All posts filed under: Culinary Adventures

Foodie Treasures from the South East

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Some of the foodie treasures I picked up from south east asia. I’ve always wanted a mortar and pestle and making my own green curry from scratch in a cooking school in Chiang Mai made the want a need. Weasel coffee from Vietnam, table cloth, coconut wood salad servers and serving spoon from Thailand I also gifted a package to my work because they were fantastic about letting me holiday for 10 weeks. In their package there was the same chili sauce, weasel coffee, Sabah Tea (from Borneo) and coconut salad servers. I coveted this Thai/Laos style BBQ cooker, a chopping board and a cleaver, but alas, these were not to be found in the usual tourist markets. If anyone knows of a Thai BBQ restaurant in Auckland or where to buy a cooker from, let me know.

A Cook’s Treat

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If you are a fan of Anthony Bourdain, then you may think I am refering to the white stuff that goes up one’s nose to aid a long night at work. But no, I don’t mean cocaine. The cook’s treat I’m refering to is much cheaper. In fact, it’s free! If you cook, then you may be familiar with a cook’s treat. It’s a portion of a meal that isn’t dished up but is rather eaten up by the cook. This delicious morsel is gobbled up by the cook and the guests none the wiser. It’s can be considered a reward for the hard work of preparing a meal. In baking, it is well known that licking the beater and the bowl clean of batter is a compulsory honor reserved for the cook. A cook’s treat can be an ingredient that is used for flavour (or fat) and then usually discarded. When we were in south east asian, we had the local bbq. A lump of pork fat is used to oil up the cooking …

Congee. Jook. Rice Soup. Rice Porridge.

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I love congee! I love Jook! Chinese congee is usually very mild. Bland even. Even the chicken and scallop version I had for breakfast not long ago in Hong Kong could have done with a little more seasoning. So it was a delight for me to try versions of this dish that other asian countries had to offer. Congee is not something that is found easily in Auckland city. Kiwis don’t really dig it and it’s considered poor people food by those who love it. Not something you would order when you eat out. What’s the difference? The easiest way to differentiate between rice soup and rice porridge is that rice soup is cooked rice in a flavoured broth. In rice soup, the rice and the soup are separate layers. You can have a spoonful of soup and then a spoonful of rice if you please or you can have both at once. Much like noodle soup. Rice porridge has the consistency of porridge because the rice granules are cooked until they break and thicken the soup. …

Eating Borneo #1 – Rainforest Cafe, Kota Kinabalu

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The second stop on our trip was Kota Kinabalu in the Malaysian part of Borneo. Malaysia is pretty cheap in terms of food and booze, though not the cheapest on our trip. So cheap in fact, that when we saw the price of the dishes, we stupidly assumed the portions were tiny. So we ordered 2 dishes each. 3 people. 6 meals. http://www.rainforestlodgekk.com/rainforest_cafe2.cfm Here, at Rainforest Cafe we stuffed ourselves until we couldn’t see straight. Unfortunately, all the food was good. We couldn’t sacrifice any dishes and with no fridge in our room, we didn’t chance taking a few boxes of food home. We were rendered completely useless after this feast. Lesson to self, order a meal. If you are still hungry, have a snack later. Asia is full of snacks. There is no need to eat yourself senseless. A couple of weeks later, our second visit was much more dignified. Rainforest Cafe offer a range of lunch sets for 6.90RM / $3.10NZ / $2.30US. Your choice of main comes with a drink and a …

Eating Brunei

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Arriving in Brunei at 7am after a 10 hour flight from Auckland, we were exhausted. We should have given into a few hours nap but with only a day in the tiny sultanate, we foolishly stayed up to be tourists. Nothing was open that early anyway so we hung about the hotel for a couple of hours and had a swim in the pool etc. Really should have taken that nap! Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque. Big, white, gold, in the centre of town. Truly dazzling in the summer sun. Don’t visit without your sunnies! Our first meal was at Food Zone in the shopping complex by the big white mosque in town. Chinese Cuisine can be found here at a fair price. We ordered a Steamed Chicken Set, a Roast Chicken Set (both sets include chicken, chicken rice, pickles, sauces and soup), Sweet & Sour Prawns, Siu Mai (pork dumplings), Ha Gaw (prawn dumplings) and drinks. A measly $24 ($19US) for the lot. Brunei dollar and New Zealand dollar are pretty dollar for dollar, meaning …

We are home.

