Boo Berries

I also got some blueberries when I got my cherry fix on Saturday. Of course blueberries aren't the only berries (or berry like fruit) available this summer - there are also gooseberries, raspberries, red currants, black currants, etc. I didn't buy any other berry because I am not a baker and I can't be bothered trying to figure out what to do with the tartier berries. So, I just picked the one I thought would be best to eat just on its own - the blueberry. I got these (pictured) from the Ettrick Garden stall at the market at $5 for a small container.

Maybe I'm a little loopy but I love the moody, faded dark blue colour under the patchy coat of grey on the almost leather-like texture skin of the berries. They look like they belong in Miss Havisham's room in Great Expectations, covered in dust, untouched for years. Let me assure you, however, despite my silly romantic notions, they are in fact clean, fresh and nummy, nummy, nummy. These dainty, adorable, charming little blue balls are delicate, sweet, juicy and surprisingly refreshing. Perfect on a hot summer's day - you could easily eat a handful at a time. If you're more industrious and imaginative than I am, which is not hard to be, you can use them for making pancakes, muffins, cakes, etc. Lazy ol' me prefers to chomp away at the berries as they are - naturally fresh and delicious.

Cherry Season

I know it's a little late in the season to be writing about this but IMO the best part about summer in Dunedin is being able to enjoy fresh summer fruits.

My personal favourite is the seductive cherry. D is somewhat disturbed by my current obsession with cherries but he forgets that stone fruits don't grow where I come from. In fact, despite having lived here for almost eight years, it was only 3 or 4 years ago that I discovered how amazing fresh cherries can be. Can you blame me? Up till then, my experience with cherries was based solely on the fluorescent red, sickly confectionery sweet maraschino cherries, which I am quite averse to. I can't remember how I finally relented and tried a fresh cherry but I know I have S to blame. That first cherry was pleasant, but not outstanding.

I have since discovered the heavyweight champion of all cherries, or rather the company that sells them. The Big Fat Cherry company sets up shop at the farmers market during cherry season and charges $2 more per kilo than any other stall in the market, yet people continue to flock to their stall. Unfortunately, I can't say that they sell the best cherries in the market because I have never bought cherries from any other stall - I was at first drawn to the clever name of the stall, then hooked after I tried their sample cherries. But it doesn't take a genius to work it out - there's a reason why they are getting away with charging $14/kg when everyone else's cherries are going for $12/kg.

The Big Fat Cherry's cherries are about 3cm in diameter. They're so beautifully fat that they look like they're about to burst out of their skins. When my teeth crack the taut, crisp skin of one of these gorgeous, firm, dark red, rotund cherries, I am initially greeted by the faintest taste of wine-like bitter-sweetness and followed by an explosion of delicious, sweet cherry juice and flesh which melt in my mouth. In my opinion, they're like tasty little mini plums. Little cherry juice bombs! Heavenly. Be sure to get them while cherry season lasts. I bought 3 kilos yesterday!

Jizo - Revisited

Jizo's Teriyaki Chicken Original Sushi

I went back to Jizo last night to introduce S to (and take pictures of) the aforementioned divine Jizo's Original Sushi. From the expressions on S's face when she first placed a piece in her mouth - the pause, the widening of the eyes, the "OMG!" moment - I knew that she shared my sentiments. These delicate, heavenly, 'melt-in-your-mouth' works of art were, once again, fantastic - which means that Jizo gets another vigorous nod for consistency of experience, which is extremely important.

There is quite a specific kind of disappointment you feel when you return to a restaurant where the food was amazing the first time, then erratic or steadily worse the subsequent times you visit. Particularly, the embarrassment and slight betrayal you feel when you return with friends, to whom you have raved about the food at that place, expecting to wow them with your fabulous find, only to have them sit through a sub-par meal. I am pleased to report that thus far, Jizo does not fall in this category.

Jizo's Original Teriyaki Salmon Sushi

In fact, I am going to go out on a limb here a little and say that Jizo is probably the best Japanese restaurant in town in terms of authenticity. I am taking a risk saying this because I've never been to Japan, nor do I have the benefit of being able to confirm this with a reliable authority on Japanese cuisine - i.e. a Japanese person. Still, my claim is not completely baseless.

Out of the eight Japanese restaurants that I know of in town, apparently Jizo is the only one owned by a Japanese person. Coincidentally (not), Jizo is also the only restaurant where the food is a little different than all the other Japanese restaurants. For a start, their yakiniku beef is served with thick, juicy, perfectly cooked cubes of proper steak in a thin layer of sauce, rather than the usual thin slivers of overcooked, sweet beef at all the other restaurants. I've always heard that authentic teriyaki sauce is not the thick, sticky, sickly sweet sauce that we used to over here, but a thinner, lighter, more subtly flavoured sauce. This probably applies to the yakiniku beef dish also. In the same vein, they serve their chicken katsu with a thick, juicy crumbed chicken piece, not the flattened, dry/hard (over-fried), you-need-lots-of-sauce-to-go-with-it stuff that you would eat at the other restaurants.

