Yum cha at The Eight, Market City, Haymarket Chinatown

Today is Chinese New Year eve and for many families that means a Reunion Dinner tonight. Families will reunite over a feast of dishes that are chosen for their auspiciousness. We'll be celebrating with long life noodles, whole fish for abundance and New Year cake for continued new heights. Homes have been cleaned, debts have been repaid and everyone will be wearing red for good luck.

The Lunar Festival runs for 15 days, culminating in the Lantern Festival. Across Sydney, there's an entire program of events celebrating the Lunar New Year, but I reckon yum cha is the easiest way to get into the spirit of things. Endless dishes wheeled straight to your table on trolleys? How can you go wrong?



In the city we often end up at The Eight at the top of Market City. It's the biggest restaurant in Chinatown, there's a broad mix of dishes and you should be able to eat here for about $20 per head. Occasionally there can be lulls in trolley traffic, so if you're in a hurry, try to score a table near the kitchen. Failing that, you can always flag down a supervising waiter to order your specific dishes - a trick worth deploying if you still haven't gotten hold of your favourite har gow prawn dumplings.



Har gow prawn dumplings

According to every Chinese mother, the quality of the har gow prawn dumpling is a litmus test for the rest of the menu. Har gow is the cornerstone of every yum cha house... if they can't get this foundation right, then there's little hope for everything else. Here they pass the test with ease: thin translucent skins, packed with generous chunks of prawn, and steamed till tender but not soggy.


Braised eggplant with fish paste

Yum cha with workmates usually involves a deviation from our standard family favourites. It's hard enough to find someone to share a serve of pai gwut fatty pork ribs, let alone a steamer basket of fung jao chicken feet with black bean and chilli. But it does mean a bounty of fried dumplings and other rarely ordered dishes landing on our table, including thick slabs of soft and sticky eggplant sandwiched around fish paste that has us licking our lips for more.


Vegetable dumplings

These vegetable dumplings were also new to me: a huddle of greens inside a glutinous rice dumpling that was stretchy and chewy, with a panfried crispy surface.


Cheung fun rice noodles with oyster sauce

Rice noodles are always a favourite. We had them stir-fried with oyster sauce on one occasion.


Jin cheung fun panfried rice noodles with hoisin and peanut sauce

But really you can't beat jin cheung fun, scrolls of rice noodles pan-fried until they brown to a satisfying crisp, then dredged across a saucer of sweet hoisin and a thick peanut paste.


Ja leung fried bread sticks in steamed rice noodle sheets

Ja leung is always worth seeking. It's a masterful combination of a freshly fried bread stick (also known as you tiao or yau ja gwai) wrapped in a freshly steamed sheet of rice noodle. The unlikely pair are what make this dish so enticing, the crunch of the donut against the silky slippery noodle, annointed with a sweet soy sauce and a sprinkle of shallots.


Fried whitebait

I don't think I've ever seen a kid resist fried whitebait, even though they may squeal in horror and/or delight at the visible eyes and tails. Actually I don't think I've ever seen an adult resist these either. They're way too crunchy to stop at one.


Fried prawn dumplings

Prawns always figure highly at yum cha. I had a friend with a prawn allergy who would always take a precautionary antihistamine just in case. The fried prawn dumplings hold a bounty of prawn inside the deep-fried purse, and prawn toasts are just as generous with the seafood, crusted with sesame seeds for nuttiness.


Prawn toast


Ham soi gok combination dumplings

Ham soi gok combination dumplings can be a bit hit-and-miss here. Occasionally they can be a droopy soggy mess but when they're fried at just the right temperature, these 'footballs' yield a crisp shell, a wondrously sticky and chewy that has a hint of sweetness, and a pocket of savoury pork mince with shrimp within.


