Cookfest!

So here's a post not about restaurants again!

I spent almost the whole weekend at home, with only a few trips to pick friends up from train stations and visit the supermarket.

On Saturday my boyfriend, best friend and I had a whole day of cooking!

It all started with me waking up and having this massive urge to make pancakes. Which I did. And as Rici and I munched on them with honey and peanut butter, he said he had wanted to make potato pancakes but as I had been up earlier I had announced my pancake desires before his.

So I proposed he do them for lunch instead!

So we invited my best friend David over and in that process, Rici and I also decided that he was going to do most of dinner as well and that maybe I would bake something. So a whole day in the kitchen! How fabulous!





So off to the supermarket we went to get potatoes and...ice-cream. Of course.




Unfortunatley I don't have a recipe really for the potato pancakes, Rici just has a general idea of how much stuff to put in, in general. Although if it helps we did have 1 kilo of potatoes we grated with a few eggs, a little flour, salt and pepper.






Voila!



Rici the mastered the art of pancake flipping!




In the mean time, I decided to go try make a cocktail I had from Antonio's...the frozen Mojito. It came out delicious. The trick? A LOT of mint leaves in the blender.

So after we ate out easily 10 potato pancakes...(can you imagine..? 1 kilo of potatoes between the three of us...) It was onto making macaroons! I took the recipe out of Marie Clare 'Flavours'.






Mmmmmm. CHOCOLATE!






Aren't they delicious looking? They definetly came out a lot better than I expected!



No macaroons for Blackie-poo....

After a spot of peppermint tea with our macaroons, we decided to watch Pulp Fiction to take a break from cooking, but then very promptly returned to the kitchen after to make dinner!







A spot of chicken, pesto lamb, peas and fried potatoes....including my brother, we polished it all of it off!

All in all, a very good day of cooking! It encourages me to cook more, which I never really did before, so hopefully this will keep up!

Match Bar and Grill

So I'm back in Melbourne! I've skipped a couple of restaurants I did want to put up on here but I got lazy...so I'm skipping straight to food back in the place I call home.

Last Thursday met up with my friend to go check out the Sartorialist (those of you into fashion blogs would know) then went to Match bar to wait for friends and have dinner before going to see "Where the Wild Things Are".

Now, Match is possibly, one of my favourite bar/places in Melbourne. I always enjoy coming here, the atmosphere is always relaxed, unpretentious, yet classy at the same time. I like that I'm perfectly showing up one day in shorts and flip flops and maybe on another day in my heels and a super pretty cocktail dress.

My favourite haunt would have to be the booths outside. Especially with a friend or two, or three, or four, they end up being very cosy, especially when it's quite cool, as it was. We could cosy up into the booths which acted nicely as wind barriers.



So as we got our food menus, I already knew which cocktail I wanted...my personal favourite, the Sosho Cooler.



Don't ask, just order. It's light, refreshing and not overly sweet. And goes down in about 1 minute flat.



I liked that they didn't serve too much bread, especially since there was only two of us initially and I don't eat bread since I'm gluten intolerant. My friend on the other hand, is crazy for bread. I particularily enjoyed that the it was served warm and the texture of the crust was great. (Yes maybe I had a smaaallll nibble.)



My friend ordered the Wagyu Beef Burger, which is a nice somewhat compact sized burger, but incredibly juicy and tasty...and with the egg! Match also does some of my favourite fries.



So we made sure to order a side order with alioli, which is just delicious.



I ordered the grilled calamari with tomato salad. A lovely small sized dish, the tomatoes were so sweet and appetizing (to look at and eat!). The calamari was nice, but nothing spectacular. A bit of lemon on the side might've been nice.

We noticed there was one waiter who seems to have a bit of attitude, he never seems happy to do anything for you, which should be a bad thing I suppose, but in our good spirits it just amused us more than anything. The rest of the serving staff however, were lovely and charming, especially this one curly haired waitress that kept popping by to ask how we were doing.

So my verdict? Always pleasant to be there, the cocktails are absolutely delicious and the food is definetly very decent as well.