Finally, the rice. You might think I'm just nit-picking here but the magic is in the details. I loathe being served mushy, clumpy and/or burnt rice. No matter how good the 'main' meat dish is, it just ruins the meal. Especially since Japanese cuisine is famous for its short grain rice in general and vinegar rice for sushi. I have been served mushy and burnt rice at a couple of the other Japanese restaurants. I have also had sushi from from some of these places where the 'vinegar' rice is tasteless. Come on! These are restaurants with professional chefs. How hard is it to cook rice properly? Fail. Fail. Fail! I don't know how many times I can get away with saying 'perfectly cooked' in one post but the rice served at Jizo has been perfect every single time. You can see each clearly defined, individual grain of rice, as opposed to melded clumps. With their sushi rice, specifically, they have struck the fine balance between tasteless and 'can't-taste-anything-else'. You will immediately notice the sourish and almost faintly sweet presence of the rice's flavour, but it quickly blends with the taste of the other components of the sushi and becomes the lovely accentuating backdrop to the headliner.

Miso Chicken Don

You're probably thinking Jizo sounds like it's far more expensive than the average Japanese restaurant here, but it's not. The prices on their menu are actually about the same as the other Japanese places, and cheaper than some. The only issue that some people may have with Jizo is that the portions of some of their dishes are a little daintier (not by much) than the usual fare at some of the other places. Before last night, I thought that this might be a bit of a problem when dining with boys with hearty appetites. I was appeased, however, when our Miso Chicken Don arrived last night. Good portions of rice and chicken, served in a very chic, giant black ceramic bowl/plate.

Verdict: The miso chicken don was good. Succulent chicken pieces in a tasty, light, clean tasting sauce. The teriyaki chicken and salmon sushi were outstanding - as previously described. The beautifully seared salmon pieces crumbled and melted in your mouth, along with the rest of the sushi. I do apologise, but I cannot reiterate enough what a difference it makes when meat/fish is perfectly cooked. Overcooked fish and beef are especially annoying. For me, I let it slide sometimes when we're just eating at a casual place because after a while, you get used to it and you don't notice it as much anymore. Then you go to a place where they actually know what they're doing and you immediately notice the difference in taste and texture when something is done right, compared to when it is overdone. I will definitely be going back again. - Jizo Japanese Cafe & Bar, 56 Princes Street, Dunedin

Prawn Mee Lunch

A colleague made prawn mee last night and brought in a lunch box for me today! I am happy to report that I am typing this with a belly-full of yummy prawn mee.

Interestingly, the broth had the thickness of an asam laksa broth but the bold, robust flavour of good prawn mee. I had to stop myself from drinking all the broth. I don't know how he made it but as far as I can tell, aside from the broth (which is the most important thing), there were chicken pieces, prawns, fish balls, surimi (crabstick), taugeh (mung beans), onions and noodles (of course) - the prawn mee stall that I frequent back home serves their prawn mee with tender pork ribs, big prawns and I think even a hardboiled egg. This is as good as it gets in New Zealand I think. Two thumbs up.

Now, I wonder what else this colleague makes? :)

Claypot Chicken Rice?

Except without the claypot.

This is adapted from E's chicken rice recipe. I wasn't expecting it to turn out quite so well but it did. It's actually almost exactly like the claypot chicken rice we get back home - which happens to be one of my favourite things - except without the burnt bits. Yum!

I used my phone to take a crappy photo. I was contemplating plating it nicely and taking a 'nice' photograph but what the heck - I didn't want to go to the monumental effort of trying to make something like this look pretty. Besides, I still don't have a good camera. So here's a shot of the pot. I promise it's delicious. It's one of those hearty, old fashioned, simple meals that you make when you just want a good ol' tuck in.

Ingredients:

Chicken thigh fillets (cubed)

Garlic (sliced)

Onion (chopped)

Ginger (halved)

Chicken stock powder

Coriander powder

Fenel powder

Five Spice powder

Star anise

Cinnamon stick

Rice

Dark soy sauce

Oyster sauce

Pepper

Sugar

Oil

Method:

1. Wash uncooked rice while heating a little oil (drizzle oil around the pan once approximately) in a frying pan or wok

2. When oil is hot, add half the ginger, star anise and cinnamon stick and fry till fragrant

3. Add washed uncooked rice and stir well so that the rice gets 'roasted' evenly and is coated in a little oil

4. Add about 1 tablespoon each of fenel and coriander powder for every 3 cups of rice, a little pepper to taste and some chicken stock powder

5. Continue 'roasting' the rice with the spices until the rice is well coated and fragrant

6. Put roasted rice into rice cooker pot (don't cook it yet)

7. Add oil twice around the (empty) pan and wait till hot

8. Add garlic, onions and ginger and fry till fragrant

9. Add chicken cubes and fry till golden brown

10. Add oyster sauce, dark soy sauce, pepper (optional), sugar, a pinch of five spice powder, some chicken stock powder (optional) and about two cups of water

11. Let it simmer for a while and then taste and add whatever is missing

12. Make it a tad more salty or make the flavour a tad stronger than you would normally like because you will be mixing it with the rice. If you don't do this, the rice will be bland.

