Eating around Sydney

Sydney is a beautiful place. We left Sydney not too long ago and even though we were only there for a short time, we sure had a lot of fun there. Everyone is nice and friendly and I was surprise to see so many Asians there. I was even more surprise by the different types of Asian food that I can get there. I can even get bok choi in supermarkets! Hang on…are you sure we are in a Western country?Bok choi,chinese cabbage and coriander? Wow!

It was great to see all the different types of chinese vegetables that you can get in the supermarkets and it’s all grown locally.

Malaysian Restaurant

We found a Malaysian restaurant in town called Jimmy’s Recipe and it’s in a shopping centre called Galleries Victoria. I lovveee the Hainanese Chicken rice and I have to say that it’s better than some that I had in Malaysia. They are very generous with the portions and it’s reasonably priced too. The murtabak and beef rendang is also good.

                                                                                      With Frank at Jimmy’s

Must try the Chicken Rice

Yum Cha

Yum cha is also a must do in Sydney. Go to Marigold in Chinatown for bite size morsels of  all sorts of goodies from chicken feet to siu mai. I love the egg tarts and yam puffs there. Marigold is voted the best Yum Cha restaurant in Sydney and I can see why

With Grandma in Marigold

All sorts of roasted meat. Roasted duck, char siu and many more.

Siu Mai, Steamed Scallop dumplings, Char siu pau….

Cafes and Bakeries

There are Cafes in every corner in Sydney and they take their coffee seriously. We usually hang out at a few different cafes but one of our favourite is Bourke Street Bakery in Surry Hills. There is always a long queue so make sure you go early.  Apparently it’s one of the best bakeries in Sydney and is always featured in magazines and newspapers.

Bourke Street Bakery

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Tarts

Fresh from the oven

Pain au raisin and chocolate croissant

Lamb, harrissa and almond roll. Really nice

Sydney Fish Market

For the best selection of seafood in town, you have to go to the Fish Market. Sydney Fish Market is AWESOME. The seafood is super fresh and you can find all sorts of seafood from all around. Just get a dozen or two of fresh oysters, sit by the pier and eat to your hearts delight! If oysters is not your thing, there’s fish and chips, grilled fish and seafood, scampis, lobsters and many many more!

This way to Fish Market

Shucking Oysters

One of the many types of Oysters

Lobsters! Yum

Tuna

Assortment of fishes

Scallops

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Goodbye Sydney… see you again soon.

Denmark and Sweden

November last year, Frank and I left Korea and went back to Europe for a long holiday before moving on to our next destination -sunny Sydney! As excited as we were to finally move on, it was also hard to say goodbye to our friends and leave some our favourite spots in Seoul.

Back in Europe, in between catching up with family and friends, we managed to squeeze in some time off alone, and went to Ebeltoft ,Denmark. We stayed in a beach house and it was a lovely place. It’s the kind of place where you could see yourself spending the whole day by the beach and cooking warm meals when night falls.

When I think of Denmark and Sweden, I think Arla cheese, Ikea and Pippi Longstocking. I’m not sure why Arla cheese, maybe it’s because they are one of the biggest cheese exporters worldwide. And Ikea, who doesn’t love Ikea, right?

We took the ferry across to Gothenburg but unfortunately it was raining the entire 3 days we were there. The city was sweet and easy to explore, the girls were all stylish and the cafe’s not only offered us shelter from the cold, they also fed us very well. Things like grilled chicken with bottomless salad (yes, you can eat as much greens until you turn, well… green). It never tasted so good! It seems that they all eat very well in Denmark and Sweden; fresh salmon, loads of greens and yogurt, yogurt, yogurt!

Here are some of the pictures that we took (mostly of food) in Denmark and Sweden.

Breakfast

Sunrise

One of our first stop in town after the bakery was the fish shop

Our supplies for the trip.

Frank’s favourite pit-stop in Aahus city. Hotdogs!

The Fish Church in Gothenburg

Sweden…

Serian’s Local Market, Sarawak

The last time I was back in Kuching, my friends and I went up to Serian, a small town about 60 kilometers from Kuching city. The town is known for its durians however, I didn’t see any durians this trip.

Here are some pictures of local fruits and vegetables that you can get in Sarawak.

Assortment of Local Rice

One of my favourite local vegetable, Midin.

Buah Salak. I’m not sure what it is called in English but it’s got a rough exterior,reminds me a bit of scales and the flesh inside is soft and cream coloured.