Match Bar and Grill
249 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne
9654 6522

Eggs.

I still have some restaurants to put up...but I made scrambled eggs for my friend and I today. We stayed in our PJs until 2pm and watched Julie & Julia and Mary Poppins.

Great Sunday.

To Dine For

Rather behind in my updating...been a very hectic couple of days!

So a couple nights ago, my Dad, grandma and I caught up with some family friends from Melbourne who also happened to be visiting KL and one of dad's childhood friends. The son recommends this Thai place near our hotel. I always like eating close by...travelling for dinner in Malaysia can be such a trial...traffic kills me...

So we all trooped to 'To Dine For', which I found a rather amusing name for a thai restaurant...it ceratinly doesn't lend itself to make one think of Thai food.



We got to have a lovely little private room, the decor was classy, a bit somber but charming as well. I loved the plates, aren't they a gorgeous colour?





We started off with Mieng Kam, which I had never eaten before, but think I will definetly be eating more of now whenever I come across it now! Basically one makes a cone with the leaf (I believe they are called Betel leaves) and puts a little bit of all the condiments in and tops it off with the sauce. It's such a mix of flavours, the bitterness of the leaf, the tang of the lime, spice of the chillipadi...you get the idea. I always enjoy light appetizers.



Fish cakes of course.



Forgot what the dish was called...but it's essentially deep fried veggies with a sauce on the side. It's very much like tempura, but the batter is much lighter than tempura. The deep fried betel leaf was probably my favourite of the lot.



I LOVE catfish salads.



Stir fried eggplant with basil and something else...haha, my descriptions are rather lacking tonight no?



Deep fried grouper

We also had a chicken dish, a few other veggies and a tofu dish. Was a bit shy to get the camera out too much with all the guests we had!

I didn't really realise how much I really do enjoy good Thai food, it's not usually something I crave for and I very much enjoyed this meal....now to find a Thai place back in Melbourne...

Hawker Food - PJ style

No trip to Malaysia is complete without AT LEAST, one meal at the hawker stalls.

Which is where we went for lunch yesterday with the relatives at a place in Petaling Jaya!

Again, I have no sense of direction or orientation in Malaysia, so other than telling you it's in Petaling Jaya, that's about as much information as I can give you location wise.





Since I don't speak anything other than english, my relatives were the ones who went out and ordered for me.

Again, I love the colourful resin plates, the loud bustling vibe and the oh, so fast food service! And in a place like this, you just know the place is bustling, because the people are all here for good food.

So without further ado, here's a selection of some of the food we had. I wish I could label everything, but I can't always catch the names right. ;x



This fishball noodle soup was DELICIOUS. The soup was so tasty!




Poh Piah (I think that's how it's spelt...). Could've eaten this whole plate myself...it's definetly one of the lighter and healthier...(or at least it feels that way) things to eat at hawker stalls!



Fried Kuay Teow! My dad is one of the pickiest people when it comes to this dish and nothing beats having it back in Malaysia. Especially when it's hot and fresh and with...



Cockles! According to my dad these are only chucked in just as the dish is served and not really fried, so they're almost essentially raw. But it's what adds the sweetness to the dish. They are delicious. But not for the faint hearted, as it is still pretty bloody.


Chee Cheong Fung...I can't spell. :c But this is one of my favourite noodles dishes in general, although this one was with shrimp sauce/paste, I usually like it with the curry sauce. But the texture of the noodles...to die for!


Curry Laksa. This soup was especially thick and spicy, but I loved it, I adore that warm feeling one gets in their chest after drinking the soup. Deeeelish!

New Restaurant Ipoh Chicken Rice

What can I say? Long name be long!

It tickles me a bit at how...straightforward places like these are in Malaysia, and other asian countries I suppose too, but since I'm here in Malaysia I'm just going to go with that for now. Can you imagine the owner thinking 'What am I going to call this restaurant? It's new and we serve chicken from Ipoh. Oh perfect! I'll call it exactly what it is!'

Although now, considering this branch in Petaling Jaya has been opened since 1977, it's hardly new anymore. Doesn't mean it's dead though.

