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

788. Chinese Sausage and 789. XO Sauce

Let me start with the good parts about this meal:

1. It had a fried egg. You can never go wrong with a fried egg.
2. It introduced me to Maggi sweet chilli sauce which is a pretty nice condiment

789 down, 1007 to go

774. Fortune Cookies

Unlike in the US, we don’t really get fortune cookies in the UK. You certainly don’t automatically get them with Chinese takeout or at the end of a meal in a Chinese restaurant. So, I had to go and buy a big bag of them from the Chinese supermarket. It seemed a bit odd eating them as a snack, as even though they’re not a common British thing, it’s still very engrained in me (probably from TV), that a fortune cookie is just what you eat at the end of a Chinese meal. Obviously the point of a fortune cookie is more the fortune than the cookie, because the cookie itself is pretty bland, but they’re still a lot of fun. I was going to save my fortunes so I could write them up on here, but I forgot. Oops!

774 down, 1022 to go

771. Sichuan Peppercorns

Do you ever have those meals where you have this great idea and you think it’s going to be good but it all turns out to be a big disaster? Well that’s just what happened here. I wanted to make chicken en papillote with some spices including sichuan peppercorns, a cabbage slaw, and some mini roasties. The potatoes turned out fine, but everything else just sucked!  The slaw was bitter, and I think I must have used too many peppercorns on the chicken as it just tasted plain bad. Luckily I have another dish including them to make for the list so I have a chance to redeem myself, and hopefully find out that the peppercorns do indeed taste good!

771 down, 1025 to go

735. Apple Fritters

This was my dessert at the same buffet. I had an apple fritter, plus some jelly and fruits. I must admit, I do guiltily enjoy the idea of getting a healthy fruit, covering it in batter and deep-frying it, especially when it has delicious results.

735 down 1061 to go

733. Crab and Corn Soup

A little while back I posted some curry that I’d eaten at an Asian buffet. Well this was eaten at the same buffet too. I’m not sure why the picture is at a weird angle. Anyway, I started out with the crab and corn soup and I literally took one mouthful before I pushed it away. It was just awful. It tasted of neither crab nor corn, and the texture was just this sticky, glutinous mess. Yuck. Will not be trying again.

734. Lemon Chicken

The lemon chicken was vastly more successful. The crispy battered chicken paired with the sweet lemon sauce was a yummy combination and was a great additional to my little platter of assorted appetizers.

734 down, 1062 to go

729. Oyster Sauce

I get a bit bored of having sandwiches for lunch sometimes, and I even get a bit bored of having soup for lunch sometimes, so occasionally I end up making random combinations of stuff that I just happen to have hanging around the house. On this day I cooked some noodles, then stir-fried them with some soy sauce, oyster sauce, spring onions and an egg. I never quite understand oyster sauce because it tastes nothing like oysters, but it does add a great flavour to Chinese dishes.

729 down, 1067 to go

601. Yellow Bean Sauce

This blog has totally changed the way I look at takeout menus. I used to look and see what I fancied. Now I look and see what I could eat that would tick an item or two off of the list. On this occasion I found chicken and cashew nuts with yellow bean sauce. I love chicken and cashew nuts so this was kind of the best of both worlds. I wasn’t so convinced about the yellow bean sauce though. It was kind of like black bean sauce, but just not as good. It seemed like black bean sauce’s wishy-washy cousin. Not bad, not good, just meh.

601 down, 1195 to go

564. Baby Squid and 565. Fen Si (Glass) Noodles

So ok, this clearly isn’t a picture of squid and noodles. I’m sorry. I don’t even know why I didn’t get a picture of what I was actually supposed to be taking a picture of. Obviously I just sucked that day. This picture is from the same meal though so I can just about count it. These are actually curried duck buns and were freaking delicious, so I think these should be added to the list anyway. We had a whole load of dim sum dishes for a birthday lunch, including salt and pepper baby squid and some vegetable dumplings which were served on top of spicy glass noodles. Squid is one of those weird foods that can be amazing or awful. Personally I much prefer salt & pepper squid to calamari as the spices add so much and I also find it seems to have much less margin of error. I don’t think I’ve ever had bad salt and pepper squid, I can’t say the same thing about calamari.

565 down, 1231 to go

393. Spring Rolls

Chinese takeout is not complete without spring rolls. Fact. Frankly, they’re not even that amazing tasting, I think it’s mostly the crispy outside. I can’t really think of anything else to explain it. On this occasion I actually ordered Thai food but I still had the spring rolls anyway. I went with a Thai mussaman curry, which is my favourite kind; it’s kind of creamy and has potatoes and peanuts in it. It’s still made with 394. Coconut Milk like other Thai curries.

394 down, 1402 to go