From the left, we have fresh lemongrass, buah terung (local aubergines- it’s tastes a bit different from the Japanese aubergines…its tastes sour and is usually used to cook Assam fish head curry) and cucumbers.

One of the many types of bananas that you get in Malaysia-Pisang Emas (Golden bananas)

Pumpkins!

More Pumkins and Loofahs

Bamboo

Ginger Flowers

Yams

Ginger

I love these colourful baskets! So cheerful!

Yum yum kuih-muihs. (Local cakes)

Say CHEESE!

Eating marathon in Penang, Malaysia

In January, a good girl friend and I took the bus from Kuala Lumpur up north, to visit another good friend who lives in Penang. Our mission, is to see and to eat as much as we can in 3 days and 2 nights.

Penang, a little island on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia with an estimated population of 700,000 people has so much different food to offer that it was recognised as having the Best Street Food in Asia by TIME magazine in 2004, and is known to be the food capital of Malaysia.

What’s there not to love? With a variety of Chinese, Malay, Indian, Nyonya and Thai cuisines to choose from, one can get confuse where to start.

Luckily for us, we know what we were after. Hawker food! We ate so much that I can’t even remember what I ate.  I took pictorial evidence and  will explain as we go…

This is where the journey starts. Gurney drive. It’s a must eat for those of you visiting Penang. Some of the food that you can sample there are,

Fried Lok-Lok!

An assortment of goodies like fishballs, meatballs, sausages,bishops nose, seafood all on a stick. You dip it with the special sauce and eat it.

Fried Oyster Stall. Always a long queue there.

Fried Oyster…yummm

Rojak Stall.

Rojak is like an asian version of a salad. Slices of cucumber, pineapple, tofu, toss together in a shrimp paste sauce dressing with peanuts.

The famous Char Koay Tiaw stall

Char Koay Tiaw

A must try if you are ever in Penang or Malaysia! But of course, nothing beats eating it in Penang. I think I ate it everyday when I was in Penang.

Grilled Fish and Seafood Stall

So much to choose from

For Desserts, try Chendul and Apom

Apom lady

We had so much to eat that night that we had to roll back into the car. The next day, bright and early we started with breakfast in Bukit Emas.

Traditional cup of black tea

Chai koay. Hrm. It’s a steam ‘cake’ with vegetables and dried shrimp.

After filling our stomachs with the lovely chai koay, tea and Char Koay tiaw. (Yes, I told you I eat it for almost every meal). We headed to Kek Lok Si. It’s a famous Buddhist Temple.

Peek-a-boo! It’s the Trio…

Around in that area, where the temple is located, there is a famous Asam Laksa Stall.

The Asam Laksa Stall

It’s spicy, it’s pungent, it’s sour…

You could wash it all down with a cold bowl of Ice kacang or Chendul…

The famous road side Chendul at Lebuh Keng Kwee.

We drove around for hours looking for this place. I forgot what street it was on and we found it by accident.

All I can remember about Penang, when I last visited, which was at least 18 years ago was this stall – and my mum downing 2 bowls of Chendul. I just didn’t get it why she loves it so much back then, but now I do and we both share the same enthusiasm about their Chendul.

My beautiful bowl of Chendul with red beans and attap seeds.

A beautiful bowl of Ais Kacang

A pair of very satisfied customer..

That’s not all that we ate. Some of the other things that we ate during our trip are:

Penang style Chee Cheong Fun

Prawn Noodles or also known as Har Mee

Wantan Mee

A selection of Cempedak, Red bean, Sweetcorn or Durian Ice cream.I chose Durian.

We couldn’t resist buying some Muruku’s and sweet stuff from this man in India Street.

Nasi Kandar from one of the many mamak stalls. We were told that Kayu’s were the best but unfortunately they were not open that day.

Some more fried goodies…

MK and I finally have to stop eating and get going to the bus terminal to catch our bus back to KL. It was a fun journey but I must admit that there was not enough time to try everything.

Well, that can only mean one thing…that we will be back for more!

Until then, for all of those planning a ‘makan-makan’ (eating) trip to Penang, I hope you won’t miss out of these few local favourites.

November is…kimchi making season

Kimchi is a dish which is served with every meal in Korea. Whether it’s for breakfast, lunch or dinner, the meal will not be complete without some sort of kimchi.

There are many types of kimchi and it is made by fermenting and pickling various types of vegetables with seasoning.

In Korea, November is the  month where they make Paechu kimchi- cabbage kimchi. All over Korea, families gather together to make this kimchi.

According to Wikipedia, kimchi can be traced back to ancient times. References to kimchi can be found as early as 2600–3000 years ago.

