A double-entendre dinner

I love puns and word play almost as much as I love hot food. So what better place to bring the two together than the Spicy Joint restaurant?

The Sichuan style Chinese restaurant offers an attractive menu, in every sense. There are lots of really interesting sounding dishes, large attractive descriptive photos and – best of all – oodles of fabulous mistranslations.

Things get off to a great start right inside the front cover with “hand exhausted bamboo”. The unintended pun gets a visual boost with an accompanying photo depicting a purple, phallical bamboo shoot rearing out of a pool of chilli sauce, its assumedly hand exhausted brethren lying wan and peeled in neat stacks alongside.

I first ate at the Spicy Joint a couple of weeks ago with Lindsay and Freeman. We decided to go for peculiar rather than punny dishes, so ended up eating things like spicy chicken gizzards. Everyone I’ve told about this dish has replied “Eeew!” For the record, chicken gizzards are not even remotely hideous. They have a firmish texture and taste like chicken. Funny, that.

The nearest we got to word playing with our food was “doll cabbage” - vertically sliced Chinese cabbage hearts in a tasty sauce we suspected may have had more than a passing acquaintance with Cambell’s chicken soup. I’m not sure how they came up with the “doll” bit; I guess it could’ve looked a bit like cooked doll torsos if you squinted at it with your eyes out of focus.

But then again, maybe not.

I came away from the lunch with my usual buzz of pleasure at having just eaten an interesting and delicious meal. But this time the buzz had a certain edge. I just HAD to return for some more enigmatic eating.

As luck would have it, my friend Janelle phoned for a catch up the next day and I had no trouble persuading her to be my dinner partner in crime.

Bacterial dish Dinghu style

We decided to order four dishes and I got the ball rolling by choosing “bacterial dish Dinghu style”, a delicious medley of reconstituted dried mushrooms cloaked in a very savoury sauce.

Tempted though we were to order “sheet iron black pepper cow” and “sheet iron sleeve fish”, we could guess what they were and had eaten them before, so we passed them by.

“Chicken knee soft bone” sounded a bit cartilaginous for our tastes, so we bypassed that one too. In the end, two unusual sounding but competently translated dishes got the better of us.



Hot and sour fern root noodles

 “Hot and sour fern root noodles” were grayish spaghetti-like noodles (made, according to the waitress, with some kind of vegetable root powder) and served cold in a hot and sour sauce. It was spectacular!

“Cordyceps flowers” are, I think, actually dried shredded tiger lily buds. They were tossed in a light sesame flavoured sauce and served cold on a bed of julienned cucumber. Tasty!




Cordyceps flowers

 Our final dish was something a little more mainstream (sorry to disappoint you): "Sauteed duck, Sichuan style". Nice enough.

But my quest isn’t over yet. I’ll be back, and top of my list will be “Braised gusteau in stockpot”.

Gusteau? I had to Google that one, to rediscover that the recently deceased Chef Auguste Gusteau was Remy the rat’s idol in the movie Ratatouille.

I can’t wait to find out what the Spicy Joint has done with him.

Spicy Joint Restaurant
533 Dominion Road
Balmoral
Ph: 623 4938

Open for lunch and dinner.

Cheap thrills

I’ve developed an obsession.

The centre of my attention has a cheerful, pert and beguiling appearance that belies an incredibly firey personality. It’s a quality I find incredibly attractive - even irresistible.

My obsession causes me lots of pain, and provides even more pleasure.

Why is it that I just can’t get enough of chillis?

While many people run a mile at the mere hint of spicy food, I’m one of the world’s fortunates who gets a real buzz out of eating it.

Apparently chilli's active ingredient capsaicin triggers an endorphin release to counteract the burning pain, resulting in something akin to a runner’s high. I used to get a gym goer’s high in my younger, blobbier days. But now I’m older and fitter, I have to resort to more extreme, Scoville unit loaded measures in order to keep it legal.

