Earlier this week, I wrote about the delicious contemporary Hong Kong-style dim sum at the Hotel Grand Pacific, in Victoria, BC.

Executive chef Rick Choy shared his recipe for the sweet and chewy coconut tarts he serves at dim sum, and they’re surprisingly easy to make at home. They’d make an excellent dessert for an Asian meal. They’d also pair well with fresh fruit or a fruit sorbet.

Coconut Tarts
Adapted from Chef Rick Choy, The Hotel Grand Pacific

Don’t use very fine coconut; you want the tarts to have a little texture. If you don’t have small tart pans, I found that you can bake the tarts in mini muffin tins; just butter them well or use a vegetable oil spray to keep them from sticking.

Filling
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup whipping cream
2 cups shredded unsweetened coconut

Method:
1. In a food processor, blend the flour, sugar, and salt. Add the butter and blend until the mixture resembles coarse sand. Add the lemon juice, water, and vanilla and blend briefly to form the dough.

2. Set the dough aside to rest for about 20 minutes. If the dough seems very sticky, let it rest in the refrigerator.

3. Roll out the dough and use to form pie shells using either individual molds or a baking pan with 4-inch insets, or 2-inch insets if making the smaller size. (Note: I used a glass to cut circles slightly larger than my two-inch-diameter mini muffin tins, then put the dough circles into the muffin tins, crimping the edges to form tart shells.)

4. Preheat the oven to 320°F (160°C).

5. Make the filling: In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar, then blend in the egg till well combined. Add in the cream, then mix in the coconut.

6. Scoop the filling into the individual tart shells. Bake at 320°F (160°C) for about 15 minutes or until filling is set and tops of tarts are golden brown.

Yield: Five 4-inch tarts or ten 2-inch tarts

If you try this recipe, please leave a comment and let us know what you think. Thanks!

And if you want to sample Chef Choy’s coconut tarts at the restaurant, The Hotel Grand Pacific, 463 Belleville Street, Victoria, BC serves dim sum on Saturdays and Sundays from 11:30 am to 3 pm.

Tasty Travels!

Carolyn

Now that I’ve wrapped up my “Hit the Road Hungry” road trip from Vancouver to Los Angeles, I wanted to share more details about the car service I used and recap the highlights of the trip.

Hitting the road with Hit The Road: How it works
To arrange the car that I drove to Los Angeles, I worked with a Toronto-based company, Hit The Road, that pairs people who want to take road trips with people who need their cars moved.

Their trips fall into two categories: travel between Canada and the United States and travel within Canada.

They frequently match drivers with “snowbirds”—Canadians who winter in the southern or western United States. Many “snowbirds” need their cars transported between major Canadian cities and destinations like Florida, Arizona, or southern California. Many of these trips are southbound in the fall or early winter and northbound in March, April, and May.

Hit The Road also offers cross-Canada trips: Toronto-Vancouver, Halifax-Calgary, Montreal-Edmonton, or other long-distance journeys. Most of these cross-Canada trips are in the spring, summer, or fall.

Trips can crop up at other times, too. For my trip from Vancouver to Los Angeles in April, I drove a car for a family who was relocating from British Columbia to California. You can check the list of available cars (and where they’re going) on the Hit the Road website, which is updated regularly.

What it costs
Hit the Road pays drivers a stipend to cover gas and some of your travel costs. While the stipend varies depending on the car, destination, and other factors, for a five-day Vancouver-to-Los-Angeles trip like mine, the standard stipend is about $500, or roughly $100 per day.

You won’t be staying at the Ritz, but if you consider accommodation options like AirBnB, couchsurfing, hostels, budget hotels, camping, or bunking with friends along the way, the stipend should cover the majority of your expenses.

Because all trips are one-way, you also need to budget for airfare, train tickets, or bus travel for your return trip if you’re heading back to your starting point. Still, you’re saving money on transportation, since you’re not paying for round-trip travel.

HitTheRoad.ca has a detailed FAQ for prospective drivers that explains how to apply and how to arrange a trip.

What I liked about driving with Hit The Road

• The price is right: You essentially get a free one-way road trip.


