San Pedro Fish Market

We took a drive to San Pedro so I could have some steamed crab. I got this half-tan from sitting at an angle to the sun for an hour while we had some of the most delicious seafood I've had in awhile.

This is D's order. He's big on flavours and ordered a pound of shrimp (prawns) from the Market which they then cooked on the grill with spices, butter, vegetables and potato. The result was sublime. The prawns were extremely fresh and albeit very messy to eat. You can order a whole mixture if different types if seafood. Just pick the type of seafood you want from the Market, then tell them how you'd like it cooked (with potatoes? Vegetables? Plain?). You then pay and get your bag of fresh seafood and receipt an you bring both to the ladies in the open kitchen who will cook it (the seafood, not the receipt) for you.

I had two huge fresh crab for US$10. Wow this was well worth it. I had to grab the live crab with tongs an shove them into a bag. This is then handed to the vendor who will weigh the crab and tell you the price. After paying, you get a buzzer which will page you when the crab is ready. I love steamed crab. Fresh crab is amazing on its own, no spices or condiments required.

I love this photo because it shows the perfect partner to seafood on a sunny day - cold beer! I wouldn't have minded a cold juice or soda either, as long as it's cold. It also shows the cute little mallet I had to pay a dollar for. Of course! How else would I have been able to eat my crustacean lunch?

Just to give you an idea of how much they were charging for prawns / shrimp. Shocking!!! My crab was sooooo much cheaper.

Grill em up! The aroma emanating from this cooking spot was wonderful. I was hopping on one foot and then the other eagerly waiting for D's to be ready. Like my Ma use to say of me: ni den dao jing chang le! Literally meaning 'you're waiting till your neck grows long!'

Sushiboy at LAX and another farewell

This was a quick last meal in Los Angeles. My flight back to London was delayed by more than two hours and was given a voucher for a meal. Having had an overdose of calorie-laden meals for the past two weeks, I opted for an udon combo from Sushiboy. It was nothing to write home about. The broth, inari, seaweed and fake crabsticks were very ordinary. It came with a side of California roll. I'm not a fussy eater but I didn't finish this. It may have been the sub-par meal, but more likely me being very sad from having to say goodbye to D. I was too heartbroken to eat and was feeling slightly sick in the stomach.

The Pike, Long Beach

We went to the Yardhouse for a leisurely beer and snack by the waters. To D's delight, we discovered the beer tasters which was perfect for us to have a little try of everything.

The tasters came in two fixed sets, the white beers and the darker beers. Being a fan of Blue Moon and Hoegaaden (sp? I'm blogging from my phone) we chose the white. They came in six little helpings which look like they're about a third of a pint each. Perfect for two people. It became apparent that every white beer except one had a fruit as one of their ingredients. My favorite was the classic whitbeer without the hints if fruit. It's a shame that D threw away the list of beer names. I can only remember the beers by their fruit - apricot, tangerine, cherry, strawberry and blueberry. The flavored were subtle and the beers were definitely not sweet like the famous fruli ales. That worked well for me as I don't like sweet drinks (I dislike dessert wines or liquors like kahlua or midori.

I ordered a plate of yardhouse's sliders. This came with a side of very thin sliced fries and a pickle. They were sooo good washed down with cold beer!

Breakfast at Coco's

You've got to love a place where cake is an acceptable form of breakfast. We went for breakfast (it was almost lunchtime) at Coco's in Norwalk. D's breakfast combo cane with this coffee cake, which contrary to my expectations, didn't contain any coffee. It was a spiced pumpkin cake so I have to assume that the word coffee cake makes reference to the fact that you have this with coffee. Is that right? It was moist and rich, and came with whipped butter on the side. Seriously, American breakfast places put butter on everything! French toast, pancakes, crepes... I'm sure my eggs were cooked in butter.

