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The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” – G.K. Chesterton

Tuesday 26 July 2005

Baked Stuffed Apple French Toast

Rob loves the apple slice they sell at Trackside Bakery near the train station in Perth. Everytime we walked past the area, Rob would hurry over to salivate at their pastry selections, and would ask if we could buy something or another. The other day, we walked past the bakery and Rob wanted an apple slice, but we were in a hurry to catch a train so he didn't manage to score one. I consoled him by saying that it's a simple thing to make - it's basically stewed apple slapped between two thick layers of pastry - and that I'd make it for him at home. So the next time we went to the markets to do our weekly fresh fruit and veges shopping, we bought lots of Granny Smith apples. I even looked on the internet for recipes on how to make the pastry, and then realised that I do not have the very basic tool for dough-making: a rolling pin. Sigh. I was still determined to use the GS apples for a baked dish (coz they are so yummy baked!) but refused to do the usual apple crumble because 1) we always use our GS apples that way and 2) we did not have rolled oats in the pantry. (I like to use what we have in the pantry without having to go out of our way to buy ingredients we don't use often - also means that the recipe would be simple and healthy.) I wanted to take the opportunity to try something different, but relatively healthy and simple to make.

The thought of using bread instead of pastry occured to me. Googled for apple + bread recipes for inspiration, and came across recipes for apple and french toast baked in the oven. The recipes I looked at all suggested putting the bread slices on top of the apple pieces in a dish and pouring an egg mix of some sort over the whole thing and 'marinated' overnight in the fridge before baking. I didn't quite like the idea of having an omelette-type apple stuffing, so I varied the recipe (as below) to suit my taste. You can of course use your intuition on what would work with the egg mix (eg vanilla essence - which I forgot to use) and the apple stuffing (eg adding nutmeg or mixed spice if you have them handy). You can use whatever bread you like - I used wholemeal bread.

Ingredients:

4 Granny Smith Apples
8-9 slices of bread
3-4 eggs
1/4cup Milk
2tbsp brown sugar
1tbsp water
1 quill of cinammon

Method:

Peel, core and slice apples into 1cm thick slices. Heat a pan on medium heat, place apples and water, sugar and cinammon quill in it and cook for five minutes or until apples are tender but not mushy.

Break the eggs in a bowl, and mix with milk. Dunk slices of bread in the egg mix (or you can soak the bread in the egg mix - depends on how soaked and soggy you like your french toast), and place one layer of the dipped bread on the bottom of a rectangular ovenproof dish. Drain the cooked apples and place on top of the first layer of bread, then place the remaining slices of bread (dipped first in the egg mix) on top of the apples. Pour any remaining egg mix over the bread, and if you are preparing this the night before, cover the oven dish and refrigerate.

Wake up leisurely the next day, preheat oven to 180degC, take out what you prepared the night before and uncover the oven dish. Sprinkle the top layer with a little castor sugar if desired and place in the oven for 40-50minutes. Serve hot with honey, cream, icecream or other fruits if you want. Will serve 2 to 4 people, depending on the appetite.

Tuesday 5 July 2005

Uncle Billy's in Chinatown Northbridge

Last night, we had dinner with my family prior to my parents' flight back to Malaysia. My mum asked me to choose a Chinese restaurant, somewhere in Chinatown (the 'official' one on Roe Street) in Northbridge, to have our dinner. Rather than going for Billy Lee's (good food but always crowded) or City Garden (good food but bad service) [too bad Chin Chin has closed down indefinitely because that would be our first choice], I decided to go for somewhere we haven't tried before, hence my suggestion of Uncle Billy's. I didn't know what to expect but it turned out to be a nice meal.

The price of the dishes are similar to the other Chinese restaurants in Chinatown, with non-seafood dishes generally costing $9-13 and seafood dishes costing upwards from $13. There were 8 of us plus a toddler, and we shared 7 dishes banquet style with steamed rice.

My mum selected "Sizzling King Prawns" - this was nice with fresh prawns. The hot plate and prawns were brought out separately, and the waiter placed the hotplate on the lazy susan and poured the prawns into the sizzling hot plate. Usually the dish is brought out already sizzling (or not sizzling, like at the Ambassador) but it was nice to have it prepared at our table, as it made sure the dish stayed hot.



My dad ordered "Spicy Duck", which wasn't chilli spicy, but rather prepared using the Chinese five-spice). The duck was prepared quite well, and was served with vinegar sauce.



Ian chose his standard "Peking Spare-ribs", and this is how Peking spare-ribs should be.



Rob ordered a "Two kinds of Squids in prawn sauce", with the squids prepared two different styles. This was delicious, although the squids were a bit on the overcooked side.



