Chinese New Year Festival - 01/25/2014

I was lucky to have gotten to Chinatown early this year since the crowd seem larger than previous year and I saw several "parking lot full" signs.  I got a quick shoot using my Lumix while also doing my grocery shopping.  This coming year is the year of the Wood Horse.

For the New Year, it is good to have lucky charms to ward off bad luck and bring in prosperity for the new year.  I tend to always buy things related to money. :-)

It is also auspicious to have blossoms for the new year and each year and vendors sell Cherry Blossoms.  My mom used to buy them, but seeing the price, I decided against it this year.

It is also good luck to have lucky paper put up around the house. You can get these hand written ones done w/ gold ink. There are always ones that say good progress in school for students and good health and long life for adults. 

There were all kinds of food.  I found these people deep frying wonton and jin dui.

There were these mochi rice (jung) and of course Jai.

My friend bought this sugar cane juice that was freshly squeezed by this machine.  She said it was REALLY good.

I saw these cocktails.. not sure what's in them but looked kinda interesting.

I found this squid hanging in the window of Char Siu House.  It looked pretty good.. maybe next time I'll pick one up and try.

Across the street, there were also a variety of dim sum in the window at Happy Garden.

Usually, near Chinese New Year, the grocery stores will start selling Jai ingredients. The fried tofu and gluten are a must.

Another ingredient, these fresh ones take a little bit of work to crack then you have remove the skin on the ginko nut. Usually you only find fresh ones available during new year.

Fresh lotus root, waterchestnuts and arrowroot.

Then there are all the dry ingredients, dried lily buds, different black fungus and bean curd.

New year candy.  They're usually all sugar coated water chestnuts, lotus seeds, coconut, and melons.  I ended up getting some to bring to work to share on new year day.

Tangerines should be displayed with the branch w/ leaves for Chinese new year.

This is usual fruit stands I see but it seemed really neatly stocked.

These are also veggies I've haven't seen before.  Looks like won bok, but skinnier.. and some kind of turnip thing..I'm guessing these are new year veggies and I've seen many people pick these up.

On my way back to the car, I found a grocery store that sells the bamboo wrapper for making Jung.  I remember my grandmother had to soak and wash these overnight and remove the spine on the leaf before using them to wrap the mochi rice.  It was sure hard work.

Here's the candy I bought..Happy Chinese New Year.  

Fruits of Chinatown - 01/18/2014

In my weekly shopping trips to Chinatown, I've notice there has been some interesting fruits that are in season recently. These aren't usually found in supermarkets so they're an unusual find. I don't have my camera handy but I found that the iphone do a pretty decent job.  I had to look up some of the names of the fruits I found.  Unfortunately, like a lot of stuff in chinatown, prices are sometimes not posted and I didn't want to ask and just grabbed a shot.
There were plenty of these Rambutans available and people were buying them up. These are one of the coolest looking fruits in my opinion.

I actually smelled these before I saw them. These are supposed to be prized fruits for some, but to others, they smell like a pile of rotting rubbish. I'd sure hate to live next door to a Durian farm!  The ones here look to be at least a couple of pounds each and judging by the price, I really don't know what to think of them.

I saw these and had no idea what they are so I googled and believe these are called Santol and are popular in the Philippines.  I read that they are used in cooking in Thailand.  I  also read that ingesting the seed will perforate your intestine and kill you.. The thought of it makes me not want to give these a try.

I found these Tamarinds sold by the bunch.  I've only had candied ones that someone brought back from Thailand but never tried fresh ones...looks interesting.

I actually bought some of these Dragon Eye fruit.  They were selling for $4.99 per pound and I believe a bunch like this is usually around 2+ lbs and mine came out to be $11(!) so they can be very pricey.  Luckily, the ones I bought were pretty sweet and pretty meaty.

Someone once told me about these.  They're called Sapodilla or Chico in the Philippines. They look like a cross between furless kiwi and potato. I asked the seller how to tell when it's ripe and she said when it feels soft.  I was told these fruits are really tasty so I decided to give it a try.

I got this one with the leaf on it for a better photo effect.  It was hard so I figure it wasn't ripe enough to eat yet.

After a week, one of them got soft and looked ripe enough to eat so I decided to cut it.

I can't compare the taste to any other fruit I've had, but it was really sweet. The texture was like eating apple sauce with a little grittiness and it was pretty good.  This fruit also has a vicious looking seed that I'm sure will also kill you if you ingest it because of that sharp hook in the seed.  I was very careful when eating these, but at least the seed is pretty big. I'll have to wait for the other one to get ripe before I eat it.

A coworker bought an egg fruit a couple of weeks ago.  I tried it and posted about it before but I didn't care for that previous experience because I think I ate it when it wasn't ripe.  This one was mostly yellow and seemed pretty ripe as it was soft and I could also smell the fruit.  I took this w/ the macro mode and it made it look like a small pumpkin.

After it was cut, it look more like a egg yolk so hence the namesake.  The texture was like eating an Okinawan sweet potato but sweeter.

Star Apple - 12/31/2013

I had a chance to try this strange fruit called Star Apple (Chrysophyllum cainito).  From afar, it looked like a purple onion, but from the touch, it was soft.  I'm not sure why it's referred to apple since it doesn't have any crunch. I read that it is also called the  'Breast Milk Fruit' and I'm guessing maybe because of that white stuff that's coming out of it.  I ate this when it was ripe so it was soft. It has a texture like persimmon and actually the seed is also like that of a persimmon. However, this wasn't as sweet as one. From the cross cut, it exposes the 'star' design but I think they should really call it an 'Asterisk' Apple instead.