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It has been an epic 65 days of traveling, eating, drinking, experiencing and adventuring with my husband The Koala. Along the way, we’ve traveled with friends and family, met up with old friends and made new friends. We visited 7 countries and stayed in 18 different places in south east asia. Brunei, Malaysia (Borneo), Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. It’s been exotic and surreal. Being back in front of my mac, in our lounge (looking just the way we left it) it feels like the last 2 months happened to someone else. In the 2 months we’ve been away, I “cooked” only 3 times. A half day cooking class in Chiang Mai, and if you count it as cooking, we had local BBQ where you cook raw ingredients at your table at a restauarant- we did this 2 times (Vang Vieng, Laos and Koh Phangan, Thailand). All other meals – I’m talking an average of 3 meals a day – were eaten out. That’s 192 meals right there! I didn’t photograph every single …

Food tourism

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THE PIG ON VACATION As much as Pigs love food they would truly enjoy a culinary experience on vacation. When traveling they tend to dine at the finest restaurants, eat the richest chocolate and drink the most expensive champagne. In addition, their natures to be relaxed and laid back would lead them to an easygoing vacation somewhere on an island or in a resort where they can hang out and be completely taken care of. From the US bridal Guide. Culinary vacation? Me? Really? Naw… I often remark that I would love to eat my way around the world so now I can blame it on my Chinese horoscope. Food tourism is becoming more of a common occurance these days and I think all the food travel shows help boost the industry and make more people yearn to eat exotic things in faraway places. I don’t think of Auckland as being a particularly culinary city, so I was surprised to learn there are a few gourmet food tour companies operating in Auckland. I have no experience …

BakerTweet

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Last year at the design conference Semi-Permanent, I saw Nicholas Roope speak. Nicholas is from the London advertising agency Poke. Poke resides in a building called Biscuit Building. So it’s no real surprise that they came up with this genius product called BakerTweet. I’m not a Tweeter or a Twitter follower, but BakerTweet in my area would make me rethink this. The geniuses at Poke realised that people often visited bakeries and bought things that were less than fresh. What if loyal customers could know the moment a baked product came out of the oven? That’s where BakerTweet comes in.

Garbage Plate

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Now that you have just about recovered from your Christmas period over indulgence, it’s time for me to present to you a gross interesting dish hailing from Rochester, New York. There, Nick Tahou Hots is a restaurant famous for it’s extreme American cuisine. “A plate piled high with fried potatoes, baked beans, hot dogs, onions, mustard, and a chili-like meat sauce.” “A Garbage Plate is a combination of one selection of cheeseburger, hamburger, red hots, white hots,Italian sausage, chicken tender, fish (haddock), fried ham, grilled cheese, or eggs; and two sides of either home fries, French fries, baked beans, or macaroni salad. On top of that are the options of mustard and onions, ketchup, and Nick’s proprietary hot sauce, a greasy sauce with spices and ground beef. It’s served with rolls or Italian toast on the side, fresh from the bakery next door.“ With the large number of college kids in the area, this dish quickly became popular, comforting, filling and (hopefully) cheap way to fill up. Garbage plate is now found all over the Rochester area and these days you get to choose exactly what garbage gets dumped onto your plate. Garbage …

Deadliest catch right here in New Zealand

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Alaskan King Crab is expensive and pretty hard to get in New Zealand but I got to try some in November last year. However, since October 2010, fishermen have been given the go ahead for an exploratory permit to catch king crab in New Zealand waters. Sadly, it seems that the market for this crab is not destined for New Zealanders. “…could be marketed as high-value products in Europe, Asia and the US, as the practice of catching them in pots allowed for live exporting. King crabs, which grow up to 1.2m long, are a valuable commodity in the Northern Hemisphere.” I’m still baffled as to why people don’t eat crab here in NZ. Perhaps a thriving crab industry in NZ will change this? I hope so. If not, let’s hope a king crab industry right here in NZ will mean reasonably priced king crab for the handful of us that like to grapple with these pincy critters. I hope it doesn’t all go to the overseas market! That would be sad indeed. Read the full article here …

