I love my folks and visiting them always includes many foodie highlights. This visit up, my mama taught me how to make zhongzi, also known as rice pyramids, Chinese tamales, glutinous rice cakes and glutinous rice tamales. Zhongzi is traditionally eaten during the Dragon Boat Festival (Duanwu Festival 端午節) period, which falls on the 5th of the 5th on the lunar calendar. This festival commemorates the poet Qu Yuan 屈原. [...]
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Another Foschini Group feature with Balanced Life May 2012. In this feature, I chose 4 recipes from my blog. Styled by myself and the magazine’s art director: Lesley Mallon Photographer: Greg Cox Pickled cherry Tomatoes with Chinese cured Plums Chicken fried Rice with ginger and sesame oil Chinese Egg Pancake Roll 蛋餅 Taiwanese Cucumber Salad Read the digimag here. Tweet
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Finding a “the best of” restaurant is not exactly the easiest task, especially if it’s a more “generic” menu item like steak, ribs, schnitzels etc – everyone has their own opinion and most restaurants offer those meals. Now, Margaritas is a steak and seafood house where I’ve been eating, with my family, for almost 10 years now. Margarita’s was my very first experience of western fine dining and has been [...]
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For the past few days, waking up has been more difficult than usual with winter creeping up on us, and I think back about my most fond food memories. My ultimate favourite winter dish is my papa’s Sauteed sliced Lamb and Chinese Spinach in Chinese BBQ Sauce with rice dish. When my papa used to make it, this belly-warming BBQ lamb and Chinese spinach swallows the whole house in its heavenly fragrant [...]
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After having read several reviews on this burger joint, Jean and I decided to get involved and visit The Dogs Bollocks Restaurant in Cape Town. Most of the comments pointed out that this spot is unpretentious, with affordable wine, has a relaxing atmosphere and has the best burgers in town. We missioned to The Dogs Bollocks and even though it was a bit hard to find the location (simply because [...]
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The Earth Fair Market in Tokai, Cape Town is located at the Builders Warehouse, being the ideal location for a market on that side of the city. This market also trades in town at St. Georges Mall, a beautiful strip through the city centre, which I’ve previously posted on – click here to see post on the market. Most visitors of this market enjoy the Wednesday evenings as a dinner [...]
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Happy Chinese New Year everyone! Chinese New Year works according to the Lunar Calendar, unlike the New Year here in South Africa, which uses the Gregorian Calendar. This year, Chinese New Year falls on the 23rd of January. I have rather vivid and fond memories of every Chinese New Year I celebrated with my family growing up in the Free State. The whole family would gather and we’d either eat [...]
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Recently, Deidre Donnelly (Senior Features Writer/Books Editor of O Magazine) contacted me to feature in South Africa’s Oprah Magazine. The brief was to choose a picnic/summer recipe from my childhood. I decided to choose Taiwanese cold noodles 涼麵 (liang miàn). All photographs were taken by Oprah Magazine. Feature: Taiwanese folk have quite a variety of cooling dishes, snacks and drinks; including bubble tea and shaved ice, ideal for scorching summer weather, owing to [...]
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Also known as Winter Solstice Festival The 22nd of October 2011 is a very special day for all yellow folk. Dongzhi Festival, also known as the Winter Solstice Festival, is a very important festival and is celebrated around the December 22 (when it’s mid-winter) when the sun is at its weakest and daylight shortest. In different countries and cities, people celebrate this day differently. Traditionally, in Taiwan, people gather to [...]
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Coffin bread is something that is most commonly found in the south of Taiwan, my papa’s hometown – Tainan. This crispy loaf with filling is very similar to our South African bunny chow. The traditional filling is a creamy-based seafood chowder, but you can use any filling. For this recipe, I used one of my brother’s favourite filling – Teppan-style beef with onions. Ingredients: 700g steak 3 Tbsp soya sauce [...]
Read moreI am a Taiwanese copywriter, designer, illustrator, patisserie and food lover, and roller derby skater in Cape Town, South Africa.
