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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

Sunday 20 November 2005

Birthday dinner with family - Peking Duck dinner @ Warwick

Celebrated my birthday with Honey and took my family to peking duck dinner at Warwick Chinese Restaurant. Since I've already posted a previous blog entry for this food, I'll just post the photos up. I won't write much because pictures speak a thousand words.

1st Course: Crispy duck skin with thin pancake



2nd Course: Duck soup



3rd Course: Sang Choy Bao



Extra dish: Combination Hofun

We ordered an extra dish because Rob and Faye said they wanted more food. There were lots of seafood and meat served with this dish, and whilst the meat were nicely seasoned and marinated, the noodles themselves were rather bland and quite oily. Methinks for $14+, it's not worth it - better off going to Malaysian Gourmet in Broadway, Nedlands near UWA and pay $6.80 for a much more tasty hofun :)




Miscellaneous photos of family













Sunday 13 November 2005

Tsunami Sushi in Mosman Park

Rob brought me out to dinner at Tsunami Sushi for a belated birthday celebration. We were actually booked at least a couple of months in advance to go to the Loose Box in Mundaring last Saturday, which is touted to be the *best* restaurant (not just the best French restaurant) in Perth, but alas, Rob fell sick the day before and had to cancel. Unfortunately, the restaurant was fully booked the following Saturday and I thought that any later wouldn't really feel like a birthday celebration, you know? Besides, it costs $95 per person for a 4-course meal at Loose Box and further consideration on my part led me to realise that $190 is actually more than how much I pay to support my Ethiopian sponsor kid for four months! (The chef and owner of the Loose Box, Alain Fabregues, has received many, many awards, including the exclusive Meilleurs Ouvriers de France in 1991 bestowed by the French president himself so we were quite eager to try this place out to see if it was worth all the fuss.)

Anyway, I did some looking around for restaurants I would like to try, and finally settled on Tsunami in Mosman Park. I love Japanese food, and I want to try something different, so this was a fantastic choice. It's modern Japanese cuisine, and we like the fact that the they serve innovative Japanese food, not just the standard sushi and noodles. The place is casual fine dining, so it's not too 'everyday' for a birthday celebration. It is not a traditional Japanese restaurant, but it's not a "fake" Japanese place because the chefs and manager are Japanese (something I appreciate). Hehe, I also like the FAQs page on their website.



The setting is quite un-Japanese. We were seated out the front near the entrance which is more suited for an intimate setting for groups of no more than four or five. There is a function area out the back, which is good for bigger groups. I really liked the atmosphere of the place - it added to the enjoyment of the evening. The service was impeccable. Very friendly and prompt.





Now, my favourite part - the food! You can actually view their menu online, but the one at the restaurant itself had more choices because I imagine they'd update it more regularly with new offerings. After some deliberation over the menu, we chose the following dishes:

Entree

Rob picked the Tsu-tsumi Age ($13.50): prawns wrapped in somen noodles which are then quickly deep-fried. This was interesting, and the noodle-wrapping weren't all that greasy for something that has been deep-fried.



I chose the Kaisen Age ($13.50) which comprised of soft-shelled crab (middle), prawn dumplings (bottom left and top right), scallop covered in 'panko' breadcrumbs (bottom right) and crab claw dumpling (top left). Unfortunately for me, all of the items were deep fried, and a little bit too greasy. It was interesting eating the crab whole with its 'shell' but it doesn't have much flesh to enjoy and you'd probably eat it for the novelty of the idea rather than to fill your stomach up. The nicest one on this plate was the crab dumpling.



Mains

The Salmon dish ($27.50) was Tsunami's signature dish, so of course we had to try that. The salmon was char-grilled, wrapped with green tea noodles and served with sweet potato mash and zucchini. It looks very French. The salmon looks like it's drowning, but the sauce was beautiful! It had a familiar taste to it, but we couldn't figure out what it was. Probably some onion teriyaki flavour? We still don't know. I usually don't approve of drowning the delicate flavour of fish with sauce, but this sauce went really well with the salmon and everything else on the plate.



I went with the Exotic Sushi set ($29.50), which had two pieces each of unagi (grilled eel - bottom left), salmon roe (bottom right), uni (sea urchin roe - top right) and flying fish roe with quail egg yolk (top left). This set was meant to come with toro (tuna belly) subject to availability, and they ran out of the stuff so they replaced it with salmon roe sushi instead. Honestly, I probably went for this dish because I wanted to try uni - something I've wanted to try since first seeing it on Iron Chef (I love that show!). Uni has a very mild taste - kinda sweet-ish, but with a distinct fishy (but very mildly so) taste. The unagi was beautifully done - so tender and the marinade was very yummy. Probably the best unagi I've tasted. The quail egg yolk (raw) actually went well with the flying fish roe. This doesn't look much but I was certainly full by the end of it!



