Getting there...

I can conclude that gyoza = half fried, half steamed wonton, heh

Gyoza - Attempt no.1

 

First attempt! Looks like plain soupy wonton to me =(

Couple of mistakes to learn from:

• Buy RounD wonton wraps, not square!

Had to come up with an alternative 'shape(s)'.Tortellini and Rustic styleeee

• Over filled the frying pan with too much water :S
• Turned the wrong side of the stove on....what a start

Yes, it kinda turned out seriously tasty, as the flavours were all there but the texture wasn't there as yet. I shall try it again as I bought myself enough pork to practice on...

Curious? Click here for more...

Delima Malaysian Restaurant

Right, it all started when one of our friends found a 2-for-1 voucher deal to any 20 Malaysian restaurants on the Metro, and with the voucher, it randomly selects 3 restaurant information. And I guess Delima restaurant was one of the ones he saw that was a walkable distance from the hall.

These vouchers will still be on the Metro til the 17th of March :)

And it's base on a voucher basis, not one voucher per table basis. So you know what happened....we brought 10 for 10 people! And so each of us ordered 2 dishes, either mains or a proper dish.

I must admit the ambient of the restaurant is really nice to begin with and we were the earliest group since we all headed after a 3 hour badminton workout..

In comparison to other Malaysian restaurants in general, I found this place standard, more variety in dishes but less in drinks and desserts and prices are drawn towards standard than reasonable. So it was good to try the dishes with those vouchers :P.

Service was excellent, although I am not really sure how new this restaurant is. Waiters were definitely Malaysians and we picked about 8 different dishes to try.

I had Nasi Briyani Udang (Briyani rice with prawns)

This was served in a rectangular dish, with sides in which I poured everything into the plate. They were very generous with the prawns.

...and shared Ikan Asam Pedas (spicy skate fish with lemon grass, lime leaves and hot sour sauce) and Ayam Goreng Bawang Putih (deep fried chicken with garlic and cut chillies). The fish was excellent, superbly spicy and wonderful, but the chicken was a disappointment as it tastes like any other fried chicken.

There was nasi lemak and mee goreng ordered too in which I took a spoonful to try the noodles, and it wasn't salty enough to me (although this could be because my dish had more 'taste')

Other than that, I tried abit of the lamb curry (which was decent) and kangkung belacan (Water convolvulus fry in fresh chilli and shrimp paste) that was most disappointing as it came out watery and not spicy at all (even those who can't take spicy food can cope).

We didn't order any starters and we had standard slightly over sweatened and strong bandung drinks (rose flavour) and teh tarik, all at £2 and £2.50 each respectively.

As a whole, place is worth going to try their seafood base dishes, and to celebrate an occasion for it's great service and ambiance, but not a place for a fulfilling feed. So I recommend you to try it out while the voucher is still valid =)

More information:

36 Southwick St London, England W2 1JQ
020 7262 0050
Open Daily 12pm-3pm, 6pm-11pm
www.delimarestaurant.co.uk


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Almond and Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies

W00p w00p! I have started baking again XD. And off I start with something simple. Shortbread cookies!

Well, this is a slight fuse between shortbread and normal cookies, whereby I just added an egg yolk to the ingredient so that it doesn't crumble too easily and it gives a nice brown texture. Why Almond and Chocolate chip? Well, I bought a packet of shortbread cookies of similar flavour from America and it had an acquired taste in which I half didn't fancy and half did on the other hand. So, I thought I tried baking them myself to see whether it might taste a tad better.

Anyway, to start of with things, shortbread cookies follow a very simple ingredient principle ratio (thanks to joy of baking):

• 2 cups of plain flour
• 1 cup of unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup icing sugar
• salt and vanilla essence to taste

And you can add anything to it such as nuts, chocolate chips all to suit! And with a cookie recipe, check out my previous post on the ingredients. The only difference between the two is that cookies add egg to their recipe.

But with my Almond and Dark Chocolate Chip cookies, I've modified a few bits to suit my taste...

Eat me! eat me!

And it turned out just what I wanted, not too dry like biscuits, nor not too crumbly like shortbread :). And what's more, it doesn't have preservatives! It does make such a HuGe difference.