Inside the ham soi gok combination dumplings


Wu gok taro dumplings

Wu gok taro dumplings aren't everybody's favourite but our family adore their feathery exterior. Inside is a core of seasoned pork mince wrapped with a dough made from taro and wheat starch. It's the presence of wheat starch that causes the pastry to puff, creating a delicate net that splinters into a cascade of crumbs with every bite.


Mango pancakes

The dessert trolley may be loaded with squares of wobbly coconut jelly, baked sago pudding and cups of bright orange mango pudding, but my workmates go nuts for mango pancakes, fluoro yellow crepes wrapped around sponge cake, fresh mango slices and lashings of fresh cream. Ok I go a little nuts for them too.


Daan tart egg custard tarts

Tofu fah is probably one of the lightest desserts you can order, quivering scoops of fresh tofu ladled out from a chilled barrel and doused with a sweet ginger syrup. At the other end of the scale are daan tart, or egg custard tarts. The pastry is light and flaky, filled with an eggy custard that glistens under the lights. Vegetarians should be aware that the secret to the flakiness of the pastry is lard.



2014 will be the Year of the Horse. Wherever or however you may be celebrating this year, Happy Chinese New Year!


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The Eight
Level 3, Market City
9-13 Hay Street, Haymarket, Chinatown. Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9282 9988

Opening hours:
Monday to Friday 10am-3.30pm and 5.30pm-11pm
Saturday and Sunday 9am-4pm and 5.30pm-11pm


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Rim Tanon, Haymarket Chinatown Sydney

Rim Tanon means street food in Thai, but don't expect just skewers or snacks at this newly opened restaurant in Sydney's Thai Town. What you will find are hefty portions at budget prices, and a slew of intriguing dishes not often found in Thai restaurants around Sydney.


Rim Tanon dining room

Rim Tanon takes up residence at the site of the former Chilli Cha Cha, right down the far end of Thai Town on the corner of Campbell and Castlereagh streets. On a Friday lunchtime, the place is heaving with office workers and Thai ex-pats.


Tum sua $12

Our waiter, Ben, is endearingly helpful, and happy to tell us all the dishes he considers unique or special to Rim Tanon. This leads us to ordering the tum sua, a variation of the popular som tum salad that Ben describes as "a bit of dog's breakfast really".

Som tum usually involves shredded papaya, green beans and tomatoes pounded together with dried shrimp, chilli, garlic, lime juice and fish sauce. This dish originated near the Laos and Cambodian borders and includes additions of kanom jeen fermented rice noodles, Thai eggplant, pickled river crabs, fermented fish paste, pork luncheon meat (much like what you find inside a banh mi Vietnamese pork roll) and pork crackling.

It's a wild mix of tastes and textures, with the traditional crunch of this salad softened by the slices of luncheon meat and the slurp of noodles. The Thai eggplant adds a slight bitterness and the crackling, doused in the sauce, are highly prized nuggets of gold.


Sa-tor pad goong $14

Sa-tor beans are known as petai beans in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. They're are also called stink beans or bitter beans around the rest of the world. Here the beans are stir-fried with long beans, prawns and a strong and fiery curry paste. On their own, the beans are horrifyingly bitter, tasting like an unripe fruit that lingers persistently on the palate. I've eaten petai beans several times in Malaysia but these ones are off the charts in comparative bitterness.

Their extreme bitterness is why petai beans are usually paired with strong flavours like shrimp paste or curry. The bitterness is much less discernible when eaten together with the curry, beans and prawns, and I find myself disturbingly drawn back to this dish again and again in fascination.


Yao-wa-rat noodle salad $8

Ben tells us that Rim Tanon offer two Hakka dishes which he's convinced no other Thai restaurant is doing in Sydney. Hakka are Han Chinese people, many of whom emigrated to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and Thailand.

The first one is a Kae noodle soup with fish balls and stuffed tofu but we skip this for the yao-wa-rat noodle salad. It's a huddle of slippery rice noodles topped with pork mince, tofu and dried shrimps in a sweet soy sauce. Do watch out for the slices of chilli scattered generously throughout - these are firecrackers that will leave your lips tingling. Push them aside and this dish goes from forehead-sweating-hot to a bearable medium.

