Dinner: Gourmet Sausage

It's been a while since my last post. Here are some pictures from dinner. And to change things up a bit, I shot in monochrome:

I usually eat the same thing every time we drop by this place, but tonight I felt like something different, something new.

Change. Sometimes it's a good thing.

Shabu One, Lot 10

The Fam were in KL early last month, and we visited this steamboat place called Shabu One for dinner. Steamboat restaurants are different from state to state, apparently. Here in Kuching, they're pretty miserable affairs, with limited choices and cheapo cuts of meat. For similar prices, you get literal feasts in KL and Penang. Like in Shabu One.

You get seafood. Fat, juicy prawns. Crabs that look fresh enough to grab at you with their pincers. Strange creations called fish noodles that are basically fish paste in the shape of noodles.

You've got the usual raw meat and vegetable section, only here, the sheer variety is mind-boggling. And if you're lazy and don't feel like grilling your own meat, they have a little station where some workers grill salted beef strips for you!

They also have a sauce station, where you can mix up your own dip from the range of sauces and spices and oils and condiments available. They have a section for desserts like fruit and jellies and syrupy stuff.

They even have a tootin' grilling machine just to grill little fat sausages! How cool is that?

But did I stuff my face with the seafood, the meat, the vegetables, the soupy ingredients, the ice-cream, the desserts, the sausages? No. What did I eat then, what caught my fancy?

SUSHI.

They have tootin' SUSHI!!!!

Thinking back, 70% of my dinner that night must have been sushi. I couldn't take much of the soup, especially as the first mouthful was so potently spicy that I nearly choked. The sushi made my dinner that day.

The guy at the sushi booth was really nice, and he said I could go ahead with the photo-taking. Mind you, it wasn't just one quick snap, but many repetitive ones. Thank you, Nice Sushi Guy, for letting me take those pictures. Now I get to put them on my blog! 

Sharing is caring?

Had a great dinner with The Fam tonight. After several days of debating the pros and cons of each option, we decided on Sharing Planet. It was a pretty rainy evening, which made for a very pleasant al fresco dining experience (read: no air-con).

It was supposed to be individual platters, but when the food arrived we decided to share it around. The portions are huge, and really, it would be a bad move if you decide to be selfish and hog your plate all to yourself. You'd be quite grossed out by the end, especially with eating so much of the same thing, and you'd be reduced to telling yourself to eat up or see all that food go to waste. Trust me, speaking from experience here. The best strategy (uh-huh, eating involves plenty of brain work) would be to order a few plates and share around. That way you get to taste a little bit (or in the case of Sharing Planet, still a generous amount) of everything, and you won't be bloated or bored to the point of nausea by the end of the night. Win win.

We had the mixed grill, and this consisted of a sausage that seemed to be speckled with oozy bits of cheese, lamb chop, battered fish, chicken chop, mashed potato, and some blanched veg. This picture shows a portion of the mixed grill (specifically, the lamb chop and bits of the chicken chop and sausage), with a different chicken dish in the background:

I'm not a fan of potato, but The Fam said it was good, especially with the black pepper gravy. The sausage was good (prolly chicken, prolly easily available from a supermarket or cold storage), lamb and chicken chops were juicy. I really liked the battered fish; it was prolly dory, and yum, the contrast of crunchy deep-fried batter and crumbly tender fish was really addictive! Want moaaaar! The chicken dish (the one that looks like lasagne in the background with coleslaw on the side) tasted like grilled chicken chop with cheese on top, and came with coleslaw and french fries.

We also had the seafood arrabbiata (which means angry in Italian, according to Wikipedia), but this was more sweet than spicy. What they lacked in spicy hot fiery chilliness they made up for with superb seafood. The fried fish (dory?) was amazing, and the prawns were big and juicy. They did a great job with the calamari, which was sweet and tender, and they were generous with the mussels. The only problem with this dish was the sweetness; it was sweeter than I like my pasta to be, but it's a tomato puree-ish kind of sweetness rather than the sugary kind. Which is good if you like tomatoes. And they have chunks and chunks of tomatoes (and onions) in this.

On the whole, we were very satisfied with dinner tonight. Hours later I was still thinking happy thoughts about dinner, and that's always a good thing. Good night out, looking forward to returning and trying out the rest of the menu.

