Red Chilli has long been a Manchunian (people/things from Manchester) institution. Being one of the few cities in the UK with a proper chinatown (Leeds has a block of building disguising itself as china town), it is chock full of restaurants with full chinese clientele. They have a branch in Leeds, which means I do not have to go far for my fix of chilli.

Some people dislike Red Chilli due to its ‘commercialization’, but seriously, the food is as authentic Szechuan as it gets. It does call itself a Beijing restaurant as well, but as I don’t know what food from Beijing is supposed to taste, I am not going to comment. The interior is dark, dark wood, one of them modern chinese joints with dark interior design & dim lights. MIL says that its so you don’t see what you order just in case its frogs legs :D.

As there was only 3 of us, we ordered 4 dishes (!!) and rice for two, but it was far too much for us to finish. I must admit that I had not actually ordered according to the four taste or thinking about the best combo of flavours, but randomly picked things out that I’ve missed eating. Thus everything was heavily flavoured and sauced-up.

Kai lan with lap cheung (chinese sweet sausages) and air-dried pork (they called this wind dried; like hairdryer-dried) . A little too oily for my taste, and the kai lan is a little old. However, as kai lan is not native to UK, this was probably flown from China - thus a little old. But seriously, I had not had kai lan in such a long time, this is a blessing. My fav still remains the thai-styled kai lan with salted fish. YUM. Now I gotta go hunt for a thai restaurant that does that…pffft

Sweet and sour deep fried croaker.

When I was young, my parents used to stuff fish down my throat. As there is ALWAYS a fish dish on the table every single meal, I didn’t have much of a choice really. But I do get extremely confused with the names of fishes, as you can see from my last post. I have definitely not heard of yellow croaker before, but as they had ran out of fish to be steamed, we ordered this.

It’s what bacon called an inside-out fish. It has been deboned (to minimize the english scare factor) and is dipped in heavy batter, with skin and all attached. There is not much flesh to it, after all, it IS a small fish. Mostly, its super-crunchy texture sort of put me off, as the batter is so heavy it almost looks like salt baked fish thai-styled. The sweet and sour sauce is OK though, none of the scary pink stuff from takeaways. Maybe its just the extremely dark lights.

PS: Apparently it makes an appearance in The romance of the three kingdoms

They call this the Poets Gongpo Pork. Not sure which part is poetic, but its one of my favourite. Can you see the fat just glistening off the sauce? This was in line with what I’ve had before in Esquire Kitchen in KL. Soppable sauce with steamed buns.I can eat a potful of rice with the sauce.

We had another dish of salt & pepper soft shell crab, but it was devoured before I remembered to snap. Extremely salty, it drowned the delicate flavours that forms the deliciousness of crabs. Bacon & MIL loved it though, but it was too salty for me.Again with the heavy batter, I was a little dissapointed.

I know I’ve kinda complained nonstop, but I do like their food here. I’ve had meals (the mapo tofu is the best!) and noodles (yummy dan dan mien) from here previously, and it’s not bad. No pictures previously as it is always so dark in here. It might not be the best subsitute for dai pai dongs, but it is authentic enough to please me. Beggars cannot be choosers. Oh, and it comes with rude staff that do not speak English, so that’ll be interesting for anyone wanting to foray further than their local takeaway. I love going there on a weekend and watch the amused and slightly shocked faces of the English patrons randomly ordering dim sum or smirking at chicken’s feet & pork trotter.

I have drafted and re-drafted this post in an attempt to articulate my thoughts - but it’s been fairly difficult and sometimes downright conflicting.Two incidents over the past week had made me question the development of female equality. Now, I have never admitted to be a feminist, I enjoy the occasional male chivalry and being pampered as a female species. I don’t mind having to pay my half of the household bills, and I believe that with or without a husband/bf, I would still be able to support myself and be happy.I even enjoy bending the rules by batting my eyelashes. But the two incidents over the past week had made me rethink about how far have we really come as a sex.

Case 1:
Some girls are brought up to depend to men for everything. They believe that they are able to manipulate any men by just the simple fact that they are pretty; personality not required. They believe that their beauty will get them the ‘best’ man; i.e. the richest, best looking, treat them best ect. They also believe that they will stand behind their man, and not side by side.

