Mee Goreng Mamak

Empty plate with a lime ... waiting in anticipation for the best dish of all time --> Mee Goreng Mamak! (fried noodles, Mamak style)

All you need is fresh yellow egg noodles, chinese greens (I used bok choy/pak choi), fish cakes, potatoes, chilli paste, tomato ketchup, firm (deep fried) tofu, dark soy sauce, garlic, lime juice and some chicken meat (drumstick/thighs are ideal). I had to do it twice, given the small wok, but personally feel that it produces a better result than mass production...

As usual, add in a bit of oil on the wok. When its hot enough, stir in the roughly chopped garlic and potato slices (or in thin wedges) for a minute or two. Next is the chili paste (lots of it!), where the heat starts to kick in. Add the chicken, fish cakes, tofu and bok choy next and stir fry quickly for another 3-4 minutes before adding in the noodles. Stir as quick as you can to evenly coat and mix. Finally season with dark soy sauce, tomato ketchup, a bit of salt to taste and its done!

Serve it on a nice hot plate with a wedge of lime. Always gives the dish an extra kick with a tangy aftertaste. Enjoy!

The Easiest Breakfast in the World

I don't know if this is British, or whether even it deserves to be categorized as a recipe, but it's one of my favorite breakfast since I love the versatility of eggs in cooking. Would have had one everyday if I didn't have this amazing 'ability' to produce extra cholesterol in my body :P

Anyways, its dead simple. Egg, bread and good ketchup. Eggs, any way you prefer, poached, fried, boiled (tho not so exciting this one). I like mine poached, and yes its tricky to get it poached right, but if you're in a rush of time or simply can't be arsed, you can microwave the egg in a minute. Just need to beat the eggs a little with a fork (don't overdo it), and place it in a flat plate/bowl in the microwave for about a minute. The flatter your plate/bowl, the better since it takes less time to cook evenly.

This took me 3 minutes to assemble :)

Of Breakfast and Brunch

There's nothing like Wednesdays, when the weekend is almost in sight, and the feeling is best on Friday night when you know you've got 2 alarm-clock-free days coming up, before Monday Blues set in, and the cycle repeats again.

Don't get me wrong though, I do like what I'm doing now at work. It has been enjoyable so far, each day you learn new things, or get better at your tasks. With a nice team of colleagues, working life isn't as bad as some make it out to be. In fact, I much prefer working to the student life. One big advantage is definitely the ability to switch yourself off after work, knowing that you can forget about things until the next day, unlike student life with exams in sight a few months in advance. Pressures you face are definitely different...

Yet I still do look forward to weekends for obvious reasons, as much as I like working :P After my usual Saturday morning routine of cleaning and tidying up the place, it's about brunch time and here's an 'artistic' version of the traditional English breakie ... I got some rolled eyes from Z for repositioning the sausages before taking the photos ;P

Alternatively, another approach to a nice' savoury brunch is a giant salmon and cream cheese pancake, definitely a hearty start to the weekend!

London Escapade

London was on the menu last week for a great break from Cambridge, tying it in with watching Les Miserables, the musical! The best part was getting center first row seats, as I booked it real in advance during the Easter term. 3 words, a must watch (!) and it's my favourite musical thus far :)

But before theater, a group of us paid a visit to C&R, the Malaysian restaurant in the heart of Chinatown for a quick bite. Brought R there as she has not been before and I was keen to introduce this place to her as the food there is quite authentic. This is the Kampung Nasi Goreng (Village Fried Rice) that P had. Nicely done with the rice dry and separated well, fried with chilli and seafood and some cabbage.

R and I had Wah Tan Hor, as you'd probably have guessed, since it's my favourite noodle dish when eating out back home. It is flat rice noodles (kuey teow) fried with vegetables, fish cakes, thin slices of pork and seafood, all covered in a starchy eggy sauce. MmmmM bliss :P

Unfortunately, I had food poisoning soon after dinner, and thankfully it was much better before the show start after spending some quality time in the loo. :S

Seems like this is a recurring theme as my brother had the same experience a few month ago after having dinner there. Sadly the food quality in terms of cleanliness has gone down tremendously, so do be careful if you are still going there for dinner. Food there is still great though.

C&R Cafe Restaurant
3 Rupert Court
Soho
London W1D

Casual Calais (Part 1)

What do you do when you have a car for the day in Cambridge (UK)?

Yup, you can easily just have dîner and be a mordu de la plage (beach bum) by the French coast.

And yes, we did just that. This is probably what post exam euphoria does to you ...

