Ginseng Restaurant – Manuka – ACT – Australia – September 2016

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ACT, Australia, canberra, Chinese food, dinner, Ginsing Restaurant, Manuka

Another Chinese restaurant in Canberra

Married friends of mine have been going to Ginseng Asian restaurant for years and often enjoy a bowl of soup on a Sunday for lunch.  I had never been, so took a look at the menu on-line and saw there were many vegetarian options so I arranged a dinner outing with a few of my lovely friends; all I worked with in China during 2011-14.

It’s a very understated little restaurant which has been named Canberra’s best Chinese every year between 2004 and 2008.  It is quite small but does have an upstairs for dining.  We sat downstairs and ran into other friends of mine who also joined us for dinner.  Canberra is a small place so it’s often that you are out and about and will see people you know.

I ordered separately as my friends wanted to share meat dishes for both entree and main courses.  I ordered the vegetarian spring rolls with sweet chilli sauce which were ok…nothing special really; but still enjoyable!!

My five friends ordered the duck pancakes which came out ready made on individual plates and then another huge platter with more ingredients to make pancakes.

For main course, my friends ordered the prawn and duck fried rice with Thai chilli paste…

and the five spice prawns dish and BBQ pork.

They also shared the Shantung lamb with sweet soy sauce and Asian spices and the satay chicken and broccoli.

As I mentioned I had the choice of many vegetarian dishes so I decided on the five spice tempura eggplant and tofu, which was plentiful and a dish I did enjoy.

It was such a lovely casual evening and I enjoyed the ambience, service and the incredibly fresh food -enough to return again sometime.  Next time I intend to order the tofu and eggplant hotpot (yes… eggplant again – I think I could live on it).

Chengde (2) – Hebei Province – PRC – 2010

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Chengde, Chengde Mountain Resort, china, prc, Puning Temple, Putuo Zongcheng temple

Second day of a weekend in Chengde

Day two in Chengde started after an interesting Chinese breakfast…at that time before I actually lived in China, I wasn’t used to eating green vegetables and dumplings that early in the day, so I found it a little strange.  Over the years I got used to it when travelling…it’s healthy!!!

Our first stop was to the Putuo Zongcheng  Temple which literally means ‘temple of Universal Peace’ and was built in the 1700’s in the Qing dynasty.  It’s pretty close to the mountain resort I had gone to the day before and is said to be modelled after the  Potala Palace in Lhasa.

 

The front temple was constructed in the Chinese style, although the temple complex follows both Chinese and Tibetan architectural styles.

We were very fortunate to see the monks walking to prayer; very serene and wonderful to watch.

Along with being able to watch and listen to a local musical troupe…

Our next stop was to the Puning Temple which is literally the ‘Temple of Universal Peace’ and is a Buddhist temple complex also built in the Qing dynasty.

It really was such a treat to visit Chengde as the scenery was amazing as was the architecture and colours of buildings.

Our final stop was sledgehammer rock (or the thumb of God as it’s also known) which is more than twenty metres high and of course as my friends told me has entrepaneural Chinese selling little models at its base.

 

We took the cable car to reach the top which of course for me was pretty scary; really disliking heights!!

And then my friends walked along the wall to the rock but because it was so steep without any sides to the high walkway, I stayed behind and just viewed the rock from afar.

A fabulous weekend and one I always recommend to my colleagues who live in Beijing.

 

 

European Brasserie – Ainslie- Canberra – ACT – Australia – August 2016

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ACT, Australia, canberra, European Brasserie, Pulp Kitchen

Eating Dinner at a Local European Restaurant

About a ten minute drive from my home is a casual European Brasserie called ‘Pulp Kitchen’.  I had been there for breakfast once but never for dinner, so when a friend of mine invited me, I jumped at the chance.

There are both French and Italian influences on the menu and several vegetarian options. Chef also offers to make the meals vegetarian if asked –  which is great.  It was a special occasion so I brought a bottle of champagne for the three of us to enjoy.

To start off my friends enjoyed the thyme and garlic baked cheese (which was served hot) with sourdough.  My friend’s lovely young son Harry, who knows me too well, said to me that I couldn’t eat the dip because it contained animal-rennet cheese – lovely boy!!

