Archive for the ‘asian’ Category

“It’s a Malaysian thing” I said, “pork short ribs stewed in a herby broth, big pillows of fried tofu, sometimes chinese mushrooms. And then you get the soup and slosh it over the rice and it’s so good!” I received a couple of dubious looks. “And this is breakfast food?” they asked, thinking that maybe I was mistaken. “It is in Malaysia. We wake up and eat it at like, 7am and drink tea and…” I trailed off. I sounded mad. Oh well.

That was about a year ago. And then, in November, I found myself working with not one, but two Malaysians (!) Ok, a half Malaysian and a Singaporean. But… BUT (!!!) they (a) knew bakuteh and (b) ate it every Thursday for lunch. Sorted.

visit #1: bakuteh

If you happen to be in the vicinity of the Grace Hotel at around 12:15pm on a Thursday, rock in through the heavy wood-and-glass doors, stare up at the high, high ceilings as you walk through the foyer, and hang a right when you hit the clearing. 12:15pm because any later, and the seats are all gone. So we arrive early. I’ll be sitting there, sometimes at a table for two, other times at one for four, or maybe one for six if we’ve managed to all turn up. And I’ll be eating bakuteh.

grainy, chickeny rice

BaBa serves the bakuteh as a Thursday lunch special (the boys tell me that, at the beginning, they hadn’t figured out the lunch special system and spent a handful of Mondays, Tuesdays & Fridays trekking down and wondering where the hell the bakuteh was). At $9.80, it’s not the cheapest meal, but something about it just feels like home to me.

visit #2: lighter soup

The quality varies. A few weeks ago, we headed down (only two of us persisted through the rain) and had the best lot ever. The next week, it was ok, and the week after that, somewhere in between the two. I (somewhat embarassingly) get excited when it arrives at the table the colour of cola. Dark golden brown. When it’s lighter, I scoop the dark, sticky soy that comes with into the bowl and swirl.

plain rice, dark & light soy + chilli

Where I’m from, in Malaysia, the bakuteh comes with a special rice that has been boiled with garlic and deep fried onions. A little bit bitter, a lot fragrant. Here, the bakuteh is served with chicken rice (sans chicken). Recently, it arrived accompanied by white rice. The boys & I looked around to see if they’d run out, and then glared at the man next to us who was eating chicken rice (albeit with chicken…)

*exhales*

At about 12:45pm on a Thursday afternoon, you’ll find me sitting in one of the low wooden chairs at BaBa, in the Grace Hotel. My bag will be hanging off of the armrest. My hair will be in a ponytail so I don’t end up eating it. If you do see me, say hi. Because (a) it’s the best mood you’ll find me in all week, and (b) that way, you can have my table.

BaBa Laksa House
Grace Hotel Sydney
Level Ground, Shop G8, 77 York St
Sydney NSW 2000
Ph (02) 9299 5833

It seems like everyone who is, or has ever been, ramen-friendly, has been to Ichiban-Boshi. Located on the top floor of the Galeries Victoria, this little Japanese noodle place is perpetually packed (it does serve other assorted foods, but everyone comes for the noodles). It is also (very conveniently) located right near everything I would ever head into the city for, making the usually difficult “what to eat tonight before …” choice easy for me.

We were supposed to have gone to the Uyghur restaurant tonight. But then one pulled out. And another. And it was just Miss Shiny & myself, staring at Queen Victoria’s rear, ignoring the talking dog, and debating dinner options. It was raining. We had to be done by 7:30, We didn’t want to walk far, and good hot comfort food (that we could get in a snap) was on the cards. Trouble no? Well, no!

It was still early, so we hightailed it over there (shortcut through the Hilton, pause to stare at the Nu+Naan window, then up the escalator and up again). Arriving early (in this case, around 6pm, meant that the queue was short and the tables unshared.

karaage ramen $10.90

Miss Shiny didn’t even look at the menu. She knew what she was going to order (partly because it’s what she always orders). “One karaage ramen please!” Before I was allowed to take the photo, she carefully stacked the pieces of deep fried chicken fillet to one side, one on top of the other to minimise the percentage of soggy chicken bits.

tantan tsukemen ramen $12.00

Having eaten my way through most of the hot ramens, rices and other assorteds on previous visits, I decided to try something a little different. The tsukemen ramen is served as a big (BIG!) plate of cold noodle with a steaming hot bowl of soup for dunking said noodles in. This time, I got the tonton soup, a rich porky broth with a spiciness that doesn’t register on the tongue but then hits you in the back of the throat, just as you’re about to say something. It’s fiddly, and a little bit sickening towards the end (rich, hot, fatty soup and slippery cold noodles quickly turns into lukewarm fatty soup and slippery starchy cold noodles). It could be just that I prefer my food hot. Especially on rainy nights (as all nights seem to be these days).

