Aubergine Parmigiana

Aubergine was on good offer in the supermarket and hence this! Easy and no fuss, only downside I'd say is its slightly time consuming, but beats eating the ones outside as this is definitely healthier, so no more guilt after the 2nd helping :)

All you need is some garlic cloves, 2 aubergines, 1 can of 400g chopped tomatoes in tomato sauce, 3 tomatoes (optional), 200g-300g cheese (I had some cheddar, you can use other nice melt-able cheese) , olive oil, salt and pepper

Firstly, slice the aubergine into round cross sections of about 2 inches thick. Note that I have done it length-wise as per the pictures below, but found that it made serving the dish later more difficult in terms of cutting them into portions. Then, brush some olive oil on both sides of the aubergines and season with some salt and pepper. Get your grilling pan and heat it up for some serious grilling!

Grill the aubergines both sides till almost cook and soft. It took me about 5 minutes each side. Be careful not to burn them too much!

The tomato sauce is up next, quite straight forward. I chopped some garlic and fried them till fragrant, before adding the contents of the can to the pot. Lower the heat and simmer the sauce for about 10 minutes till it thickens, finally add a pinch of salt and some basil/oregano if preferred

Then the fun part starts! Don't forget to heat up your oven to 200C for at least 15 minutes beforehand.... With the casserole dish, start with a thin layer of tomato sauce at the bottom to lightly coat it....

... then continue with the grilled aubergines, cheese, sauce, and then repeat again. I added a layer of tomatoes into mine for fun, supplementing the sauce :)

Try not to overflow the dish though! Finish up with a nice layer of cheese and place it in the oven to bake for 30 minutes and its done!

HK Style Cheese Baked Rice

I'm like on a cooking spree these week, perhaps its just an appreciation of my free time remaining before I start losing it next week in a different work setting...

Another new thing I've not really tried before, but conceptually it shouldn't be too difficult, the HK Style Cheese Baked Rice. It basically goes with most chinese stir fried dishes, and just adding an additional layer of cheese on top and baked it in the oven. Tonight, the base is gonna be Stir fried Pork with Broccoli and Chinese Mushrooms in Oyster Sauce. Yup, the name is a handful, but the ingredients aren't.

You'll need 400g-450g of pork, about 10-12 dried chinese mushrooms (soaked a few hours till soft), 1 big broccoli, garlic (cloves crushed), oyster sauce, shredded cheese (cheddar/mozzarella), rice. So whilst cooking the rice (I used brown rice here, hence taking longer), boil some water and cut the broccoli into bite size pieces. Pour the boiling water into a pan, and steam the broccoli over it in the covered pan for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, slice the pork thin lengthwise, about 2-3 cm each. In a bowl, season the pork with some cornflour and dark soy sauce. Take care not to oversteam the broccoli and it's perfectly cooked with a nice crunch (not mushy!)

Heat the oil till hot in the wok, fry the garlic, add in the pork and show of your wok stir frying skills :P After 5-7 minutes, or whenever is pork is almost done, add the mushrooms and broccoli in to the mixture, add a little bit of water for more sauce, and add 1-2 tablespoon of oyster sauce (it's very salty, adjust the amount to your taste buds). Gently mix and coat with the sauce and it should be done when the pork is cooked.

The final step is simple just assembling your cheese baked rice, get an oven proof plate/bowl, spoon some rice at the base and gently place the stir fried dish on top, sprinkle generously with some cheese of your choice (red leicester is possible too, giving you an orange topping!), and pop it in the pre-heated oven of 160C for 2-3 minutes and dinner is ready!

Back to Basics

First things you always crave for after not cooking for ages are the ones you grew up eating... And for me its nothing more than simple homey styled dishes, improvised of course with what's available in Britain.

Spring onion and ginger is always a match made in heaven for Chinese cooking, it somehow gives a subtle invigorating flavor to meat dishes. Goes particularly well with white meat, e.g. fish, chicken and frog (yes, frog meat, which tastes something like poussin). However, nowadays its common with red meat like beef too, and can be pretty much found on the menu of any chinese hawker-style restaurants.