No duck noodles this time

Had dinner with The Fam tonight. It was raining quite heavily (it's been raining quite a bit the last few days, and I'm happy!), which meant no dining out in the open. We ended up at the Imperial Duck restaurant near the Stutong Market, and almost every table was already occupied. When I was studying in Sydney, I had a coursemate who would tell us how her family would prepare roast duck noodles for their Chinese New Year open house. I wanted roast duck noodles tonight, but no. No roast duck noodles for me. We had these instead:

Roast duck. But of course. You don't go to a roast duck specialist restaurant and not order roast duck. It's prolly even some sort of unspoken rule that you have to order duck. Kidding. But really, I'm pretty sure that's how it works. Like, you don't go to KFC and expect to have roast duck. No. For roast duck you go to a roast duck specialist, and for good juicy tender succulent roast duck you go to Imperial Duck. End of roast duck soliloquy. Moving on to the next dish...

... stirfried asparagus. This was pretty expensive, but I guess it's justified since the asparagus was prolly imported. This was alright. I prefer my asparagus minimalist style, i.e. blanched till just tender and accompanied with some garlic, and I found this particular dish a little overdone. Too many other ingredients fighting for centre stage. The prawns were really good though; not overcooked, still juicy and tasty and with that al dente crispiness that proves they've been cooked to perfection. Good prawns.

This was a surprise, as I wasn't expecting fish tonight. Cod with lotus flowers and black fungi. The first bite was quite amazing, all fishy and bursting with sesame oil goodness. The subsequent bites weren't as tasty, I don't know why. I don't like lotus flowers and I don't like black fungi, but I like this fish. It's not rough in texture and it doesn't stick to your teeth the way some fish do, if you know what I mean. Good fish. Adding cod to the list of fish I actually enjoy eating.

The deep fried tofu was good, though rather bland. It usually comes drowned drenched in a sweet sticky gravy, but here they separate the two, which is good if you enjoy your tofu all blistering hot and crunchy and not soggy. Upon breaking into the tofu squares, I noticed that it consisted of thin slices of tofu mixed with capsicum, and I don't quite get this. Why not just cut the tofu into squares/cubes/rectangles and then deep fry? Won't that be less time-consuming? We had a little discussion about this, and came to the conclusion that they were prolly charging you for this fancy tofu-cutting technique. Pretty impressive. The batter was really good and crunchy. I actually liked that this dish was quite bland. You can always add soy sauce to a bland dish, but you can't always ctrl+z an overly-seasoned one.

My drink: milk tea. Tea not thick enough, but not too bad. Not overly sweet once you let the ice melt and dilute. Quite refreshing.

Satisfactory dinner, although more expensive than other restaurants. You could prolly have a really good spread at other restaurants for the same amount, although I suppose their roast duck is one of the better ones you can get in this town.

I still want my roast duck noodles though. Will return to try one day in the very near future. Hopefully.

Souvenirs from Sibu

Sibu is a town in Sarawak, approximately 180 km from Kuching (Wikipedia, very useful, you should check it out sometime). I haven't visited Sibu in a very long time, but I have memories of one of the night markets. Mention Sibu, and many people think of food. I think of food too, like chee cheong fun drowning in dark oily sauce, and kompia that can last for days and weeks (not sure about the lasting weeks bit, they're usually gobbled down in mere hours). I know most people will immediately bounce off the walls and go hysterical because I didn't mention kampua mee, but looking back, I don't recall eating kampua mee when I was in Sibu. Or maybe I was just too young and my memory wasn't properly functioning back then. In recent years I've thought once twice several times about going backpacking around the country, just taking pictures and eating lotsa good food and making new memories. But it's just not convenient currently, and going all the way to Sibu just to eat kampua mee is a bit loony, even for me.

So you'll understand the happiness I felt when I had kompia, kampua mee and dabai brought to our dining table all the way from Sibu.

This is kompia.

If you've never seen kompia, you might say it looks like mini bagels. It tastes like mini bagels too. Ask the local people what it's called in English and they might tell you "Foochow burger". I guess this is a reference to the Chinese dialect who originally came up with this particular dish in Sibu (not sure about this, just thinking of a logical explanation), and you might see it sliced in half and filled with a minced meat mix, just like a 'burger'.

This is kampua mee. I don't know what kampua means, but mee means noodles. Wait. Let me go check on Wikipedia. Be right back. While I'm away, just stare at this picture:

Back. Wikipedia doesn't explain what the word kampua means, but they give a pretty good description of the dish: "noodles tossed in pork lard or vegetable oil, fried shallots, spring onions and sometimes soy sauce and/or chilli sauce". This is probably the first time I've eaten kampua mee with soy sauce, since the ones I'm familiar with come plain.

This last picture here is dabai. I've talked about dabai before, and in fact, one of my Pet Companions is a family of dabai seedlings (read about Olive here). Relatively simple food, just soak in warm water for a bit and season with soy sauce/salt/sugar.