Honey chose the Combination Hotpot, which is a claypot dish and not actually hot-pot (you know, steamboat style with spicy szechuan-type soup gravy?). This had tofu, pork, veges and seafood in it. This was yum. I would've chosen this dish if I didn't want a Japanese tofu dish.



Faye ordered "English spinach with century egg", which was a generous dish. English spinach with lots of gravy and both the century and salted eggs. Click here for more information on century egg. I love spinach so this dish gets my thumbs-up.



Finally, I ordered "Japanese tofu with sliced pork and mushrooms". Japanese tofu are soft egg tofu and I love them! This dish also gets my thumbs-up.



All the dishes were well-prepared, and the total bill came to $104.50, which is quite cheap to satisfy eight hungry people. I would go back to Uncle Billy's again.

Monday 4 July 2005

Gogo's Madras Curry House, Mt Lawley

Rob loves eating Indian food. Me? Well, I love my mum's curries so much that I never saw the need to pay money to eat curry. Plus, ever since I was little, living in Malaysia, I found that the Indian curries were somewhat too rich for me. And they were always prepared with red meat like lamb or mutton and I am not too fond of red meat. Anyway, there's this Indian place on the cafe strip on Beaufort Street that we always walked past (we live only 5mins walk from this strip), and Rob had always expressed interest in trying it out. It's always full house on a Friday or Saturday night, so I guess I was curious to see how it compared to the Indian food served at Red Turban in Cannington or Annalakshmi in Perth city. And we've been living here for 3.5 years already, so I guess our visit to Gogo's yesterday evening is long overdue.

Just a little bit of background on the Beaufort Street cafe strip. This area has a night life that is comparable to that in Northbridge, but on a smaller scale. This is mainly thanks to the Queens, which is always overflowing with pub-goers. There are many restaurants along this strip, including the highly-acclaimed (i.e. yuppy) Jackson's. You can get cuisines from Greece, Vietnam, Italy and Indonesia just to name a few. It's a good area we're living in - 20mins walk from Northbridge and the city, 5mins walk from the Beaufort Strip.

Back on topic, Gogo's curry house offers typical Indian dishes such as tikka masala, vindaloo and dhal, as well as lesser known dishes like saag paneer and paneer makanwala which are made using baked ricotta cheese. Prices for the main meals ranges from $14 up to $20. The main meals do not include accompaniments like rice, and you'd need to order it separately. Rice, naan bread, paratha cost $2.50 to $3.50 extra. The service at Gogo's was impeccable, however somehow I'd ordered rice as well as the naan bread. It was sometimes kinda difficult understanding what the Indian waiter was saying. It was just as well we had the rice anyway, otherwise the meal wouldn't have been satisfying. Gogo's is catered very much to the western taste and wallet size. I doubt I would see an Indian person coming to this place to have curry when they can choose from dozens other Indian places in nearby Northbridge offering much cheaper curry dishes.

Rob and I ordered the "Gogo's Selection" entree for $12.50, which included a
  • coconut prawn,
  • lamb samosa (big deep fried pastry thing),
  • chicken tikka (small chicken pieces grilled with tandoori spices and garam masala),
  • cheese kurkurie (goat cheese rolled in rice paper and deep-fried - looks like spring roll, but tastes nothing like it. Goat cheese has a strong taste, and is an acquired taste, I think. I didn't really like it that much because I only like mild tasting cheese like swiss cheese), and
  • shammi kebab (looks like meatball).
The entree was served with mint chutney and date & tamarind chutney. I liked the prawn and the chicken tikka. Overall, I thought the entree was rather pricey for its serving size. Now, to our main meals. I went for the "Goan Fish Curry" - fish fillets cooked in a tomato and coconut curry. It has 'fiery' as its description on the menu, but it wasn't really that chilli hot. But then I guess this place caters for the western tongue, and not mine which is used to my mum's delicious hot curries. The fish curry was nice, but like the waiter said, it's not an authentic Indian dish, but was adapted using the Malaysian and Singaporean style of cooking curries. Which would explain why it has fish in it (the Indian curries I'm used to utilises vegetables or red meat). Hence the fish curry was similar to the curries I'm accustomed to. Rob went for the "Baby Goat Curry Rogan Josh Style" - 'Kalbarri baby goat marinated in yoghurt and garam masala and cooked in kerala, muslim style' was the dish's description. We went for this dish primarily because we wanted to try goat meat. It tastes like mutton to me, and Rob said it tastes like red meat. This was nice with thick curry (as is typical of Indian curries), although not chilli hot. Kinda like beef rendang. Like I said before, we had rice and garlic naan bread to accompany our main dishes. The rice was yellow, prepared with turmeric, and the naan bread was nice although I thought it was swimming in a bit too much oil. I think I should have stayed with my original order of paratha (the waiter suggested naan bread). Rob ordered mango lassi, which was quite delicious. It had quite a nice strong mango taste and was thick and yoghurty.. Yum..
Overall, we liked the service and quality of the food at Gogo's, although we do think it is a bit pricey for the serving sizes offered (we paid $58.50 for our meal). At Red Turban on their 5 star buffet nights on Saturdays, for $28.50pp, we can get quality all-you-can-eat Indian food (with a huge selection of 8 salads and cold dishes, 12 hot dishes, choice of 6 desserts and free mango lassi), so I guess the next time we want Indian, we'll go back to Red Turban.