Trying new foods properly

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When I try a new food, especially if it’s strange or exotic or requires a special preparation, I always make a point to try it properly. As close to authentic and as unadorned as possible. That way, I know I’ve given it a good go and if I don’t like it, it’s because I don’t like it and not because I’ve given it a crap attempt. I really wanted to try steak tartare. Steak tartare is finely chopped or minced raw beef. Because it is raw beef, it needs to be in great condition and hardly any restaurant around these parts offer it. Sure, I could have chopped some beef at home, but without knowing what I was striving for and what it was supposed to look and taste like, if it failed miserably, would I really know if it was the dish or just my shoddy workmanship? Luckily, I was able to sample it in a form I considered “proper” – from the kitchen of one of the premier steak restauarants in Auckland. With white …

In anticipation of eating in Vietnam

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I adore Vietnamese cuisine. I feel like it’s the lighter, brighter of the South East Asian cuisines and as a result of this, something you can eat regularly. I’ve never been to Vietnam before, but when I visit Hanoi I’m planning on Pho (noodle soup with a rich beef broth) for breakfast and Banh Mi for lunch until I can’t eat it anymore. I look forward to eating at a snake restaurant in the village Le Mat. For a set price (never just wander in without agreeing on a price it may later be extortionate amount), you select a live snake which is expertly killed, blood and bile drained into shot glasses and the heart served still beating. Then they whip the snake away and make a 6-8 different dishes using the rest of the snake. Snake spring rolls, snake soup, crispy fried skin, grilled snake, snake meat with and lemon grass and chili, … It sounds a bit barbaric I know, but from what I’ve read, it’s a culinary experience, not a fear factor …

2011: A year for adventurous eating

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Happy New Year Readers! I hope the year 2010 has been thoroughly digested and I hope that the year 2011 brings you all the tasty delights you can handle. This year’s first post is about adventurous eating and being willing to try new things. I think that if there is a country or a culture or a people that enjoys eating a particular food, then there must at least be the potential that I will enjoy it too. As long as it is food, I will be adventurous enough to give it a try. In 1986, Prince Philip commented on Chinese eating habits to the World Wildlife Fund conference saying: “If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.” Some people (non-Chinese) find this offensive. I don’t. Maybe said at a WWF conference by a member of the royal family, it was a bit misaligned. …

Hungry hopes for Hong Kong

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I was born in Hong Kong but we moved to New Zealand when I was 9 months old so I never really called Hong Kong home. But even though it’s not quite home to me, it’s special in other ways and being brought up by Hong Kong born and bred parents means that there a lot of things in Hong Kong culture that I relate to. I know there are a lot of cultures that claim this, but Hong Kong citizens are absolutely obsessed with food. It’s like a religion. I don’t know if that’s one of the reasons why I am the way I am. I haven’t always been like this. So it must be more nature than nurture? Here are 10 culinary experiences I hope to revisit or try for the first time during my next Hong Kong adventure (in no particular order): 1. Stinky Tofu I’d like to try Stinky Tofu next time I am in Hong Kong. Stinky Tofu or chòu dòufu is fermented tofu  and eaten as a snack. It …

On food conversations

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Christmas to many people is a time of non-stop feasting. With all the edible gifts, Christmas functions with food as well as the feast that is Christmas day, naturally, food conversations will be rampant this time of year. Whether it’s about the sourcing of premium ingredients, the perfect way to cook something this season, what is on the menu, what is definitely not on the menu, what Christmas dish you are looking forward to the most…there’s plenty of food conversations to be had. I have a lot of conversations about food. Christmas season or not. I have conversations about food with foodies and I have them with non-foodies. Luckily, food is a topic we can all relate to. Even if you don’t like food, you still eat it. While I don’t know if I could be friends with someone that didn’t enjoy food at all, they would still make for interesting conversation. Since I don’t know what people talk about when I’m not around, I don’t know if it’s just my conversations that are food …

