Temasek

This place is beginning to be a favourite of ours. We once again ventured out to Temasek to welcome back Jangers from his overseas travels. Initially expecting five of us for dinner, we ordered a set menu for 5, only later to find out that Ken was having dinner at home. Grrr! The waiter was suprisingly accomodating, allowing us to keep the dishes that the kitchen had started preparing and remove excess items from our order.

To start, we had the spring rolls and curry puffs. The spring rolls were fairly average with a nice and crispy pastry and served with a sweet and sour sauce. The curry puffs had a firm shortcrusty pastry filled with a curry spiced potato mixture.

Spring rolls

Curry puffs

The mains were a bit more spectacular (in taste that is). The Singapore chili prawns had a wonderful chili aftertaste that lingers in your mouth for the rest of the meal. Andy and Irene, being soft(!) could only handle one prawn each. More for us! The balacaan french bean had a nice fermented salty flavour although it lacked a bit of wok "breath" (wok hay).

Singapore chili prawns

Balacaan french bean

We of course had to order beef rendang - Andy's favourite. The beef was quite tender and the thick curry sauce had a nice tang from the lemongrass (?). The chili oil floating on top of the curry was quite potent, something best to avoid if you want a little less heat. Lastly, to interspace the spicy dishes with something a bit more mild, we had the serai (lemongrass) pork - pork pieces stir fried in a sweet sauce. It seemed to be lacking in any lemongrass flavour but was tasty nonetheless.

Beef rendang

Serai pork

Having missed dinner, we asked Ken to bring us ice cream for dessert. Ken being Ken went over the top and bought 4 boxes of Weis bars: mango, mango and macadamia, rasberry and passionfruit, banana and pineapple.

Weis bars galore!

Sweet!

Belfield Charcoal BBQ House

Both Lynn and I had been having intense cravings for Korean BBQ all week. To remedy this, we went to Belfield Charcoal BBQ House (aka Seoul Hoikwan). Having "trained" all day for the all-you-can-eat pig out with shopping and regularly spaced meals and snacks, we were ready to eat ourselves silly by the time we arrived at the restaurant.

When we got there, the staff were fairly slow in seating us as a large group of diners were just leaving and another large group had just arrived. We probably would have been seated more quickly if we had known Korean but unfortunately neither of us speak the language (despite Lynn considering herself to be pratically Korean).

This was forgotten when we spied the dishes on offer for the buffet. Having been to several all you can eat Korean BBQ's, I must say that this one is the best hands down, mostly because of the selection of Korean sides, salads and noodles they have in addition to the BBQ meat.

Displayed on an L-shaped bench against the wall were big bowls of spicy red kimchi, pickled veggies, deep fried sweet and sour chicken wings, japchae noodles, Korean pancake, kimbup, Korean sausage, potato salad, mushroom salad and tempura. Around the corner were bowls of soba noodles, a big rice cooker filled with boiled rice and huge pot filled with miso soup.

Kimchi, picked radish, pickled veggies, fried chicken wings

Kimbup, Korean pancake, japchae

Potato salad, tomato, mushroom salad, fish and asparagus tempura

Soba noodles

In a largely overlooked corner was a bain-marie with a small selection of hot foods including noodles with blackbean sauce, tofu and a few other things that we didn't really take note of. This was because we were too distracted by the main event: the marinated meat that you cook at your own table. There was a variety of beef (bulgogi, galbi, chuck steak), spicy pork, marinated chicken, baby octopus and mussels.

Meat!

Sauces and condiments

Having amassed enough food to feed a small-medium sized country, we started on grilling our meats. Despite the slow start with the service, the staff were suprisingly diligent in changing the grill whenever it got too charred.

An hour and a half and 3 plates of meat, 3 plates of sides, 2 plates of salad, 2 bowls of rice, 1 miso soup and a plate of watermelon later, we emerged from the old Pizza Hut building smelling of smoke and bellies filled.

My New Kitchen Gadget: The Blowtorch

The blowtorch. Every kitchen needs one. You can use it to make creme brulee, melt cheese really really quickly... make creme brulee...

The torch came in a set with four little ramekins, so of course I had to make use of them and make creme brulee.

