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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

Saturday 29 April 2006

The Way We Were

This post isn't about food, but it's about something that should be as important as food: Fitness. It is a bit long, but I hope that it will encourage somebody to be more fit and healthy. What got me onto this? The final episode of the Australian Biggest Loser was on TV last night (I only watch half of the finale because an episode of Lost was on at the same time - two out of the only three TV shows I watch too!), and there are some really inspiring stories. I guess that got me reminiscing about how unfit and big I used to be. With all our bikeriding and weight training, my friends and family reckon we are fitness freaks. A year ago, we were anything but that. We only started bike riding and weight training at the beginning of 2005, and are pleasantly surprised at how far we've progressed in just one year. In April 2005 it took us a little over 2hours to ride on our bicycles from Highgate to Joondalup (30kms). We had another go (our third attempt) at riding to Joondalup from Highgate a couple of weeks ago (i.e. 1 year since our first attempt), and we took 1.5 hours to complete the journey.

Rob is really proud of how well I'm progressing with my weight training and he reckons I ought to be proud too. I guess I am not so good at recognising my achievements myself (I am quite the perfectionist and tend to aim quite high and think that I can always do better) and rely on others to let me know when I'm doing good. The other day at the gym, one of the instructors walked by while I was doing my squats with a 45kg weighted barbell across my shoulders, and she heartily commended the effort saying that it is very tough. Rob was really chuffed on my behalf, but strangely I didn't feel much. I guess it's coz 45kg is nothing in comparison to what Rob does (95kg!) or what the others in the gym do. See, that's my problem - so far I have not seen any girls use the squat rack to do squats. All of the girls (and most guys) stay away from that equipment and use the machine equivalent or much lighter barbell weights. Some just stick to cardio machines like treadmill and cycling. The only ones who use this free weight machine are guys serious about weight training. So guys are all I have to compare my performance against..

Since young, I'd never been very athletic and never controlled the junk I ate. My dad even said I was the cuddly one - everyone wanted to hold and cuddle me when I was a kid. My parents' greasy Asian cooking didn't help either. Came uni years and I became even less active. Or maybe I ate more. Whatever it is, I think in 2001 I weighed at least 13kg more than I do now. Truth be told, I never tried dieting - I wasn't thin but I wasn't obese hence I didn't think it was necessary to lose weight. Besides, I loved my food and I didn't want to sacrifice anything! (That includes polishing off a packet of Timtams in one sitting *shudder*)

Everyone has to start somewhere. Rob moved into Highgate at the beginning of 2002, and since it was within walking distance to the city and Northbridge, he wanted to walk everywhere. I wasn't so enthusiastic - he had to literally drag me along. Back then it took about 30-35minutes to walk to Northbridge, and I kid you not - I had to stop every 10 minutes to rest and catch my breath - I was that unfit. And we weren't even walking fast! Needless to say, walking to Northbridge and Perth didn't happen very often. I started spending less time at home and more time at Rob's, and had a bit more control over the stuff we ate, but mind you we still ate a whole lot more junk compared to what we eat now. And healthy doesn't mean yucky - I honestly honestly much prefer the food we eat now - more wholesome, natural, less articial stuff that comes in packaged stuff and less junk like preservatives and flavours etc. Mind you, we don't deny ourselves chocolate and sweets - we have them almost every night after dinner but the only difference is we don't scoff lots down - control is the key. In that year, I lost about 5kgs, and I wasn't even trying! I guess I was really encouraged by that - it wasn't as impossible as I thought!

Then I officially moved in with Rob at the beginning of 2003. I still relied on a lot of the bottled sauces like Kantong and Chicken Tonight to make our dinners (geez, I honestly cannot remember the last time I used one of them in my cooking! Maybe last year?). I love cooking but I never was taught how to cook while I was at home (always enthusiastic to learn but my mum always gave me menial things to do like chopping onions). So I pretty well learnt cooking on my own using what little skills I picked up from observing my mum while chopping onions, and I found that I really enjoyed cooking! I loved experimenting with the different ingredients to make my own dishes, and Rob loved eating what I cooked. Anyway, I had even more control of the food we ate so we started eating more fresh produce, less packaged stuff, ate less Hungry Jack's etc - but I didn't cut down the amount of food I ate - the food were just healthier and better. I started walking more to Northbridge and Perth and found it easier each time. The weight just came off and I wasn't even dieting or doing any strenous exercise other than the odd walk (maybe weekly?) to and from Perth/Northbridge. I was stoked because I was finally the same weight as Honey, who was *always* at least a couple of kgs lighter than me.