13. Make sure you have added enough water to in with the chicken so that when you add the chicken and broth to the rice, it will be sufficient to cook the rice (in the rice cooker)

14. When satisfied with the taste, add to roasted rice and cook in rice cooker

15. It is likely that that lever on the rice cooker will trip to 'Keep Warm' before the rice is completely cooked. This is completely normal.

16. Check how cooked/uncooked the rice is. If the rice is still quite hard, then mix a bowl of water with dark soy sauce, chicken stock, and sugar and add to rice and cook for a little longer.

17. When the rice cooker lever trips to 'Keep Warm' again, check the 'how cooked' the rice is again. If almost completely cooked, then just close the pot and let it sit in the rice cooker for about 20 minutes.

18. Serve topped with chopped spring onions or sliced cucumbers or 'lap cheong' or salted fish or everything!

Kimchi Chicken

I'll admit that, while I can produce a tasty dish or two now and then, I am not the most ... let's say 'earnest' of 'cooks' (using the word 'cooks' here very loosely). I tend to go for the quick and easy (but nevertheless tasty) option. This means, for example, when I make bolognese, I do not make my own sauce from scratch unlike my good friend/ex-flatmate/cooking fiend/"I can't believe I let her move out!", I simply buy bottled sauce and add to it.

This post is about one of those 'quick and easy' things that I like to make. The 'recipe' - if you can call it that - for my way of making Kimchi Chicken is so ridiculously simple and easy that I am compelled to share it. It's so easy that you don't need any measurements...well that and because I don't measure ingredients when I cook - I just taste it as it goes and add whatever I think needs to be added. Anyway, I whipped it up just now for my lunch tomorrow but it smelt and tasted so good that I was tempted to gobble it up. Luckily I resisted, so my lunch is safe.

Kimchi Chicken

Ingredients:

Kimchi

Pork/Chicken

Garlic

Oil

Salt

Pepper

Sugar

Method:

1. Slice up garlic and pork/chicken

2. Heat up pan with some oil in it

3. Stir fry garlic till fragrant

4. Add pork/chicken and season with pepper and salt

5. Stir fry until pork/chicken is golden brown and fragrant

6. Use tongs or chopsticks to pick kimchi from bag (so that you don't get the sauce) and add to pork/chicken

7. Mix well and add a little sugar to taste if you wish

8. Stir fry until everything is incorporated and smells good

9. Serve with rice

Jizo's Original Sushi

Jizo has, hands down, the best teriyaki chicken sushi that I've ever tasted! I was introduced to these delectable little suckers a few weeks ago when I went to Jizo for dinner with C. I didn't order them then, but caught a glimpse of them sitting pretty on a plate on the way to another obviously more 'in-the-know' patron. Even from a distance they looked irresistibly scrumptious. They must have made a significant impression on me because despite never having tasted a single piece, two weeks later I was inexplicably suffering terrible cravings for them. I satiated those cravings by having the teriyaki chicken sushi on Friday, and the teriyaki salmon sushi on Saturday! Muahahaha.

They call it "Jizo's Original Sushi' and you get a choice of teriyaki chicken, salmon, tuna or tofu. These sushi (what's the plural for sushi?) are the most aesthetically pleasing of the "cheaper" (<$15) sushi that I've had. Sorry folks, once again I fail to supplement my post with visual aids as I am still camera-less. I wanted to take a photo with the camera on my phone but was stopped by someone who insisted that I should photograph with a good camera or not at all. I was too hungry and crabby to argue.

They were still warm and melted in my mouth. What immediately struck me was that the teriyaki chicken pieces were juicy, tender and well sauced. They obviously cooked the chicken for the sushi to order - quite unlike the standard fare that you get at 'express' sushi places where the chicken would have been cooked early in the day and left sitting around to dry out. Also, unlike standard teriyaki chicken sushi rolls - which are usually made up of some chicken, carrots and cucumber rolled up in rice and a layer of seaweed - these were cute little domes of perfectly cooked vinegar rice, with a generous dab of creamy avocado-mayo 'dressing' cushioning the succulent teriyaki chicken topping. OMG. Smooth, warm, deliciously DIVINE! If you haven't already tried this, you must! [05092010 Edit: Pictures and a continuation have since been posted here]

The only complaint I had, which now after that torturous description doesn't seem to matter anymore, was that we got there at 'rush hour' and it seemed like forever before our food arrived. I didn't keep track of the time but I was starving so that might have impaired my sense of time just a tiny bit. Hey, you know what they say, "A hungry Tien is a crabby Tien".

Jizo Japanese Cafe & Bar

56 Princes Street

Dunedin

TC

We went to TC for dinner on Saturday. I forgot to bring the camera, so there are no pictures, but that is no great loss as I was extremely disappointed with the food. The service wasn't that flash either.

