Bed

We bought new bed at Capt'n Snooze.

Wu Yian

I called my mom for Wu Yian recipe.
Mom: "I gave you the recipe before, why didn't you write down?"
Me : "I did, but it's gone."
Mom: "Next time, write down all recipes in a book"

Well, I normally type in notepad. But having 3 computers at home, I don't know which computer has the recipe file. The fastest way is to pick up the phone and call my mom for recipe.

Ingredients:
1 kg of taro, grated
1 spoon of mince ginger
1.5 spoons of miso paste
2 spoons of rice flour
salt and pepper

Method:
1. Mix all ingredients together. That easy!
2. Heat up oil and make into small balls, then fry until golden.

Here is the grated taro.


Frying the taro.I grinned as I could smell the Wu Yian.


I made 2 versions: round and flat.


I am doing good with the chili sauce too.


For chili sauce:
5 long red chillies
4 hot red chillies
4 cloves of garlic
Soy Sauce
1 tbsp Sugar
1/4 cups of water
1/2 Lime


Method:
1. Blend chillies and garlic together.
2. Put in a small pot, add 1/4 cup of water, soy sauce and sugar. Bring to boil.
3. Add lime.

Balsamic Roast Chicken

This is our dinner: Balsamic Roast Chicken, Asparagus & Bacon Roll and Roast Potatoes with parsley.

Chicken, potato, pink grapefruit salad

When I have mood to cook, I can spend hours in kitchen. I found the recipe on the net and I did my own version.
Pink grapefruit, chicken, walnut and potato salad

Ingredients
2 pink grapefruit

10 Nicola potatoes, halved

3 stalks of parsley, finely chopped

1 spoon of butter

2 spoons of olive oil

500 g chicken breast fillets

some baby spinach and rockets

some walnuts and pine nuts

Method
Remove rind and white pith from grapefruit. Holding grapefruit over a bowl to catch juice, cut down either side of each segment to release it from the membrane. Cut segments in half and transfer to a bowl. Squeeze juice from membrane into a cup.

Spread butter on the baking tray. Throw in the potatoes and roast until they are tender and golden. Add grapefruit juice, parsley, salt and pepper. Toss gently.

Cut chicken breast in small pieces. Add olive oil, grapefruit juice and salt. Roast until the chicken is tender.

Divide chicken, potato, salad and grapefruit pieces among plates. Add the remaining grapefruit juice and sprinkle with some walnuts and pine nuts.

I packed the rest for Jon's lunch, so I was left with 1 pieces of chicken and 3 pieces of potatoes. I added Chili Tuna, it was so yummy.

Wu Yian

The Calamari from ubud reminds me of Wu Yian. Wu Yian is deep fried grated taro/yam, served with chili sauce. It is a popular food for tea time in Medan. Wu Yian is nice when it comes with nice chili sauce. During my childhood, I ate Wu Yian almost everyday, with lots of chili sauce. Too bad that the uncle who sold my favorite Wu Yian has passed away. I can still remember the taste of his chili sauce.

Ubud

Ubud is a town in central Bali, Indonesia, considered the arts and culture center of the island. This restaurant mimics Ubud's atmosphere. The outer part of the restaurant has two big pieces of white "ivory"-like scrulpture. The inside part has individual rough cut stone bricks wall, stacked and cemented layer by layer. We went there for dinner to celebrate Jocelyn birthday.


Steam rice in basket


Entree: Calamari Rambutan $8. Deep fried stuffed calamari in batter. In Indesian, rambutan means hairy. Probably this dish is named Calamari Rambutan because the calamaris were rolled in noodle and look as if they have hair.


Kwetiau Goreng $10.50. Rice noodles stir fried with Chicken.


Kangkung Cah $11.90. Stir fried water spinach with shrimp paste.
This was awesome. The shrimp paste taste was mild and has a strong garlic taste.


Martabak Telor $7. Indonesian style crepe with beef, shallots and egg (crispy fried). This is not as good as original martabak. The real martabak telor should be crispier and come with sweet and sour dipping sauce.


Beef Rendang $14.9. Indonesian traditional beef curry.


Gado Gado $11. Steamed mix vegetables with peanut sauce.


Sayur Asam $7.90. Sweet sour vegetable soup. This vegetable soup is a must-have item on the menu of every West Java (Sundanese) restaurant in Indonesia. It uses tamarind as the soup base. The soup is a bit disappointing. I have never tasted good Sayur Asam in Sydney.


Ayam Goreng Ubud $11.90. Fried chicken Ubud Style. Itcomes with sambal chilli. Since noone liked it, I finished the small plate of sambal chilli. It was great with the chicken.


Ayam Bumbu Ubud $14. Grilled chicken with special Ubud sauce. This was the last dish. By the time the dish reached out table, everyone was already so full.


Spot that last piece of grilled chicken? It went to my stomach as soon as I finished taking this photo.



Ubud
582 Anzac Parade
Kingsford NSW 2032
Tel: +61 (02) 9344 4961

Rain Continues

As it was raining the whole day, my initial plan of heading out for a nice pinic / photographing got ruined. End up spending the afternoon packing stuffs. There are 4 boxes of clothes and stuffs that I would like to donate. How could there be so many things in this small one bedroom apartment? (again!) Just a while back , I had already donated 4 big bags of old clothes and shoes. Whereas for Jon, he has nothing much to "donate" as he is still wearing the same clothes as he did 5 years back. =0)

Ran out of idea what to have for dinner, so ended up cooking rice porridge. Porridge/congee is one of my favorite food, but not Teo Cheow porridge. I love my porridge runny. The last time someone cooked porridge on my behalf, was Karn and my MIL. It was Teo Cheow Porridge, I could hardly swallow it. (Then again, how can i have rice? Rice is rice but Teo Cheow Porridge is like soggy rice.) I like them runny and not being able to see the rice grain as that was like rice soaked with water.


