I decided that I’m going to write a little blog post that comes with a recipe because that’s what food bloggers do right? Not to say I’m a food blogger or anything(cause like really, wtf is this blog even about?), but I notice that when I find a recipe on a blog, I usually read the first couple sentences of their post and scroll quickly through the rest passing through the paragraphs where they wrote about something ironic their dog or significant other did recently and how hilarious it was and how it is the slightest bit relevant to the recipe. Then I have to scroll through 10 pictures of the food at slightly different angles and lighting to get to the actual recipe. Which ends up taking up about an eighth of the total page length. I always feel so bad for these guys because no one really cares about the backstory. Readers clicked the link because there was a nice picture of delicious looking food and wanted to figure out how they could make it themselves.
So I'm not going to bore you with a backstory of my dog or boyfriend doing something stupid. Largely due to the fact that I have neither of these things in my life. But trust me, if I had a dog, I would never stop posting about stupid stuff that it did or pictures of it from a million different angles. Also, I wouldn’t have a dog, I would have two. A french bulldog named Bean and a wiener dog named Frank. You would never stop hearing about them and I would probably go so far as to make a comic book about them. Maybe I already did.
I’m making this post entirely about this crazy guy we met while on our Visa run to Hong Kong last weekend. It’s sort of just a trap though. You’re going to have to read this post in order to understand what is going on when I write about my weekend in Hong Kong.
Okay let’s get started. We’re going to call this guy Mushu. No, that is not his real name. Yes, the alias is based off the dragon from Mulan. Mushu is hands down the biggest character I have ever met in my life. And I have met some crazy people and experienced some crazy things in my life. God my memoir is going to be so good.
First off, like most of the people you meet in Asian Hostels, Mushu was a solo traveller. That didn’t really matter though because he decided that all of the hostel mates were his friends. The most extroverted of extroverts. So as you could probably guess, with my extroverted personality and lack of respect for people’s boundaries, Mushu and I got along great. My travelling partner and I had just arrived back in the hostel at about 10:30p.m. after a day of flying and exploring the city and I could not wait to get to sleep(I had been getting an average of 3 hours of sleep a night the week prior). While getting set up to go to bed, Mushu was talking to another girl from the Netherlands, Marissa, about their plans to go out. We all chatted and Mushu invited us to come out with them. UGH. I wanted to go to bed so badly but I knew that if I didn’t go out, I would regret it. “Come on! It’ll be the craziest night you’ll ever have in Hong Kong!” “Yea dude, I believe you. But I haven't slept in like a week.” “People go to the 7eleven and get the sale on beer and go drinking on the street, thousands of people its crazy! You should come!” “Guy you’re doing a very good job of convincing me unfortunately. Alright I’ll come. Give me 10.” “Alright! You wanna come too?” Mushu asked the old french dude who was sitting on his bed in his stripped pyjamas. He shrugged and got up and changed. He came back wearing loafers, socks that went to his mid calf, cargo shorts, a polo shirt tucked into the shorts and a fanny pack. They were all a different shade of muted mustard yellow.
So as we all headed out of the hostel and down the street, I thought to myself “God we are the weirdest looking group of people together I have ever seen. Or been a part of. Mushu lead us into the 7eleven, and then straight back out. “No, this one they have gotten rid of the sale already because they know people are going. Come we’ll go to the other one.” And so we followed him to another near by 7eleven, which had the sale and we all got super cheap beer. As we walked into the metro which was about to close, I realized I can’t just find my way home like I normally do, I don’t know this city at all. “Hey Mushu, you’re gonna make sure you get us back to the hostel right?” “You know Thursday is the really crazy night. SO many people drinking in the street…” “Mushu, you’ll get us back?” “It’s such a crazy party you guys are gonna love it!” “YO MUSHU! You’re gonna get us back to the hostel right?” “Yea! I mean…” “What?.. What??” “If we don’t get separated, ya know sometimes people meet people and go home with them. You never know.” We all were laughing at ourselves and Mushu. We couldn’t really understand why we were so okay with following this random guy to a random place, but it felt fine.
We got off at our stop and followed Mushu around the block. Our view turned into a winding, hilly, entanglement of small streets filled with people, lights, music and bars. “If we get separated we will meet at this 7eleven.” Mushu said as he lead us through the sea of people. We followed him through the streets listening to his little facts about the different bars and food stalls. This guy knew this place like the back of his hand. Eventually he led us into this dive bar club thing that was decorated for Halloween. We made our way through the people to the dance area towards the back end of the bar. “Usually theres a cover but they know me so we didn't have to pay.” “Oh yea?” I said as I gave him one of my classic ‘raise of the eyebrows’. “Yea.”