My friends ordered the  beef tenderloin medallions, pommes frites (lovely way the French call ‘chips’ ) and béarnaise sauce and also the lamb rump, braised lamb belly with charred leek and pickled enoki mushrooms.  My friends absolutely loved their dishes. (Sophie you will have to tell me if these dishes are true French cuisine)

The meals were served with a fresh salad of rocket, pear and gorgonzola cheese with a caramelised walnut vinaigrette and a side order of fresh baby braised peas with bacon and lettuce was also ordered (delicious they said).

I ordered the garlic and chive Parisienne gnocchi with wild mushroom fricassee, porcini sauce and toasted pine nuts – it was cooked beautifully and so tasty.

And of course we ordered and shared a bowl of shoestring french fries with aioli.

There are many desserts on offer but as usual I had eaten too much so did not partake. My male friend ordered the deconstructed peanut butter mouse [he said it was to share with Harry but I think it was more for him], with caramelised bananas, chocolate crumb and blackcurrants.  A lot of restaurants these days serve the deconstructed dessert; I prefer when the dessert is all together really…I forgot to take a photograph of this one it was eaten so quickly…

Am sure I will return as it’s close enough to walk in summer and food is really good.

Chengde (1) – Hebei Province – PRC – 2010

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Chengde, Chengde Mountain Resort, Hebei Province, PRC China

First day of a weekend away to Chengde

Whilst I was studying Mandarin in Beijing in 2010, friends of mine invited me to a weekend away to Chengde to see the Imperial Summer Mountain Resort and its outlying temples, which is about a three to four hour drive from Beijing.  I thought this was a great way to see somewhere out of Beijing and escape the heat and pollution, so off I went with five others in a hired bus complete with tour guide.

We took lots of snacks on the bus as my friends already knew that the stop along the way would not have the sorts of delicious (unhealthy) snacks we we wanted (nor toilets I would use).  And along the way we saw many hard-working Chinese along the freeway, building or making goodness know what -but still working very hard!!

The Mountain Resort is a summer palace for the Emperor during the Qing dynasty and was built between 1703 and 1792 and took eighty-nine years to complete. The resort is ‘huge’…it’s as big as the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace combined. It’s surrounded by a ten kilometres long wall and covers 590 hectares.Emperors often spent several months a year at the resort to escape the summer heat in  Beijing and the palace area in the southern part of the resort was designed to resemble the Forbidden City in Beijing. It consisted of two parts: the front where the emperor received high officials and foreigners and the imperial family’s living quarters in the rear.When we arrived in Chengde we first taken to our hotel to check-in then after a quick lunch went to visit the resort.  We took a lovely boat ride along one of the lakes and enjoyed the surrounding scenery.  The boat staff were dressed in traditional Chinese clothing and parts of the boats were painted ’emperor yellow’.The resort is known for its seventy-two scenic spots which were named by two different Chinese emperors. Many of the scenic spots around the resort’s lake area were copied from famous landscaped gardens in southern China. For instance, the main building on the Green Lotus Island called  ‘Tower of Mist and Rain’ is modeled upon a tower in one of the lakes in Zhejiang Province.The resort also has a seventy metre tall stone Chinese pagoda, said to be one of the tallest in China and built in 1751. The pagoda is shaped with an octagonal base, while the pagoda’s nine stories are decorated with colorful glazed tiles and the steeple is crowned with a gilded round spire.After the boat ride we were given time to ourselves to walk throughout the grounds and the ruins of the palace.  A very beautiful place to stroll although because it was summer time and there were many parts of the grounds without shade, I found it pretty warm albeit not anything like the heat in Beijing.After a very long day, we returned to our hotel for dinner, followed by another day in Chengde which I will post on another time!!

 

 

 

Italian & Sons Restaurant – Canberra – ACT – Australia – June 2016

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ACT, Australia, canberra, Italian & Sons restaruant, Italian food

An Italian restaurant in Canberra, a little overpriced!

Italian & Sons  is a very small restaurant in one of Canberra’s new restaurant districts.  It came highly recommended to me but was rather difficult to find as the shopfront is very small and the signage is barely visible.

The restaurant offers traditional Italian dishes and you can start with antipasti, followed by a range of organic cured meats made to strict Tuscan specifications. Then onto the main meals which include braised lamb, swimmer crab with ink linguine and roast pork alla Romana; all dishes served seasonally using Canberra’s  local and organic farmers which is wonderful.

(source: http://www.dimmi.com.au)

There are only a few vegetarian dishes on the menu and all of them contain cheese of some sort [goats/reggiano/pecorini/buffalo mozzarella or buffalo milk ricotta] and with me not eating cheese unless it contains non-animal rennet, I was left with very little choice.