Ichi-ban Boshi
The Galeries Victoria
Level 2, 500 George St
Sydney NSW 2000
Ph (02) 9262 7677

We surveyed the remnants on our table. Absolute. Carnage. Napkins lay stage left, smeared with stains, crumpled into balls. Bones were scattered across the table – some thoroughly voided of their meat, others discarded. The meat given up on.

It was to be expected, though. The combination of four hungry people and the promise of lamb-y goodness should not be underestimated.

I first chanced across the concept of Uyghur cuisine a couple of years ago, when celebrating the Cat’s birthday. “Come to Rocktober!” his message had said “I’m ordering half a goat”. And to Rocktober we went. It was, I think, the first food blog I ever posted (now long discarded).

I digress.

It has been a while since I’ve been back. Perhaps it was because I didn’t want to ruin the memory. But I did, just before Christmas, with the Cat. And again, just recently, and this time, with a camera.

the inconspicuous entrance

The resturant has a rather inconspicuous entrance. Blink and you’ll miss it, as they say. The Bean took friends there once and walked past twice, before calling me, looking to her left and exclaiming “Oh! There it is!”

traditional uyghur tandoori BBQ lamb skewers (2 skewers) $12.00

We order the regulars. Sort of. You see, we normally order the small skewers, at 5 for $10. These are the big ones. They taste the same (deliciously lamb-y with a kick of earthy spice) but have bones through them. Order the small ones.

big bowl chicken $20.00 (small size)

I should, thinking back, have written down the name of this dish. If you say “big bowl chicken”, the waiters will understand. I think it’s the first dish on the Chicken page of the menu. Better, in any case, than ordering, as we did, “One big bowl chicken in the small size, please”.

Do not, unless you have a hungry table of six, order anything here in the large size. This bowl was a good 30cm in diameter and filled with bits of chewy, flat handmade noodles (many a chopstick battle was fought over them), chunks of chicken (more bones) and fat, sauce sopping cubes of potato.

extra handmade noodles $3.00

The drawback of the big bowl chicken, however, is the relative lack of flat, chewy handmade noodle (and the resultant – sometimes messy – chopstick battles). Good news is, for a whole $3.00, you can order a big ol’ plate of them, which the waiters will pragmatically dump into the bowl. Mess them around to sop up the sauce, and everybody is happy. (You can also order rice, but these noodles are something else fantastic!)

And when the sauce is sopped up, the noodles sucked down, jugs of water all drunk and a $12.00 lunch is had, you may, as I did, look around at the table and laugh at the mess left behind. Or, as I also did, you may look just past your table to see a table for two who had ordered a small serving of a dish. Each. They had no idea what hit them…

Silk Road Uyghur Restaurant
8 Dixon Street
Sydney NSW 2000
ph: 02 9283 0998

(BYO allowed here – the others aren’t so alcohol friendly)

When the weather is hot, and the humidity is high, the thought of slaving over a hot stove is somewhat less than appealing. Unless, of course, everyone else is too. And unless that hot stove is sitting in the middle of the table and contains a pot full of boiling stock in which you can dunk whatever you wish. Then it’s just tummy filling fun

For those of you wanting to hot-pot (or “steamboat” as my family calls it) at home, you’ll need a couple of basics.

1. A portable stove top (preferably gas) on which to cook.

2. A pot, in which to cook. (Ours has a special vent in the middle to keep everything as hot as possible but with minimum energy!)

3. Stock, which goes into the pot. (Or water. We normally use a watered down stock from a previous day’s soup).

4. Stuff to eat! Ours (below) come from a combination of asian grocers, an afternoon’s wonton making and assorted cans (whilst tinned nushrooms aren’t so good straight from the tin, they are once hot-potted).

wontons, beef & noodles

lettuce, prawns & seafood balls

5. When the water’s boiling, dump the frozen items in and wait for them to float (which signals their cooked-ness). Swish thinly sliced bits of raw meat around in the boiling stock to cook them – these only need a couple of seconds. And… VOILA!