We all danced for a bit and then went back out into the streets. He ran into at least 5 people that he knew and introduced us to. He pointed out “This place has the best Thai food. It’s like street food from Thailand. Or theres really good Mexican food at this place. We can go after, they're open until 6 in the morning.” He knew all the good food places.
More about that night later. The next morning we went to breakfast with Mushu. He told us about this really great place that was near our hostel, that did “Hong Kong scrambled eggs. They’re known for this. Hong Kong does it differently it’s so good.” We ate and then got ready to go on our hike. “Okay if you guys are back before 8 we’ll go to this great all you can eat place. It is so good and so cheap. Classic Hong Kong style food. That way you can try a bit of everything.” We weren't back by 8. But when we walked into the hostel after having dinner we were greeted by Mushu clapping his hands and yelling “Okay! Who is ready to have the best barbecued pork in the world??” “Oh we just ate dinner.” “Oh, I thought you were going to wait… No matter, tomorrow! What are you doing tomorrow??” Mushu just wanted to be a part of everyones plans. In a later plot twist in my Hong Kong story, Marissa told me that Mushu asked her what she was doing the next day, and when she told him that she was going to wake up, go for a run and then study, he said okay can I join you for the run? She said no. “Okay when you come back we’ll go to the library together.” She said no again. She was working on her thesis.
The day I was there on my own, I decided to go to all the food things that were on my Hong Kong bucket list. So I let Mushu tour me around the city as I did this. He was looking for a new hostel to stay in that night so he checked them as we passed them between food destinations. “Oh we should go to this bakery. It’s the best french bakery. This was the first one, but now it’s bigger. After I came it expanded and now there’s 3 or 4 in Hong Kong.
We found a dim sum take out place where he ordered and told me that this was a really common chain. There used to be only one, then he told his friend that they should make it a chain. He didn't hear from that friend again, and then the chains of this place started popping up. “Maybe he did it without me who knows. But now it’s everywhere. It was my idea.”
I told Mushu about my work and he was super interested in it. He wants me to try and save the pink dolphins of the Yangtze River. And all the animals in the mountains of Taiwan. Big Ideas this guy had. He kept saying to me throughout the day “Just do well and we can collaborate. I have a great idea, maybe you can write about it on your website! We can get someone to fund us on ‘GoGetFunded” and it will be huge.” “Well what’s your idea?” He didn't answer.
We walked through the subway station and he meandered through a wave of people towards the Mrs.Fields cookie stall and passed me a baggie holding a sample of the two cookies that were up for tasting and grabbed two for himself. “Haha I know all the things.” He chuckled. I laughed and kept following him. It was at this point where I stopped and thought “Oh my God. He is me. Mushu is an older, Taiwanese man version of me.” Basically forcing people to be your friend, dragging them to all the great food spots you know of to share the experience with and running towards free samples. That is exactly me. Sometimes if I’m hungry here, I specifically walk through the grocery stores to do a round of free samples to keep myself going until I come into some real food. Costco is the same thing at home. Ill look at the books then get like 3 Krispie Kreme samples to accompany my cold cut samples. Okay, I think you’ve heard enough about Mushu for now. You get it. He was cray.
Shanghai has officially become home. I was calling it home before, but now it’s official. Why? Before I called it home because that’s where I slept at night. However, after the crazy Hong Kong experience it felt great to be back in Shanghai. This week classic Melissa came out. I thought of a recipe and mulled it over for a couple days, got home really late one night and probably annoyed the hell out of my roommates as I made the kitchen a disaster while singing and dancing to Hozier and eating all the ugly scraps that resulted from me making these recipes. So enjoy my Shanghai friendly* recipes!
*Shanghai Friendly meaning that it can be made without and oven, with cheap ingredients that are not impossible to find in Shanghai.
So I'm not going to bore you with a backstory of my dog or boyfriend doing something stupid. Largely due to the fact that I have neither of these things in my life. But trust me, if I had a dog, I would never stop posting about stupid stuff that it did or pictures of it from a million different angles. Also, I wouldn’t have a dog, I would have two. A french bulldog named Bean and a wiener dog named Frank. You would never stop hearing about them and I would probably go so far as to make a comic book about them. Maybe I already did.