It is quite a sweet little restaurant and on this occasion, I dined with two of my girl friends; one I met in Beijing and the other I work with.  We try and catch up four times a year but usually manage only two, probably due to work commitments and just being busy with life.

My friends started off with an entree of lightly fried calamari with a parsley salad and a tangy aioli which they shared.  I decided on only having a main dish as I really couldn’t find anything on the entree menu I could eat.

For my main meal, I ordered the chestnut pappadelle topped with a little house smoked buffalo milk ricotta and porcine and portobella mushrooms.  The pasta and sauce was good and I enjoyed the meal without eating the ricotta cheese.  I do love pappadelle pasta!!

My friends ordered the suckling lamb with tomato and red wine ragu and the potato gnocchi with wild rabbit, pino grigio and rosemary ragu with pecorini.  Both meals they said were very good.

We took a look at the dessert menu and there were lovely things to eat, for example handmade pastries, tiramisu, cannoli, panna cotta and gelato.  The three of us decided not to order anything as of course we were all trying to watch our weight. And whilst our meals were filling, I thought $30 for a bowl of pasta was rather overpriced!!

After we left, I walked back to my car and along the way I saw the cutest little possum eating some grass.  It’s funny to see one so close to the city (about 1 km away) and also funny he/she didn’t move when I walked past; actually didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in me at all.

The possum is a marsupial species native to Australia, New Guinea, and Sulawesi (and introduced to New Zealand and China). The name derives from their resemblance to the opossums of the Americas and are typically nocturnal. Although opossums are also marsupials, possums are more closely related to other Australian marsupials such as kangaroos. (Wikipedia)

 

My Favourite Buildings in Hong Kong – SAR – 2010

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blue and yellow building, Hong Kong, SAR

So many interesting buildings to see in Hong Kong

In 2010, I lived in Hong Kong and on the weekends I loved to walk around Hong Kong Island and look at the wonderful buildings; not the modern ones but the old ones.  For some reason I just loved the residential buildings with the washing hanging from a rod out the window!!

I lived in Wanchai in a wonderful apartment overlooking Victoria Harbour which was next to the Hyatt Hotel – such a gorgeous place and wonderfully placed near the Star Ferry Terminal and also the MTR.  My views over the Harbour were spectacular, both during the day and at night during the ‘symphony of lights’.

Walking along the streets always gave me the opportunity to look up and see the very interesting and different buildings and the colourful signs.

But three of my most favourite buildings ever are ones that are brightly painted; one blue, one green and the other yellow.  I really don’t know why I love these buildings but every time I have returned to Hong Kong since 2010, I try and visit.

The blue building is called, not surprisingly, the Blue House and is a four-storey tenement block with balconies and located in Wan Chai. It has a lengthy history of tenants as it was the original site of the first hospital in Hong Kong then after the hospital was closed the building was used as a temple for a revered Chinese physician.

The building was demolished around late 1910s or early 1920s and was then used as a martial arts school in the 1950s and as an osteopathy clinic in the 1960s. And finally, it was  acquired by the Government in the 1970s, and the outer walls painted blue, and was thus named the Blue House.

The Yellow House is next to the Blue House and I don’t know the history of this building nor could I find anything about it but I do love it as it’s lovely and bright and looks wonderful next to the blue building.

And as for the Green House, it’s a block of ten tenement houses also located in Wan Chai. And again named from the colour painted on the external walls of the building. It is one of the few remaining buildings with a particular type of balcony in Hong Kong. The building was first owned by an American company and then used as a timber years, a boat building yard and then in the mid-1920s it was developed into ten tenement houses.

I never got tired of just walking around Hong Kong Island looking at buildings; there was always something different to see – families sitting out on balconies chatting, men smoking, washing out on lines or at night it was fun just to peek into windows and see people’s nightly rituals.

Of course some apartments were hard to look into as they were so incredibly tall and the windows so incredibly small…

But there was always a window to look into or a washing line to look at…

And of course one of the most iconic views of tall buildings in Hong Kong is from The Peak.  On a clear day the views along Hong Kong Island and Kowloon over the Harbour are just amazing.

And some other things I loved about Hong Kong was walking along Hollywood Road in Central and browsing in the both inexpensive and dreadfully expensive shops selling Mao memorabilia, paintings, and other fabulous things…and along the way checking out the various street sculptures.

I do love Hong Kong and this is just a glimpse of its fabulousness!!