The recipe I used required caster sugar for the crispy top but because we only had white sugar and brown sugar, I did a little experimenting.

So apparently, brown sugar burns quite easily and can actually set alight - oops!

White sugar was much better but took a little while longer to melt and caramelise.

I guess the recipe uses caster sugar for a reason... The creme brulee didn't turn out too bad but the texture wasn't very smooth. Hmm... I guess I just need more practice!

Don Quixote

Having finally reached the quarter century milestone, we went out to celebrate with dinner at Don Quixote whish is located amongst all the other Spanish restaurants in the Spanish Quarter.

The food was fairly average. Nice, but not spectacular.

The Cheungs went for the Paella Valenciana, a generous sized paella for two, packed with a good selection of seafood and a tonne of rice. It seemed to me that some of the rice was a little undercooked, but maybe it's just my personal preference.

Paella Valenciana: Spanish national rice dish cooked with chicken, prawns, mussels, scallops and blue swimmer crab.

Smelly nerd couldn't resist the suckling pig, a slab of tender pork covered with crispy crackling. Not bad, but doesn't beat the suckling pig from Chinese BBQ shops.

Toston Sancho Panza: Suckling pig, basted and stuffed with a traditional seasoning.

Patrick's seafood stew was similar to the paella minus the rice. In his opinion, the best dish of the night.

Cazuela de Mariscos: Seafood caserole with fish, prawns, mussels, scallops and fresh herbs.

With all the house specialties claimed, I opted for the the steak which was suprisingly cooked to medium rare, as requested. This was accompanied with steamed/baked veggies and mushrooms - yum!

Tornedor Don Quixote: Pan fried eye fillet garnished with bacon, mushrooms and onion rings

We decided to forgo dessert from Don Quixote and instead went to the Festival Cafe in Darling Harbour. We ogled at the cake display before deciding to share the baked cheesecake and tiramisu.

Baked white chocolate cheesecake

Tiramisu

A sweet finish to a food filled evening... bliss!

A Foodie Snapshot of our Port Mac Holiday

FFL (minus Rush and Jangers) recently took a break from life and everything with a trip up the coast to Port Macquarie. It was a fun filled week consisting beaching, cosmic bowling, putt putting, aqua golfing, monopoly (single and double), bop-it, shopping and of course, eating.

There was a little noodle shop on the outskirts of town that served a variety of noodle and rice dishes. Overall, the food was quite average but they had a kick arse Nasi Goreng which was a little on the greasy side but grease = flavour! It was so good that a few us went back there for our last meal in Port Mac.

Singapore noodles

Laksa

Nasi Goreng

Noodlers

Over near Flinders Beach was the Pasta Place (Palace?), a restaurant Ken had previously visited on one of his touch footy trips. A typical pizza and pasta place with the regulars.

Tortellini cabonara

Fettucini bolognaise

Non-descript pizza slice

Andy, with his on-going craving for pluto pups, couldn't resist temptation from the carnival which seems to visit Port Mac around this time of year.

Pluto pups

After several days of eating take-out and hamburgers we were all craving a home cooked meal and some greens! For a quiet night in, we cooked some bangers and mash and had it with a massive green salad and prawns.

Bangers and mash - yeah! With prawns and salad

Following the success of the previous nights cook off, Patrick cooked us a seafood feast consisting of battered fish, salt and pepper calamari, oysters, blue swimmer crabs and another massive salad.

Salt and pepper calamari with deep fried chilis

Fresh oysters from the Big Oyster - yum!

Blue swimmer crab

Seafood feast: Deep fried fish and calamari, blue swimmer crab, oysters and side salad.

Early one morning while everyone was still asleep, Irene and Andy snuck off for a romantic breakfast for two. Awww...

Patrick loves his tea...

Tea-bag(ging)

All in all, a fun but exhausting holiday with a great bunch of people - I love you guys!

A Deep Fried Xmas

Our christmas dinner:

Softshell crab tempura served with sweet chili mayo.

Mushroom, eggplant and sweet potato tempura.

Lamb cutlets with a garlic, red wine and Italian herb marinade.

Some greens to balance the grease.

The Xmas feast... for three :)