After the whole Egg Tart King debacle I was still craving for some sort of Chinese dessert. The next best thing on my list was a cake log or cake roll whatever you want to call those things. I randomly walked into Lucky King Bakery, it was diagonally across from what used to be Egg Tart King on Grand St. At first I was looking for egg tarts but I didn’t see any. Then I scanned through their cake log choices. They have the usuals coffee flavor and vanilla(?) flavor. They also have chocolate flavor (have I seen chocolate before?) and green tea. Never had or heard or seen a green tea cake log before I decided to get that and it was only $4.25 or around there. WIN! These usually go for $8! Thats crazy talk. Oh and the ones from Lucky King Bakery were all pre-sliced. Can’t get any better than that.

Besides it being green tea and that its green, its just a typical cake log and nothing else. There was just a slight hint of green tea and as always there’s never enough cream in these logs.

- Lucky King Bakery 280 Grand St. New York

Coluck or aka that one place in the tunnel between Elizabeth and Bowery is one of my favorite places to eat at. I just wish I go there more often. So why is this place special to me, besides it being in a frakkin’ tunnel? Well why do you like wearing that old beat up shirt? Because its comfortable, Coluck is comfortable to me. If you know me personally or have been around this blog long enough you should know that I love Hong Kong style cafes. Hong Kong style cafes = pretty much my entire life. When I first moved to NY I was sad to find out there were only few cafes in Chinatown. But slowly I have begun to find more and more. There’s of course the XO Cafe, The M Star, Happy Times Cafe and few more and of course Coluck.

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I am giving myself a challenge to learn how to make one food item a month.

It all started when I wanted to pickle things. That was going to be my project this year but then my mind trailed off, typical me, and I began to think well what if I started to make other things. Oh I do love dim sum, let’s google for dim sum recipes. After that I narrowed it down to few dim sum items like shrimp dumplings, roast pork buns, turnip cakes. Then I found, on youtube see above, this lady teaching how to make roast pork bun in her kitchen in Germany. Easy to follow step-by-step process of first roasting the pork then making the dough for the buns.

So that’s it. For February I plan to learn how to make ROAST PORK BUNS! Eventually I don’t need to go get dim sum, I just make them at home.

OMG I never seen mini pork dumplings before! They’re quite cute. For about $4 these definitely aren’t the best deals but heck they’re cute! I found these at the Hong Kong Supermarket on Hester and Elizabeth. I bought a bag along with some veggies and wonton noodles. Since they were tiny I thought I didn’t need to do the 3 boil rule but there it was clearly stated on the back of the bag to use the 3 boil rule.

Were these made for kids to eat?

Anyways, these came out just alright. Obviously with the small size there wouldn’t be much filling and the ratio of skin to filling was about 50/50. Worth getting, heck no. Cute, heck yes.

Recently, I learned that this tiny corner shop is called Kong Kee and they even have a website! They specialized in tofu and at their corner store you can always find 2 ladies standing outside the store with loads of tofu for sale. Inside the store you can get cheap eats like noodles and stuff. Besides selling tofu they also sell rice noodles. I usually get a bag of rice noodles that has scallions and dried shrimp for $3. A bag of noodles last me 5 good meals. I like to cut them into smaller pieces and fried them in a pan. Get them nice and crispy and serve them with hoisin sauce or peanut sauce. Cheap and makes a great party snack.

- Kong Kee 240 Grand St., corner of Grand St. and Bowery St.

Dim sum restaurants in LA come and go all the time. What was once a hit spot for great food could become a sushi restaurant or in most cases another dim sum restaurant but with a different name. They always brag about spending loads of money to hire the best chefs in Hong Kong to make great dim sum. Eventually the chef moves on, quite possibly to another restaurant that offered him more money, and the cycle continues.

I’m not sure how old or new Lunasia is.  I found this place out while ready Eating LA, hmm foie gras dumplings eh? Everytime I come home I have to have some dim sum. So I dragged my family out to see what Lunasia was all about. The first thing about dim sum is that either you get there super early or prepare to wait for hours. Dim sum is not fast food. People tend to linger at their table drinking tea. We made the mistake of getting there close to noon and we waited for an hour to squeeze into a table for 4 with the 5 of us.

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