I’m making this post entirely about this crazy guy we met while on our Visa run to Hong Kong last weekend. It’s sort of just a trap though. You’re going to have to read this post in order to understand what is going on when I write about my weekend in Hong Kong.
Okay let’s get started. We’re going to call this guy Mushu. No, that is not his real name. Yes, the alias is based off the dragon from Mulan. Mushu is hands down the biggest character I have ever met in my life. And I have met some crazy people and experienced some crazy things in my life. God my memoir is going to be so good.
First off, like most of the people you meet in Asian Hostels, Mushu was a solo traveller. That didn’t really matter though because he decided that all of the hostel mates were his friends. The most extroverted of extroverts. So as you could probably guess, with my extroverted personality and lack of respect for people’s boundaries, Mushu and I got along great. My travelling partner and I had just arrived back in the hostel at about 10:30p.m. after a day of flying and exploring the city and I could not wait to get to sleep(I had been getting an average of 3 hours of sleep a night the week prior). While getting set up to go to bed, Mushu was talking to another girl from the Netherlands, Marissa, about their plans to go out. We all chatted and Mushu invited us to come out with them. UGH. I wanted to go to bed so badly but I knew that if I didn’t go out, I would regret it. “Come on! It’ll be the craziest night you’ll ever have in Hong Kong!” “Yea dude, I believe you. But I haven't slept in like a week.” “People go to the 7eleven and get the sale on beer and go drinking on the street, thousands of people its crazy! You should come!” “Guy you’re doing a very good job of convincing me unfortunately. Alright I’ll come. Give me 10.” “Alright! You wanna come too?” Mushu asked the old french dude who was sitting on his bed in his stripped pyjamas. He shrugged and got up and changed. He came back wearing loafers, socks that went to his mid calf, cargo shorts, a polo shirt tucked into the shorts and a fanny pack. They were all a different shade of muted mustard yellow.
So as we all headed out of the hostel and down the street, I thought to myself “God we are the weirdest looking group of people together I have ever seen. Or been a part of. Mushu lead us into the 7eleven, and then straight back out. “No, this one they have gotten rid of the sale already because they know people are going. Come we’ll go to the other one.” And so we followed him to another near by 7eleven, which had the sale and we all got super cheap beer. As we walked into the metro which was about to close, I realized I can’t just find my way home like I normally do, I don’t know this city at all. “Hey Mushu, you’re gonna make sure you get us back to the hostel right?” “You know Thursday is the really crazy night. SO many people drinking in the street…” “Mushu, you’ll get us back?” “It’s such a crazy party you guys are gonna love it!” “YO MUSHU! You’re gonna get us back to the hostel right?” “Yea! I mean…” “What?.. What??” “If we don’t get separated, ya know sometimes people meet people and go home with them. You never know.” We all were laughing at ourselves and Mushu. We couldn’t really understand why we were so okay with following this random guy to a random place, but it felt fine.
We got off at our stop and followed Mushu around the block. Our view turned into a winding, hilly, entanglement of small streets filled with people, lights, music and bars. “If we get separated we will meet at this 7eleven.” Mushu said as he lead us through the sea of people. We followed him through the streets listening to his little facts about the different bars and food stalls. This guy knew this place like the back of his hand. Eventually he led us into this dive bar club thing that was decorated for Halloween. We made our way through the people to the dance area towards the back end of the bar. “Usually theres a cover but they know me so we didn't have to pay.” “Oh yea?” I said as I gave him one of my classic ‘raise of the eyebrows’. “Yea.”
We all danced for a bit and then went back out into the streets. He ran into at least 5 people that he knew and introduced us to. He pointed out “This place has the best Thai food. It’s like street food from Thailand. Or theres really good Mexican food at this place. We can go after, they're open until 6 in the morning.” He knew all the good food places.
More about that night later. The next morning we went to breakfast with Mushu. He told us about this really great place that was near our hostel, that did “Hong Kong scrambled eggs. They’re known for this. Hong Kong does it differently it’s so good.” We ate and then got ready to go on our hike. “Okay if you guys are back before 8 we’ll go to this great all you can eat place. It is so good and so cheap. Classic Hong Kong style food. That way you can try a bit of everything.” We weren't back by 8. But when we walked into the hostel after having dinner we were greeted by Mushu clapping his hands and yelling “Okay! Who is ready to have the best barbecued pork in the world??” “Oh we just ate dinner.” “Oh, I thought you were going to wait… No matter, tomorrow! What are you doing tomorrow??” Mushu just wanted to be a part of everyones plans. In a later plot twist in my Hong Kong story, Marissa told me that Mushu asked her what she was doing the next day, and when she told him that she was going to wake up, go for a run and then study, he said okay can I join you for the run? She said no. “Okay when you come back we’ll go to the library together.” She said no again. She was working on her thesis.