In the same train of thought, we had a shocking discovery last week of a friend that admitted at last in wanting an expensive wedding, paid for by her supposedly well-off boyfriend -> how he treats her or how their relationship is developing is irrelevant. What was most important to her was that she believe that she would be able to upgrade her life (to a stay-at-home tai tai I guess) once she manages to manipulate him to matrimony.She also believed that irregardless of how damaging their relationship had been or the fact that she had continued ‘hunting’ for better prey, it is just logical that the next step for him is to spend all his money on marrying her.

What really got to me was that she felt so strongly about ‘marrying upwards’ and that at her ripe age (a little younger than me), she is unable to wait any longer for a lifetime commitment. I know her requirements for a partner had always been high, but I had always questioned her attitute to men that her beauty surpasses everything. Unless you’re close to her, she has the personality of a limpet, an attitute of an ignorant peasant woman and a very showy(branded items) front. She basically blow every chance that life had given her to ‘upgrade’ her life i.e. education, better career ect. And at the moment she is just like a cake sitting in the window, waiting to be sold off.

At the moment, I am not even sure if she’s ever loved this poor guy she’s trying to entrap or is she just ticking off a box that says he is rich.

Why do women marry for the sake of money & status (i.e. being MRS DR XXX) , and what will posess them to be so helplessly useless?

Case 2:
I recently met up with someone I have known for ages, yes, right here in the UK. We have never hung out together, so she wouldn’t appear on my list of call-a-friend if I ever appear on Who wants to be a millionaire. Being related makes us ‘friends’, and makes me a must-meet -up person. But I digress

She popped over to Leeds to meet up with me with a guy ‘FRIEND’. Now, I have guy friends as well,and for most part, I think I have more guy friends compared to female friends. Just look at the who’s who on my bacherlorette party. However, when we go out as friends, we either take turns to pay or go dutch; after all, we are all trying to earn a living here. Unless you’re PenangKia, in which case you secretly pay my bill even if you did not have a drink.

This guy friend of her (which she had known for a few months), upon meeting us (me & bacon) for the first time an hour ago, proceeded to pay for our dinners. I was fairly uncomfortable with that, as I do not know him well, and from what I know, he was not well-paid in his job (he incidentaly works in the same company as bacon, and we were able to guess his salary from his job title) .What shocked me most was that SHE did not offer to pay at all. Neither did another friend of hers that tagged along. Upon further discussions (no, I did NOT interrogated her, just surfaced in our conversation) I realized that he pays for her most of the time, if not all the time.And they go out to eat at least a couple of times a week. If you’ve been reading my blog, you would had realized that I sometimes feel I am eating away all my salary - and that’s with me and bacon mostly taking turns.

The key here is that she has a bf back home, whom she is apparently planning to marry next year.

The matching database key also says that he is treating her like they are an item, paying for everything and going out with her for restaurant meals, taking time off to go shopping with her.

And the SQL (I am such a geek) statement produces the answer that this is a relationship

HOWEVER, she (and her other friend - female) also allowed me to pay for drinks ect. without lifting a finger to help me carry them nor a penny to pay towards the drinks. Which I don’t really mind doing for her, seeing that we’re related and all, but her other friend (female) who just sits there sponging off strangers, I find a little strange.

It is also extremely disturbing to me that they sponge off this guy endlessly and just expects him to pay for all their food ect even though they have not known him long.

They incidentaly also sponged off bacon by not offering to pay him anything when he got their drinks in. Bear in mind they had not met him before.

I don’t wish to pick on small token sums of money. I willingly pay for friends and people I love,but I will not be taken for a sui yee (turtle) by people I dont know.

———————————————————————————–

How far have we really come from the 1950s where the man is expected to bring back the bacon, and the woman is just supposed to not contribute nor have any ambitions other than to snare a rich man?

I am extremely dissapointed.

Loads happening over the weekend…but no photographical proof uploaded yet - sorry. I do have a few important questions though (elving might be able to answer):

What is ‘yellow croaker’ fish in cantonese?
What is pomfret in Cantonese?
What is eel in Cantonese?
Does turbot = turbot in cantonese?

