Bibimbap

Originally uploaded by framboise.

We ate very well and cheaply in London, thanks to some insider’s knowledge from my brother, who is often loath to part with money for anything. On previous trips to London, I’d eaten at quite a few Japanese restaurants, with Cafe Japan at Golders Green being my favourite so far. A similar homely Japanese restaurant, Asakusa, round the corner from Mornington Crescent (yes, the same Mornington Crescent of I’m sorry I haven’t a clue fame) is my brother’s. You have to book a table in advance as the place is small and very busy, even on a school night. But that goes without saying in London anyway. The menu is extensive yet competitively priced. My brother never fails to order the Asakusa special salad, which comprises sashimi, shredded seaweed and other crunchy veg tossed in a peanut/seasame seed sauce. Another favourite of his is the sake kawa maki (grilled salmon skin in a sushi roll), a most excellent use of salmon skin. Deluxe (as P would say)!

Nigiri sushi	Tempura udon	Sake kawa maki

By a stroke of luck, we were in London during Chelsea Flower Show Week, and had the presence of mind to order some evening tickets a couple of weeks in advance (photos and comments to follow in a future post). Staying out till the 8pm close of show precluded cooking dinner yet again (oh, the chore of having to eat out!). More East Asian food was on the menu that night, at the Korean restaurant, Ran, close to Carnaby Street (nearest Tube stn Oxford Circus). Even though we booked, we still had to wait for 30 min. It was worth the wait though. A veritable feast of spicy food. We tried our best not to over-order, so we could enjoy the food without feeling sick on the train ride home. We were given good advice by our waitress, and enjoyed a couple of starters with pickles on the side, followed by self-grilled bulgogi (marinated) beef, a spicy soya-based chige (miso soup), and the best-named fried rice I’ve ever had: bibimbap. I’ve never had proper Korean food before (I don’t think Korean barbeque chains count), and was pleasantly surprised to find that it isn’t too spicy if you order the toned down dishes. We watched with fascination as a Korean couple next to us worked their way through 6 different bowls of kimchi, and had little rounds of tender beef grilled on the gas stoves built into the tables. It’s a great wee place for interactive eating (like a do-it-yourself teppanyaki). I’ll be looking out for more Korean restaurants in the future, if this experience was anything to judge their food by.

Kimchi pancakes	Rice sticks	Bulgogi beef	Miso chige

Technorati tags: asakusa, londonrestaurant, ran.

Back from a few days in sunny London, just missing out on the super-hot (30 degC!) Friday and coming home to a wet and windy Edinburgh. The purpose of our trip was for an interview for a non-immigrant visa at the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square (which went well apart from my future employers’ failure to pay the SEVIS fee).

After confirming that the embassy was where it said it was (you never know with these security-conscious people), we had what must be the poshest dim sum I’ve ever eaten at Princess Garden on North Audley Street (a recommendation from my brother). The menu is quite expensive compared to even Royal China, but the dim sum was priced pretty much the same as most other dim sum joints in the UK (~£3 per item).

The decor was definitely not typical of Chinese restaurants, with an airy atrium to lounge while waiting for a table, and large glass windows in the eating area with crisp white linen and clean-line furniture. It’s more what you’d expect from a Conran eatery. The main menu looked enticing, but was a little on the pricey side. But we were in the mood for dim sum, so that’s what we had. Apart from two Chinese tai-tais (ladies-who-lunch), we were the only non-suits in the place, and the only ones to have dim sum. Because the lighting was so good, and the dim sum looked particularly pretty, I had to take some photos. The only thing I missed out was the “wu gok” (deep fried mashed yam with pork filling). Six dim sum items plus tea came to £20, with dessert thrown in for free because it was 3pm, and the dim sum kitchen was shutting down for the day. Short descriptions of the dim sum dishes can be accessed by following the photo links to Flickr.

Technorati tags: dimsum, londonrestaurant, princessgarden.

Green and Black’s

Originally uploaded by framboise.

Thanks to Mischief to Data for the heads-up on the shocking news that Green & Black’s has been bought by Cadbury Schweppes. G&B’s chief executive (William Kendel) claims that they have scrutinised Cadbury Schwepps, and are convinced of Cadbury’s “commitment to [their] values”. He makes the point that smaller businesses can effect a change in the industry by both competing with big companies as well as by working with them. So, G&B’s will no longer be going it alone, and will be taking advantage of Cadbury’s massive market share to shift their choccies. I get the impression from his statement that many customers have already written to express their dissatisfaction, and think the following excerpt from his response has a touch of over-protestation:

“We emphatically do not believe that access to organic food and ethical trade should be the preserve of a small elite. We do not have time for prejudice at Green & Black’s and this includes a prejudice that all big companies and the people who work for them are bad. We have checked out Cadbury Schweppes pretty thoroughly and we think they score highly on issues relating to a responsibility for the communities in which they are operating. In fact they have taught us a thing or two in this area over the last few years.”

It implies that those of us who choose not to buy from certain multinational corporations are prejudiced individuals, so stop being so silly and wishy-washy. I agree with him that organic food and ethical trade should be accessible to all, but also think that trying to effect change from within is a tactic that hardly ever works. Cadbury’s can give them a free reign for now, but G&B’s may eventually just get sucked(/suckered) along with company policy.