And that's it, our souvenirs from Sibu! We finished the kompia and kampua mee within 24 hours of their arrival, and we're finishing up the remnants of the dabai. The next time any of you are planning a trip to Sibu, you know what to bring back for me! *grin*

tHe Spring + McD + The Hills + KFC

When I woke up this morning, I didn't think that I would have visited both tHe Spring and The Hills, and eaten at both McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken, by the end of the day.

The day actually started off pretty normal: my parents woke me up by asking if I wanted to go with them to tHe Spring and I said sure. So we went and walked around, the Christmas decorations were still up, and we went home at approximately 12.30 pm. It was then that I thought hey, it'd be nice to have a double cheeseburger, and of course, McD is the place to go if you want the best burgers in town. So I went, and ordered a double cheeseburger, large fries, a chocolate sundae, and of course, a large Coke. As I reached out to collect my Coke, I somehow tipped it over and its contents spilled all over the counter (and onto the floor to, I might add). The server was kind enough to get me a new one, and I left. There was still plenty of time before I was needed at worship practice, so I sat in the Jeep, flipped through an old magazine, and munched on my fries (with plenty of ketchup).

After practice I went home, and after a few hours, it was dinner time. I was still very full, so I skipped the rice and just had the steamed fish. Then my dad asked if I wanted to check out the Hills and I said sure, so we went and walked around the shopping mall. I wasn't impressed by the shopping 'mall', but I sure was impressed with the hotel. Talk about modernist design mixed with a generous helping of eclectism. There were so many different sofas, couches and chairs, I didn't know which one to sit on first! I liked the Christmas tree, and I went oooh! at the carpeting on the upper floor of the lobby. Then my dad asked if I wanted to go to KFC and I said yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. So we left, and reached Sarawak Plaza at approximately 9 o'clock.

And that is how I ended up having both McD and KFC in the same day. Not the healthiest of foods, I know, but hey, dangle a carrot in front of a donkey, and... well, you know the rest.

Porridge for New Year's Eve!

I cooked up something special for my dinner today:

It's really very simple. Pre-cooked rice, a couple of fish slices (cut to shreds), a couple of eggs, half a stick of celery, and a few coriander stalks. And of course, for added flavour, some oyster sauce, margarine, salt, MSG and lots of pepper. I think I might be getting a bit better at this cooking thingy. These days I find I don't have to consistently taste my food while I'm cooking, I just add in whatever it is I want (including the oh-so-important salt and pepper) and only taste it after it's out of the pot and in a bowl. Previously, if I didn't keep tasting while I was cooking, everything would be overly salty or too bland. These days everything tastes just nice. I think I'll call this dish Eggy Fish Porridge with Celery and Coriander.

Happy New Year's Eve, everyone.

15 bucks well-spent!

So I finally got to visit the place that my buddies have been telling me about, this shop selling western food. Pete's Western (or previously known as Scotland Western or something like that) is somewhere near 4th mile (I think), just opposite Boulevard and beside Everrise. I was looking forward to it, mainly because my buddies have visited it so often and always told me I should try it out. So my buddies and I went there for dinner today.

My first impression of the shop was that it looked pretty much like any other shop selling western food, as in they had the usual countertop with the kitchen behind, the typical faux wood tables and chairs, and the worn-out menus and staff. At least this place was air-conditioned. The food was relatively cheap though: I ordered the baked fettucine carbonara with cheese (RM8.50), tomato soup (RM4.50) and a can of Coke (RM2). I waited, not expecting much. When the food arrived I was pleasantly surprised. Very pleasantly surprised. The tomato soup came with two pieces of garlic bread, but these ones were very thick and not overly toasted/burnt, so it didn't feel like you were just munching on sawdust (like some of the other more popular shops selling similar food). The Coke, well, it's just your usual can of Coke. But the pasta, now that's what I call quality! It was, for lack of a better word, simply fantastic! The portions were generous, the sauce was tasty and creamy, and the texture of the pasta was perfect, still al dente (some cooks here boil pasta until it becomes a soggy mess because they think al dente pasta equals uncooked pasta). Best of all, the cheese tasted like real cheese. I was very, very pleased with my meal. And like trishie says, 15 bucks for 3 dishes (counting the Coke) is really worth your money.

So here are some shots of the night. This one here is of trish waiting patiently for her food to arrive... She always has the best facial expressions:

And the pictures below are obviously of my can of Coke, tomato soup with garlic bread, and fantastic fettucine carbonara:

I am definitely planning on going back to that place, at least once more before I have to leave for my further studies. Which only leaves one thing left for me to say: So, dear buddies of mine, when are we going again? Cheers people!