Yaowarat Road is where you'll find Bangkok's Chinatown, and it's here where you'll find Hakka dishes like this one.


Sticky rice with mango $8

We finish up with sticky rice with mango for dessert, plump grains of glutinous rice drizzed with coconut cream and a cheek of fresh mango on the side. Throughout our meal, our waiter Ben has been pleasantly chatty and attentive, even telling us he has a food blog before I've surreptitiously brought out my camera!


Say cheese! Our waiter Ben wanted in on the photo action too

As I'm taking photos of the restaurant exterior after our meal, Ben suddenly runs outside and asks if he can be in the photo. Of course he can!


Rad na rim tanon $10

I feel like we've barely scratched the surface of their 66-dish menu, which is how I end up returning that same day for dinner, less than six hours later. Ben's gone home for the day, but another waiter is keen we order the rad na rim tanon, a house specialty which he assures us is tasty.

The dish doesn't look like much on the plate: rice noodles, a pork fillet cooked with garlic, stalks of Chinese broccoli and a fried egg, but mixed up together with the oyster sauce gravy and a runny egg yolk, it's a deeply comforting dish. It's the kind of homestyle meal your Mum might make when you're not feeling well, and you'll feel the better for it.


Yao-wa-rat noodle salad $8

I've brought along the G-Man, a Thai expat, for his expert opinion, and he's keen to try the yao-wa-rat noodle salad after hearing the waiter rave on about it too. He gives it a resolute thumbs up, declaring it deeply reminiscent of home. There's a great complexity to this dish, and by now I've learnt to flick the chilli slices aside, instead of eating them and feeling my brain implode from the heat.


Pad thai hor kai with prawns $14

So every Thai restaurant has pad thai on their menu but pad thai hor kai kicks things up a notch by enveloping this dish inside a thin omelette. The omelette is supremely thin, almost crepe like, adding an abundance of fried egg ribbons to your pad thai feast.


Chilli basil crispy chicken $14

We were tempted by the whole fried fish ($32), deep-fried so the head and tail curl upwards towards each other, but end up ordering the chilli basil crispy chicken. It's a mountain of tender fillets coated in a crunchy batter and then doused in a sweet chilli sauce littered with fresh basil. It's perhaps a little on the sweet side, but still dangerously addictive.


Sai oua Northern Thai sausage $10

The G-Man is impressed by the sai oua, too. It's a Northern Thai pork sausage that's punchy with kaffir lime, lemongrass, galangal and tumeric. Sweet, salty, spicy and sour, it's a party in the mouth - just the way I like it.




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Rim Tanon
40-50 Campbell Street, Haymarket, Chinatown, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9211 2025

Opening hours:
Open 7 days 10.30am-12.30am


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What to eat in Barcelona, Spain

Tapas. Sangria. Jamon. 

Everyday.

Repeatedly.

This is my favourite way to travel across Spain.

Do you remember my trip last year to Bulgaria? The organisers of that famil were happy to fly me home from anywhere in Europe, so considering I was already halfway around the world, I stumped up for a cheap flight from Sofia to Barcelona. My mission? To eat as much jamon as I could.


Bar Pinotxo at La Boqueria Market, Barcelona

As luck would have it, the now UK-based Minh was also in Barcelona for the weekend. Hurrah! We arranged to meet at Bar Pinotxo in the Boqueria Market for brunch.

To call Bar Pinotxo an institution is an understatement. This tiny 14-seater tapas bar has been trading for more than 50 years, serving up Catalan cuisine for hordes of hungry locals and tourists. There's never a quiet moment and rarely an empty seat. You'll have to hover behind patrons like a desperate seagull to be seated. There are usually mere milliseconds between one person vacating their stool and another person sliding in as a replacement.

