Food Crazy Penang – Hawker Food Heaven!

Posted on November 27, 2015 by admin

Where in the world do you find the most food crazed population? My pick is Penang, an island off the peninsula of Malaysia. The people of Penang love to eat food, think about food, talk about food, plan around food and argue about food. They will go great distances and queue up for lengthy durations to get the best food. The priority is always the taste. They are happy to forego air-conditioned comfort, sit on plastic stools with rickety tables if it means getting the tastiest dishes. It is a culture that hospitality, generosity and affection are all demonstrated with food.

In my opinion, there are three factors that make the food of Penang so amazing. Simplistically, it boils down to diversity, specialisation and passion.

Firstly, Malaysia is a country where different races live side by side. The three most populous races are the Malays, the Chinese and the Indian people. There are many other smaller minority groups as well. Another group which are represented in Penang are the Peranakan Chinese, Baba-Nyonya or Straits Chinese. These are descendants from the Chinese immigrants that came to Malaysia many generations ago, as early as the 16th century. Due to their many generations of living in close proximity with the other races in Malaysia, Nyonya cuisine incorporates elements from the other cultures to form a cuisine which has a rich heritage, a distinctive combination of ingredients, delicious dishes and pungent flavours. More on Nyonya cuisine later in another post. The diversity of cultures in Penang leads to large diversity of great dishes.

Secondly, street food is huge in Penang. On every street corner, you will find hawker stands. Each hawker stand usually sells one kind of food or variations on the one kind of food. For example, a hawker may specialise in selling Hokkein Mee, a noodle soup dish with a prawn based broth. The hawker may have variations where you can choose to have more toppings on your noodles but it is still at its core, the same dish. Having to concentrate on one dish for income means that the hawkers are incentivised to improve and focus on making the best version of that dish as possible. This specialisation leads to immense deliciousness and for the best hawkers, queues of people waiting to buy their food and the ability to raise their prices due to the high demand.

Thirdly, the passion for tasty and delicious food by the people, drives improvements in taste and quality in the food scene. The people of Penang are a discerning bunch and they are always exchanging hot tips for the best food location. Before a meal is finished, discussion has usually already turned to the next meal and there would have been lengthy discourse during the meal about the merits of the dishes being eaten. I doubt that any shop selling bad food would survive for long in this kind of environment.

The result of all this food crazed madness is an island famed for amazing food. You can eat solidly for a week and not have to consume the same thing twice!

Let’s have a look at the delicacies I consumed when I visited Penang. I’ve broken it down into 2 categories, snack and meals.

Snacks are very popular in Penang. The culture is not to turn up empty-handed when visiting so visits by relatives and friends are usually accompanied with delicious goodies!

Ban Chang Kueh

These tasty pancakes are called Ban Chang Kueh. They are pancakes which are usually filled with sweetened ground peanuts. For extra deliciousness, creamed corn can also be spooned into the centre. The result is an amazing textural and tasty bite with their crispy edges, soft and fluffy interior, a nutty, sweet filling as well as the creamy, slightly salty taste from the creamed corn. Bliss!!

Apom

This is another pancake snack. These are called Apom and are made from a batter which contains some coconut milk. Unlike Ban Chang Kueh, these are usually eaten without a filling. When these are fresh, they are flakey on the edges whilst being soft and fluffy in the centre.

Tao Chang – Glutinous Rice Dumplings

These rather unattractive blobs are Tao Chang. They are part of a family of glutinous rice dumplings known as Chang in Malaysia. In China, they are known as Zongzi. They are wrapped in bamboo leaves usually in a pyramid shape where they are boiled. These are laborious to make, tricky to wrap and secured with string. Wrapping the Chang neatly and tightly is essential or else they will not survive the boiling process well. It is a bit of a dying skill. There are savoury Chang filled with marinated pork, mushroom, Chinese sausage, salted egg and/or bean as well as sweet Chang which are to be eaten with a sweet, fragrant, dark sugar syrup. Whilst these are addictively delicious, glutinous rice tends to sit in your stomach like a brick and greedy over-consumption will lead to a very uncomfortable few hours to follow!!

Vadai – Deep Fried Indian Snacks

Putu Mayong

Onwards to two snacks which originated in India. Firstly, these delicious deep-fried morsels are called Vadai. These are a savoury, spicy, deep-fried snacks which originated in South India. Then we have Putu Mayong, a slightly salted, soft, vermicelli like snack which is eaten with desiccated coconut and brown sugar. The “strings” are made with rice flour and extruded on an overturned basket and then steamed.

Lor Bak, Prawn Fritters and Fried Tofu

This plate of yummy deep-fried titbits for dipping include Lor Bak, fried tofu and prawn fritters. Lor Bak is five spiced pork wrapped in thin beancurd sheets and deep-fried till golden brown. These are quite a Nyonya food delicacy and worth trying if you see it on the menu.