And just to beef it up a little, because this how-to is fairly lacking in how-to, some photos from the Chinese New Year festival that was held at Chatswood some weeks ago.

“I haven’t been to yum-cha in a-a-ages!” “Well then, let’s go Saturday.” “Oh. Ok.” This is how lunch plans get made around my place. One moment you have nothing planned for the weekend, and then it’s 11am on a Saturday and everyone’s running around and “Are you ready?” “The queues will get long! Hurry up!” and “I forgot my phone!” before we bundle ourselves into the car and brave the Chatswood traffic. Two will leap out early to get a ticket and the others will circle the ever-full parking lot before joining the first two with a “What number are we?” “What number are they up to?” and an “Oh… so many people!”

We finally make it inside, “Number forty-four! Sei-sup-Sei!” a tea menu is surveyed, “Better than drinking colour water, you know.” and the dishes begin to roll.

salt & pepper hairy crab

For some, largely unknown, reason, our yum-chas have recently tended to either start with, end with, or otherwise include whatever crab is being spruiked around the place. I don’t know how this tradition started, perhaps a conscious effort to eat that-which-is-not-normally-eaten, perhaps my mum & I on a trip, just the two of us, and a penchant for indulgence, but it stuck.

vegetarian dumplings

“Can you heat it up for us?” and while the trolley lady left her happy trolley alone, I snuck a picture of the vegetarian dumplings that we weren’t going to eat, and of the egg tarts (top image) I was hoping to get around to later.

The crab, when it came back, was, by the way, delicious. If somewhat frustrating to eat, being a non-mud crab and all. I digress.

sweet taro buns

While we were mid-crab (read: shell all over the table, our hands, our hair), we were offered some buns. “New dish!” said the trolley lady, in Cantonese, “Very good! You want?” “New dish!” said mum, all excited. “Yes please!” said we. And we did. It was sweet, not savory. And for a moment, we were confused. But then the crunchy butter and sugar top and the gooey purple yam paste took over and “Mmmmmm” was all that could be said of them.

shark’s fin & lettuce dumplings

But there was more to be had. Shark’s fin and lettuce dumplings (of which I got two!) with the taste of the lettuce really coming to the fore.

shark fin & seafood whole bowl dumpling

…and with vinegar!

A big bowl of dumpling (that’s right, a bowl of dumpling!) appeared. And when you break the skin, a veritable sea of prawn and shark’s fin (I know, more of it!) and scallop and sweet, sweet soup.

lo mai fan

Then the chickeney rice steamed in a lotus leaf. Which is usually good, but was this time a little dry, a little lacking, and we passed it around – not wanting to fill ourselves up, but not wanting to waste it either.

siu mai

At this stage, all were almost full. Except for the sister, who had passed on most of what came previously. “Fried or steamed?” we asked. “Steamed” said she. Trays came and went. Too many veges, too much meat. Too weird, not weird enough. And then. Siu mai. Which were nice, if a little plain and porky, after what had been previously.

xiao long bao

The xiao long bao came in tin foil cups. We looked at them. Pricked, prodded, success! “Oh no! A drip! You’re leaking!” But the tin foil cup caught the soup and all was saved.

egg tarts

The crispy flaky egg-tarts that I’d snapped at the beginning of this (now hour long) meal had long vanished. I made do with smaller, less flaky versions. I was a little sad about this, but it’s hard to remain sad through a mouthful of warm custard, so I was not sad for long.

to-fu fa

Just when we thought we could eat no more, someone mentioned to-fu fa.

I’ll be honest. The to-fu fa at Kam Fook is a force to be reckoned with. It’s a big, BIG bowl. Split between four, we had enough to be content and wanting just that little bit more, but not so much that we were to-fu’d out (as has happened when split between two). Warm and gingery syrup, smooth, silky tofu. A perfect end to yum-cha-cha-ing with the family.

the bill: $88.90

Kam Fook
Shop 600, Level 6
Westfield Shoppingtown
28 Victor Street
Chatswood NSW
Tel (02) 9413 9388

also at:
Shop 6010, Level 6,
Westfield Shopping Centre
100 Oxford Street
Bondi Junction NSW
Tel (02) 9386 9889