2004 was a big year for me - I completed my thesis, graduated, began working and got married all in that year. I guess I had less time to take care of myself and I lost a bit more weight. People who hadn't seen me for a long time was amazed at how much weight I'd lost. We bought bicycles at the beginning of 2005 and started doing weight training around the same time. At the time, I complained lots and Rob had to literally drag me out cycling to my workplace or weight training (hm, see a pattern here? Rob's a big motivator and I'm really grateful for that). Since I wasn't eating *more* to compensate for these training, I think lost a bit too much weight. I think I wanted to prove to myself that I indeed do have control over my weight after all those "chubby" years.

My goals are different now. I'm trying to bulk up and put on *muscle* weight and get nice arms like Jillian (the trainer on the Biggest Loser) or Evangeline Lilly (aka Kate on Lost) or even Felicity Huffman (on Desperate Housewives). Because of how small I am now compared to how I was five years ago, I have trouble convincing people that I am actually quite obsessed with food and that I eat a lot (just ask Rob!). I like this 'bulking up' phase coz it means I get to eat more, however, it's not as simple as it seems. I have to put aside my fears of being big and chubby. And convince myself that the weight I put on will hopefully mainly be muscle mass and not fat. I eat small-ish but often - very often. This maintains my energy levels - which is so important especially to Rob because I get grumpy + moody when I don't get food! ;P I eat when I get the first signs of being hungry (hehe, which is when I start thinking about food). I pack lots of food to work and I usually have eaten all of them by 3pm. I feel like a pig too coz it seems like I'm the only one in my office who eats this much and this often! With this volume of food, it's important to keep it varied because it's easy for me to get tired of eating one type of food. So I can't simply double the portions of whatever I eat which poses a problem because I often run out of things to eat!

We are making good gains with our weight training and last night Rob pointed out that I'm now doing weights that are equal or more than what Rob was doing at the beginning of our weight training last year (e.g. started out doing squats with 20kg - I'm now doing 45kg; started out doing deadlifts with 24kg - now doing 65kg). I don't pretend that it's easy - it's really tough work but you get good results. And I don't pretend to like weight training - even after 15mths of doing the stuff, it's not something I look forward to.

Anyway, the point of this post is to encourage you to be more healthy. Your body and mind will love you for it.

Wednesday 26 April 2006

Apple Muffin

Mmm.. it's been awhile since I baked muffins. I have some extremely sour Granny Smith apples which is almost a torture to eat on its own so I decided to use them for baking (which I was originally planning to when I bought them but I think I got desperate for fruits at one point last week and ate one). Anyway, I have posted a muffin recipe before and I used that as a basis for this muffin recipe.

Ingredients
1 cup (125g) self raising flour
1 cup (125g) wholemeal self raising flour
1/4cup (50g) raw sugar
1 tsp ground cinammon
0.5 tsp ground nutmeg
2 tablespoons (40g) honey
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk
30g melted butter
1.25 cups (peeled, cored and chopped) apples

Method
Preheat the oven to 180degC. Mix the dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately, then combine until just blended. Fold in the chopped apples, whilst taking care not to overmix the batter otherwise the muffins will be tough. Pour the mixture into a 12-muffin tray, filling each muffin cup only 2/3 full. Place the muffin tray in preheated oven, and bake for 15-20mins. Best enjoyed fresh out of the oven.

Saturday 22 April 2006

Chinese-style roast pork with pickled ginger soba noodles

I roasted pork for the first time! And I did something different with the noodles. I usually would use noodles (so far have used somen, hofun, beehoon, egg noodles and soba noodles in my cooking) in stirfries or soups, so it was kinda nice to try something different with them. The recipe I looked at called for shaoxing (Chinese rice wine), something I didn't have and not likely to use a lot so I didn't go out to buy it. Instead, I used mirin (sweet cooking sake) and rice vinegar. I figured - mirin is alcohol made from rice so it shouldn't be too different to shaoxing, right? It was yummy anyway.. (Rob really liked it).