I'll stick with the classics for now, starting with Chicken with Ginger and Spring Onion. Thighs/drumstick meat is preferable (chicken breast is ok but drier texture). So for a you'll need about 6-8 sprigs of spring onion, 2-3 inch ginger, 400g-500g chicken meat, dark and light soy sauce, garlic, sesame oil, chilli (optional).

I used thigh meat, and de-boned about 8 thighs and cut into bitesize pieces. Spring onion stalks are chopped about 2 inch long, separating the white bit (at the bottom) and the 'leaves' (the green bits at the top). Slice the ginger thin, producing a size like your thumb print. For the garlic, I prefer to just skin them and crush the cloves with the back of the knife (yup, I'm one of those that actually love fried garlics, hehe), and we're ready to go!

So heat up a little bit of oil, and once hot, put the ginger and the white stalk of the spring onions in and stir quickly. About 2-3 minutes, the ginger should be brown and then add the garlic and chicken meat in whilst tossing as usual. The key point should be here, add a few drops of sesame oil for wonderful nutty aroma and flavor, then the usual light soy sauce for taste, dark soy sauce for a little bit of color... Do add a little bit of water if its too dry, and the meat should be roughly cooked in 5 minutes or so. Remember to add the green leave bits of the spring onions, and continue to stir fry for a minute or so, and its done! You can garnish with finely chopped red chillies on top for that extra spicy kick :)

The next vegetable dish is somewhat of an experiment, inspired by a dish in Chinatown recently. It was some sort of tofu dish with leafy vegetables stir fried in bean sauce. Here's my version of it with long beans instead.

It's just a 5 ingredient dish!! 1 carrot (sliced into matchsticks), fried hard tofu or taukwa (sliced lengthwise), long beans (sliced into 2 inch pieces), garlic (crushed cloves), and fermented soy bean sauce (tau chu). This sauce is available in many Asian grocery stores, and is basically soy beans fermented and tastes sweet and salty.

Heat some oil in the pan, and let the garlic sizzle in it till slightly brown-ish. Carrots in first, and 2 minutes later the long beans. Alternatively, you could actually pre-cook the long beans and carrots by steaming them for about 3 minutes before stir frying if you prefer. It's perhaps faster and healthier. For the former case, the stir frying time is longer, and adding some water helps. 5 minutes later, or whenever the vege are cooked till your preferred level of crunchiness, add in the tofu and half a tablespoon of the bean sauce, adjust to taste, and it's ready to be served with some rice!

Quickest 3 Course Dinner to Impress

A presentable one too! Seems like I've been away for a bit, have had so many things happening that need a bit of thinking time ... but I'm back, as usual, this time with an impressive 3 course dinner that takes 40 minutes from start till the end. Good for those who are in a rush with this impromptu, simple classics ...

Inspired by what's seasonal/on offer in supermarkets, I got myself some fresh scallops (8 of them), a pack of rocket leaves, some sweet cherry tomatoes on the vine, baby/salad potatoes, and 2 spare rib chops, strawberry flavored Onken yoghurt and some digestive biscuits (optional).

The beautiful thing about cooking is that you DON'T NEED to be super skilled/trained to cook amazing food! Most of the time, it can be supplemented with super FRESH, QUALITY INGREDIENTS ...

This applies to the starter dish. Was gonna serve Pan-fried Scallops with Tomato and Rocket Salad. Preparing the salad first, simply just mix the rockets and tomatoes with your favorite dressing, I used French dressing in mine, done! Ooh, loving the speed eh?

