#ChineseFoodiesofIG: Sandy Tang

Sandy Tang

This is part of an ongoing series of interviews I’m doing with my favourite Chinese foodies that I follow on Instagram. Come and follow the #ChineseFoodiesofIG hashtag on Instagram and leave a comment showing your support for these talented folk!

Where are you from? Where are you really from?

I was born in Macau and moved to the UK when I was 13. Now I’m based in Reading.

What does home taste like?

Breakfast was always the highlight at home. It’s a mum-made toastie with spam and egg, served with a Hong Kong style milk tea – strongly brewed breakfast tea, sugar and evaporated milk. Home also means a variety of foods from different cuisines on our dinner table, from Portuguese roast pork knuckle, enoki beef roll in teriyaki sauce, salted & pepper wings, steamed fish with ginger and scallions… and watermelons that are all nicely cut into chunks after dinner on a hot summer night.

Share a food memory:

FIt’s not exactly a memory as I was too young to remember the incident. But according to my dad, I had always been a fast eater with a special love for dim sum. Char siu buns have always been my childhood favourite. At the age of two, I love it so much that I was eating too fast and almost choked myself to death. Lucky enough, my dad turned me upside down just in time to get it out of me. 

What’s a Chinese recipe everyone should learn?

Always go back to the basic on making an all-purpose dough for all sorts of noodles, dumplings and buns. All you need is a bit of flour, water, salt, yeast and fats are optional, but the variables includes the temperature of the water, the duration of the mixing, the protein content of the flour, time to proof and small changes make a big difference.

Favourite Chinese vegetable?

Taro is one of the root vegetables that I can’t get enough of and difficult to find good ones in the UK as they taste better when they are more starchy, which only happens when they are grown in warmer climates. It has this nutty vanilla flavour that goes perfectly well with coconut milk, cream and milk. My favourite dessert is Taro and Sago Pudding with Coconut Milk.

Who's your Chinese food legend?

Alan Yau – He is the kind of restaurateur whom I look up to so often, and feeling inspired by his endless ideas include Britain’s first Michelin-starred Cantonese establishment Hakkasan, Yauatcha, the Japanese canteen chain Wagamama and my favourite supper club Park Chinois. Knowing how to make good food is one thing, but knowing how to run a successful food business is another. I find myself interested in the latter, especially now I’m kicking off my new venture. I will be the first person to buy his book if he’s willing to share his stories in the London dining scene.

Dream dinner party guests:

Friends and family, especially my parents. It's really only in recent years that my parents have let me cook for them — my whole life they discouraged me from the kitchen in favor of more ‘serious’ pursuits. Obviously, that tactic failed!

The secret Chinese ingredient is…

Wang Shouyi 13 Spices Mix! It’s a spice blend of orange peel, cinnamon, cumin, ginger, angelica, Sichuan peppercorn, star anise, nutmeg, galangal, white pepper, cloves, liquorice and cardamom. I didn’t know anything about it until my boyfriend cooked me a really great lamb dish some time ago. And I was really puzzled when I first tasted it because I can usually tell what spices or condiment is in the dish, but this absolutely threw me off. It’s great for meat like lamb or duck with a more robust or ‘gamey’ flavour.

Know any good Chinese restaurants?

There are so many! I love going to Joy King Lau for a dim sum brunch. Haidilao for hot pot in the winter, Jinli and Barshu for Sichuan cuisine, Biang Biang for X’ian cuisine. Park Chinois for a fancier night out.

What does Chinese food mean to you?

Chinese food is such a broad area of study. I know it will take life-long to master. History is always changing behind us, and the past changes a little every time we retell it. In comparison, our knowledge of food is so well-preserved, even after travelling thousands of miles away from its origin. Food requires studying with an open heart and a non-biased view because they come from diverse places, ranging from dry desert in the North and West to the rain and heat of the tropical monsoon in the South and South-East. I want to be more conscious when it comes to ‘Why do we eat this? And how this should be eaten?’.