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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 28 August 2010

A few of our favourite food (places) in Tokyo

With only a few weeks left in Tokyo, our weekends are packed with meeting up with our friends in Tokyo, as well as preparing for the big move. We are also taking the opportunity to re-visit our favourite eats in Tokyo for one final time, and I just realised that none of the food covered in this post belongs to the Japanese cuisine. We will definitely try to find time for some sushi and okonomiyaki in the following weeks, and perhaps they can be another blog post.

Vietnamese @ Vietnam Frog

Sadly, we had our final Japanese lesson a few weeks ago. As a farewell thing, our Japanese teacher (of almost 3 years) suggested lunch at Vietnam Frog in Shiodome City. This is one of Maeno-san's favourite restaurants, and she goes there so often that the staff and chef know her by face and name. I've eaten there once before about a year ago with a friend, and I'd been meaning to go back for a second visit since. Rob ordered the Saigon Lunch which included an entrée, a special pho, and dessert with coffee. The entrée was beautifully presented, and contained several small portions of Vietnamese-style vegetables, meat, noodles and rice paper spring roll. The food were nice and refreshing, perfect for summer. The special pho turned out to be shark's fin, which sparked a conversation about the ethics of eating this delicacy.

The entrée dish of the Saigon Lunch set, and the shark's fin pho:

Almond jelly for dessert, and Vietnamese-style coffee (black coffee with a layer of condensed milk at the bottom of the glass, to be stirred before consuming):

I was keen to try Maeno-san's favourite dish: 空心菜セット (Kuushinsai Set). She explained that kuushinsai is her favourite green vegetable known as "morning glory", and it grabbed my attention because I remembered reading somewhere that it's another name for kangkung (aka water spinach), one of my favourite vegetables. This leafy veg is widely used in Southeast Asia, but it's not easy to get it in Japan, and when it is available here, it's very expensive. This set includes a choice of chicken or clam pho, well as a generous plate of the glorious leafy greens. The chicken noodles was satisfying and I enjoyed the whole plate of water spinach.

Pho and veg set:

We also got Bánh Xèo to share, which I've already written about before. It was deliciously crispy but not overly greasy.

Funny angled shot of the bánh xèo and the leafies that came with it:


Indian @ Nawab

Met up with my friends K and C for lunch at Nawab, which has been our favourite 'neighbourhood' Indian restaurant for the past 3 years (we moved some a few kilometers away from that location a couple of years ago, so it isn't really in the neighbourhood anymore!). Now, I've written about this restaurant many times before, and we've ordered these dishes just as many times before, so I'm just going to show a couple of collages of the dishes we had. Everything was good, as always, and I was pleasantly surprised to see long-grained rice in the biryani (the short-grained Japanese rice were used in all our previous experiences at Nawab, which made it uniquely different but still delicious).

Clockwise from top left: Seafood Salad, Mango Lassi (we failed several times getting Zak to take a sip of the lassi - he dislikes chilled food), Chicken Biryani (with long-grained rice!), and Garlic Naan and Mughlai Naan (raisins and cashews). Click for larger image:

Clockwise from top left: Chicken Tikka, Lamb Spinach (= saag mutton), Kulfi, and Chana Masala (click for larger image):


Korean @ Kanton no Omoide

Last weekend we headed into Korea-town for a fix of Korean food at Kanton no Omoide. I'll keep this fairly brief because we have been to this same place a few times before. The four dishes we ordered would actually be considered as side dishes by the Koreans, but they filled up four adult bellies quite nicely for lunch.

The banchan (complimentary small dishes); and our order: Chapchae, Seafood Chijimi, Ddeokbokki with chicken eggs and quail eggs, and Kaki Chijimi (oyster pancake):


As is our tradition whenever we're in K-town, we stopped by this vendor for some hot-off-the-grill Honey-flavoured Hoddeok. For obvious reasons, this is not very popular during the midday heat in the middle of summer, but it was delicious. This time, the honey filling was accompanied very well with cinnamon.



The food will be one of the many things we will miss about Japan when we leave, but I have a feeling we will probably enjoy the dining scene in Hong Kong even more!

