Soul in a Bowl - Vietnamese Pho

Slow cooked chicken soup noodles with coriander seeds, clove, star anise, onions, lots of fish sauce and sprinkle the whole bowl with slices of raw onions, coriander, mint leaves, lime juice, chopped chilli and slivers of raw beef with a drizzle of sesame oil...what more could one ask for?

This national Vietnamese dish is a banging treat when done right, its deceptive simplicity brings out a complex burst of flavour. Pho is the ultimate comfort food - its hearty and warm but not at all boring with the in-depth flavour of the fish-sauce-infused broth and then lightened up by the sourness of lime juice and coriander and mint leaves, just when you think your palate has settled, the freshly chopped chilli kicks in!

I ♥ Pho.

'Yum Cha'

If you ask me a dining experience that represents Hong Kong the most, I would immediately drag you to a restaurant to 'Yum Cha' which literally means 'drink tea' in Cantonese. Apart from tea-drinking, Yum Cha also involves eating 'Dim Sum' and the timing ranges from 5am to about 5pm -basically any time before dinner. The concept of Dim Sum is fairly similar to the tapas culture in Spain, they mostly come as small plates or steamers of dinky food. People are supposed to take time to enjoy their Yum Sha session, because you are worth it.

The variety of dim sum ranges hugely, from steamed buns (sweet or savoury), shrimp dumpling, pork dumpling, 'phoenix talons' (chicken feet), duck egg and pork rice porridge... the list goes on and on. One of my favourites is lotus leaf rice, as the name suggests, it is basically glutinous rice wrapped in an earthy-scented lotus leaf with cooked meats inside. As the lotus leaf rice would be straight out of the steamer therefore sizzling hot, I would always burn my fingers opening the leaf for the 'treasure' - but of course it's worth the pain!

One Sunday morning I was lucky enough to be taken to a very special tea house in Hong Kong. Unlike the usual dining style where we order food from the menu, or the more traditional way of hollering across the room for the lady to give us a steamer of buns from her food trolley, it was all DIY. As soon as we arrived at the restaurant (when I say 'restaurant', this was merely a tea house) we had to fight over others to get our table, and once we got our table some of us had to sit down and mark our territory whilst the rest went to get our eating utensils and fill up the teapots with boiling water. As our 'soldiers' returned with steamers and plates of Dim Sum, we finally relaxed and enjoyed our meal.

Looking around the restaurant, there are a lot of families with children, there was a young couple sitting next to a lonely older man on plastic stools reading the newspaper. The owner of the tea house came out in an apron and joked with the new and regular customers. Some customers were throwing leftover food on the floor next to stray dogs who looked uninterested. One could feel the warm interaction among one another on this cold Sunday morning.

The food was good, the service was non-existent but the atmosphere was excellent.

(Service charge? What service charge?!)

Amster-food

No. 5 - Mini pancakes!

No. 4 - Apple cake!

No. 3 - Cheese fondue &

Fried pork cutlet with Dutch peas!

No.2 - Selection of cured seafood (shrimp, herring and mackerel) &

Beef carpaccio

No 1 - HERRING SANDWICH!!

The Pale Blue Door

So where exactly is the dreamiest / trippiest place to wine and dine?

No doubt it is the Pale Door Door. Tucked in a quiet alley way of a side street in Hackney, East London, this underground restaurant is one of the most mysterious places I have ever had a pleasure to dine in. Stage designer Tony Hornecker is a genius with an eccentric and outrageously creative edge; unlike many other underground restaurants which offer a 'home away from home' type of meal, the Pale Blue Door offers a venue which seems like a real life doll house with decor which can be described as a glamourous version of Miss Havershams mansion - where Tony Hornecker actually lives!

My companion and I stepped into the Pale Blue Door and was immediately welcomed by a gorgeous drag queen called 'Man-to-Pet'. Pretty much everything at the venue was amazing; the glowing candlelight on every dining table, the upside down hanging unbrellas, heavy drapes and countless amount of glorious clutter. The food wasn't Michelin star type but was lovely - we had feta cheese salad, roast beef with spuds and a crumble fancy as pudding; including half a bottle of wine it came to £30 per guest which is extremely reasonable!

This is my first pop-up restaurant experience and I highly recommend it to anyone. Being in someone's own home does make you feel at ease talking and sharing with other diners, which is something we definitely lack living in a city. Food is supposed to bring people together and have a 'jolly good time' - the whole experience was not about the food but everything else.

Guilty Pleasure: Akagai (red shell clam)

My grandmother was well known for being the woman who loved food and was extremely naughty - the best combination of all traits.

One day when I was about six or seven, I stayed around my grandmother's flat for the night and she decided to have a round of 'canapes' with before dinner. She boiled a large pot of water, as soon as the water started bubbling she dumped a big bowl of clams into the pot then turned the heat off and drained the clams. My grandmother then quickly picked the hot clams and pull its meat out and shoved one in my little mouth, good lord, it has woken up all the taste buds on my tongue. I don't recall tasting any other seafood as sweet as this little clam in my life again. Straight after our treat my grandmother took a couple of shot glasses from the cupboard and filled them with Chinese rice wine to 'detox' my digestive system as the clam meat was still practically raw when it landed in my grateful mouth.

'Don't tell your mother,' she looked at me as she passed me the shot glass.

I later on found out that the clams I had was called Akagai clams which was are very similar to blood clams. Akagai clams are very popular among the Eastern countries especially in Japan where they are used in sushi; the surface of the clam looks kind of dirty as it has mini spikes which traps mud in the small gaps, each clam is just about as big as the 'O' when you make an 'OK' hand gesture. The clam meat is reddish orange in colour due to its full of iron and haemoglobin. It has a crunchy and chewy texture but not at all rubbery if eaten fresh. In terms of taste its extremely sweet and the intensity is similar to oysters or sea urchin.

Back in the day my grandmother must have bought the Akagai clams from the local market in the summer, the sea must have been a lot cleaner back then so I wouldn't recommend anyone to do repeat her act again; especially not feeding a six year old rice wine! This is one of the most vivid memories I have with my crazy grandmother, thinking about this indulging experience I realised it happened no less than 16 years ago, I wonder if she remembered that day before she passed away few years ago?

...Memory fades, but the sensation lives on.