Scallops cooks pretty quickly, so just heat up 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil, and once hot spoon the scallops on the pan gently, preferably cooking them in one go as they have to be serve immediately once done. Bear in mind that they overcook very easily, and full attention to the pan please for 3 minutes maximum, ok? While they are sizzling away, season with salt and black pepper, then flip them over after a minute. Do the same on the other side, season to taste and it should be slightly brown both sides after another minute. Serve with the salad immediately like below:

Beautiful yea? I prefer having them one minute a side pan fried, to be it's just nice, but if you prefer them 100% cooked, you can have them 90 seconds a side, it'll still be fine. All you want to avoid is eating a rubbery, overcooked texture ... It was perfect, P was pretty amazed at the speed and taste for sure ... this is exactly the misconception I'm trying to prove to many out there who are intimidated by cooking - taste does not always equal complicated and lengthy cooking preparations!

Ok, main course next! First, settle the potatoes: bring a pot of water to boil and place the potatoes in to cook. Meanwhile, the meat: this is my random seasoning which I thought up on the minute since I didn't have time to marinade for hours, but thankfully it didn't taste weird, hehe. So I had some leftover tomato puree from the last cooking of spaghetti, some ketchup, balsamic vinegar, paprika. Basically I put a similar seasoning to the BBQ Pork Fillet recipe, so listen up. First season the meat with salt and pepper all over and rub them well. Put 2 generous tablespoon of paprika, 3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, about 100g of tomato puree (for a bit of sauce for the meat so it's not too dry), and generous dollop of ketchup. Mix the seasoning and rub it all over the meat, leaving it to rest while you heat up your grill pan. The potatoes should be cooked now, as seasoning of meat probably took 5 minutes, so drain them and set aside.

Once the pan is hot, place both the spare rib chops and let them sizzle away. Note that you would have leftover marinade and use these to spoon on the meat when you flip them later. Since the meat is cooking away, you can afford some time to set up your simple salad on the plates, which is the same as your starter anyways, with the additional potatoes on the side now. Time taken? 1 minute at max :P

So full attention to your meat now, let it cook about 5 minutes on one side and flip them over. Now hopefully you have some professional looking charred lines on it, but if not it's not a disaster either, LOL. Spoon some marinade on top and let it cook for another 5 minutes. Like the scallops, overcooked meat is hard and chewy like rubber, not very nice at all. So avoiding this simply takes a sharp eye and a bit of gut feeling. For those more risk averse, after cooking 5 minutes a side, you can use a fork/knife to put through the meat and if the juice looks clear you're fine. As long as it 's not bloody/red. But that is difficult to gauge with the marinade being of similar color in this case! Hence the gut feel comes in, you know it's almost cooked and perfect when you prod the meat and its slightly springy. Serve immediately and spoon as much of the marinade in the pan on top of the meat. There you go: BBQ Chops with Potatoes and Rocket Salad

There you go, 15 mins for starter, 20 mins for main maximum, and of course 5 mins for a simple easy dessert. Just roughly break some digestive biscuits served with dollops of strawberry yogurt, for a Quick and Healthy Cheesecake Imitation! Surely you don't need a picture for that :P Enjoy!

Adventures in Athens

After a 3.5 hours flight, we arrived fresh faced and eager to explore the city of Athens for the first day of our Greek adventure. For me, it's the first time venturing further out in Europe and going for a Mediterranean twist in search for a different sort of holiday. And the best bit (probably stressful/frustrating for some) is I decided to do book this holiday in my usual rashed/irrational style with not much planning, never had time to research more of the cultural history and must-see sights given that I was busy working most of the time. Literally just booked the connecting flights and hotels and just headed off! In a strange sort of way it did pay off and I loved every bit of randomness of this Greek holiday ...

Athens feels like a small town living in history, not your typical glamorous and trendy European cities (e.g. Paris, Milan, Barcelona). Buildings are older and less polished, roads are narrow, Greek words and graffiti everywhere (not very English friendly), lots of nuts and olives, and of course, random shops like this ...

Colorful bottles of local liquor called Ouzo (which tastes like mouthwash or some toothpaste actually) ...

