It's the start of a Looonggg weekend! #4

Things have been hectic lately and planning for dinners has been rather difficult; what more to plan for Junkie Friday? Normal weekday dinners have been instant ramen or rice crackers, as if it has been a huge junkie week.

Pizza always does it for me. =) And this time, it is Dr. Oetker's Pizza Quattro Formaggi! [Honestly, it has always been Dr. Oetker's] A perfect cheat dinner; it is a combination of 4 cheese pizza, a blend of mozzarella, edam, emmentel and blue cheese. With all the cheeses, it made the pizza really creamy.

I am honestly no big fan of blue cheeses but I do not mind this one. The flavour wasn't as intense as certain blue cheeses I have tasted previously. Having said that, my girlfriend once told me the good blue cheeses are the ones with a strong intense taste or flavour to it.

A frozen pizza which doesn't taste frozen, it was a dinner totally worth the money- AUD $3!

It's spring

and the weatherman could not decide if it should be warm and cold.

That is when I need a hot bowl of miso noodles soup.

And it is so easy to make too.

It is spring, after all. 

It's the end of the week. Junkie Friday #3!

In a span of a week [or less], I went through a 'journey' on Kettle's Multigrain Chips. I thought I'd go wild with the chips by tasting the Honey BBQ [photo not taken], Sweet Chilli & Sour Cream as well as Sour Cream & Chives.

In short, these little ones are 'Grainwaves' wannabes but totally fell short of it. Are those ''flavours'' you can see? [steals quote from Arnott's]. Sour Cream stood out a lot more with citric acid listed as an ingredient. Having said that, Honey BBQ had citric acid listed too! So it was a lemon-y BBQ flavoured packet of chips.

I discovered this interesting website which also had the author's personal "Chips Rankings''. Totally inspiring! Despite that thought, I might actually be staying away from my foes [or friends?]; the flavour enhancers [just naming a few; 621 and 625] for some time. This is a horrible love-hate relationship!  

The next question is "How is all these related to Junkie Friday?'' Well. the binge began on a Friday.

Have a great weekend! We, on the other hand, are very occupied for the upcoming weeks but will definitely try to keep up with the posts. 

El Fresco Italian Restaurant @ Empire Shopping Gallery

One fine weekend, Lisa, Kean and I were hunting for food in a fairly new shopping centre in Subang - Empire Shopping Gallery. After taking a walk around the 'food' floor (where most of the restaurants and cafes are located), we decided to have our dinner in El Fresco Italian Restaurant. This restaurant setup was a little different from the rest - it is located inside Jaya Grocers.

El Fresco is a grocerant (grocer + restaurant). Here, you can actually choose your own meat or seafood from the super market and have it cooked for you for an extra RM6 on top of the meat or seafood purchase. It also comes with a side of alio olio spaghetti, stir-fried mixed vegetables or salad.

They only cook a limited selections of meat and seafood only. Guess a lot has to do with its costs, or else everyone will go for the cheaper cuts :P

I regret for not bringing my DSLR with me, which I initially did intend to bring with me that day as I had in mind to snap some food pictures. Please bear with the 'not-so-interesting' pictures. I promise to make it up in the later blog posts with nicer and sharper pictures :)

We ordered a Quarto pizza - I guess quarto refers to the four main ingredients which are turkey ham, anchovies, olives and mushrooms. Yes, let's not to forget that the pizza was topped with mozzarella cheese. It did not turn out to be quite what we had expected it to be; the turkey ham, anchovies, olives and mushrooms are all divided quarterly. Can't really taste everything in one bite :(

Quarto pizza

We hand-picked a piece of sirloin cut of Aussie beef and Norwegian salmon and handed these to the cashier as he took our orders. We had the sirloin steak paired with stir-fried mixed vegetables and salmon with alio olio spaghetti. I was quite pleased with the art the food that was served, however not really with its quality. The sirloin steak served was well done, instead of medium (which I had requested for), and its taste was rather bland - just beefy, and the mixed vegetables were a bit salty but I guess you have to eat both the meat and the vegetables together. The salmon was OK though I would have preferred the skin to be a little crispier, and slightly more chilli flakes and garlic would be better with the spaghetti.

Sirloin steak with mixed vegetables

Salmon with alio olio spaghetti

Overall, the food was OK. The total bill came up to RM73.35 for 3 main courses (Breakdown: Quarto pizza RM24, Sirloin steak RM18.60+RM6 and Salmon RM18.75+RM6) which I felt it was reasonable. I do like the concept of selecting your own meat and getting them to cook it for you, but perhaps this is why the meat tasted bland.

