Family style comfort food

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My Birdbrain Cousin came back from her French eating and shopping tour, and this time she's got her sister in tow.  The three of us haven't been in the same spot for almost a decade, so we took the short window of opportunity to catch up over dinner.  I figured they wouldn't really need more French, so I got us a table at Tim's Kitchen (桃花源) with a view to have some homey dishes.

Steamed whole fresh crab claw with egg white (蛋白蒸原隻鮮蟹鉗) - still really delish, and the plump claw was just a hunk of sweet crab meat.  Prices for this keep going up and up, though... and is now a whole 50% more than what it was a few years ago.

Braised goose web and pork tendon in oyster sauce (豬脚筋扣鵝掌) - it's been a while since I last had this, and I'm happy for the chance to munch on some collagen.  Flavors seemed lighter than I remembered.

Fried eggs with prawns (蝦仁炒蛋) - I love eating this, but tonight the kitchen put way, way too much salt here.

Braised pork belly with preserved vegetables (梅菜扣肉) - not surprisingly, this was a dish where the seasoning was also a little heavy, so we finally had to get a little bit of steamed rice to go with it, especially the sauce with preserved leafy mustard.  I don't think my cousins have had this in ages... possibly not since the last time our grandma made it decades ago.

Poached leafy amaranth with salted egg, century egg and minced pork (金銀蛋肉鬆浸莧菜) - we needed some veg, and leafy amaranth (莧菜) is in season, so the waiter suggested that we have it with the preserved eggs.  What I didn't expect was that it'd come with minced pork, too!  So a veggie dish has turned out to have more protein than veg...

Fried Rice with Minced Beef, Onions and Shallots (生炒牛肉飯) - we were pretty full by the time this arrived, and in fact tried to cancel the dish.  Very, very tasty.

Billecart-Salmon Brut Sous Bois - very noticeable toasty notes, ripe on the nose and the palate, a little sweet on the palate.  Round, smooth and a lovely wine to drink.  With remnants of century eggs still in the mouth, this tasted very sweet, and ripe, and brought out the minerality.

I've been doing a lot of catching up with family over the last 6 months, and I'm glad I was able to see one more member of the clan - the one who couldn't make it to our December gathering.  Let's hope we see each other a little more often in the future!