Good Eats: NaruOne, Sydney

"In a Utopian world, Fried Chicken is all I'll ever need."

I said that to myself (and used it as my foodstagram's caption) after my experience at NaruOne.

It was the second day of the year and some catching-up was due between my Sydneysider friends and I. However unsuspecting, we found ourselves there for dinner after coming to our senses that queuing for Mamak in Chinatown was going to be unpleasant. Sidebar: I had never imagined a line to be that long, at least not in Sydney, where people don't exactly seem patient. I must admit, there was a moment of emptiness in my heart (and my stomach) when we canceled Mamak out because I thought I'd never get the chance to eat there before my holidaze would end.

Long story short: PLAN B's EXIST FOR A REASON. And Korean Fried Chicken is a very good reason.

Just a quick history behind my chicken-affiliation. I've always loved chicken, I mean, who doesn't? I love it grilled, steamed, boiled, roasted, baked, FRIED. I've had it many different ways with many different sides (though a goal in life is to have it fried plus some waffles). My parents always tell that one embarrassing story of me crying and sitting on the floor of a shopping mall because I didn't want to have anything but Jollibee ChickenJoy for lunch. I was all class even from early childhood, I tell you.

One of my more memorable KFC experiences: "It's not just chicken. It's BonChon Chicken."

Quinoa, Squash & Shiitake "Salad"

Just another take on quinoa. I love the nuttiness it has! I'm a huge nut-head so I've been experimenting on what other flavours would bring out more magic in it (a new obsession alongside Chia seeds). I find texture so important to adding dimensions to a dish so I'm never without nuts at home. They're the secret to making ANY salad amazing. Especially almonds. Mmmmm almonds.

Sorry to go off tangent there. Anyway, I made this dish last Saturday when I went on a cooking-rage because I couldn't let the veggies go to waste. My kitchen expeditions have yet failed me and this victory is something I'd like to share with you.

What you'll need: (yields 2 serves)

• 1/2 cup white quinoa
• 1/2 squash
• 3 large heads of shiitake
• fresh parsley
• 1 small clove of garlic (feel free to adjust to your preference)
• baby's handful of chopped almonds
• parsley (optional)

It's so fast and easy to cook! This took under 15 minutes.

Close up on the ingredients

How you do it:

• Start cooking your quinoa. Obviously, follow the instructions that come with your quinoa. If none: 
• add 3 parts water to 1 part quinoa
• bring to a boil
• then reduce heat to low, leave covered for about 15 minutes
• remove from heat and then fluff
• while you're cooking your quinoa, chop the ingredients
•  make sure you thinly slice your squash (just like in the picture) for sautéing 
• on a pan, sauté the garlic in olive oil just enough to bring out the smell then add the shiitake and then the squash
• let it sit for about 5 minutes with occasional tossing then add the parsley
• in a bowl, throw it in with the quinoa then top with chopped almonds
• EASY PEASY!

Look at how bright and annoyingly healthy looking that is!

If the picture wasn't telling enough, I used a medium-sized clove of garlic which resulted to a really strong garlicky taste. I wasn't such a fan so it felt like a loss to me. I tucked the bowl with saran wrap in the fridge and didn't have it until Monday and OH WOW! The flavours developed even more and the garlicky taste died down just enough to make it right. 

I intended to have it as a side dish for a couple of lunches this week but I couldn't stop myself from picking at it. I ate it ALL on its own for lunchner on Monday and it kept me full until breakfast the following day! It's ridiculously tasty without adding any spices whatsoever. You'd second guess yourself about it being vegan.

Lacking creativity with names, obvi.

I'm already starting to worry because I'm halfway through my bag of organic quinoa from Australia which was gifted to me by my sister. I reckon if I don't enforce self-control, I'll be stalking markets on Amazon again soon for a bargain. Ahhh.. Japan problems.