The choice was between Brighton and Calais for a road trip to a seaside. And com'on, the idea of going to France for a day trip just won hands down!

Geez, such a posh French snob I hear you say :P

Hence, Calais we went. Hopped across the coast by a ferry at Dover.

Seagulls were aplenty and thankfully they didn't go around screeching 'MINE MINE MINE!'. Here's a cool snapshot of them, taken on the deck of the ferry where they were struggling against the strong gust of wind.

Calais is just a tiny town that hustled and bustled probably due to the port and transport connection with the UK. This is the colorful and rather medieval looking town hall and it was madness as a wedding was going on at that time and the car drivers were just yanking their honks which drove noise pollution to a whole new level.

It was way past lunch time upon our arrival hence déjeuner was a rather rushed affair to maximize our time in France. Nevertheless, we managed to try out a few interesting dishes at this place called L'Hovercraft, starting off with XJ's french makeover of the classic British ham and cheese toasties ...

A piece of toast buried under layers of bacon and ham, topped with a bursty sunny side up egg, covered with cheese and baked till pipping hot, sinful but beautiful.

Next up was xY's gammon steak (jambon), which is nicely chargrilled to perfection, with french fries and salad for sides. It's somehow totally different from the British version which is too salty for me, and this was just the right level for me.

I've ordered something more conventional for fun, just to see if the French can do better in terms of roast chicken and steamed green beans than my college. While you may say that's not a fair comparison, surprisingly from the color of the green beans, you'd know that it's super overdone and soft as a lifeless jelly. However, the roast chicken was nicely done with crispy skin, so its all forgotten, haha

Beach side was great as well, with a postcard-like photo of a sweet French couple by the sea...

Ville de Conde

This is my favourite day in Porto, simply because we are visiting the beach/seaside, a place that I grew up with :) This is a relatively new place, in the sense that it's quite unknown to the mass tourists and there isn't much of them trampling the whole place down, which is good, as the last thing you would want to see after escaping from Cambridge town is more people. LOL

As a 'ritual' before going home and not seeing my beautiful egg tarts anytime soon, it's something to start the day with, fresh, warm and crispy :P

Next, we wandered around town and found a local supermarket, with eye catching wine prices. Seriously, for 3 Euro's you'll get a really decent wine here. We saw this cookie medley and just had to try it as I thought I was just blinded by the egg tart as Portuguese's only famous pastries. Really interesting mix, especially the one with the burnt bits on the top, shaped like a inverse cone, rich yellow color (there's 3 of them in this pic). That caught my curiosity first and it turns out to be a rich coconut and eggy mixture baked in the over till crispy on the top. Too sweet for my liking, LOL. And no, we did not finish this pack all in one go, let's just say 80% :P

We ventured around town and found the good bakery listed in the mini guidebook. It wasn't hard to find, the town is really THAT small. Besides the egg tarts (again), we tried some odd looking ones which are basically a variant of the egg tarts. Since no one spoke English there, there's no point asking what it is and just try it :) I remember the one on the right with a dust of icing sugar on top, it seems to be less sweet with a richer custardy taste to it. Note that I'd sprinkled some cinnamon on top of the tart on the left. Was on egg tart high that morning, we ate all of that pastries within 1-2 hours of arrival in town -_- talk about binge eating ...

Feeling slightly guilty and quite 'jelak' (sick) of sweet stuff, the beautiful beach was next. It was slightly out of town, and took a good 15 minutes walk at least. The beach is just right next to the residential area, I'm so envious of the ones facing directly to the sea! There is a really exclusive hotel that looks like a some sort of a forte with really high walls and and a bell, facing the sea. The beach is almost unbelievably deserted, except with a really patient man fishing and some (two) sun tanners lying about. Just strikes me how underrated this part of Portugal is...

Especially when you have lunch facing a sea like this, with a good book facing the breeze ...

Porto Part III

I can't believe I forgot to mention how the Portuguese have 'terrorizing' morning greetings. Every morning, everyone goes 'BOM DIA!' and you think there's a war going on or something. For those who are unfamiliar with the Malay language, bom=bomb, dia=him/her, literally. LOL

Anyways, we're up on exploring Ribiera in the day today, it's the place where we had 'Vacky' for dinner. The port is really beautiful, complementing the weather :) This is an initial view of the river, with the familiar Rabelo boat. The Rabelo Boats were the old system of transporte of Port Wine from the mountains to Porto. It's a pity they are not used anymore for this purpose, but they are still constructed on the old fashion way for tourist travels all along the river Douro.

