Posts Tagged ‘Chinese’

Local Hero #19 Mission Chinese Food

Monday, July 25th, 2011

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This may not make me any friends in San Francisco, but we’ve found eating out here a bit hit and miss. I think it’s great that the food scene is so vibrant and entrepreneurial, but it feels like too often that food takes the back seat over gimmicks, word of mouth and social media buzz (liquid nitrogen cooled ice-cream, anyone?).

If I’m honest, a lot of the places people rave about, we’ve just found a bit ‘meh’, and thus far, there have been very few places that have really blown us away. But Mission Chinese Food is one that we could eat at every week.

The guys who set it up used to go under the name Mission Street Food and (from what the internet tells me) were like high end food truckers, blending classical and modern culinary training with street foods from all over the world. Around a year ago, they decided to set up something a bit more permanent, and like a hermit crab set up in a shell of a former run down Chinese restaurant in The Mission, and Mission Street Food became Mission Chinese Food.

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Crispy Chinese Pork Belly & Garlic Soy Greens

Sunday, June 20th, 2010

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I love a bit of pork belly, but I don’t cook it at home that often. I’m not really sure why, but as soon as I taste that tasty, unctuous meat and get my teeth round that crackling, I vow to do it more often.

This recipe gives the belly the Eastern treatment using Szechuan pepper and Chinese five spice. Despite a lot of the fat rendering out during the cooking process, it’s definitely not the healthiest meat, but when it tastes as good as it does, who gives a toss.

Ingredients (serves 2)

For the pork

750g pork belly joint

1 tablespoon Szechuan pepper

1 teaspoon black pepper corns

1 teaspoon Chinese five spice

1 teaspoon sea salt

For the greens

200g baby pak choi

1/2 red chilli, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 tablespoon Light soy sauce

2 tablespoons water

6-8 Spring onions

Sesame oil

Vegetable oil

Method

First up, score the skin of pork belly all over in a diamond formation with as sharp a knife as you’re got. You want to cut through the skin, but not down to the flesh, around 3 millimeters deep.

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