Putting the 'can' in Canton Cafe (I totally failed there, I know).

Canton Cafe

477 New North Road, Kingsland (pretty close to the train station)

I can't count the number of times I've been here. I have no recollection of my first visit either...maybe it was eight years ago or so? Meh, I don't know. I went out to celebrate my First Class Honours (whoop!) with my parents, my brothers, my sister-in-law, and my brother's girlfriend (too lazy to think of suitable pseudonyms for them).* I probably come to Canton about three or four times a year with my parents, mainly due to the fact that my parents are extremely picky about eating out, so Canton's kind of an automatic choice. When we first ate here, the food was pretty cheap and the portions were large. But prices have gone up since then, and now it's verging on a fine line between reasonable and not (despite the large portions).

Let me tell you a few things....or seven.

• Do not go to Canton if you're on a date. Wrong atmosphere for that, people. Also, don't bring children along. It gets pretty crowded...every night. It is best if you go with a group of people (but not too large).
• When going out with a group, don't order individual dishes. Order a bunch of dishes to share with each other, along with rice ($1 per bowl). The dishes are huge, and it doesn't really feel right eating a whole plate of prawns by yourself, you know?
• It's BYO. Corkage fee is pretty reasonable in comparison to most restaurants in Auckland (it used to be free).
• While the food comes out to your table pretty quickly, service is only good if you've been eating there for eight years. (Translation: It's not going to be the best service you're gonna get).
• If you don't like loud noises, then don't go to Canton. Or if you really do want to go, then ask to go upstairs. But they're busy all the time, so it might not be possible. (Correction: Are you a lucky person? No? Well then, that's too bad).
• On the day that you're planning to go to Canton, don't wash your hair. I went to get a haircut in town on the day we went, and I foolishly forgot about Canton. Your hair smells as a result of the sizzling dishes, and um yeah. Wash it once you go back home.
• Don't order the standard noodle or rice dishes. Please.

My camera died, so the photos below are thanks to my brother (not the same brother that took the photos from the previous blog entry). Thanks brother!

Sizzling Beef with Black Pepper ($22). There's also a chicken version and a venison version available on the menu. I actually prefer the venison dish, partly because I never really get the opportunity to eat venison that much.

Stir fried snow peas with garlic. On the menu you can order it with either beef or chicken ($22 for either option), but we asked for it to be without meat. The dish also had chinese mushrooms and celery in it, but I'm pretty sure that they aren't included if you order the snow peas with beef/chicken. Also, sometimes they don't have snow peas available and use sugar snaps instead. Both are pretty good. Yum!

Sweet & Sour Pork ($22). There's also a sweet and sour chicken or hapuka (fish) version available as well. The hapuka is $1 more though. I really don't like eating sweet and sour. I don't even like my mother's. But Canton's sweet and sour is the exception to the rule. Somehow the batter seems to retain its crunch, and that's the main reason as to why I enjoy it so much. More often than not you'll have a lot of food leftover, and you can doggy bagall of it for free. This dish isn't quite the same the next day. The pork ends up being soggy (eventually) and it feels like you've just ordered it from a food hall.

My brother forgot to take a photo of it at the beginning. So we (or he) did some improvisation. Oh yeah, this is supposed to be the Peking Duck course with the pancakes, hoisin sauce, spring onions and cucumbers (1/2 duck, one course, $26). I specifically ordered this dish since peking duck is my favourite (although Empress Garden does it better).

Hot and Spicy King Prawns - Shell Off ($28). There is the option for shell on, but that just seems weird. It's not really that hot...or spicy, but there is an adequate amount of heat involved, and it is really tasty. They do a lot of hot & spicy dishes, and this one is personally my favourite. We also ordered the hot and spicy hapuka ($23), but no photo was taken (whoops). Sometime we order the hot and spicy squid instead of the hapuka, but all of them are pretty good regardless.