I have my coffee black but was interested to know what these little cups of creamer taste like. I don't know what half and half or French vanilla is so I opened one of each to try. Half n half is sooooo creamy. I can't believe it goes into coffee. I expect a layer of fat to be floating on top of your cup of Joe if one of these go in. The French vanilla. Hmmm...where do I start. First of all I didn't expect this to be sweet but boy was it SWEET. it was pure corn syrup with artificial vanilla flavoring. Like the half n half, it was also very creamy. I think I'll pass on these but I'm glad I know what they taste like now.

A visit to IHOP

I think it stands for International House of Pancakes. Two eggs, sausage, bacon, ham and hash brown potatoes with a side of pancakes and 5 types of syrup. This is why I'm fat! A quick note about the bacon in America: it's always cooked to a crisp, compared to the more chewy, meaty bacon in the UK. I can't decide which one I like better. All I can say is I'm glad to be going home soon to my treadmill.

Wienerschnitzel review

Just a quick stop by a nearby Wienerschnitzel, a fast food hut which will douse chilli and cheese over anything on their menu - fries, burgers and hot dogs. We got two chilli cheese fries and three chilli cheese dogs and settled ourselves on the open air seating. The fries were beautifully crisp and made to order, and the hot dog was grilled (not boiled - hooray!). A sloppy meal but I loved mopping up the chilli with the soft bun. This was the perfect salty, flavourful meal washed down with my favourite soda, root beer. I just wish diet root beer existed; I'll be its biggest fan. This was my first WS experience and I'll definitely be back.

Trof - The Deaf Institute, Manchester

J, Z, W and I went to Trof to have a big Sunday lunch together. As most of us hadn't had breakfast, we were ready to eat like kings. The Deaf Institute is Trof's "Cafe, Bar and Music Hall" and there are a whole list of performances and open mic events running most evenings throughout the week. However, on Sundays it's a good old mixtape of mostly British artists played in the background. A friend Ed (a musician himself) once joked that "you need a beard to work in Trof" - referring to a lovely member of staff who works here. I love Trof's large varnished wooden tables and big bottles of sauces passed from table to table as they are needed. It sure beats the Wetherspoon chain of pubs' packet sauces which ends up leaving a huge mess on the table. Not very environmentally friendly either!

I ordered the Roast Pork (£7.95), a Sunday roast special. I've only ever eaten in Trof on Sundays! I was instantly disappointed when my plate arrived because It Wasn't Crispy :( The only reason I ordered this was my assumption that roast porks will have a top layer of fat blitzed to a lovely crackling. As you can see, the top layer was a gelatinous piece of skin. To be fair to Trof, this still tasted good. The meat was amazingly tender, they were generous with the gravy and  the roast potatoes were perfect, crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. I love that they served this with deep green vegetables and leaves as I much prefer those to carrots and root vegetables. There was an interesting (slightly watery) sweet potato mash which I neither liked nor disliked. If the top layer of skin was done to a crackling, this would have been my favourite roast pork dinner!*

Z ordered the Crispy Bacon, Brie and Cranberry melt. (£5.95) This was served with a side of fresh hot chips and spinach leaves. I didn't try it but Z said he really enjoyed it.

J and W both ordered the Mozzarella, Chicken and Pesto sandwiches each (£5.95) again served with chips and spinach leaves. They both really liked this as well.

I felt slightly embarrassed that on that table, my plate was significantly larger than the other three! Oh well, I don't like ordering sandwiches when I eat out because I always feel like sandwiches are something I can make at home. When I eat out, I tend to order things I would never bother to make at home, either because they're too time consuming or made of unusual ingredients.

As always, we were too full to order dessert. One of these days, we need to skip the main and go straight for dessert!

*I know as Malaysians we call something a "dinner" when it's eaten after 6pm. Sunday dinners start at 12 noon here!