Location:

El Fresco Italian Kitchen (its inside Jaya Grocer),

Lot 6, LG-G1, Empire Shopping Gallery,

Jalan Ss16/1,

47500 Subang Jaya,

Selangor Darul Ehsan,

Malaysia.

Love your curves!

We are not, by any way, affiliated or associated to BSC Studio and definitely do not obtain monetary gains as well as benefits.

15% of the money collected from the ticket sales will be donated to the National Breast Cancer Foundation. We are just trying to support the foundation in any way we could by helping to spread the word [or love!].

The price is $69 per head if you book by 30th September- it sounds good for free flowing wine, beer & drinks with finger food, don't you think? =)

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Ramen cook-off!

After watching Wongfu Productions’ Wongfu Weekends Episode 60 last week, we decided to hold our own ramen cook-off. It made sense; both of us (i.e. Mich and Jin) love instant ramen and have it regularly, especially when there is nothing else to eat at home.



*Jin’s ramen!*

*Mich's ramen!*

VS


















Thoughts from Jin
Ok, I admit that I bought some extra ingredients for this ‘cook-off’, but I do actually use these ingredients in my ramen if they are available. What did I use? Nong Shim’s Hot & Spicy ramen, enoki mushrooms, soft tofu, tofu puffs, cabbage and an egg and viola!

Honestly, it took me ages to make that, and it didn’t have the same satisfaction which I normally have after a bowl of spicy ramen on a wet and miserable day. To ‘present’ this properly took a lot of effort compared to my usual ‘eat-out-of-the-pot’ concept. I think instant ramen dinners should be done on the spur of the moment, when you really want/need it, and not pre-planned. To quote Ted Fu: “Let’s be practical here” (Ted, I so agree with you!).

I don’t think I will attempt another cook-off. In future, I might just take a snapshot of how I normally eat my ramen rather than this… >.<

Thoughts from Mich
On my side, I thought this ramen cook-off was a total failure. Knowing that I have to take pictures of it, I could not work at my usual speed or way of cooking.

So in my bowl were Nong-shim Hot and Spicy noodles [total hardcore fan], enoki mushrooms [it's mixed together with the noodles], white mushrooms, fishcakes of different shapes and sizes, an egg as well as tofu. Honestly tofu never ever makes it into my ramen but I had leftovers from another meal and I had to do this cook-off too, so into the pot it went. Fishcakes, again, are also another story. These were not my usual kind of fishcakes as I love the thin Korean ones instead but the shops ran out of my favourite kind. These were not yummy and they were of a different Korean brand. As if there wasn't enough ''pressure'', my yolk had to break at the very last second when I was presenting it. That was depressing.

Our Verdict
This cook-off beats the purpose of ramen to start with. We are, after all, the young professionals who eat instant ramen after a long day at work and just need quick food to fill our tummies.

It has begun! Junkie Friday #2

Yay! And the night is still young. *dances*

If you could not tell the new flavour of Smiths' from the picture, it is their limited edition of Pizza (or pizza flavoured) chips. It tasted just like any other pizza flavoured snacks and it definitely reminded me of Arnott's Pizza Shapes. It appeared as if it was marketed in accordance to the footy finals happening this weekend too (it is written at the back of the packet after all) and yes, we are least excited for the footy finals. I have to say I am not as adventurous as I thought I would be because I could not bring myself to buy their other limited edition flavours such as Meat Pie & Sauce as well as Sunday Roast (o_O) Pizza and Crispy Bacon are just much safer flavours and I quite enjoyed eating the whole pack of chips with the stout *note: I am still drinking the same bottle while writing this.

I have to justify myself here, I am not a drinker of stout but for personal reasons, I am drinking it now warm (literally means at room temperature). I thought it was an easy stout to drink and took it as a light beer. I always remembered bitterness as a strong character of stout (thanks to Guinness!) but 4 Pines definitely has balanced its bitterness along with its other flavours. Having said that, Guiness has now changed their recipe and has a much preferred smooth finish too (ooo...and also less alcohol percentage).

And did I say the night is still young? Bring on more junk. =D

Courtesy of animecrazy.net

No, I'm not thinking of mapo toufu, although I do love that dish a lot. It is just going to be a weekend I commit myself to 'Chūka Ichiban!', also known as Cooking Master Boy. I've watched the anime series a gazillion times now really, after all it's more than 10 years old.