Ok, enough with the snacks. Let’s move on to the big hitters of the Penang hawker meals, starting with Penang Char Koay Teow.

Char Koay Teow

Penang Char Koay Teow, is one of my most favourite dishes in the world. Char Koay Teow or Fried Koay Teow is a dish of flat rice noodles usually stir fried with bean sprouts, chilli, cockles, Chinese sausage and prawns. There are many versions of Char Koay Teow depending on the location but by far, the very best is the Penang Char Koay Teow. It’s more spicy, not too sweet and it has a smoky flavour imparted by the use of an extremely hot wok. Char Koay Teow is best fried in small portions. If you mention this dish to anyone in Penang, you will probably start a verbal stoush over the best source of this famous and much-loved dish. It’s not great for your waistline as traditionally pork lard is used for extra flavour but I think this dish is definitely worth those extra calories.

Assam Laksa

Another dish which is the pride of Penang is the famous Penang Assam Laksa. This is a Nyonya dish and is different from the coconut based curry Laksa that is more common. This has a tamarind and mackerel based broth. Together with the fragrant mint, crunchy cucumber, sweet/sour pineapple pieces and spicy chilli, you have a balanced, heady bowl of heaven.

Curry Mee

So if a Laksa in Penang is has a tamarind broth, what if you want a bowl of the creamy, coconut curry type Laksa? Well in Penang, you have to order Curry Mee. This usually comes with “tau pok”, cuttlefish and coagulated blood. The best part of this dish is the “tau pok” which are tofu puffs. These absorb the delicious curry gravy like a sponge and then floods your mouth with this flavourful gravy as you bite into them.

Hokkein Mee

Chee Cheong Fun

Another popular dish is Penang Hokkein Mee. This is a noodle soup dish which combines yellow egg noodles and thin rice noodles with a spicy prawn broth. It is served with all kinds of toppings including prawns, pork and eggs. In this version I have pictured, it was topped with curls of pig skin. The hero of this dish is the broth which needs to be full flavoured and spicy.

If you don’t feel like a noodle soup dish, you could eat Chee Cheong Fun. This is a Cantonese dish and consists of steamed flat noodle rice rolls. Versions of this dish can be found at dim sum restaurants usually with a prawn or BBQ pork filling. In Penang, Chee Cheong Fun is eaten without filling but coated with a pungent concoction of sweet sauce, prawn paste and chilli sauce. Whilst this is nice, I prefer Chee Cheong Fun in the Cantonese style with a filling of prawns and a much lighter sauce.

Rice Porridge with Salted Egg and Century Egg

When you’ve had too much greasy hawker food and need to give your digestion a break, rice porridge makes for a lovely lunch. Rice porridge is eaten across Asia with various toppings as a meal or as food specifically for young children, the elderly or the unwell. It’s simple to make and easy to digest because it is not greasy and can be eaten plain and unseasoned. For this meal, my creamy,rice porridge was topped with pieces of deep-fried dough, salted egg, century egg and spring onions. For me, this is very comforting food and feels therapeutic to eat when I’m unwell.

Thin Rice Noodle Soup with Offal

Now, on to the most shocking thing I ate whilst in Penang! I ate a bowl of soupy thin rice noodles and offal. This bowl contained pigs brains, liver, intestine, stomach and kidney. Oh, and also a few pork meatballs! It was quite good. The brains were still quite creamy!

I like that in every culture there are recipes and dishes which include all parts of the animal. Once upon a time, it was critical to eat everything to avoid wastage and possibly even starvation. Eating all parts is also very healthy, for example liver has very high iron content. We have become distant from the eating of offal these days. There are many offal based dishes from many different cultures and they are part of our food history. It would be tragic if they were lost due to some squemishness and a lack of a willingness to try.

Well, this was only some of the food that I enjoyed whilst in Penang. I will write another post about Nyonya cuisine shortly. I think that Penang has the most diverse, interesting and delicious street food scene in the world. Put on your elasticised shorts, visit Penang and eat! It’s a foodie heaven!

Butterscotch Banana Upside Down Cake

Posted on November 27, 2015 by admin

Home-grown bananas

What do you do when you have too many bananas!! You make banana cake of course!! To use up extra bananas, I wanted to do an upside down cake. I had hoped for a lovely symmetrical pattern but unfortunately, I couldn’t manage it. I was thrilled with the result though. Check out my cake! It’s glorious in its sweet and sticky with a buttery, butterscotch style oozy sauce over the top of it. The cake itself was surprisingly light and rose well considering the ease of the recipe.

Butterscotch Upside Down Banana Cake

I got this recipe from this gorgeous site. I think this recipe is a keeper! Actually, it’s worth noting that the recipe doesn’t make a tall cake. It’s more of a dessert just crying out to be eaten warm with some vanilla ice cream. Try it and see if you can stop licking that sauce off your fingers! It’s sinfully good! (Yes, you can tell I’m excited. There is an overuse of exclamation marks!)

