All posts tagged: travel

Our Growing Edge – August 2016 Intro

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August edition of Our Growing Edge is hosted by Cheryl from BusinessChic. Theme: WORK DAY EATING   I love Cheryl’s theme suggestion of WORK DAY EATING this month. The majority of lunches are eaten at work and it’s hard to eat well at work if you’re not prepared. When I first started working full time (way back in my early twenties), I ate out every day. I didn’t make the time to prepare lunch in the mornings and I liked having a bit of “me time” in the middle of the day while I checked out local cafes. Eating out for lunch cost me $50 to $70 per week but I didn’t mind because I had gone from a student budget to a full time salary. I was splurging. Then I got smart. Eating out every day is a big waste of money. Nowdays, I’m all about leftovers, whether it’s straight up leftovers or rehashing it slightly for lunch – such as a chicken salad using leftover chicken from the previous night’s roast dinner plus some chopped salad ingredients. You hardly notice a cost difference if you cook …

Our Growing Edge – July 2016 Intro

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July edition of Our Growing Edge is hosted by Sophie at Cooking Trips. The theme this month is “Travel”.   I am lucky to have travelled to some delicious destinations and have collected precious food memories. For me, food is an important part of travel and I love exploring other cuisines while expanding my growing edge. Some memorable meals include: Late night takoyaki made fresh to order out of a van in a deserted parking lot in Osaka, Japan Our first larb in Laos from this random restaurant in the middle of nowhere just on the border of Vietnam and Laos Killing and eating a snake at a snake restaurant in Hanoi, Vietnam I have so many more food memories I want to collect but it’s nice to be able to travel to faraway places by recreating dishes at home. I hope this month’s travel theme inspires you to cook something from your travels or something from a place you would like to travel to. Because there’s nothing quite like falling in love with places you’ve yet to visit. …

Mackenzie Country

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The Koala and I went to a wedding at Lake Hawea in the South Island of New Zealand. A great excuse for a little road trip on the other end of the country, we also visited Lakes Tekapo, Pukaki and Wanaka. The area is stunning, rich with photo ops and export quality food production. This is a countryside of milk and honey, lamb, wool, venison and very, very good salmon. The middle of the South Island around the Southern Alps is known as Mackenzie Country. The area has a colourful history and you can read a short summary about James Mackenzie and his sheep stealing escapades here. Driving through Mackenzie Country, it was hard not to fall in love with the alpine pasture and tussock, turquoise lakes, snow-capped mountains and millions of sheep. I squealed every time I saw a particularly adorable lamb. Being spring, there were more sweet faced lambs than you could shake a stick at. We stopped to converse with the livestock and while the sheep were vocal, they did not express …

Eat Well. Travel Often.

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This poster by designer Ian Coyle speaks to me. When I was 9 months old, my parents and I flew from Hong Kong to New Zealand. They moved to country they had never been to before with an infant. I can’t say I’d have the courage to do that. In the years since, we were lucky enough to travel back to Hong Kong fairly often. Usually we would travel with stopovers in other countries. I’ve been spoilt. I find inspiration in travel. In both food and in design and in life. Travel gives perspective and nourishes in so many ways. I’d sooner blow all my cash on travel than save for a house. Being a homeowner is so overrated. I hear so many stories of people who plan to travel in their retirement. Only they die young or are not physically enough when the time arrives. Which is why Gunther Holtorf’s story is so touching. Gunther Holtorf is a 74 year old German man, who, in 1989, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, packed …

A Dinner inspired by South East Asia

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  I had a hankering for the stuff we ate while in South East Asia. Hot, sour and savoury soups, banana pancakes were eaten in balmy countries. But what about on a cold winter’s night? I thought they would translate quite well so I made a brothy soup with noodles with some nice sirloin steak. I made this up on the fly using some of the flavours I enjoyed in South East Asia. This was followed by a dessert of asian-inspired banana pancakes with melted chocolate. Yum. Bok choy is cheap and it is super easy to grow. I know this because I’ve grown it before. But at $0.50 for a bag of 2 or 3 bok choy at my local Chinese supermarket, I don’t bother to grow my own. So easy to prepare, just wash and slice into quarters lengthwise. Good rabbit food too. When we have bok choy, Tofu the rabbit also enjoys bok choy. Beef Noodle Soup Beef Ingredients 1 piece of sirloin steak enough for 2 (200-300g) A little sesame oil …