'Yong Tofu'

'Yong Tofu' is a Cantonese phrase which literally means 'stuffed tofu' (soft bean-curd). In Malaysia, when we say "Let's have 'Yong Tofu'," it is not necessarily confined to eating only stuffed tofu. Practically all kinds of vegetables could be cooked with stuffing and still be considered as 'Yong Tofu'. Some of the popular combinations with stuffing are chilli, bitter-gourd, brinjal (or eggplants as the Italians call it), tofu, flat bean-curd, baby corn, siew bak choy etc.

So, what is this stuffing that I have been mentioning about all this while? It is actually fish paste (commonly used). However, I prefer a mixture of fish paste and minced pork, not just because I'm a pork lover but because the blended mixture strikes a balance in the texture and taste of the stuffing.

Lisa's mum prepares the stuffing just the way I like it! The mixture of both fish and pork with the right amount of simple seasoning makes a good stuffing/paste for 'Yong Tofu'. I often get take-away 'Yong Tofu' from Jerantut (i.e. Lisa's hometown). I wonder if Lisa's family likes stuffed chillies and flat bean-curd. Well, I got that combination tonight but it's enough to be my favourite.

Awesome stuffed red chilies with a little spice in it. Stuffed flat bean-curd fried till golden brown.

I could finish up a bowl of rice just with the two types of 'Yong Tofu' that I mentioned. For today's dinner, it was also accompanied by something which I had not eaten for a long time...

Stir-fried cucumber with garlic.

I remember my grandma used to prepare something similar for us when we were still schooling back in Ipoh. Recall anything Michele?

It's Official!!!

We have introduced our little friend previously without an official name. We started off with Ted temporarily. It made sense to have Ted as a teddy's name.

Being the people we are, we think too much and had a Sunday morning meeting to give Ted an official name, a name we could agree on. Chosi came into Jin's mind for the many reasons as I tried to google the top Californian boys' names. We do love California. Jose was one of them and I really liked it. Diego made it into my list too, but it didn't fit Ted. If we had a jaguar, I would have called the jaguar Diego.

Anyway, along came other names such as Aidan and Chester. We tried a Korean name, Jeon. It meant pancake. Do I want Ted to have a name of a pancake significance? [bleah]. Other random non-existent boy names came into our discussion such as Wept, Twip and Pwet. We knew they were not going to make our list for Ted's names. It is a Sunday morning after all. I thought our Ted should somewhat be food-related but googling this was a disaster. Names such as ale, alfredo, bartlett, wellington and chip came up. Then, Kersen struck as a beautiful name. So I thought. Kersen meant cherry. I liked Darrell or Daryl but Jin thought the names belonged to more senior people, but it meant beloved. Isn't it sweet to call Ted beloved?

Felix next. It meant happy and prosperous but Jin thought of Sonic and Felix the cat. Throughout time, we still loved ted as Ted. Divine gift. Girvan came into our minds too as it meant the rough little one but we name proof it a gazillion times and thought it might lead to heaps of typo in our upcoming posts. Felix the ted, Ted the bear, Felix the ted. After spending so much time on it, Ted still made it to the top 2. The irony of it all.

We decided we needed help [and yes, as a team we agreed to Ted].
If this is how we name our little teddy bear, imagine the days when we have children.

So, it's official. Ted the bear.

My special delivery...

“Specially flown all the way from Melbourne for you…” ^^

I caught up with my friend over lunch last Friday, and he gave me a box of these delicious macarons – a souvenir from Melbourne (and no, I am not kidding).

Clockwise (from top right): Strawberry, with a delicious creamy filling and strawberry bits; pistachio flavoured with a bits of real pistachios in the filling; salted caramel which has that perfect burnt caramelised flavour and not overly sweet; black sesame, which is surprisingly not too sweet and just perfect.

My plan to ‘slice’ open and capture the 'innards' of each macaroon on camera failed. The delicate shell just crumbled with each attempt (even the strawberry macaron just barely survived the journey to Perth); hence, my long winded descriptions of each one.

The macarons were yummy. I *hearts* the pistachio and black sesame flavours. Actually, I loved all of them.

This special gift made the perfect end to a very long week. Thank you. =)

The Cupcake Family
Shop 22 Red Cape Lane, QC Centre
Melbourne VIC 3000
http://thecupcakefamily.com.au

My Vietnamese ventures

If cooking were painting, Vietnam would have one of the world's most colorful palettes.

