Triple Decker

A few nights ago, hubby and i hope to re-make the triple decker sandwich we had in Alkmaar, as made specially by Niels.

After work, hubby stopped at a mini-market to get some eggs, tomatoes, onions, fresh bread, and a bottle of mayonese. As i got home earlier than hubby, i quickly removed 3 slices of burger and some party sausages from the freezer.

Tadaa, the end result as below:-

We didnt toast the bread but as you see in the last picture, the triple decker sandwich turned out to be abit sloppy as the base was not "hardy" enough to hold the meat & egg on top. ;-P

It was a satisfying meal but we still miss Niels' special triple decker toast!! NYOM NYOM NYOM!!

Our Balik Kampong Highlights

We began our journey to hubby's hometown on last Saturday for the long weekend as Monday was a "cuti ganti" for Awal Muharam which falls on Sunday. ;-))

Weather was extremely lovely for a long drive on that day but predictably, Malaysians love to travel on any given long weekends, hence the extreme traffic jam on the North-South highway. Hubby & i endured the massive jam cheerfully as we have "missions" ahead to be accomplished! We arrived at Ipoh at 1.45pm after a 3.5 hours drive where usually it only takes 2.5 hrs drive  from Kuala Lumpur. A picture of beautiful Ipoh on a lovely afternoon!

We made our 1st stop at Lou Wong, famous for its steamed chicken to go with rice & noodles for our late lunch. We only managed to snap one picture there (as above) as the place was crowded with non-locals i believe and we had to share a table with strangers. Food came within  5 mins from our order time and was finished within the next 15 minutes. ;-p Hubby was hungry, so i gave him 1/2 share of my rice after he finished his bowl of kueh teow. The steamed chicken meat was tender but it was drenched in soy sauce which were too salty that it "tingle" my tongue slightly. The meat and fishballs were not the best but good to add variant to our lunch. The bill came to RM28 for two for the portion above. Quite expensive i must say.

After our so-so lunch, we made a stop at Ramli Mee Rebus to take away 7 packets of noodles. The shop was crowded as it was another popular shop but this time it's amongst the locals. Hubby discovered this plain looking shop with yummlicious mee rebus when he work-based in Ipoh. It's only RM3.90 per serving with one hard-boiled egg, fried tau fu, potatoes and shrimp crackers served with yellow noodles in "bunga ketam" based soup. You have to try this if you like mee rebus when you visit Ipoh!

Then, we managed to get the fresh pearl corn from another popular stall which closes as early as 3.30pm. The corn is so good and fresh that you can actually peel and eat it raw without having to steam or grilled it first. Hubby used to buy a few stalks for me almost every weekend when he was based in Ipoh. Good for my diet as well as i sometimes eat this alone for lunch/dinner. Oh i heart this juicy sweet pearl corn! Hehe!

Next, we made a stop in Taiping to visit my grandma and we passed her 2 stalks of corn, 2 packets of mee rebus and some other goodies. Grandma was delighted to see us. I've been wanting to visit her but everytime we didn't have time to do so. I am glad we managed to see her sooner than Chinese New Year. ;-D

We reached hubby's hometown only at 7pm. We reheat the mee rebus and had it for dinner. Hubby had 2 packets (picture above) and our missions for the day accomplished. Tee hee...till our next balik kampong makan missions!

Fried Rice ala Chef Holland

Nah, I am not that big-headed to call myself a Chef in its proper meaning. Not yet at least. I have high standards and have not reached my own minimum requirement yet. But as you will see, this fried rice can be done by chefs – the dim-witted ones - like me.

Ingredients : Romanian salad, plain rice with tiny bits of luncheon meat and leeks bought at the grocery store, boneless chicken meat, dark soya sauce, Worcestershire sauce, sweet soya sauce. Note that if you are hardworking, you might want to cook your own rice and not buy it like me. So happened that either I was in a lazy mood that day or in a hurry, so I opted to speed through the whole process without cooking rice.   