And! While on weekdays, I try my hardest to get my veg and meat portions right, here's what weekends will look like at home all thanks to my sister.

It's so shocking how high prices of import goods have shot up but you take what you can get, yeah?

DIY Vietnamese Spring Rolls

I've been working a lot recently (a girl with needs is a girl with deeds; damn you, #rhymescheme!!) and I'm usually already run-over by the weekend. I can't remember the last time I went out-out. I sound like your grandmother but it's true. Hashtag sadface. But really, there's nothing I look forward to more than the warmth of our living room and the comfort of my jammies. I live for weekends engulfed between my blankets and pillows while developing a horrible English accent in my head, all thanks to Downton Abbey. Surprisingly, my sister seems to have been sharing the same preference these days and I think it's a lot to do with winter peaking this February.

Goi Cuon or Shrimp Rolls, a very popular Vietnamese appetiser

Good Eats: Ribs & Burgers, Neutral Bay

People spilling out of the place on a weeknight! Could only mean of good things, right?
*photo snapped by my sister during one of her many visits*

I can't count how many times I have bellowed with gusto, albeit defensively, how simple a girl I am.

Meat + drinks = EUPHORIA.

However, as I have previously announced, I'm trying to live healthier. My method is rather simplistic but hey! To each his own, right? I'd like to think I've got a sensible head over my shoulders hence nothing too drastic and ambitious a change.

Cutting back on eating red meat has been surprisingly easy. Though what I am about to say shocked me, too, I'm starting to get sick of salmon. But really, I've only got myself to blame. I'm still lacking imagination in the kitchen. Whatever is fast is easy and whatever is easy compliments the busy bee, me (I rhyme even in sacrifice of grammar). I'm also resolute in drinking zero to very little alcohol now. That, too, is very easy. I live a hermit life in winter and I only ever go craycray with equally crazy company. It's a sad give and take relationship.

I'm taking baby-steps to committing to eating healthier though I've gotta be honest. It's tough. In a week, there are always those bad days where I throw away whatever progress I've made by eating white bread with jam and spiraling down to potato chips at midnight (those actually happened).

Anyway, before this whole obsession with eating better, as I was saying, I was a simpler girl. A rainy Sunday afternoon got my sister Ivy, Rich and I feeling meat. Of course, the very dirty kind.

Good Eats: Surry Hills

One of the many things I got from my holidaze in Sydney is more appreciation of the fact that I live in Japan. 

Now, don't get me wrong on that one. My love for Australia is gold however, if you've lived in a place where service is almost at par to that of the Downton standards like it is here in Japan, it can be a bit shocking to venture outside that realm. 

My naivety could be part to blame but it's just coincidental how when I finally picked out photos for this post, I recalled having slightly poor experiences at all three joints (but none of them tainted my love for Surry Hills, of course). On a couple of occasions, I was being rushed by the servers to pick something even before it was my turn. But I probably shouldn't be blaming them for both places were packed to the rafters. The other time however, I can't fault the restaurant for. It was just a bit of a throw-off when my sister and I were waiting for a table and this couple who were behind us kept going on and on, and quite loudly, too, about how the table was taking forever. They hadn't even been queuing for 10 minutes!

I have to be honest, I was a bit ticked off because it felt like they were sucking all the rainbows and butterflies of brunch into their black hole of impatience. It's just that you never witness anything like that here in Japan.  

A 30 minute wait? What, an hour wait for a baumkuchen? No problemo!!!

I don't think I was ever as patient before I moved to Japan but am I glad that I am. But hey, ho let's pause there for a sec. An hour wait is a bit out of my league and I'm not that high up on my pedestal. Yet. 

And those are just my two cents. As I was saying, my love for Surry Hills is untainted thanks to these joints:

BOURKE STREET BAKERY

I suppose Bourke Street Bakery really wouldn't be somewhere you should look to have a sit-down for a long brunch on a day you're feeling like a Chatty Cathy. It's a very small shop tucked in a corner with very limited seating inside and out. We went there past lunchtime on New Year's Eve and luckily, it wasn't as crowded as I have always heard. Walking towards the bakery from 20m away and you could already experience the butter playing your sense of smell silly. Mmmmm butter.

