Lunar New Year - Hakka Dinner

As half-promised, here are the dishes from the New Year celebration with the Hakka Association. We gathered at the New Fortune Restaurant and sat in tables of 10. Each table was served the following dishes on the round table and we each got a serving of each. In the order of appearance/occurence:

Cold Appetizer (From Outside-In) - Sliced Cuttlefish, Pickled Cucumber, Beef, Pork, Jelly Fish, Pickled Cabbage and Carrots, Garnished with Chinese Parsley
Fried Shrimp Ball
Seafood Soup
Stir Fried Lobster
Roasted Crispy Chicken (not pictured because I wasn't there when it was served)

Roasted Pork over Chinese Broccoli
Sauteed Pork with Squid and Celery (aka Hakka Stir Fry)
Steamed Snow Fish (aka Cod)
Food art (aka I was bored in between dishes)
Sauteed Pork over Fried Egg Noodles
Sliced Oranges and Fried Nian Gao with Green Bean filling

Most dishes were authentic enough, some of the flavors could have been a bit better. This year most foods weren't too salty but rice still would've been a nice add-on. We have the same dishes each year just modified slightly. The dishes I wouldn't mind having again (and recommend) are the Cold Appetizer, Fried Shrimp Ball, Sauteed Lobster (without the shells!!), Roasted Pork over Chinese Broccoli and the Fried Nian Gao with Green Beans. At $25 a person, it's a pretty good deal to have such a wide variety of dishes!

Note: All pictures were taken on my Droid because I forgot to bring my camera!

Lunar New Year - Family Dinner

As a family, we always celebrate Lunar New Year. In the past, because of school, we always chose the weekend with the least amount of school activities/projects. Therefore, even though New Year isn't until the 3rd of February, we had our dinner last night. The Chorus Dinner is on the 5th so we chose an earlier week so we wouldn't be eating so much food in one weekend.

There is a tradition that for New Year's dinner you always cook alot more dishes than normal. You're supposed to eat a little bit of everything but never finish any dish. Leftovers are must because it means you will have leftovers the remainder of the year. There's always a fish, a meat, a soup and many fried foods and desserts. And of course, you can't forget red envelopes!!! We didn't cook as many dishes as we normally do in previous years. This year, everyone except me is sick on some level so we didn't prepare as many dishes. We typically have 2-3 more dishes, a shrimp dish, and exotic dish and another random dish. LOL.

From Left to Right: Radish Sticky Rice, Yucca Sticky Rice, Fried Yam, Red Bean Sticky Rice (Banana flavored) - I fried and arranged everything. ;)
Drunken Chicken Soup - this is a very different soup than our normal soup. Usually it's a mustard green soup but Mom wanted to change it up a bit this year.
Top Left: Mixed Vegetables with Fried Dough

Bottom Left: Chinese Broccoli in Oyster Sauce - this is a popular Cantonese dish

Middle: Steamed Flounder with Black Beans

Right: Sauteed Bamboo Shoots with Roasted Pork
Hakka Stir Fry - this was the last dish so it is taken by itself instead of with the dishes above.
And red envelopes! Ooh, there are extras!!! This year, every one received a "normal" New Year red envelope but also a "bonus" red envelope because I recently got a promotion and want to share it with my family. =)

If I take enough pictures next week, there maybe be another post for next week's dishes! =)

January 2011 dishes

I realize that January is not quite over but these are the dishes for the month of January, all but the first were made by me (though I know how to cook the first dish too).

Szechuan Fried Butterfly Shrimp - 2011.01.01
Salmon Fried Rice - 2011.01.03
Black Bean Pepper Salmon - 2011.01.05
Dried Shrimp with Vermicelli Soup - 2011.01.11
Spam Spaghetti - 2011.01.19
Black Bean Pepper Chicken - 2011.01.31

Michael's Pub (2009.12.28)

Over due pictures...here they are...This is the first of a series of restaurant.com outings.

Maryland Crab Soup

Beer Battered Fish (Cod I think)

These were taken from my Motorola DROID! Nice quality =)

Random meals I cooked in January...

Sauteed Gourd - 2010.01.11

Tomato, Scrambled Eggs and Frozen Tofu soup - 2010.01.18

Tuna Fish Burger Over Steamed Broccoli - 2010.01.25

Egg Drop Soup with Jalapeno Leaves - 2010.01.25
Note: This is how Egg Drop Soup is supposed to look (without the leaves), not the funky yellow stuff you see in carry outs. The Jalapeno leaves are from the jalapeno tree that I have, I picked the leaves that didn't look to old and threw them in the soup for coloring. Jalapeno leaves are used for medicinal purposes and do not have a strong taste.
Sauteed Napa with Chinese Sausage - 2010.01.26

Note: I have too much eggs int he fridge, hence so many dishes with eggs...this is not helping my cholesterol, I know, but I'm not about to let them go to waste!

If you want to know how to cook something, please ask me, I'm too lazy to type it all out, they're all really simple, I promise!!

Dinner Box from Bob's 66 (2009.05.09)

I think I complain too much about food that isn't homecooked. Well, here's another series. The dinner box was given to us so we didn't have to go out and figure out what to do for dinner before the concert. Everyone got the same thing, a mix of too many strange things, all bland but the bitter squash, which was bitter, so natural.

Going clockwise. Some kind of fish that was sauteed with bamboo and snow peas. Very bland and too fishy. Yellow pickle. Not my favorite food. Ground pork with lots of five spice over rice. Too much five spicy. Pickled green mustard. Tasted ok. Bitter squash with anchovies. It wasn't cooked long enough so it was a bit on the raw side, but the bitter squash was very bitter, excellent. Roasted Egg. Bland...I actually looked forward to eating the roasted egg we still have at home!! Finally bamboo tips with pork. Bland, once again. The bamboo itself was very soft and tasty. It is bamboo season!

I don't eat salty foods, so if I think it's bland, then it really has no flavor!!!

Homecooked Butter Fish and Lettuce (2009.05.08)

Who says you can't cook lettuce? One platter of sauteed lettuce, coming right up! Just add garlic, oil and salt to season. =)


Crispy butterfish where you can eat the whole thing but the spinal bones. It's rather tasty and only needs salt and pepper for seasoning. No batter is needed, just some oil and ginger! Piece of cake, right?

Homecooked Dinner (2009.05.07)

Crunchy anchovies with sesame sweet, lightly sweetened. Goes very nicely with rice. I usually don't eat stir-fried anchovies, however this time it was very crunchy, not hard like usual. it was very tasty, for once.


The matching soup for the anchovies was this "Korean-style" Spicy Seafood Soup. A seafood mix of squi, clams, shrimp and oysters. The veggies include tofu, onions, lettuce and seaweed. It's a seafood potluck. We use the spicy red paste seen in Korean stores. We bought a tub of it once when it was on sale and use it to make soups like this. The paste doesn't require other flavoring to be added to the soup because it contains everything you need for the soup base. The veggies and seafood adds to the taste of the soup.

McDonald's - Fish-O-Filet (2009.03.28)

"The Filet-O-Fish contains a battered fish patty made mostly from Pollock and/or hoki, half a slice of processed cheese and one ounce of tartar sauce made with dill relish, and seasoning on a steamed bun." (from Wiki) French fries provide a nice decor for the boring looking sandwich. Obviously this was from McDonald's.


Total cost: 1.19 + tax (this was a promotion that has already ended)