Here is the recipe. Easy to make, no mixer required and only one bowl to clean!

For the upside down bit

6 tablespoons butter, melted
¾ cup brown sugar
2 bananas, sliced

For the cake

1 mashed banana
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1 egg, room temperature
⅓ cup plain Greek yoghurt
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup plain flour

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease a spring-form pan with butter. Place pan on top of an aluminium foil-lined cookie sheet to help with drips. Mix the melted butter and brown sugar together and spread evenly along the bottom of the pan. Place the sliced bananas on top of the brown sugar mixture in a pattern.
In a large bowl, mix together the mashed banana, melted butter, egg, Greek yoghurt, sugar, and vanilla extract until combined. Stir in the baking powder and salt, then stir in the flour, mixing until just combined.
Spread the batter evenly on top of the bananas, and bake in the oven for 40 minutes, or until the top has started to turn golden brown along the edges and the brown sugar and butter bubbles up along the rim of the pan.
Allow to cool for 10 minutes before inverting over a cake tray. Watch out for that hot sugar! Cake is best served warm, possibly with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!

Nom Nom New York!

Posted on October 20, 2015 by admin

Food in the US is a punch in the face with flavour. It’s not mild or bland, it’s almost like turning up the volume on the taste. I find when I’m in the US that savoury foods are often too salty and sweet foods are too sweet. It’s all delicious though. It’s not healthy but it’s so damn good. It’s all that sugar, salt and fat! It makes our brains light up like Times Square!

Fine dining and Michelin star restaurants absolutely do not have the monopoly on tasty food. Often I think that food cooked with love, hospitality, generosity and plenty is the best. There are lots of cheap and cheerful places all over Manhattan with excellent food. We stayed in East Village and were thrilled to find a large number of excellent places to eat. We also did a couple of food/walking “tips only” tours which were great fun and delicious as well. Here are some of our eating experiences in New York. Nom Nom Nom!!

How can you go to New York and not have a “dirty water” dog! These are the famous New York Hot Dogs. They are called “dirty water” dogs because the sausage is cooked and left in a vat of warmish water and pulled out when a customer requests a hot dog. We were advised that locals would ask for a “dog” and not a “hot dog”. If you ask for a “hot dog”, you reveal yourself to being a tourist and then become exposed to price gouging. We found that most food cart vendors in Manhattan do not advertise their prices openly. This is against the law but they do this to price gouge unsuspecting tourists. Beware! Do not support these unscrupulous vendors. We made a conscious decision only to support food establishments which openly display their pricing.

Enough about pricing, let’s discuss the hot dog. Well, it was very small and underwhelming. The bun is made of fluffy soft white bread which has no substance. The entire hot dog is consumed in three bites and in 15 minutes you’re hungry again.

New York Hot Dog

Instead of spending a few dollars on an average hot dog, get a taco instead with the money. We found Otto’s Tacos in the East Village to be so scrumptious that we went twice during our stay in New York. They prepare each taco as you order them with home-made corn tortillas (really authentic rustic flavour). The chosen proteins are accompanied only with some coriander and sauce. The simplicity allows the taste of the filling and the texture of the taco to really shine. It makes for a religious eating experience!

Tacos from Otto’s Tacos

Also in East Village is an outlet of Xi’an Famous Foods. This shop boasts Anthony Bourdain as one of its biggest fans. They specialities include Spicy Cumin Lamb Burger and the hand ripped spicy noodles. Even though Xi’an is in China, this tastes unlike most Chinese food. Due to the heavy use of cumin, it tastes almost Middle Eastern to me. Xi’an is situated at the start of the Silk Road and it explains the fusion of flavours and Middle Eastern spices. The hand ripped noodles are a surprise with its addictively chewy texture and a spiciness that builds in your mouth as you work through the dish. The lamb burger was delicious. It reminded me of a kebab with the bread and the cumin spiced filling. Everything is served in typical American style for this sort of cheap eatery on disposable plates which of course you throw away once you’re finished.

Spicy Cumin Lamb Burger from Xi’an Famous Foods

Spicy Hand Ripped Noodles from Xi’an Famous Foods

In America, one cannot visit without having a hamburger. The consumption of a hamburger is totally normalised in the US. It’s not so much an occasional treat but an everyday food. We chose to get hamburgers from Steak ‘n Shake based on a recommendation from a Californian friend. These burgers were indeed delicious but for health reasons, we limited ourselves to only one meal of hamburgers during our visit. Greasy, cheesy burgers are not everyday food! The best burgers I’ve had in the US are from Red Robin, a burger chain on the west coast of the US. Those burgers are utterly divine but also a heart attack waiting to happen! Anyway, what do you expect from the nation that brought us the Hashbrown Double and deep fried cheescake?

Steak ‘n Shake Burgers

One of the most fun ways I’ve found for discovering new places and food is to do “tips only” food walking tours. Whilst in New York, I did a food tour of Greenwich Village and of Flatbush Brooklyn. Both were excellent.