   

 

Step 1: Fry some minced garlic in any oil. See, not fussy at all! For me, I like to use the Asian Wok Oil as it is lighter and has a hint of basil and red peppers compared to the thicker, extra virgin olive oil. But fear not, on days when I feel health conscious, I opt for the latter. To tell the truth, I cannot tell the difference; all said and done; when the dish is ready; it tastes the same whatever oil I use.  

Oh yes, preferably fry the garlic until it turns golden brown. Nice delicate wording. That is why I like to say it here. On occasions when the garlic and oil goes splattering like a crazy volcano, I do not wait until it turns golden brown. I just move on to Step 2.

Step 2 : Add the chicken blocks which I have cut earlier into the pan. Fry the chicken until fully cooked. How do I know if it is fully cooked? Well, I try the chicken for myself. If it tastes alright, it must be cooked, not?

Expert note : How fast the chicken cubes cook depend on how big the fire is and how much you bounce them in the pan. The general rule is the quicker you bounce the cubes per-second, the faster by 1/100^th of a second that they are 100% fully cooked.

Step 3 : Add the rice and the shreds of Romanian salad into the pan. After that, add sweet soya sauce, Worcestershire sauce and dark soya sauce inside. Stir fry the medley together. The Romanian salad can be eaten raw also, so it does not need to be fully cooked.

Step 4 : The fried rice is ready to be served! Enjoy and gloat about your cooking skills while the dish is still piping hot! 

November 27^th, 2011, 0138

The love of food made funny 

The Simpleton of Food

Every once a week or so, hubby and I would have a simple meal of “oven food” as we call it. These are the days when both of us are out the whole day and are back only at night; and by that it is a late night at 9.30 pm after a day in Almere.

Most of the time, we are tired and do not feel like cooking. We would then salvage anything we can find from the freezer as good, old dinner. We have in our freezer chicken nuggets, hash browns, Asian Mix (a potpourri of different finger food) and Indian-spiced French fries.

The food would take about 20 minutes to be ready from the oven. We would then relax on our sofa, look into each other’s eyes romantically and wait for the food to be ready. Then when the oven bell rings signifying the food is all baked, we would look into each other’s eyes again; this time quizzing – now, who will take the food out of the oven and lay the table proper?

 My favourite finger food is the big, round hash brown in the right hand side of the photo . They contain basil, onions and potatoes.

Our dinner arranged fine dining style. I'm always impressed with the way contestants in Master Chef arranged their palate so I hope this does impress Gordan Ramsey!

To tell our dear reader something, our sofa is really that comfortable! Cottony and soft; we have also placed a Dutch sheep skin rug on it. The sheep skin rug warms us up from a cold autumn.

That aside, all said and done, we have dinner together. Dips of mayonnaise and chilli sauce does wonders to add sizzle! Normally we have salad to go with it but on that particular day when the photos were taken, we did not have salad. So if my mother is reading this, she would probably shake her head! 

On a Crusade for Asian Food in Alkmaar

The murtabak is slightly different from the Malaysian styled cousin which is flatter and contains less ingredients. The Indonesian murtabak (on the left) is like a cake with vegetable and chicken filling inside. The prawn cracker on the right is huge and could be a meal of its own I believe!

Here is my meal served on a plastic plate with plastic spoon. I guess this is as close as it gets to economy rice in Malaysia. Well, though, I would not mind dining with fine china too!

Yet again on a foggy, windy day, I was tempted away from a simple, homemade sandwich for lunch and opted instead to go out to eat Asian food in Alkmaar. Having called a friend, we decided on Vietnamese. There is a Vietnamese stall in the Dagmarkt (Day Market). The food is delicious but the opening hours are erratic. It seemed like the owner is only doing the business for side-income.

