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Budai, the Laughing Buddha

Tuesday, July 24, 2012 in Canada, Richmond

Budai, the Laughing Buddha. Photo by David Lansing.

I went back to Ten Fu yesterday afternoon thinking I just might buy a zisha teapot. Instead, I got sidetracked looking at a two-foot-high carving of a Laughing Buddha.

This is Budai, which means “Cloth Sack.” You see the bag tucked under the right arm of this cheerful fella? Well the story goes that Budai, who is always depicted as a fat bald man wearing a robe and prayer beads, carries his few possessions in a cloth sack. Hence the name.

He is oftentimes depicted as entertaining or being followed by children. Perhaps because they say he went around handing out penny candy to poor children.

This Budai is the best I’ve ever seen. There was just something about him that made you want to pick him up (if that was even possible) and take him home. God knows we could all use a little laughing man in our lives, don’t you think?

And I still haven’t bought my zisha teapot. Next time I find a good deal on a hotel in Richmond, I will definitely go back for my zisha teapot.

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Zisha teapots at Ten Fu

Monday, July 23, 2012 in Canada, Richmond | 1 comment

The purple and red clay teapots from Yixing at Ten Fu in Richmond.

One of the nice things about the hotel I’m staying at is that it’s right in the middle of what they call Richmond’s Golden Village with its high concentration of Asian-themed stores and restaurants (they say something like 200 various Asian restaurants). Even better, the Aberdeen Centre is directly across the street. And I keep going back there to discover some new little shop.

Like this morning I stumbled across Ten Fu Tea & Ginseng. This is a very traditional Chinese tea shop. With some amazing teas (some costing hundreds of dollars for a little tin). But what I liked about it were the zisha teapots. These come from Yixing, China and are made from a unique purple clay (the teapots first appeared during the Sung Dynasty, 960-1279).

They have no glazes on them, inside or out, and because of the porous nature of the clay, they tend to absorb the flavor, smell, and color of the tea brewed in them. Over time they become a living repository of olfactory memories—hundreds or thousands of tea times stacked one upon the other.

For this reason, the zisha teapots, which are always small and intended for individual use, are often dedicated by the Chinese to a single flavor of tea so as not to contaminate the smell and taste of a particular teapot. In fact, back in the day, the Chinese would carry their own teapots with them wherever they went and drink directly from the  spout—no cup needed.

They really are beautiful objects. And I was tempted to buy one. Or two. And maybe I will yet.

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How to eat chicken feet

Friday, July 20, 2012 in Canada, Richmond | 1 comment

David Lang showing the proper method for eating chicken feet. Dangle the toes out of your mouth. Photo by David Lansing.

So anyway, about those chicken feet. You know how you can bite into something like a kogi taco and go, Ohmygod, that is so good!

Well, you’re not going to do that with chicken feet. I guess for some people chicken feet might be comfort food. You know, particularly if you lived on a farm in China and had a hundred chickens running around and you had to feed the chickens and then your dad, maybe once a week, put a dozen or so chickens in a wire cage and took them to the local market to be sold alive, and your reward for feeding the chickens was to have your mom make you steamed chicken feet on Sundays.

But none of that ever happened to me so I don’t have those chicken feet memories. I don’t think Mijune does either.

Anyway, I ate the chicken feet. Not much to it. Little bit of meat around the ankles (do chickens have ankles?) and then you could kind of suck on the toes if you wanted.

David Lang, who moved to Los Angeles from Hong Kong 18 years ago, liked the chicken feet more than I did. He ate several of them.

“You not going to eat more chicken feet?” he’d say. We’d all shake our heads. “Okay then,” he’d say, grabbing for another one, using his chopsticks to stick the skinny leg part in his mouth first so the toes dangled from his mouth like the fingers of a baby’s hand. I think I liked watching David Lang eat chicken feet more than I liked eating chicken feet. But that’s just me.

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Dim sum at Fisherman’s Terrace

Thursday, July 19, 2012 in Canada, Richmond

Dim sum at Fisherman's Terrace in Richmond's Aberdeen Centre. Photo by David Lansing.

Slipping inside Richmond’s Aberdeen Centre in search of Fisherman’s Terrace, I feel like I’ve been transported to Hong Kong (it’s named after the famous Aberdeen Harbour in Hong Kong). There’s a large Daiso, the $2 Asian bargain shop, and little shops selling bubble tea and Chinese beef jerky and herbal stores selling shriveled up god-knows-what for whatever ails you.

When I walk into Fisherman’s Terrace a minute or two before ten, there’s nobody there. I mean nobody. I wonder if perhaps I’ve got the wrong restaurant. Or if Mijune is just messing with me.

But a couple of minutes later, she shows up wearing an absinthe-colored short dress and matching green stilettos. She’s also brought a couple of other foodie bloggers with her, David Lang and Amy Sherman. I guess I’m not the only one hoping to have chicken feet with Mijune.

Mijune doesn’t mess around. Within minutes of sitting down (and without consulting the rest of us), she’s circled at least ten different items on the dim sum menu: shrimp dumplings (of course), stuffed eggplant with shrimp paste, shrimp spring rolls, turnip cakes, taro root with minced pork, bbq pork pastries, triple mushrooms in rice noodle wrap, pork blood and chives, sticky rice in bamboo leaves, and the steamed chicken feet.

It arrives in a whirlwind of plates. I want to try the chicken feet first but Mijune won’t let me.

“Always start with the shrimp dumplings,” she says, dropping one with her chopsticks on to my plate. “You see how good these are?” she says before I can even taste one. “They don’t stick to the paper in the steamer. And they have lots of crow’s feet on them. Like at least seven. And look how translucent they are—you can see how delicate the dough is.”

“Can I taste one now?” I ask her.

“Of course,” she says, laughing. “But try it with the XO sauce, which is excellent here. In fact, the XO sauce here is so good I sometimes could just eat that.”

And it is an excellent sauce, with lots of dried shrimp and dried scallops floating in it. But the shrimp dumplings are even better.

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In search of Richmond’s best chicken feet

Wednesday, July 18, 2012 in Canada, Richmond

The girl in the purple stilettos, Mijune Pak. Photo by David Lansing.

The last time I was in Great Britain, I spent two weeks searching for the best fish & chips in Scotland which ended up coming from a trailer on the pier in Tobermory. Well, that story is going to end up in Islands magazine in September (I hope you’ll look for it).

So last night I asked The Girl in the Purple Stilettos at Shanghai River Restaurant what the best places for dim sum were in Richmond.

“This is very good,” she said.

“But there are others you like better?”

She smiled. “It depends on what you are looking for and how adventurous you are. Do you like chicken feet?” she asked.

I told her I’d never had chicken feet. But I was up for giving them a go.

“Meet me at Fisherman’s Terrace tomorrow morning,” she said. “At ten. We will have chicken feet.”

By the way, The Girl in the Purple Stilettos has a name. It’s Mijune Pak. She also has her own foodie blog site called, appropriately enough, Follow Me Foodie. So tomorrow morning, Mijune and I are going to share chicken feet. And perhaps much more.

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