Surry Hills

One of my favourite suburbs in Sydney would undoubtedly have to be Surry Hills. 

I can't quite put my finger on it but to describe it in a nutshell, Surry Hills is like a suburb out of a hipster-chic + Nancy Meyers film (yes, I'm making these all up as I go). At least that's the impression I got. Maybe it were the rows of seemingly made-for-movie terrace houses or all the beautiful people who could easily be mistaken for print models but there was nothing I could be so critical about the place to not wish I lived there, too.

The Week's Eats

One of the first things I did when I returned from my winter holidaze was getting my life back together. And because that sounds too abstract to grasp, let me be more specific: I bought a new Moleskine planner. I haven't stopped obsessing over it since then.

I religiously jot down the things I need to do, people's birthdays, the damages I've done to my wallet, the feelings I ate and ignored, you know. Just your run-of-the-mill planner. Nothing special. It also serves as my constant reminder to keep up with this year's resolutions. It sounds passe perhaps to even be using that word but resolution actually has a really good meaning. It means a course of action determined or decided on; the condition of being resolute or firm.  I reckon during my many idle moments, these resolutions started coming to me. 

One of this year's is to eating healthy. 

I guess I've always been independent since I can remember. I recall frying myself an egg whenever I didn't like what was served on the dinner table (usually greens) so it wasn't a huge disorientation when my sister and I moved out of our parents' and were left to fend for ourselves. However, reality is, you can only really eat so many fried options. And the shocker is, there aren't very many.

I don't have too much time on my hands nor enough knowledge (yet) to create fabulous dishes but I guess my main priority is staying on course, being resolute to eating healthy. If you were already following me on Instagram, brace yourself, a deja vu awaits you!

My resident boiled sweet potato + grilled peppered salmon + shredded cabbage.

That is what my typical lunch looks like. I eat salmon and sweet potatoes 3-5 times a week. One of my main pillars to eating healthy is committing to a proper serving of greens at least once a day. So I searched far and wide and luckily found how in love I am with shredded cabbage. It's surprising but cabbage actually has more Vitamin C than oranges. And if you didn't know, Vitamin C is one of the best anti-oxidants out there which helps reduce the radicals of the body that cause aging. Nobody wants to admit it but we're all deathly afraid of getting old.  

I also try to shy away from red meat on weekdays without punishing my tastebuds so salmon is my go-to source of protein. Sweet potatoes are good for you, too and not only because they're quite filling but also low in GI (but only if you steam or boil them). Please give them a go!

• buy a shredder for the cabbages (I cheat and just buy packed shredded cabbage at the supermarket)
• boil sweet potatoes for about 20-25 mins (depends on the size)
• grill salmon about 3 mins on each side (watch closely as it's really easy to overdo it and nothing is worse than dry salmon)

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10-minute Chinese-style stir-fry!

It's great to always keep mushrooms lying around your fridge. They release a lot of juices that pack a lot of flavour! These are also known as "bunapi shimeji mushrooms" which are at almost every market in Japan.

This is store-bought but you can also press your own tofu!

Clean and simple! On top of the ingredients, I also used a couple drops of sesame oil because we ran out of onions and garlic and I wanted to add more flavour to the dish.

• medium heat on a shallow frypan, add oil (you can use any kind but EVOO would be great)
• throw in the tofu, then the broccoli and then the mushrooms
• add 1/4 cup of water
• ground black pepper, cayenne pepper and a tablespoon of fish sauce to taste
• mix altogether and reduce to low heat
• allow to cook for about 5mins max

Keep your eye on it lest you overcook the broccoli. I normally opt simply steaming/boiling veggies as cooking them any other way removes their nutrients and what would be the point?
Did you know that cooking a carrot increases its GI? Yeah, so play it safe with vegetables and try to eat them as they are!