Vietventures

Being in the eastern suburbs, Kilkenny in the northern west of Adelaide CBD appeals to me in a different light. It is possibly one of the poorer suburbs around and is the neighbourhood for many Vietnamese.

Anyway, that info wasn't important *presses hard on backspace button*

Some time ago, I bought this pork glutinous rice in a random family-owned mart. I loved it, it was a taste of home after all.

The most recent find in Kilkenny was the exciting one! I wonder what took me so long to discover vietnamese meat rolls after growing up with heaps of vietnamese food. To name a few include Phở/ noodle soup, Bánh xèo/ crepe, Gỏi cuốn/ cold rolls, Nem nướng/ pork meat balls as well as the Bò 7 món/ 7 courses of beef. Boy, I could go on and on. Oh! I also had the opportunity lately to taste a vietnamese dessert which I can never remember its name [thanks to a parent!]. Back to the original point of this post, let us focus on THE Bánh mì/ Baguette or the Vietnamese meat roll.

Everything in it are simple ingredients; pickled carrots, cucumber, fresh coriander leaves and chilli  but it must have been the combination of it all with the dressing and its ''butter spread'' which makes this absolutely delish! It's the best Vietnamese bread rolls you can find in Adelaide and its not just me. All for $4.50. =)

I only wish it is a little closer to home orrr... I own a car.

Tay Do

Cnr First Ave and Hookings Tce (roundabout)

Kilkenny, SA 5009
Near Arndale shopping centre

It's the end of the week! Junkie Friday #1

If it is not obvious enough, I reward myself constantly on a Friday. Jin and I came up with this term, 'Junkie Friday' and I have been doing it for weeks now. I just never made it official till now. Amusingly, my body appearred to understand such reward [okay it is really my mind and in psychological terms this is a form of operant conditioning] and the tummy goes crazy on a Friday evening.

So, my initial plan yesterday was to watch 'Like stars on Earth' and order the largest size available at Dominos with a friend of mine. Last minute changes, I ended up watching the movie on my own with two pieces of tempura battered fish and a side of McCain's seasoned curly fries [hate the photo, I blame the lighting].

This is my first time actually buying a pack of frozen chips from the supermarket and baking them at home [literally means ''let's chuck it in the oven'']. I will fail as a Masterchef contestant in the frozen and canned food challenge of Season 3. Anyway, they did satisfy my need for junk while reminding me of the curly fries I used to buy from McDonalds. What was extremely deceiving was the serving size suggestions; 5 servings in a pack of 500g. Its either my problem or theirs but the figures suggest an extremely small portion size. Along with the broken bits at the far end of the picture, my portion was already half the pack!

The broken bits were the yummy bits. By the time I got to the stringy curly bits, it was cold and slightly soggy [well of course, I was playing with our version of 'toon spencer' and trying to feed him but he obviously wasn't very pleased with the soggy curls].

On a note, Like stars on earth was a beautiful movie on a misunderstood boy who had to go through a rigid school system despite being a dyslexic. Inspirational for someone like me.

A stone's throw away

is this Thai place, Chabaar. And it is literally a stone's throw away from my place. I've been there a couple of times now and I really do not mind the food there.

Here's the green curry prawn my girlfriend ordered. I had a taste of it, and I certainly can never give a neutral feedback on any creamy curry.

*hint Allergic [which means really really dislike] to coconut cream

NOW this is one of my favourites at the place, basil fried rice or kao pad prik [direct translation: chilli fried rice]. I wanted to try something new but I ended up making a very last minute change to this [again]. Spicy and sweet, it totally satisfied me although it might have been a teeny weeny bit too sweet for my liking this time.

Chabaar

230 The Parade

Norwood SA 5067

Friday night binge

While Mich was having her Junkie Friday night, I was having a drinking session with the visiting family. The night revolved around life, travel (including handy tips about places to visit) and, ultimately, work. The most important part of the night was the munchies, of course!

Prosciutto, cherry tomatoes, crackers, brie and apricot & almond cheeses, and roasted honey cashews

*I only drank the two wines in front - a sweet on the left, a red on the right*

I love sweet dessert wines, and am extremely picky with my reds, but this one was quite nice. Both wines weren’t as yummy as the ones during my visit to Penfolds in SA last year, but were still good enough. Wine, cheese, crackers and nuts – what more can I ask for?