Friday 1 July 2005

Ambassador Chinese Restaurant in Cannington

"Ang-mor" (literally translates to "red-hair") Chinese food, or as my Australian father-in-law fondly calls it: "White man's Chinese" (which is in no way a racist remark made on my part). This is the bastardisation of authentic Chinese food, which is becoming more and more popular in the so-called 'authentic' Chinese restaurants around Perth. If you were brought up on it, this is how you see Chinese food - battered, deep-fried, glazed and fluoro-coloured with lots of seasoning and grease. And expensive! Well, probably not expensive in Western terms (where it's not uncommon to pay more than $25 for a slab of steak and a miserable pile of salad), which is why these "White man's Chinese" restaurants are exploiting this mentality. You will rarely encounter a Chinese in their right minds knowingly venturing into one of these 'Chinese' restaurants, unless of course it is with their in-laws who happen to be "ang-mor" people i.e. me last week when Rob's dad and his family decided to take us out for a belated birthday celebration (hehe, one of the good thing about having split parents is that you get to celebrate all occasions twice!! It's a birthday tradition between Rob and his mum to have Chinese take-outs, so we'd also had "ang-mor" Chinese take-outs a few weeks ago with her).

Now, I understand that not all westerners prefer "white man's Chinese" over authentic Chinese dishes, especially not Rob (although he does like it occassionally), so any reference to westerners in my review below refers to the general majority.

My FIL (father-in-law) wanted "white man's Chinese", which was why we had dinner at Ambassador Chinese Restaurant. So we sit and decide what to order. We decided that each person will choose one dish and share banquet style. Hence these were selected: peking spare-ribs (Rob's), sizzling beef (Nana), sizzling mango chicken (Rob's sister), special fried rice (FIL's wife), some squid dish (FIL) and tofu claypot (me!!). I did think the menu offerings were rather limited, but it was only after our meal when we were looking at the desserts from the menu that I realised that there was a separate more authentic chinese menu at the back. Sigh, if only Rob and I saw that before placing our orders.. but, hey, we're here to have "white man's Chinese", right?

The dishes were quite pricey, each costing $15 and up. Serving sizes are normal. The same dishes at the more authentic Chinese restaurants in Chinatown in Northbridge will cost upwards of $11 each.

    The peking spare-ribs had a thick batter coating on it with brightly coloured sauce, and all I could taste was grease. It wasn't even crispy. Yuck. I could only bear to have one piece. According to Ian on Huey's Cooking, you need to have very hot oil for deep frying, otherwise the batter will just absorb the oil.
    Both the sizzling dishes were done okay, but not anything outstandingly good worth mentioning.
    Fried rice was okay at best. Something that not many non-Asians know is that fried rice is actually made using left-over rice from the night before. Next time you go to a Chinese restaurant, take a look around. You will notice a pattern - most westerners will order fried rice, and most asians will order plain steamed rice that would have been cooked on the same day. Once again, a means of exploiting the general westerners' taste for everything fried. (Note: fried rice is nice, and is a great way of using up leftover rice instead of wasting them by throwing it out. In fact, you need to use overnight rice to have nice fried rice).
    The squid dish was actually quite nice. How to describe it? It wasn't battered or deep fried, but prepared as a dish with a light gravy similar to the egg sauce used in hofun. The squids were nice and tender and not at all rubbery, stringy and tough.
    The claypot dish was also done nicely. But then again, you can't really stuff up on the claypot dish unless the cook is really bad.

Here is Rob's opinion of the food at Ambassador. As Rob mentioned in his blog, the desserts at least were nicely done. Rob ordered fried ice-cream for me to try because I've never had it before, and I have to say it is quite nice.

All in all, Ambassador Restaurant was okay. But it is definitely not a restaurant I would deliberately go back to nor recommend to friends and family. Rob's family seemed to enjoy the meal, and I guess that's why they wanted "White man's Chinese". To each their own.