We did take our chances but unfortunately the stall was closed. So we decided with either Indian or Indonesian food. We opted for Indonesian as the Indian restaurant was really dark and I did not feel like eating in the dark. By the way, lots of restaurants in Holland are really dark and only candle-lit, yet this one is notch darker.

I am for pleasant eating scenarios where I can see my food clearly. The Indonesian café (not so much a restaurant as they mostly cater for takeaway but foodies are free to sit and eat there if they wish) was just around the corner from the Indian restaurant. It was lunch hour and it was extremely crowded given that the space inside was long and narrow. Just like a typical Chinatown house setting.

We had to wait to order. Basically you can choose from the twenty yummy dishes. It is like economy rice/noodles in Malaysia. The plus here is that the food is reheated for you in the microwave so your dish is brimming hot.

There were meat varieties, vegetables, bean-curd, murtabak, prawn crackers and even rice dumplings (ba chang) to choose from. I chose rice with curry chicken, bean-curd and mixed vegetables. My friend and I decided to share a murtabak and prawn cracker to top it up.

The meal was delicious. I enjoyed it a lot. The interior had rattan chairs and wooden tables. It could however only cater for a maximum of ten people eating due to lack of space.

So after the meal, with a full belly, it was back home for housework with revived energy!

JoJo's Little Kitchen

Last night, it was a breezy night and hubby were suggesting Shi Fu wan tan mee or Wo Pin fish head noodles for dinner, both places are our regular dinner place. I am not keen on either as we had Wo Pin fish head noodles only on last Thursday.

I suggested pan mee at JoJo's Little Kitchen, our 1st visit to this branch in Mahkota Cheras and glad that we made a good choice of food here. See for yourself below:-

I ordered the original pan mee in soup and hubby ordered the thin pan mee (in dry version). I preferred mine as the taste is simpler, authentic and perfect for a breezy night. We also ordered one bowl of tau fu fa in soy milk to share as pencuci mulut (direct translation is "mouth washer" which means dessert in Malay language). We decided to skip the tau fu fa next round as it is not as good as it looked. The texture of the tau fu fa fails miserably although it looked silky from the surface.

Well, this is not the best pan mee place to recommend to a local but it is a convenient option for us as it is near to our home and best of all, after the meal, we don't feel thirsty. Good indication that MSG was used sparingly in their soup for the noodles as we emptied the whole bowl.

We will definately return to this place for their other types of pan mee soon. I already have lor pan mee in my mind to try out next. ;-p

P/S:- If you are new to pan mee, please click here for the details:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_mee

Macaroni in Pumpkin Sauce

Two nights ago, i arrived home from work feeling ill, head aching, lack of appetite and slightly cranky. I took out a tupperware consist of stir fried pumpkin cubes with roast pork which mom made for us on Saturday from the fridge. It looked dry and very unappertizing to go with rice nor noodles but i left it in the kitchen for hubby to handle.

Sloopily, i plopped myself into the sofa in front of the tv and dooze off. One hour later, i woke up to this merry sight:-

Dear hubby got creative and mashed the pumpkin cubes into sauce to go with macaroni (one of my favourite pasta). He also added sausages and cheese. After this hearty meal, my head immediately stopped aching, my mood lifted up and i am completely refreshed after dinner. ;-D The power of a good meal. I feel truly blessed to have a creative chef which happens to cook what i fancy on that day.

XOXO, Mic

Food marathon

It was hubby's birthday on last Sunday which marks a rhythmic number this year:- 20.11.2011.

Although it was intended to be a laid back celebration this year as we are still busy with our holidays laundry, cleaning the house task, and day-dreaming, Ho...to our surprise, it turned out to be a food marathon celebration. Here come the pictures:-

We started our food marathon on hubby's birthday's eve at Tony Romas. Hubby ordered a short rib & i had the BBQ half rib. Portion were huge as you can see from the pictures above. Then, we went to Overtime for a pint of Starker aromatic beer as 2 of my girlfriends were there. After the beer, we called it a night.