And then I saw something totally inappropriate which I thought you all would be interested ... -_-||

But anyways, we headed straight for a famous taverna for seafood called Tou Psara for dinner, which is near the Plaka, but pretty hard to find I must say. Well worth the hunt as you can just ask some locals like we did which will point you to the direction once you're nearby.

There are tables indoors as well as outdoors. You get a pretty decent view of the city like below

Here's a snapshot of the menu, on the starters page. I decided to go for the famous Greek salad for starters, after hearing so much about how its different locally.

And boy were they SO right! The Greek salad I've had all along outside of Greece was a poor attempt to replicate what is originally a refreshing, crisp and fresh salad. The key ingredients that made a difference was the local produce: giant red local tomatoes, fresh capers, olives, cucumber, green pepper and onions, dressed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, topped with a generous chunk of feta cheese... absolutely heavenly! The salad is served chilled and what I found interesting was that the raw onions were sweet and juicy and doesn't give the sharp aftertaste which many find unappetising. Now we know the ones available in the UK is not doing this amazing salad justice at all ...

P had the Grilled Kalamari Stuffed with Feta and Red Pepper, served with a mini tomato salad on the side. And that's what I meant by the giant local tomatoes if you look at the size of it :) He thoroughly enjoyed the dish being a big seafood and cheese fan, and I took quite a liking to it as well especially the crispy tentacles bit ...

On the other hand, I ordered Lamb Souvlaki with Spinach Pie and Rice. Souvlaki is probably what we normally call kebabs, basically pieces of meat grilled on skewers. The big chunky meat was succulent, grilled pink and perfect, with little charred bits on the green pepper which was nice (but cancer causing unfortunately) ;P The spinach pie was something new I've not tried before, but basically spinach cooked with a melted cheese topping, which is unsurprisingly feta I suspect. Pretty balance dish with a bit of meat, vegetables and carbo.
And there was something red, big and local that I would have missed out if it wasn't for the kind host who gave out fruits on the house. The chilled watermelon was great on a warm sunny day, oozing with natural sweetness and juiciness. All in all a great start to the discovery of Greek cuisine!

By the time we paid our bill, it's starting to get dark and even in Athens, the sunset is so beautiful and an event that you actually have to stop doing what you're doing and just standstill for 5-10 minutes to appreciate this natural beauty that is so often taken for granted ... More on this when we're off to Santorini island next!

Tou Psara (Fish Taverna)
Eretheos, 16. Plaka
Athens, Greece

First Signs of Summer ...

Weather in London last weekend was perfect ... the kind where you can finally unbundle/unwrap, go around in shorts + T-shirts, have barbecues at your balcony, hangout in the park ... basically making you feel like La-la-la-laaa :)

The very first sneak peek into summer weather, and fair enough which doesn't last long, given the grey and cloudy week ahead. Hence apologies for this post being one week late!

Nevertheless, my menu last weekend changed to a lighter summer menu, given all my doner kebab craving lately, having discovering a good one just 2 minutes walk from my place.

Which relates to another important discussion ... why are doner kebabs so unhealthy? I always thought they were one of the healthier version of fast food given that they are solid (depending on shop quality) chunks of meat roasted slowly over a long time! Not until I saw this report in the Guardian paper today. Apparently it contains a serving contains an equivalent of a WINE GLASS FULL of cooking oil. Now how can THAT possibly be?!!

Checking on methods of making a doner kebab, here's what Wikipedia quoted:

"There are two basic ways of preparing meat for döner kebabs:

• The most common and authentic method is to stack seasoned slices of lean meat onto a vertical skewer in the shape of a cylinder. The stack is cooked by radiant heat from electric elements or gas fired infrared burners. Often meat, tomatoes, and onions are placed at the top of the stack to drip juices over the meat keeping it moist.
• Some cheaper shops serve a combination of seasoned sliced and ground meat cooked on a grilltop as döner kebab. In Germany the amount of ground meat is not allowed to surpass 60% (Berliner Verkehrsauffassung) "

The only way to reconcile this is that the research was based on the poorest quality of kebabs (second bullet point above).