Handmade pasta!

Eureka! I finally did it! I made my own pasta from scratch! Muahahahaha! I've always wanted to try my hand at making my own fresh pasta, but I never succeeded (or rather the so-called product was so rubbery and gross I had to throw it away). After the last pasta-making experiment I told myself it wasn't worth the trouble (and the mess!) and that I'd just stick to buying pasta out of a packet.

Tonight (it's actually almost 2 in the morning so that would more accurately make it last night) I was feeling really hungry and in need of a good munch, but there was nothing edible lying around. So I decided to do the next best thing and attempt another pasta experiment. I wasn't sure if I could use just normal old flour (most pasta are made from semolina), so I checked some recipe books and confirmed that yes, it was possible to make pasta from 'normal' flour. So I cracked an egg, added a pinch of salt, and mixed in flour until I had the required consistency (don't ask me the exact amount of flour I used, I didn't measure!). I kneaded the dough, rolled it out as thin as it would go with a rolling pin, and used a knife to slice it up into thin ribbons (also not measured, so I had uncooked pasta dough of irregular widths). Proceeded to pop them ribbons into boiled water (liberally salted) for approximately a minute. Sieved them out, popped them into some room temperature water, then started on my sauce. This is where I ran into some complications. I originally was hoping to make a creamy mushroom sauce but there were no mushrooms lying around (or growing under the stools) so had to forget my yummy mushroom gravy. Thought about a carbonara sauce but didn't have enough eggs. Didn't even have butter to make a decent sauce. So I thought, oh well, let's just make do with what we have. So I made a roux from margarine and flour and some water. Then I spotted the garlic. The lightbulb in my little brain went off. I grabbed one measly garlic clove and grated that into the mixture bubbling away in the pot. Threw in some salt and MSG, and a very generous amount of pepper. Then tossed in all the pasta I'd made and added in the last slice of cheese left in the fridge. Gave everything a vigorous stir and poured it into my trusty bowl. Mind you, I thought it'd all end up a disaster of a dish right from the very start of this experiment, so imagine my surprise when I had my first mouthful of tasty, creamy pasta! I was so chuffed!

So now I've got another recipe to add to my culinary repertoire, albeit from the simplest and most basic of ingredients. Bear in mind though, this one takes a long time to prepare. I must have spent an hour or so in the kitchen, but it was all worth it. And now, at least for a while, I've satisfied my craving for pasta... Cheers!

2 Dinners And 1 Supper

It's been two nights of feasting, and I know for a fact that my blue jeans don't fit anymore. It's funny how food can influence a person's emotions. Like, when there's good food (or when I'm anticipating good food), I'm really one of the happiest people to be around. When the food isn't that good (or if it sinks beneath my expectations), I can't help but feel rather disappointed. The last two nights have been great though.

On Saturday some of my relatives came over, so that night we had a great home-cooked dinner. We had fried chicken, roasted beef (with gravy, yummy!), stir-fried vegetables, bubur cha cha, and soy bean milk to wash it all down.

Last night was grand too. My church had a dinner at Crown Square, and the whole place was filled with people. The 8-course meal included the cold dish (consisting of spring rolls, sushi and some sweet-and-sour meat thing), soup, sweet-and-sour fish, roasted duck with pineapples, chicken cooked with wine, noodles, mixed fruits, and fruitcake.

Because of the free-flowing drinks, I must have had 8 or 9 (maybe even 10!) glasses of Coke. And after all that, I still thought it'd be nice to try out the double cheese moo - is that what it's called? - from Chicago7. By the time I got to eat (had to wait for a few hours to clear up some space in my stomach) it was kinda cold, but it was still juicy. The beef patties (was it beef? I'm not very good at distinguishing between the various meats!) was well salted, maybe a little too well salted, and the tomato, cucumber and lettuce really added a refreshing crunch to the burger. The best thing - of course! - was the two cheese slices. Unlike some other burger franchises, you could really taste the cheese in this one. Not bad really, this burger for RM5 plus.

So now I've got to think of ways to get rid of some excess baggage. I've got approximately 45 days before I leave for my further studies, and really, I was thinking of bringing my favourite items of clothing (most of which I can't fit into these days)... So cheers you all, and here's looking forward to the last 3 days of 2009!