Chinese-style Roast Pork

Ingredients
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp grated ginger
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp mirin
1/2 tsp five spice powder
2 tbsp hoisin sauce
500g lean pork fillet, halved widthways

Method
Preheat the oven to 200degC. Combine all the ingredients except for the pork. Add about 2/3 of the mixture to the pork (the other 1/3 is for the soba noodles) and coat the meat well and allow to marinate for at least 15minutes in the fridge. Half-fill a roasting pan with water and rest a wire rack across the top and place the pork on the rack (reserve the marinade) and roast in the oven for 15minutes. Remove from the oven, brush with marinade, turn the pork and roast for a further 15 minutes until tender. Slice and serve with steamed rice (or the pickled ginger soba noodles) and veges.

Pickled Ginger Soba Noodles

Ingredients
150g soba noodles
2 tbsp sliced pickled ginger
1 tbsp sesame oil

Method
Prepare the noodles according to the packet instructions, then drain. Toss with the pickled ginger, sesame oil and remaining 1/3 marinade and serve in a bowl with the sliced roast pork and veges.

Tuesday 18 April 2006

Italian @ Siena's, Leederville

Now, we've been to Siena's many many times, with collegues, friends and family, and I have done a review for this diner before. On Sunday lunch, we caught up with Rob's mum and one of his brother's family at Siena's. We met their 3mth old baby boy, Nicholas, who had such rosy chubby cheeks. Rob's niece Tayler was her usual bubbly happy self.





Rob asked if I wanted to carry Nick. Usually I'll be jumping at the chance to hold a baby. Lately, I have been reluctant to do so, especially in the presence of my mum or Rob's mum. I don't want to give anyone any ideas that we want to start a family in the near future. My mum has tried this tactic before, asking me to hold a newborn baby at church a few months ago, probably hoping that it would make me all clucky and want to have kids. Don't get me wrong, I would love to be a mother one day in the far distant future, but not anytime soon.

Entree

We ordered three things to share for entree:

Traditional bruschetta topped with tomatoes, basil and garlic ($7.00) - this was ordinary. Very simple and would be a breeze to make your own at home.



Potato Croquettes ($8.00) filled with mozzarella and black pepper - this was nice, but once again so easy to make at home (hm, can you tell that I'm not much impressed with food I can do myself?).



Calamari Griglia ($14.00) - grilled marinated squids. This was yummy. A bit greasy, but hey, it's Italian food.



Mains

Now for some reason, I did not take any pictures of the food we ordered for our main meals. Rob ordered Pollo Siena ($21.50), which is chicken breast filled with prawns, spinach and capsicum in a cream and garlic sauce. This is one that Rob gets time and again. Creamy sauces don't agree with my stomach and the last time I ordered this dish, I had an unpleasant problem with my digestive system in the hours that followed.

I ordered the Scallop Fettucine which is fettucine with scallops and prawns, something that we'd had before. Supposed to come in a creamy sauce, but I requested for a tomato-based sauce, and it was still quite yummy.

Italian restaurants must make good business because Italian food is so simple and cheap to make, yet the cost of each dish kinda makes you wonder if it is really quite worth it. We usually use a buy 1 get 1 free voucher at Siena's (readily available from Hot Dockets), but it's not valid on public holidays so today's meal worked out to be quite pricey.

But anyway, we had a good time catching up with part of Rob's family and meeting the new baby.

Tsunami Sushi, Mosman Park (2nd time)

On Saturday night, Rob and I went out to dinner with Rinnie and her hubby Matt. Kinda like a double date. It's funny how you meet people. I met Rinnie two years ago on a wedding forum. At the time, we were both planning our respective weddings which were to happen later in 2004. Both of us were located in Perth so we kept in touch via email (in fact, she's one of the few people I have regular contact with via email), and we finally met in person around this time last year. Rinnie and Matt now have a gorgeous 4-month-old son whom we met earlier this year when we thought it wasn't gonna be a social fatality for us to meet our respective significant others and introduce them to each other. We had nothing to worry about - Rob and Matt got along so well, it's almost freaky. Both have interests in martial arts, birth days within 10 days of each other (same year too!) and once you get them talking on religious topics, there's no stopping them (that discussion continued for a good couple of weeks via email). Hehe, it was good catching up with them again, and nice to hang around other couples where it's not like going on a double date with my friend and her hubby but more like going on a double date with our friends, if you know what I mean.