And apparently one of the best (fast food category) in terms of low salt content was fish and chips. WHAT?! This sounds like a pro-British food campaign to me, :D. Ok, maybe not the fish, but chips are surely salty, but that result may arise given that the chips portions arent that large and tend to not be salted heavily as well since the Brits love theirs with vinegar. In relative terms to the junk food peer group of heavily salted processed meat burgers/sausages and pizzas, this result doesn't sound that absurd anymore, LOL

Ok, back from digression, where was I? *Summer menu* yes. Whipped up something simple for dinner, salad with turkey kebabs (not really the kebabs above). Salad was just a rough mixture of tomatoes on the vine, lettuce, carrots, roasted mushrooms and potato wedges. Marinaded the turkey for barely 10 minutes with grated ginger juice, honey, soy sauce and a little dash of sesame oil. Potato wedges are just lightly coated in olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper just like the mushrooms and along with the turkey went for the oven treatment for 35 minutes or so.

Turkey was a little dry as expected since marinading time was too short, but the salad was great, especially with the smoky mushrooms that I love ...


Just in case any of you are interested in somemore kebabology ...

Going Italian

There's nothing more relaxing than listening to Moondance on a lazy weekend, cozily snuggled under the sheets, with a good book and a cuppa aromatic coffee ... :) (plus a lot of cooking!) What's your idea of a quiet, relaxed weekend?

This weekend was great, went out with a bunch of corridor mates to see the Tuthankhamun exhibition at the O2 Arena, interesting really as I never thought I'd be intrigued by the ancient history of Egypt. Would definitely like to visit there someday ...

Slow cooking has always been one of my favorite method of cooking as it involves minimal supervision and usually achieves maximum flavor! It's also very ideal for students/working young adults as a healthier/cheaper alternative of eating out. It's worth considering investing in one of these smart cookers with 3 heat adjustments!

I got mine earlier this year and so instead of doing my usual Chinese, I stumbled upon this Italian pork stew while flipping through one of the cookbooks in Borders with my usual latte :) The ingredient list is straightforward, with non of the complicated foreign-sounding spices that tends to discourage people to abandon the recipe altogether.

So here's the recipe list, if memory doesn't fail me:

Italian Pork Stew

Ingredients:

1 large onion, cut in wedges
2 bell peppers (orange and red ones), sliced in long matchsticks
300g-500g potatoes, cut into large chunks
1 can of tomato puree (400g)
1 litre of chicken stock (or use chicken stock cube for convenience)
Slabs of pork, about 800g-1 kg (shoulder/spare rib), do not cut into cubes
Salt and pepper, to taste
Thyme, 2 tsp
Olive oil, 2 tbsp
Pasta (optional)

Method

1. Heat oil in pan till hot and brown each side of the pork slabs quickly (not cooked). This should take about 1 minute each side of the pork. Remove the pork slabs once its slightly cooked on the outside.

2. In the remaining oil, stir fry the onions till soft and slightly translucent.


3. Add in the potato chunks in and continue swirling them around the pan occasionally for about 5 minutes

4. Then add the tomato puree with the chicken stock in to boil for about 10 minutes. Don't forget to and salt, pepper and thyme to taste too!

5. Finally, add the colorful pepper in the mixture and let it cook for about 1 minute. Then, bring transfer the whole mixture into a pre-heated (3 minutes or so) slow cooker, placing the pork slabs on top before covering it.

6. Set the heat to 'High' for about 3-4 hours or 'Medium' for about 6-7 hours and it's done! The beautiful aroma should linger about the whole household and perfect for a cold winter's dinner. Serves 6.

I served mine with some pasta too and the soup was amazing. The pork slabs don't need to be cut as it might turn mushy after slow cooking. It does that automatically after the long cooking hours, soft and tender, falling off the bone!

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!

Back on 5th Ave!