Bangkok: Eating fish, eaten by fish and 20kg of shopping

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Our epic South East Asia adventure came to an end with 2 nights in Bangkok before flying home to New Zealand. Bangkok is a great place to end a holiday as you can load up to the gills with shopping before hopping on a plane. We did the typical tourist sights in Bangkok on a previous stopover so we didn’t want to do any more. I estimate we gained 20kg in shopping in 2 days. Last time we were in Bangkok, our 2 day stopover resulted in 13kg of shopping. If you measure by weight, we are definitely getting better at shopping. Our 2 days of epic shopping in Bangkok put us up to 39.9kg. We were allowed up to 40kg in checked luggage so pretty close! Eating fish This steamed fish dish was barely cooked and would have tasted amazing if only it didn’t have about 10 times more chili than I could handle. I scraped off all the chili, ate it with all of the teddy bear shaped rice and still needed lots …

Eating at the Night Bazaar, Chiang Mai

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Back to sharing our epic SE Asia adventure…It’s already June and I’ve only chronicled about half of our time away… Sila-aat two times Our first night in Chiang Mai was our last night together with our tour group. For dinner, we visited the Night Bazaar which is also a shoppers paradise. Over the next 2 weeks, The Koala and I would come back many times to shop and to eat. Our last meal as a group was at seafood restaurant Sila-aat. They have a few live fish and the rest is displayed on ice at the counter. They have some a good selection of seafood platters that we wanted to try but the timing  was never quite right. I felt like something light so picked some light Chinese dishes. The Koala picked a heavy Chinese dish. Snow peas. I adore snow peas, but they are freakin expensive back home. My local supermarket sells snow peas for $26NZ per kilo. Does anyone know why snow peas are so damn expensive? Straw mushrooms and shrimp. I love …

Slow Boat on the Mekong River – Day 1

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After watching and participating in the monks receiving alms, we returned to our guesthouse to pack and say goodbye to Luang Prabang. Our slow boat for the next 2 days on the Mekong (pronounced May-kong) River was one of these long wooden affairs. I would highly recommend a slow boat trip if you have 2 days to spare getting from Laos to Thailand. The boat had comfortable seating as well as tables and chairs, a toilet, beer and snacks. The open air also made the smokers happy. The smooth trip meant that I never felt sick (unlike windy bus trips). Run by the captain, his wife and 3 kids, it was a family affair and The Koala quickly impressed the kids with his drawing talents. We both did a lot of drawing while on the Mekong River. 20 hours of down time makes for good drawing time. Locals panning for gold at the edge of the Mekong River. The return isn’t very good, but during dry season, there isn’t a lot to do and panning …

We Freakin Love Elephants

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The old name for Laos is Lan Xang which means the land of a million elephants. One of our fondest memories of Laos was meeting Mae San the elephant, her mahout (trainer) and her friends at the Elephant Village. “Elephant Village gives rescued elephants a new home where they are free from abusive work. Elephant Village provides local villagers a better livelihood, so they can stop their slash and burn tradition.” Many elephants in Laos were, and still are, used in the logging industry. They are mistreated, forced to pull loads that are too heavy for them, fed drugs to work longer and work in dangerous conditions. The sweet nature that elephants are know for are taken advantage of and some people use sharp hooks or knives to bend elephants to their will. It’s painful to learn about the lives these elephants suffered before being rescued. Elephants wear their hearts on their sleeves. It’s delightful to see them happy, but it’s also obvious when they suffer. How can people mistreat these animals? No one is that …

Eating in Vang Vieng #3

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The following day was we continued to celebrate M’s birthday at a local Thai restaurant for breakfast. We had Tom Kha Gai and pineapple fried rice and enjoyed an amazing view. Overnight, the river was stained a terracotta colour. The locals said it was the first time it had it had happened and the rumour was that some construction upstream had caused it. In any case, we were glad that we weren’t tubing in the river that day. A shop in town carved figures from stone and also personalised them with a stamp on the bottom. We got our company logo carved into an elephant figure for only about $20 including the personalisation. He carved the logo backwards from a sample of our business card and it was ready to pick up later in the day. What a legend! Lunch was only ok, but at least the view was good. My laap was way too spicy and the green chillies were finely chopped and resembled the green beans which were also finely chopped. The Koala got …

Vientiane: Joy Restauant on the Mekong Promenade

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In the city of Vientiane, the Mekong Promenade is wide, the river being very low during dry season and during the day the promenade is peaceful and quiet. You kind of wonder where is everyone? But come sunset, pop up bars and restaurants line the streets and finding a good spot to watch the changing sky is easy. Just before another pink sunset, we find ourselves at Joy Restaurant on the Mekong Promenade. The colourful display of food entices us and after a Beer Lao or two, we choose a few dishes by physicall pointing instead of choosing from the printed menu. It’s so much better to be able to select from a kitchen rather than trusting translated menus. This allows you to order dishes that look good on that day rather than picking your usual favourites. The wiggling bits coming out of the shells told me that the cockles are still alive. The prawns looked particularly plump. The Koala had never tried cockles before and it’s a novelty to get them at all let alone fresh …