Eating strongly spiced food always makes me feel incredibly happy and content, although that’s not always the case the next morning.

I’m naturally keen to try as many of the world’s spicy cuisines as I can lay my tongue on, and have eaten my way through all of the obvious suspects.

I had, however, never heard of the Hunan cuisine until I read Fuschia Dunlop’s brilliant, hilarious book “Shark’s fin and Sichuan pepper: a sweet and sour memoir of eating in China”. The Englishwoman lived in China for a decade, being the first Westener (and I think the first woman) to serve an apprenticeship at a Sichuanese cooking school.

She also wrote Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province, a book I've put to good use. Like Sichuan food, Hunan cuisine uses liberal amounts of chilli but in greater, less diluted quantities.

Even though I’d eaten Hunan food I’d cooked myself, I hadn’t found it in any Chinese restaurants. So it was with great excitement that I recently learned of a small place in Balmoral that has Hunan options on its menu.

My brother Brodie was keen to give it a go, so off we headed to Wu Han Restaurant one evening.

Nobody in the restaurant knew us, or even cared, giving us license to be as greedy as we pleased.  So we ordered four dishes and rice between the two of us. Here’s what we ate:

Sweet potato cakes – mild fritters made of diced, boiled kumera and batter. Even my kids would like these. We spiced things up by saucing them with one of the resident condiments.

“Greedy fish” – a whole deep fried snapper smothered in a mountain of chilli: preserved (red and green), fried whole dried ones, bits of chopped fresh ones. Yum, yum, YUM!  It was not nearly as hot as one would suppose but eating it still gave me a real buzz.

Beef soup – hot and tasty but extremely oily. Apparently Hunanese use a LOT of oil in their cooking; they should be the size of houses.

Hot, sour cabbage with, you guessed it, lots of dried chilli. Crisp, crunchy, hot, acetic, salty, tasty, utterly moreish.

It all tasted so good that we ate until we almost burst. All for $52 - $28 of which was for the snapper.

At the end of the meal I was so full I could hardly stand up. I suggested that Brodie carried me out to the car but, in true brotherly fashion, he declined.

Friday-itis philosophy

All day I've been fighting an internal battle - succumb to my creative urges, or earn a living. The living bit got a half-hearted look-in for a few hours but it's now 15:45 on Friday, wine o'clock looms and I've completely exhausted the smidgen of work ethic willpower I'd managed to muster.


Readers of my previous blog will be hugely relieved (weak pun intended) to know that I avoided the effects of a Wood Apple Aftermath. Phew! I'm now going to shift the focus northwards to a more cerebral contemplation.


Many of you will be familiar with my Fire Eaters club. People come along for all sorts of reasons. Some, like me, have partners who don't like spicy food, while others luxuriate in having all of the decisions made for them. Others simply enjoy the company. But I suspect many people's motivations actually lie deeper still.


One of my fellow Fire Eaters put his finger on it recently when he admitted to feeling intimidated by some ethnic restaurants - especially those that only make a cursory (or non-existent) nod to the English language and / or aren't patronised by Kiwis. I know exactly what he means.


Yet this uncomfortable experience provides a really interesting insight into what life must be like for many new immigrants.


I admit to sometimes feeling annoyed and keeping my distance when I perceive a restaurant to make no effort to include the local yokels. A couple of recent experiences have, however, reminded me of the value of keeping an open mind, feeling the fear and crossing the threshold anyway.


After all, what's the worst that could happen? Well, I can think of a few things actually. The potential for inadvertently ordering Dog Intestine Surprise, or encountering a rancid restroom quickly spring to mind. Let's not even think about the left hand thing.


For months I'd unsuccessfully sought out a Sichuan restaurant that wasn't beset by a D food rating and / or damning restaurant reviews. Just before Christmas I lunched with some friends, one of whom is Chinese. We decided to head for the Asian restaurant strip in the Balmoral Shops and get inspired from there.