At the helm of this iconic eatery is Juanita Bayen. Bayen, pictured above, is the owner and face of Bar Pinotxo. He's always behind the counter, always smiling and impressively efficient, taking orders, distributing plates and manning the coffee machine without raising a sweat.


The 14-seat counter

Bayen's nephew, Albert Asin, is the chef manning the stoves in the narrow kitchen. The kitchen runs about two-thirds the length of the counter. Diners get to watch all of the action from their stools.

There's no printed menu here. Everything is prepared depending on what's fresh and seasonal. Ask for a recommendation or do what we did, and point at what other people are having!


Croquettes

We start with croquettes, crazy hot and crunchy from the deep-fryer, holding three different fillings: olives; potato with jamon; and chicken.


Chipirones con Judias 
Squid with haricot beans

The guy sitting next to us was digging into this picturesque dish, so we immediately ordered one for ourselves. It is just as amazing as it looks, a huddle of plump tender haricot beans jumbled with the tenderest baby squid you could imagine.


Xuxos de crema Catalan pastry with custard

A couple of coffees and a xuxos de la crema tide us over until lunch. Xuxos would become a new obsession. It's a Catalan pastry, made from viennoiserie pastry that is filled with crema catalana, deep-fried and then rolled in sugar. Imagine a deep-fried flaky croissant stuffed with creme brulee custard and you're practically there. Glorious.


La Boqueria


Pine mushrooms

La Boqueria is the most visited attraction in Barcelona and with good reason. The covered market is a riot of colour and noise, filled with fresh produce, animated owners and plenty of hungry shoppers. The existing market was built in 1840 although various markets have existed on this site since 1217.


Bacalhau dried and salted cod fillets


Cigala scampi


Pipis


Olives


Menacing sharp-toothed fish


Crepe stand including Nutella crepes and jamon fillings


Carving jamon


El Xampanyet


Tapas and cava at El Xampanyet

This was my third visit to Barcelona but my first visit to El Xampanyet. This cosy tapas bar has been around since 1929, found in a small street not far from the Picasso Museum.


Entrance to El Xampanyet

We arrive exactly at midday - their advertised opening time - but the doors don't creak open until ten minutes later. By the time 12.30 hits, the place is heaving. The atmosphere is the best thing about this place - it feels like 10pm on a Saturday night inside with the happy chatter of people, clinking glasses and sprinkles of laughter.


Pintxos at the bar

There's no menu here either but you can have a look at some of the pre-made pintxos sitting at the bar. Our friendly waiter was also happy to provide guidance.


Cava Spanish sparkling wine

Getting into some cava, a Spanish sparkling wine, is mandatory. It's a light drink that's quite sweet but it goes brilliantly with the assortment of tapas that will march across your table. The special glasses are fun too - deliberately shallow. We order much more food than most other tables but our waiter barely raises an eyebrow.

And everything is delicious. We revel in the contrasts between sweet and salty, smoky and brined, crunchy and tender. The white anchovies are a highlight.

Potatoes with red peppers


White anchovies


Roasted red peppers with olives on bread


Tortilla Española potato omelette


Berberechos cockles


White asparagus

Not phallic at all.


Meson Errioxa


He doesn't bite

After a few hours on Barceloneta Beach (only a 25-minute walk from La Boqueria) we find room for more tapas. We settle into outdoor chairs with sandy bodies, windswept hair and thongs on our feet and knew that really, life doesn't get much better than this.


Pimientos de Padron fried green peppers €6.25


Padron peppers are amazing, like a young green capsicum kissed on a smoky grill. Occasionally you'll encounter a super hot one but we didn't come across any.

Chipirones fried baby squid €7.50

Chipirones, or baby squid, are coated in a thin delicate batter and then deep-fried until crunchy. A squeeze of lemon adds extra zing.


