Eating at a dai pai dong is an interesting and fun experience

What is a dai pai dong?

Dai pai dong are located at street levels, with quite often tables set on pavement (particularly in the evening), or indoor in cooked food centres (like the one in Tai Po Hui Market I am going to talk about.) 

Cooked food centres are rather crowded and noisy places. The stalls are close to each other and the tables (also side-by-side) all look alike. You’d better check that the table you want to sit at belongs to the dai pai dong you have chosen.

Note: The Cantonese pronunciation (Yale Romanization) is daaih-pàaih-dóng - 大牌檔 - literally means: big licence stall.

Sweet Potato / Yam and Sweet Soup

This is the season of sweet potatoes (or fàan-syùh 番薯 in Cantonese) and thus the time to make sweet soups with them. Fàan-syùh tòhng-séui* in Cantonese (番薯糖水) is my favourite sweet soup: it is made with sweet potatoes, ginger, and raw cane (蔗 – je, in Cantonese). I love the strong spicy flavour of ginger and the soft texture of the root.

* tòhng-séui 糖水 (lit .sugar-water) is both the name for simple syrup (sugar syrup) and sweet soup.

Sweet potato sweet soup

Flowering Chinese Chives / Garlic Scapes

I had stir-fried garlic scapes at one of the dai-pai-dongs in Tai Po Hui Market Cooked Food Centre (the latter will be the subject of another post) last weekend.

Flowering Chinese chives (also called garlic scapes) are called gáu-choi-fâa (韭菜花) in Cantonese. They also go by the name of syun-mìuh (蒜苗; lit. garlic sprouts / shoots) and syun-sâm (蒜心; lit. garlic-heart).

This summer vegetable (which blooms late in the season) is commonly found at wet markets (but hardly ever at supermarkets). I seldom cook it (there is no special reason - only that maybe I forgot about its existence) so I was very happy when the waitress listed it among other few vegetables available at this time of the year.

Hong Kong's Dried Food

It’s definitely feeling like autumn now.  The air is crisp early in the morning and late in the evening and the weather is hot during the day but dry. It’s the perfect weather for hiking and drying food.  

Last weekend when hiking I saw many different types of foods left drying in the sun. As you know Cantonese use a lot of dried produce in their cuisine: fruits, vegetables, plants, seaweeds, fish, nuts, pulses, etc. and of course fish and seafood. The common method for drying food here doesn’t require any dehydration equipment. It is not surprising to see food drying in the sun on the crowded pavements of busy districts, for example in Sheung Wan which is famous for its numerous shops selling dried seafood products.

Taipei Zhongshan Market

If you are familiar with my blog and previous posts you already know that I love wet markets, their colours and atmosphere. Whenever I am visiting a new town or new country I need to find out what produce is being sold and how it is displayed (and sometimes like to compare prices).

Recently, while I was in Taipei (Taiwan) I visited Zhongshan market which is a few minutes walk from Zhongshan MRT station.

Zhongshan market

Papaya - muhk-gwâa - 木瓜

This is the papaya season in Hong Kong and I bought a large unripe fruit when I visited e-farm last week to make a soup  (to view my post on the visit- click here>>>.)

A good news: if you want to try to make this soup or another variation you don't have to go to the New-Territories as many local farmers are selling their organic produce at Island East Markets (IEM) on Sunday in Quarry Bay.

Teresa – owner of e-farm (an organic farm) at IEM

E-farm – 川上農莊 : a local organic farm

E-farm or chyûn-seuhng nùhng-zhông in Cantonese (川上農莊lit: river-up/above- farmstead) is an organic farm located in Fanling in the village called Hok Tau Wai 鶴藪圍 [lit: crane-marsh-walled/encircle].

I met its owner, farmer and educator, Teresa, a lovely lady at Island East Markets’ happy hour at the end of August. Teresa kindly proposed to bring me to visit her farm and this took place last Wednesday.

Here is some info I’d like to share on this organic farm and its owners who are growing healthy produce for us to enjoy.

Teresa at IEM on 30/09/12