Mala Xiang Guo might not be the first dish that comes to mind during Christmas or Christmas season time, but that's precisely what The Parent and I had when we made our planned stopover at this late-night diner not too far from our home.
The dish has become one of our shared favorites.
We discovered a liking for it quite by accident.
After all it hasn't been until recent years that they've surfaced more and more in our community.
But mala xiang guo is a charm.
Not only do they make it tasty (dont' ask me how), you can decide whether you want it keto-like, vegan-like, very spicy, very very spicy, mildly spicy, or not spicy at all. It makes a great dish for sharing and, depending on the place you go, you can have a huge variety of ingredients at a reasonable value.
What makes this dish wonderful is the freedom of choice that one can have in terms of the ingredients, and you can either stick to all your favorites, try completely new ones, or have half of each.
It was wonderful sharing from the bowl that the server placed on the table, picking out pieces of what we thought the other might like and dropping them familiarly into each other's bowls.
Back and forth flew the beef and Taiwan sausage, and then, just as we were finishing, we suddenly remembered we'd brought a bag of cherry tomatoes from home and so snuck them into the bowl.
They went well with the oils. :)
I'm very thankful for this meal that we had.
And for the trip to the (Christmas time) supermarket that we went thereafter.
But that's not all.
Nearer to Christmas Day The Parent told me of this other late-night coffee shop at the other end of the park close to our home, so off we went for a second holiday season supper.
Turned out that there were quite a couple of stalls still open at that hour, so after a bit of discussion, we settled on an order of fish and chips, a plate of guo tie, a plate of steamed yam cake, and siew mai.
The joys of being Chinese!
So huge that it took up three-quarters the size of a regular plate, and that it came with a generous dollop of mayonnaise, as well as a lovely serving of salad and fries?
Shall I also say that we were surprised by the texture of the guo tie skin?
That we'd kind of expected it to be like a ban mian sort of flour but instead it turned out to be a little more like the flour you have in deep fried dough balls that are thick, chewy and soft?
But we didn't mind.
We had a fine time eating everything up.
In any case, the yam cake was solid and thick- they were generous with the sweet sauce- the siew mais were warm with lots of meat, and what we treasured was the time that we were spending together.