Calamares bocadillos €6.50
Fried calamari sandwich

And seriously this was the best calamari sandwich I'd find on my trip: tender rings of calamari in crisp batter, a squiggle of mayonnaise and a baguette that combines the right ratio of crusty shell with fluffy interior.


Around Barcelona


Narrow alleyways and tall buildings

Barcelona is a gorgeous city. Grand architecture mingle with narrow alleyways and there are barely any chain restaurants or fast food eateries to be seen. The main streets are wide and grand and I was deeply envious of all the bicycle lanes around the city too.


Freshly carved jamon with paprika and olive oil at an outdoor stall


Elaborate carvings


Outdoor barber at the Lost & Found Fashion Market on Barceloneta Beach


Browsing through records at the Lost & Found Fashion Market on Barceloneta Beach


Jug of white sangria €19.65

Post-beach refreshment at Xup Xup Restaurant right on Barceloneta Beach


Fresh fried churros at the street stall in Barceloneta


Pasteleria La Colmena


La Colmena

Tapas has to be balanced with dessert. I stumbled upon La Colmena Pasteleria and was immediately taken by its quaint shopfront. When a tour guide stopped here and gave a spiel, I realised it had to be of significance. La Colmena, I would discover, is one of the oldest patisseries in Barcelona, established in 1864.


Biscuits and meringues

Everything is old skool here, from the array of biscuits, meringues and pastries out the front, to the wonderfully wizened shop assistants inside.


Merenga de cafe €2
Coffee meringues 

I went straight for the lemon meringue, piped into a patty pan and much like a pavlova in texture and lightness. The marshmallow core was as soft as a pillow.


Merenga de limon €2
Lemon meringue


La Mercè

 2013 
Parade of Fire Breathing Dragons & Beasts
Passejada de dracs i bèsties de foc



Our visit serendipitously coincided with La Mercè, Barcelona's largest street festival held every year in late September. The festival honours the Virgin of Grace (Mare de Déu de la Mercè), the patron saint of Barcelona who is said to have helped Barcelona rid itself of a locust plague in 1687.

The Parade of Fire Breathing Dragons is one of the bigger events in the festival calendar. The streets are packed tight with families who watch the procession unfurl. Floats were interspersed with marching bands of drummers who created a carnival atmosphere with their infectious drumming and whistles. I was expecting perhaps a dozen floats at most but there must have been about 30 different animals, each huge in size, and lit with blazing butane flames.

It was a wild mobile party through the streets. Click on the Instavid for a brief video capture.











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Can Eusebio


Navajas a la plancha €3.50
Grilled razor clams 

The next morning, we had... tapas. We chose Can Eusebio randomly when we brokenheartedly discovered that our intended target, Quimet y Quimet, was closed. But you know what? As long as the place isn't shamelessly targeted at tourists, it's hard to find a bad meal in Barcelona.

The razor clams are superb, barely cooked and garnished simply with shallots and garlic. Morcilla blood sausage is intensely earthy, and although the fideua Valencian noodle paella isn't exactly my cuppa tea, it's an interesting variation on the usual rice paella. Two cups of cortado, an espresso shot cut with milk (cortado means cut) provide all the fuel we need to face the rest of the day.


Cortada €1.25


Tortilla espanola €3.50
Potato omelette with tomato bread


Albondigas tomate y patatas €4.90
Meatballs with tomato and fried potato


Calamares la romana €3.90
Calamari rings


Fideua €3
Valencian noodle paella

Morcilla de jaen €3.90
Blood sausage

Sardina plancha €3.50
Grilled sardines


Lizarran


Self-serve pintxos at Lizarran

When Minh and her mates headed back to Ol' Blighty I kicked around town on my own for another night. Lizarran is one of the few chain tapas bars you'll find in Barcelona. This successful franchise operation can now be found in North America, South America, China and Russia.

In any case, the bar wasn't intimidating for a solo diner, the food tasted okay, and I liked the easy pricing system here: €1.40 each for pintxos with a short toothpick, and €1.90 for anything with a long skewer. Dinner. Sorted.