And of course, I had to take the boat cruise for the sake of it! :) Probably not the best idea to do it at noon where the sun shines directly on you. But ah well, need to replenish the Vitamin D deficiency that I've been experiencing in the UK, so sun's up! This came at a price though, as I had sunburn marks on my face due to my sun glasses! And now I look like Baja Hitam or some silly housefly o_Oll

Lunch is up next, haha, finally the food part you say?! We randomly popped to a cafe that was opened which seems to be heavily sponsored by a funny sounding beer brand called 'Super Bock'. Here is a pic of the place with a jug of ice cool Sangria :) Perfect for a warm sunny day...

I finally ordered the Bacalhau, which is a Portuguese specialty - i.e. salted cod. You can call it the Portuguese version of salted fish (ham yu) hehe. This is a really nice starter, a fish ball mini version of it. Crispy, not too salty, and NOT soaking in oil (eeks), good stuff, in small doses only I should think, not much of a big fan of salty food.

The main course is probably the highlight of the day, as I've been reading/seeing pictures of it. Seems to be a local dish, but basically a modified (better + > sinful?) version of the traditional British ingredients of fry ups. Visualize this: toasts, fries, cheese, egg, steak, bacon, chorizo sausage+BEER=Francesinha Especial!

The beer appears to be hidden in the tomato-ey sauce that drenches the fries. Look at that giant pile of thing, it's just an amazing piece of mush. LOL Especially when you are hungry :P Too heavy for my liking, but still an interesting new dimension to the usual fry ups. Just when you think things couldn't be more creative with the traditional English breakfast .....

And finally, after some good food and Sangria, it's time for MORE alcoholic indulgences, hehe. Coming to Porto without visiting the Port factories is just a big SIN, you know. So off we went, walking about 10 minutes just across the bridge, where many famous Port wine brands like Croft, Taylor, Sandeman, etc are situated.

We went for Croft, and had a brief wait before the tour in English was conducted. Not a bad thing, as we were allowed to try their port whilst waiting! Most importantly, we tried something new and not found in the UK --> white port! It IS GOOD STUFF I must say, slightly sweeter than the normal red version (just like white vs red wine) and easier to drink. It's better than a dessert wine since that just extreme sugar overload.

After that, the tour began and the lady in charge was explaining the history of Port wine and Croft to our group. 'Any questions to ask regarding Croft and the wine?' she asked, after reciting lots of numerical numbers of historical dates and random Croft ancestors etc etc. All of us just looked possibly blank as we were not listening. Sensing this, her brilliant answer was 'It's just a story anyway' :P

These are the super old classic, and extremely expensive Late Bottled Vintage (LBV), which is probably decades old Port wine, kept in the cellar. Apparently Croft owners occasionally pop in for a bottle of it, LOL

"Instant" Noodles!

Nah, I haven't ate those Indo Mee, Nissin/Maggi/Korean brand instant noodles for years. Not that good for you, and encourages baldness. I think I've pulled enough of my hair out doing my dissertation :P

So what I meant by instant is the speed I manage to whip these up, at most 5-10 minutes longer than your average 3 min (unhealthy) instant noodles?

This is a Japanese inspired dish, which I'm sure I've made before. It's called Oyako Don, Oyako means Parent and Child, representing chicken and egg, whilst Don is a short for Donburi, the rice dish basically. And yes, it's originally RICE, but since I was too lazy to wait/cook rice, I made a variant of this dish using noodles I brought from home, fresh handmade mee suah.

This dish is quite easy, all you need for 1 portion is: 1 onion, 1 egg, diced chicken pieces (I used chicken breast here, but thighs are probably more flavorful), 1 Tbsp light soy sauce, 1 Tbsp mirin (Japanese sweet cooking wine, can be substituted by white wine+a dash of sugar, or any sweet cooking wine), minced garlic (I love garlic! Though this is optional)

So whilst cooking my noodles in another saucepan, have another on as well, with little bit of heated oil, stir fry the minced garlic and onions till brown. Then add the chicken pieces and stir fry for a bit. Add some water till it covers the meat (probably 1/2-1 cup of water?) and let it simmer for 2 minutes. Meanwhile, check if the noodles are cooked, and rinse in cold water and set aside. Then back to the chicken, add the soy sauce and mirin, switch off the stove, and then crack your egg in the mixture. Do NOT stir your egg instantly. Leave it for 30-40 seconds (or even 1 minute, depending on preference) before swirling the egg around, simply because I like to see my egg visibly when I eat and not in tiny minuscule pieces in the soup. Finally, mix the noodles in and serve. :) Think rice is still much nicer, with the deep bowl and stick gravy mixture on top of it, hehe

Meanwhile, this is what I had for dinner today. A random concoction I must say. Just had some chinese mushroom, leftover lettuce, chinese sausage and noodles. A tad too salty as I forgot to adjust for the fact that the sausages were salty! But good all the same :)

The best of Portugal

Porto Part I

I chose to go Porto for 3 reasons:
a) Because I have not been to Portugal
b) Because I like Luis Figo

c) Because of THIS ...