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Food Ponder

Back again from another get away and boy am I tired of going on holidays! So good just to stay put and start thinking about what to cook / bake on the weekends ahead. But I have been rather busy training as well as going through abit of a bigger change in life.

Yeah, death is inevitable, but hey it's life. I guess it boils down to how we recover when our love one leaves us. The one thing that really brings tear to my heart and soul is that my grandmother actually came into my dreams to wish me goodbye.

With things like this happened, there was an interesting post from Gabriel's website in which she left a really sweet and personal message on my blog (Thank you Foodbuzz for linking us up!). There was an video article about 'The French Laundry Experience with Anthony Bourdain' and she left an interesting quote after the clip and thought I'd shared it with you:

“When you acknowledge as you must, that there is no such thing as perfect food, only the idea of it, then the real purpose of striving toward perfection becomes clear; to make people happy.  that’s what cooking is all about.”   Thomas Keller

Per Se Philosophy

“In the end, a great meal is not about the food and the wine. A great meal is an emotional experience.  We try to make it an extraordinary one by creating a beautiful place, one filled with staff who cares about it as they do about their home, and care for you as the most important guest in it.  Our chefs are obsessive about the culinary details and fundamental techniques that are the foundation of an exciting culinary imagination and a kitchen that delivers the very best products of the earth to the table.  No detail or element can be less important or more important than another.  Because a great meal is not one that fills you up.  A great meal is a kind of journey that returns you to sources of pleasure you may have forgotten and takes you to places you haven’t been before.”

The first quote actually left me wondering into my life that sometimes I can never know what I really want to eat or what I really crave for...But the second one is such a good quote that defines the inner meaning of life.

It's true, everything does relate to food. I can't believe it nor can run away from this fact anymore.


My grandmother mentioned so many things she wanted to eat just before she died. Which brings me to another question; when in life should we actually watch what we eat? When in life do we actually stop caring and just eat whatever we want to eat as death draws near? To what point do we seek to maintain a healthy lifestyle? Does it actually belong to our subconscious minds and desires? What indicates the limits?

Perhaps we must pay attention to our instincts to read between the lines between wants and craves. Perhaps this is a journey whereby I can actually find out what I really want to do in life. And one of them of course, is the burning desire to explore as much as I can and when I can not just with food but everything else.

And now I have no idea why I'm writing all this giberish stuff up and do apologise if I have bored you out of your wits with part of my cycnism, I guess I am just typing for the sake of typing. *she's has now gone to figure out what to make in the weekend ahead*

Fund Raising

Not really what you might think as it isn't really food related but it's just a post to say that I have brought up a challenge for myself until early spring (although I would think baking to raise funds might be a better alternative instead,haha)

Yes, history repeats itself. I have started training again.

Not many of you may know that I used to be an athlete of some sort. Was pretty much representing my state from young beginning with gymnastics and athletics, and then swimming, and then into social badminton, netball and now I'm at the gym.

I then tried spins for the first time last year. And I got addicted.

And so I pondered 'why not get involved in something for the greater good with this addiction?'

And so, I have decided to do something I have never ever done in my life. To cycle 300miles in 5 days from London to Paris. Yes, you're talking to the most inexperience bike rider over here who has not ridden more than 10km in her entire life. Check out the map (there's a cute comic at the bottom left):

As well as she doesn't own her own bicycle.

It is by far the craziest thing I have ever done in my life. But I really want to do this. I really want to know how far I can get on cycling despite all of my past injuries that I came across in my life. Almost every important part of my limb has been overworked, injured, overused. And yet old habits don't die. I want to take myself to the limits again.

It ain't easy, mind you. I have started the sessions. I have done 4 sessions of spin classes, 2 sessions of toning and 2 sessions of cardio. I have to take extra care that I don't overwork myself and injure myself so soon. I too have to balance my workout sessions with work, in which the load has also recently shot up to the roof. There is then figuring out what to eat quickly and healthily as well as there is the social side of life I have to keep up with.

Anyway, enough of the boring stuff! If you've got spare change lying in your pockets or behind the couch by your half eaten chocolate bar, feel free to pop it into the following picture to support the event =)

Virgin Money - CBRE's Bike Run from London to Paris

In the mean time, I am of course eying out on what to bake next when I come back from the French Alps!