Anyway, we've previously been to Tsunami for my birthday in November last year, so we knew the food, service and the atmosphere in general was good.

Entree

We really liked the unagi (marinated eel) (it was part of the exotic sushi set I ordered last time) so I ordered Unagi sushi ($7.50 for two pieces) for entree. It was simply lovely.



Rob went for the hotate - scallops in sake with shiitake & English spinach ($13.50). The scallop itself was nicely done, but we thought the sauce was a little bit too salty.



Rinnie and Matt went for what we had last time - Tsu-tsumi Age and Kaisen Age - and they said they liked it.

Mains

I really liked the salmon we had last time, so I ordered that again. My reason for that is I don't know when the next time I'll be back here, and if I want traditional Japanese food as available on the menu, soon I will be able to eat to my heart's content come August this year. Rob went for something more extravagant - Isa Ebi ($ 38.50) - whole crayfish lightly cooked with tobiko mornay and accompanied by nimono (seasonal vegetables). It was lovely, but methinks that it was too pricey and not substantial enough for a meal. Definitely not something we'd order all the time.



Rin and hubby went for salmon and the exotic sushi set respectively, exactly what we had last time. Tonight, I realise that you have to be adventurous to try the exotic sushi set because it contains 'different' stuff - I think we took it for granted that everyone's as adventurous as us when we suggested the exotic sushi for them to try. We're still not quite sure if they liked it.

Desserts

After dinner, we had yummy ice-cream. The ginger, black sesame and wasabi flavours were very tasty.


All in all, we had a lovely night, great food and wonderful company with discussions ranging from buying properties to Dungeons and Dragons games. Thanks guys - it's our turn next time :)

Friday 14 April 2006

Indian-spiced Chicken Curry

I love simple recipes, and this is one of them. Looking at recipes with a huge list of ingredients can be a bit daunting, and many times all you need for a yummy dish are only a few spices. Don't fret if you have one spice but not the other - make do with what you have. The original recipe called for garam masala and cayenne pepper, which I didn't have at the time, so I used what I had in my pantry (you'll find that I do that a lot with my cooking).

It's kinda weird using yoghurt in curries (for me anyway). I suppose it is used instead of coconut milk/cream as is usual in Malaysian/Thai curries. A whole lot healthier too. This is my second time using yoghurt in my cooking, and I am quite pleased with how this turned out. I didn't have any lemons on hand, so I used the beautifully fragrant leaves from my mum's kaffir lime tree. I also used fresh chilli padi picked from my mum's garden. A note of caution: chilli padi is quite spicy so you can use normal chilli (or none) instead. Using chicken pieces with bones and skin will add more flavour to the curry than fillets, but will need to increase cooking time to ensure the chicken is cooked. I've included potatoes to add some body to the curry.

Ingredients

500grams chicken fillet (breast or thighs), cut into bite-sizes
3/4 cup natural yoghurt
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbs grated ginger
3 or 4 red chilli padi, chopped
1 tsp ground paprika
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp ground cinammon
ground pepper, to taste
some oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 medium potato, cubed fairly small
1/2 cup chicken stock or water
3-4 kaffir lime leaves
salt to taste

Method

Combine half the yoghurt, garlic, ginger, chilli padi, and spices into a paste. Marinate the chicken in the mixture for at least 30minutes (or overnight if you can). Brown the chicken with some oil in a pan over high heat, then set aside. Turn down the heat to medium-high and brown the onion. Add the potato and stirfry for a couple of minutes, then add just enough water or chicken stock to deglaze the pan. Cook until potatoes are soft (but not mush) then add chicken, remaining yoghurt and the kaffir leaves into the pan. Cook for a further 5-10 minutes whilst enjoying the beautiful aroma. Add salt to taste and serve with basmati rice and stirfry veges.

Wednesday 12 April 2006

Japan?