A magical elixir for the food blogger

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I just drank my first dose of a magical elixir. This vaccine is to protect me from the harms of cholera and traveler’s diarrhea. I pray this will give me the iron stomach I need to eat all sorts of varied, wonderful and slightly questionable things. I bumped into my sister this morning and she said that the potion was delicious. I was apprehensive. Maybe if I was expecting an awful taste, it would take pretty good. It was a rasberry and saline flavoured drink. I wouldn’t call it delicious. But since I was expecting delicious, I was a bit disappointed. Oh well, I didn’t have this drink for the flavour sensation. It is the effects of this drink that I am interested in. Onwards and upwards!

Friday Favourites: Meat Feast

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Vegetarians, look away now. My favourite carnivorous experience in Auckland city has got to be Wildfire Churascaria. The style of eating is Churrasco, Brazilian BBQ. The idea is that various cuts of meat are brought to your table and you have a stop/go toggle to indicate if you are ready to feast or prefer a break. Here’s a review of my experience from last October: Despite the below average reviews from a local restaurant review website, we went to Wildfire night for dinner. We had a great group of carnivores and we opted for the early session (10 clams cheaper). The Koala and I arrived a little late (parking woes) and bread and dips were already at the table. We were all briefed on not filling up on bread and vege so we didn’t tear into them like crazy monkeys. The bread I did have was really hard so I could only eat 1 piece anyway. That’s fine. I wasn’t here for the bread. We ordered our drinks and the first meat – the smoked salmon – …

Community Supported Fishery

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CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and is when people from the community provide financial support to their local growers in return for a weekly bounty of seasonal produce. Maybe this has come out of the locavore movement: people preferring to eat locally grown and produced food. Well, now there is the next step for seafood lovers out there. CSF stands for Community Supported Fishery and for a fee or a share a supporter receives a weekly portion of the catch during a season. It means that fishermen can have cash in advance of the season. With CSF, fishermen are paid a flat rate per season instead of being paid for the fish they catch. The usual model means that fishermen are forced to chase whatever fish fetches the highest price. Instead, this model discourages fishermen from overfishing the most popular more lucrative fish as there is no bonus for doing so. It means the supporter can get to try all sorts of bounty from the sea rather than the limited range supermarkets sell these …

Friday Favourites: Local weekday treat

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Wanted: Local. Good food. Nice surroundings. Sun. Beer. Eden Cloak Room is pretty close to home and work and I have heard good things about them. We drive or walk past here very often when doing other Mt Eden things and it looks like a great time. I’ve been wanting to come here for aaaages, but they are usually super busy and we don’t like crowded places with limited seating. An early weekday lunch was the perfect solution. We arrived just before noon and were the first to order lunch. I ordered the fish and chips and The Koala got the the lamb burger. Solid, kiwi fare. We both had Radlers to accompany our meals. A perfectly summery concoction. We had our pick our seats so we picked an outside table. The food arrived in good time and it was presented beautifully. I like how even though my fish and chips come on a plate, there is a sheet of newspaper for added presentation. Fish and chips and newspaper just looks right. The minted mashed peas …

Takapuna Markets – A Culinary Tour

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My friend Miss C suggested we hit Takapuna Markets yesterday morning. It’s been years since I have been to Taka Markets, but I lived on the North Shore for about 10 years and we visited the Taka Markets religiously back then. My parents always bought vegetables and flowers, me and my sister mostly bought junk. From my teenage point of view, Takapuna markets wasn’t a foodie paradise. There are plenty of clothes, jewelry, toys, secondhand stalls, crafts, plants and end of line or seconds to grab my attention instead. Sure, I ate the street food on offer, but I never bought ingredients. Oh how things have changed. These days, I love markets, but I usually go to ones that are close to me. Britomart and Parnell Markets are foodie heaven, but it’s no secret that these places are not cheap. There are usually a few bargains to be had at city markets, but generally, you go for quality and specialty goods. I only started cooking a few years ago, so this Sunday was going to be …