Our virtual whiteboard: a never-ending work-in-progress

If Mich and I were housemates, we’d have a whiteboard or feature wall decorated with the map of the world covered with pins marking all the places we plan to go (and not where we have been). On that very same board/wall, there’d be a list of ‘tasks’ that we need to accomplish on each trip; each task scribbled on separate sheets of post-it notes. Unfortunately, this isn’t possible, so we’ve decided to share our board/wall virtually. Here's a kickstart to our future travel plans:

The places in Australia we plan to visit in the coming years

Over the year, we’ve brainstormed just a few (ok, a lot of) ideas for Mich’s next visit to Perth. There is a high possibility of us just bumming around indoors with takeaway food, wine and watching DVDs, but I am sure we’ll knock off some of the following (at least one of them, definitely!):

• Korean restaurant (Took Be Gi) or Korean barbecue (Tong 86)
• Cold Rock
• Tapas (Gypsy Tapas House, Fremantle)
• Mexican (Panchos or That Little Mexican Place)
• Koko Black
• Theobrama Chocolate Lounge
• Swan Valley
• Buffett breakfast/lunch/dinner (CAFÉ at Hyatt or Montereys at Pan Pacific)
• Baking muffins/cookies (including video recording)
• KFC Hot and Spicy bucket
  
• Making guacamole
  

Here’s an ongoing miscellaneous list for our future travels:

• Karaoke
• Korean markets
• Venetian Hotel in Macau
• Three-star Michelin restaurant
  

This will be our working list and will be updated regularly. So watch this space! And to everyone reading this, if you have any recommendations on places or restaurants we could visit, please drop us a comment!

My take on zucchini and feta pasta!

Which doesn't have any feta cheese after all. +D

Original recipe from Sanitarium health and wellbeing, Jin had previously uploaded her own version of the pasta.

I thought it would be fun to have a "TAKE TWO" on our published recipes from different cooks as well as to improve on things. Having said that, Jin suggested I base my recipe on the original Sanitarium rather than hers.

Zucchini and Cheese *not feta* fettucine

1 splash of olive oil

1 small bulb of shallots, chopped

1 zucchini sliced with a peeler (presentation is so much better)

1 lemon (juiced)

Zest of half a lemon

Chilli flakes

Grated tasty cheese

Fettucine for one, cooked

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat oil and saute shallots, zucchini and chilli flakes.

2. Grate cheese and lemon onto it, and stir through lemon juice.

3. Toss fettucine and add more cheese!

So Jin prewarned me that Sanitarium's recipe is rather bland, my words are ''very bland'' despite my own little tweaks. On top of that, it had a creamy texture which is not to my liking.

Did I successfully replicate this recipe? I am not sure really. Maybe I did because it is bland as implied.

Did I like the recipe? No I do not and will not do it again. If ever, I will definitely have to make major tweaks and it'll be an entirely different recipe. *beats the purpose really*



The sparkling pop

Image from Wiki- Sorry!

I felt obliged to balance out my posts a teeny weeny bit- especially in our category of wines.

Soooooo...here it is.

I had a go at Passion Pop Mixed Berry on my Junkie Friday night. Apparently, it's an iconic Australian wine but gosh, I had a sip of it and all I could say is "It tastes like cough mixture"

What did my mate say? "It's yummy (he introduced me to this)."

And the next question was "What cough mixture have you been drinking?"

Arguably one of the best, if not the best scones in PJ

Scones are popular especially in United Kingdom, United States of America, Australia, New Zealand but also serves in many other countries. It's the basic component of English tea. We could easily find scones in most franchised coffee chains (Starbucks, Coffee bean etc) and some selected cafes, but good scones are hard to find.

I am about to introduce to you, one of the best, if not the best scones in PJ. It is sold in a cafe in Dream Center, Section 13. Dream Center is also known as DUMC (Damansara Utama Methodist Church), and yes, you heard me right. It is sold in a church but its cafe indeed serves the community around that area and is usually packed with office workers during lunch time.

I was told that there are a limited amount of scones sold daily, on a first come first serve basis. The scones offered were complimented by freshly whipped cream and strawberry. They prepared the scones with raw ingredients and not buying ready made ones off the shelf. At Dream Center Cafe, butter is not served alongside the scones, but trust me, even for a butter lover myself, it tasted just as good without it.

Scones baked to perfection.

Super-yummy ready-to-be-consumed scone!

Carrot cake - another notable dessert sold at Dream Center :)

Location:

Dream Center (Cafe)

Damansara Utama Methodist Church

2 Jalan 13/1, Seksyen 13

46200 Petaling Jaya, Selangor