauteed Prawns w. Ginger & Scallions:
**oops-sorry no pic, imagine prawns saute ginger and scallion**
-it wasn't memorable

Beef Broccoli-
Nothing good or special about this dish, tasted very saucy like any other Chinese take out place.

Crispy Seabass-
I guess since we had more then 10 people they gave us an extra fish dish which was very good! It was topped with sweet and sour sauce and the seabass skin was very crispy. Very tasty, I liked it! Finally something that I liked....

Chicken with Orange Flavor:
I also like this dish, the orange flavor tasted really good and it wasn't too sweet.

Crispy String Beans with Minced Pork
**oops-sorry no pic, imagine string beans w/ some minced pork!**
-it wasn't memorable

Fried Rice-
it was good, tasted like what it should be....nothing special

Dessert: Fried Banana with Walnuts
a little piece of banana fried w/ a little walnut on top. It wasn't satisfying...

Thank goodness we brought our own desert, ube cake:

Ube (or ubi) is the Filipino word for purple yam. It contains pigments that gives its violet color. Isn't it so pretty! It taste like cake with alot of yam favors covered with vanilla icing and bits of yams in the middle. It was my first time trying this cake and it was very yummi. My experience at the Peking Duck house was as expected disappointing. It was exactly what I thought it would be, high priced Chinese food that shouldn't be that expensive. Each of us ended up paying around $50 bucks. I think I might come back just for the duck but not for the other food and especially not for the banquet style menu. Next time I'm taking Khin to eat the cheaper kind and see what she thinks....

Happy Birthday Khin <3
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Peking Duck House
28 Mott St
New York, NY 10013
(212) 227-1810