This was dad's choice of restaurant for dinner and he claims he comes here just about everytime he's back in KL.




Coming back to the topic of straight-forwardness, I find there's a certain curiosity about these places with their blatantly obvious names and ridiculously stark bright lights. I remember while talking to a local graphic designer once, that the market here was tough, as no one liked subtlety or was open to do doing new interesting things to market or advertise their products and services. To most people it seems, the obvious statement is the best marketing statement. Quite different to the western world isn't it?

So although the place was stark bright and noisy, the noisness gives one a sense of comfort, it makes the place bustle with activity and hey, it surely is. Within 10 minutes of ordering I'm pretty sure we got almost all our food, save our seafood tofu which they forgot about. But then brought out in 5 minutes after enquiring about it. That's definetly one thing I love about eating local in Malaysia.



From the front to the back, boneless chicken feet, chicken gizzards and intestines.

As you will discover, I am incredibly fond of the offal. I got it from my dad. I don't usually eat chicken feet though, my biggest reason simply being, I'm far too lazy to pick out all the bones. But this dish solved that problem and I elated in discovering how delicious it was.

Too bad I am still too lazy to otherwise pick out the bones.



The main attraction and namesake of the restaurant, their Ipoh chicken! Which is actually hainanese chicken for those who are looking at it and thinking 'that looks awfully familiar...'

Was very tasty though. The relatives were skeptical as to whether we did actually get two whole chickens though...



And of course gotta stock up on veggies. These beanshoots were delicious though, so crunchy and sweet! Apparently these beanshoots are from a specific area in Ipoh, where the spring water is responsible for the plumpness and gorgeous texture.



I'm not...entirely sure what this is. My dad tells me it's 'underwater coconut' with longan.

Whatever it was though, it was sweet and syrupy. Warm too, which was actually very nice.

Between the 8 of us that were there, we cleaned up all the dishes completely. Gotta love asian shared style eating.

I leave you with this very amusing menu item that had me laughing for ages. Say it out loud. I dare you to, it just sounds ridiculous to order.

New Restaurant Ipoh Chicken Rice
No. 107 Jalan Gasing 10/1
46000 Petaling Jaya
Selangor
03-79560958

Restoran May n' Mike's

So I'm gonna pretend it's yesterday and pretend that I got this blog up on the day I actually ate the food. I have a terrible habit of blogging about things a few days late...

But i suppose late is better than never...and I figure as long as I can continue to get stuff up I won't fall too far behind in my blogging food adventures.

Now I wish I could tell you where this next place is, but I really have no idea as I have absolutely no sense of direction in Malaysia whatsoever. One of my uncle's volunteered to buy the family lunch on Sunday, so off we all trooped to May n' Mike's!



I had been told it was homestyle Indian and Portugese...which I thought was a rather interesting mix.



So usually these guys are just your typical restaurant, but on the last Sunday of every month, they have an all you can eat, home cooked Indian food buffet for...20 ringett a head. Seriously?!

For those of us from the western world, it's not quite your buffets in the nice hotels, it's a little more canteen-esque, but easily tastier than anything you'll find at a 5-star-continental-has-absolutely-every-cuisine-covered buffet!


All the vegetarian dishes...


and all the meaty goodies!

Unfortunately as there are no labels here, I had no idea what I was eating most of the time. I'm pretty game though, so I think I pretty much tried everything!



I loved how colourful my plate looked! There was really nothing I didn't like I think...the eggplant was a definite favourite amongst the family and the mutton curry was just so savoury!



Daddy dear felt obliged to help with some photo taking...



I for one am crazy about papadums and I loved that these ones weren't overly oily. My little 3 year old cousin didn't anything else the whole lunch!



My first teh tarik back in Malaysia, seriously, even though I can get it in Melbourne, nothing compares to having it here. It's just so much creamier and sweeter, but not too sweet!

Overall, a meal that was surely enjoyed. I wish I wasn't so tired so I could rave on about it more and I wish I was a cow so I had four stomachs to enjoy buffets with!