For the entree, I had the risotto with the salt and pepper baked (or fried?) quail. The quail was overcooked and tasteless - except for the skin, which tasted only of salt. The risotto wasn't terrible but was flat and boring. The combination of the quail and the risotto was just poorly conceived as the two didn't go together IMO. I've had good risotto, so I know what I'm talking about. A good risotto can have wonderfully complex, complementary flavours that make you go, "OOO" when you have that first taste - this one was just a big blah.

D had the rabbit (can't remember what else it came with). I didn't try it but D said it wasn't great. I would have guessed that just by looking at it because it was crumbed and deep fried and looked like two sticks of fish fingers. Not something you'd expect in a restaurant charging fine dining prices.

For the mains, we both had the rib eye, medium-rare. I had the same thing about 2 months ago and thought I'd give it another shot. It was worse this time. I have never in my life had such a bad cut of meat in a fancy restaurant...TWICE! This is the punishment I get for giving it another chance. The steaks I usually get at fancy restaurants are tender, juicy and 'melt-in-your-mouth' delicious. This place has taken to serving the kind of grisly, fatty meat (not in the marbled Kobe beef kind of way - more like in the 'chunks of fat you have to spit out' kind of way) I had previously thought I would only find at road-side food shacks back home or cheaper "$10 steaks" establishments. The only thing half decent about this meal was the hand cut fries, which were chunky and crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

I was so annoyed that I didn't want to stay for dessert (the dessert menu did not offer anything interesting IMO anyway) and I will never dine there again. That dismal meal set us back $98, which is expensive for two courses and no drinks, at a "bistro". Having said that, the price wouldn't have mattered if the food was good. Bad food at high prices however, is a double whammy and is inexcusable.

The Palms

For my birthday dinner last week, we went to The Palms. We ended up having the whole restaurant to ourselves, which was really nice, (it was a Tuesday night, but D likes to tell everyone that he booked out the whole restaurant) and which explains how the waitress knew D by name (his was the only reservation) when we walked in.

The food was really good. I would rank The Palms in the top three of the restaurants that I've visited in Dunedin, the other two being Bell Pepper Blues & Two Chefs (This establishment closed when the proprietors decided to take a hiatus and travel Europe. They promised to re-open in a different location in Dunedin the following year. This was two years ago, and I have yet to hear anything of their re-opening anywhere. Good thing we still have The Palms and Bell Pepper Blues).

Here's (pictured below) what we had. Everything was really good, but for me, the STAR was the lemon tart that I had for dessert. You should have seen me. Anyone who knows me knows how I get when I'm having really good food. There's a lot of "MMMMmmm"-ing and lip-smacking and "aaaaaahh"-ing and eye closing. Haha...I know it sounds ridiculous, but that's what good food does for me!

Before we had our starters, the chef sent over some complimentary kumara and leek soup in shot glasses. It was alright, but I didn't particularly enjoy it. So I won't put up a picture of that.

D's entree: Four Mushroom Risotto - Risotto of Arborio rice with a quartet of mushroom garnished with fresh parmesan and avocado oil

[Comment: Had a small bite of this. Good, but personally preferred the duck risotto at Yellow Train. Maybe it's because I don't like too much mushroom or cheese.]

My entree: House Smoked Salmon - Chef’s smoked salmon rested on semi dried tomato and cous cous salad with balsamic reduction and toasted pine nuts

[Comment: This was SO, SO good. I don't usually like smoked salmon but I loved this one because it was so well done. The salmon was delicious, chunky, had a lovely smooth, smokey flavour, was not at all fishy and went beautifully with the balsamic reduction. I also happen to love pinenuts in salads. Not a big fan of cous cous, but that's just a personal taste. I quite enjoyed the cous cous salad here, until about halfway through, then I got a little bored of it. I would have had more of the balsamic reduction sauce all over the salmon and the cous cous if I it had my way.]

D's main: Angus Pure Beef Fillet - Angus pure beef fillet, thyme and smoked cheddar potato whip, caramelised onion, walnut and bacon butter, sticky jus

[Comment: Good steak! Almost ordered this because the "smoked cheddar potato whip" sounded yummy.]

My main: Venison Tenderloin - Totara Hills venison, light aromatic spice rub, crisp polenta, garlic and onion ragout, roast beetroot roullie

[Comment: Good meat, and although the beetroot roullie complemented it well, the sight of bright pink creamy stuff on the meat was a little off-putting. I discovered here that I don't like crisp polenta. Too spongy for my taste.]

D's dessert: Indulge in Chocolate - Decadent chocolate and pecan brownie with hot fudge sauce and smooth white mousse

[Comment: Totally DELICIOUS!!! I much preferred this to the heavy, heavy chocolate tarts that are usually served at these places for their 'chocolate indulgence'. With those, I usually get sick of it half way through, but this one, was nice and chocolatey without being too heavy. We thought the white thing on the top was ice-cream, and thought it was rather peculiar that ice-cream had such a spongy texture, but now I see (the description off the menu again) that it wasn't ice-cream. Still, I've never had spongy mousse (till then!).]