I received good news last week. I got accepted into the JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) Program, which means that I will be going somewhere in Japan in August for at least 1 year. For those that don't know, the JET program is a really good program to be a part of. The program has a good reputation (has been running for 20years) and is organised by the government of Japan and their embassies/consulates in other countries to get 'young' people (under 40y/o) to live in Japan and promote 'internationalisation' in Japan. They run the application process once a year and the process is not easy and is rather long and tedious - submit written application by December, notification of interviews in January, interviews in February, notification of acceptance/rejection in April, notification of placements in May/June and fly off to Japan in August).

I'm really excited that I got in, because this is despite the fact that I have little background in Japanese language/history/culture. Rob and I started learning Japanese last year and I'm really enjoying it. I'm serious! For some reason I really enjoy learning languages. I really should continue with French and Mandarin..

Anyway, obviously there are lots to organise between now and August (like what to do with all our stuff?). And although 95% of me is really excited about living in Japan, the other 5% is a little apprehensive about leaving friends and family and living in a different country (main concern at the moment is the availability of food - yes, always thinking about my tummy, as one of my friends pointed out - we get so much variety to choose from in Australia, what about Japan?). But I've been itching to do something like this for a few years now, and this is an opportunity far too good to pass up. I won't know where in Japan I'll be placed until May/June, and I'm really hoping that I won't get some rural village..

In the meantime, I'll be treasuring what little time I have with my friends and family from now til my departure in August. Oh, and I'm also gonna take opportunity of the variety of food available here and try as many different recipes as I can and go to as many different restaurants as we can afford.

--

Updated to add: Apparently there were 60+ JET applicants that were interviewed in Perth, and only 30 who got short-listed and approximately another 30 who are placed on the alternate list (alternates are those that are on the 'waiting list' to take the place of those that drop out from the shortlist). Knowing this, I feel so thankful that I was chosen as one of the 50% interviewees who got on the shortlist.

Monday 10 April 2006

Kimchee House Korean Restaurant, Northbridge

On Friday, we took my parents out to dinner. Asked my parents to choose the type of cuisine they wanna try, and we'll pick the restaurant based on that. My dad suggested Korean, and there's this Korean place in Chinatown that Rob and I wanted to try so that was where we went for dinner. It's nice to try out Korean diners that aren't bbq-types like Seoul Korean or Arirang.



Cheeky brat:


Like Tookbegi, this restaurant is fairly small. I noticed a lot of the diners were Korean, so the place must be pretty authentic, right? The set up is also quite similar to Tookbegi - the counter is near the kitchen towards the back of the restaurant, not near the door as is the case for most restaurants.

The main dishes come with rice and the usual side dishes of kimchee and bean sprouts. Prices of main meals ranges from around $10 up to $20. I forgot the Korean names of the dishes we ordered, so will have to make do with my descriptions.

Seafood steamboat with sweet potato noodles (~$18pp, min 2) - although this was nice, I thought that the one we had at Tookbegi was tastier and had more stuff. Lots of prawns, some crab claws, mussels, clams and octopus.


dakbulgogi
Chicken bulgolgi (~$14) - A couple of friends who have been to Kimchee recommended getting the dakbulgogi, a sizzling chicken dish. That, I can confirm, was a very tasty choice.



Some soup dish with tofu and seafood marinara (~$10) - this did not have much taste. Unfortunately we didn't enjoy this dish as much as the other two.




Overall, the food was okay, but we preferred what we had at Tookbegi, which was slightly cheaper and more tasty. The dakbulgolgi is yummy though, and it's worth visiting this place just to try it out..

Went to Il Gelato after dinner to have gelato. Seth really enjoyed his banana gelato:

Sunday 9 April 2006

More photos of Sydney

Hm, I have these photos from our Sydney trip sitting in my photo directory, obviously for posting on my blog, but for some reason or other, it never got done. So here goes. I took some great panoramic shots from a cliff we hiked to on our trip to Manly but I have yet to figure out how to stitch them together.

At Manly

Standing at the beach end of The Corso - the main street in Manly.






Rob loves Gelatissimo - something we lack here in Perth.. here he is enjoying a nice cone of gelato:


Some shots at Sydney Uni

Despite recommendations to take the bus, we walked from Lynn's apartment in Haymarket to the university to meet up with Rob's friend. It only took us 20minutes. Hence we arrived earlier than planned, so I decided to grab some photos..



