Dinner & a Movie

Great fun evening out…

Hong Kong’s Craziest Dim Sum

Had a super fun time and lots of laughs with my friend and her cute daughter at the hilarious “Dim Sum Icon” restaurant where you get a pineapple parrot with your rice, where crispy fried chillies look like aliens, where you can suck on naughty boob buns filled with liquid custard and where even naughtier cartoon animal buns start to “poo” their hot chocolate filling onto your crazy plate while fluffy white coconut marshmallow bunnies hop along on your table. The frozen Sakura beer was just as mad as the decor of the place. But despite the ridiculous appearance and the Alice in Wonderland lunatic crockery, the food is high quality and very tasty – and the service is just excellent.

Totally loving this place!

Raw Pleasure

Today I needed something raw, and what better dish to serve than a fresh home-made steak tartare.

For fiscal reasons I had to use one of the more inexpensive cuts but it was organic lean beef from Australia; I trust the source as I find the quality consistently good. I minced it by hand using two huge heavy meat choppers, then added a little cold-pressed unrefined extra virgin olive oil, Worchester sauce, fleur de sel, green whole pepper corns in brine, black crushed pepper, capers in brine, one finely chopped Russian style pickled gherkin, Coleman’s hot mustard, a little finely chopped parsley, and a good splash of lemon juice. (I know I should’ve added red onion, chives and anchovy but I wasn’t going to leave the house to shop again at 7pm, I was ravenous!

Sadly, I was unable to provide the crispy golden shoestring French fries I normally would’ve expected with this dish, but I toased some whole-wheat pita bread I had in the freezer and it was good enough. (My gin & tonic went well with it and helped me forget about “frites”.)

Morning Has Broken

Morning has broken. 😱
It has broken the night that was perfectly okay until morning came and broke it….
Why does it have to do this every day? 🤔

Anyway, I have broken and fried an egg, toasted a sesame bagel, drizzled olive oil, chopped tomatoes and parsley, sprinkled salt, crushed pepper, and washed physalis and mutant blueberries.
Morning has healed! 😎

International Omelet

This omelet that (at first glance) may look like a pizza is made with Swiss Grischun bacon, fresh Turkish figs, Greek feta cheese, an organic free-range egg from New Zealand, Italian flat-leaf parsley, real Canadian maple syrup, mixed seeds from the US, fleur de se from France and Cambodian black pepper. Talk about international! 🇨🇭🇹🇷🇬🇷🇳🇿🇮🇹🇨🇦🇺🇸🇫🇷🇰🇭

I know this probably has a serious carbon footprint, but there is no real abumdance of “local produce” (I live on an island) and lical quality of foods is not consistent, especially with the recent floods in China (a lot of the produce is either expensive or is of seriously inferior quality right now). So I shop around; and of course, the price often dictates what I buy. Either way, I try to make the most of what I have available and I am always happy when i can play with food.

Same But Different

Since the reduced cuts of meat always come in packs of two (social convention tells people that it is “wrong” to live alone 😢), so I revisited yesterday’s evening delight by creating yet another steak dinner.

To put a twist on things (and because today there were no time constraints despite my weekend work), I decided to make a lush mash from scratch, with potatoes, carrots, parsnips, shallotd fried in herb butter – plus the melted herb butter from the pan, of course – fresh herbs: basil, rosemary, oregano, thyme, a sprinkle of fleur de sel, plenty of freshly ground nutmeg, some crushed pepper and a splash of fresh full-fat milk. I also added a side salad of rocket with a simple unrefined extra virgin olive oil and balsamic cream dressing, plus a few mixed seeds. The steak I wrapped in Swiss Grischun bacon (super decadent!) and roasted it in a very hot pan with ghee for exactly 15 seconds on each side, turning it diligently, until it was yummy and crisp, and then I let it rest for ten minutes (a must if you want a juicy steak!).

Again, I couldn’t decide between Bearnaise and mint sauce – but who needs to decide if you can have both?! The compulsory glass of red wine didn’t actually hit the spot today (it was still too cold from the fridge I reckon), so I replaced it with a hearty ice cold Carlsberg. Bliss!

Dinner for the Hangry

Today I made the mistake of skipping lunch. All I had since breakfast was an apple. And then I had champagne and wine on an empty stomach. That’s no way to start the weekend!

So, I went grocery shopping after work and then went home and fried a nice juicy steak and while that rested for ten minutes, I roasted some onions with fleur de sel, Cayenne pepper and red wine and while thst reduced I made a rocket salad with physalis, giant blueberries, raspberries and mixed seeds and dressed it with unrefined extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I complimented my meat with mini saucers of Bearnaise and mint sauces, because I couldn’t decide which I fancied more.

This dinner was just what I needed, because I was so hungry, I was beginning to be angry (hence the term “hangry”).

Now the weekend can commence, where did I put my glass of red wine…

International Love

My love of food has gone very international today:

Italian Prosciutto, French dried smoked sausage with hazelnut, Greek goat feta cheese, Turkish figs, Australian strawberries, Canadian maple syrup, Italian basamic cream, American pumpkin seeds/sunflower seeds/pine nuts, Israeli basil, Thai green baby asparagus, Cambodian crushed black pepper.
(Eaten all by one greedy German.)

Meet “The Lak-Vadar”

Tonight I created a swine of a Laksa, a total end all diets, death by Laksa….

Meet “The Lak-Vadar”:

Not having much time today (lots of work to do), I used a lazy “PrimaTaste” ready made paste and complimented with sasami chicken filet (which I still had in the fridge), fresh (live!) tiger prawns, fish cake, tofu puffs, bean sprouts (all from Wan Chai market) fresh coconut milk (from the coconut shop near the market) and of course lots of fresh Laksa leaves (from my littke Thai provisions store st the market). I used the fresh noodles I had bought the other day at the cutest ever past workshop:

Rainbow Dinner

After a busy Sunday working, dinner had to be quick. I seasoned two boneless chicken thighs (skin on!) with fleur de sel and crushed black pepper and while they were roasting in my little old mobile oven at 250C, I cut up a few rainbow mini bell peppers and plated them with fresh spinach leaves. Then I made a dressing of Greek style yoghurt, olive oil, lemon juice, two cloves of garlic, fleur de sel and crushed pepper to go with it. I garnished with a sprig of coriander.

Earlier, I baked a bread. That in itself is nothing so special, given that I have a clever bread making machine, but it was the first time I didn’t use a pre-mix. How silly am I that I have been buying pre-mix all these years when making a bread with simple ingredients like strong wholewheat flour, luke warm water, a drizzle of sunflower oil, a pinch of salt and some dry yeast works just as well and costs a lot less! I didn’t even bother look at abasic bread recipe, nor did I weigh the flower. I just used my intuition and I’m pretty pleased with the result.