The next day, we continued our food marathon at E-Curve with a late lunch at Senjyu Sushi. After our late lunch, we bought tickets to watch Immortals at 5.30pm. Whilst waiting for our showtime, we have nothing better to do or see, so we went to Dome for a cuppa drink. We ordered Cherrylicious as it looks very tempting in the menu just like the picture above. Well, looks can be deceiving. I am now sure to conclude that i don't fancy the cold blended drinks from Dome as i find them to be one dimensional sweet, over-chocholaty & cloying even from the 1st sip which i experienced the same in my previous order of another variant of their cold blended drinks. However, it could be just me as hubby enjoyed it and finished the whole glass by himself. Hee...that save me a thousand calories at least. Lucky me! *Batting eyelids*

We spent an hour or so at Dome reading. They have a wide & good selection of reading materials there if  you intend to kill some time just like us. I grabbed myself a Harper's Bazaar (Nov edition) and time flies! Thereafter we need to rush to the cinema as we realised we asked for the bill only at 5.30pm. ;-P

Luckily we managed to get into our seats during the commercial time, just before our movie starts. I enjoyed the movie surprisingly and even recommends one to watch it although it wasn't in my watching list consideration to begin with. Hubby made the movie choice and since it was his birthday, i didn't insist on watching Tin Tin or Puss in Boots. ;-P

After movie, we head to Funky Villa for an authentic Thai cuisine. Well, we licked everything clean as you can see. ;-P Need no further description of the food.

 It was a fun weekend where we did not plan for a celebration but things just fall nicely for us. It is a sweet celebration after all with good food and self-pampering especially for the tummy. ;-D

Love, Mic

Enlightened by the Buddha in Almere

On a foggy morning at 2'C I was in Almere. Thinking that the library would be warmly heated, as it always were when I was here, I was to be surprised. I was quite cold, or was it perhaps the yummy Malaysian porridge which Mic bought for me (prawn flavour to be accurate) which I had for breakfast was already digested within two hours?

So instead of my pure Dutch lunch of hard bread (I believe you could injure someone with it by throwing the bread) for lunch as originally planned,  I wanted something savoury and soupy; and that would naturally be Chinese food. Off I hunted for Chinese food in the heart of Almere.

I was pleasantly surprised to come across Buddha's Restaurant - yes, that's the name - at the Belfort 142.  I have never tried the Cantonese cuisine here so I thought of dining here. Now this restaurant is quite fancy and large unlike the usual Chinese cafe which I go to in Almere. I thought the cuisine here would be quite similar but no, it wasn't.

Typical Chinese restaurants in the Netherlands usually serve only fried noodles and fried rice. I thought I had found a gem in the Chinese cafe which I usually go to as they also whip up soupy wantan noodles and char siew noodles. Yet here, at Buddha's Restaurant, I was escatic to find my favourite Xiang Di Mee Fen - the crispy deep fried yee mee noodles in egg sauce. Here on the menu it was known as "crispy fried noodles".

It only took about 15 minutes waiting for the dish to arrive and it was simply delicious. My noodles was served with pak choy and pork filet. The Xiang Di was also accompanied with sweet chilli and cut chilli on the side.

Like every Dutch serving, the portion was enormous. However I ate nearly to the last bite. In fact the noodles were healthier than those I had in Malaysia because although deep-fried, they were not oily in texture.

I also thought of ordering chicken feet dim sum which was on the menu. Good for my diet, there was only so much I could eat so I refrained. This is by far the only Chinese restaurant in Holland which serves chicken feet on the menu. Of course to make it sound less scary, they call it "chicken claws" here. They have a few different sauces for the chicken feet to choose from.

The bill was however twice the amount of the usual Chinese cafe I went to but it was well worth it. The ambience was comfortable and cosy, to quote the Dutch gezellig!

http://www.buddha-almere.nl/

PS : Thanks Mic for the Knorr's instant porridge perisa udang!