Carluccio's

This is a little 'pick me up' tiramisu I shared with D when we were at the Trafford Centre in Manchester. Layers of sponge fingers soaked in coffee and mascarpone cheese, dusted with cocoa powder. It was lush and I'm so glad they only gave us a portion because if it was up to me, I would have sat myself down with the entire tray of 6 servings and a fork and nom nom nommmmm. I love tiramisus and this was particularly yummy. The coffee here wasn't good enough for D though. He's got pretty high standards when it comes to coffee. His grandparents were coffee growers and he's not found a good cup of coffee yet in England. Any suggestions for great coffee places are most welcome.

Birthday Dad

My father doesn't like cake. But as it was his birthday, cake and candles were mandatory. We celebrated by having dinner at Red Chilli, Manchester. The food was as good as ever (Red Chilli is wonderfully consistent) and the waiter initiated the birthday song whilst traipsing in with a fully lit cake! We are very blessed.

We got the iPhone4! And Seoul Kimchi, Manchester... again

D got the iPhone4. We waited in line outside the Manchester Arndale for SEVEN hours. I've never done something like that, and never will.

His iPhone4 is sim-free and so will work on any 3G network in the world. We just bought a £10 pay-as-you-go sim card later, cut it down to the size of a microsim, slotted it in and we were good to go! Diego is only here for a few weeks. On the day the iPhone4 was released, O2 was the only network offering microsims, and they were only available on a pay monthly basis. I was going to do a little "How-to" on how to turn your regular sim card into a microsim but the internet is full of useful information. I'll just say it involves a pen, a pair of scissors, and some careful snip-snip-snipping.

Also, a short trip to Seoul Kimchi in Manchester to have lunch the next day. The videos below were taken with the iPhone4. I should probably mention that they are a little "hazy/soft-focussy" as we didn't have the heart to remove the clear film which was covering the brand new phone. You know, that film that you try ever so hard to keep stuck on the screen of a new phone before it starts peeling off bit by bit, and eventually flopping about before you start getting a little irritated and peel the whole thing off. Yeah that one.


D wasn't feeling very well - cue bloodshot eyes. Must be all that waiting in line the day before. Sorry - being the video noob that I am, I held the phone the wrong way in the first recording.





We got the Luxury Korean Bento and Spicy Tofu and Pork stew. Yum!

I love kimchi but he avoids it at all costs. We both love Korean food though, and Seoul Kimchi's our favourite place in Manchester to have Korean.





We've not been disappointed yet!

The best cookie dough recipe (so far)

Everyone's got their own definition of the perfect cookie, so I would qualify the title of the post by saying that this is the perfect cookie dough recipe for me.

Five cookies sitting on my windowsill

I also don't think I've found THE recipe yet, and so am still experimenting. This is the basic dough to which you can add whatever you want, toffee chips, chocolate chips, raisins, swirls of espresso, nuts, blueberries - go wild!

Crunchy cookie = good

To me, the perfect cookie is:

1. Crunchy (think Famous Amos); and

2. Possibly just ever so slightly chewy right in the middle...

I do not like big soft chewy cookies (think Millie's) or worse, powdery crumbly cookies (think shortbreads). Yech at the powdery floury aftertaste. Yech Yuck Bleruch.

Walnut, cashew nut, peanut...and a swirl of coffee

I'd like to share this latest recipe. It's work-in-progress, but I think it's pretty close to what I'm looking for.