THIS ...

And THESE!

Woohoo! The land of Portuguese egg tart :P, and may I stress, authentic ones. Always had a soft spot for it since it was sold in the bakeries back home, until a friend brought some fresh back for me from Lisbon, and man (!) what have I been eating all these while is not really the real thing! The crusts are much thinner, yet still crispy even after its cooled down. Most importantly, you have to put cinnamon on top of it before the munch, gives it a better pungent kick I feel. I was really surprised when I bit into my first one (ironically at Delifrance Porto) which was at room temperature, expecting a soggy tart, to find that the crunch was still there :) And again, I'm a sucker for anything fresh out of the oven, so this is really good anyway.

On another note, Porto is the perfect place for slackers, because there's not much to do, have good (and cheap) port, restaurants and bakeries all around, and a few rows of shopping high streets. I refused to enter any church/museum on this trip, simply because I was so enriched culturally in my last trip to Rome, that I need some new experience. And yeap, Porto is the right place to be to escape the hectic Cambridge bubble. It's sunny, chilled out and most importantly near the river/sea :)

This is the main square in Porto in the evening, where my hostel was conveniently located.

So we went to this restaurant recommended in the guidebook called Abadia. It certainly made its mark on me forever :P (P.S. abadi means eternity in malay). Good food, awesome prices and serious portion distortion. A little more on the latter later. So, as usual, I had to try the local specialties in this region, and have known what to call for without looking at the menu. This is the famous Tripas à moda do Porto (tripe with sausage and beans). It's a perfect stew for the cold days really.

I ordered porco à alentejana (Pork Alentejo style), which was my favorite dish of the whole trip. It's a huge pork shoulder steak grilled to perfection with salt and pepper, I think. The best thing was the pile of green thing you see in the picture below, it is actually spinach cream, goes very well with meat dishes I must say! Had a lot of that to make me feel like Popeye ...

We had a huge shock with the portion distortion whilst there, since as you can see below, that huge slab of pork is apparently HALF a portion by its own! Even the tripe stew above, it is half a portion for that solid big saucepan of meat, sausage and beans all in one... o_OII

... and I thought the Americans eat loads. But I don't see a trend of big Portuguese people though.

Until I looked downstairs, checking out how much people are eating there generally. See the 2 aunties in the picture below? If you look carefully at the pile of meat they're consuming, maybe by clicking on the picture? LOL Portuguese aunties are quite hearty eaters :P But then again, they do have less sedentary lifestyle given the hilly town and all the walking they do... just not used to the idea probably as my grandma barely eats much meat at her age.

Craving for WTH

Just to clarify, it's Wah Tan Hor (Yin yong?) that I meant :)
It's one of my all time favorite orders at hawker stalls ('tai chow') which does various sorts of fried noodles. Man, now that reminds me of another dish that I miss.

Must be the CNY season, when you are stuck in the room as a permanent essay lab rat, churning essays to feed the greedy supervisors, when you think you deserve all the holiday in the world...

So yes, I manage to get fresh rice noodles (kuey teow) from Chinatown in a recent trip to London and make something up that tastes similar :)

This is a picture of the C&R version of it that I took some time ago, looks very inviting:

This is my version, slightly dry as the kuey teow seems to be absorbing the gravy despite having loads to begin with! Had it with fishballs, pak choy, squids, mussells and some prawns too! Too bad there's not much eggy sauce left , but still made me happy all the same, cravings satisfied!Ack, all these still doesn't help that 14 essays are waiting for me to be done. :S Man, I'm super whiny today :P Hopefully Music & Lyrics can cheer me up tomorrow night!

Formal Marathon

Some awesome formals so far ...

I still have 10 to go for the year! :)

Here are some nice pics I took for this term:

'Cheesy' Freshers Formal

Just imagine having potato and gnocchi for starters, cauliflower cheese for side, and this beautiful cheese cake for desserts..... I've never seen such a dairy rich menu before in my formal experience LOL :D

And to top it all, we went to Cindies after that for a 'cheesy' night out with 80s music ...
Completely cheesed out that day...