The pictures below are taken not far from where I live. These ladies were making Kimchi for the restaurant that they were working in.

As you can see for yourself, they are making A LOT of kimchi.

Buckets full on kimchi!

First they soak it in salt water or brine for a few hours and then drained.

Next, they rub it with spicy paste made of garlic, ground dried chilies, anchovy sauce, scallion and oysters or small shrimps.

(The ingredients varies depending on the region, season and availability )

Then, they just keep in these big bins ( traditionally, kimchi were stored in jars)

Compressing and packing it all in.

Finally, they are left for days, weeks or months to ferment. The longer the kimchi ferments, the stronger the taste and aroma.

After fermenting it, kimchi can be stored in the refrigerator. In Korea, Kimchi plays such an important role for every Korean, that they even have a special refrigerator just for storing kimchi.

Autumn in Korea is not only beautiful, it is also interesting with ‘kimchi- making ‘ stumbles like above.

If you happen to be in Korea around this time, don’t forget to look out for ‘Kimchi making events’ and  ladies (like the above) making kimchi.

Autumn Colours in Seoul

You know autumn is here when the nights starts to get chilly and the leaves are slowly changing colour.

These are just some pictures I took a few days ago.

Just a quick update on what is going on, my brother and his girlfriend is coming this weekend and I’m super excited.

I’ve been baking cookies and all sort of other goodies for them the whole day and I will showing them around Seoul and will be bringing them around to all these nice places where I took these pictures.

In the meantime, I hope you will enjoy the pictures of the changing colours of the trees around Seoul.

This is the view from the Cafe which I was sitting in. What a lovely view. I won’t mind looking at this every morning from my window.

Hello autumn, goodbye summer and see you next year…

Chocolate, Almond and Black Cherry Cookies

Are you a chewy-cookie-person or a crunchy-cookie-person? When the mood strikes I crave for a chewy cookie but most of the time, I am a crunchy cookie person.

I don’t know if this has anything to do with the fact that I am Malaysian and someone once remarked that Malaysians don’t like soft cookies. Well, … does anyone have another explanation for this?

I love cookies and bake them all the time but I don’t know why I never thought of doing a post about cookies. Perhaps most of the time they are devoured before I could even take pictures of it!

Like many things I may be know for, eating a whole batch of cookies in one sitting is not something uncommon. I am not proud of admitting I’ve done it but sometimes I get carried away doing it…

Growing up I had to help my mother to make Chinese New Year cookies and I had to make A LOT!

Mum had to make a lot because her cookies were so famous that everyone in the family wanted some! Not forgetting her friends too, the neighbours, the postman. And in order to meet such high demand, the children were cheap substitute for expensive backing machinery.

Hours after hours we sat at the table rolling various types of little marble-sized balls cookies of an array of flavors. I was never very good at getting it REALLY round. Something my younger brother is better at. But I was good at testing it.

Yup! I represent the Department of Quality Assurance and Cookie Standards.

By the time the cookies were ready for Chinese New Year, I was so sick of it I don’t even want to see it – until next year when the ordeal starts all over again. Sigh.

The cookies we made were not the big, American style cookies. They are small, dainty little things sometimes decorated with little flower petals and leaves made from pastry. So dainty you need tweezers just to get on the jam tart!

Now, all grown up-ish and making my own cookies, I prefer big-ass chunky cookies that you can just…munch and crumble all over your shirt

I don’t know why but I have never made those small cookies again. Maybe it will take me some time before I miss them and appreciate them. But for now, only these cookies will do.

Recipe:

Makes about 24 medium size cookies.

80g dark chocolate or milk chocolate roughly chopped into chunks

1 1/3- cup flour

½ tsp bicarbonate soda

1/3 cup chopped dried dark cherries. (I used Bing Cherries by Stoneridge Orchards)

1/3 cup chopped toasted almonds

1 drop almond extract

1-cup sugar (you can use brown sugar if you want. I used half brown sugar and half white sugar)

70g butter soft and slightly melted. (I used less butter than normal cookie recipes but it’s still yummy)

1 egg

Method:

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius.

Beat the butter and sugar together until well incorporated. Then add in the egg, almond extract, nuts, chocolate and dry cherries.

Fold in the dry ingredients and don’t over mix it.

Scoop it with a teaspoon and arrange it on a baking tray. Bake at for 13-16 minutes.

Cool in on a wire rack and keep well in an airtight container for 7 days.

The cookies never made it to day 7 in my household. Usually they are gone on the same day.