Kimchi Jigae, The Way We Like It ;)

I'm not a fantastic cook. :) And I'm happy there are certain dishes I cooked that Lin really likes. One of them , Kimchi Jigae. ;) I got the recipe from the Internet years ago, but have simplified it over time. :)

The original recipe calls for stir-frying of pork with sesame oil, chilli paste and garlic as the first step. I on the other hand, prefer to add the pork slices last. This is because I use pork belly shabu shabu. We like our Kimchi Jigae with lots of ingredients. :D

Lin requested Kimchi Jigae for dinner last evening. ;) And so I cooked a pot for our mom, dad & gfs.

Ingredients (serves 6-8):
1.2kg kimchi
1 radish
1 green onion
1 leek
400g of enoki mushrooms
Shabu shabu pork belly
Sausages
Luncheon meat
2 blocks of silken tofu
1 tablespoon Korean chilli paste (you may add more if you like the extra kick)
1/2 tablespoon Korean chilli powder (you may adjust to suit your threshold for spiciness)
1 garlic (minced)
A dash of pepper
2 teaspoon of soy sauce
5 cups of water

The 3 essentials. ;)

I dumped alot of radish into our Kimchi Jigae so that Lin could eat till her heart's content! :)

I love tofus. So it's a must have have my Kimchi Jigae. :)

In a pot, bring the kimchi with its liquid, green onion, leek, garlic, radish & water to a boil over medium-high heat. Add the Korean chilli paste, powder, soy sauce & pepper. Reduce the heat and simmer. Add the enoki. Once the radish is soften, add the sausages, luncheon meat and tofu. Lastly, add the pork belly shabu shabu. Be careful not to overcook the pork belly. Keeping all ingredients in the pot, serve the pork belly seperately.

Serve the Kimchi Jigae over steamed rice or Korean ramen. A complete meal is done. ;) Enjoy!

The Handburger...Yum...

Friday is indeed brilliant! :) We had a hearty lunch with our gf, Gwendel at The Handburger. :) It was the first visit for Lin and I. We were delighted.

The Handburger serves gourmet burgers at economical prices. :) They take pride in using the freshest and finest ingredients such as sirloin patties, duck confit and oven baked portbello with a range of handmade sauces.

The restaurant adopts a light woody, natural theme and has a communal eating layout; it kind of reminded us of a school canteen, but a more upmarket one that is. :) 

We like the clipped board menu. :) It's back to basic in a nice way.

Lin and I shared an Asparagus and Orange soup while waiting for Gwendel. It's creamy with an orange after taste (fit the name to a T). I would say it's an interesting tasting soup. :) Gwendel ordered a pumkin soup with curry flavour. It was according to her a little too creamy. Soups aside, the chicken strips she ordered hit the right notes! ;) Crispy & succulent.

Now to the main. Lin and I shared a Work Burger. The burger was wholesomely yummmmmm...It consisted of a sirloin patty, bacon strips, sweet onion jam, an egg and fresh lettuce. I'm still licking my lips. ;) For the side, you have an option between a stuffed tomato or fries. We opted for the fries which we felt they need to improve on...

The Handburger's speciality drink, Lychee Mint Crush was delightful! :) We could still bite the lychee bits. ;)

The servings at The Handburger are pretty huge. We were pretty stuffed by the time we finished the burger. : O However, there's always room for dessert. ;) Lin chose a Lemon Pot to share. :) I cringed on the first nibble. : O It was sour...But subsequent mouths were so refreshing. The vanilla soft serve ice cream complemented it very well. It didn't take us long to clean up the ramkin. Lol :)))

For our next visit, I would like to try the Duck Confit or Portobello Burgers. ;)

Details of The Handburger:
Raffles City
#B1-77/78
Tel: +65 6334 4577

313@Somerset
#B2-17/18/19

Yakitori!