My dessert: Lemon Tart - Lemon tart with fejoa vodka sorbet and berry coulis

[Comment: This was ABSOLUTELY, mouth-wateringly DELICIOUS! Superb. The lemon tart had a nice firm, but soft custardy texture with a lovely, perfect lemony flavour. I say this because, while I am a citrus-freak, I often find that when it comes to citrus desserts (especially sorbets), people tend to go overboard with the intensity of the flavour and it just ruins the whole thing. The berry coulis and the fejoa vodka sorbet (OH, the sorbet!!! *swoon*) complemented the tart so well, I can't find any suitable adjective to describe it. Haha! I think I can safely say that the sorbet was the best that I've ever had. I'm drooling just trying to remember what it tasted like. It was light and tasty and not at all over-powering (as has been my experience with sorbets). I loved it. Like I said, the Lemon Tart was the star of the night.]

Got the descriptions off the menu online. You can check out their website here.

Cupcakes

As promised, here are pictures of the cuppy cakes!

Icing Heaven

I have just found icing heaven! I have/had been going on and on for YEARS (Elaine can verify this) about a kind of icing that I had at a birthday party MANY years ago and I've finally found it again!!! Say it with me people... "Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo....*drool face*". The first time I had it, it was a homemade cake, covered in the icing. The cake was a moist chocolate and it was absolutely delicious, especially combined with the icing. But the icing, the icing was ....."the icing on the cake" so to speak. BWAHAHAHAHAHA....pardon the pun. Sorry, I think I'm a little high on sugar. Anyway, the icing is super sweet and hard (like stiff hard, not break your teeth hard) and when you bite into it it has this stiff powdery texture (but it doesn't flake or crumble). I, obviously, never forgot it and had been pestering Elaine, the entire time we lived together at uni (2 years), to make it. Now, I will make it my mission to pester Sabrina. Aren't I lucky? Always ending up flatting with people who love to cook and bake.

Randomly, the tricky thing (at least for non-bakers like myself) about having this icing on a cake is that it must complement, not overpower the cake. A few years ago, I tried to re-create that delicious cake that I had had at that birthday party a long time ago but failed miserably. I thought it was simple enough. Combine a good chocolate cake with icing. Made sense to me! I was wrong. The cake, while always good on its own, was tasteless when topped with my concoction of the super-sweet icing (probably didn't get the icing right either). The icing, being too sweet, made the cake tasteless. That first cake that I had at that birthday so many years ago however, was perfect. I still remember it to this day. Moist dark chocolate, covered in lovely purple icing. That cake and icing was a marriage made it heaven. The cake was tasty and the icing was delicious, and neither drowned out the other. Hah! (I know, how can anyone romanticise food this much in one paragraph?!!)

Oh I forgot the point of this post. I found the icing again on a cupcake!!! And I found the cupcake at the farmer's market, being sold by a friendy (hot) guy. The cupcake itself is average. Just plain vanilla. But the icing! Aha. Cupcake guy's cupcakes are all plain vanilla, with different flavoured icing. Cookies and cream (the one I had), lemon meringue, chocolate mint and strawberry. I would post a pic of the one I had, but I can't. I forgot to take one before I started and as usually, by the time I realised that I had found THE icing, and I wanted to write about it and take a photo of it, I had chowed down the entire thing. Do not despair my friends, I shall sacrifice myself, abandon my warm, snug bed and Saturday morning sleep-in next week and brave the bitter, cruel winter, all to bring you a photo of it next week. The things I do for you....

Cherries

It's not cherry season over here now but here are the pictures that I took of the cherries early this year. I even carried a bag of these juicy, fat fellas all the way back home for Mom. They're gorgeous.

Food That I Miss

This one is for all of you who also miss food from back home. Here are some of my favourite foods.

Sweet and Sour Pork: I know, I know, the most common and cliched of Chinese dishes. I can hear all the complaints in my head. Being Chinese, a foodie and a self proclaimed critic, I should be more discerning right? I don't care, it's still one of my favourite things to have.

Yam Basket with Chicken and Prawns: One of my absolute favourite things to order when we go to my favourite Chinese restaurant. I've posted a picture of this before, but this is a much better picture of it.

Kangkung Belacan: OMG, drool with me. I miss this so much!!! I Googled it and the English name for this vegetable is Water Spinach. Belacan is shrimp paste and the vegetable is stir fried with it and chilli. It's the BEST. I don't know how to cook it. All I know is that it's so mouth-wateringly good. Just looking at the picture and thinking about it is making me salivate.

Prawns in Sweet Dark Soy Sauce: Ask B how good this is! It's served with a bed of mango salad that accompanies the prawns very well. I think it's the speciality of the restaurant that I frequent, my favourite restaurant for Chinese food back home, Sin Kee, where this, all the previous pictures in this post were taken.

Chili's Triple Play: Wings over Buffalo, Chicken Crispers and some random fried spring roll thing that I don't really like. I love the wings and the Chicken Crispers though. The wings are really sour and zesty and go very well with the subtly flavoured white dipping sauce that comes with it (I don't know what it is). The sauce sort of reduces the bite or the sourness of the chicken. Yum!

