Like A Teapot

I have not been to my old favourite Vietnamese noodle house for a while, because the last couple of times I was there I found the service less good and their soup less tasty than when I first found them over two years ago. I went there again on Monday night because I was visiting the grocer next door and they do have a better price. I was disappointed again. They tried to cheat me out of lemon grass for my beef noodle soup and the soup lacked the usual flavour. Yet they were willing to spend money on a clean bun technology in the toilet. I was surprised at their deeds and suspected change of ownership. My suspicion was confirmed when I paid the bill. They said that happened a year and a half ago. Well, that explains everything. I will not visit them again, despite the heart-warming, bun-protecting technology they invest in. I will stick with another popular (busy) older noodle house and the new, more expensive one that I found last month.

Vancouver's Chinatown Summer Night Market is ongoing. It is a yearly commercial and cultural event, held to attract local residents and international tourists alike. It was originally conceived as an initiative to revive Chinatown. This evening was the second time I paid it a visit in the span of almost a decade. Like many, I had some apprehension over transportation. I had a hard time choosing between public transit and driving.

There is some distance between Chinatown and the nearest sky train (as opposed to subway, the train runs not only above ground but also up in the sky most of the time) station and I was not sure about walking the distance at night on my way home. China Town is also notorious for lacking parking space. In the end I drove all the way there just to save the headache of having to worry about return.

Since it was Sunday late afternoon, the traffic was not too bad. After a rather smooth local driving I got on a relatively new highway that runs along Vancouver's scenic Burrard Inlet. I had tried this highway once long time ago and forgot how wonderfully exhilarating it was to be driving on it. Most of the Metro Vancouver drivers use the mainstream Highway 1 to travel around BC's lower mainland and I was also accustomed to using that route. But where I am living now, it is less tortuous to use the (partially) scenic route and I need not compete with annoying big trucks. The disadvantage of using this route, however, is that the highway ends a bit early and there are many sets of traffic lights to deal with on one long stretchy street. The first time I used it I was so frustrated that I used Highway 1 on my way back.

Today, that long street was relatively empty, and I arrived at Chinatown in a peaceful mood. I also found a free parking spot after making a few turns. I only needed to walk two blocks to get to the night market. But I also realized that I had arrived at an awkward time, with all the permanent shops already closed and the night market stands just starting to make sales. Had I got there half an hour later, parking would have been a serious problem.

With that big problem (in my mind anyway) solved, my mood got even better. I had come to Chinatown with a mission - to take some pictures and find some cool stuff for a dear friend and his children.

(to be continued...)

I pre-cooked the rice porridge and stir-fried some lean ground pork with garlic last night. Today I mixed the pork with some spicy pickled vege in a heated pan, adding some maple syrup so that the pork gains some spicy flavour from the pickled vege and the vege itself is neutralized a little. I then cut a thousand-year-old egg (the yoke has turned dark green and the white transparent and dark brown) into small pieces and mix them with the stir-fry. I also added the yoke of a salted duck egg that was cooked with the porridge last night. I threw away the white of the salted egg because it is too salty.

A thousand-year-old egg is not really one century old; it is a fermented egg. When Chancellor Kohl of Germany visited Hong Kong in 1997 and was dined by the colony's last Governor Chris Patten, he would not touch it. Talk about being jaded.