Eating laap in Laos

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Laap, also spelled larb, larp or laab, was my absolute favourite dish during our epic South East Asia adventure. Laap is made with ground meat, ground sticky rice, fish sauce, lime juice, fresh chili and lots of herbs like mint, coriander and spring onion. The locals eat it with their hands and with sticky rice and raw vegetables. I totally fell in love with this fresh, zingy, savoury dish. Crossing into Laos On a cold mid January morning, we get up early, have a buffet breakfast at our hotel in Vinh, Vietnam and get on a 6am private bus to Laos. It is cold, grey and misty. We take Ho Chi Minh Trail which is a windy path through the mountains and you can see how it could have been used in war against a foreign enemy. The mist is so thick in places you can’t see across to the other side of the valley. Looking out into the heavy mist it’s easy to think that the mountains are on the edge of the world. …

Delicious Vietnam: Eating In The Old Quarter, Hanoi

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Before our epic SE Asia holiday, I had read a few  blogs to inspire my appetite. One of the best was A Food Lover’s Journey by Ahn in Melbourne. Mouthwatering and easily relatable, Ahn is a Vietnamese expat and reading her blog is enough to make anyone crave Vietnamese food. The monthly Delicious Vietnam blogging event conspired by A Food Lover’s Journey and Ravenous Couple was never something I thought I would participate in. When I saw their reminder this month, I realised that it was just about time I wrote about Vietnamese food and our time in Hanoi. Vietnamese food in Auckland There is a lack of Vietnamese restaurants in Auckland, but one of my favourites is Hansan Vietnamese Restaurant. One of those places with cheap, fresh and delicious food, but severely no frills service, my review can be found here. The other Vietnamese place worth mentioning in Auckland is Banh Mi. Who do great filled rolls and all the classic Vietnamese dishes as well. Anticipation “”Well,” said Pooh, “what I like best — ” …

Eating Borneo #8 – New Years at Mañana

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New Year celebrations have always been epic for us. Many businesses are closed during this time in New Zealand so we holiday like there’s no tomorrow. It’s a time when we leave the city and flock to beaches all over the country to get absolutely trashed with their friends. There’s good food and good times to be had and the celebrations often last a week. I saw in last New Years with The Koala, my friend A, my sister Joey, her boyfriend D and the guests and staff at Mañana Borneo. Mañana is a small resort on a private beach about an hour north of Kota Kinabalu in the Sabah north of Borneo Island. It’s not on a separate island but this beach is only accessable by boat. No cars. No shops. No power during the day. Just a private, sheltered beach, snorkeling, swimming, books, hammocks, monsoon every afternoon (mandatory downtime). It was heaven. We stayed in 3 private villas with our own outdoor bathrooms. The menu here was limited but that was fine, it meant …

Eating Borneo #6 – Sepilok

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In Sepilok, we stopped off at a random food court on the side of the road for lunch. I liked the fact that we seemed to be the only tourists here. I ordered a Meehoon Goreng Singapore. It was way too spicy. I suffered through this one and didn’t even get a quarter of the way through before I gave up. The soup it came with was good though. Chicken and mayo with rice. This was nice and mild for The Koala. A’s fried noodles with an egg on top. This is a ubiquitous dish and for good reason. It’s yum, cheap and filling. Cruising in Sandakan On Christmas morning, Mr Aji dropped us back at Sandakan airport where we had a rental car waiting. I’d been a bit worried about renting a car in Borneo. I was worried that we might end up with a clunker on dodgy jungle roads. Instead, the roads were smooth and the car turned out to be a super sweet ride. Because we arrived in Sandakan on Christmas Eve, …

Eating Borneo #5 – Sukau

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Mr Aji Tours http://www.mrajiexpeditions.blogspot.com On Christmas Eve, Me, The Koala and A met up with my sister Joey and her boyfriend D at Sandakan airport in the Sabah area of Borneo. Our first day in the area, we met with Mr Aji who chauffeured us in style to Sukau and then onto the Kinabatangan River for an early afternoon river cruise. Mr Aji is a passionate wildlife photographer and had one of the biggest zoom lenses I’ve seen up close. It was incredible to see all the animals in the wild and Mr Aji has a hell of a keen eye. We saw proboscis monkeys leaping from tree to tree, An orangutan mother with her baby, a troop of curious macaques, lots of birds like the rhinoceros hornbill, snake bird, egret, black and white hornbill, eagle, Stockbill and common kingfishers. Because we were on the river earlier and longer than other tours, we had the river to ourselves. The boat driver turned off the engine and we just floated down the river and listen to …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …