1796 Foods

804. Guotie/Pot Stickers

Cardiff has had a few new restaurants open lately, and luckily a lot of these have given us some great cuisines which were really pretty under-represented here before. We have a new Brazilian churrascaria which I’m dying to try, a new Bubble Tea bar  which I’ve heard is great, and then Double Super Happy, a new dim sum style diner. I’ve actually been twice since it opened - once for a dinner with friends, and once as part of a private party - and it was great both times. They have a super (double super?!) fun, neon, Japanese-style interior, and they have a great cocktail menu which can only be a huge plus for a restaurant as far as I’m concerned! I had one called K. L. Koolaid which was amazing - it tasted like a big glass of liquid cherry marzipan and I was in beverage heaven. 

The food is dim sum, with flavours inspired by various Asian countries including Japan, China and Thailand. They range from the traditional pork buns and pot stickers through to more fusion dishes like Thai sweetcorn fritters and grilled aubergine with sambal. Everything was great and it would be hard for me to pick a favourite, though I particularly loved the vegetable dishes. If I were a vegetarian (yes if, I can hear you all laughing), this would be a great place to go as I wouldn’t have felt like I was missing out at all by only choosing the non-meat items.

The one dish I tried for the list was the pork and chive pot stickers. These were pretty good pot stickers, with one lovely crunchy fried side, and one lovely soft steamed side, and the pork filling was juicy with a subtle but totally yummy flavour. 

804 down, 992 to go

803. Longan

Sometimes I eat foods for the list, and I find them totally enjoyable, but I wonder why they’re on there. This was one of those times. Not because longan wasn’t nice, at all, but because I’ve already had both lychee and rambutan, and honestly, they are all kind of the same. I think of the three rambutan edged out the others a little, so personally I’d choose to keep that on there but lose the other two. After all, spaces taken up by foods that are very similar to other foods are just taking up spaces from foods that are totally different. Like cinnamon buns. 

803 down, 993 to go

753. Mee Goreng

I must say, I do really like instant noodles. Not the crappy pot noodle/super noodle kind you get in a British supermarket, but the authentic ones you get in Asian stores. I’m normally used to the ramen-style noodles that you eat in the broth, but this mee goreng was designed to be quickly stir-fried in the sauce sachet. The flavour was lovely and spicy and the fried egg on the top was a really perfect accompaniment.

754. Kecap Manis

The sauce for the noodles included kecap manis which is a thick, sweet type of soy sauce from Indonesia. It was delicious, and I would love to get my hands on a proper bottle of the stuff as it would be perfect in a marinade for chicken.

754 down, 1042 down

699. Rogan Josh

A while back my family and I went to an Asian buffet restaurant. And by Asian I mean Asian. They had Indian food, Chinese food, Korean food, Thai food, Japanese food and probably a bunch more. There was so much I wanted to try, but I didn’t want to totally overload my plate so I got little tiny bits of everything. One of the curries I got was rogan josh, which is a lamb curry with a rich, red sauce. The meat was chewy (which is why I don’t usually ever order lamb curries unless I know the place is amazing), but the sauce was great.

699 down, 1097 to go

648. Nasi Goreng

At my old job, we had this range called Malay Taste which was a selection of spice pastes for making authentic Malaysian meals. One of the new additions to the range was a Nasi Goreng kit which contains spice paste, pre-cooked rice and dried vegetables. As there are so many varieties of nasi goreng (and because I don’t like prawns) I tried mine out with just chicken to create a basic nasi goreng ayam. Any kind of spicy rice always goes down very well with me, and this had that delicious sweet/salty flavour to it.

648 down, 1148 to go

546. Hot and Sour Soup

Back when I was still working, soup was always my go-to lunch whenever I didn’t have anything to bring from home. It’s healthy, easy and filling, plus I have a slight obsession with it which is probably bordering on adnormal. I would happily eat soup every day; I even like soup when the weather is really hot. I’m weird I guess.

I saw this Hot & Sour Soup when I was browsing the aisle at the supermarket and I figured I’d give it a try. It certainly does what it says on the tin. It was hot, and it was sour. What it wasn’t was particularly pleasant. Everyone knows that I am a little bit crazy about sour. As a kid I would eat a whole lemon as a fruit. I will still always pick sour candies over the regular version. I even love those super sour candies that are called ‘toxic waste’ or ‘pucker up’ or ‘tongue annihilator’. But sour in a savoury food? That’s where I’m not so sure. Eating what was essentially a bowl of chilli lime juice just seemed alien and wrong, and not tasty for sure. Perhaps a fresh, authentic bowl might be different, but I would need a lot of convincing on this one.

546 down, 1250 to go

421. Bang Bang Chicken

This was a bang bang chicken salad I had when I went out for dinner with a couple of friends to Giraffe. I love salads as long as they have lots of nice tasty bits like chicken and nuts and fruit and spices and noodles and herbs in them. Recently I have been eating healthy so I have been having quite a few variations on this theme.

421 down, 1375 to go

This was called Malaccan Chicken. I had no clue what that meant until I got home and looked it up and found out it was a Malaysian state. It had a lot of similar flavours to a Thai green curry - chilli, lime, lemongrass etc, but not as spicy and less coconutty. I tried to sit and write individual entries for each of the four ingredients that I ticked off with the dish, but other than saying how I get annoyed that turmeric stains your fingers and makes you look like a chain smoker, I couldn’t think of any anecdotes that were especially entertaining. The chef at the restaurant kept coming and talking to us as we were the only table left occupied at the time (it’s a small place anyway and they were obviously having a quiet night), and he insisted on taking a bunch of photos of us around the table, though we weren’t allowed to pose, we have to act natural like we were still eating, it was funny.

80. Bamboo Shoot, 81. Turmeric, 82. Kaffir Lime Leaf, 83. Jasmine Rice

83 down, 1713 to go