     1 and 1/2 sticks of butter

     1/2 cup brown sugar

     2/3 cup granulated sugar

     1 egg

     1 tsp vanilla essence

     1/2 tsp salt

     2 cups of plain flour

     1 tsp baking soda

1. Cream sugar and butter in a bowl until well combined.
2. Add egg and vanilla essence. Mix well
3. Add the dry ingredients - plain flour, salt and baking soda, and form into a dough. At this stage you can add your nuts, raisins, chocolate chips etc.
4. Next, roll the dough into a cylinder and place it in the fridge for at least 30 min. YOU MUST DO THIS. Especially if you live in the tropics. Lukewarm cookie dough makes bad cookies. Don't ask me why, just trust me. I'm yet to figure out why myself. Maybe one day, if I ever do a baking 101 class, my pâtisserie teacher will tell me. Until then, I do this on the basis that my refrigerated cookie dough always yields better cookies than room temperature ones.
5. Preheat the oven to 175 deg celcius.
6. Cut out your cookies into discs and place them on a greased, non-stick baking tray, 2 inches apart. Greasing is mandatory.
7. Bake in pre-heated oven for 12 minutes, and keep a close watch on them as the bubble deliciously.
8. Remove tray from the oven, and let the cookies cool completely before transferring them. Do not attempt to touch/move your cookies when they're even remotely warm as they are very soft at this stage and will fall apart. I leave mine to cool and harden for at least 2 hours.

Enjoy your crunchy cookies!

The photos are of the most recent batch I made. They are wonderfully crunchy with a slight chewy centre. I put raisins, cashews, walnuts, brazil nuts and swirls of espresso in them. I love the chewiness of caramelised raisins and crunchiness of the nuts which have roasted in the cookies. Yup - definitely a chew/crunch fan :)

What type of cookie are you?

McDonalds Seaweed Shaker Fries - How to?

When it comes to food, we Asians love taking things to the next level. Localisation, adaptation, call it whatever you want. Welcome to our world of wasabi Filet-O'-Fish, tom yum KFC, Teriyaki McBurgers and Starbucks green tea (matcha) frappucinos. Oishi!

In my last visit to Singapore, one favourite night-time snack with the girls after a long Saturday of doing not very much is McDonald's Seaweed Shaker fries. Words fail me when describing the novelty of it all, and so my beautiful friend, P, will demonstrate:

At the counter, you will be given:

1. A brown paper bag (shown below), 

2. Fries and 

3. The all-important seaweed shaker seasoning.

So you open up your brown paper bag, like so. 

Eurgh, flash photography is so unflattering. Think I'll turn it off 

There, much better without flash. P is lovely regardless. 

Next, pour your calorie-laden, hot, crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, shoestring fries into said bag, like so.

This is what they'll look like. As you can see, there's a good fries to airspace ratio in the paper bag to optimise shaking and even distribution of the seasoning. There's such a science to this.

Why does P always look so glamourous? It's like gusts of modelling breeze follow her wherever she goes and whips her hair into a perfect wind-swept look.

Now you take your seaweed shaker seasoning. It's a tiny packet but it packs a punch. From what I can remember, the ingredients are nori (seaweed), salt and various other mystery ingredients. Does anyone know what the complete list of ingredients is? Is there MSG in this stuff, because it's very more-ish!

Add your seasoning to the fries in your brown paper bag.

Then shake it to your right.

Shake it to your left

All done! Fold the sides of the paper bag down (as you would with, uh, sleeves and socks) and enjoy! See the dark green bits of seaweed clinging to the crispy fries? Yummy!

From memory, the photos might have been taken with a phone so excuse the grainy-ness

Rustica - Italian restaurant in Manchester (Review)

Italian restaurants are ubiquitous in Manchester because they just work. Italian cuisine is a crowd-pleaser - safe for the fussy / vegan / vegetarian / pescatarian / heat-wuss (no curry please!) / unadventurous (black bean chicken feet??) dinner companion.

So when my friend suggested Rustica for a nice Thursday evening dinner, it didn't provoke any passionate reaction either way. Truth be told, I am ambivalent to popular "Italian" cuisine available in Manchester. They aren't great, but nice enough for dinner with good company. The only Italian restaurant to every get me excited is San Carlo, my personal favourite Italian joint in Manchester. I'm sure there are nicer (pricier) ones to be explored, but not on my budget.

This was my first time in Rustica and I must say off the bat, the service is very attentive. Our glasses were never left empty and the waiter was incredibly accommodating to our multiple requests. We noticed a long table next to us, fully set for a party of 12. Moments later, a giggly gaggle of ladies on a hen party bounded in. Our waiter was waiting on the hen party, us as well as quite a few other table, so a big thumbs up to him for juggling so well.

