// Koi Palace - Dim Sum //

suckling pig - roast pork. skin was super crispy!

chicken feet

pork buns

lamb buns - looked better than they tasted

taro puffs

peking duck, duh

On my recent trip to San Fran to visit family. My cousins took me to Koi Palace in Daly City. Everything was delicious and the place was packed for a weekday late lunch. We went around 1:30 or 2:00 and it was a full house. Definitely make reservations if you go. The funny part was that my cousin was like "Order whatever you want!" and at the end of the meal, he used his Koi Palace credit card. It was literally restaurant credit because he had booked this place as a wedding venue, put down a deposit, and ended up just eloping. So then he was stuck with a no refund policy and they just gave him a ton of restaurant credit. He said they had gone there for numerous dinners that cost up to $500 because of some specialty seafood dishes. Even after our meal, he still had a couple hundred left! I thought that was a pretty good "problem" to have. ;]

// chinese sausage omelette //

 guest blogger, cousin tawn

Nellex and I grew up in a large, large, LARGE Vietnamese family. Feeding the troupes wasn't always an easy chore for our mothers. But, a chore that they excelled at and reveled at. Our mothers are sisters, the youngest two of six (they also had four brothers).

The sisters (our moms are smallest ones in the front row), looking goofy,
from their younger days in Vietnam. Why my mom had curly hair here,
is beyond me! Lol :)

The sisters are to put it mildly, competitive when it comes to their food. They take pride in their cuisine. Each has a special ingredient or tweak that they add to a standard dish to make it their own. Rarely do they divulge their family recipes. If and when they do, after you beg, and beg and grovel, you are sworn up and down to secrecy. So, please don't tell my mom on me ;)

Below, is my (and my mother's version) of a Chinese (lap cheong) sausage omelette. A popular dish in our immigrant household. It was cheap to make, served many, and used simple ingredients that were standard in our Vietnamese home. My mother used to serve it as one of the dishes that were part of our family-style dinner. I sometimes make it for lunch and eat it with jasmine rice.


 INGREDIENTS ( for two 10" omelettes): :

6 eggs
1 small sweet or yellow onion, sliced
2 lap cheong sausages, sliced
2 springs green onions, sliced, whites separated from greens
1 Tbsp. fish sauce
1/4 cup of cream
freshly ground pepper
vegetable oil

1. Prep ingredients

2. Mix eggs, cream, greens of green onions, fish sauce and pepper together in a small bowl.

3. Heat oil in a 10" pan (non-stick is better if you have it) over medium heat. 4. Add onions, whites of green onions and sausage. Sautee until onion is softened.

5. Add egg mixture. As egg starts cooking, gently lift the omelette
from side to side and redistribute raw egg to cook.

6. Maintaining medium heat so that omelette cooks low and slow (to prevent a tough omelette), lid if necessary until desired doneness is achieved.

Serve topped with freshly cracked pepper, as part of your family dinner...

or with a side of rice as a complete meal.