So, I finally passed all my exams yesterday! Woohoo, my life is back (for the moment), before I start work on Wednesday, hehe :)

It's back to the New York story, this time along 5th Ave in continuation of the (mostly window) shopping spree...

Here's the large Disney store along the street, filled with every imaginable kind of stuffed toys you want, yes, there's Mr Donald and Shrek in there too. It's about time I started growing up and out of these, :P

Any of you a 'The Apprentice' fan? Here's the exterior of Mr Trump's Tower. Had lunch inside too on the last day before I left. Definitely an air of sophistication which somehow leaves you in awe as you see the display of jewelry and other merchandises. Music at the bar was great too (it was Frank Sinatra's and other musical-y songs, suits a Sunday brunch for me!), though food wise wasn't that impressive, so let's not waste too much time on that...

More importantly, I managed to meet up with a good pal HH, who is working in Tokyo now, was there was training at the same time too! Yes, Japan! It was cool catching up with him in Little Tokyo, keeping each other updated of what has happened so far in the past 1-2 years since he left uni, and of course, life and work in the land of the samurais.

Dinner in Little Tokyo was even better! The place was near Aston Place on the green line, where Little Tokyo is situated. Humiliatingly, my Japanese reading skills has deteriorated that I can't read the name on the sign board as it's only written in Japanese. Nevertheless, that and the presence of many locals eating there is definitely a positive indication :)

And we were spot on! Can you believe this big mug of Asahi/Japanese beer just costs $3? HH was definitely a happy man munching and drinking away, haha

I had my first try of Oden, which according to Wikipedia, is a "winter dish consisting of several ingredients such as boiled eggs. daikon radish, konnyaku and processed fish cakes stewed in a light, soy-flavoured dashi broth." The yellow condiment you see by the side of the bowl is Karashi (Japanese mustard).

To me, that's the Japanese version of 'Yong Tau Foo', a common Malaysian dish consisting of various fish cakes or vegetables/tofu stuffed with fish cakes, boiled fish paste dumplings etc, in a flavorful broth. I loved the Japanese version too! It's the ultimate comfort food

And we had few other dishes too! The glutton in us resurfaced especially since everything was relatively cheap in US dollars, effectively 50% off compared to London! Stir fried yakisoba was good as well, not too oily or salty. The beer definitely made me regret stuffing myself silly, happens after the weeks of deprivation of Asian food :S

It was a friend Sasha's birthday a few days later too! Visited the Grand Central Terminal, a majestic looking subway station, which looks best at night with the beautiful chandeliers lighting the large hall, with many restaurants and shops in it too. Amongst them is the ever famous 'Oyster Bar', and (duh) as the name suggest, seemed famous for their seafood and oyster selection. We decided to go upper class, celebrating her birthday with a glass of champagne with a couple of fresh oysters.

Geez, you must be thinking, but its fun acting like a posh snob sometimes! What's life without a bit of fun and giving yourself a little treat?

New York, New York

Phew! Finally had some time to settle down and post up my American trip ... Thanks for being so patient. I've finally got over my jetlag, yet got caught in preparation for some regulation exams, and in fact still have not shifted my stuff fully.

Glad to be back in London, but starting to miss the buzz of NYC whilst training there! And of course, all the new found friends I've made :) I've only been in NY for 9 days in the whole of my trip to US, and hence we definitely made the most out of our short time there. Hehe

First night arrival in NYC after classes in Princeton, headed straight to the Hudson hotel. It's a pretty cool concept for the hotel, which looks and feels like a bar in the first place. The reception was pitch dark with small glimmers of light from the chandeliers, adjoining to the hotel bar/club, and there was no hotel sign outside saying 'Hudson Hotel' even, that I'm surprised the cab driver knew where to take us!

Anyways, by the time we settled down and went out for dinner, it was near midnight, and I've passed my hunger stage such that all I could stomach was this salad:

Taste wise disappointing, though slightly interesting presentation of it. Perhaps it was rather late for the restaurant to have freshly prepared chilled salads with good dressings.