According to my 2003 copy of The Good Shopping Guide, Cadbury’s has bottom ranking on issues such as environmental reporting, working with/in oppressive regimes, non-publication of a suppliers’ code of conduct and irresponsible advertising. Plus points include decent workers’ rights, and sourcing cocoa from Ghana, which has strict anti-child trafficking policies. For further online reading, Ethical Consumer‘s website has a buyers’ guide to chocolate in PDF form. To be fair to Cadbury’s, they fare better than quite a few other chocolate producers.

My other bugbear with Cadbury’s is the near-ruination of my tastebuds as a child; their Dairy Milk bar can hardly be considered chocolate with only 20% cocoa solids. But I’ve since learnt that there are chocolate makers out there who care about taste and where their ingredients come from. For regular snacking, Traidcraft has a growing range of chocolate bars (with the praline being our favourite), and Divine Chocolate has milk and orange chocolate (but does not, as yet, use Fairtrade sugar). If you’re looking for a special treat, you should check out Hotel Chocolat. These guys take chocolate very seriously, and have seasonal changes of their range. We’re still riding on the good impression from giving Hotel Chocolat boxes away as Christmas and birthday pressies. We’re probably going to continue buying G&B’s chocolate bars, but will have to watch out from now that standards do not slip.

I’ve had to re-write/link the last two paragraphs because Bloody Blogger cut off the end my post. Getting quite fed up; this happens at least once a week!

We’ve been invited for Thai curry at K&M’s, and I hate turning up for dinner without at least bringing something, however small. It must stem from the pot-luck culture of my extended family. Picture the scene: one grandmother, 2 biological aunts, 3 biological uncles, their 5 respective partners, their sum total of 11 kids, plus my own parents and brother, all needing to be fed. There’s absolutely no way on earth that any one person can cook for that many at a time, even at a barbie. So we devised a system of pot luck from way back. It never mattered who was hosting the family event of the moment, everyone brought something. And you didn’t necessarily have to cook it yourself; it was perfectly acceptable to turn up with delicacies from a well-known hawker stall or speciality food shop (e.g. bak chang or bao from Katong, where most of my maternal relatives live). That has instilled in me an absolute law that I must never turn up empty-handed at anyone’s house for dinner (we make an exception for P’s parents, ‘cos we’re usually too busy weeding the veggie patch until sun-down to do much cooking).

So, back on the subject, K’s cooking us some of her speciality Thai curry tonight, and I prepared some orient-inspired jelly to finish off our dinner. Well, actually, it was inspired by Delia’s coconut lime jelly recipe, but don’t tell anyone that a South-East Asian had to resort to Delia Online for a dessert recipe! By a stroke of luck, IMBB 15, hosted by elise of Simply Recipes, is all about jelly: IMBB-15 Has my blog jelled? – May 22. It’s about time I joined in on IMBB, having salivated over the last few.

The recipe calls for Rowntree lime jelly, something I’ve never been a fan of. Plus, my aunt sent me bucket-loads of a Japanese jelly-powder that has been all the rage at home, along with three ever-so-sweet flower moulds that are also doing the rounds. It’s not gelatine, nor is it agar-agar. It’s Konnyaku, extracted from a yam-like tuber, and alleged to have health benefits. I’m very sceptical about the claims, but have to admit it makes a fine, firm jelly. Also, I don’t have any agar-agar in the kitchen (although I often toy with the idea of using laboratory-grade agarose).

Ingredients (click on the first photo below for annotations):

• 10g Konnyaku powder
• 110g sugar
• 750ml water
• 200ml coconut milk
• 2 limes, for their juice and zest
• 2 tins of mango slices, drained and the syrup reserved

Method:

1. Mix the Konnyaku powder with the sugar. Measure out 550ml of liquid in a large pot (I used the reserved syrup from one tin of mangoes and water) and whisk in the sugar/Konnyaku mix in batches.
2. Bring to the boil, and simmer for 5 minutes. Whisk in the coconut milk, and allow to come up to the boil again.
3. Take the pot off the heat, and whisk in the the juice and zest of 1 lime.
4. If making lots of little jellies, place a slice or two of mango in each well. If making a massive jelly, lay out the slices in a pretty pattern… Or do whatever you please… I’m no good at the aesthetics.
5. Ladle enough jelly mix into each mould so it’s a third full, then repeat until the mould is filled.
6. Chill overnight (or 3 hours at a push).
7. Puree the remaining slices of mango with a tbsp or two of the reserved syrup, and the juice and zest of one lime.
8. To serve, ease the little jellies out by dipping the base of the mould in some warm water, then up-ending onto a tray/plate. Spoon on some mango puree or do something artistic if so inclined.

Since I’m posting this before we’ve had it for dinner, I’ll be back with photos and reviews of the jellies tomorrow, after we’ve slept off our hangover.

			to be continued
Ingredients	Jelly mould	Halfway there	…

Update: Dinner was called off as our hosts were unwell. I will upload photos of the jellies soon, when we get round to eating them… It won’t be the same without the Thai curry before…

22 May ’05 update: Elise of Simply Recipes has posted the round-up of IMBB 15’s entries. All the entries look delectable! It’ll be a great resource in the hot summer months for dessert ideas. Thanks Elise!

Technorati tags: imbb, jelly, recipe.