In Greenwich Village, we stopped for falafel at Mamoun’s falafel. These were nice but not the best falafel I’ve ever had. This was followed by two pizza stops. First was Artichoke Pizza followed by Bleecker Street Pizza. It does seem crazy to do two pizza stops in one tour but this is New York City, home of some of the best pizza in the world AND, these two pizza were so very different yet both distinctive and delicious. The speciality at Artichoke Pizza is of course Artichoke Pizza. It’s a bit like creamy artichoke dip on top of a pizza. The crust was more robust to support the topping. It was creamy, tasty and rich. I don’t think you can eat a lot of it. By contrast, the Bleecker Street Pizza had a thin crust and had “Nonna Maria’s” special tomato sauce on it. Much lighter, but still very tasty and the crust was just beautifully cooked and a little crispy.

Sign at Artichoke Pizza

Pizza from Bleecker Street Pizza

Onwards to arancini balls at Faicco’s. This store sells lots of different Italian Specialities but on the day, we tried the arancini balls. These are risotto balls coated in breadcrumbs and fried. When I bit into the arancini ball, I was surprised to find a very plain and simple risotto inside and yet the ball contained so much flavour. It was surprisingly good. Often, arancini balls are made with fancy flavoured risottos e.g. sun dried tomato or mushroom but even without the frills, these arancini balls were still so flavourful. Is it the use of parmesan for umami?

Arancini Balls from Faiccos

At this point of the Greenwich village tour, I’m getting quite full. We are now onto the sweet stops. First is a place called, Bantam Bagels which sell mini stuffed bagel balls. I tried one called “The Jack” which is a cinnamon and nutmeg spiced bagel filled with a pumpkin spiced cream cheese. This was a special flavour due to Halloween coming up. The cream cheese in the centre was yummy! In general, I don’t care for the texture of bagels. I think they are an underwhelming and dense bread and I can’t understand why they are so popular in New York. Give me a chewy sour dough any day!

The Jack from Bantam Bagels

Last dessert stop. I’m now rolling and waddling along the streets of Greenwich Village when we head into Molly’s Cupcakes for a seat and a cupcake. Due to my extreme state of fullness, I chose a Mini Molly Filled Cupcake. It was chocolate with chocolate icing and a chocolate mousse filling. How many times did I say chocolate in one sentence? Can you understand why I did not remember to take a photo. My mind was clouded in a chocolate fog! I had to laugh when I bit into this indulgent cupcake. It was intentionally tiny but between the icing on top and the filling in the centre, I was amazed at how little cake there was and how that tiny bit of cake could support all the icing and the filling.

Upon completion of that tour, all I wanted to do was to go back for a lie down while all that food digested.

A few days later, we’d arranged to go on a food walking tour in Flatbush Brooklyn. I had never explored Brooklyn before and this was a great opportunity. First stop was De Hot Pot serving classic Caribbean food and roti. Roti is an unleavened flat bread from India. What is awesome is how this Indian originated food travelled with the Indian diaspora to become an integral part of the food culture of the Trinidad and Tobago and of South East Asia (e.g. Malaysia).

In this shop, we tried a Trinidad street food snack called doubles. This is a sandwich of two pieces of fried bread with chick pea curry in the middle and a dash of spicy sauce. The fried bread is similar to poori, a deep-fried Indian bread. What a delicious savoury snack! We saw the shop prepare roti for other patrons as well. Their rotis were huge, maybe 50 cm in diameter and goat curry was spooned into the centre along with other fillings and condiments and the entire thing wrapped up like a burrito wrap on steroids! If you ate that, you would not need to eat for 3 days afterwards!

Doubles from De Hot Pot

After a pie stop, at the Pels Pie Company for some sweet treats, we meandered along the leafy green streets and stately homes of Brooklyn before sharing a spicy cocktail at a neighbourhood cocktail bar. This was followed by Jamaican vegetarian food at Scoops & Plates Eatery.

We had a dish of soy based mock chicken and a vegetable stew called Callaloo on a bed of emperor’s rice. Callaloo is a Caribbean dish which varies depending on the region. This particular version was thickened using okra and contained dasheen bush. Dasheen bush is a leafy vegetable. The dishes were served with emperor’s rice or forbidden rice, black rice, so named because it was once reserved for only the emperor and royal family in ancient China.

Jamaican Vegetarian Food from Scoops in Brooklyn

At the next stop, we tried Jamaican Escovitch fish, which is deep-fried fish marinated in a spicy vinegar and served with pickled vegetables. This was really interesting because pickling the fish helps preserve it for a few days which makes a lot of sense back when refrigerators were not so widespread. Turns out, there are pickled fish dishes in many cultures. A quick Google search showed South African, Indian and Malaysian pickled fish recipes. Isn’t it amazing how the same basic need to preserve food safely has led to a similar approach in vastly different cultures?