• The process is straightforward: Once you agree on a trip, Hit The Road handles the paperwork (which, in my case, included documents for bringing the car across the U.S.-Canadian border).


• It was fun! And there was lots of good eating along the way.

A couple of cautions

• Your trip has a time limit: Because the car owners (understandably) need their vehicles as soon as possible, you need to keep your road trip to a fairly tight schedule. While five days was enough time for me to make it from Vancouver to Los Angeles by myself without feeling like I had to spend 12 hours a day behind the wheel, it would have been nice to have more time to stop and explore along the way.


• Dealing with the car owner can have its downsides: Hit The Road makes the arrangements, but the driver needs to work out the details of picking up and dropping off the car directly with the owner. In my case, once I delivered the car, the owner balked at giving me a ride to the nearby metro station (which was part of the Hit The Road deal). Although she eventually agreed, the delay meant that I missed my train onward to my next stop and spent three extra hours in LA’s Union Station. A big deal? No. An inconvenience? Yes.

“Hit the Road Hungry” Road Trip Highlights

Would I do a Hit The Road trip again? Definitely. Overall, my trip from Vancouver to Los Angeles was awesome!

Here’s a recap of some of my adventures:

Most unexpected treat: Wine cupcakes, Los Olivos, CA

Best place to spend a sunny afternoon: La Bicyclette, Carmel, CA

Most deliciousness on two wheels: Bites By Bike foodie cycle tour, Portland, OR

Most fun farmers’ market: Thursday night Farmers’ Market, San Luis Obispo, CA

Most interesting discovery: Cold-brewed coffee, Portland, OR

Worst karma: An encounter with the California Highway Patrol at a Buddhist monastery, Ukiah, CA

Best meal overall: Pok Pok, Portland, OR

It took me five days to drive the 2500 kilometers (1500 miles) from Vancouver to Los Angeles. I flew the same distance home in less than three hours.

Of course, we don’t always have time to meander along the coast, searching for tacos, biscuits and gravy, or a Buddhist vegetarian lunch.

But wouldn’t it be nice if we did?

About WanderFood Wednesday
Every Wednesday, you can share a photo or post about own food adventures as part of the WanderFood Wednesday blog carnival. Here’s how:

1. Post a food photo on your site.


2. Add a brief description about the photo—or a longer food-focused post—and include a link to WanderFood Wednesday.


3. Add your blog name and post title to the “Mr. Linky” form below, with a link directly to your post (not to your main blog). That’s it!

Tasty Travels!

Carolyn

After my hearty biscuits-and-gravy breakfast, I was craving lighter California cuisine. So as I continued my road trip down the California coast, I was glad to meet up with friends Cynthia and Gloria, who suggested lunch at La Bicyclette, a sunny French-inspired bistro in Carmel-by-the-Sea.

The food wasn’t overly fancy or precious (as this somewhat touristy town can be), but everything we sampled was fresh and delicious.

Arugula salad with apples, goat cheese, and hazelnuts.

Butternut squash and prosciutto pizza.

Halibut with olive croutons.

What could be finer than a sunny afternoon and lunch with old friends in a cute seaside town?

If you go…
La Bicyclette is at the corner of Dolores and 7th, one block off Ocean Avenue, in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, 831-622-9899.

About the “Hit the Road Hungry” Road Trip
I’m doing a solo road trip from Vancouver to Los Angeles, working with a company called Hit The Road that pairs people who want to take road trips with people who need their cars moved. I’m delivering a 1998 Honda Civic for its owners who are moving from British Columbia to southern California, and I’m eating my way down the west coast.

The previous posts in this series are:
When Plans for Pie Go Awry
Taco Craving
Pok Pok in Portland
Living The Serious Coffee Lifestyle in Portland
Bites By Bike, with Portland’s Pedal Bike Tours
Taste of Korea: A Taste of the Food Cart Scene in Portland
I Should Have Had the Deep-Fried Pickles
Winding Through the Redwood Forest
Ten Thousand Buddhas, One Highway Patrolman, But No Lunch
Time for Biscuits and Gravy!

I hope you’ll continue to follow along as I “Hit the Road Hungry!”

Tasty Travels!

Carolyn