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Valentine's Day dinner for two!

I become twice the anti-social that I am come winter time so I generally can't be bothered to go out unless its to go to work or a necessary trip to the supermarket. Valentine's Day was no different (not that it's a real holiday or anything). I went to work and stopped by the deli and the supermarket to buy ingredients for my dinner date with my sister at home.

Just a quick back story to the dinner, a couple of days ago, I paid a visit to my fruits and vegetables haunt in Sakae for some spinach (as I've been hooked on green smoothies just recently) and to my sheer delight what was sitting in front of the cash register were boxes and boxes of POMEGRANATE!!! I absolutely love Pom (nicknaming is one of my finer strengths) and I remember Googling weeks ago when and where to find it here in Japan as I've only ever had it in Australia. With zero hesitation, I bought myself one and planned a dish around it!

Just the right balance of protein, good fats and carbs!

Nuts are the best for snacking but like any other food, have them in moderation. I'd have to say though that with regards to taste and nutrients: ALMONDS!

I have this nasty habit of buying fruits and veggies impulsively even before knowing what to do with them. Something I'm trying to correct, too!

This merits a photo of its own. Prior a couple of days ago, I had never opened a pomegranate on my own. Let me tell you, my kitchen bench looked like a war zone.

INGREDIENTS:

1. 1 cup white quinoa
2. half an avocado
3. 1 pomegranate (if you can't find any, substitute a tropical fruit like pineapple?)
4.  a handful of walnuts (pine nuts/almonds also okay)
5. bleu cheese (I reckon fetta or chevre would work great as well but I like it stinky)
6. any kind of leafy green veggie (baby leaves, rocket, anything BUT lettuce -- useless vegetable)

If you've never made a salad before, bless your soul! Here's a rough guide to how I created the dish:

• Cook the quinoa. Now, I'm guessing it depends on what kind of quinoa you're working with but most instructions would tell you the quinoa to water ratio is 1:1.5. However, I used organic quinoa and it came with the instruction of using a 1:3 ratio so READ LABELS and turn to Google for anything! This is a simple and easy guide to properly cooking quinoa.
• I didn't add any salt to it as I wanted the natural flavour to play out (also because I read that it affects the length of time to cook it)
• slice the greens, chop the walnuts (depending on how fine your prefer it), scoop out the avocado using a teaspoon for smaller portions, slice/pull apart the cheese
• in a big bowl, toss them all in together, saving the cheese for last

Don't forget the best part about cooking: taste away and adjust ingredients to your preference.

What's so great about using fresh fruits in salads is that it saves you the option of having to add any dressing. You get to keep the fat/carb/calorie content at bay without compromising the taste. Apples, cherry tomatoes and pineapples taste amazing in salads, too!

I also bought these. I would've easily chosen some piece of ham over smoked salmon a year ago. I'm a woman of exquisite taste now LOL

And because we rarely ever sit down to eat together these days, this was my sister's end of the deal:

Yummy baguette albeit a bit stale from Tendresse

Finally opened my bottle of Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon from Jacob's Creek, EVOO with balsamic vinegar for dipping YUMS

 

And of course, it's not a date without dessert! I love how my sister's fickle-mindedness worked to our stomachs' delight! But good job on her because choosing cakes from Harbs is always so confronting.

I NEVER liked cakes in the past and only now do I realise, it's because they weren't cakes. THESE ARE CAKES.

It's such a challenge to form a healthy eating habit, to be honest. I've yet conquered an entire week without falling victim to something dirty (I had instant spicy ramen for lunch yesterday) but it's a work in progress. I have another 10 months to get to where I wanna be!