Escovitch Fish

Our last stop on the tour of Flatbush Brooklyn is Jerk Chicken at Peppa’s Jerk Chicken. This place is unassuming but produces tasty and surprisingly tender jerk chicken. I can’t wait to try my own version of jerk chicken at home. I think an overnight marinade with jerk spices and a slow roast will give a wondrous result.

Jerk Chicken

I learnt a lot during the Flatbush Brooklyn food walking tour. I had never tried food from Jamaica or Trinidad before. These are entire regions of food which are totally new to me. It always excites me to taste new food and learn new things about the origins of dishes.

I am now starving after writing this post and will now head off to start cooking my dinner!

Happy Exploring and Happy Eating!

Eating Around Europe

Posted on October 11, 2015 by admin

I love food! I think that has been pretty clear. Anyway, here are some of the things we’ve eaten whilst we’ve travelled Europe.

First up, we have some food which is perfect for the cold winters! We had some fondue in Switzerland. The cheese sauce is quite strong but it’s so tasty with the chewy bread and bits of potato for dunking. It’s not exactly a light lunch but I can imagine if it was freezing outside, there is nothing nicer than some melted gooey cheese!!!!

Cheese Fondue

In Zurich, we were directed to a lovely restaurant which, despite the fact that it was on the tourist strip seemed to be catering to a lot of locals and was run by nice local grandma types. We were served by this nice, older lady who needed some glasses. She really could not see and dropped our cutlery, our change and nearly our food! It was pretty funny.

We ate these noodle/dumpling things called spatzle. They are like gnocchi except minus the potatoes which make gnocchi light and fluffy. So as a result, they’re heavier and denser. They’re made by extruding the dough into boiling water using various devices. At a pinch, you can use a colander.

We also ate sausage and mash. Spatzle, mash, big pork sausage, all hearty and heavy foods to warm you up on the inside and keep you warm in the middle of winter!!

Spatzle Bolagnese

Pork Sausage and Mash

Onwards to something different. In Portugal, there is an area called Matosinhos, near the city of Porto. They specialise in seafood. As you walk along the restaurant strip, there are charcoal barbecues by the curb smoking away as they grill different kinds of seafood. Mostly, they focus on grilling local sardines. This serving of 7 of the largest sardines I have ever seen was a portion for one person. Sardines are such tasty fish and these were lemony, salty, crispy and oily. Delicious, finger licking food!

Grilled Sardines

Ahh French food! Supposedly the king of all cuisines. I would have disagreed but I have to say, they do the most amazing sauces. I find that I have to scoop up every tiny bit of the luxurious sauces with bread until my plate is wiped spotlessly clean. How do they make such delicious sauces!! I have to learn!! Anyway, check out some French food pics below.

Escargots

Paillasson with Chevre and Bacon

A paillasson is a potato pancake made with grated potato. It’s somewhat like a hash brown. In this version, it was served with creamy chevre or goats cheese and bacon. It made for a delicious lunch.

Brioche French Toast with Brown Sugar

French Coffee with Macarons

Crepes with Sugar and Lemon

Let’s not forget, the most amazing dessert I ate in France. “Floating Islands” was such a revelation I did a post specifically on it.

Hmm…speaking of sweet things, I found a photo from Greece that didn’t make it into the my post about Greece. These are Greek, deep fried doughnuts or Loukoumades. These are often served with honey and cinnamon and a sprinkling of sesame seeds. They are syrupy and sweet and delicious. I mean, really, how can you go wrong with deep fried dough? It’s a whole category of fatty but delicious food. Think…Mexican Churro, Canadian Beavertails, Creole/French Beignets, Indian Poori, Latin American Sopaipilla and my favourites, Chinese Youtiao and Indian Murukku.

Greek Loukoumades

OK. That’s enough drooling from me. Have you got an easy but delicious recipe for a French sauce? What’s your favourite deep fried dough food?

Floating Islands

Posted on October 3, 2015 by admin

I have discovered this amazing dessert called Floating Islands. It is a dessert of French origin and I have seen it before in a cookbook but have never been inspired to try it. Now that I’ve tasted it, I think this is an unusual and delicious dessert to serve at a dinner party. In this picture, it is topped with caramelised nuts for texture.

This dessert is called île flottante (floating island) or œufs à la neige (eggs in snow). It’s poached meringue on a vanilla custard. Other than the fact that this is a yummy dessert, I’m so excited because of two things. Firstly, you can poach meringue! I had no idea. Recipes for this dessert has the meringue poached in a diluted milk mixture. Secondly and more excitingly, here is a recipe that allows me to enjoy meringue AND use up the leftover egg yolks in the custard. Custard has always been an indulgent way to use up egg yolks and now, they can be used in combination with the egg white to make this classy and light dessert. Genius! (Yes, I know, it’s a bit sad to be so excited about this but it’s so neat and there is no egg wastage!)