Eggplant Hot Pot. This wasn't on the menu. I also don't know how much it cost. I'm pretty sure there was pork in the hot pot (correct me if I'm wrong, family), but someone told me there was salted fish and I couldn't taste any of that at all. So I'm pretty confused. I personally find this dish a bit slimy on my palette, and it doesn't help that I'm not a big fan of eggplant as well. Meh.

The decor isn't great, and a lot of the tables are covered with material that's similar to plastic bags (I don't really know the proper name for it so who cares). But it is the type of restaurant where you know you shouldn't expect that, if that makes sense.

Next blog: I don't knoooooooow.

* I was thinking about using the character names from Twilight since I'm watching the movie, but nah. Who's going to be Edward?

A Typical Night at Jessica's House (Not Really).

Soooo I've been extremely slack with updating my blog. It seems weird that I update this blog more often whenever I have little time. Hopefully that will change soon. I've been taking photos of food here and there – it's not like I haven't been out and about! Today's update is going to be a bit different. No review today.

While I appreciate going out to eat and trying out different places and different cuisines, there's nothing like eating food that has been prepared and cooked by my mother. I'm sure that it's the same for most people...that is, if your parents can effectively use a stove and an oven. Sometimes (okay, maybe often) I take my mother's cooking for granted. I'm pretty sure that when I leave in September for the UK, I'll be complaining incessantly on the phone to my mother about how I miss her food. Since I returned back home from my trip, I've been asking my mother lots about how she prepares and cooks certain dishes so I can attempt to cook them in the UK. (It's a pain in the ass to recreate any of her dishes though, since she doesn't measure anything. Sigh).

A couple of days before New Years, my parents hosted a dinner. When guests come over to my house, my mother likes to showcase her best food and it suddenly becomes an overindulgent banquet of sorts (...and I mean that in the best way). My brother took some photos for me – thanks brother! – and I thought showing these photos would provide a nice illustration as to how goooood home-cooked (Thai) food can be.

"Som Dum" - Traditionally it's just a green papaya salad. But my mother likes to incorporate carrots if she doesn't have any papaya in her fridge. Sometimes she likes to mix it up and put both in the salad. The salad also has tomatoes and green beans.

"Haw Mok" - Steamed Fish Curry. It doesn't look very nice in the photo. But that's because it was partially eaten by the time the photo had been taken. Whoops.

"Gai Yaang" - My Mother's BBQ Chicken. There's only a few on the plate...again taken while we were eating. My mother's marinade for the chicken is pretty odd, yet brilliant. She makes up this weird concoction, in which she uses a mortar and pestle to grind garlic, peppercorns, salt, and coriander root into a thick doughy paste.

"Moo Satay" - Pork Satay. My mother makes the best satay sauce. Fact. I love eating satay in Thailand, although sometimes the sauce can be a bit too sweet. My mother doesn't make it that often, so whenever we have dinner parties, she makes an excess amount of it (so I can eat it the following day for lunch and dinner). We also serve it with toast and a pickled cucumber dish. Obviously you can do it with chicken...and apparently prawns work as well (we experimented with it on the night).

Mussaman Curry with Beef.

Thai Stir-fried Vegetables. The prawns are kind of in the way in the photo.

(Half-eaten) Steamed Fish with lots of chili and garlic.

Spring Rolls. Yum. The filling is sooo good. Lots of cabbage, mushroom, carrots, garlic. Usually we have pork mince in them, but we swapped it with prawns in the photo above (like you can even tell the difference, heh). We dip the rolls in my mother's homemade Thai Sweet Chili Sauce. Sooo good. My mother's sauce is 100 times better than the stuff in the supermarkets. You can taste the sweetness and the chili (rather than just the sweetness).

Thai Bean Salad - Wing beans are used in Thailand, but my mother likes to use french beans instead.

Next update: Hopefully soon. Canton Cafe in Kingsland. Can't wait, it's a family favourite!