Saturday 21 August 2010

Tokyo summer fun out of the sun

A few weeks ago, I wrote about some of the fun ways to keep cool with a toddler during summer at no out-of-pocket expense. This is about activities that will cost a little bit, but which are also fun for the adults. For those who have never experienced summer in Tokyo, the days can be uncomfortably warm (it was 38degC the other day), made unbearable with humidity. It's generally wise to stay indoors during the hot days, and the following were a few of the family outings we had over the past month while keeping out of the summer heat.


Noppon Land

We went to Noppon Land on the 4th floor of Tokyo Tower with my friend E, her husband and her two gorgeous girls. Noppon Land is targeted towards small children younger than 8 years old, and you pay for however long you use the facility (300yen for adults and 400yen for kids for the first 30 minutes, and additional 100yen for every 10 minutes thereafter). There are basically 3 areas: a large pool of colourful balls, a bouncy area, and a small area of large cushion stacking blocks for children too young to play in the other two areas. There is also Noppon's Magical Dungeon located adjacent to Noppon Land, which is aimed at children older than 4 years old (up to junior high school age).

Drowning in a sea of colourful balls! And the bouncy castle gave a surprisingly good workout!


The waffles and ice cream after that workout was totally optional, of course:



Tokyo Sea Life Park

We headed to this aquarium (Kasai Rinkai Suizokuen, aka Tokyo Sea Life Park) where Zak saw his first live tuna, sharks, penguins, turtle, puffins and countless other fish and marine creatures. Kids under 12 enter for free, so technically this is a 'free' activity for toddlers, but obviously they do need accompanying paying adults. The aquarium is also located within a large waterfront park complete with a ferris wheel, which would be great for exploring and hanging out in cooler weather.

Fixated at the aquarium window; and a huge blue groper which was larger than Zak!


At the penguin enclosure; and saying hello to Mr (or Mrs?) Turtle:


Getting Zak to do the touristy thing and pose next to the giant tuna statue, and then Honey wanted to join in on the fun too:



Tokyo Bay Fireworks

Okay, so I'm stretching it a little with this one because this was an evening event when the sun had already gone down, but we enjoyed viewing the fireworks from a friend's 48th floor apartment. We live a little closer to Tokyo Bay than my friend, and we could've watched the fireworks from our apartment, but the general view from S's place was amazing! Zak loved the pretty "flower fire" (as it's translated from the Japanese word for fireworks, hanabi) that lit up the skies, but he probably enjoyed more playing tea with S's daughter, who is only a few weeks younger than him. There are a lot of fireworks happening in and around Tokyo during the whole summer, but with more than 12,000 fireworks, the Tokyo Wan Hanabi Taikai (Tokyo Bay Firework Festival) is one of the biggest in Tokyo.



"Would you like a cup of tea?" is what little M would've said to Zak:



(You may notice that Zak is wearing the same jinbei (traditional Japanese summer outfit) in all the photos which were taken on different weekends several weeks apart, but it's purely coincidental. In fact, he doesn't really get much opportunity to wear it, and is quickly outgrowing it.)

Saturday 14 August 2010

Pandan Chiffon Cake

It seems like ages since I last baked something just for the fun of it. It certainly has been a long time since I last used my tube cake pan to make a chiffon cake, simply because the only free time I have is when the boy is asleep, and the sound of the electric mixer ringing through our small apartment is not terribly conducive for a good sleep environment. The other day, when rain cancelled playgroup and forced us to stay indoors, I spontaneously decided to bake a chiffon cake since I found myself with an extra 1.5 hours on my hands. Zak was happy playing on his own during the 30 or so minutes it took for me to get the cake in the oven, after which it was a fairly straightforward process of leaving it to bake and then removing from the oven to cool down. The boy was enthralled as he watched me take on the painstaking task of removing the cake from the tube pan.