(Guess what this is)

Tuesday 4 April 2006

Almond biscotti

The term biscotti literally means 'twice-baked'. Baking it twice draws out moisture from the dough and makes it harder (and I like hard biscuits :9). It was a means to make food that will last for a long time.

Like most biscuit recipes, this is really simple and straightforward. The recipe I have is for a basic biscotti recipe - you can add ginger, chocolate bits, cocoa or anything you like really. Or do something more fancy like dip it in melted dark choc and drizzle melted white choc to make pretty patterns. I stuck to basic because it's quite nice in its own simple way. I haven't quite mastered how to make it look pretty and dainty like the ones you find in shops or cafes, but this is only my second try, and I will keep trying!


Ingredients

1/3 cup butter (75g), room temp
1/3 cup sugar (75g)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups plain flour (300g)
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup almonds (up to 1 cup if desired)

Method

1) Preheat oven to 180degC. If the almonds are raw, chuck it in hot oven for 10mins to roast them. Chop the roasted almonds (this tip will help in cutting the half-baked dough*).
2) Cream butter and sugar together, then add the vanilla essence and eggs and mix well.
3) Sift half the flour, baking powder and salt into the wet mixture and mix. Sift in the other half of the dry ingredients, add the almonds and mix well into a workable dough.
4) Put the dough onto a floured surface, and divide the dough mixture into two. Roll each into a log that is maybe 2 inches diameter. Place dough logs onto a lined/greased baking tray and bake in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Take it out and cool for at least half an hour. The cooling part is essential so that you have a semi-hard dough to slice (otherwise the dough may crumble into bits while slicing).
5) Using a nice sharp (preferably serrated) knife, slice the half-baked dough into 1 inch thick slices. Place side down onto baking tray and bake for further 10-15minutes, take it out to turn over on other side and bake for further 10 minutes.

*I didn't chop the almonds the first time I made biscotti, and found that the knife cut through the dough more easily than the almonds, which resulted in the almonds dragging through the dough and made it even more prone to crumbling. So using chopped almonds (or slivered almonds) is a good idea.

Sunday 2 April 2006

Valentino's Cafe Restaurant, Northbridge

As I previously mentioned, Valentino was taking part in Perth's Food and Wine Month, offering a $25 dinner deal for the whole of March. For $25, you get garlic bread, soup and main course as well as a glass of wine - that seemed like a pretty good deal and we went to try it out on Friday night (last day of March too!). We also took Rob's mum out with us to celebrate her ditching her old job and getting a new one.



Valentino is an Italian diner, but not a traditional one, serving Italian dishes fused with other cuisines. The restaurant itself is quite nice - pretty decor, good ambiance, spacious. Being a Friday night, it was quite busy but we found the service of the waitstaff to be friendly and attentive.

Now we come to the food. The description and prices of each dish were taken directly from the menu on Valentino's website.

SOUP OF THE DAY ($8.50). Today's soup was a spicy pumpkin soup. It was very yummy and tasty.



GARLIC BREAD (3 SLICES) ($4.50) - Smothered with garlic and toasted, served hot. What can I add? It's toasted bread with garlic butter. Quite greasy, but garlic bread usually are greasy.



GRILLED CHICKEN ($24.50) - Grilled chicken breast served with a potato & bacon Lyonnaise topped with tomato salsa & rocket oil. The chicken was quite plain, as you'd expect grilled chicken to be. The potato lyonnaise was quite tasty though :)



RISOTTO DE POLLO ($21.90) - Sauteed bean shoots, snow peas, capsicum, onion in tom yum and coconut broth topped with marinated chicken tenderloins and fresh coriander. You'd think it's weird to have tomyum flavoured risotto, but you can hardly taste the tomyum. Or the coriander for that matter. The rice itself was quite mildly flavoured - not spicy nor sour like tomyum. I think the defining feature of this dish was the chicken. It was so yummy. The marinade used was very tasty - makes up for the almost bland risotto.



Overall, we had a good time. It was a lot of food and we were quite full. After dinner, we sat around for another couple of hours and chatted. We don't drink alcohol, but Rob's mum does, and she enjoyed having two glasses of red and half of a white over the span of the three hours that we were at Valentino.