The first place we happened upon was a restaurant I'd noticed on several occasions and been intimidated by. There is zero English on the signage; ditto on the menu written on an internal wall.


I'd never been inside.


"Look, there's a Sichuan place!" enthused my Chinese friend, so we all trooped in. The food was delicious: spicy hot, tasty and cheaper than chips.


It transpired they had English language menus hidden down the back. Not that anyone could tell me me what "Speculation Over Flour" was. Shame, because I would have ordered it had it passed the pork offal / any-kind-of-brain screen test.


Emboldened, I've returned on several occasions - sometimes without even so much as the kids for protection. I even ended up holding my most recent Fire Eaters there. I called by there at lunch today for a $5 bowl of Dan Dan Noodles (absolutely delicious, I'll regale you with the details another time).


As I leave I usually see the (non English speaking) chef taking a quick break at a side door. We never exchange words, but he always gives me a smile of recognition and I give him a thumbs up.


Now what's so scary about that?

An improbable lunch

I'll bet I'm the only person in New Zealand (and possibly the world) who ate shark and choko surprise for lunch today.

Once a week I employ the cleaning services of a wonderful Chinese woman, Lily. Like me, she loves food. From time to time she brings me yummy Chinese delicacies, such as a soupy fermented rice dessert (deliciously refreshing in summer). I respond in kind with Kiwi delicacies, such as mince. Lucky Lily.

She has a prolific choko vine and, like most choko vine owners, takes any opportunity to offload its multitudinous offspring onto unsuspecting victims. Be warned, accepting the offer of "some chokos" is likely to result in a fridge-filling gift along these lines:

















Chokos are, Lily informs me, wonderful when cooked Sichuan style with chicken. Here's her recipe (I'd imagine these quantities are sufficient for two people):


Lily's Sichuan style chicken and choko


1 dsp Sichuan peppercorns

1 tbsp Sichuan chilli broad bean paste

Chicken wings

Peeled, diced choko

Salt, to taste.


Heat oil. I'm not sure how much - maybe half a cup?

Add Sichuan peppercorns and fry a little. Then add bean paste and fry 1-2 minutes, until the oil is red.


Add chicken wings and stir-fry about 20 minutes, or until nearly done. Add a little water if it's drying out too much.

Add diced choko and cook until ready. Add salt to taste.

I got her to write the name of the broadbean paste in Chinese, which was a good idea because I'd never have found it in my local Chinese supermarket otherwise. Here's what to look for (the brand is Pixian):






















I couldn't face the thought of anything sandwichy or ricey for lunch today, so decided to give Lily's recipe a go. Not wanting to spend 20 minutes frying chicken wings, I bought a fillet of lemon fish (aka Shark) and used that instead (adding it after the choko).

I wasn't entirely sure how much of the hot, salty broadbean paste to use, so erred on the side of caution. Note to self: next time amp it up with more Sichuan peppercorns and broadbean paste.

I also added some soaked rice vermacelli 'cause I like my carbs! The resulting lunch was lovely and I'll cook it again.

A weird and wonderful week

On Friday evening it dawned on me that my week-long 'never before eaten' challenge was over.

What a weird and wonderful week it has been. My mother thought my challenge was a really naff idea and couldn't figure out why I'd want to do such a "stupid thing". Call me contrary if you will, but I've loved (almost) every moment of it.

The week's highlights included:

• The challenge itself. I love new experiences and I love food. What more can I say.
• Sichuan food, even if we did potentially dice with death (or at least a dose of food poisoning) in the process.
• Being brave enough to eat chickens' paws, after decades of avoiding them. They're actually okay, if one avoids thinking about chicken leg skin. I'll eat them again.
• Watching the cat flee from the turkey spam (sorry Phoebe). See, I told you it was awful. And yes, I did give her something else for dinner that night.