Pandan chiffon cake is a popular Malaysian cake, loved for its light, fluffy texture and delicious pandan flavour. The pandan leaf is very widely used in South-east Asian cuisine and imparts a beautiful delicate fragrant in both sweet and savoury dishes. I had a small jar of pandan flavouring that I'd bought awhile back during one of our trips to Malaysia, and I was saving it for the next time I was inspired to bake a chiffon cake. There wasn't any detail on the little jar as to how much to use (there wasn't even a list of ingredients beyond "permitted food flavouring and colouring" and "without alcohol", in Malay), and I should have done the smart thing and googled about it because I probably used too much of it. Both hubby and sister said the cake was good, but I personally thought it tasted a little bitter, which I think may be due to the excess green stuff I used. I didn't give Zak any of the cake because of the additional (artificial?) green colouring in the pandan paste. Anyway, how can I learn if I don't make mistakes? And I was pleased enough that the cake didn't flop and sink.



To make this chiffon cake, I basically duplicated my Orange Chiffon Cake recipe with the following modifications:
- substituted orange juice with a pandan solution (adding water to the flavouring to make up equal fluid volume)
- used extra-virgin olive oil because I didn't have any other oil in the house (it was raining, and I was on my own with Zak so it wasn't practical to head out to grab suitable oil)
- used yolks and whites from 3 large eggs (as opposed to 3 egg yolks and 4 egg whites)
- used only flour, because in my haste to measure and assemble everything, I forgot that I'd intended to use cornstarch too

The resulting pandan chiffon cake had a coarser texture than the orange chiffon cake (didn't use cornstarch), and it wasn't quite as tall (used less egg whites). The EVOO wasn't as overwhelming as I thought it would be, but then again, it would be hard to overwhelm that pandan flavour with the amount I used. Next time I make Pandan Chiffon Cake, I'll use only 3/4 teaspoon of the pandan paste (though I doubt I'll ever find that same bottle again outside of Malaysia), or better still, use the real stuff made from the juice of pandan leaf.

Saturday 7 August 2010

Our Cooking Project #7: Choco-Banana Muffins (feat. Zak!)

My son is not yet 2, but not long ago I entertained the idea of doing a cooking project with him, for no reason other than that it would be fun. Of course, I had misgivings about this idea, wondering if it would be a recipe for disaster instead of a fun-in-the-kitchen activity, and whether or not a 21 month-old toddler is a little too young to be helping out in the kitchen. With that in mind, I set up a few things to keep any disaster at bay, such as selecting a simple recipe, pre-measuring out all the ingredients, and enlisting my husband's assistance with the activity. In addition, for practical (and safety) purposes, because our Tokyo kitchen is too small for more than one person to be in it, the main part of the 'cooking' was done in the dining/lounge area. Hubby also sensibly kept the boy in nothing but his nappy, and we utilised both the dining table and high chair.

Muffins are really easy to execute and quite fool-proof, and we enjoyed making Choco-Banana Muffins (adapted from a previous banana muffin recipe). My boy has allergies to soy, nuts (including coconut) and sesame, so I kept the ingredient list fairly simple but it was delicious anyway. (Take note that this is a healthy muffin recipe intended to be healthy enough for toddlers, so it's not as sweet and fatty as muffins usually are.) When we first started our cooking projects idea, we'd initially intended it to be a couple thing; however, we are more than happy to include our son in future projects, because he makes the photos a little more pleasing to the eye!



Choco-Banana Muffin

Ingredients

2 cups (250g) flour (I used 50-50 wholemeal and plain)
3 teaspoons baking powder
4 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 cup (50g) sugar
1 cup bananas (about 2 large or 3 medium sized bananas), mashed
3/4 cup (150mL) milk
2 eggs
50g butter, melted

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180degC.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa into a mixing bowl.
3. Add the sugar to the flour mix, and stir to combine.

Mixing the dry ingredients:


4. Mix the wet ingredients (mashed bananas, milk, eggs and butter) together.
5. Combine wet and dry mixtures until just blended (avoid over-mixing otherwise you'll have tough-textured muffins).

Combining the wet and dry ingredients:


6. Pour the mixture into a 12-muffin tray, filling each muffin cup only 2/3 full.
7. Place the muffin tray in preheated oven, and bake for 15-20mins or until a toothpick comes out clean when poked into a muffin.



Best enjoyed fresh out of the oven, and okay for freezing too.

Zak demonstrating one of the many ways to enjoy the muffin: