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.

Happy New 2010! Last meal of 2009....

Sorry, no time to update but I will finish blogging and put the recipe out soon!! The ham was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD! One of the best ham I've ever made! Stay tuned.....

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

My Foodie Twin's Birthday Brunch

Birthday Brunch at Double Crown then dessert run at Ferrara....
The food at Double Crown was really good!!! *will write about it later but here's the pics**

Happy Birthday Cecille! <3

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Double Crown
316 Bowery
New York, NY 10012
(212) 254-0350
www.doublecrown-nyu.com

Ferrara
195 Grand Street
New York, NY 10013
(212) 226-6150

www.ferraracafe.com

Obama inauguration lunch at O'Neil's

The whole morning I was actually very excited about today's inauguration and told myself I must make time to see it during lunch. So the afternoon came, I was wondering if we can watch TV in our conference room. Then I heard Shao Ping going into the conference room and trying to see if the TV is set up and it wasn't! I was kind of disappointed. Shao Ping and I really want to see it and was trying to figure out where we would find a TV. I actually suggested that we go to a dim sum place and have lunch so we can watch it on the big screen TVs. Most Asian places, especially the dim sum place all have big screen TV. They usually have a few of them hanging all over the restaurants w/ different channels turned on at the same time. We usually can't hear the TV because it's always packed with people and everyone talks loudly. The captions are usually on and people just read it.

So we decide to check if "Red Egg", a new dim sum place across the street from us. It was 11:50, we went across the street and went into Red Egg. We asked the first person we saw who was at the bar area. "Do you have a TV?" He looked at us weirdly and say "Sorry, we don't. Why do you need a TV?" Then we told him we wanted to see the inauguration on TV. He told us to go to a bar one block over because he knows for sure there's a TV. So we hurried our way to the bar. We walked in, it was quiet and the only sound was Obama's voice. Everyone was staring at the TV.

The whole event, well part of what I saw was breathe taking, so many people traveling from everywhere coming together to be a part of this event. At the bar, people were clapping and cheering for Obama. I was really happy because I do believe he'll bring change, hopefully good change. Yes, we can!!

We couldn't just sit there and not order so this is my Obama's inauguration lunch. It was realllly good. The crab tasted fresh and the chipotle sause on top was great. The fries were really good. They probably fried it 2x so it was extra chrispy. I will def. come back here for lunch again.

Oneil’s Crab Cake Sandwich 12

Jumbo lump crab meat, cheddar cheese, chipotle sauce, jalapeno coleslaw

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O'Neil's
174 Grand St
New York, NY 10013
212-941-9119
http://www.onieals.com/

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