Charming, Delightful Greece

Posted on September 27, 2015 by admin

I commend Greece. I’ve travelled a lot and I think of all the places that rely heavily on tourism, the Greek islands does it the best. Often places that depend predominantly on tourism for money can tend to be pushy, full of touts and scammers trying to make a buck. Restaurants on the well trodden tourist trail often serve up pitiful excuses for food barely fit for your dog because they know that you won’t be back so they don’t care. Greece is not like that at all and it’s damn refreshing! Greece is charming and delightful, the people are friendly and open but not pushy and in-your-face, the food is delicious and homely and the scenery around the Cyclades Islands is postcard perfect. On the islands, life is laid back and lovely. There is no hint of the financial turmoil that Greece is experiencing.

We came to Greece for about 2 weeks. Most of this was spent on a lovely single hulled sailing yacht cruising around the Cyclades Islands. We visited Santorini, Ios, Schinoussa, Naxos, Despotica, Antiparos, Kophenesia, Katapola (Amorgos), Siknos and Folegandros either to dock for the night or just to anchor offshore. Being on a yacht was a lovely way to see the small picturesque fishing harbours of the islands as well as take in their barren, rugged and windswept landscapes.

View from High Point in Folegandros

Greek Church in Ios

Sailing at Dawn – Magic!

Portara Gate in Naxos

Folegandros Port

It was a pleasure to be able to explore and wander around the small towns on the islands where we docked for the night. They were really so sweet with their narrow alleyways and whitewashed houses with blue shutters. There were delicious taverns and restaurants for dinner, tiny shops with treasures to discover and bakeries selling yummy Greek feta and spinach filled phyllo pastries.

Greek cuisine is food I can see a family eating at home. It’s not fancy, pretentious or overly played with but tasty, filling and healthy. It’s hospitable, welcoming food served in good sized portions and cooked with love.The food highlights on this trip include

creamy, garlicky, refreshing tzatziki;
smooth fava bean dip;
phyllo pastry wrapped baked feta with honeyed figs – sweet, salty, crunchy, chewy!
spicy eggplant dip – this was utterly DIVINE!
greek salad – juicy Greek tomatoes, cucumber, olives and that big slab of feta on the top! (how do they grow these amazingly tasty tomatoes!?)
Saganaki, deep fried slab of cheese – salty, chewy, lemony. A fat and salt injection to the brain to light it up like Vegas!
green beans in a light tomato sauce – these were so tasty and juicy. I MUST find the recipe!
deep fried anchovies – tasty oily fish in a crunchy mouthful.
tender, falling apart rabbit in a tomato sauce with long pasta (*swoon*)
skilfully grilled red snapper served with a lemon and olive oil sauce
prawn saganaki – prawns in their shell cooked in tomato sauce with some feta melted on the top – so tasty because the prawney flavour has leached into the tomato sauce.
gyros – garlicky tzatziki, tasty meat, juicy tomato and french fries wrapped in soft chewy pita – cheap but oh so satisfying!

Tzatziki

Chicken Souvlaki

The BEST Green Beans Dish!

Stuffed Squid

Unfortunately, there aren’t many food photos because over and over my brain would light up when the glorious dishes were brought to table and I would be eating and enjoying the food. Only when I sit back full and with a contented sigh do I remember that perhaps I should have taken a few photos for the blog. Ahh next time…then it would happen again! I just love eating and I get so excited when the food comes that I don’t remember to photograph. My base instinct to feed myself comes to the fore!

I was under the totally misguided opinion that sailing between the Cyclades islands would be a calm and predictable affair. I was wrong! The Aegean sea is affected by the meltemi and can be very windy, choppy and stormy at times while at other times serenely calm with barely a whisper of wind. Fortunately we had an experienced skipper on the yacht to navigate the ever changing weather and decipher the inconsistent and unreliable weather forecasts to keep us safe and comfortable.

We organised a few nights in Santorini before leaving Greece. I had always wanted to go to Santorini and I am thrilled to say that it is as beautiful as promised. It is a geographically stunning place and there are striking vistas from so many places. Even a jaded traveller like me has now got a ridiculous number of pictures of the caldera bathed in the reddish glow of the famous Santorini sunset and the white, cubist homes clinging to the black, volcanic cliff face. It’s spectacular stuff, the azure waters, the blue skies, the bright white houses and the black, volcanic sand. Santorini deserves it’s accolades. It is an amazing destination!

Santorini at Dusk

Santorini

As I’m singing the praises of Greece, I realise that the temperature has a lot to do with my good feeling. It’s the end of September and the weather is perfect during the day for sightseeing. It’s t-shirt and shorts weather without being too hot and it cools down at night so sleeping in an enclosed cabin on the yacht was not too hot. September is also the tail end of the tourist season for Greece so the numbers of tourists are decreasing. There are still plenty around, especially in Santorini but I suspect that my Greek experience would not have been so pleasant in the scorching heat of July at the peak of the Greek tourist season.