Low points included:

• The flaccid, disappointing Indian lunch on the final day. I felt queasy all afternoon.
• My turkey spam, canned carrot, energy drink and chocolate breakfast cereal lunch. Ditto.
• Recurring thoughts of goat brain curry masala.

Perhaps the best outcome is that I've discovered that I enjoy blogging. I'll continue trying new food experiences, albeit less regularly than daily, so keep tuning in for the latest in Anna's Food Safari!

A nutter...and proud of it

Back in the 'eighties a friend told me about a (Kiwi) flatmate who cooked and ate chickens' feet. At the time New Zealand's population had very few Chinese and the concept of eating chickens' feet was virtually unknown.

I recall being utterly horrified and commenting that only a nutter would eat something so repulsive.

Well, never say "never" (unless it involves eating brains). I've had many an opportunity to eat chickens' feet over the years but have never been tempted. Until now. What has this food challenge done to me?

Last night my brothers Brody and John, and my adventurous 11-year-old son Kieran, headed to a Sichuan Chinese restaurant to see what culinary challenges we could confront. When I say "we", I exclude John, a most unadventurous eater. He stuck to spring rolls.

The menu offered plenty of wonderful potential to try new things. We had to rule out a few though, such as sea cucumbers (advance notice required, otherwise I would have eaten one - honest!), and a variety of pork lung/intestine/squidgy bit dishes (I don't like pork).

To get the ball rolling, I bought a bottle of Tsingtao beer. I've never before tried Chinese beer and found Tsingtao to be very light (in all senses, including 2% alcohol) and not very bubbly.

Rating = 5

Now for The Business. I honed straight in on "hot and sour chicken paws". Chicken PAWS? How could I resist? (Quite easily, really.) But I didn't. The hot and sour chicken paws were actually cold, hot and sour. i.e. refrigerator cold, accompanied by salty vegetable chunks, some pickled chillis and a light vinegary sauce.

Thank God they'd trimmed the claws off and cut the paws into bits so you could almost pretend not to notice what they really were. Could I eat one?

Yep. They were okay, quite bony with gelatinous skin. Chickenish tasting. I wasn't nearly as freaked out as I though I'd be - probably thanks to having consumed turkey spam the day before. Not much could be worse than that. I think the chicken paws would have been nicer if they were heated. Brody reckoned they should have been accompanied by a dipping sauce.

Rating = 6

Next up was a classic Sichuan dish, Chongquing fried chicken. Sichuan food uses lots of chilli peppers and sichuan pepper, which has mouth numbing quality and this dish had loads of both.

Nestled amongst vast quantities of fried dried red chillis were tasty nuggets of slightly lemony tasting fried chicken, accompanied by deep fried peanuts. Yum, yum, yum.

The dish was very spicy hot from the sichuan peppercorns, which made my mouth and lips go quite numb and tingly. Impressive!

Rating = 8

I didn't eat any of the chillis because I assumed they were there to lend flavour, rather than to be eaten per se. Imagine the next day's after burn if one did consume them all. We reckon there must've been the equivalent of about 100 chillis in the dish! Here's what was left after we mined out all of the chicken:

One of the other dishes we ordered, scallop and egg custard, was a nice foil to the chicken. This savoury steamed custard, studded with dried (?) scallop and scented with sesame oil came in a cute bamboo serving dish. It was lovely, albeit a bit salty.

Rating = 8

We finished the meal with a light, soupy fermented rice dessert. I thought I was ordering something previously untried but when it arrived, I realised that my Chinese cleaner has given me a similar type of dish in the past. Her (home made) version is, I think, nicer than the one we had at the restaurant. The restaurant one was refreshing, but too sweet. It should have had more of a sour tang.

We all enjoyed our meal until Brody insisted upon getting the restaurant owner to reveal the restaurant's food hygiene rating (which suspiciously had a plastic bag taped over it). It was a 'D' (i.e. the restaurant is one step off being closed down because of poor food hygiene standards).

Eeek. Wish us luck.