Lin and I like yakitori. It's such a tasty, fuss free (to us as we need not do anything) finger food. ;) We would like to share with everyone this place, Omoide Yokocho (Memory Lane) in Tokyo.

Omoide Yokocho is a small alley filled with small shops selling nothing but Yakitori. You will be spoilt for choice! :) The narrow lanes, the limited seating capacity in each shop and the smoke from the sizzling meat evokes a scene of the late 1940s. Very nostalgic.

Grilled green peps & mushrooms sticks. :)

Crispy on the outside, soft inside... :)

You need not stick to one yakitori store. You can hop to the next. :) Each store sells different types of yakitori. ;)

These cherry tomatoes wrapped with bacon strips are really yummy! :D

The grilled scallops were simply succulent! :)

We love fried rice. ;)

I would strongly recommend anyone who's going to Tokyo to check out this place! :) The place might be redeveloped in the near future and hence do visit the place while it's still around.

Details of Omoide Yokocho:
1-2-11 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo

We were thrilled when Patrick invited us for yakitori dinner this evening! :)The venue: Kato Fusion, #04-05 Cuppage Plaza Singapore. Unfortunately, it was disappointing. The yakitori were quite saltish, nothing spectacular and the service was blah. Plus, the place is not camera friendly, i.e no photos-taking allowed. I cannot understand why some restaurants do not allow custy to take photos. Seriously I would have ordered more if they allowed me to capture my dining experience. We will not visit the place again. : I

An Unplanned Weekend Getaway

Have you been to somewhere where you have never heard of?  Well, Lin and I had. I was telling a girlfriend, Rachel, about it some weeks ago and she was keen to hear more about it. So I decided to share the story. :)

This trip took place sometime in October 2008, but the memories are still so vivid. :))) My cousin, Steph, invited us to join her and her neighbour, Pris, on a weekend trip to Putuoshan, followed by Ningbo and Cixi. Putuoshan? Cixi? We had absolutely no idea where these places were. Ningbo...sounds familiar...Lin and I have been to Shanghai a number of times and so we thought we should venture to other places in China. For this posting, I will only talk about Putuoshan. ;)

To go to Putuoshan, we had to take an overnight ferry from Shanghai. The journey was about 8 hours. The first class cabins were fully booked and Steph's secretary got us the second class ones instead. Shocked shocked shocked.... :O The four of us were split into two cabins. Steph managed to get an uncle in boxers and singlet to change the room with us. Before he left, the uncle cleared his throat and spat onto the carpeted floor. : O Lin and I were stumped. There were two bunks beds with no mattresses other than straw mats...no idea if the mats were changed. :I Lin and I chose to sleep on the wooden chairs, Pris took to the desk. Steph was the only one who slept on the bed. :))))) Lin, Pris and I were 'watching over' Steph as she slept. There was a toilet in the room, but the stench...we didn't dare to use it....we didn't dare to drink from the water flask as well....

Lin was hit by motion sickness! Lol :))))

Let's rewind a tiny bit. While Lin and I were waiting for Steph and Pris at the jetty the night before, we noticed many passengers carrying bags of food. We did not prepare anything as we thought the ferry's F&B was going to be similiar to that on the trains. We were so wrong.... Fortunately we heeded another girlfriend, Mary's advice to shower at her place before we headed to the jetty...Steph went to the jetty straight from the office and did not manage to take a shower for two days until we reached Ningbo???

Our taste buds are spoilt! Other passengers seemed to enjoy the food served by the ferry's canteen, but we were.... we have learned from our umpteen trips to China, that when all food's not to our palatte, fried eggs/omelettes can't go wrong... We cannot say that for rice as Lin and I once ate sandy rice in Shanghai... :)))

As we boarded the ferry late at night and the lighting at the jetty was poor, we did not have an idea how the ferry was like till we arrived at Putuoshan at about 7am the next morning....

So what exactly is Putuoshan??? You get a clear picture when you step into the arrival hall.

