Braised dried oyster with black moss – Hou Si Fatt Choy.

When I wrote about eating my last festive cuisine in 2005, I really though I would never get the opportunity to savour hou si fatt choy again. That was five years ago. From then till now, I have diligently maintained a low-protein low-purine and low-salt diet. At the same time, I perform the clean intermittent catheterisation on schedule and take Detrusitol as prescribed. Those effort has paid off. The deterioration of my renal function has stabilised.

For this Chinese New Year, Wuan and I decided to cook this auspicious dish. Most of the restaurants that we patronised for our Chinese New Year meals did not have it in their menus. We used the recipe as a guide but did not adhere to the portions strictly. After all, to me, cooking is not an exact science. As long as we get the taste right, a little bit more of this and a little less of that would not make much difference.

Wuan bought eight extra-large dried oysters, black moss and shiitake mushrooms from one of the Chinese grocery shops in Petaling Street. During one of our weekend grocery shopping trips, we bought a small bottle of oyster sauce and a bottle of thick soya sauce. The day before we were to cook the dish, Wuan bought 300gms of roasted pork belly and half a head of Chinese cabbage from the wet market in Pandan Perdana.

This dish is actually very easy to prepare. The only ingredients that need cutting are the Chinese cabbage, garlic, shallots, ginger and removing the stem from the shiitake mushrooms. Wuan got the siu yuk seller to cut the roasted pork to size. We used only four of the extra large oysters and added four smaller ones that she usually used for soups. The dish turned out nicely.

The intense aroma from the mushrooms and dried oysters that wafted from the kitchen made me salivate long before the dish was ready to be served. The mushrooms were soft. So was the black moss. Overall, we liked it very much. I am looking forward to the next Chinese New Year already so that I can get to savour this dish again. Below is the recipe we used for this time with some variations from the previous one. We hope you will enjoy it as much as we did. Bon appetit.

Hou Si Fatt Choy (Braised Dried Oysters with Black Moss)

3 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp thick soy sauce
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp corn flour
a dash of sesame seed oil

Heat oil and saute garlic, shallots and ginger until fragrant. Add oyster and fry for another 1 minute. Add shitake mushrooms, roasted pork and sauces and stir fry for another minute. Add water from that the shiitake mushrooms and oysters were soaked in. Cover the kuali and let simmer for about 30 minutes. Check occasionally to ensure there is sufficient gravy. When the mushrooms becomes tender, add corn flour to thicken the gravy. Add the black moss and simmer for another 10 minutes before turning off heat. Serve with rice.

It is a bad omen to be scolded on the first day of the Chinese New Year. That was exactly what one waitress at PappaRich got from me although I had tried very hard to restrain myself from doing so. Papparich is a chain of kopitiam-style eateries that serve toasts, coffee, other beverages and a wide range of popular hawker fare.

Wuan and I had eaten at the PappaRich outlets at Shamelin Square and The Gardens Mall at Mid Valley City. We liked the steamed bread with butter and kaya. The bread was soft and the kaya had a nice aroma that we both agreed was good. We were therefore pleasantly surprised and delighted at the same time to find out that Papparich has an outlet at the newly opened De Garden mall in Ipoh. De Garden is right beside Courts Mammoth and opposite Kinta City Shopping Centre.

We took her parents there for dinner on the first day of the Chinese New Year. Father in law ordered koay teow soup with chicken and iced white coffee. Mother in law wanted to try the curry laksa and apple juice to go with it. After they placed the orders, Wuan and I went to the washroom. When we got back, their drinks were already served. Wuan and I went through the menu as we had not ordered yet.

PappaRich roti stim with kaya and butter (double) at The Gardens Mall Mid Valley City.

I was famished and thirsty. I ordered fried rice with fried egg, steamed vegetarian pau and watermelon juice. Wuan preferred the dry curry mee with foo chok and hot lime barley. We wanted her parents to try steamed bread with butter and kaya, and ordered that as well. The restaurant was about three quarters full but the waitress was slow in coming to pick up the second order form from us.

After waiting for fifteen minutes, neither the food from the first order nor our drinks were served yet. We flagged down a waiter and enquired about our food. He nodded and walked off. A short while later, another waiter came to ask if we had ordered our food. We told him we had but it has been a while since and we were still waiting. He said it was coming without checking with the kitchen. He had actually wanted to take the menus from us to serve another table.

Another fifteen minutes passed. I was getting very thirsty and hungry and restless. We started to grumble. I caught the same waitress who took both our orders and asked her why it was taking so long. “A hungry man is an angry man,” I told her in jest and asked her to please check our order. She did not get back to us after that and continued to serve other patrons.

We all waited for another ten minutes. My stomach was already rumbling. As the same waitress walked pass, I told her if the food were not served in ten minutes, we would leave. She mumbled something and walked off. The last straw was when the couple from the next table who arrived much later than us were tucking away on their food. I decided not to wait anymore and asked for the bill from another waitress.

Bill and bad service from PappaRich De Garden Ipoh.

When the bill came, it was only for the items that Wuan’s parents ordered, including the food that were not served. The ones Wuan and I ordered were not in the bill. The same waitress whom I had enquired twice hurriedly came and proceeded to rectify the bill, cancelling the items that were not served. I scolded her there and then for making us wait in futility for almost one hour for our food.

I told her I would never eat there again and will tell my friends not to eat there also. All she could manage was to keep saying sorry. Wuan told her that we never had problems with the other PappaRich outlets in Kuala Lumpur. In the end, we paid for the two drinks that Wuan’s parents had and walked off to eat at the restaurant just beside it called the T.O.S (Taste of South). Service there was prompt. Our orders were served within fifteen minutes. Most importantly, the service staff were friendly and polite.

PappaRich De Garden Ipoh was a great disappointment. I would not have been so flustered had the waitress taken the trouble to check our orders with the kitchen, and if they were not in the queue for whatever reason, get the kitchen to prepare our food immediately. But no, this particular waitress and the others never bothered to rectify the situation despite several enquiries from us.

Having worked as a waiter in a 5-star hotel before, I can relate to what life as a service staff is like. For me to scold the waitress at PappaRich De Garden like that tells a lot about the level of service. The greatest mistake a restaurant can make is to allow patrons walk away hungry and angry. That is a surefire way to lose them permanently. PappaRich De Garden Ipoh certainly has lost me on that account.

Citibank ang pao – red envelope for the Year of the Tiger 2010.

In the olden days, ang pao were actually coins wrapped in red paper – the kind that leaves red stain on the finger tips when touched. I did receive a few of such ang pao when I was a kid. Those were given by the amah chehs – unmarried servants – who usually wore white top and black bottom sam foos. I still do not know the reasons why they gave out ang pao as unmarried adults are not obliged to do that.

HSBC ang pao – red envelope for the Year of the Tiger 2010.

With the easy availability of pre-made red envelopes, there is no need to get the fingers stained nowadays on the eve of Chinese New Year. That is usually the time when married adults prepare the ang pao by putting money into the red envelopes. The amount put in must be even. Odd amounts are considered inauspicious.