Curly Spaghetti

So the other day I went out shopping with triSh and we stumbled upon this curious little packet sitting nonchalantly on the shelves amidst a crowd of dried pasta and bottled sauces. If you know me, you know I like anything pasta, so of course I had to grab this precious little parcel of Curly Spaghetti. I mean, spaghetti in 4 minutes is really a very attractive notion, and it was only 1 buck and 80 cents, so I guess I thought I'd give it a try.

It was only tonight (oh wait it's past 2 a.m. now so that would make it last night) that I decided to cook it up. Y'know, it being Christmas and all I thought it'd be nice to have a little something tasty for supper. So I cooked up my packet of instant, "ready in 4 minutes" spaghetti. Even got out some cheese from the fridge to garnish, that was how much I was looking forward to it.

Really, all the signs were there, if only I'd bothered to take heed. Firstly, there's no way you can cook up a decent pasta meal in under 4 minutes. Okay, it's possible, but it's just not gonna taste as good as the real thing. Secondly, when I opened the packet and took out the 'pasta', it looked exactly like instant noodles (read: Maggi). Even smelled like it. Thirdly, I wondered how long the "yummy red sauce" (yes it really does say that on the packet) had been sitting in its little individually-wrapped packet. Convinced myself not to think about it.

Cooked it, drained it, mixed it with the aforementioned red sauce and my precious slice of cheese. Tasted it. Frowned. Hmmm... If you'd just cooked a packet of instant noodles, smashed up some Twisties (barbeque or tomato flavour) and mixed it with the noodles, you'd get something similar to what I tasted. The portion was very very small, and the smell wasn't right, and the taste was definitely nowhere near what I expected (ever so excitedly) but hey, it's quite addictive, really. All I could think of afterwards, with more than a pinch of sarcasm, was:

Dinner for one

This week alone I've prepared my own dinner twice. Don't go feeling all sorry for me now, it's actually something I look forward to, as it's probably the only chance I get to cook, which would come as a shock to many. So, yet again, I will describe my Maggi mee cooking process.

I always gather all my ingredients before I start the actual cooking. No point letting everything boil into nothingness while you go searching for that elusive egg or two. And I have a habit of crushing up the noodles (I think this makes it easier to eat with a spoon - lazy me). And I separate the eggs (yolks one bowl, whites one bowl), the reason for which will be explained soon. So once I've got all the ingredients ready, I fill a pot with approximately 2 centimetres of water (depending on the size of the pot), which I know is very little (and not following the actual instructions on the back of the packet), but then again this is creative cooking we're talking about. I let the water heat up a bit, just till I can see little bubbles forming, and then dump in one packet of the soup mix. Again, the reasons for all these specifics will be explained soon. Patience, my hungry friend.

When the soup heats up a little more, and then I dump in the egg whites and turn the fire to its lowest setting. I do this so that the egg whites don't poof up and spread throughout the soup. I want the egg whites to stay in one solid mass. So then I just watch the soup and eggs until they solidify. Then comes the fun part. Moving as fast as I can (actually the speed of my movements don't really matter, I just think it sounds more dramatic), I dump all the previously crushed-up dried-up noodles into the pot. Ahhhh... The sound of the noodles as they hit the pot and sizzle up... Nice. This is where the barely-enough-to-cover-the-noodles 2-centimetre's-worth-of-water-now-evaporated-to-1-centimetre soup comes into play. I like my noodles to be dry, so by the time the noodles absorb the soup, there's really not much liquid left. Then I leave the noodles to fry up a bit. Sizzle sizzle smoke smoke. Nice. What happened to the egg yolks you're wondering? Well, truth is I don't like them all cooked up. Like them as raw as they can get. So I just leave them at the bottom of the bowl, roll them around with a bit of seasoning from the second soup mix packet, and gently spoon the steaming noodles over the raw egg yolks. Leave them to just heat up a bit, just warm enough not to taste icky and cold.

Then comes the eating part. Before I actually devour the whole thing up, I use up the remainder of the second soup mix packet to dust the top of the noodles. Salty, I know, but very delicious. And later when I eat the whole thing up, at the bottom of the bowl lies two beautiful treasures, the two warmish raw-ish egg yolks, which I poke and mix around with the last few spoons of noodles and there, yummy yum. Slurp slurp. What a beautiful, satisfying, totally enjoyable meal. I love cooking my instant noodles this way, but I've come to the realization that Maggi mee curry flavour is the best fit for this style of cooking. Better still if it's the Kari Letup version, so much more flavour and kick. Maggi mee can really be an art form if you know what to do with it. Not that I'm claiming I know how to cook, but I think I'm quite good at cooking up a pretty fantastic Maggi mee. And it never fails to put a big smile on my face. Nice, isn't it?