Chili's Chicken Crispers: The sauce that accompanies the Chicken Crispers is deliciously sweet and tangy. It's supposed to be honey mustard sauce but it sure ain't like any honey mustard sauce I've had anywhere else. The battered chicken is never dry and the batter is tasty and thick but not sickeningly so. It actually comes with fries but I always ask them to substitute the fries for mashed potatoes because they have the best mashed potatoes and sauce (sinfully rich and creamy!) that I've ever had anywhere.

Damn! The keyboard just shortcircuited from all the drool...

Spiced Apple Cake

Yesterday I baked a Spiced Apple Cake myself! The only thing I didn't do myself was take it out of the oven. Luckily for me, Sab was keeping a watchful eye on me, while cooking dinner at the same time, and was prepared for my obtuseness when it comes to baking. The recipe is so simple (Thanks Michelle!) and pratically idiot-proof, yet I probably would have messed it up if not for Sab's consultation. It smelt really good and turned out okay but it wasn't as sweet as Michelle's because I skipped the topping (didn't have rolled oats). It should still be decent if warmed and served topped with vanilla ice cream.

For dinner we had a fish curry concoction. We actually had an extra bottle of Tandoori Palace Chicken Tikka Masala sauce left over from Monday that we'd accidentally opened but didn't need. The stuff needed to be used within 5 days of opening, so I thought it would be a good idea to use fish instead of meat, since we hardly ever cook fish over here. Since the fish over here is usually sold filleted and would crumble and disintegrate if thrown into a pot of curry and stirred about, I thought it would be better if we battered and fried the fish first, before putting it into the sauce. Even then, some of fish pieces still broke, but it would have been infinitely worse if we hadn't battered and fried them. We had to add quite a few things to the sauce before it was to our satisfaction, but in the end, it was pretty good. Sour, tangy, had a good kick and zero fishy taste or smell! Of course, as usual, I came up with the plan and Sab did all the work. Hey, I was baking remember?

And just because I was uploading pictures of food that we'd cooked, here's a picture (right) of the Lemongrass Chicken that we made some weeks back.

PS: I realise that the pictures all look 'orangey' but my camera doesn't take very good photos indoors and I had to take all of those without the flash, otherwise the pictures would be too hideous to share.

Plato

We went to Plato yesterday for dinner. I would say that it's my second favourite place here, out of all the restaurants that we've tried. The food was good, although I would still rank Two Chefs (which incidentally has closed - They took a hiatus and went to Europe for a holiday during the later part of last year. They're supposed to come back and re-open somewhere else but we haven't seen any sign of them yet.) above Plato (by quite a bit too). Their ambience is quite pleasant, except for the odd entrance to the restaurant. They had closed up the main entrance to make room for more tables, so they made their side door the entrance to their restaurant. I thought that that was really stupid because that meant that, to come in, wait to pay or leave the restaurant, everyone had to squeeze in to that narrow space (about two feet wide) between the payment counter and the kitchen and clog up an area that should be left clear for staff to move through easily and quickly as they work, not to mention the unpleasantness for the customers of having to manoeuver or squeeze to make way for other customers who are coming in/going out or staff that want to get by.

I had the rib eye fillet with mashed potatoes and...something on the top (pictured above). I couldn't really tell what it was, and I hadn't read the description on the menu thoroughly, but it tasted very much like the Lisa's Chunky Dips - Roasted Capsicum, Ricotta, & Pinenuts (or something like that, I can't remember the exact name). I also had a margarita. It was no where near as good as the ones you can get at Lone Star.

Sab had the eye fillet with duck pate and mashed potatoes (pictured above). I tried a bit of the pate. Neither of us really fancied it. Philistines. Haha...

Scott had the venison (pictured above). It came quite rare. I forget, but I think he liked it.

Justine had the lamb (pictured above). I forgot to ask her if it was good.

And the ornamental, salt and pepper shaker pigs on the shelf in front of the payment counter had each other!

Who Ate All The Pies?

Pictured is the chicken, bacon and thyme pie from Who Ate All The Pies?, the bakery that happens to make the best pies that I've had here. I haven't tried all their pies, but I tend to get the chicken pies because I find them tastier. Who Ate All The Pies? can be found at the weekly (Saturday mornings) farmers' market, but they also have a shop that you can go to for your pie needs if you have to have one of these during the week.

Like I said, these pies are the best. You get them cold so you have to bake them yourself. And the aroma of the freshly baked pie is so rich and tantalising that it makes your mouth water. The crust is light, flaky and tasty and the filling is made up of big chunky, succulent pieces of meat and a good amount of gravy. Yum!

Moist Chocolate Cake

For her bf's birthday, S modified her aunty's already fantastic moist chocolate cake recipe and laced it with bourbon. It looked so delicious I wanted to steal a big, fat chunk and gobble it up right there and then, but I'm pretty sure S would have throttled me. She also decorated the cake with white icing, which contrasted nicely with the dark icing, making it look very pretty.

NB: I've added pictures to the previous posts as promised!