The day I was there on my own, I decided to go to all the food things that were on my Hong Kong bucket list. So I let Mushu tour me around the city as I did this. He was looking for a new hostel to stay in that night so he checked them as we passed them between food destinations. “Oh we should go to this bakery. It’s the best french bakery. This was the first one, but now it’s bigger. After I came it expanded and now there’s 3 or 4 in Hong Kong.
We found a dim sum take out place where he ordered and told me that this was a really common chain. There used to be only one, then he told his friend that they should make it a chain. He didn't hear from that friend again, and then the chains of this place started popping up. “Maybe he did it without me who knows. But now it’s everywhere. It was my idea.”
I told Mushu about my work and he was super interested in it. He wants me to try and save the pink dolphins of the Yangtze River. And all the animals in the mountains of Taiwan. Big Ideas this guy had. He kept saying to me throughout the day “Just do well and we can collaborate. I have a great idea, maybe you can write about it on your website! We can get someone to fund us on ‘GoGetFunded” and it will be huge.” “Well what’s your idea?” He didn't answer.
We walked through the subway station and he meandered through a wave of people towards the Mrs.Fields cookie stall and passed me a baggie holding a sample of the two cookies that were up for tasting and grabbed two for himself. “Haha I know all the things.” He chuckled. I laughed and kept following him. It was at this point where I stopped and thought “Oh my God. He is me. Mushu is an older, Taiwanese man version of me.” Basically forcing people to be your friend, dragging them to all the great food spots you know of to share the experience with and running towards free samples. That is exactly me. Sometimes if I’m hungry here, I specifically walk through the grocery stores to do a round of free samples to keep myself going until I come into some real food. Costco is the same thing at home. Ill look at the books then get like 3 Krispie Kreme samples to accompany my cold cut samples. Okay, I think you’ve heard enough about Mushu for now. You get it. He was cray.
Shanghai has officially become home. I was calling it home before, but now it’s official. Why? Before I called it home because that’s where I slept at night. However, after the crazy Hong Kong experience it felt great to be back in Shanghai. This week classic Melissa came out. I thought of a recipe and mulled it over for a couple days, got home really late one night and probably annoyed the hell out of my roommates as I made the kitchen a disaster while singing and dancing to Hozier and eating all the ugly scraps that resulted from me making these recipes. So enjoy my Shanghai friendly* recipes!
*Shanghai Friendly meaning that it can be made without and oven, with cheap ingredients that are not impossible to find in Shanghai.
Green Hummus
"Ohmygawb" Is what I said while tasting this hummus recipe I came up with. Its delicious, creamy, and refreshing and you want it. Trust.
I N G R E D I E N T S
Chickpeas 2 Cans
Coconut Oil 1T
Sesame oil 1t
Lemon Juice of 1 lemon
Tahini 2T
Arugula 2 handfuls
Turmeric .5T
Salt n peppa to taste
Garlic 2 cloves
**To be honest, I'm providing the measurements as a guideline for you guys to follow. I have no idea how much I actually added, these are just guesses.
D I R E C T I O NS
Dump both cans of chickpeas into a bowl to be rinsed with cold water. Keep some of the water from the chickpea can though! I would say a quarter to a third of the can is a good amount. Rinse the chickpeas until the suds stop forming. Add the chickpeas to your blender or food processor. Add the oils and 1T of the tahini. Pulse a few times until stuff doesn't move anymore. Add in a splash of the chickpea water and stir it all up so that it can blend again. Pulse a few more times and then add the rest of the tahini, lemon juice, the turmeric and another splash of chickpea water. Blend again. If you are still getting chunks of chickpeas just be patient. Turn off the blender and mix it a bit and keep blending. Add more water as needed. DO NOT stick a fork in there while blending. Its dangerous and scary and will probably ruin your appliance. I just don't like to play by the rules.
Once you have a smoother hummus going add in the arugula about half a handful at a time Blending between each addition. Once thats smooth add in the garlic and salt and pepper to taste. You really just gotta play around with it and see what works with you in terms of the consistency. Just be patient.
Hey you know what goes great with hummus(other than everything)? Flatbread! You know what's not paleo? Flatbread. SO GUESS WHAT I MADE?? Paleo flatbread. Cheap, easy, no oven required. The best part? You have complete creativity with how you want it to taste. I made an herb one but next time I think I'll try cinnamon raisin. You're welcome.