We ordered some garlic bread as starters (sorry, no photos as we were too hungry!). They were lovely. My perfect garlic bread would be lightly crusty on the outside and soft, fluffy and chewy on the inside. The worst thing someone could do to my garlic bread would be to toast it to death, such that the crust hardens or dries out. Eugh. Rustica's garlic bread was just nice.

Linguine con Gamberoni - King prawns, chilli and tomato sauce. 

Where I come from, those are NOT king prawns, but regular prawns but oh well, when in Rome...

Fettucine Salmone e Gamberetti - Pasta in a smoked salmon, prawns & cream sauce. 

My favourite of the lot. This wasn't my order but T generously let me have a taste. I'm partial to seafood but I think what made this yummy was the texture of the pasta ribbons. I love flat ribbon pasta!

Spaghetti Bolognese - Thin Pasta with Minced Beef and Tomato

Meh, I could make this in my kitchen. S ordered this and I think she just wanted some good old comfort food. Incidentally, S is half-Italian, with a robust Italian grandmama with high standards of Italian cooking. It didn't bowl her over, but she liked it enough to polish it off.

Pizza Mare e Monte - Tomato, Mozzarella, Prawns and Mushrooms

I didn't try this but it smelt lovely. Bubbly cheese and fluffy risen bread is truly a lovely sight.

Risotto Rustica - Risotto with strips of chicken, peppers and tomato sauce

This was my order. It was delicious to start with but became quite cloying towards the end - not the fault of the restaurant. Risottos are always on the heavy side anyway. This was well seasoned, the chicken was slightly dry but it didn't stop me from enjoying it. I love tomato based sauces, so this was right up my alley.

Overall, our Rustica experience was nice, and that might be more to do with the excellent company and service than the actual food. I don't feel compelled to return. The food wasn't memorably bad but it wasn't memorably fantastic either, which in these times, isn't good enough to get patrons to part with their hard-earned cash.

Seoul Kimchi - the yummiest Korean food in Manchester!

I went to Seoul Kimchi with four other friends a few days ago for dinner. Seoul Kimchi used to be a little provision shop selling tasty korean gems like biscuits, beancurd paste, korean candy and staple korean ingredients. I would pop in every now and then to purchase a little korean treat, like a bag of unidentifiable savoury chips or a pack of soy bean drink.

After I moved out of Victoria Park and into Castlefield, Seoul Kimchi was just never on the way and I never had a compelling enough reason to make a trip there. I was therefore very surprised when WP told me she'd been to Seoul Kimchi to have lunch.

Me: You mean you bought lunch from Seoul Kimchi and ate it at home?
WP: No, I ate there!
Me: What, but where?

I thought there was a secret back door to a restaurant that I didn't know about. In fact, what had happened was that Seoul Kimchi had refurbished since I'd last been there. It is now a clean and bright looking joint that would probably fit a maximum of 17 people, uncomfortably. It's tight in there, but they make maximum use of the area available, sometimes by moving the chairs and tables around a little. It was roomy enough for me as coming from a high-density city myself, I'm used to being in small spaces.

We arrived at 6.30pm for dinner and the place was already packed. The kind lady owner welcomed us in whispering that it was very cold outside and so sorry we had to wait but she will get some chairs to put in the kitchen so we could sit there and stay warm while we wait for a table to clear. She took our arms like a familiar aunty would and ushered us behind the counter and next to the kitchen, extracted two different-sized little seats and asked us to Sit. The place definitely felt like home. WP and I tried to make ourselves as tucked in as possible so that the busy waitresses could bustle up and down the kitchen corridor without tripping over our legs.

Looking around patrons range from international students in the know to locals who know they've stumbled across a gem. These are the dishes we ordered that evening. It goes without saying that there was a constant flow of their signature kimchi in the usual little dishes for us to eat our mains with.