So... That concludes my week's food diary. We now have enough leftovers to last us the entire weekend which is a great thing as I work on Saturdays, too. However, I can hardly sit still inside my cubby now just thinking about chopping up my celery and apples lest they go bad!

xx

Banana & Coconut Loaf

I'm not a very big baker as I have gallantly exhibited once before. However, there comes a time every few moons when I get the sheer desire to whip something out of whatever is already sitting in the pantry. Or whatever is sitting in my mum's pantry. Nothing describes the love and hate battle of my emotions towards her enthusiasm in the kitchen. 

But I love her a lot, though my body begs to differ and I do hope that someday, I could be half the kitchen goddess that she is.

It's another Sunday at my parents and post-brunch, I found myself foodgawking yet again. It's been days since I've had desiccated coconut on my mind so a couple searches here and there, I ended up seeking reference from this recipe. So I pitch my mum the idea and she's suddenly already wearing her apron and clutching on a spatula. 

Here's our tweaked version: 

1. Mix the dry and wet stuff in separate bowls. You won't be needing an electric mixer for this.
2. Add the wet stuff in the dry stuff and mix just enough that everything's folded in. I try not to go crazy with mixing as it sometimes messes with the rising of the loaf. 
3. Pour the batter in your cake/loaf pan. Don't forget to line it if you're not using a non-stick one.
4. Top it with more desiccated coconut as you please. 
5. Obviously, the last step's to pop it in the oven. The original recipe instructs that you preheat your oven at 375F and let it bake for 50min. But because we're in Japan, we have to deal with a very Japanese oven where the settings are a bit different so we baked this for just over an hour. 

Et voila!

I used a total of 4 apps to make this photo happen. I know I'm taking it too far.

For those who share the same passion for banana loaves as I do, please try this! The ingredients are very simple, cheap and cheerful plus it only takes about an hour of physical labor (for you lazy ones out there). The coconut flavour really makes it a cracker!

Did you also say that last line with an Aussie accent in your head?

DisneySea

Last autumn, one of my bestest friends flew all the way from Davao to go on a week-long holiday in Japan which was just right in time for my birthday! It being her first time here, I had a rager of emotions doing cartwheels in different parts of my anatomy. To say I was ecstatic doesn't even measure up to a quarter of what it was like for me to host and show around one of my favourite people in the place I consider my second home. 

During the weeks leading up to her arrival, I couldn't have been more keen (annoying) on Whatsapp-ing her about building an itinerary. ONE WEEK IN JAPAN IS JUST NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU TO DEAL. It may be a small country but there is just TOO MUCH. So working with limited time (but with unlimited enthusiasm), I was able to come up with a pretty ambitious, yet sensible itinerary for her week-long stay. Long story short, we were able to cover Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo and my turf, Nagoya. But more on those places later into the future.

Now this is just my two cents here, but before you travel to Tokyo, I suggest you find it deep within your soul to understand what it is you're truly looking for. Is it a historical throwback? A gastronomic adventure? A shopping excursion? Or an easy time rubbing elbows with fictional characters? If it happens to be the last, Tokyo Disney Resorts are perfect for you.

Good Eats: Sydney

A huge part of travel for me is the food. I'm lucky (or otherwise) enough to have a stomach for anything. And I take it to heart when I say that. On my short stay in Ho Chi Minh city, I had just learned how I have ticked off eating goat udder (breast). Of course at that moment, I was unaware but in retrospect, I think I still would have tried it anyway. But more on that later.

This post is dedicated to most of the unforgettable eats I've had the pleasure of inhaling during my 3 and a half weeks holiday in Sydney. As I was putting this one together, I couldn't help but feel sheer envy and a tiny bit of hate for them Sydneysiders. They are way too spoiled for choice restaurants, cafes and just food in general. I know myself to be quite impulsive when it comes to shoving anything in my mouth but I have grown some wisdom from my previous travels that sadly, there's really only so much one can eat at a time. So I had to be sensible and make a list.

Let's begin my throwback to some of them.