Meanwhile, this is a typical scene taken outside my hotel, near Columbus Circus subway station. It's right next to Central Park, and just thought that a picture of the ubiquitous yellow NYC cabs are interesting :)

After a late Friday night out at the Hudson bar, miraculously I managed to drag myself up at 9am to go shopping with some friends at Century 21, which seems to have pretty good discounts, a place near Ground Zero/Wall Street. Here is a picture of the construction area near Ground Zero, pretty dusty I must say, especially on a humid day.

Macy's was up next, as it's apparently the largest departmental store in the world. Lunch was at the food court there, which has a wide array of selections. Always thought that food courts are the best places to check out what local specialties a place has to offer. As I was browsing through the sections, I saw this Pasta Board, which has Pasta a la Vodka, LOL. Not very appealing after a late night out full of that :P Interesting nevertheless

Dinner was at this place near the hotel called Landmarc, a place for good steak and REALLY NICE atmosphere. It was quite dark, but lit with dreamy yellow lights and candles. Food was great too, but unfortunately the food pics didn't turn out nicely due to dark light conditions. But I managed to get this chicken dish M had as I was trying out my new camera's zoom, and it turns out pretty good except for the odd glass at the left. :P

The next few days we were shifted to The Benjamin Hotel on East 51st Street. Seems like a boutique hotel with little rooms but classy decor. Can you believe that they actually have a 'PILLOW menu' for you to try on?

Time for some touristy stuff, and Rockefeller center was on the main agenda. This picture probably didn't do the architecture justice, as the building is pretty tall, but cut midway in this picture to show the beautiful waterfall and restaurant/bar they had at the basement.

C had a Caesar salad as she was 'detoxifying' after another late night out again, haha. A salad finally up to par I must say. Even the simple tomato basil soup I had was made to perfection, doesn't taste like it's out of a can, accompanied by freshly baked breads and mini madelines.

Food pics are rather scarce during the first few days in NYC as people were hungry and I couldn't snap their food photos in time, and of course, taking pictures of food was so foreign to them that I had to explain several times! More coming up next on my New York escapade!

Swanky Sweden!

Finally managed to get hold of the photos taken from my Stockholm holiday. Thanks to K's Canon SLR, photos (especially the food ones) showed significant improvement in quality! Hope my compromise on getting a Panasonic Lumix TZ2 recently provides an adequate compensation in terms of quality, trading off on it's weight/bulkiness .

Stockholm is a beautiful city by the sea, boasting hundreds of beautiful islands on the archipelago. We spend 5 days in Sweden, with one in Sandhamn, a quaint island just a short ferry ride away from the city. It's my favorite day in Sweden, just because the island is really small and there's not much to do except wine and dine and slacking around, which fits my criteria of a retirement plan :P

There are 3 main accommodation on site, 2 restaurants, a cafe and some grocery stores. That's a tiny island yea? But there are plenty of yachts around that day, as there's a competition going on. We arrived at noon and were instantly mesmerized by the crisp and fresh air, clear blue sky and crystal clear water



Lunch was at Seglar hotel's bistro, the largest hotel at the island (there are only 2 anyway) ...


I had Truffle risotto with grilled vegetables and pesto. It was a large serving, but it was really good that I manage to clean the plate :) The risotto was creamy and fluffy, yet maintained it's bite and not overcooked. The pesto sauce was freshly made, a good match with the lightly salted grilled peppers and even the truffle risotto.

G had beef for starters. Somehow I can't recall what it's called, but it was a roast beef dish served with some grilled vegetables and sausages, in a spicy tomato sauce, if not mistaken. Ain't it pretty?

M had fish for main course, also beautiful presented below. Poached lemon pike in a cream sauce served with vegetables. I really like the way to line up the carrot, beetroot and radish, not chopped up and on top of each other, making something so common and plain special.

And after lunch, all of us just retreated in our IKEA-like furnished hotel and slept for the afternoon... Now that's a real holiday :P