Above it all, this is my favourite picture from Hughes Hall formal, its reputation as the best formal in Camb is undeniable ...

Smokin' hot lamb shank! Love the way the camera captures the steam ...

And this caramel-cream-sponge cake dessert is like a cake version of creme brulee, equally sinful, reminds me of the chicken stir fry project I had not too long ago with French styled presentation, hehe

I self declared my own holiday today, refusing to look at any more never ending pile of supervision work, hence the massive updates for once. With 7+2 essays pending, it'd be quite interesting to see what happens to me by the end of the month, LOL. Anyways it's feels great to kick all the work aside and do nothing!

*Brainstorming on what to experiment tonight*

American Pancakes

Having supressed some essays, I must say I can't wait for the workload to stop! Anyways, my posts have been accummulating like crazy, hence this is gonna be a slightly long picturesque post, so prepare for a feast (for the eyes lah)... :P

I had cravings for American pancakes with maple syrup last weekend, having got bored with cereal or English fry ups for breakfast. Was quite surprised with the results, well, its not that hard to begin with and the ingredients are easy to find.

American Pancakes

3 cups (I used my rice cups instead) of self raising flour
1.5 cups of milk
1/4 cup sugar (or less if preferred)
1 egg
1/2 tablespoon salt (very important)
some oil

Basically all you have to do is mix everything up till a nice consistency, i.e. no lumps. Heat the pan till its hot, with a little bit of oil. Then use a ladle and scoop the batter to form a nice round pancake shape. It cooks really quickly if the pan is sufficiently hot, and hence you'll have the time of your life flipping pancakes in the kitchen! should take about 2-3 minutes each side maximum

Spread a chunk of butter and drizzle with generous amount of maple syrup, and you'll get THIS! :D



More follow up posts coming up soon, as I'd already wasted enough time and will have some crisis tonight, LOL. Hope everyone is surviving term well!

Craving for Wah Tan Hor

Term's getting busier as it goes by, and its only Michaelmas!

Nopes, I haven't forgot about what this blog was set up for, and yeap, did some cooking last week!
Don't think you'll ever guess what this is ....

Yup, its GREEN... Yeah, green peppers, seafood, and ... green looking noodles?
Haha, let me explain...

Was craving for wah tan hor, yet I just substituted the original ingredients with what I have, i.e. leaves for green pepper, kuey teow for green tea noodles that I have, and produced this. :)
It taste quite authentic fortunately, just with some deceivingly healthy color, hehe

Bon Jovi Concert! and etc

Finally, a long awaited update!!!

Loads, or rather way TOO much had happened last week. Trying to balance fun, and the dreaded packing all in one go before going off to London for summer...

Let's backtrack a little here, back to MY Bon Jovi concert :P
Will let pictures do the talking :)

It was a blazing hot day and we were pretty much sun burnt that day, despite layers of sun block. Crowd was about 70K people apparently, and this was only one angle of the random shots I took to remind me of the crowd :


Bibi took a photo of all of us, while still waiting for Bon Jovi to play later in the late afternoon...
Finally, he came in style in a heli, captivating the audience with his charming smile, oh and of course his voice and dance antics LOL
Next up was Madrid for me, and it was a very artsy/cultural experience, visiting so many art galleries with artworks from Picasso, Goya etc. Did visit a Hyde Park sized park called Retiro Park and really enjoyed myself there! The food scene was especially good, and luckily (maybe?) for some of you, my camera was focused in taking pics of food, whilst Huili was responsible for other 'human' posing with scenery ones LOL. She has yet to send me the pics, so I shall be enticing you with some spanish food pics then!

What's Spain without the beloved Sangria? :P
It's basically a drink consisting of red wine and lemonade, some fruit juice. Slightly sweet, hence deceiving, this one was particularly potent too, but nice all the same :)


This is a tapas we ordered, spanish omelette, forgot the spanish name for it, (Yan Lin maybe u can help me out here?), typical omelette but with chopped potatoes, nothing special really, and it's cold .
Gazpancho, a really refreshing tomato based soup with minty cucumber and croutons, like it.
Forgot what we ordered again, really looks like typical British stew isn't it? But this was really good, like the ultimate comfort food, haha.
We tried everything possibly Spanish in the menu, and I introduced this to Yan Lin and Huili, which they totally love and I'm glad they share the same craze as I do with this dish with baby squids and blank ink! Yumz
Apologies for the bad lighting in this pics, it was already dark at that time. Will post up the 2nd episode of the Madrid trip soon, where we go more in depth into blank ink madness!