Kimchi

The Chicken Teriyaki Bento

This was part of the Japanese selection in their menu. It comes with shredded vege salad, noodles, some strange fried pancake thing which was yummy (in the right bottom corner), rice with sesame seeds sprinkled on and the chicken teriyaki itself.

The Salmon Teriyaki Bento

Another bento from the Japanese selection. Seriously what's the point of coming to Seoul Kimchi when everyone was having Japanese food! This also had all the same ingredients as the Chicken Bento but had salmon teriyaki instead (in the foreground). The salmon was properly doused with sweet sticky teriyaki sauce. WP said this was really good.

Luxury Korean Bento

I ordered this one and it was YUMMY! It's such a shame blogger minimises the quality of my photos because you can't really see what's available. Clockwise from the top left, you get: Vegetable korean pancake slices, pork bulgogi, shredded vegetables in a sweet marinade, beef kalbi and rice. You also get a little middle section of what I know as ikan bilis in Malay (in a sweet marinade). I don't know the proper korean name for these but they're basically little anchovy-like fish. The whole combo just worked so well, especially for someone like me who likes a little bit of everything. It was larger bento than what I'm used to but no complaints!! In the bottom right was the beef kalbi, which according to the Boss Lady, would cost me £8++ on its own. The whole bento was £8++ and she was eager to impress upon me that it was "very good value". I had no complaints, this was YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY I WANT MORE RIGHT NOW.

Up close shot of my beef kalbi. Mmmmm...

The Boss Lady comes over to check if we like our food. She is clearly very passionate about cooking, and doesn't need much persuasion to explain what we were having. With our mouths full, we could only manage to nod vigorously (I think I gave her a thumbs up). When we could manage, we told her the fare was delicious because it was!

It was so good that I hesitated to blog about this place for fear that it becomes even more popular such that I'll always have to wait for seats at my favourite Korean restaurant. However, this is one restaurant that I'd love to see succeed and grow (yay! more seats!) because the food is truly excellent and very affordable. The boss lady is absolutely lovely too and you can't help but feel like you're sitting in your family dining room. :)

Japanese food - always healthy?

There is a common stereotype that Japanese cuisine, in general, is good for you. Life expectancy in Japan is amongst the highest in the world, despite the perceived high-pressure, fast-paced environment in which the Japanese live and work. In fact, as a child, I've always had it in my head that the Japanese diet is hailed to be low cholesterol, low-fat, packed with superfoods and antioxidants etc etc. It's also delicious! You could say I have the best of both worlds, but for the following three Japanese snacks that I absolutely love and are not too good for them hips and thighs...

Inari, sushi rice and mayo

It's a carb bomb and to make matters worse, the inari (beancurd) is soaked in sugary syrup. I don't think it has any nutritional value. Mmmm... did you know that cellulite is the main ingredient of refined white rice? (Yes, I'm a fan of that movie).

Takoyaki

Oh boy do I remember when takoyaki first took off in a big way in Singapore and Malaysia. There were takoyaki stalls EVERYWHERE, thanks to the relatively low barriers to entry and set up costs. All you need is a takoyaki mould grilling machine, octopus, grease, batter, that dried shaved fishmeat stuff (katsuobushi), lots of Japanese mayonnaise and condiments and you're good to go. The smell of the batter grilling is just so yummy. There were lots of variations too if you aren't a fan of octopus: ham and cheese, tuna and chicken being a few of them.

And finally, this. I don't actually know what this is called. In fact, I don't know whether this even exists in Japan. I've certainly seen it in lots of sushi bars in Singapore but I have no clue if it is in fact a localisation. It reminds me of the deep fried Mars Bars in Scotland. Most things deep fried are yummy. Mars Bar is yummy. So by logical deduction, a deep fried Mars Bar is double-yummy. Right?

Same concept applies here:

The Deep Fried Sushi

Smothered with mayo and roe, no less. This one was a simple tuna and cucumber maki, dipped in tempura batter and dunked in hot oil. Delish...

Is this one authentic Japanese? Can you find it in Japan?