For me, destinations fall into two categories. There are places you go to tick off on your bucket list. Once you’re done, you have no desire to return. Greece is in the other category. It’s a place I would happily return to for another visit. This is our second visit and it was lovely. See you again sometime Greece!

*I wrote the words on this blog before braving the Santorini airport to leave Greece! It was really bad. Very long queues and disorganised. I really hope they fix this aspect because it was such a disappointment after a lovely trip.*

Naxos Port

Naxos Landscape

View of Greek Island

View of Ios

Fira, the main town of Santorini

View when Hiking from Fira to Oia

Caldera of Santorini

View of Ios

Food in China

Posted on June 16, 2015 by admin

A post about some of the food I’ve seen and eaten whilst in China in May/June 2015.

Peking Duck in Beijing is supposed to be the best in the world. They are roasted with branches of fruit trees for added flavour. I thought it was tender and well cooked but I did not think it was more flavoursome or better than Peking Duck I’ve had in other countries. Still, it was absolutely delicious!

Anyone feel like munching on scorpions on a skewer? What about a star fish or a sea horse? I didn’t see any Chinese people eat these. I suspect they are there for the novelty value and for foreigners on dare. The normal beef and chicken on a skewer were selling much better. What you can’t see in the photo is that the scorpions are still alive and moving on the skewer whilst awaiting their turn on the grill!

One of the specialties of Shanghai and around the Yuyuen gardens are these large dumplings filled with soup. I didn’t realise but actually, these are only filled with soup, there is no other filling. I chose one at random and it was filled with quite a lot of very strong meaty juices inside. There was no other filling. The dough was really thick and tough I guess to withstand being in the steamer all day and to ensure there would be no soup leakage before it got to the customer. It’s bizarre sucking out the insides of a dumpling with a straw!

There is a street food market area in Xian which is called the Muslim Quarter. Lots of interesting foods being sold here. There is a yellow sticky rice cake which is huge and cut into smaller portions and skewered for easy eating. Soft shell crab, cuttlefish and soft shell crabs on skewers. Meat being grilled over charcoal. The meat is threaded on branches and the branches are then placed in a bucket once the meat has been eaten. I think perhaps for some stalls the size of the bucket of used skewer branches is an indication to new patrons of how delicious their spicy meat skewers are. There are also Chinese Muslim men pulling sugar candy. They wear white hats on their heads and the Chinese Muslim ladies wear headscarfs. The sugar is turned into many different kinds of confectionary with the additional of other ingredients like nuts and seeds after it is pulled.

I saw a stall making the most incredible looking fairy floss ever. There are also piles of braised pigs trotters and the largest red dates I have ever seen for sale. It’s too bad I’m so cautious about eating street food or else this would be an amazing eating opportunity.

When we arrived in Chengdu, we headed to a local restarant. This was probably my favourite dining experience in China. We had these spicy Sichuan style noodles. They were dry noodles and had pork mince. Once you stir it, the noodles are coated with a spicy oily, porky sauce. As you eat these noodles, the Sichuan peppers causes a numbing and strong tingling sensation on your tongue. The pastry is crispy, greasy, laminated and crusty from being deep fried. There is salted cured pork within. They are really so tasty and I can’t wait to have an opportunity to try to recreate a “slightly healthier” version of this pastry using puff pastry and an oven. Writing this post is making me crave this pastry!

It’s hard to make out from the photo but these are spicy braised rabbit heads. We saw them on a touristy street in Chengdu.

Chengdu is famous for their spicy hot pot. You can see from the picture that the spicy soup is on the outside with a small amount of non-spicy soup in the centre. The picture was taken before any additional ingredients were added. The spicy one had a tonne of peppercorns inside as well as sichuan peppers. It was covered with a thick layer of red, spicy oil. Unlike hot pots I’m familiar with, you couldn’t really drink that spicy soup because it’s too spicy. It was really only for cooking the ingredients. As the meal progressed, the meat and ingredients just got more and more unbearably spicy as the watery soup part evaporated leaving more of the spicy oil. The dessert was delicious though. It was these rectangular shapes of sticky rice which were fried on the outside, so they were soft inside and crispy on the outside and laid on a dark black sauce of fragrant brown sugar and sesame seeds. Unfortunately, there is no picture of dessert because I was so focused on eating it.

That’s all from now from this greedy eater. I’m hungry again and off to find something to eat!

Tips-Only Food Tour in London

Posted on May 18, 2015 by admin

I’m frugal. I love ways to save money but still have a fun time! In London, I found this tip-only food tour run by Free Tours by Foot. This was a London’s East End food tour. It’s actually the only tips-only food tour I saw in London when I was there in March 2015 and also, the only tips-only food tour I’ve ever seen in the world.

I love tips-only tours and actively search them out wherever we go. These tours are a very economical way of getting an excellent tour and the tour guides are incentivised to do a great job to maximise their tips. You just tip as much as you can afford and you think they deserve at the completion of the tour. It works out significantly cheaper than a full priced food or walking tour.