I N G R E D I E N T S
Chickpeas 2 Cans
Coconut Oil 1T
Sesame oil 1t
Lemon Juice of 1 lemon
Tahini 2T
Arugula 2 handfuls
Turmeric .5T
Salt n peppa to taste
Garlic 2 cloves
**To be honest, I'm providing the measurements as a guideline for you guys to follow. I have no idea how much I actually added, these are just guesses.
D I R E C T I O NS
Dump both cans of chickpeas into a bowl to be rinsed with cold water. Keep some of the water from the chickpea can though! I would say a quarter to a third of the can is a good amount. Rinse the chickpeas until the suds stop forming. Add the chickpeas to your blender or food processor. Add the oils and 1T of the tahini. Pulse a few times until stuff doesn't move anymore. Add in a splash of the chickpea water and stir it all up so that it can blend again. Pulse a few more times and then add the rest of the tahini, lemon juice, the turmeric and another splash of chickpea water. Blend again. If you are still getting chunks of chickpeas just be patient. Turn off the blender and mix it a bit and keep blending. Add more water as needed. DO NOT stick a fork in there while blending. Its dangerous and scary and will probably ruin your appliance. I just don't like to play by the rules.
Once you have a smoother hummus going add in the arugula about half a handful at a time Blending between each addition. Once thats smooth add in the garlic and salt and pepper to taste. You really just gotta play around with it and see what works with you in terms of the consistency. Just be patient.
Hey you know what goes great with hummus(other than everything)? Flatbread! You know what's not paleo? Flatbread. SO GUESS WHAT I MADE?? Paleo flatbread. Cheap, easy, no oven required. The best part? You have complete creativity with how you want it to taste. I made an herb one but next time I think I'll try cinnamon raisin. You're welcome.
I was trying to think of ways to incorporate something like "Guys I made mad stacks today" but I'm just not clever enough. I just wanted you to know the intent was there.
I N G R E D I E N T S
Egg Whites 12
Coconut Flour .5C
Baking Powder .5t
Salt .5t
Coconut Oil (Or oil of choice) 1T
Thyme .5T
Oregano 1T
Chilli oil .5T
Salt n Peppa to taste
D I R E C T I O N S
Add the egg whites to a medium sized bowl. Whisk up the whites a bit to get more of a consistent texture. In a separate small bowl mix the baking powder, flour and salt. Slowly add the dry mixture into the egg whites while stirring. Now, when I did this it got really clumpy so I used a hand blender to smooth it out. If you don't have one of those throwing everything into a regular blender works fine too.
Add the spices and the chilli oil. Grease the pan and set to a high heat. Allow for the pan to heat up completely and add your batter in small portions. I added mine by about 3 or 4 spoonfuls and made about 3 at a time. You don't want to make them too big or else they won't cook properly. Cover the flatbread until the edges are cooked and flip. Cook for another 30 secs. Bam. Paleo flatbread. These recipes are great because you can make a large amount and eat it throughout the week or share with friends. I have been taking mine as my lunch for the past couple days and its been great! If you try this out and come up with a delicious flavour combo for your flatbread let me know! Enjoy!
I N G R E D I E N T S
Egg Whites 12
Coconut Flour .5C
Baking Powder .5t
Salt .5t
Coconut Oil (Or oil of choice) 1T
Thyme .5T
Oregano 1T
Chilli oil .5T
Salt n Peppa to taste
D I R E C T I O N S
Add the egg whites to a medium sized bowl. Whisk up the whites a bit to get more of a consistent texture. In a separate small bowl mix the baking powder, flour and salt. Slowly add the dry mixture into the egg whites while stirring. Now, when I did this it got really clumpy so I used a hand blender to smooth it out. If you don't have one of those throwing everything into a regular blender works fine too.
Add the spices and the chilli oil. Grease the pan and set to a high heat. Allow for the pan to heat up completely and add your batter in small portions. I added mine by about 3 or 4 spoonfuls and made about 3 at a time. You don't want to make them too big or else they won't cook properly. Cover the flatbread until the edges are cooked and flip. Cook for another 30 secs. Bam. Paleo flatbread. These recipes are great because you can make a large amount and eat it throughout the week or share with friends. I have been taking mine as my lunch for the past couple days and its been great! If you try this out and come up with a delicious flavour combo for your flatbread let me know! Enjoy!