Dessert

The dessert menu contained several flavours of ice-cream (amongst other dessert items like creme brulee and cookies), and thankfully they have the 'taster' option where we can choose 3 scoops of ice cream ($10.50). We chose that option and went with the following flavours: Sesame, Ginger and Wasabi. The restaurant was nice enough to give us one piece of yukimi daifuku icecream to try for free (we'd enquired about it). The sesame flavour was very subtle. The ginger one was yummy (I love ginger!). And the wasabi one was surprisingly good. I'd definitely try that one again. The waitress informed us that they are currently working on a sashimi flavoured ice cream. That's something I'd love to try!


I had a really good time at Tsunami. I left the place really happy and pleased. The total cost of the food came to $99, which is not much more than what we'd have had to pay at the Loose Box for one person.

Saturday 12 November 2005

International Banquet @ ECG

As part of the first Faith Promise at my family's church, Endeavour Christian Gathering, an International Banquet was held on Friday night. The ladies in the church put a lot of effort into organising tonight's food, and there were tables showcasing the food from different countries. Here are the photos for the benefit of those who were unfortunate enough to miss it.

Zambia




Scotland




Malaysia/Singapore








Korea






Japan








Ireland




Holland




Australia




America






Out of the variety of food available, I must admit that I thought that the tastiest food was the Malaysian/Singaporean ones. And I don't think it's because I'm biased towards the cuisine (c'mon, if you grew up eating the food, you'd grow tired of it right?). I think it's because Asians like to add lots of flavoursome things like soy sauce and oyster sauce etc etc, and the ladies who prepared these dishes are experts at cooking those foods.

Saturday 5 November 2005

Strawberry cheesecake and jelly

Strawberry Cheesecake

At my workplace, it is customary, to the point of it being an obligation, to hold a morning tea to celebrate your birthday. It is usual to buy sausage rolls for everyone (what happened to birthday cakes??), but since I don't like sausage rolls (my stomach doesn't either!) I figured that I didn't have to buy them, so I decided to make something sweet instead..

This is a recipe from Rob's mum, and it is the only cheesecake that Rob can eat without feeling too OTT. I did this for Christmas two years ago I think and it turned out well so I thought I'd give it another go. Mind you, it's not foolproof - it can go wrong. Just make sure that the ingredients for the cheesecake are added gradually. We kinda thought it'd be okay to chuck all in at the same time and it wasn't a good idea. The blender was brought out as a last resort (whilst desperately hoping it was okay to use a blender), and never fear, all was nice and smooth. The cheesecake set beautifully and was enjoyed by all. I must admit that it was slightly lighter than usual, which is a good thing as I can't enjoy rich things. One of my collegues did ask if it was a cheesecake or a mousse. Hm. Must be the result of using the blender. Must keep that in mind next time I want that effect.

Base

Ingredients
1 pkt Granita Biscuits - Crumbed
3oz (90g) Melted Butter
2 tsps Hot Water

Method
Mix all ingredients well. Press into base of springform tin. Chill
in refrigerator.

Cheesecake 'topping'

Ingredients
1 tblsp Gelatine
1/4 cup Hot Water
340g Philedelphia Cream Cheese - Softened at Room Temperature
1/2 cup Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
1/4 cup Lemon Juice (we used 1 lemon)
15oz can Strawberries - Drained (Keep the Juice)
1/4 cup syrup from can of strawberries
250mL whipping Cream

Method
Dissolve the gelatine in hot water. Beat cream cheese until smooth. Gradually add the sugar, dissolved gelatine, vanilla essence, lemon juice and 1/4 cup strawberry syrup. Blend well (this part gave us the idea it was okay to use a blender). Beat cream until just stiff (it helps if you have a mixer, even a manual one - it would take forever to beat the cream with a fork!). Fold in cream and drained fruit into cheese mixture. Pour onto prepared crumb crust. Chill until firm.



Strawberry Jelly

Whenever we use canned fruits, we always have leftover juice and I use them to make jelly (we don't buy the syrup ones hence no artificial flavours or added sugars). Last week, we opened three cans of fruits (can of peaches, can of two fruits and the strawberries from making the cheesecake) and hence had lots of leftover juice. So I decided to make jelly using plain gelatine and the juice (yep I chucked all three different types of juices together) and some fresh strawberries. It turned out surprisingly well (I didn't really expect the juice to mix so well together). I was somewhat surprised that the berries floated but that just added to the aesthetic effect. It was not overly sweet, and according to Rob, who loves having his jelly with ice-cream (is it just me who thinks that's a weird combo?), the jelly goes well with the Connoiseur passionfruit panna cotta ice cream. Hm.. I didn't agree with him, but everyone is entitled to their own tastes.