Some facts which I had gotten from Wiki: It is famous in Chinese Buddhism, and is considered the bodhimanda of Avalokitesvara (Guan Yin), a revered Bodhisattva in many parts of East Asia. Mount Putuo is one of the four sacred mountains in Chinese Buddhism, the others being Mount Wutai, Mount Jiuhua, and Mount Emei. Apparently one third of Putuoshan's population is monks.

The first thing we did when we arrived at the island was to leave our bulkier luggages at the baggage counter. The service was blah. : I The next thing we did was to get the earliest available ferry ticket to Ningbo. :))))

One of the many temples at Putuoshan.

The island appears very man-made.

Porridge and dough fritters （油条）to calm Lin's churning tummy. :)

Goddess of Mercy.

All temples are painted in mustard yellow.

The best time to visit China would be April/October. The weather's good. :)

Devotees and monks.

Praying earnestly.

We took a cable car up to the highest point on Putuoshan. The above is an aerial view of a house and its courtyard.

A pleasant trail. :)

We witnessed full body prostration for the first time!

Another popular temple.

Instead of returning to the foot of the mountain via the cable car, we decided to trek down instead. :) - A little ambitious considering Lin and I did not have proper shoes. LOL :))) She was in heels and I was wearing Steve Madden kitty heels. Ouch......

We came across a nunnery and decided to take a short cut by going through it discreetly...

We realized we could be kungfu masters too. Lol :))) It's possible to walk on roofs! Not sure about the flying though! :)))

As long as we continued walking, we would be able to reach the foot of the mountain...

Time for lunch. Again, eggs and cabbage were the most edible dishes. :)))

There was still some time before we could board the ferry to Ningbo. We decided to roam the place a little more and stumbled upon this temple. There was hardly anyone.

On the temple ground, you will find one of the oldest trees on the island.

We decided to wait for the ferry at the temple.

Putuoshan pier.

My feet... : O I have no idea why we were so unprepared for this Putuoshan trip....perhaps it was an impromtu decision. Nonetheless we enjoyed the mini trek. Lin and I would never have gone there on our own. :)

Introducing Koka in an Unglam Manner

It's absolutely disgusting how Koka can fall back to sleep instantly after waking us up at 5.30am this morning. : I It's Sunday...

As such, I'm introducing her in her unglam sleeping manner as poor me can't go back to sleep....

I'm contemplating if I should wake her up from her slumber.... : I

Super Duper Mini Rice Cooker

My last posting was on claypot rice. So I decided I should do a continuation of another posting on "1 pot dish". I would like to introduce our super duper mini rice cooker that my mom had gotten us before I left for London. :) As some friends might already know, Lin and I need home cooked food after a few days away from home. ;)

I was amused by the smallness of the rice cooker. It resembles cooking toys we played when we were kids. I wasn't sure what fabulous stuff could come out from from such a tiny rice cooker... lol :)))

Anyway we put it through a series of tests. We tried cooking fried rice with our mini rice cooker ;)

The lettuce from Marks and Spencer Simply Food was simply fresh. :)

We added two eggs. :)

and some prawns. :) And there we have it, fried rice from our mini rice cooker. ;)




























Lin and I decided to cook kimchi ramen in our mini rice cooker. :) This is superb for a chilly London night! :D

Yummmmm..... :)

We added prawns to our kimchi ramen too! :)

What else did we cook with our little one?

Egg mayo :)

There were days where we just wanted a bowl of porridge...













Nutritious, healthy and tasty! :D

We figured one of the easiest things to cook in our mini rice cooker would be salmon and egg rice. :)

We got salmon from Waitrose, another supermarket that Lin and I frequent. :) 

Another quick, easy and healthy fix! :D

On days when we were lazy, sunny sides up and rice would do the trick. :)

Do not judge the book by its cover! lol :)))) We have been pleasantly surprised by this tiny rice cooker and will definitely be bringing it with us wherever we go! :D This is a fantastic purchase! ;)