Dine and Dish 5

I was delighted to see Dine and Dish back for episode five but I was a little skeptical about the theme. Don't get me wrong. I like the entire spectrum of Asian food but Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian, Filipino, Thai and Vietnamese food all in the same month? That's a lot of eating and I'm not sure how many fellow food bloggers will be up to it. However, never one to back away from a challenge I plan to give it my best shot.

I don't even have time to describe it all so for now I'll just concentrate on a recent Chinese food adventure. C&Y created a big splash in Cleveland when it debuted. It challenged the other authentic Chinese restaurants in Cleveland to strive for a higher standard. Their Chinese New Year celebration was one of the best meals I've had in a long time. And it exposed Northeast Ohioans to a lot of items they'd never seen before. After some mysterious and extended downtime, C&Y is back and Cleveland is eager to know if it will live up to its own reputation.

In two visits since they reopened, my favorite dish so far has been the chicken noodle soup. Flavorful broth, tender chicken and tasty noodles:


A lot of the original interest in C&Y was generated by their soup dumplings:


I also tried some of the dim sum items. Fried tofu with chicken, bbq pork dumplings and steamed pork dumplings:


Desserts at Chinese restaurants get an undeserved bad reputation. I like them. Especially after one-too-many too clever by half, yet mysteriously bland Western desserts. This is nicely eggy and mildly sweet:


The attention that non-Chinese language speakers get at C&Y is far superior to that at Cleveland's other authentic Chinese restaurants. The staff was generally able to explain what I was eating and even offered suggestions. The menu on my previous visit was completely determined by the proprietor: beans, kidney and pork chops among other things.

After consuming dessert number one I realized that I'd promised to bring home something for my father. So I stopped at a Chinese bakery for his lunch and my dessert number two. And desserts numbers three, four, and five through ten. Superior bakery offers many savory items and I bought my father a chicken puff pastry and a curry beef bun. What's pictured here are only the desserts that I ate on the way home.

Cream puff:


Winter melon paste cookie (someone kindly noted in my flickr photostream that these are called wife pastry?):


Almond cookie:


Melon cake:


and Fillipino rice cake:


The bread for the buns is all the same and various toppings or fillings are inserted or applied. The bun is chewy and delicious. It's a bread instead of a traditional Western style cake. Taro bun:

The delicious (very) butter cream bun:


And the mocha cream bun:
.

But my favorite was the simplest. A little (or a lot of )butter and some sugar. The sugar butter bun:


Anyway, thanks for visiting. I'm looking forward to reading all of your entries. And I'm definitely looking forward to Dine and Dish 6. Here's hoping that we don't have to wait as long for it as we did for episode five.

Finally, thanks to Sarah. It's a wonderful idea and I appreciate all the hard work you must put into it.