This is my favorite pic in Cathy's wedding. She didn't spend money doing the salon style wedding pictures (The type the bride put on heavy make-up. My guess is that all little girls have the dream to become a movie star once in their life, wedding day of course is the best occasion to do it. Somehow that is very popular among Chinese newly weds). In her wedding, the professional photographer quietly standing aside clicking away his camera while everything is happening.
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After being very diappointed in the NanTin near Waterlooplein, I challenged another Cantonese DimSum restaurant at the edge of redlight district. Again, I have found a couple of victims from our project group (it is impossible to taste so many dishes by myself, besides, DimSum is not made for single diner).
I cheerfully rode my bicycle to Amsterdam on bright sunny Saturday morning, planning I am going to pick up 2 colleagues separately. As I rode long the road, listening to my favorite music, an old guy playing harmonica riding next to me. He started speaking to me while both of us stopped before the red light. Very cheerful person, explaining he is a street performer, on his way to the weekly practice session with his band. He kept asking how old I am. I told him I am almost 40. But he didn't give up, he proposed "I think you look 17 years old but if you are 40, maybe you should be a girl friend of a 60 year old guy like me". Great start of the day, I think I am getting a bit self-esteem back.
I had a great laugh. While we split, "Have a great weekend", I said, and kept paddling toward the city. I picked up Tom, who in turn gave me ried on my bicycle, when to pick up MengChain from his hotel, 3 of us heading toward the oriental city just before noon.
The restaurant is empty because we arrived literally the moment they opened the door. We were sat in a desk right away. The main waiter is obviously very experienced (and he is the only one responsible of taking orders, that's unusual in a Chinese establishment of around 80 or 90 sittings). But I hope he doesn't sweat that much.... He gave us the pot of tea with geniun tea leaves (Nantin only gave us the luke warm tea with tea bags in it). The dipping sauces were all correct, one of the traditional ChowZhou spicy chily oil and two of the Red sweet chilly saurce with yellow Cantonese mastard.
I was so hungry and everything looked so delicious, I quickly ordered the food. When the saute raddish cake came to the table, I knew I was in the right place. It was freshly made, crispy outside and tender inside. The Cantonese style sausages were thinly sliced and hidden, you only taste the flavor but not too much the grease. I was a bit mischievious trying to challenging Tom's bottom line(Tom is a white guy, not particularly having the adventureous attitude toward Chinese foods), I order the steamed chicken feet with spare ribs. That was unexceptionally good, we even got Tom to take one of these. The CheungFun was also made to the very good standard. Silky and tendor transparent sheet made of rice, carefully wrapping around the thread duck meat and scallion. Cooked oil and soy sauce dressing made it shiny. We all loved this dish (I only wish I can order one more). We happily chatted and ate (I guess only me, I am so easily excited by good food). After the food, though there were people queuing up, the head waiter replaced the tea leaves and gave us a fresh pot of tea. What a service! (Maybe it doesn't mean much in Western restaurants, but to money making agressive Chinese restauranteurs, this is very exceptional).
The food is not as good as those I had in Toronto or Hong Kong, in terms of the ingredients or the processing (attention to details), however, this is one of the best Chinese meals I have for ages.
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