I love food and I love understanding the history behind it. A food tour is without a doubt, much more fun than another museum, monument, church or statue! One of the best things about this tour is that depending on your budget, level of hunger, dietary requirements and sense of adventure you purchase only what you want to eat on the tour. You don’t end up paying for stuff you don’t want to eat.

OK, onto the food and all the delicious things we tried. I apologise for the lack of pictures for every stop but I was just too busy eating to think about photos!

We tried some pies at the Old Spitalfields Markets. These were tiny mini pies in a choice of flavours and just delicious! When pies were first made, the crust was really just flour and water. The crust wasn’t meant to be eaten and it’s purpose was to be the container to hold the filling. It was not until some French influence resulted in fat being used in the pastry. That’s how we get yummy buttery, crumbly pie pastry that we are more familiar with today!

Onwards towards Brick Lane which was an area favoured by the Bangladeshi immigrants moving into London. There are a lot of Indian/Bangladeshi restaurants along Brick Lane and if you walk along here in the evening, you will be approached by the restaurants with discounts, menu’s and free drinks! I love a bit of competition! It drives the price down and the quality up!

We stopped at an Indian sweet shop. It’s a shop that sells a huge range of Indian goodies. They had pakora’s with everything kind of vegetable imaginable, many different kinds of samosa’s and a massive range of barfi. Pakora is an Indian spicy vegetable fritter and barfi is an Indian confectionary made with condensed milk and with flavours and colours limited only by your imagination! I wish I took a photo to illustrate but I was too busy eating my eggplant pakora and feeling quite contented.

There is a gorgeous chocolate shop along Brick Lane run by Ghanaian owners called Dark Sugars. The owner gave us some free samples and talked us through his products. There were rustic looking chocolate truffles in a massive range of flavours and also more fancy looking chocolates depending on your tastes. We tried one of the truffles and I can attest, they were divine! The lasting impression I had from this shop is the owner who is so proud of Ghana and of his chocolates. It is inspiring to see enthusiastic people who do things with passion, pride and love.

Rustic chocolate truffles and fancy chocolates at Dark Sugars, Brick Lane

One of the ladies on the tour bought herself a hot chocolate drink. As you can see from the picture below, it was seriously indulgent and a meal in itself!

Hot Chocolate Drink from Dark Sugars

During the tour, we stopped at the highly awarded Poppies Fish and Chips store. I love fish and chips and these battered fish fillets were so flaky and tender, I don’t understand how they didn’t break apart during the frying process! I loved it so much that I returned to another Poppies store near Camden markets later in my trip. That time, I actually stopped eating to take a photo. Hence the half eaten fish!

Along Brick Lane, there is a 24/7 Jewish bakery called Beigel Bake which has a cult following. this time. They are famous for their affordable salt beef bagels. Unfortunately, by this time, there was just no more room in my tummy for something as filling as a salt beef bagel.The bagels are generously filled with salt beef, pickle and hot mustard sauce.

Salt Beef Bagels at Beigel Bake, Brick Lane

Perhaps I should have paced myself on this tour or perhaps I should’ve brought a backpack to save a bagel for later! This place is open 24/7 and is a favourite for drinkers after a big night. It has quite a following and every time I went past in the following week, regardless of the hour, there was always a queue!

The last stop on this tour was a doughnut place at the Shoreditch Box Park called Dum Dums. I prefer savoury food over sweet and at this point, I had no more room! I think the picture of the doughnuts says it all! How crazy indulgent do they look!!

Dum Dums doughnuts at Shoreditch Box Park

In addition to all the delicious food eaten on this tour, it acted as a fun orientation around the neighbourhood and it helped introduce me to an area which I otherwise might not have discovered. I returned to this interesting area a few more times in the following days for markets and some food carts. I’d recommend the Mother Clucker food cart for the most tender and tasty boneless fried chicken strips. It was parked near the Truman Brewery in March and really inspired me to try marinating chicken in buttermilk for added tenderness.

There are actually quite a few tips-only tours in London covering a range of different topics. We did a Jack the Ripper tour with Free Tours by Foot later during our stay. I definitely recommend this. It’s totally eerie wondering around dark alleyways at night discussing the gory details of an uncaught serial killer. I thought our tour guide was an expert in Jack the Ripper details and also the historical details of the time. Great tour!

If you’re feeling morbid, google “Victorian corpse photography”!

Speaking of serial killers, we passed the Cereal Killer Cafe during the food tour. It’s located very close to the Beigel Bake shop. In this shop, you can eat all kinds of cereals. Prices increase depending on the toppings and the rarity of the cereal you choose!

This blog was written about 2 months after I experienced this food tour so some things may have changed.

Hope you enjoyed this post. Make sure you check out if there are some tips-only tours in the big cities next time you go on holiday! Happy Eating!!

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Category Archives: Food