Does this give it away that I have been trying to order fish over the weekend? I realized that my fish knowledge is straddled between a few worlds…hokkien/english/cantonese/malay and I cannot really relate them to one another!

I also realized that I missed dai pai dong/ tai chau styled dishes miserably. We’ve spent weekends on dimsum, siu yuk farn & other misc. food and now I’m seeking for what I classify as ‘normal’ food for me; fish+meat+veg+rice. I still have rice & dongpo yuk (5 spice claypot pork?) ta-paued for lunch today. And ham choy kai thong (salted vegetable & chicken soup) for dinner. Yummm..my time with salads is over!

Its 8.40am and I am already yearning for lunch.

My last post should explain the title of this post.

I now have 2 working days (with a weekend between) free from the day I end my employment here and the day I start my employment in my new job. And to get me out of my weather depression…I decided yesterday at 3pm that I am gonna go on holiday!

For only 4 days though

As time is running out…anyone with ideas where I should go for 4 short days? I am thinking prague to push the SLR to the limits, but with the BIL’s wedding on the weekend that it is cheap to run away to Prague, this is looking more like a distant dream…:(.

…………..where shoe maniac reached high tides…

Today is the last day of endless afternoon chatting mania / bitching session with dreybee. I’m definitely gonna miss her.

Wish her luck in her new well deserved high-flying exciting job!

(which means she probably won’t have time to chat with a small potato like me )

Guess what Bacon is wearing. The latest jewelry trend, all handmade by me.

I want that dress!!!

Well, the bacons go shopping.

Not the market, but NEXT infamous 50% off half yearly sales. This happens every summer and winter, with the crazy people at Next opening their stores at 5am on the first day so crazy buggers like us can go scouraging for bargins

5.20am : The roads are still clear and dawn is breaking. I was hoping that the store would be fairly empty so I don’t have to push my way in.

5.23am:Wahlau.

5.30am: Look at all the bedhairs grabbing onto stuff like its going for a song.

Its not actually that dirt cheap, seeing that NEXT is fairly Topshop priced.But with the 50% off, it makes every item affordable…and with the changing room not being open, people just grab it all and take off with it, returning items that do not fit the next week.

We left at 6.10 after grabbing:

3 pairs of curtains
4 photo frames
1 lampshade
1 bustier
2 skirts

Seeing that none of my curtains matched, we headed towards ANOTHER NEXT to continue with the damage

6.19am: This was even worse.Apparently Toys R Us down the road were having a morning madness as well

This is proof that even men likes 5am shopping madness

4 queues, all snaking around the store.Like free only…

8.15am: After 1 hour’s queuing, the end was getting near…

Our damage

Total Damage:

5 pairs of curtains
1 bedsheet
4 photo frames
2 lampshade
1 bustier
2 skirts
2 shirt set w tie
1 pair cufflinks
1 bra
2 necklaces
1 coin purse
2 bath & body sets
1 wedding hat
1 coffeetable (!!)

I know, I know, no proper pictures of what I had actually bought. Comming up soon - I had put up the curtains as well.We were home by 8.30, breakfast by 9 and in bed by 9.30; totally and utterly shopped out. Hopefully this will stop any further shopping madness for at least a month…

At 4pm (yes, we went back just to check) - it was all over.

After the last post’s sickly looking food, thought we might cheer up a little (seeing that this is one of the few days I actually go to work in the sunshine - ableit its about 13 degrees outside still!)

Bacon’s famous banana cake. His recipie is also here, looks prettier in miniature as well!

My infamous Spam fried rice…just to piss the person who has no access to any spam but loads of fishes. MOUHAHA. With sliced mushroom,freshly podded peas (did you know peas does not only come frozen!?) and SPAM with bacon.

There! A little better?

When bacon is not eating, the cat plays away with disgusting looking food

Brown rice & kimchi

With puke looking miso soup with crabstick,mushroom & seaweed

The auto setting on my phone’s cybershot is not great at all huh?Sigh.