Octopus with potato €1.90 
Jamon and croquetas pintxos €1.40 each


Tortilla espanola with jamon €1.40


Forn Pastisseria


Forn Pastisseria in L'eixample

On my last morning in Barcelona I hunted down one more xuxos for breakfast. Google research led me to Forn Patisseria, handily close to my hotel. There are three outlets across the city.


Xuxos Catalan custard pastry

The smell of butter and sugar hits you as soon you step through the doorway. I cradled the xuxos like a precious newborn to take back to my hotel. The pastry was flaky but soft, like a freshly baked croissant, and there was a generous piping of custard in the middle. Sugary lips were half the fun.


Ensaimada

And I couldn't resist an ensaimada either. This soft fluffy bun originated in Majorca but is now popular across Latin America and the Philippines. Traditionally this is made using a mother dough, flour, water, sugar, eggs and pork lard. The bun was as light as a pillow and faintly sweet from the snowstorm of icing sugar.


La Mercè 2013
Correfoc Fire Run



The night before I hung out to watch Correfoc or the Fire Run, one of the biggest drawcards at La Mercè.



I was early enough to catch the floats being wheeled into position before I staked a prime spot which necessitated standing for two hours until the event began at dusk.



Correfocs or fire runs are a key feature of Catalan festivals. Primarily they involve individuals dressed as devils who then light fireworks and run through the streets. The fireworks are set off from stakes held by people, or the animal floats which are spun around at great speed.

These are live fireworks, and often the spray of explosives will cascade onto the public. Apart from the start of the parade, there are no barricades to hold back the crowds. Festival guides encourage you to "wear old clothes in case falling cinders burn you" and "bring ear plugs for the noise". There is no way this event would happen in Australia or the US but I love that Spaniards uphold tradition and spectacle above nannying of the public.

It was wild, terrifying at times and definitely a night to remember. The Spanish really know how to party!


























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La Mercè is held every year in Barcelona in late September. September 24 is always a public holiday in Barcelona in honour of the city's patron saint La Mercè.


>> Read the next post: Goosefoot barnacles in A Coruna, Spain



Bar Pinotxo
Parades 466, Mercat de la Boqueria, Rambla, 91, 08002 Barcelona, Spain
Tel: +34 933 171 731
Open Monday to Saturday 6am-5pm

Can Eusebio
Vila i Vilà, 84, Poble-sec, 08004 Barcelona, Spain
Tel: +34 934 420 307
Open Monday to Thursday 7am-12am, Friday and Saturday 7am-1.30am

El Xampanyet
Carrer de Montcada, 22, 08003 Bareclona, Spain
Tel: +34 933 197 003
Open Tuesday to Saturday 12pm-3.30pm and 7pm-11.30pm; Sunday 12pm-4pm

Forn de Pa Pastisseria
Carrer de Girona, 73, L'Eixample, 08009 Barcelona, Spain
Tel: +34 934 874 390
Open Monday to Friday 7am-8.30pm, Saturday ad Sunday 8.30am-3pm

La Boqueria
Rambla, 91, 08002 Barcelona, Spain
Tel: +34 933 182 584
Open Monday to Saturday 8am-8.30pm

Lizarran
Carrer de Mallorca, 257, L'Eixample, 08008 Barcelona, Spain
Tel: +34 934 872 602

Meson Errioxa
Carrer de l'Almirall Churruca, 5, 08003 Barcelona, Spain
Tel: +34 688 379 864

Pasteleria La Colmena
Plaça de l'Àngel, 12, Barri Gòtic, 08002 Barcelona, Spain
Tel: +34 933 151 356
Open 7 days 9am-9pm

Restaurant Xup Xup
Paseo Marítimo de la Barceloneta, s/n, 08003 Barcelona, Spain
Tel: +34 932 240 353
Open 7 days 1pm-11.30pm


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