I love the black bean dish together with my porridge. It was easy to cook. Black bean, ginger, tomato, fish/anchovy, add some soy sauce and 1 cup of water then bring to boil.

Salted Duck Egg.


Mince Pork with Spicy Bean Paste.

Dragon Star Seafood

Jon and I had a day off today. We planned to have a nice breakfast at The Rocks followed by photo taking at Botanical Garden. But alas, it has been raining non stop all day long. It was very dark and stormy.

The nice thing about staying right in the heart of city is that there is a shopping centre, supermarket, a few restaurants and foodcourt just stone-throw away. I could still enjoy groceries shopping without getting out getting wet. I don't do grocery shopping once a week. I only purchase the items I need as and when I need them. How convenient! (Jon says it's a steep price to pay... v.Xpensive rent)

This morning I was hoping that the rain would have stopped. At noon, it was still raining, so we switched plan and headed to Dragon Star. Prompt service and with a smile! It was the first time that I encountered good service at Dragon Star. Probably due to the up and coming long weekend.

Woo Gok (yam dumplings). This deep fried dumplings has a soft mound of yam surrouding juicy pork mince and top with scallop.



Har Gao (steamed prawn dumplings). Har Gao here is packed with whole prawns, not mince prawn. Used to be my favorite but I found Zilver Har Gao is better.


Steamed Scallop Dumplings.


Char Siew Cheung Fun (rice noodles with BBQ Pork).

Siu Maai (steamed pork dumplings). Yum Cha won't be complete without siu maii. We were too busy eating and forgotten to take photos. That explains why there are only 2 Siu Maii left in the basket. :-)


Daan tart (egg custard tart).


Gui Ling Gao (herbal jelly with honey syrup). The difference with grass jelly is that Gui Ling Gao has shavings of turtle shell. It is a bit bitter that's why honey is added to cover the bitterness. It is my favorite dessert.


Dragon Star Seafood Restaurant
Market City Level 3, Shop 9-13, Hay Street Haymarket
Tel: +61 (02) 9211 8988

Sinma Laksa House

We went to Malaysian Restaurant at Kingsford with How and his family. There was nothing special in the interior.


Fish Head Curry. Fish head in spicy coconut with okra, eggplant and deep fried tofu. This dish was very delicious.


Chili Crab. Crab cooked to perfection in an egg-thickened, sweet and spicy chili gravy. The sauce was too sweet for my liking.


Prawn Petai Belacan. Petai beans stir-fried in sambal chilli with prawn. Petai is very popular in South-East Asia, but I have never tasted petai before as I dislikethe smell. (same category as "Chao Tao Fu" - Taiwan's popular dish. Smelly Tou Fu). Jon loves it.


Chicken Cashew Nuts. Succulent chicken fillet slightly stir-fried with cashew nuts and oyster sauce. Nothing special on this menu.


Kangkong Belacan. Water-spinach stir-fried with dried shrimp paste and chilli.


Well, that was a lot of food. Nothing much to say, it was lovely. It's the kind of meal we would have taken for granted back home. Almost forgotten to mention, Jon probably used up 2 boxes of their tissues. He was practically sweating all the time his tougue gets in contact with the chilli. Seems like he was swimming in Sinma instead of having dinner. :-)


Sinma
391 Anzac Parade NSW 2038
Tel: +61 (02) 93137663

Macchiato

I arranged to have lunch with Karn and thought that it would be the last lunch with her since she is going on holiday to Thailand and when she gets back I will probably be in NY. But things got delayed as it was imminent that Jon had some critical work to be completed here in Sydney before we can leave. So by the time Karn returns we will still get to meet.

Since Jon had the day off, he joined us too as we headed to Macchiato. It was my third visit. The last time I went there I had Portugese Chicken. This time I had Chicken Parmajana. Apperance can be deceiving. I was so full I couldn't finish my meal and still had to eat dessert.

Chicken Parmajana $22.90. Grilled breast fillet, eggplant, cheese, kipfler potatoes, dressed with a napoletana sauce.


Steak Macchiato $25.90. Grain-fed beef sirloin, served with fries and mushroom sauce.


Portugese Chicken $21.50. Char grilled chicken breasts, served on a bed of mash and covered in chef's special bbq sauce. The mash was so smooth and silky.


Chocolate Mud Cake $8.90


Macchiato
338 Pitt St
Sydney NSW 2000
Tel: +61 (02) 9262 9525

Juju

Juju is a fun place to have dinner with a group of friends. Everyone has to take off their shoes and sit at a low table with semi wall seperating from other tables, which is like private booth.

We wanted to order Sukiyaki for 2 and Shabu Shabu for 2 but the waitstaff advised that it would be too much. So we only ordered Sukiyaki and other side menus.

Beef Tataki Salad


Okonomiyaki. The first time I ate Okonomiyaki, it was bad and I never liked Okonomiyaki. But this one was delicious, now I like Okonomiyaki.


The third dish was Tofu Steak, it is my favorite. I was too hungry that I forgot to take a picture of the dish and only remembered after we finished it.

Meat and vegie for Sukiyaki.


Cooking our food at our table.


Soft Shell Crab Maki.


We were so full but so tempted to order Tempura Ice Cream. So we had 1 to share among 4 of us.


Yummy...everyone was busy demolishing the tempura ice cream.


It was so nice, we finished everything.



Juju
Kingsgate Shopping Centre
Shop 320, Bayswater Rd
Kings Cross, NSW 2011
Tel: +61 (02) 9357 7100