Jamie Oliver's Brunch Breads

This week, for Tuesday's dinner, I managed to dupe S into making something I've wanted to have (i.e. taste) ever since I saw it on The Naked Chef. I'd been badgering E (my flatmate at varsity who, incidentally, loves to cook) to make it for the longest time! But it never happened. I don't remember exactly when I saw it and when I told her about it, but I think by then we'd graduated and were back home (or something like that).

Anyway it was the At The Beach episode and the bread rolls he made on that show looked SO damn good. The savoury one was stuffed with proscuitto, eggs, sun-dried tomatoes, cheese and herbs and the sweet roll was filled with bananas and Nutella. It was the savoury one I was after. It looked so simple, delicious, hearty and (possibly) immensely satisfying.
However, at the time, we hadn't found the exact recipe, so we had to settle for making it by someone else's guess at the recipe (found online of course). It looked pretty good when it came out of the oven. But when we actually ate some, we found that the bread was a little tough and dry and that made the stuff inside the bread dry too. It turns out, instead of drizzling olive oil on the ingredients before rolling up the dough (like in Jamie's recipe), this person's recipe incorporated the olive oil into the dough. Maybe that's why the whole thing turned out dry-ish. It was still okay though. Everyone tucked in quite happily and almost everyone had at least a second helping.

We (and when I say 'we' I mean S doing all of the real work and me just hanging around the kitchen or sitting in the lounge watching tv, occasionally offering to grate cheese or some other trifling thing like that) are definitely going to try to make it again, with Jamie's recipe, and we'll see how that turns out.

Serious Orange Cake

Last week on Tuesday we made Damien Pignolet's Serious Orange Cake. I got the recipe from ChubbyHubby, my favourite food blog (incidentally also the only food blog I read/have read).

Maybe about a couple of weeks back I had a sudden craving for orange cake. Probably because I read about it on ChubbyHubby. So I did what was the only thing to be done when one has a craving in this severely limited town; I pestered S to make it for me! Muahahahah! It's a good thing that she likes baking and trying out new foods, or else I'd be left to my own devices to satisfy my cravings and that would be disastrous.

Making the cake was simple enough. I pretended to help as much as I could; i.e. blending the oranges, using the electric hand mixer to mix the mixture, lazy stuff like that. The cake turned out BEAUTIFULLY! I don't know why, maybe we didn't have any expectations, but we were so surprised and delighted (read: squealing and jumping about) with the result. The recipe required a cooling period before the syrup could be poured onto the cake and after that the cake was to be allowed to cool completely before being taken out of the tin but we were so excited at the prospect of tasting it that we could barely wait the wait.

The cake, fresh from the oven, was warm and wonderfully soft, crumbly and delicate. The syrup had seeped through the cake making it so moist it was teetering on being mushy, but not quite! The flavour was subtle yet rich (a contradiction in terms?). You'd have to try it for yourself to see what I mean. It wasn't too sweet, had just a hint of bitterness (probably due to the Cointreau in the syrup) and the lightest orange flavour that made it just perfect! And the aroma! Absolutely heavenly! The combination of the flavour, texture and smell made for one of those 'heave a huge, melting sigh, relax completely and fall back onto the couch in a heap' moments.

[Note: Although the picture of the cake won't be very interesting, when I get it from S, I'll post it here anyway. Alternatively, go to ChubbyHubby and search for it. His pictures are all always gorgeous!]

Etrusco

As scheduled, on Saturday (9th September) we visited Etrusco. I liked the ambience a lot. It's like the Italian version of Lone Star, which in turn is sorta like Chilis back home but with way better, heartier AND healthier food (no burgers!). Warm, friendly, casual and bustling! I don't know if it was just because it was a Saturday but man they had a rapid turnover! People just kept coming in and filling up the places of people who had just left. I don't know how they managed it though because the mains took FOREVER to come.

According to their website they offer "a wide range of tasty pasta dishes and pizzas from the menu of traditional Tuscan favourites." I don't pretend to know what Tuscan food is like so I'll take their word for it. I will say that, for me, just the word 'Tuscan' invokes thoughts of sunflowers, delicious, mouth watering Italian food, rustic, romantic little towns and beautiful landscapes. I blame the movie Under The Tuscan Sun entirely for my mind's representation of Tuscany.

Etrusco is famous for its pasta. I had the Spaghetti Amatriciana Bianca [chopped garlic, extra virgin olive oil, Pancetta (cured ham), Italian sausage and chilli, tossed with spaghetti; pictured above] and I thought it was pretty good, except that maybe the flavour of the pasta was a little too subtle for my tastebuds (which are accustomed to the strong flavours of Asian food). I still thought it was good though, and I especially liked the Italian sausages, which were not subtle. They were as salty as sausages should be, with a slight spiciness that faintly stings your tongue just as you bite on them.

In contrast, the Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca (a black olive, tomato and anchovy sauce on spaghetti; pictured above) that S had was very strongly flavoured with anchovies and hence, very salty. B had the Spaghetti Alla Marinara (combination of mussels, shrimps, tomatoes, plenty of fresh garlic and fresh parsley; pictured below), which was thankfully nothing like the marinara pasta S had at The Black Dog. They both liked what they had very much.

I didn't take my camera with me because I didn't think that a plateful of pasta, no matter how good, would picture well. But S did so when she gets around to passing the pictures to me, I'll post them here.

We also had starters and desserts but I didn't think that they were very interesting. My chocolate 'cake' stuffed with blueberries and cream and covered in fudge paled in comparison to my favourite (simple!) mud cake at Rafael's because the cake was dry and had poor texture.

On the whole, I think everyone liked the place a lot and we will definitely be going back to try more items on their menu (even though the wait for just our mains was perhaps over an hour)!

(Pictured above is the Penne Al Verde, penne pasta tossed in spinach and toasted pinenuts with a dash of cream and fresh parmesan.)

Minami

Minami is, in my opinion, the best Japanese restaurant in town. It's one of my favourite restaurants and the item I order the most is the chicken katsu don (pictured). Not because it's the only good thing on the menu. Of course not. Just about everything served in Minami is good. I order it so often because Minami is the furthest of the regular restaurants that I eat at, which means that I don't really get to go there all that often. Now Minami has the best food, but it's too far to walk to during lunch break and the other Japanese restaurants located closer to where I work and live serve decent (but not as good) everything except chicken katsu don (and yakiniku beef). Chicken katsu don everywhere else is tasteless crap. So I can get decent teriyaki chicken, sushi, Japanese curry, tempura and what not but not chicken katsu don, and that is why I always feel that should order chicken katsu don when I do go to Minami.

If you don't know what this thing that I've been going on and on about is, let me attempt to describe it. It's rice topped with battered, fried, boneless chicken pieces, egg, onions and spring onions and some shredded seaweed, steamed with a special savoury sauce that is like soya sauce but no where near as salty or strong tasting. I absolutely love it. Having a bite of the steaming rice soaked with the special sauce and runny egg with some of the sweet onion pieces, a bit of the tasty battered chicken and the contrasting taste of the bits of shredded seaweed (seaweed tastes like seaweed, I can't describe it), I tell ya, it is THE MOST satisfying and comforting thing on a cold day. And even though the serving doesn't look very big, it always fills me up. Man just writing about it makes my mouth water!

On the whole, everything at Minami is just that little bit (if not more) better than the equivalent item at any of the other Japanese places here. Their dishes just have that little extra flavour and 'kick'.

Rafael's

We tried the pasta at Rafael's on Wednesday this week and it was mediocre. Very disappointing. We had high hopes for the pasta there because we love going to Rafael's for coffee, wedges and desserts. Their spicy wedges (pictured below, although the picture probably won't do it any justice) are always fantastic. Crispy and salted just enough on the outside, soft on the inside. Always piping hot and served with a delicious, light yet creamy, refreshing, sweetish sourish, tangy dip. The best wedges I've ever had. While all their desserts are quite good, I would say that the mud cake and the lemon cake are the best. The mud cake isn't even slathered in chocolate sauce as most other mud cakes often are, yet it's always rich and moist. I'm amazed at how they get it like this because the cake looks 'dry'. Not 'dry' as in 'dried out/overcooked'. But 'dry' as in there's no mushy, fudgy parts or layers anywhere on the cake yet when you put a spoonful in your mouth, it is JUST the right texture. Light but rich. Moist but not saucy. Big-sigh-after-each-bite + melt-in-your-mouth goodness. Totally satisfying, hits the spot and a great pick-me-up. The reasonable prices for big portions (wedges and desserts) keep us going back for more.

Ombrellos

We visited Ombrellos on Sunday, 30th July. It was pretty good. I was disappointed that we got the brunch menu instead of their lunch menu, but I think that may have been because we went on a Sunday. People usually have brunch (as opposed to lunch) on Sunday don't they? We'll have to go again so we can try their lunch menu. The brunch menu wasn't vast. It had mostly 'breakfast-y' items and just a few lunch items.

We were there at 1pm. I didn't feel like paying $15 for breakfast items. I wanted LUNCH. So I ordered the lamb shanks. B, Sc and S ordered the eggs benedict (pictured at the top of this post), the 'fry up' and the chicken salad (pictured just below) respectively. Sc wanted to order the shanks too but he has this thing about not ordering what anyone else is having. Well too bad, because when the food came Sc and S were envious of my order! Muahaha...

Ombrellos is described as having 'a cafe style menu with Mediterranean and Middle Eastern influences' on the restaurant's website. I concur, but I must confess that my experience with Mediterranean/Middle Eastern food is, at best, limited. My lamb shanks (pictured just below) came slathered in a very nice chunky tomatoey sauce. I want to tell you what the chunky bits in the sauce were, but I cannot. I was too busy wolfing the food down. And even if I did stop to examine the contents of the sauce, I probably couldn't tell you much. Tomatoes, garlic, probably onions, probably lots of spices. I don't know.

The lamb was good. And I don't usually like lamb. The meat on the inside was nice and moist but I particularly liked the well charred, crusty bits of meat on the outside, combined with the sauce. Had a nice bite to it.

All in all, a decent meal. Good portions. Okay prices (for lunch). Definitely deserves another visit!